 1943, Italy. The Allies had won a toehold on Europe. After Bloody Salerno, Prime Objective was Fosier, an array of Nazi Italian airfields strategically close to the heart of Germany. Early the next year, General Spatz came to Fosier to inspect us, made Twining's new outfit, the 15th Air Force. General Laker was taking over command of the Mediterranean Theater. The brass met to plan air support, the keystone for Allied armies on the road to Rome. Winter rains made sunny Italy a sea of mud. Taking 61 days to travel 8 miles, the 5th Army inched its way up the boot. Their order was, push north through the German lines and liberate Rome. Every day at 0600, the 12th Air Force reported for tactical missions. Seeing the same winter weather, we were handed the grim job of blasting a hole through the Gustav Line. We fighter pilots were the sword point of the new Mediterranean Allied Air Forces. Forged in Africa, tempered in Pantelleria and blooded in Sicily, the 12th was now put to the big test. Italy, no soft thunderbelly, was defended by at least 24 tough German divisions. We had 11. To balance the opposing forces, we mounted daily strikes to protect our tanks, to clear a path for our infantry. Although weather, terrain and Nazis had finally stopped our armies, they never stopped us. There was no mud in the sky. Its greater forces then called for steady ground pressure to be synchronized with strong air strikes. American airmen were taking off to buzz the Appian way. The ancient highway, trot by Caesar's triumph and legions of old. It was our job to open the rugged road to Rome. Locking the way were minefields, occupied villages, protected by Nazi air drums and Nazi tanks. Here was a network of rails and roads that had to be cut before our own troops, stymied on the narrow mountainous peninsula, could move. Even Army mules had difficulty climbing Italy's rocky backbone. Allied forces, which now included some Italians, measured our advances in mountain tops instead of miles. San Pietro, like dozens of other German hell towns, was caught in a tight net of artillery fire, the forgotten fronts. But in spite of terrain, weather and dug in Nazis, the 5th Army kept up the pressure. From village to village, from mountain to mountain, it was the same bitter action. Attacks and advances. They approached Casino, gateway to Rome. This was one of those bitter moments born by war. Higher top monastery hill in the Abbey of Monte Casino, the godless Nazis had installed an observation post and from there followed the movements of Allied soldiers below. Relying on the reluctance of the Allies to damage the Abbey, the Germans dominated the Leary Valley. From the sacred citadel itself, they tried to destroy the forces of freedom by directing concentrations of accurate and murderous fire. American 5th Army artillery hammered back. In weeks of investigation, including personal reconnaissance over Monte Casino by General Acker and Devers, the Allies decided we would bomb and shell the Nazi hell town in Abbey. For tactical reasons, Acker was opposed to the bombing. Instead, he favored using air to strangle enemy supply. But Allied leaders felt the continued sacrifice of our own men must stop. Everything else having failed, the Allies ordered air power to neutralize the Nazi observation post. Worried Germans heard the first wave drone overhead. Like rabbits, the enemy darted into surrounding caves and tunnels carved into solid rock. Long prepared, their gust of line pivoted on fortified Casino, the town as well as the Abbey, which the Germans had made a military target. But the enemy survived the bombing. Fanatic, they still had the will to fight. Up from their tunnels, their bunkers, up into the ruins, their tough paratroopers quickly regrouped. In minutes, they reestablished their strong points. The Germans were back in business. Cracked the gust of line was to choke off the enemy's flow of supplies south of growth. The operation was aptly named strangle. In March, those of us flying for the 12th and 15th Air Forces began to deliver a series of blows against rail yards, tracks, trains and bridges, especially bridges. In Italy, there were more than 40,000 bridges. Operation strangle was successful from the start. We hunted enemy trains and cut their lines in more than 100 places. We opened a new air and ground drive, a big one. We had the enemy on the run. Our fifth army cracked the gust of line. It had taken seven weeks to cut his main arteries and let enemy supply mobility. The heart of German ground strength was stymied. In the midst of General Mark Clark, with the splendid effort of our Air Force, we put the enemy on the road. Allied forces had triumph at a price, part of it, 9,000 airmen. But the road to Rome was open at last. There were cheers from grateful Romans for the weary men who had exploded through the tight enemy ring at Anzio's bloody beachhead. Now, after nine months of brutal war, half of once-Nazi-dominated Italy was free. And the eternal city opened its arms. No and Operation Strangle came new lessons in the application of air power. In the forthcoming prelude to the Normandy invasion, you will see these hard-won lessons and tactics sharpened by the now campaign-wise United States Air Force.