The Wart of Anzio
In the meantime the Germans extended the Gustav Line and the Allies their landing capability for Anzio and Nettuno. The area was ideal for a landing, gently rising beaches, hardly any surf and a wide plane that reached as far as the Alban mountains. This region, called the Pontine Marshes by the Romans and dreaded for malaria, remained undrained until cleared by Mussolinis fascists. The main drainage channel was therefore called the Canale Mussolini. This Canale Mussolini acted like a gigantic anti-tank ditch on the planned right flank of the planned landing.
Preparations began with a series of attacks along the the Gustav Line. The British forced the crossing of the Garigliano, the Americans succeeded in the crossing of the Rapido at Cassino. They then got stuck at the barracks of the suburb of Cassino. The report of the landing at Anzio therefore came like a relief. Without a shot the VI. Corps with the 1. British and the 3. American Division went ashore at 02.00 on January 22. The port of Nettuno fell into the hand of the attackers intact. 36.034 men and 3.069 vehicles were already unloaded by the end of the first day. Already by the noon the first stage of the operation was accomplished. The price of surprise: a mere 13 dead, 44 missing in action and 97 casualties.
Supreme Commander General John P. Lucas however, did not use the favour of the hour to march directly to Rome. He waited patiently for the unloading of his forces, a gross disrespect of the Napoleonic principle "activité, activité, vitesse." Kesselring in turn used the opportunity to start operation "Marder" (pine marten), a suspected landing of nearby Rome. Plan "Marder" was intended to commit nine divisions to the counterattack at Anzio. Hitler wanted to see the "wart of Anzio" disappear.
General Patton, who paid a visit to Lucas in his bridgehead, gave him the not necessarily friendly advice: "John, there is nobody in the U.S. Army I would less like to see killed than you, but you can't get out of this alive. Of course, you might get wounded and nobody ever blames a wounded general". Churchill wrote furiously: "I had hoped we were hurling a wildcat onto the shore, but all we got was a stranded whale." In the end Lucas was replaced with General Truscott by General Clark, too late, as it turned out.
Already as of February 1 the landing of Anzio and Nettuno could be looked at as a failure. Attacks on Cisterna and Campoleone are repulsed and heavy artillery as well as two 280 mm railway guns are thrown into the front by the Germans. The railway gun "Leopold", called "Anzio Annie" by the British and Americans, caused devastating damage. The port of Nettuno was completely dstroyed by these two guns. "Leopold" by the way, was left behind by the Germans at the goods depot of Civitavecchia in June 1944. Today it is on display at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in the USA.
The Luftwaffe was also active at Anzio as at Salerno. Already at the beginning of the landing Heinkel He 177s, nicknamed "flying lighters", of the II. Group of the KG 40 and Dornier Do 217s of KG 100 attacked the ships with Henschel HS 293 radio guided glider
bombs and PC 1400 X Fritz X without decesive success, nevertheless sinking a number of ships, including HMS Spartan, HMS Inglefield and HMS Janus and the hospital ship St. David. The U.S. destroyers "Woolsey", "Frederick C. Davis" and "Herbert Jones", were thereafter able to jam the remote control signals. The lesson from Salerno had been learned. Nevertheless there were losses among the ships in the course of the weeks that followed.
The offensive led by Eberhard von Mackensen starts on February 3. It was aimed at the forces already gone in position as well as reinforcements like the 1. U.S. Armoured Division, the 45. U.S. Infantry Division and the 56. British Infantry Division. The bridgehead had a depth of 11 km and breadth of 24 km now, collectively, 150 000 soldiers were in the cauldron.
Already on 10 February 1st Paratrooper Division and the XXVI Panzer Corps snatched the station of Carroceto and the agricultural research institute of Aprilia from the British. On February 16, von Mackensen brought to bear his entire force: 61 Battalions, supported by 270 Panzers, among them 75 Tiger tanks. When the Infantry Lehr (Training) Regiment succeeded in cutting the road to Albano in the area of the 1.British Division and the 3. US Division, a battalion sacrificed itself so that the Germans could not continue their advance. The Allied resistance hardened.
On December 19 General Westphal, Chief -Of-Staff of General Fieldmarshal Kesselring declared it would be impossible to throw the enemy back into the sea. On 29 December a final attack was launched but to no avail. Anzio developed increasingly into a front sector similar to World War I within the next weeks, dominated by trenches and barbed wire obstacles. Stalemeate prevailed.
Meanwhile fierve fighting continued on the Gustav Line. Clark tries with all his means to crack open the road to Rome by conquering Cassino. At a regrouping of the forces a further army corps comes under his command. The II. New Zealand Expeditionary Corps under the command of 36 times wounded General Freyberg VC is to attack Monte Cassino frontally. This corps consisted of one New Zealand, one Indian and one English division. Freyberg insisted during the preliminary meetings on a bombing of the abbey. His argument was that the Germans were using it as a resting place and observation post. This allegation was supported by the British Supreme Commander in the Mediterranean, Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, who had flown over the abbey in an “Piper Cub” . He also claimed the Germans were including the abbey in their defence. However, this was wrong.
The Vatican had asked Kesselring to protect the monastery mountain and the abbey. Kesselring had passed down an order to set up a 300 m long cordon around the abbey which may be entered by no German soldier, even if wounded. The monks confirmed later, too, that no German soldier or unit had been in the area of the abbey. Already on December 8, the Austrian Oberstleutnant (lieutenant-colonel) Schlegel, an Austrian technical officer, acting on his own initiative had already organised on 8 December the safe removal of the priceless and much treasured Benedictine artefacts from the abbey of Monte Cassino to Vatican representatives fro their preservation. Among the evacuated shipment were also works from the National Picture Gallery of Naples.
