ANZIO

By November the Allied advance had stalled before positions shrewdly contrived by Marshal Kes-selring in the mountains 40 miles north of Naples. Generals Eisenhower, Alexander, and Clark planned to outflank the German hne with a landing on the coast at Anzio, near Rome. From Anzio the invaders were expected to dash to the Alban Hills, whence they could intercept supplies flowing down to Kesselring’s defense hne. So many beaching and landing craft had been earmarked for transfer to Britain, however, that only a one-division assault could be mounted. Such an assault would be hopelessly weak unless the Allies at the main front could roll rapidly forward and join hands with it. But the Allied drive bogged down in December rains, and so the Anzio project was dropped.

Prime Minister Churchill promptly picked it up again, insisting that a landing at Anzio would at least divert strength from the German hne. He then obtained President Roosevelt’s consent to check the outflow of beaching craft long enough to mount a two-division assault. General Eisenhower, declaring that two divisions were still inadequate for an independent operation, departed to prepare for the cross-Channel assault. He left in his place General Sir Henry (“Jumbo”) Wilson, whom Churchill easily browbeat into adopting the Anzio plan.

The assault was scheduled for January 22, 1944. Major General John Lucas usa was to command the troops, and Rear Admiral Frank Lowry usn the naval forces. After only three weeks of planning, organizing, and rehearsal, the men were dispatched from Naples, mostly in beaching craft. The Air Force reported that it had completely sealed off the beachhead by demolishing all bridges, roads, and railroads leading to it.

Although the Army had decreed that the landing should be at night, its execution was almost flawless. Rocket-firing beaching craft laid down a barrage on the beach to detonate mines. Then the first wave of LCVPs touched down precisely on schedule at 0200. There was no immediate opposition. For once the enemy had been taken by surprise. (See map, page 168.)

General Lucas was the next to be surprised, for the beachhead had not been sealed off after all. His landing force was quickly surrounded by Germans. Lucas first postponed his dash to the Alban Hills, then abandoned it altogether when he perceived that the Germans could be more rapidly reinforced than he could. “I had hoped,” said Churchill sadly, “that we were hurling a wildcat onto the shore, but all we got was a stranded whale.”

The situation at Anzio degenerated into a miserable five-month stalemate, with both sides sending in a steady stream of reinforcements. By March, 90,200 Americans and 35,500 British were crammed into the shrinking beachhead, surrounded by 135,000 Germans. Day and night the invaders and their support ships were subjected to almost continuous bombardment and to repeated bombings. Denied the protection of entrenchments because of steady rains that raised the ground water level, the men built crude surface shelters made from sandbags.

At last in May the rains ceased, and hardening roads enabled the Allies on the main front to resume their offensive. On May 25 the Fifth Army broke through to the Anzio beachhead, where casualties had reached 59,000. A third of the total resulted from disease, exhaustion, and neuroses; some 5,000 had been killed,

17,000 wounded, and about 6,800 captured. In the fleet supporting the beachhead, 10 ships and 10 beaching craft had been sunk and more than 500 men killed.

On June 4 the Allies marched unopposed into Rome, where they were greeted by joyful crowds. Two days later Allied forces crossed from England into France, and the war in Italy became a mere secondary front.