High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Spring 1945 offensive in Italy, codenamed Operation Grapeshot, was the Allied attack by Fifth United States Army and British 8th Army into the Lombardy Plain which started on 6 April 1945 and ended on 2 May with the surrender of German forces in Italy.The Allies had launched their previous major offensive, on the Gothic Line, in August 1944 with the British 8th Army attacking up the coastal plain of the Adriatic and the U.S. 5th Army attacking through the central Apennine Mountains. Although they managed to breach the formidable Gothic Line defences, they narrowly failed to break out into the Lombardy Plains before the winter weather closed in and made further progress impossible. Their forward formations spent the rest of the winter in highly inhospitable conditions while preparations were made to renew the campaign when better conditions returned in the spring.