 Like many a town or village along the coast of Italy, this small fishing town and vacation spot has an ancient heritage. Its roots reach back into the worldly glory of the Roman Empire. It was then, as it is now, a minor port facing out onto the Terenian Sea. In ancient times, its name was Antium, and it was not without a degree of dubious distinction. Nero was born here and collegial. There is little today to recall the days of the Roman legions, and very few of the thousands of Americans who knew it during World War II would recognize its ancient name or its rebuilt, unscarred face and peace have had nearly two decades to do their healing work. There has been peace and much that has passed has been mercifully lost to memory. But a great many Americans will never forget this town's modern day name, the name they knew it by in 1944, Anzio. In 1943, it was one of our strategic aims to draw as many German forces as possible away from the Russian front and French coastal areas and to contain them on the Italian peninsula while liberating as much of Italy as might be possible with a means at our disposal. As General Clark was well aware, our objectives were one thing, the achieving of them another. In late 1943, our lack of progress in the south of Italy was leading to the necessity of a landing in the enemy's rear at Anzio. Our problems in Italy had been many. For example, there was the terrain. It was ideal for the defending enemy forces, truly difficult for allied troops. Oh boy, you talk about your bad country. I mean, they didn't have but two directions over there, up the hill and down the hill. Here methods of transport, long obsolete, became operational necessities. It was this kind of hostile perpendicular country which led one allied officer to comment, what you need to fight a war over this ground is an army of bulletproof kangaroos. The kangaroos to be effective would have had to be amphibious as well as bulletproof. For uncrossable rivers and blown bridges were prime facts of life. Ah, the enemy really knew his job. When those people blew a bridge, we had to start over from scratch. Some of our guys stayed wet so long their skin puckered up like a prune. We didn't get a lot of help from the weather either, as I remember. By midwinter, the allies advanced toward Rome had bogged down. Just south of Casino, a stalemate had developed and it was the deadlock here at the Gustav line which germinated the seeds of the Anzio operation. Naples, mid-January 1944. The buildup for a landing at Anzio was underway. This would be an amphibious end run which would put a force on the beach to the enemy's rear and much too close to Rome for his comfort. Maybe we could break the Casino deadlock this way. But from the start, there were serious problems. It had the looks of a very chancey operation. For one thing, when all the begging, borrowing, and scrounging were done, there were only 38 LSTs for the sea lift. What that meant was the initial landing force was going to have to be dangerously small. Two divisions. Two more to come on the second trip. Sixth Corps, that was us. Under General John P. Lucas, drew the honor. It was a gamble for everybody concerned, but it had to be taken. By 21 January 1944, the task force was moving toward Anzio. The two divisions were well chosen. The British First Infantry had been through Dunkirk. The American Third had fought through Tunisia and Sicily. But at this point, all was doubt, speculation. What lay ahead no man at whatever level could know for certain? By the time it got light on the 22nd, we were already putting people on the beach. I made the Soleno landing before, and I was all set in my mind for this to be just as bad. I kept waiting for them to open up with the heavy stuff. But it didn't happen. I didn't get it. But I sure wasn't complaining. Unbelievably, the landing was almost completely unopposed. The enemy's reserve divisions near Rome had been drawn south by an allied attack on the casino front, designed to do just that. By an ironic bit of timing, the Germans had called off their 24-hour coast watch on the very night when the task force was approaching Anzio. Equally ironic was this. We had achieved complete surprise, and we didn't know it. The only real trouble we got that day was from the air. They did some damage, but they only had something like 350 planes in the whole area. We had about 2,000. It's all they couldn't do too much. Still, at the time, it seemed like enough. Despite harassment from the air, losses were light. The first day saw 90% of the landing forces ashore. Immediately, they began consolidating the beach head against the enemy counterattack, expected at any moment. These reserve divisions pulled south by the casino attack. The enemy had only ragtag fragments of units at his disposal, but he moved them up swiftly. Prisoners taken in the first days were universally smiling and confident. Once they discovered, they were not going to be mistreated. They were certain that in a matter of days, they would see the allied landing force pushed into the sea. The 6th Corps had already faced the swift and professional reaction of the German commander Kesselring at Salerno and expected no less of him in this new meeting. He lost no time in eliminating the advantage of surprise which the allies had unknowingly gained. At Kesselring's command, General von Mackensen assumed responsibility for Anzio, and by evening of the second day of the landing, parts of eight divisions were in position and more were moving up. Beginning at dawn, four days after the first landing, the allied force set out to push farther inland, enlarging the beach head. The golden moment of surprise was gone. They came against rigid opposition. It was a foretaste of things to come. In three days of fighting, the perimeter was extended somewhat, but the cost was high. A force of 767 American Rangers trying to infiltrate and capture nearby Cisterna was ambushed. Most were taken prisoner. By now, the other two divisions of the 6th Corps had arrived, but so had the enemy. It was one of my duties as a medical officer to keep a listing of casualties for Corps headquarters. By the end of January, we had taken a total of 3,000 casualties. As a statistic, that's a straightforward figure. The mind may accept it without distress. The thing that must be remembered is this. The statistic refers to 30 times a hundred human beings hurt or killed. The allied offensive ground to a stop and the Anzio forces went on the defensive. Bad weather came. This meant no air cover. This meant enemy forces building up without hindrance. A counterattack was inevitable, and we got ready for it. But barbed wire and mines so helpful to a force on the defensive were in somewhat short supply. The enemy intended now to make another Dunkirk of Anzio. Swiftly, he shifted forces from northern Italy, southern France, and even the Balkans. Daily, his fighting machine was growing stronger on the ground, as casualties drew the allied forces thinner. By mid-February, the enemy had pushed the allies back in the center of the grimly held beachhead, almost to the last ditch lines of defense. The outlook, depending on which side you were looking from, was excitingly bright or very dark. Now, once again, an allied attempt in the south to breach the Gustav line failed. The men on the ground didn't know that the breakthrough attempt was also intended to ease the pressure on the Anzio perimeter. We knew that enemy guns still looked down their necks from the fortified heights, and that advance became impossible. With the repulse of the Second Casino Offensive, it became clear. Anzio was on its own. The crisis was here. Every resource was marshaled to meet it. When the massive frontal attacks came, we met them with a hurricane of fire. Heavy and well-directed naval gunfire played an important part in holding back the enemy tide. The Anzio front was so close to the sea that naval guns became infantry support weapons. In the end, high explosives proved the saving factor. Artillery, naval shelling, and ton after ton of bombs. Limited by Hitler's personal plan to a narrow front, the enemy force was doomed to spend itself against a solid wall of explosives. Having weathered the crisis, the Sixth Corps commander, General Lucas, received a new assignment. Assistant commander, Fifth Army. The new commander of the Anzio force was General Lucian K. Truscott, recently appointed deputy to General Lucas and former commander of the Third Division. What lay ahead was now up to him. This was the situation the new commander faced. He held a beach head, but a smaller one. In the center, an ugly bulge remained, and there it stayed. The simple fact was, neither side had strength to do anything about it. Now came a strange three-month period, which no one who was there will forget. The static war at Anzio, or as some called it, the Sitzkrieg. By now, everybody was used to living in holes, anyway, as used to it as you can get. When we could, we'd put in the time on improvements. We used to say we had all the comforts of home, provided you lived in a muddy hole in the ground back home. Within the reduced area of the beach head, there was now no corner which was out of range of enemy artillery. Like industrious moles, the Anzio forces in the field moved themselves underground. We struck it lucky. The cozy bit of the cave it was, no digging necessary. It was already occupied, as you might say, but we got on fine with the former tenants because they were very quiet. I wrote them, this is not to worry about me. I was spending all my spare moments in the Ruddy Museum. Still, it wasn't all the cooks to her. It was always work to be done. There was work, plenty. Daily, nightly, endlessly, there was the exchange of shells of varying sizes, weights, and types fired out from and into the battered beach head. I don't know. Sometimes you've got to get a different slant before you really see a thing. Like, you know what I mean. I mean, I heard the guns going every night. Sure, but till I got on this brass salvage detail one day, it never really hit me how much of what was going on was going on. I mean, it made you wonder how there was any mountains left, much less, you know, little stuff like houses and people. I tell you, you should have seen all that brass. It was during this period that Anzio Annie became especially well known, though not popular among the inhabitants of the beach head. Actually, Anzio Annie was not one, but two huge German railway guns called Robert and Leopold by the men who directed their fire into every corner of the crowded perimeter. There were no rear areas at Anzio, wherever you were. If you were above ground, you could be reached by artillery. That's why you could find a strange pipe sticking about at the driveway of an Italian fillet, a breather pipe, an air vent. And with the aid of the car of engineers, our headquarters at Anzio went underground. The main corridor gave you an idea of how big this specialized foxhole was. It ran just about a quarter of a mile in a straight line, branching off from it all the elements of an operating headquarters. Everything needed underground. Railway tunnels, natural caves, all were put to use and glad to get them. What with bad weather, shellings and air raids, there was a lot to be said for underground living at Anzio. Another constant reality of the beach head was the endless patrolling, probing, raiding. Mostly we went at night, but sometimes it'd be a daylight raid. Maybe some enemy people had sneak in and set up observation in some house. Then a raiding party would go in and take them out. It was a regular thing. You didn't get used to it, but at least you got where you understood what you were doing. If you were lucky, you came back with everybody on their feet. If there was a good part, that was it, when everybody came back standing up. There was the right funny side to it all though. These propaganda sheets we used to get were always good for a chuckle. I don't know yet what they hoped to accomplish. As time went on, there were days when it seemed like it was my dad's war all over again. Frenches, no man's land and all that. Quite often in the day, things would be so quiet you could hear small, distant sounds across the field. Mind you though, night time was something else again. One night in the bay, an ammunition ship was it. It's like a great big fireworks display, but it wasn't good to think of the people who'd been on it. After our field hospital had been bombed and shelled a few times, we decided to take steps. We couldn't go entirely underground, so we did the next best thing, and built strong revetments into which the tents could be put. We nurses helped where we could. It was a huge job, but it was necessary. We'd been shelled so often, we came to be called hell's half acre. In fact, some line soldiers would actually hide small wounds, rather than risk being sent over here. I'm not making this up, it actually happens. Strange things happened on occasion. There was the teenage German lad we found trying to get among the ships with a one-man submarine device. He seemed much too young to be out on such business. They sent some men around to where the thing was beached to bring it in. Funny looking thing. Really not much more than one torpedo to ride on and another one underneath to shoot. The rally propellers started up when they started to tow it, laughing up there afternoon all right, although some jolly good sprinters among them lads. In the end nothing happened at all. The thing simply stopped again. Sorry to present you with an anti-climax, but you know what? It happened in the middle of a time which was very much like that. As spring approached, Anzio was the scene of massive buildup for the breakout which would have to come. Despite harassing fire, the unloading of ships went on. There was a moment when there were so many supplies on the beach that this little Italian fishing port raided seventh among the great ports of the world. Now the static war at Anzio was approaching its end. Commanders were formulating the plans which would break the Anzio forces out and set them on the road to Rome. As spring came on there were special classes in the care and use of specialized items of destruction. Rehearsal for the real thing. Near Anzio a group of American commanders gathered to witness a demonstration. The third division commander, General Iron Michael Daniel, gave a graphic description to General Clark. As well he might since it was a device of his own inventing which the officers had come to see. The old man called it a battle sled and that was pretty accurate. All it was, you had a bunch of foxholes only they were steel and rigged up for towing behind a tank. That way a squad of guys could stay in their holes for cover and move over at the same time. It was pretty neat. It never caught on but in my book it was a good idea. In the south the light strength had grown. It was now possible to mountain all out push against the Gustav line. It came pretty early. A feeling that this time we were going to make it. Don't ask me where we got the idea because it was still us on the low ground and them on the high. The terrain hadn't gotten any better. Their aim hadn't gotten any worse. Just the same the feeling was there. This time we were going to make it. After a week of heavy fighting it was clear that the forces in the south were in fact breaking through the unbreakable Gustav line. The time for a coordinated breakout from Anzio was here. May 23, 1944 the Anzio breakout begins. The days of the Sitzkrieg at Anzio are an end and the days of the beachhead itself nearly so. Overgrounds were both sides had been planning all sorts of little surprises for each other. You had to take it slow and watch your step. So it started slow but at least you were moving at last. Oh after everything here was the road to Rome. June 4, 1944 American troops were entering Rome. Mind lay an action over which historians could and would widely disagree in years to come. On the battered beachhead our men had learned much and perhaps the enemy had learned something too. He had done his best and his worst against the Americans and British at Anzio and it had not been enough.