World War II Day by Day

With Maj. Gen. Mark Clark in Italy · May 25, 1944

In 1943–1944 the centerpiece of German defenses in Italy was the Gus­tav Line, whose most famous bas­tion was cen­tered on the his­toric Bene­dic­tine abbey of Monte Cas­sino. Thou­sands of Ger­man soldiers and con­scripted Ital­ian civil­ians worked hard to strengthen the line, 65 miles north of Naples, under orders from Ger­man Field Marshal Albert Kessel­ring to make it so strong that Anglo-Amer­i­can forces would “break their teeth on it.” Adolf Hitler him­self had ordered the Gus­tav Line (see map below) defended “in a spirit of holy hatred not only against the enemy, but against all officers and units who fail in this deci­sive hour.” On the opposing side Allied com­man­ders, in order to help their forces pierce the heavily forti­fied line and move up the Ital­ian boot from bases in the south, planned am­phi­bious landings at Anzio and Net­tuno, which lay north of the Gus­tav Line and just 35 miles south of Rome. The am­phi­bious landings by 37,000 Amer­i­can, Brit­ish, French, Polish, and Cana­dian troops began on Janu­ary 22, 1944, but with­in days they were pinned down to a shallow beach­head. Ger­man bom­bard­ment of the trapped men in­flicted demor­al­izing casual­ties, among the Cana­dians dispro­por­tion­ately so. In four months’ time 72,000 men were killed, wounded, cap­tured, or went missing—making Anzio the cost­liest pur­chase of ground ever by Allied forces during the war. Finally on this date in 1944 the north­ward-driving U.S. Fifth Army front under Maj. Gen. Mark Clark merged with the Anzio beach­head and raced toward Rome, which they occu­pied on June 5. Instead of coop­er­ating with the Brit­ish Eighth Army in rounding up Kessel­ring’s Tenth Army, in full retreat from the Gus­tav Line, Clark in his glory-seeking race to the “Eter­nal City,” emptied of Ger­man troops, so infuri­ated its com­mander, Lt. Gen. Oliver Leese, suc­cessor to Field Marshal Ber­nard Mont­go­mery, that Clark and Leese hence­forth fought sep­a­rately in Italy with only the merest pre­tense of coop­er­a­tion. Any­way, Clark’s glory days lasted less than 48 hours, ended by gen­u­ine heroes who threw them­selves at gen­u­ine oppo­nents on D-Day in Normandy, France. Almost as fast as the media lost interest in Clark’s Roman thea­trics, the Ameri­can became Kessel­ring’s favorite enemy gen­eral because Clark always gave the Ger­man staff an easier time than they expected.

Anzio and the Rome Breakout, January to June 1944

Above: German-prepared defensive lines in Italy south of Rome, 1943–1944. The pri­mary line was the Gus­tav Line (red line on map), often called the Win­ter Line, cen­tered on the town of Cas­sino. High above Cas­sino was an an­cient Bene­dic­tine abbey, Monte Cas­sino, which domi­nated the en­trance to the Liri Valley, one of two main routes to Rome, 30-some miles away. Rome was the stra­te­gic prize which the Ger­mans fought to keep and the Allies sought to take.

Left: U.S. soldiers of Company A, 3rd Ranger Infantry Bat­talion board landing craft that will take them to Anzio. Two weeks later nearly all would be killed or captured.

Right: U.S. Army troops landing at Anzio in late Janu­ary 1944 as part of Oper­a­tion Shingle, a bold plan pushed by Brit­ish Prime Minis­ter Winston Chur­chill to end the stale­mate in Italy. Shingle was com­manded by U.S. Maj. Gen. John P. Lucas, who was given the task of out­flanking Ger­man strongpoints along the Win­ter Line and en­abling an attack on Rome, 40 miles north of Anzio. The divi­sions at Anzio would link up with Allied forces farther south and break the stalemate.

Left: A Sherman tank of the 23rd Armoured Brigade attached to the Brit­ish Eighth Army coming ashore from a landing craft at Anzio on the first day, Janu­ary 22, 1944. The Allies prac­tically strolled ashore, taking the Ger­mans com­pletely by sur­prise. Unfor­tu­nately, Lucas failed to take advan­tage of the ele­ment of sur­prise. Within 48 hours of landing, Lucas had snatched defeat from the jaws of vic­tory by ordering his two divi­sions to dig in in­stead of march on Rome.

Right: German soldiers take captured Allied wounded to a first-aid sta­tion near Net­tuno, March 6, 1944. Kessel­ring’s Tenth Army, which Clark’s Fifth Army in­tel­ligence severely under­estimated, quickly massed ten divisions of armor and men, several of them crack com­bat units. Not since the Blitz­krieg of spring 1940 had Ger­mans gathered such a large attacking force to do battle with the Western Allies.

Left: German paratroopers position an artil­lery piece near Net­tuno. Because the Allies had failed to move in­land and seize the Al­ban Hills, the Ger­mans were able to look down on each inch of the beach­head and on the town of Anzio itself.

Right: A 4.2-in mortar of 1st Infantry Bri­gade’s sup­port group, firing in sup­port of the 5th Northampton­shire Regi­ment in the Anzio beach­head, May 18, 1944. Sev­eral days later the regiment was on its way to Rome.

U.S. Fifth Army Report from the Anzio Beachhead, January to March 1944