CHAPTER 4

The Battle for Rome

As soon as I could I gathered a company of Roger's tanks and took off, in the rapidly deepening twilight, for the center of [Rome]....

-Hamilton Howze, A Cavalryman's Story

he 15th Army Group optimistically entitled its operation instruction issued on 12 January 1944 "The Battle for Rome." Alexander told his subordinates:

The enemy has suffered considerable losses in recent operations especially on Eighth Army front.... Fifth Army have now started upon a series of operations on their present front designed to break through the enemy's main defensive positions in the area south of Cassino, and to draw in his reserves. These operations will culminate with an attack by II Corps across the Rapido River on or about 20 January. Fifth Army are also preparing an amphibious operation to land a corps of two divisions and the necessary corps troops, followed by a strong and fully mobile striking force based on elements of a third division, in the Nettuno area. The object of this operation will be to cut the enemy's main communications in the Colle Laziali [Alban Hills] area southeast of Rome, and to threaten the rear of German XIV [Panzer] Corps. Weather permitting, this amphibious operation will be launched on 22 January.... Commander Fifth Army will conduct his operations as to force the enemy to withdraw north of Rome, and at the same time inflict the maximum losses on the German forces in the area south of Rome.

Commander Eighth Army will maintain sufficient pressure on the enemy forces on his front to prevent the enemy from moving any troops from LXXVI [Panzer] Corps to reinforce those opposing Fifth Army.'

FIRST CRACK AT THE GUSTAV LINE

The Gustav Line resembled a vast medieval fortress, with the Germans manning battlements in the mountain fastness, and the Rapido and Garigliano running before them like a moat from the Apennines to the sea. Many emplacements were blasted from the living rock and could withstand direct hits by heavy artillery. German observation and fields of fire were superb.

The Fifth Army's plan for penetrating the Gustav Line envisaged simultaneous attacks by the British 10 Corps on the left out of bridgeheads to be established along the Garigliano River, by the U.S. II Corps in the center across the Rapido River, and by the French Expeditionary Corps on the right into the upper Rapido Valley.' In the event, the 10 Corps was unable to establish its bridgeheads as planned on the night of 19 January because the swift river current prevented the launching of assault boats. Likewise, the attack mounted by the French Expeditionary Corps on 20 January slowed to a standstill the next day.'

The 36th Infantry Division had attached to it the 760th Tank and 636th Tank Destroyer Battalions for its crossing of the Rapido River. At 2000 hours on 20 January, the 141st Infantry Regiment was to make the assault across the river from east to west near Sant' Angelo and establish a bridgehead into which Combat Command B, 1st Armored Division, would move on the night of D+1. The 1st Tank Group, with the 753d and 755th Tank Battalions, was attached to the combat command, as were two tank destroyer battalions. The 760th Tank and 636th Tank Destroyer Battalions were to move into positions on the east bank from which they could provide direct-fire support against targets across the river at daylight on the twenty _firSt.4

The 34th Infantry Division was to cross the Rapido four days later to the right of the 36th Division near Cassino, a town at the base of Monte Cassino, a mountain that dominated the battlefield and access to the Liri Valley. The division, supported by the 756th Tank Battalion, was to seize the high ground northwest of town and then continue to the northwest. The tanks were to concentrate in the 133d Infantry Regiment's zone.5 The 45th Infantry Division was to reinforce Combat Command B in the event of a breakout.'

Debacle at the Rapido River

The 36th Infantry Division's attempt to cross the Rapido River was one of the most infamous incidents of the Italian campaign and has led to decades of finger pointing over who was responsible. What can be said is that the affair was another case in which the division failed to use effectively the armored power it had been given.

In the 36th Infantry Division's zone, the Rapido was between forty and fifty feet wide and rushed between raised banks between four and five feet high. The Germans had mined both banks and strung barbed wire along the west bank, and patrols learned that the defenders from the 15th Panzergrenadier Division were extremely alert. The Germans occupied fortifications, some of which would be able to place attackers in the division zone under flanking fire. The 760th Tank and 636th Tank Destroyer Battalions' armor was held back from the river in positions from which it was to support the GIs by direct fire against known positions.

The 1st and 3d Battalions of the 141st Infantry pushed off on the evening of 20 January after a three-minute artillery barrage. A little more than two companies reached the far bank across a single footbridge that had been carried forward to the river, while artillery fire and mines claimed other footbridges and men, and the rapid waters prevented the launching of assault boats. The 143d Infantry, which worked in thick fog in addition to all the other problems, managed to get a battalion across via two footbridges, but panzers pounded the men with direct fire on top of a rain of mortar and artillery rounds, and the battalion withdrew by 1000 hours.

The tanks that were to have fired in direct support were completely out of the action. The 760th Tank Battalion devoted but a single sentence to its activity: "Throughout the day of 21 January, Companies B and C remained in position but were unable to fire because of poor visibility, the entire area being smoked to aid the infantry crossing." Company A was immobile because the engineers could not build a bridge across the Rapido for the tanks to cross.

A second attempt by the two regiments that evening encountered similar problems, but most infantry elements were across by 0530 on 22 January. When German fire again prevented engineers from installing a Bailey bridge to get tanks across, smoke was employed to cover the engineers. Unfortunately, it also prevented artillery observers and tankers from seeing German targets, too.

The GIs managed to advance across exposed ground only 600 yards or less before they dug in under fire from the German fortifications. Nearly all company and battalion officers became casualties, resupply was nearly impossible, and communications were bad. That day, only a single platoon of Shermans from Company C, 760th Tank Battalion, was able to get into a position from which to fire across the river. When the Germans counterattacked at 1600 hours, the 141st Infantry barely held onto its tenuous foothold, and most of the 143d Infantry was driven back across the Rapido. That night, the division withdrew the survivors. The 141st alone had suffered casualties of 48 officers and 1,002 enlisted men 7

By 25 January, it had become apparent that there would be no armored breakout into the Liri Valley, which would have witnessed the first employment in battle by an armored division of attached separate tank battalions. Combat Command B received orders to move to Naples and from there to the Anzio beachhead. Those orders were soon cancelled, and the combat command took on a coordinating role overseeing the activities of several attached tank and tank destroyer battalions.'

The Futile but Classic Fight at Cassino

The town of Cassino and the mountain that towered above it with its famous Benedictine abbey was the linchpin of Kesselring's Gustav Line. It was also by far the best fortified town that the Fifth Army had encountered to date-or would face thereafter. The 34th Division's ultimately fruitless struggle to capture the town alongside the 756th Tank Battalion took place on a crazy-quilt battlefield that favored an enemy adept at using his own tanks, infantry, and artillery in sweet har mony. It stands as a superb illustration of how American infantry and tankers learned to cooperate under fire, with both flashes of brilliance and breakdowns in teamwork, and embodies perhaps the best case one could hope for as long as the two elements of the team had no good way to communicate directly at the tactical level.

The 756th Tank Battalion's first fire missions in the sector were actually conducted to support the neighboring 36th Infantry Division during its attempt to force the Rapido River line on 20 January. Medium tanks fired indirectly as artillery, and the battalion consolidated its six assault guns into an artillery battery. As in the Pacific, assault gun crews suffered considerably from the build-up of gun fumes in the tank. "Sometimes [the crews] would get sick and have to stop and vomit during the heavy firing on account of the gasses from the powder smoke," recalled Roy Collins. "They'd bail out of the tank, vomit, and climb right back in and continue firing."'

The 34th Division was to cross the Rapido north of the town of Cassino, capture Monte Castelleone, and then take Monte Cassino from the rear. The Rapido flowed through the division's zone between stone walls four to five feet high. Although the river was fordable at this point, the Germans had dammed the river in such a way as to create a muddy swamp on the American side.

The Germans had mined the approaches to the river as well as the ground between the water and their defenses, and bands of barbed wire ran along the west bank. The enemy had constructed intricate fortifications at key points along the Caira-Cassino road and on a series of hills that commanded the river valley. As noted, the town of Cassino was also fortified, and tanks and self-propelled guns covered all its entrances. German artillery observers had superb views from the mountainside. Intelligence reported that much of the 71st Panzergrenadier Division (actually an infantry division) had just arrived to reinforce the 44th Infantry Division in the sector.

The tankers had learned some lessons about tank-infantry cooperation, and battalion commander Lt. Col. Harry Sweeting now ordered company commanders to plan liaison and communications with the infantry battalion commanders before the attack. Radio-equipped liaison officers were placed at regimental and battalion command posts. A tentative crossing site was identified north of some barracks on the west bank.10

Companies A and B were to work with the 135th Infantry, initially supported by fire from Company C in the 133d Infantry Regiment's zone. It was bitterly cold, and snow hung in the air. The GIs were to move out at 0200 hours on 24 January, and the tanks were to follow once it became light. In the event, requests for fire support and for tanks to run through minefields to explode antipersonnel mines began almost at once, and the tankers tried to comply. Where targets could be seen at all in the dark, gunners bore-sighted on them and engaged each target with an initial round. Thereafter, fire was adjusted through liaison radios, which was not very effective.

With daylight, Companies A and B engaged targets on the far side of the river. After surveying the terrain and seeing artillery shells pounding the engineers trying to prepare a river crossing for his tanks, Lt. Col. Harry Sweeting told the infantry that it looked like the engineers would be unable to finish their work until the infantry cleared a substantial bridgehead, but his tanks could move laterally along the river and would support the GIs with direct fire."

On 25 January, tank patrols probed down the road toward Cassino. Companies A and B shelled targets across the river, and more engineers appeared to work on the roads and crossing. This stalemate continued the next day, so Sweeting sent a tank section forward to see whether his vehicles could pass without the engineers finishing the job. One tank got stuck and blocked the route, but it had gotten far enough to show that the maneuver might be possible with a little more engineering work.12

Nevertheless, when the tankers tried again, more tanks got stuck, and it was not until 0730 on 27 January that the 2d Platoon's commander, Lt. Wayne Henry, slipped across a small bridge with two tanks to the far side of the river. They immediately set about destroying barbed wire and creating paths through antipersonnel minefields. By 0915, two more Company B tanks got across, including the one temporarily commanded by Capt. Charles Wilkinson, the determined company commander. Wilkinson recalled, "I spotted a house out there on the flat between the lines in no-man's land. I could see a firing position.... We blew it away with an HE round. We were communicating with hand signals at this time [because Henry's radio was out]"

According to the official account, stuck tanks blocked the rest, but veterans recall that a platoon commander-who ultimately was relieved for incompetence-refused to move his tanks forward. Sweeting directed some of those tanks to fire on suspected gun positions across the river, and the fire evidently was effective enough to draw crushing counterbattery fire that disabled one Sherman.

The Germans apparently had thought no tank could cross the river at that point, and there were no antitank guns. One tank struck a Teller mine on the road toward Caira, and the crew manned it until dark, when they crawled back overnight along the tank tracks because they were clear of mines. Sweeting ordered the remaining three to proceed deeper into the German defenses to keep the Germans' heads down so the infantry could move forward. Just as Wilkinson was about to fire on some field fortifications near the barracks, he spotted a German on foot racing toward the tank with a panzerfaust. He ordered his gunner to traverse and fire, but the action came just too late. The bazooka round penetrated the armor, and the tank filled with flame and smoke. "Fire!" yelled Wilkinson again, but then he saw that his gunner was either dead or unconscious.

By 1300, three tanks on the far bank were out of action. Lieutenant Henry tried to back his tank-the last one moving-to safety, but one track hung on the bridge, and Henry was shot when he climbed from the turret, dead on his first day of combat. The infantry had failed to move up to the location of the tanks, and Wilkinson and Henry's crews were captured. The infantry, at least, had cleared enough ground to shield engineers from most small-arms fire at the crossings.13

Sweeting and the infantry commander agreed that there would be no attempted tank crossing on 28 January to give the engineers time to work. The battalion spent the day extracting Company B's remaining tanks from the muck under frequent shellfire. Each tank was manned and fired at targets of opportunity until its turn came to be pulled free. A route to the crossings through the neighboring French zone was now available, which allowed the tireless engineers to concentrate on the crossings. Company C, 760th Tank Battalion, was attached to reinforce the armor.14

Maj. Edwin Arnold, the battalion's S-3, conducted a personal reconnaissance into enemy territory to find routes for the tanks through the mud and icy water. And find one he did.'5

On 29 January, Capt. French Lewis led six of his Company A Shermans across the Rapido before two tanks got stuck and blocked the crossing. During the crossing, a shell exploded in front of one tank and wounded the driver, T/4 Earl Hollon. In order not to block the path, Hollon drove the tank another 700 yards, despite a shell fragment that had pierced one eye and blood running down his face from head wounds.'6

Mist limited visibility, and the tankers were surprised when one or more selfpropelled guns opened fire." A high-velocity round struck Lewis's Sherman and killed his loader, and a second strike wounded the captain, gunner, and driver. "Abandon tank!" shouted Lewis. As the captain bailed out over the deck and to the ground, he saw the next tank in line take a hit. Two more were struck in quick succession, and one burst into flames.

Lewis helped his surviving crewmen escape to the rear but refused to follow them. Finally, Sgt. Mack Corbitt spotted the self-propelled gun hidden beside the wall of a cemetery, and his gunner destroyed it. But only two tanks remained in action. Lewis directed them into firing positions where they could do the infantry the most good.18

Not long before dusk, tanks from the two Company Cs crossed in numbers at a newly discovered path across the riverbed, turned left, and headed down the Rapido to reach the infantry. "Get those guys alerted that the cavalry is coming so they will be ready to move when we get there," an elated Sweeting radioed from his turret. Twenty-six Shermans suddenly appeared on the 168th Infantry's front and headed for the Germans. The frozen, miserable GIs were slow to follow at first, but once they sensed the dramatic shift in momentum, they rose from their holes and followed the armor in its tracks, where all the antipersonnel mines had been detonated. On the flanks, Germans opened up, and tank turrets rotated, cannons barked. The German fire withered away, and under cover of smoke fired by the mortar platoon across the river, the tank-infantry team reached the "Pimple," the high ground on the far side of the Rapido.19

On 2 February, the 756th Tank Battalion became the first Allied unit to enter Cassino. The battalion employed a composite company of the running tanks from the three medium companies in what was initially a well-coordinated operation with the 3d Battalion, 133d Infantry Regiment. Lt. David Redle commanded the tank force and was given charge of the mortar and assault gun platoons, which were to provide smoke and supporting fire. Artillery provided a smokescreen for the command when it moved out southward along the Rapido, with the infantry sticking close to the tanks.

At 0730, the 3d Battalion reported to regiment, "We jumped off. The tanks are moving up with us "

"Keep your men off the road for the tanks. Are the tanks firing?"

"Yes, sir."

The force advanced in bounds, placing smoke 300 yards ahead, clearing the area, and repeating the procedure. The tanks advanced some 500 yards without contact until Germans in a bunker just beside the road threw some hand grenades. Redle's gunner took care of the problem, but Redle guessed that they had bypassed other camouflaged field works. Redle backed the column up and started again. Sure enough, this time the Americans flushed out about 150 German soldiers.

Whenever a machine gun opened fire on the GIs, the tanks dealt with it. The force reached a stream about four feet deep, and engineers moved in to construct a tank crossing. When the infantry moved a bit ahead of the tanks, Redle ordered his crews to fire only machine guns and solid-shot armor-piercing rounds to avoid causing friendly casualties.

As the tanks neared Cassino, they became channeled onto narrow paths-one along a blacktop road between the high riverbank and the mountain, the other in the riverbed-so that only the front vehicles were able to fire. This became a problem when the smoke dissipated, and at about 1100 hours, accurate fire screamed in from a camouflaged self-propelled gun in hull defilade on the outskirts of Cassino. The self-propelled gun shot the turret hatch off the M4A1 in the riverbed and wounded the commander. A second shot passed so close to Redle's head in the lead tank on the road that he was deafened in one ear for hours. Redle's tanks backed into a quarry for protection, and the infantry's attempts to knock the gun out with artillery and mortar fire were fruitless.

At 1630 hours, Sweeting instructed that the 34th Division was going to fire a heavy barrage at Cassino, and he ordered the reserve force-four or five Company A Shermans-into town. At this point, coordination with the infantry broke down because the infantry officers had gone back several hundred yards to their battalion command post for orders, and Company K had pulled back to an assembly area. Moreover, the Company A tank platoon commander's radio was on the fritz. The tanks charged alone into Cassino, where the Germans-who had been ordered to withdraw until their officers realized the tanks had no infantry support-waited in ambush.

Point-blank fire destroyed the last tank in line, and the remainder were trapped. The tanks sought a way out, and the Germans pursued them with bazookas, grenades, and dynamite. Three or four antitank rounds slammed into one tank but did not penetrate the armor. Close assault by infantry claimed one after the other, however. Redle was ordered to pull back because of advancing darkness, and he directed his driver to town to pass the order personally because of the radio problem. All he found was an empty tank from Company A.

The next morning, a company of medium tanks from the 760th Tank Battalion was again attached to the 756th Battalion to reinforce its striking power after its heavy losses. Maj. Welborn Dolvin, the executive officer, commanded the tank force assigned to enter Cassino alongside the 3d Battalion, 133d Infantry Regiment. Dolvin's tank took a high-velocity round in the final drive and burst into flames. Dolvin bailed out and sprinted to Redle's tank, which had a radio on the battalion net, and directed the attack from the back deck.

"What's holding you up?" queried Sweeting over the radio.

Dolvin looked around. "I don't know, colonel, but I think it's the Germans"

Another artillery barrage fell on Cassino, and the 760th Tank Battalion's Company C and the infantry tried again. Lt. Leo Trahan's 2d Platoon, followed by about fifty infantry, managed to capture the first four or five buildings in Cassino, and after some confusion between the tankers and infantry that nearly resulted in a withdrawal, the team got its act together and settled in to protect one another. Trahan's tank was hit and burned during the aborted withdrawal, and a second tank became immobilized. Joined by other Company C tanks, the men from the 760th slugged it out in the streets of Cassino beside the tankers of the 756th Battalion until 7 February, when the detached company returned to its parent battalion.

For the next month, the medium tank companies in the 756th Tank Battalion each kept a platoon-which by now usually meant no more than three tanks-in Cassino to work with the infantry. The GIs attacked mainly at night because German observation was so good that any movement drew heavy fire during the day. The tankers' main job was to blast holes in the walls of fortified buildings that the riflemen could pass through, and gunners made heavy use of concrete-piercing ammunition.

Advances were measured in tens of yards, and tankers learned that working with the infantry in the confusing urban battlefield could be tough. Lt. Howard Harley lost his tank to bazooka fire on 12 February and later related, "It was because the fight was so wild that we got ahead of the infantry. You get lost in your intent sometimes and pursue targets with intent so strong you can get up ahead without realizing it . 1121

A British observer who witnessed the Cassino operation commented,

In the initial advance, the tanks work in mutual support. Once inside the town, however, it becomes a personal matter, and each tank must fend for itself.... An enemy behind solid walls is difficult to dislodge.... By continuous firing at heavily fortified buildings, and chipping a few inches with each shot, the 75mm HE shell with a delayed-action fuse has finally reduced the strongest building.... There have been many occasions when, at the request of the infantry, close tank support has been given from the immediate vicinity of the forward troops; each support naturally increases the danger to the tank. Casualties to crews have been caused by the penetration of enemy rifle grenades and [antitank] bombs of the rocket type fired on the upper surfaces of the tank from upstairs windows.... During a sortie, as many as 200 shells have been directed against [the tanks] in town. Despite this, the infantry still prefer to have them in close proximity.

Sweeting told the observer that his use of tanks as close as five yards to the infantry was "an improvised use . . . which should not become a habit." The British officer noted that the Germans used their self-propelled guns aggressively in the town's streets-they would advance to point-blank range, fire, and withdraw-and that chance engagements with American tanks were frequent. There were few long streets, and local commanders had to designate streets for use by friendly tanks; any other vehicular movement was met immediately by fire. The Germans generally used their Mark IV tanks outside the town but occasionally employed them much as the Americans used their Shermans 21

Redle described one such encounter, when Sgt. Haskell Oliver's tank was crossing a street to knock holes in the wall of a building near the town jail. A ball of fire streaked past the nose of the tank, and Oliver backed off. Sweeting was in a nearby observation post and reported that a Mark IV had fired at Oliver. Get the panzer, he said.

The infantry watched as Oliver dismounted with his crew to look the situation over from behind a boulder using binoculars so that each man knew where the Mark IV lurked, and they put their heads together to come up with a plan. The crewmen climbed back through their hatches and settled into their seats. Oliver asked if everyone was ready.

Redle recalled:

At Oliver's command, [Roy] Anderson thrust down on the throttle, and the Sherman suddenly roared around the granite shoulder; he yanked the sticks to align the tank on that Mark IV and heaved back on the sticks to lurch to a stop. [Bert] Bulen, with his head pressed into the sight rest, saw the ground as the 30-ton hulk rocked forward, and as it reared back and the sight came level, he swung the turret and squeezed off the first shot. His hand-eye coordination allowed him to place that first shot as the sights still moved across the target. [Ed] Sadowski slammed shell after shell into the recoiling breech as fast as Bulen fired, Bulen spinning the elevation/deflection wheels quickly and firing again and again. The German was out-maneuvered and was knocked out immediately."22

The 34th Infantry Division never did take Cassino. Still, Sweeting's aggressive leadership had so impressed Maj. Gen. Charles Ryder, the commander of the 34th Infantry Division, that he put Sweeting in command of one of his regiments, only to see him captured because of the folly of his personal bravery.23 Three more bloody Allied assaults would fail to capture the town, which was to fall only when the Allies unhinged the Gustav Line in May. The American tankers kept their hand in for the next round, and in March, the 760th Tank Battalion and several tank destroyer battalions supported the 4th Indian and 2d New Zealand Divisions in their unsuccessful attempt to capture Cassino.

END-AROUND STOPPED AT THE LINE: ANZIO

Discussion of a possible end run had ebbed and flowed from the time Eisenhower had first raised the possibility as German resistance solidified after the Salerno landings. Several strategic considerations were in play. The first was pressure from the Joint Chiefs on Eisenhower to release landing craft on schedule for the invasion of France. The second was an Allied assessment that even in the best case, available transport would support only a small expeditionary force. Alexander identified Anzio as the landing site as early as 8 November, but commanders viewed the entire enterprise as contingent upon making sufficient progress up the peninsula to guarantee a rapid link-up with the landing force. The virtual stalemate in the Winter Position persuaded Clark to recommend scrubbing the operation on 18 December.25

By December, Eisenhower had received the nod to take command of the invasion of northwestern Europe, and Gen. Sir Henry Maitland Wilson had been named to take command of a combined Mediterranean and Middle Eastern theater. The British were now unquestionably the senior partners in Italy, and Churchill wanted to pursue the Anzio option. On Christmas Day, Churchill obtained Eisenhower's backing?

The U.S. VI Corps would make the assault. The corps commander, Maj. Gen. John Lucas, would have the American 3d and British 1st Infantry Divisions, the American Ranger Force of three battalions, a British Special Service brigade with two Commando battalions, an American parachute infantry regiment, and an additional parachute battalion. A week before the landings, Clark promised Lucas elements of the 45th Infantry and 1st Armored Divisions, with more to come if needed .17

Lucas wanted more time, but the deadline for surrendering landing craft for Operation Overlord permitted no delay. Preparations were rushed. The VI Corps did not fully extricate itself from the line until 3 January 1944, and then the final landing rehearsal, on 19 January, was a fiasco. Lucas recorded that he feared he was in for another Battle of the Little Big Horn and noted on another occasion, "[T]he whole affair has a strong odor of Gallipoli.""

The 15th Army Group's Operation Instruction No. 32, issued 2 January 1944, clearly specified, "Fifth Army will prepare an amphibious operation... with the object of cutting the enemy lines of communication and threatening the rear of German XIV [Panzer] Corps."29 Lucas, however, viewed his job as establishing and defending a beachhead at Anzio. He judged his initial assault force to be too weak to risk penetrating the Alban Hills that dominated the landing site from a dozen miles inland, although by doing so he could have cut the main highwayand supply route-from Rome to the Gustav Line as the Fifth Army had been instructed to do.3° Even the hard-charging 3d Infantry Division's commander, Maj. Gen. Lucian Truscott, did not seem to think that striking out for the Alban Hills would be a good idea.31 Lucas's decision decided the terms under which the battle at Anzio would be fought.

The Fifth Army's G-2 assessed that the Germans would be able to respond on D-Day with a panzergrenadier division, a tank battalion, four battalions of paratroopers, an antitank battalion or equivalent, and miscellaneous naval and air defense units. On D+1, they were expected to bring to bear a second panzergrenadier division, a tank regiment of the Hermann Goring Panzer Division, an SS infantry regiment, and an infantry regiment.32 The assault plan anticipated heavy resistance at the beaches and heavy counterattacks as soon as the enemy became aware of the extent of the landings 33

All of the beaches in the American zone would require engineering work, such as laying steel mats, to get armored vehicles inland. A sandbar offshore blocked access by LSTs, which would demand the use of pontoons. 4 The lessons of Salerno evidently were fresh enough that this time ways would be found to get the infantry tank support from the start using LCTs, which could land at spots.

The VI Corps also took steps to address the shortfalls that had emerged in tank-infantry cooperation. At Naples, the 3d Infantry Division and the attached 751st Tank Battalion underwent vigorous training and joint exercises 35

H-Hour was 0200 hours on 22 January, the amphibious operation was picture-perfect, and the assault troops were astonished to find that there was no enemy to meet them-the operation had caught the Germans completely by surprise. A few antiaircraft batteries on the coast fired several rounds, but only two battered battalions from the 29th Panzergrenadier Division were anywhere near Anzio.36 By 0240, the 751st Tank Battalion had its Company A on land, with a platoon moving to support each of the three regimental combat teams of the 3d Division. Resistance, as it turned out, was virtually nonexistent off the beach, as well, and the infantry quickly occupied its initial objectives and dug in against counterattack. Company B and the mortar platoon were ashore by 0700, and the rest of the battalion shortly after noon .17

The British 1st Infantry Division landed to the left and also made easy progress inland; engineers and the navy had the port of Anzio open by mid-afternoon. By midnight, the VI Corps had 36,000 men and 3,200 vehicles ashore. It had lost only thirteen men killed and ninety-seven wounded 38

The first tank-backed patrols from the Hermann Goring Panzer Division, rushing to contain the landing zone, appeared at the Mussolini Canal at about 1800 hours but were driven off, and the American tankers worked with the GIs against German infantry elements through 24 January. Things changed dramatically the next day, when the 15th and 30th Infantry Regiments tried to push into Cisterna and were thrown back by the Hermann Goring Panzer Division, which was now present in strength 39 On the twenty-seventh, a platoon of Company C, 751st Tank Battalion, engaged an enemy force including tanks and knocked out one panzer.40

Far from abandoning the Gustav Line, the Germans were moving reinforcements toward Anzio at incredible speed and showed every sign of being determined to throw the invaders back into the sea. The 29th Panzergrenadier Regiment and 4th Airborne Division concentrated opposite the British, and the 1st Airborne and 26th Panzer Divisions were on their way from the Adriatic side of Italy.

The German command had anticipated such a landing as this in late 1943 and had issued requirements to commanders in France, the Balkans, and the Replacement Army in Germany to have formations ready to go to Italy should the need arise. Detailed deployment plans were in place. Construction had also begun on the Gothic Line across the top of the boot before the Po Valley in case an Allied landing rendered lines in central Italy untenable.41

Major General Lucas judged that the beachhead was secure enough to attack toward the Alban Hills on 30 January, by which time the 1st Armored Division's Combat Command A had arrived to give him a powerful strike force. The 45th Infantry Division had debarked and taken responsibility for part of the 3d Division's line.

Lucas was too late. On 24 January, a ring was completed around the beachhead, and German commanders concluded that the danger of a breakout had passed. The 1st Airborne and 26th Panzer Divisions arrived in time to blunt the attack, and elements of the 3d Panzergrenadier, 715th Motorized Infantry, 65th and 71st Infantry, and 90th Panzergrenadier Divisions appeared on the front, along with battalions from other formations. By 2 February, the threat of a massive counterattack was so stark that Clark ordered the VI Corps to go over to the defensive.42

Greeted by rocket fire, the 191st Tank Battalion had arrived off Anzio on 31 January with elements of the 1st Armored Division. On 1 February, the outfit was attached to the 3d Infantry Division. "The new attachment was purely a defensive measure," recorded the battalion's after-action report. "The 3d Infantry Division had reason to expect an enemy armored attack. Its 751st Tank Battalion was already thinly deployed along a wide front, and additional antitank defense was necessary. 1143

Conditions were about as bad as they could be from a tanker's perspective. "The battalion occupied a bald area south of Le Ferriere," the after-action report continued. "In only a very few sections of the beachhead would the terrain permit movement of tanks off the roads. A good many vehicles bogged down during combat and had to be abandoned. Frequent rains did little to alleviate the difficulty. Cover and concealment were at a minimum. Much of the land was perfectly flat. Houses, haystacks, and an occasional fold or gully were the only means of concealment."

Tanks were deployed in depth alongside the infantry holding the main line of resistance. The battalion's six new M7 Priest assault guns, grouped as a battery, tied into the 41st Field Artillery Battalion, while one platoon of each medium tank company registered for indirect fire missions with the 39th Field Artillery.

The defensive action cost a tank here and a tank there, and on 10 February, the battalion shifted to support the 45th Infantry Division's fruitless attack toward "the Factory" at Carroceto. The British had just attacked up the same road and reported the area was crawling with panzers. They had lost seven tanks but could say little about where the Germans were hiding.

Companies A and B rolled out at 0630 on 11 February. Almost immediately, direct fire set one Sherman ablaze. Disabled British tanks blocked the road, and gunners could spot no targets. Immobilized, the tankers expended all of their ammo against possible enemy positions and then withdrew around midday under intense enemy fire. Each company had lost five tanks. When the attack sputtered out the next day, the tankers reverted to a defensive role.44

The story was the same everywhere in the beachhead. The cessation of the VI Corps' forward movement left it holding a zone some seven miles deep and fifteen miles wide, where the terrain was generally flat. Meanwhile, the Germans held the high ground inland, from which they could observe and shoot at almost anything within the Allied lines. The Fifth Army observed that bound on the flanks by the Moletta River on the left and swamps and the Mussolini Canal on the right, it was a strong defensive beachhead.45 But in Alexander's eyes, that had not been its purpose.

Lieutenant Colonel Hammack of the 751st Tank Battalion concluded in early February that effective tank-infantry cooperation was not possible without continuous communication. The placement of a liaison team with an SCR-509 radio at the infantry battalion command post had proved satisfactory, in his view, but he judged that tanks should never be attached to units below a battalion because of the lack of communications.46 This was allowing communications to drive tactical employment of tanks rather than the other way around. On the far side of the world at Kwajalein, some of his counterparts at this very time were experimenting with ways to establish communications at the lowest tactical level.

On 16 February, the Germans launched their last attempt to annihilate the beachhead. The Hermann Goring Panzer Division joined the 3d Panzergrenadier and 715th Motorized divisions in a thrust against the sector held by the 45th Division's 157th and 179th Infantry regiments, on the American left just south of Aprilia and east of the Anzio-Campoleone road.47

This time, the enemy suffered the consequences of being unable to move off the roads, and gunners in the 191st Tank Battalion picked panzers off one by one. The assault guns got the drop on six Tigers mired in mud and destroyed them all. The German attack ran out of steam by 1800 hours, by which time the 191st Tank B attal- ion counted fifteen panzers positively destroyed at the cost of seven Shermans.

That night, the tanks remained in place with the infantry. Three Shermans from Company C were supporting Company E, 157th Infantry, when German infantry supported by a few panzers assaulted the position. The enemy was able to surround the tanks, which blazed away with all weapons into the dark. Crewmen added Tommy gun and carbine fire from the turret ports and expended 15,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition. Panzers crawled within fifty yards of the American tanks, and two were dispatched.48

About midnight, persistent German attacks tore a hole at the seam between the two American regiments, and by dawn, the enemy had created a two-miledeep salient that threatened the survival of the beachhead. Massive use of artillery and air strikes, and the commitment of elements from the 1st Armored Division, destroyed the German spearhead over the next several days. By 22 February, the counterattack had petered out 49

As the Anzio beachhead settled down into stalemates, the tank battalionsagainst all doctrine and the expressed views of battalion commanders-largely became providers of antitank defenses. The 751st Tank Battalion's medium companies, for example, were usually deployed in defensive positions, often dug-in firing points, alongside the infantry. The outfit's after-action report notes four platoon-size tank-on-tank fights during February, with about even losses for the two sides. Attempts to advance even to support patrols usually drew lethal antitank fire. Morale and health declined as crews spent weeks on end sitting in their immobile tanks on the line. The assault gun platoon, with the three line-company assault guns attached, was attached to a field artillery unit.50

The 191st Tank Battalion organized nocturnal "shoots" starting in March, which were designed mainly to harass the enemy. "Aside from whatever material benefit the `shoots' produced," recorded the after-action report, "they were excellent morale stimulants for the tank crews, who spend so many weary hours `sweating out' enemy fire without delivering any in return "s'

In April, the 34th Infantry Division, just transferred from the southern front, relieved the 3d Infantry Division, but the 751st Tank Battalion remained in the line with the new command, despite seventy days of continuous action. The 34th Division made greater use of the tanks as a reserve and to fire artillery missions.52

On 25 April, the 34th Infantry Division experimented with a small-scale tankinfantry raid. The objective was a German-held house. Two tanks fired fifteen 75millimeter rounds apiece at the structure, and then four tanks with infantry on the decks rushed it, all guns firing. The infantry jumped off a short distance from the building and stormed it, taking six prisoners, and the raiding party withdrew.

"Tank-borne infantry has been tried and is successful," observed Maj. Roue Hogan, now acting commander of the 751st Battalion. "It got the infantry to their objective with great speed. The doughboys did not have to worry about antipersonnel mines. He protected himself from enemy fire by crouching behind the turret."53

STATE OF THE ART

By early 1944, infantry commanders knew there were serious problems with tank-infantry cooperation. As to the importance of the tank to the infantry, Col. W. Shephard, assistant division commander in the 3d Infantry Division, told a War Department observer, "I have determined since I have been here that it is the consensus of the officers that these infantry will not go forward without tanks, and will not stay in a defense without tanks. They just won't do it."

His boss, Brig. Gen. John "Iron Mike" O'Daniel, said, "Tanks and infantry must be trained together.... The same tank battalion should be attached to an infantry division all the time. The planning of the tanks into the attack with the infantry should be normal. We will have to do much more tank-infantry fighting when we get to France"

Frequent reattachment of separate tank battalions to unfamiliar infantry commands had remained a problem. "My battalion was attached so many times that I almost lost count," complained Lt. Col. Glenn Rogers, the commander of the 756th Tank Battalion. "In one case, the battalion was attached to three different organizations within a period of twelve hours."54

Lt. Gen. Jacob Devers, the deputy supreme commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, tried to improve the situation. He told a War Department observer in March, "The Army Ground Forces should consider including the tank battalion as an organic unit in the infantry division.... The teamwork required of the infantry and tanks is so close that it cannot be effectively carried out if the tank battalions are continuously shifted from division to division.... All the infantry division commanders in this theater have expressed their urgent desire to have the tank battalion permanently attached. I am attaching the tank battalions available in this theater to the infantry divisions on a permanent basis."

The observer who interviewed Devers recommended that some means of allowing tanks and infantry to communicate by radio be perfected. He proposed as an interim measure that an infantry SCR-300 radio be mounted in each tank platoon commander's vehicle, an idea that would bear fruit after several months.55

Nevertheless, at the time of the spring offensive in May 1944, headquarters of the Mediterranean theater of operations still found general agreement among the Fifth Army's units "that there has been a definite lack of coordination and teamwork vitally necessary ... particularly between infantry and tanks ""

Extremely lethal Panther medium tanks had been encountered for the first time at the Anzio beachhead, which marked a sudden shift of technological advantage to German tankers. The Mark V mounted a high-velocity 75-millimeter cannon that could hole the front armor of a Sherman at ordinary combat ranges while presenting well-sloped front armor nearly three inches thick that was impervious to the M4's 75-millimeter gun. Moreover, the American tankers were fighting in old vehicles; new ones were being shipped to units in the United Kingdom preparing for the invasion of France. A War Department observer on armor matters who visited North Africa and Italy in early 1944 reported, "The medium tanks in this theater are all of the old 1942 manufacture [M4 and M4A1]. They do not incorporate the modifications and corrections for deficiencies discovered in combat and testing in 1942 and 1943.... Even when fully modified, these tanks will be greatly below the standard of 1944 production tanks" All tanks available as replacements had already seen heavy use in training or combats'

Another War Department observer who visited Italy in March 1944 found tankers hungry for the reported M4 models with a 76-millimeter gun. Indeed, as a result of his visit, Allied Forces Headquarters cabled the War Department requesting the replacement of 75-millimeter models with the 76 millimeter. Tankers also expressed great interest in tanks with the Ford V-8 engine in place of their radials. Tank users expressed general dissatisfaction with the M5 and M5A1 light tanks because of the 37-millimeter gun's lack of punch and the large percentage of dud 37-millimeter rounds received .51

By early 1944, tankers had found "field solutions" to the complaint that armored men had raised about the M4's gun sights in North Africa. One Army Ground Forces observer reported, "All types of sights are used on the medium tank. They vary from old machine-sights to captured sights. Some standard sight is needed.59

CRACKING THE GUSTAV LINE

In April, the Allies had repositioned forces on the southern front to concentrate all Commonwealth divisions and the Polish Corps on the 15th Army Group's right under the Eighth Army, while the Fifth Army held the left end of the line with the II Corps adjacent to the sea and the French Expeditionary Corps to its right. The II Corps now contained the 36th, 85th, and 88th Infantry Divisions, the 34th Infantry Division having joined the VI Corps at Anzio. The IV Corps had joined the Fifth Army and was to take possession of part of the front in June. The interarmy boundary ran along Highway 6, and the Eighth Army had responsibility for the Cassino sector and the Liri Valley."

The 15th Army Group planned to drive north past Rome with its two armies advancing in parallel. At 2300 hours on 11 May, the II Corps, the French Expeditionary Corps, and the British 13 Corps attacked the Gustav Line in full strength from the Garigliano River to Cassino. The objectives were two: to crack the German defenses and to draw German divisions away from Anzio to ease the planned breakout there. The offensive succeeded on both counts.6'

Les Chars Americaines!

The Fifth Army had been supplying the French with considerable armor, artillery, and antiaircraft support because the French lacked such separate battalions.61 In May, the 2d Armored Group was attached to the French Expeditionary Corps, which included the French 1st Infantry Division (1st DFL or 1st DMI), 2d Moroccan Infantry Division (2d DIM), 3d Algerian Infantry Division (3d DIA), and 4th Moroccan Mountain Division (4th DMM). The French divisions each fielded a battalion-size light tank element called a regiment, but the French had no battalions equivalent to the medium-tank-heavy American formations. The 2d Armored Group had first worked with the French in January, when usually one company at a time from the 755th Tank Battalion had been attached to the 2d DIM and 3d DIA; the 757th Tank Battalion had joined the rotation in February. By late May, the 2d Armored Group grew to include the 753d, 755th, 756th, and 757th Tank Battalions.63 This was the largest commitment of separate armored battalions to a foreign command during the war.

Clark intended to hit the Germans hard in the French sector, where they least expected it, and elements of all four French divisions were included from the very start. The initial French objective was Mount Majo, whose seizure would fall to the 2d DIM.64

The French plan of attack against the Gustav Line in the vicinity of Castelforte, which lay on the French left near the boundary line with the II Corps, incorporated the use of mobile forces and a regiment (brigade) each from the 1st DMI and 3d DIA. The 757th Tank Battalion was attached to Gen. Diego Brosset's 1st DMI, while the 755th Tank Battalion was held in reserve to exploit any breakthrough. Brosset conceived an employment of the American tanks that was idiosyncratic. He created three waves of armor, each consisting of an American medium tank company, a light tank company (one American and one each from the 1st DMI and 2d DIM), a company of French tank destroyers, a company of infantry, and a platoon of engineers. An infantry regiment was to advance parallel to the armored thrust across high ground too rough for the tanks. The French and Americans spent the first eleven days of May working out tactical plans and communications schemes.

A French barrage commenced at 2300 hours on 11 May, and the tanks rolled unheard by the enemy into attack positions by 0300 hours on the twelfth. While it was still dark, the first wave of the 4th Brigade of the 1st DMI forded the Garigliano River with the infantry riding the medium tanks, crossed an antitank ditch that French engineers had bridged during the night, and attacked German positions southeast of San Andrea. The next two waves followed.

Jack Hay, a Company A driver in the first wave, recalled

The [French] infantry would ride on our tanks, with about ten soldiers on each tank. We also had a company of chemical mortars. They would cover the valley with smoke and camouflage us from the enemy.... On the morning we started the offensive, it was foggy mixed with smoke from the chemical mortars.... As we traveled through no-man's-land in the valley, we came closer to the German defenses. Then things started really happening. Machine guns were rattling, and mortars were exploding. The [French] soldiers left our tanks in a hurry.

The French infantry started up a hill, and the American tankers, unable to follow, watched them fall.65

At 0615, Company A of the 755th Tank Battalion was thrown into the attack on Castelforte alongside the 4th Tunisian Infantry Regiment, 3d DIA, while the French tank destroyers provided overwatch and the tank battalion's six assault guns, working as a platoon, fired in direct support.66 Late in the afternoon, the tanks closed to within 100 yards of Castelforte and fired to cover the infantry, who stormed the town. Gen. Goislard de Monsabert, commanding the 3d DIA, watched the assault and then called the 755th Tank Battalion's command post to express his admiration for the action of the tankers.

In two days, the 2d DIM seized its objective and tore a hole in the Gustav Line that the Germans could not mend. The 4th Brigade of the 1st DIM and its attached 757th Tank Battalion Shermans made a nearly simultaneous penetration near Sant' Andrea. The French corps was off and running, outpacing the Americans and British on the flanks. By 19 May, the 1st DMI and 3d DIA had surrounded and captured Mount d'Oro, which rendered the Germans' Hitler Line-the fallback position to the Gustav Line-untenable. "The operations of the [French] during the period 11-19 May," recorded the Fifth Army history, "form one of the most spectacular and most important parts of the entire drive on Rome."67

The 756th Tank Battalion was attached to the 2d Armored Group on 19 May, and the 753d Tank Battalion was attached the next day. This allowed a tank battalion to work with each attacking French infantry division, per American practice .61

Despite having received American training in North Africa, the French apparently lacked a well-developed doctrine for the use of separate tank battalions with the infantry, and in fact, they used separate commanders for the infantry and armored components of an operation rather than subordinating supporting tanks to the infantry commander on the scene. Lt. Col. Glenn Rogers, who had taken command of the 756th Tank Battalion, observed,

The habitual practice of the [4th DMMI was to detach a small tank force and put it under the command of a French officer. The tank battalion commander was usually not consulted regarding the employment of the tanks, and precise information was difficult to get because of the system of having one officer (French) in charge of all armored operations, one officer in charge of infantry operations, another officer to coordinate the plans, and, on top of this, a groupement commander in charge of the entire operation. Generally, an attempt to find out the precise plans resulted in a fruitless visit from one officer to another, each referring the inquirer to someone else. For instance, a visit to the general generally resulted in being referred to a major, who referred me to another major, who referred me back to the general. As a result of uncertainty, our troops became dubious and hesitant, even over perfectly proper orders.69

The battalion had fought beside the 1st DMI and then the 3d DIA before joining the 4th DMM. Capt. French Lewis, who commanded Company A, recalled, "Naturally, being in the mountains, most tank actions were restricted to a one-tank front with a steep mountain on one side of the road and a deep valley on the other. Most actions were conducted by platoons. Most often, the lieutenant or his platoon sergeant would be in the lead tank. That would be fighting at 100-percent effi ciency, wishing for 200 percent. The second tank was at about 50-75 percent efficiency, due to restricted visibility and terrain." The other tanks were out of play. Captain Lewis found that the French inevitably wanted the tanks to go down every road first, whether or not infantry was going to follow them. The battalion executive officer, Major Dolvin, and a French-speaking lieutenant spent most of their time keeping the tanks out of trouble .71

The 2d Armored Group's after-action report summarized the experience of all its battalions:

The ground around the Gustav Line and Hitler Line was very mountainous and rugged, pierced by narrow roads.... The attacks were limited to road nets, which were easily defended by antitank guns, mines, and roadblocks. It was impossible to use flanking tactics to reduce these threats. Of necessity, a system of well-coordinated teamwork was developed between the tanks and the infantry.... After the penetration of the Gustav Line, the attack moved forward very rapidly....

The burden of the attack was carried by the medium tanks. Light tank companies were used mainly to mop up and neutralize enemy units that had been cut off. They were also used for reconnaissance and flank protection. The six self-propelled 105-millimeter assault guns (M7) in each battalion were grouped into one battery and gave direct fire support to the leading elements of the battalions."

One solution worked out with the French to overcome language and technical barriers to communication was to place a French interpreter equipped with an SCR-300 walkie-talkie infantry radio in the tank of each platoon leader during an attack. The tankers also established a close relationship with field artillery units attached to the French, using their Cub light planes to spot panzers and strongpoints along the route of advance. The tankers had also gained a real respect for French M10 tank destroyers, especially after encountering Panther and Tiger tanks that were impervious to the 75-millimeter guns on their Shermans. Whenever possible, concluded the 2d Armored Group, tank destroyers should overwatch any tank advance.72

The 753d and 756th Tank battalions were detached from the 2d Armored Group on 30 and 31 May, respectively, to support the American drive on Rome, while the 894th Tank Destroyer Battalion, equipped with M10s, joined the group in June. Some of the tankers' French partners would soon have a campaign to fight for the liberation of France.

Linkup

With the Fifth Army's separate tank battalions concentrated on the wings in the French sector and the Anzio beachhead, the 760th Tank Battalion shuttled between the 85th and 88th Infantry Divisions mounting the II Corps' drive across the Garigliano and along the coast.

The II Corps assaulted the Hitler Line on 20 May and cut through it with relative ease, as the Germans had lacked time to get set and bring up reinforcements. By the time the 29th Panzergrenadier Division arrived on 21 May to strengthen the line, it was too late .71

Minefields and antitank guns claimed a steady, low-level attrition from the 760th Tank Battalion, as the corps captured a series of urban strong points along the route to Anzio: Santa Maria, Formia, Gaeta, Itri. At dusk on 21 May, Company B reached a point on Highway 7 some 500 yards short of the port of Terracina, the last stronghold separating the II and VI Corps.

The German roadblock outside town defied efforts to overcome it, and the advance seemed stymied until an engineer on 22 May discovered a mule trail that looped around the town through the hills. The engineers went to work, and about 1600 hours, Company D's light tanks set off through the "impassable" terrain, followed by Company B's mediums. The tankers brushed aside some infantry and took positions from where they could overlook the town and cut the road north of Terracina by fire. Friendly infantry joined the tankers on their perch.

The Germans threw in the towel and pulled out, blowing up bridges behind them. But the way ahead was open all the way to the Pontine Marshes. On 24 May, the 91st Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron was unleashed to make contact with the Anzio beachhead forces. Troop A made first contact near Borgo Grappa on the morning of 25 May. Lieutenant General Clark, who had been in the Anzio beachhead during the breakout, was able to personally greet the troops from his reunited Fifth Army, because the VI Corps had not been idle during May."

THE ANZIO BREAKOUT AND CAPTURE OF ROME

The weather in the Anzio beachhead had turned suddenly to summer during May, and swampy fields that had stopped tanks during the winter had turned hard and firm. Tanks no longer would be limited to the road net.75

Operation Buffalo, the breakout from Anzio, commenced at 0545 hours on 23 May with a crushing artillery barrage. Forty-five minutes later, the 1st Armored Division, supported by the 3d Infantry Division and the Canadian-American First Special Service Force (FSSF, known as the Devil's Brigade by the Germans), launched the main attack into the surprised German ranks. The 45th Infantry Division shielded the VI Corps' left, and the 36th Infantry Division waited in reserve, ready to exploit any breakthrough 76

The 751st Tank Battalion, attached to the 3d Infantry Division, ran into numerous mines on the twenty-third. The battalion attempted to employ an explosive "snake," a long tube that exploded to clear mine fields. A snake had been used successfully that day by the 1st Armored Division's Combat Command A, but the system now failed because it was assembled too far from the line of departure. Eight tanks and a tankdozer fell prey to the mines and two more to antitank fire. Company A destroyed a single Mark IV, which was small compensation.

The 751st Tank Battalion was involved in a second clever but ineffective idea with the use of "battle sleds," which were towed by tanks and carried specially trained infantry. Each regiment was issued ten sleds and two platoons of medium tanks to tow them. Only the 15th and 30th Infantry regiments decided to send forward a platoon each of tanks towing sleds, and both attempts proved failures when the tanks encountered obstructions and stopped and the Germans responded with a mortar or artillery barrage.

The tank-infantry team came within a whisker of the solution to tactical communications that would, one day soon, dramatically improve teamwork. The battalion had drawn five SCR-300 radios but, for reasons unknown, found that in most cases the link was unsatisfactory. Liaison officers equipped with SCR-509s at infantry battalion and regimental command posts carried most of the communication load."

Every one of the four National Guard tank battalions experienced a particular hell, and for the 191st Tank Battalion, that battle was the breakout from Anzio. The tankers participated in two supporting thrusts rather than the main effort, but the outfit suffered the worst losses of all the separate battalions that participated in the breakout. This came on top of months during which the battalion had received many unqualified replacements and been unable to adequately train the men.

Worthy of passing note, the battalion employed two tankdozers-Shermans with bulldozer blades mounted on the front-before and during the assault, which appears to have been their first use in combat by a separate tank battalion. The dozers created bypasses and stream crossings, cleared brush, and created dug-in firing points for the tanks.

For Operation Buffalo, Companies A and D were attached to the 645th Tank Destroyer Battalion to work with the FSSF, which pushed out on the right flank toward Cori. The infantry and tankers trained together intensively for the three days before the attack. The battalion, with Companies B and C, joined the 45th Infantry Division and attacked toward the northwest between Aprilia and Cam- poleone through heavy minefields.

In the FSSF's zone, the assault force crossed prepared bridges over the Mussolini Canal in a peculiar order-light tanks, medium tanks and tank destroyers, and then infantry. Two battalions of the German 1028th Infantry Regiment, 362d Infantry Division; an Italian SS battalion; and a company of tanks held the enemy line. "Resistance was fanatical, and casualties mounted fast," recorded the tank battalion's informal history. The American tanks plowed into minefields covered by high-velocity fire from panzers and guns, and the mines alone disabled ten light tanks and four mediums. Two light tanks reached a point 200 yards south of Highway 7 but had to withdraw because the infantry did not arrive. The North American doughboys were pinned down by the same fire and were suffering heavy casualties.

At 1530 hours, medium tanks took the lead, and Company As 1st and 3d Platoons crossed Highway 7 only to run into seventeen panzers identified as Tigers, though it is more likely they were Mark IVs as the Shermans knocked out two with their 75-millimeter guns. Withdrawal was in order. One tank in the 3d Platoon fired smoke to cover the 1st Platoon's retreat, but it was hit and set afire. None of the 1st Platoon tanks made it out of the inferno, and only two 3d Platoon tanks managed to escape. The FSSF pulled back 600 yards south of the highway, but some elements were cut off and continued to fight for two days until reached by the 34th Infantry Division.

2d Lt. Thomas Fowler, erroneously identified as belonging to the 1st Armored Division by most sources, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions when the tank-infantry team started to come unglued. His citation reads,

In the midst of a full-scale armored-infantry attack, 2d Lieutenant Fowler, while on foot, came upon two completely disorganized infantry platoons held up in their advance by an enemy minefield. Although a tank officer, he immediately reorganized the infantry. He then made a personal reconnaissance through the minefield, clearing a path as he went, by lifting the antipersonnel mines out of the ground with his hands. After he had gone through the 75-yard belt of deadly explosives, he returned to the infantry and led them through the minefield, a squad at a time. As they deployed, 2d Lieutenant Fowler, despite small-arms fire and the constant danger of antipersonnel mines, made a reconnaissance into enemy territory in search of a route to continue the advance.

He then returned through the minefield and, on foot, he led the tanks through the mines into a position from which they could best support the infantry. Acting as scout 300 yards in front of the infantry, he led the two platoons forward until he had gained his objective, where he came upon several dug-in enemy infantrymen. Having taken them by surprise, 2d Lieutenant Fowler dragged them out of their foxholes and sent them to the rear; twice, when they resisted, he threw hand grenades into their dugouts. Realizing that a dangerous gap existed between his company and the unit to his right, 2d Lieutenant Fowler decided to continue his advance until the gap was filled. He reconnoitered to his front, brought the infantry into position where they dug in and, under heavy mortar and small-arms fire, brought his tanks forward.

A few minutes later, the enemy began an armored counterattack. Several Mark VI tanks fired their cannons directly on 2d Lieutenant Fowler's position. One of his tanks was set afire. With utter disregard for his own life, with shells bursting near him, he ran directly into the enemy tank fire to reach the burning vehicle. For a half-hour, under intense strafing from the advancing tanks, although all other elements had withdrawn, he remained in his forward position, attempting to save the lives of the wounded tank crew. Only when the enemy tanks had almost overrun him did he withdraw a short distance where he personally rendered first aid to nine wounded infantrymen in the midst of the relentless incoming fire.

Fowler was killed on 3 June at the age of twenty-two. He was not alone among the men of the 191st Tank Battalion.

Both the battalion commander and executive officer were wounded on the first day of the breakout. From 23 May to 5 June, all but five of nineteen battalion officers became casualties, most to aimed sniper fire directed at tank commanders, along with seventy-five enlisted men. An officer from the 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion assumed temporary command of the battalion on 28 May, until Maj. Welborn Dolvin moved from his executive officer job in the 756th Tank Battalion to take command of the battered outfit on 3 June .71

We now make a slight detour to another part of the armored force, the 1st Armored Division, which for a few hectic days in early June implemented the doctrinal vision of attaching separate tank battalions to an armored division-sort of. Most of the separate tank battalions in Italy at one time or another had been attached to the division for training during periods out of the line. But none had yet fought under its command.

On 26 May, the 13th Armored Regiment's commanding officer, Col. Hamilton Howze, was given his regiment's light tank battalion and one of its medium tank battalions, along with orders to slip behind Combat Command B and attack northward. The division's operational plan had not anticipated using the reserve in combat as a unit, but division commander Maj. Gen. Ernest Harmon saw an opportunity and took it. While most of the Fifth Army expended its strength against determined German defenses in the Alban Hills and west thereof along Highway 7, Harmon saw a chance to slip around the Alban Hills to the east, cut Highway 6 (the main supply route to the German Tenth Army in the Gustav Line), and swing west along the highway into Rome in short order.

This plan did not pan out because Lt. Gen. Mark Clark at the Fifth Army insisted on battering away at the German line from the Alban Hills west with the 1st Armored Division and the 34th and 45th Infantry Divisions. Nevertheless, the task force had nearly reached Highway 6 when, on the night of 30 March, the 36th Infantry Division found a soft spot in the German line among the slopes of Colli Laziali. The resulting penetration over the next three days unhinged the German defenses south of Rome.79

On 1 June, the 756th Tank Battalion, which had just shifted into the Anzio sector of the newly unified front, was attached to Task Force Howze for the advance on Rome. Howze and Lt. Col. Glenn Rogers were old friends from cavalry days. Howze's task force at this point otherwise included the 7th Infantry's 1st Battalion, the 59th Field Artillery Battalion, and a British outfit equipped with 105-millimeter guns.

On the morning of 2 June, the 88th Infantry Division asserted a claim to the 756th Tank Battalion and removed it from the task force.80 Lt. David Redle, commanding Company B, got his tanks to the right sector, found the infantry commander, and proposed that some of the infantry mount the tanks for the operation. Working from hill to hill along Highway 6, the tank company advanced by fire and movement, one of the rare occasions it was able to do so in Italy. One platoon advanced on the objective, while the other two fired on it. Once the lead platoon was on the objective, the other two advanced, and one of those two set off for the next hilltop. Progress was so rapid that the doughboys on foot fell behind."

On 2 June, meanwhile, Howze was given even greater strength: the 1st Battalion, 349th Infantry, 88th Infantry Division, plus a company of tank destroyers. That evening, Howze received orders to get to Rome as fast as possible.

On 3 June, the 88th Division gave Rogers the same instructions Howze had received-get to Rome as quickly as possible-which led to Howze's and Rogers's tanks becoming snarled along Highway 6 early that morning. Howze tracked down Rogers, and the latter-regardless of his instructions-agreed to put himself under Howze. During the day, the 88th Division first attached him to the 85th Infantry Division and finally to Howze. Howze shifted Rogers's battalion to a parallel road south of the main highway and attached to it the 1st Battalion, 7th Infantry. The two tank-infantry columns, the GIs perched on the back decks of the tanks, plowed forward abreast through frequent German delaying positions. When Rogers was pinched out by the road net, Howze shifted him north of Highway 6, and his men captured crossings on the Aniene River and roared across.

Howze recalled:

From time to time I became dissatisfied with our speed and the caution with which our tanks would size up each bit of terrain before going over it-so I would issue orders to put a platoon on the road and barrel down it at ten miles an hour. I would watch this platoon-in a few minutes the lead tank would stop and burst into flames. Here again was a dilemmait was difficult and unpleasant to dispatch an element in what amounted in part to a suicide mission, but on the other hand such a maneuver frequently resulted in our gaining 2,000 or 3,000 yards in thirty minutes, at the cost of a single tank.

Howze led from the front and shared the danger; at one point, he and Rogers found themselves crouched in a ditch under fire waiting for the tanks to come up.82

The tankers' experience during the advance into Rome the next day demonstrated that they could work effectively with an unfamiliar infantry outfit if even five or ten hours were devoted to coordinating operations before an attack. On 4 June, the 756th Tank Battalion was ordered to work with the First Special Service Force, which the preceding evening had come up and taken control of the task force. Task Force Howze was to attack during daylight hours and the FSSF during the night.

Despite strafing attacks by Allied P-40s and Spitfires on the 756th Tank Battalion that shot some of the infantry off the tanks, the task force was soon fighting in the outskirts of Rome. The FSSF had carefully coordinated its planning with Rogers, even to the point of delaying its attack an hour rather than sacrificing teamwork. Tank-infantry cooperation went off like "clockwork," reported Rogers, despite having to rely on hand signals and runners, and casualties were very light among tankers and infantry.

Redle recalled one example of that working with a battalion commanded by a Canadian: "A runner came back to my tank and climbed up on the tank. He said they were getting machine-gun fire from the top of a silo on our right flank. Sergeant Frank Mielcarski knocked off the top of the silo. The messenger had a big grin as he headed back to his unit. A few minutes later he was back to inform us that another machine gun was firing from the bottom of the silo. Frank just knocked down the entire silo."

At 1530 hours, Howze led an ad hoc command that included the 756th Tank Battalion, the 2d and 3d Special Service Force Regiments, and the 7th Infantry's 1st Battalion to objectives on the Tiber River. The 2d Regiment led with the tanks, which were attached by section to each rifle platoon. Howze recalled, "Immediately resistance was encountered, and no matter what its character, the infantry whistled up a tank that blasted it out. This attack made fine progress against considerable resistance; we lost two tanks but knocked out five, plus some guns, and killed [many] and captured a good batch of prisoners."

Redle's Company B encountered four of the panzers and learned of their presence when high-velocity rounds suddenly knocked out two Shermans. Bert Bulen, the gunner in one of the disabled tanks, spotted a flash, fired at it, and destroyed a panzer. His tank commander realized the problem and radioed that the panzers were camouflaged as haystacks. Bulen dispatched a second panzer, and other gunners claimed two more.

A battalion of the 3d Regiment operated in small patrols without tank support once the command entered the built-up city center, each team equipped with a typed note in Italian instructing the recipient to lead the men to a specific bridge on the Tiber. The scheme worked well, and by 0200 hours on 5 June, the 756th Tank Battalion had joined the infantry at five bridges, a tank at each end.83

Company A of the 191st Tank Battalion, despite its heavy losses in the breakout, also reached the Tiber not far away early on the fifth. The company formed part of the 34th Infantry Division's Force A, along with a company of infantry, a reconnaissance company, a field artillery battery, and an engineer detachment. Scouts found an intact bridge, and just before dawn, the task force crossed the Tiber and pressed on five miles north of the river.84

In the meantime, the 760th Tank Battalion had penetrated Rome from the south with the II Corps' 85th Infantry Division. The 3d Platoons of Companies A and D were assigned to a 338th Infantry Regiment task force with orders to drive up Highway 6 into the city to secure bridges across the Tiber. Antitank fire stopped the column on the outskirts at about 1500 hours, but the infantry eventually outflanked the guns, and the tanks were able to move on at about 1830 hours. At 2025 hours, the light tanks reached the Coliseum, and heretofore quiet streets filled with excited crowds. The task force reported it had captured the bridges intact at 0030 hours on 5 June .15

The 756th Tank Battalion had no time to rest and was attached to Task Force Ellis, formed around the 1st Armored Division's 91st Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron (itself attached to the 88th Infantry Division) and commanded by that outfit's Lt. Col. Charles Ellis. The task force pushed northward on 6 June immediately parallel to a reduced Task Force Howze. The tankers learned from Ellis that the Allies had landed in Normandy, which they hoped would take some of the load off the soldiers fighting in Italy. The advance encountered no resistance until heavy artillery fire brought the column to a halt at Formello. Subsequent investigation suggested that the fire originated from the 88th Infantry Division, competently adjusted by the 117th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron.

The structure of the task force revealed how far American forces had come in learning to build task-based commands incorporating divisional and non-divisional armor, infantry, and artillery. In addition to the cavalry squadron and the 756th Tank Battalion, the task force consisted of the 88th Infantry Division's 3d Battalion, 351st Infantry; the 804th Tank Destroyer Battalion; the 93d Armored Field Artillery Battalion, and the 313th Engineer Battalion.

Ellis divided his task force into two columns, each commanded by the senior infantry officer present. A reconnaissance troop scouted ahead of each, followed in turn by a company each of tanks and tank destroyers carrying infantry. A reserve force of tanks, tank destroyers, and engineers was ready to reinforce either column as needed. The 93d Armored Field Artillery Battalion, with the tank battalion's six assault guns attached, supported both advancing elements.86

The 752d Tank Battalion, which had entered the line only on 27 May and was attached to the 88th Infantry Division, recorded in its after-action report, "From 6 June until 13 June, the battalion spent chasing the Germans at full speed with nothing but token resistance."87 The 1st Armored Group, which had been functioning as an armor staff for the II Corps, formed the headquarters of Task Force Ramey, commanded by Brig. Gen. Rufus Ramey, which relieved Task Force Ellis on the twelfth. This marked a rare tactical use of an armored group in Italy.88

The speedy charge ended north of Rome. Four fresh German divisions rushed to the front, and Field Marshal Albert Kesselring employed delaying tactics while he slid the 3d, 29th, and 90th Panzergrenadier and 26th Panzer Divisions to block the Fifth Army.89 Once again, the odd asymmetry of mainly mechanized German formations fighting mainly infantry divisions on the Allied side characterized the fighting among the mountains.

On 9 June, the 756th Tank Battalion was withdrawn into Fifth Army reserve and enjoyed some R&R. Soon, the outfit would head to Naples to undergo amphibious assault training, for another theater lay in its future.90 Likewise, the battered 191st Tank Battalion withdrew into corps reserve and began reorganization, rehabilitation, and training. Then the outfit moved to the Invasion Training Center at Salerno."

By June, tank battalions had been in action with the infantry in Italy for nearly nine months.

Despite earlier pledges by senior commanders to keep tank battalions attached to the same division, Lt. Col. Rogers complained in June 1944, "During [thirty-one] days of combat, this battalion changed its attachment eleven times, not including about four abortive attachments not carried out" He noted that with each reattachment, the battalion had to recall between four and seven liaison officers, each with a radio and two men, and hook them up with the new infantry formation. He also observed that his battalion had frequently been committed to support infantry attacks already in progress after being given only the vaguest notion of the plan and that this invariably rendered the tanks nearly ineffective.92

Another problem was that trained Armored Force personnel were not available to replace casualties. From 11 May to 11 June, the 756th Tank Battalion had six officers and sixty-nine men evacuated and received only eight enlisted replacements. The battalion had to put mess, supply, and maintenance personnel into the tanks to maintain combat strength. Moreover, during that period, the battalion had advanced 300 miles and seen combat every single day. Exhaustion had taken a toll, evidenced in misunderstanding of orders, slowness in organizing, and hesitation in execution 93

One step taken to resolve the replacement problem was that the 760th Tank Battalion's Company D, less one platoon, was detached to run an armored replacement center in Eboli under the North Africa (soon renamed Mediterranean) Theater of Operations Training Command.94

On 1 July 1944, Lt. Gen. Lesley McNair forwarded a memorandum to all divisions and the commanders of all separate tank battalions attached to which was a letter from an unidentified tank battalion commander in Italy who had wanted to help prepare formations headed for France. The officer offered a summary of lessons learned to that point in Italy on the tank-infantry-artillery team. He observed that there were times that the infantry supports the tanks-such as an action where the enemy is not dug in or protected by a minefield, when the tank can lead-and others when the tanks had to support the infantry. He noted that when the tanks led, his infantry division's artillery observers rode with the assault and had called down artillery as close as sixty yards from the armor and that the shrapnel caused no harm. Artillery, he said, was the cure for antitank guns.

The tank battalion had experimented with loaning radios to the infantry to improve tactical communications. The officer wrote that this enabled a rapid rever sion of control over tanks from the infantry to the tank battalion commander when the situation changed suddenly from slugging to breakthrough. Tanks had to withdraw at night behind a protective infantry screen.

The officer stressed that medium tanks could not duke it out with Tiger tanks unless they caught them from the flank and that close cooperation with tank destroyers was necessary. His battalion normally used tank destroyers to provide covering fire for advancing tanks.95

These were excellent observations, and they might have helped the troops who landed at Normandy had they reached them in time. But it was too late. They were going to have to learn many of these things the hard way.

With the Overlord landings in Normandy on 6 June, Italy became a secondary theater for the Allies. The Germans also considered Italy to be a secondary front, and it was allotted supplies, equipment, and troops accordingly.96

The Allied advance stopped on 4 August after covering 270 miles in sixty-four days. The Americans, who viewed France as the decisive theater, had prevailed in a strategy debate with the British over whether to keep forces in Italy strong enough to drive into the Balkans. For now, the mission of the 15th Army Group in Italy was to pin German forces in place so they could not shift to more critical fronts elsewhere, while the VI Corps and the French divisions invaded southern France in Operation Dragoon .17

As Lt. Col. Theodore Conway, then on the Fifth Army's staff, put it, "[W]e were looking at Italy. You know, there is nothing soft about this underbelly, and the question finally came down to twenty some odd German divisions and twenty some Allied divisions in Italy. Who was pinning down whom? You might say it is a stand-off."98

The 15th Army Group took one stab at throwing the Germans from the Gothic Line into the Po Valley, with the Eighth Army attacking on 25 August and the Fifth Army on 1 September. Progress was slow and egregiously costly, and by late October, an undeniable stalemate had emerged on the Italian front. Much like troops in the European theater at the same time, Allied forces-thinned by attrition, short on supplies, and subject to increasingly harsh weather-simply lacked the punch to defeat German defenders who held well-prepared positions in advantageous terrain. For the tankers, this meant turning almost entirely to firing artillery missions, punctuated by occasional limited-objective attacks. During November alone, the 752d Tank Battalion consumed 12,000 rounds on indirect fire.99