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The Americans were hammered by artillery fire before, during, and after they reached the crossing site. The crossing itself was a disaster, with only a handful of brave men able to reach the far bank. The next morning the Germans blasted the American penetration with small arms, artillery and tank fire, nearly annihilating the beleaguered infantrymen. While delay followed delay, the men on the far bank were cut to pieces. On January 22, what few men remained on the far side were withdrawn. The first attempt to cross the Rapido had failed.

The First Overpass Above Anzio

Clark now faced an agonizing decision. Should he cancel Shingle or proceed? His staff officers had told him that in order for Shingle to succeed, it was essential that his main force be within 30 miles of Anzio before the amphibious operation was launched. If the operation could not take place by January 25, it would have to be canceled and the landing craft shipped off to England; nothing must interfere with plans for Overlord. In spite of the uncertainties, Clark chose to proceed.

In addition, Lucas' mission was, at best, vague. Just prior to his departure for Anzio on January 20, he was informed by Brig. Gen. Donald Brann, Fifth Army G-3, that his mission was not to take the Alban Hills but, rather, to seize and secure the Anzio beachhead. He was told, however, that he was free to move to the hills if conditions warranted. A planned airborne assault on the Anzio-Albano road north of Anzio by the 504th Parachute Infantry Battalion was scrapped, giving Lucas a further impression that nothing more than securing the beachhead was required of him and his forces.

Early on January 21, Lucas' convoy of five cruisers, 24 destroyers and more than 300 support ships, including 238 landing craft of all types, left Naples Harbor and steamed northward. Aboard the ships were some 40,000 American and British troops, along with more than 5,000 vehicles.

Arriving at their destination early the next day, the Allies expected everything except what actually happened: Shingle took the Germans totally by surprise. Only token resistance was offered, and this was quickly eliminated by naval gunfire.

Advancing Towards the Mussolini Canal

North of Anzio, the British 1st Division landed and moved two miles inland without facing any substantial resistance.

The Rangers captured Anzio's port, and the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion occupied Nettuno with hardly a shot fired.

The 3rd Division's landing was virtually unopposed, and by midmorning Truscott's men found themselves three miles inland, awaiting a German counterattack that failed to materialize.

By midnight on the 22nd, some 36,000 men, 3,200 vehicles and a vast store of supplies had reached or pushed beyond the beachhead. Casualties had been incredibly light; only 13 killed and 97 wounded--mostly from strafing German aircraft. More than 200 Germans had been taken prisoner. It was all going too well to be believed.

Tanks Take Momentary Cover

Kesselring learned of the landings at about 3 a.m. and quickly began marshaling all available units and creating new ones. At 5 a.m., he ordered the 4th Parachute Division, along with replacement units of the Hermann Göering Division, to take up blocking positions across the roads that led from Anzio to the Alban Hills. He then requested that OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) send whatever additional units it could spare from southern France, Yugoslavia and southern Germany. Later that morning, Kesselring ordered Generaloberst Eberhard von Mackensen, commander of the Fourteenth Army in northern Italy, and General Heinrich von Vietinghoff, Tenth Army commander in charge of the Gustav Line forces, to send units to him. Within hours, elements of five divisions were rushing toward Anzio.

By nightfall on the 22nd, German units were establishing their defensive lines around the Allied forces at Anzio, which Kesselring had expected to be moving with breakneck speed toward the Alban Hills. But instead of dashing inland, Lucas chose to build up his supplies and forces.

Anzio Annie

By now, the Anzio beachhead was some 10 miles deep. The 3rd Division was approaching Cisterna on Highway 7, where the strength of Kesselring's forces was concentrated, and the British 1st Division had taken Aprilia, a model Fascist farm settlement called "The Factory" by the troops.

General Clark was urging but not demanding that Lucas begin more aggressive offensive operations. But bad weather and two heavy German air raids were upsetting operations, and Lucas was reluctant to become too adventuresome. While Lucas' lack of initiative was becoming worrisome to Clark and Alexander, Churchill was livid. He thundered, "I had hoped we were hurling a wildcat into the shore, but all we got was a stranded whale."

Engineers Clearing Demolition Charges at Anzio

Truscott, stopped at Cisterna by the Hermann Göering and 26th Panzergrenadier divisions, decided to use Darby's three lightly armed Ranger battalions to spearhead the 3rd Division's assault on the town on January 30. The Rangers' attack was a shambles. Ambushed by German tanks and heavy artillery as they approached the town, the Rangers were pinned down and torn to pieces.

Vexed that little had been accomplished in the week since the landings, Alexander urged Clark to concentrate his efforts on full-scale attacks to capture Cisterna and Campoleone, followed by a rapid advance on Velletri, seven miles north of Cisterna.

Each Building Became a Fortress

But Clark estimated that Kesselring's reinforcements were too strong for any quick thrust to be successful. Much of this belief stemmed from intelligence reports that indicated more German units in the Anzio area than were actually present, the result of fragments of larger units that had been hurriedly thrown into the line (if a battalion or regiment of a division were present, G-2 officers assumed the entire division was on line). And, so, on February 1, 1944, Lucas' attack petered out. What Clark did not know and could not appreciate was the fact that VI Corps' assault had come very close to succeeding. The Germans had suffered some 5,500 casualties--about the same as the Allies', but the numbers of troops actually present slightly favored the Allies.

Fearing a German counterattack, Clark and Alexander directed Lucas to establish defensive positions. Reinforcements arrived on February 2--the 1st Special Service Force and the British 56th Division--and the Allies dug in behind hastily laid minefields and barbed wire, allowing the Germans to go over onto the offensive.

On the drizzly morning of February 4, Mackensen's Fourteenth Army began to roll, with infantry and armor slamming into British positions near Campoleone and driving them back. By nightfall, after much dogged fighting, the British lines stiffened, and they retook their lost positions. But Lucas, feeling the British salient was vulnerable, ordered the Tommies to withdraw during the night to a more defensible line, and Clark ordered him to hold until offensive actions seemed warranted.

The Germans sensed their opportunity. At 9 a.m. on February 7, Mackensen launched another attack, this time to dislodge the British troops holding Aprilia. Only a heroic, Waterloo-like stand, along with artillery and naval gunfire from three cruisers, kept the German 715th Division from taking the shattered town. The stand was in vain, however; two days later, in another all-out assault, German troops succeeded in capturing Aprilia.

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While Alexander exhorted Lucas to begin a new offensive and Mackensen prepared for a final, massive assault that would drive the Allies into the sea, one of the most controversial actions of the war was about to be played out 60 miles south, at the once-peaceful Abbey of Monte Cassino.

The Right Flank at the Mussolini Canal

The ancient abbey sat like a magnificent crown upon a 1,700-foot hill that overlooked the approaches to the Liri Valley. Because of its historical significance (it was begun in 529 AD by St. Benedict), its magnificent collection of priceless works of art, and the fact that it was home to some 2,500 monks, nuns and civilian refugees, Eisenhower had placed the abbey strictly off-limits to Allied bombers and artillery. The Germans, too, had hoped to respect the abbey's importance. But the pronouncements of generals would not be sufficient to spare this treasure.

By establishing observation posts and fortified defensive positions outside the abbey's walls, the Germans presented a threat to the Allied push into the Liri Valley that could not be ignored. The 4th Indian Division, given the task of taking Monte Cassino, requested an aerial bombardment of the abbey. After much discussion, which went all the way to Alexander, the request was approved over Clark's objections.

On the morning of February 15, the first wave of bombers unleashed its deadly cargo on the abbey. Ironically, the ruins then provided excellent cover for the Germans, who used them to repulse the 4th Indian Division when it attacked that night.

For the next two days, Allied bombs and artillery rained upon the mountaintop, but without gain; the ground troops were unable to evict the German defenders. Bad weather struck, and further offensive operations were postponed. It was becoming ominously clear that the Allies would not be breaking through the Gustav Line any time soon and coming to the rescue of the troops stuck at Anzio.

Shortly after the landings, Hitler became personally involved in events in Italy, giving Kesselring detailed orders long distance as to how to "remove the abcess" from the coast. February 16 was set as the date for the renewed counteroffensive at Anzio with some 125,000 German troops--about 20 percent more than the Allies possessed.

Two diversionary attacks were launched, while the main assault came down the Albano-Anzio road toward Maj. Gen. William Eagles' 45th Division. The excellent but raw troops of the Berlin-Spandau Infantry Lehr Demonstration Regiment, which Hitler had ordered to lead the attack, were hard hit and fled for their lives.

But the Germans attacked throughout the night, giving Eagles' men no rest. The next day the Luftwaffe strafed the 45th's positions, and three divisions, supported by 65 panzers, crashed into the Americans, pushing them back to just in front of the Allies' final beachhead line. Then came another wave of air attacks, followed by another charge of infantry and tanks that drove a two-mile-wide wedge into the front. The 45th Division, in the center of the Allied line, was about to crumble.

At the crucial moment, Lucas moved in artillery and tanks to plug the gap in his front lines and called for air support and concentrated naval fire to stem the German tide that was about to engulf him. Despite the infusion of Mackensen's reserves and wave after wave of attacking tanks and infantrymen that threw themselves at the 45th Division, the line miraculously held.

Ordering the survivors of his first assault to fight on through the night, Mackensen sent two additional divisions--the 29thPanzergrenadier and 26th Panzer--into battle before first light the next day. This second attack very nearly succeeded, but after four hours of furious combat, the Germans were forced to pull back.

On the 22nd, Clark, bowing to pressure from Alexander, reluctantly removed his friend Lucas from command of VI Corps, replacing him with Truscott. Lucas was stunned. "I thought I was winning something of a victory," he wrote, crestfallen, in his diary.

Truscott now placed his own, very different stamp on the command of VI Corps. Instead of installing himself in the musty, underground wine cellar that was Lucas' command post, he made a point of being seen on the front lines, braving enemy fire with the rest of his troops. Morale quickly improved and, as more replacements arrived, a feeling of confidence pervaded the Allied side.

On March 29, Allied artillery broke up a strong German assault in front of the 3rd Division before it could get started, and the 3rd counterattacked, putting an end to the Germans' last major offensive.

For the next two months, the Anzio front became static, while both sides reinforced and resupplied themselves. Along the Gustav Line, stalemate was also the name of the game, as four German divisions continued to hold off six Allied divisions around Cassino. But a spring offensive, code-named Diadem, was planned for May, and the Allied commanders hoped it would finally break through both the Gustav Line and the German positions around Anzio.

On May 11, a tremendous artillery barrage in the Cassino area heralded the start of Diadem, and the men of the Fifth and Eighth armies began moving. It was the French Expeditionary Force, under General Alphonse Juin, that finally broke the Gustav Line northwest of the Garigliano. Bitter fighting continued along the front, and on the 18th, the heights of Monte Cassino finally fell to the Polish 3rd Carpathian Division.

Success in the south was the signal for Truscott's VI Corps to begin its breakout at Anzio. Clark, fearing the British would beat the Americans to the Eternal City and gain the lion's share of glory, was determined that his Fifth Army, not the British, would be the first army in 15 centuries to capture Rome from the south. For Clark, politics overshadowed military considerations. He therefore directed the seven Allied divisions now at Anzio to begin their breakout, code-named Operation Buffalo--but instead of marching on the town of Valmontone, the VI Corps' objective as specified by Alexander, Clark chose to head for Rome instead.

Alexander let him go, but wrote in his memoirs, "I can only assume that the immediate lure of Rome for its publicity value persuaded Mark Clark to switch the direction of his advance."

To effect the breakout, the German stronghold at Cisterna had to be overcome. A massive artillery preparation and hundreds of Allied aircraft pounded the town. When the 3rd Division finally managed to force its way in on May 25, it encountered a determined foe who literally fought to the death. Four months after the initial landings, Cisterna was at last in Allied hands, and Truscott's VI Corps finally linked up with Keyes' II Corps south of Anzio.

As evening settled on June 4, a unit from the U.S. 88th Division entered the Piazza Venezia in the heart of Rome. Despite sporadic German resistance, the Americans seized the key bridges, and the rest of VI and II corps took control of the city, with Romans cheering them on. Two days later, events in Normandy swept the Italian theater from the headlines.

For decades, the Anzio operation has generated speculation and argument as to its contribution, relative to its high cost in human lives, to the Allied victory. Certainly the tactical blunders did nothing to shorten the war. Yet, the sacrifice of Allied soldiers at Anzio, the Gustav Line and other bloody points throughout the peninsula kept 24 German combat divisions and other supporting units from being deployed to other fronts, where they conceivably could have been used to devastating effect.