 This is The Big Picture, an official report of the United States Army produced for the armed forces and the American people. That was a battle of the Argonne Forest, and only just beginning. It's been that way for three whole days, three nights. Cut off from the battalion, with no food, no water, no ammo, no nothing. Then that last barrage lifted, and I started crawling around, looking for the rest of the patrol. You know what? There wasn't any. What was left of them, if there had been any, had all been pulled back. I was all alone. I look around, and that place was just a poppin' with Germans. All of a sudden, it seemed like the whole of the Kaiser's army was out, just to get me, and all of them yelling for me to surrender. Well, I started looking for a clip. Oh gee, Rushi, there wasn't any. I got so sore, I forgot to be scared, and I grabbed for a hand grenade. I pulled a clip, all back, and let her go. You know what? Every darn one of them come running out with their hands up over their head. Yellen, comrade, comrade, must have been a whole regiment. Well, battalion, a couple of hundred anyway. Well, that was World War I, the Battle of the Argonne. At least that's the way grandpa recalls it. Perhaps he has stretched the truth a little bit. After all, refighting the old battles has been one of man's favorite conversational topics since the Stone Age. We must remember that it is a highly competitive pastime, and now let me interrupt just long enough to introduce myself. I'm Sergeant Stuart Queen, bringing you another in our series, The Big Picture. Today you will see the Battle of Solano, a glowing chapter from our military history. Another reason too for that pride which makes the old battles a treasured source of memories among all men who have served the nation. But now, let's return to grandpa and his captive audience. A tight corner, eh? I see. What did it do? I'll tell you what I did. I picked up that empty rifle of mine just as if she was loaded, and I started herding them prisoners into a single fire. Maybe you think I wasn't scared? Come on, you, I yell. Come on, you, get them up, keep moving. Yeah, come on, yeah, come on, come on, yeah, I mean you, pull up, you. Oh, no. Oh, no, Pop. You're not at it again. Hi, Tommy. On the level now, how many Germans was it this time? Go on, go ahead, poke fun. All the same, that was a man's war. Under your cream puff fighting with fancy machines to do the job. Cold steel and bullets, that's what we used. I was in a war. You were in a war. Well, now, isn't that something? Where do you suppose I was at a taffy pole? Have you ever heard of Solerno? Solerno. And we had to clean up North Africa before we ever got to Solerno. Solerno. Well, go ahead and laugh. Maybe I'd be laughing too if I hadn't been there. Solerno. I bet most of us have never even heard the name. We would, brother, we would. We know all about Solerno just as soon as the Navy got us there. We sailed from Bizarrety and Tripoli, Sicily and Iran. Big family party, General Clark's Fifth Army and General Montgomery's British Eighth Army. Part of the Eighth had already crossed from Sicily to the toe of the Italian boot. We figured to lop off the foot. A lot of us did that figure in too easy. Scuttlebutt had Hitler tied down in the east and Italy written off. Intelligence officers' briefings didn't. And all of a sudden, there was no more Scuttlebutt. We were back in a war. Now it was going to be our show. Some facts and figures, you don't forget. Never. This was September 9th, 1943. The hour? Call of H hour. Here was Solerno. And what a no-welcome committee. The worst core down from those mountains beyond the beaches. We held on to the beaches and punched on into the narrow Solerno plain behind them. That was D-Day and the night that followed. Our goal was Naples, but those mountains stood between. From them, enemy observation could spot every try we made for the foothills. An armor tearing down. We were doing some tearing too, and units were breaking through. Remember the kid's game, King of the Mountain? Well, that's what this was, but for keeps. Oh, we had a pal. A navy was landing haymakers up into those hills. The enemy began to move in the troops that Montes ate that chased out of Sicily. But we were doing a little moving in ourselves. And every hour we were getting more of the things we needed to keep the show on the road. Seniors of war, that's what speech-makers call it. The same as muscle. And in our slugging match, we sure could use plenty of it. We were a going business, but setting up shop calls for real precautions. Maybe the tenants who moved out don't like it. These didn't. So we were mighty careful when we tidied up. Anyone who wasn't careful was likely to be sorry for it. If he was lucky enough to be able to do that, he'd be sorry for it if he was lucky. Just to keep from going soft, the engineers were taking time out from work to fight and from fighting to work. The stuff that began to move over their roads made them the prettiest site this side of US-1. Back of the beaches, a lot of equipment had to be written off. The Germans weren't letting anybody forget that they had firepower up in their hilltops. Same gunners were having themselves a high old time holding down our use of the airstrips. We had two of them. One in a town called Monacovino had been captured by the British. Our engineers built the other. Until we knocked off those guns, real air support had to come from Sicily or Navy carriers. But worse, those guns were costing us men. An ancient Greek temple had become a clearing station. And those nurses, some of them on the beaches before the end of D-day, worked round the clock, treating and helping to evacuate the wounded. We stopped thinking about Naples, only roads and hills with numbers and towns that had names hard to pronounce. Batapalia was one of the toughest, toughest to take to. But we had to because it was a railroad junction and straddled the two best highways in the area. No matter what the reasons were that made a town important to us, the same reasons made it important to the enemy. And so those towns kept changing management. We'd go in, get pushed out, and then have to go in all over again. And of course, worst were the ones up in the foothills. Up in the mountains with units circling backward and forward, you never knew who you'd meet up with. Sometimes it might be friends. Now the crow could be a few yards away from an enemy hilltop, as the crow flies, and not being a crow, still be miles away. Those were the miles that had to be bought, and the price was high. It was going to go higher. For now the Nazis were readying an all-out counterattack. From the north he rushed his best divisions, seasoned Grenadier panzers, a veteran Hermann Gehring division. He'd smash us, hurl us back into the sea. We had eyes that could look down and see him building that powerhouse drive, and we kept him off balance wherever we could. The Nazis kept on plowing up our two airstrips, tried to pull down our carrier-based air power wherever it was flown in. Then he uncorked that Sunday punch. He threw in everything, and everything still included guns hammering down on us from above. But we had hardware of our own. We blocked that Sunday punch, and let go a few of our own. We'd blast away at those mountains, then go in and take over, but it never got monotonous. The enemy's punch began losing its steam, but he was in there slugging, and every foot of ground was costing us manpower. The towns on the Salerno Plain and in the foothills were still being taken and retaken. By now some of them didn't even look like towns anymore. We were learning a lot about the enemy. We'd move into a town to find he'd left units behind to whittle us down and pave the way for his next try to take it back again. Any shelled-out ruin might conceal a machine gunner or a sniper. A pile of rubble made neat cover for a Nazi handy with a grenade. But by now, we knew the counter-attack had failed. Hitler had lost his chance to sweep us out of Italy. There was a message saying just that to every officer and enlisted man in our fifth army. One little phrase hit it right on the head. We are here to stay, said Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark. Cream puff war, huh? Oh, don't get me wrong. Of course it was rough. All wars are. But shucks, he was talking about one measly little week. Now you take the argon. One week, he calls it. One measly little week. My man, this fight was only just beginning. Those Nazis weren't calling it quits. Not yet they weren't. This was still Hitler's fortless hero. The enemy could still hit hard, call them delaying tactics. They still spell out fight. We began to see the last of the mountains and started thinking again about Naples. There was relief now for men in forward areas as reserves became available. Relief wouldn't be enough if you'd been stopped by those delaying tactics. Out of those tactics, we were getting us bigger batches of guests, most up real polite by now. But it was still war. One town, Hakerno, took 100 rounds from our navy guns before we could move in. Other towns out of big gun range had to be pried open like oysters. One town, then on to the next. Where the fighting had moved on, civilians would reappear. They'd even welcome us. It meant they understood that this was the price they had to pay if their towns had any value to the enemy. They had tossed old Benito out of his job and were ready to take punishment. That was the only way to get rid of his buddies. Mussolini's buddies were now returning that feeling. Demolitions, mines, time bombs could only delay us. But they could create horror and hardship for the civilian population. The Nazi had turned vengeful. Civilian made his fairer target as soldier. Here again was Abilay and other towns we'd fought for. Now they were ours for good. We pushed on toward Naples. More and more people were welcoming us along the way. No longer afraid of the Nazi's return. A pretty good sign. There were other signs too. The enemy was destroying his equipment. But still leaving us with beat up roads and beat up bridges. Come to think about it, we were pretty beat up too by now. Relief units became all welcome sighted. Reg towns no longer meant warfare. It had become enemy spite as he fled north. We'd have to move fast if anything was to be saved in Naples. Rebuilding roads became routine and we pushed on toward that port and those airfields we wanted. Outfits that could stop along the way found they'd been winning a popularity contest along with a battle. It's a funny thing about soldiers, anyway our soldiers. Kids always go for them in a big way and we do a bit of melding down ourselves. You got to wondering what it was like to be a youngster in the middle of a war. Wonder to what kind of miracle it would take to make some of them laugh, be kids again. You know, Pop, sometimes when I look at Tommy I think back on those towns we fought through and all those poor kids. Wrap on kids, women folks too. War always is. Times two when I get to thinking that if we hadn't fought through scraps like that, maybe one day he'd know the same kind of life those kids knew. Well now you got a point. I used to get the same notion watching you when you was growing up. Well we did our best to bring those kids their miracle. Then our military government people came in to distribute needed relief and reorganize paralyzed communities. There was nothing left for our armies now but to move into Naples. And maybe Naples wasn't waiting. Here again it was the old story, only worse. The time bomb and the mine. Here too methodical destruction. And we expected that and had a few ready made tricks to counter it. Our great prize, the port of Naples had been wrecked. But this too we had expected. Within weeks some installations would be back in use. The retreating enemy had missed no bets. The main aqueduct had been cut and emergency water supply had to be improvised. Not a single utility had been left functioning. But they would be restored. We took care of that. Gained our victory and all Italy south of the Volterno was ours. Neither our leaders nor any of us would forget those others. The ones who had helped us crash the European continent. American fighting men brought honor to themselves, the armed forces, and our country. All soldiers of all ages will continue to refight the old battles. Call it pride in self, in the outfit, in our military traditions. No matter which it serves us all. In those all repeated stories there is inspiration to acts of courage and sacrifice. When newer challenges to our American heritage must be met. Now there's a sergeant Stuart Queen, your host for the Big Picture. The Big Picture is an official report for the armed forces and the American people. Produced by the Army Victoria Center. Presented by the Department of Army in cooperation with this station.