Anzio Landings (1944): Operation Shingle and the Road to Rome

The Anzio landings, codenamed Operation Shingle, were an Allied amphibious assault on the coast of central Italy on 22 January 1944, about 55 kilometres (35 miles) south of Rome. The aim was to outflank the German Gustav Line and open the road to Rome. Instead, the Allied troops were hemmed into a small beachhead for four months of costly fighting, before breaking out in May and entering Rome on 4 June 1944.

Background

After the invasion of Sicily and the landings in southern Italy in 1943, the Allied advance stalled in the mountains south of Rome. The Germans under Field Marshal Albert Kesselring held the Gustav Line, anchored on the heights of Cassino, and repeated frontal attacks made little progress.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill pressed for an amphibious “end run” to land behind the line. Landing craft were scarce because they were needed for the coming invasion of France, but Churchill secured a short delay in their transfer. The US Fifth Army under Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark was to attack the Gustav Line at Cassino while VI Corps, under Major General John P. Lucas, landed at Anzio and Nettuno.

Anzio, the ancient Antium, and its neighbour Nettuno were small resort towns on a flat coastal plain bordering the Pontine Marshes, land drained only in the 1930s. The Germans later stopped the drainage pumps and flooded parts of the plain, which hampered movement and contributed to a serious outbreak of malaria among Italian civilians in 1944.

The landing

In the early hours of 22 January 1944 the British 1st Infantry Division landed north of Anzio and the US 3rd Infantry Division to the south, while US Rangers seized the port and the US 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion, landing from the sea, took Nettuno. German forces in the area were very weak, and surprise was almost complete. By midnight about 36,000 men and more than 3,000 vehicles were ashore, at the cost of relatively light casualties.

Lucas, who had doubted the plan from the start, decided to build up his forces and secure the beachhead before advancing towards the Alban Hills that dominated the routes to Rome. His caution has been debated ever since. He had only two divisions at first, few tanks and a long way to go to reach the hills, and in his private diary he had already compared the venture to the disastrous Gallipoli landing of 1915. Some historians argue that a bold advance could have cut German supply lines; others think a small force pushing inland would have been cut off and destroyed.

The German response

Kesselring reacted quickly, sending units from northern Italy, France, Germany and Yugoslavia. Within about a week the newly formed Fourteenth Army under General Eberhard von Mackensen had ringed the beachhead. When the Allies attacked at the end of January, they were stopped. At Cisterna on 30 January, two US Ranger battalions advancing at night were surrounded; of more than 760 men, only a handful made it back to Allied lines, and most of the rest were captured.

On 16 February the Germans launched a major counteroffensive, Operation Fischfang, intended to drive the Allies into the sea. After several days of desperate fighting, supported by Allied artillery and naval gunfire, the line held. Lucas was replaced by Major General Lucian Truscott, a more aggressive commander, on 23 February. Further German attacks at the end of February also failed.

The navy also paid a price. German aircraft attacked the crowded anchorage with torpedoes and radio-guided glide bombs: the British destroyer Janus was sunk on 23 January and the cruiser Spartan, hit by a glide bomb, on 29 January, and hospital ships were hit despite their markings.

The stalemate

From March to May the beachhead became a static front resembling the trench warfare of the First World War. The whole area was within range of German guns, including large railway guns that Allied soldiers nicknamed “Anzio Annie”. There was no safe rear: hospitals, supply dumps and ships offshore were all shelled or bombed. Soldiers lived in dugouts and slit trenches, moving mainly at night. British troops fought bitter battles around the model town of Aprilia, known to them as “the Factory”, and the Canadian-American First Special Service Force held the flooded line of the Mussolini Canal with aggressive night raids. Churchill grumbled that he had hoped to hurl a wildcat onto the shore and had got a stranded whale instead.

The breakout and the road to Rome

On 11 May the Allies launched Operation Diadem against the Gustav Line, and after the fall of Monte Cassino the German front began to give way. On 23 May VI Corps attacked out of the beachhead in Operation Buffalo. On 25 May its troops met units of the US II Corps advancing from the south.

Alexander’s plan was for VI Corps to drive north-east to Valmontone and cut off the retreating German Tenth Army. Clark instead turned the bulk of his forces north-west towards Rome. Allied troops entered the city on 4 June 1944, and Clark arrived on 5 June. Critics argue the change let much of the German Tenth Army escape to fight on further north; defenders note that the Valmontone route was strongly held and that the Germans had several escape roads.

Key people

• John P. Lucas, the US VI Corps commander at the landing, replaced in February.
• Lucian Truscott, his successor, who led the breakout.
• Mark W. Clark, commander of the US Fifth Army, who chose to drive on Rome.
• Albert Kesselring, German commander in Italy who sealed off the beachhead.
• Eberhard von Mackensen, commander of the German Fourteenth Army at Anzio.

By the numbers

Figures differ between sources and depend on whether sickness and non-battle casualties are counted.

Consequences

Anzio did not achieve its original goal of a quick outflanking of the Gustav Line, and it tied up shipping and troops for months. However, it also forced the Germans to commit large forces that might have been used elsewhere, and the beachhead was in place to play its part when the main front broke in May. The capture of Rome two days before the D-Day landings in Normandy was quickly overshadowed by events in France.

For the soldiers who fought there, Anzio was remembered as one of the grimmest experiences of the war: months under observation and shellfire, in a pocket only a few kilometres deep, with no front line safe from attack. Military historians have since used it as a case study of how an operation launched with too few troops, uncertain aims and divided commanders can turn an early success into a long stalemate. Truscott’s leadership during the defensive battles and the breakout, on the other hand, earned him a high reputation, and he later commanded the US Fifth Army in Italy.

Timeline

• 1944, 22 January: Allied troops land at Anzio and Nettuno almost unopposed.
• 1944, 30 January: US Rangers are destroyed at Cisterna.
• 1944, 16–20 February: The German counteroffensive is held.
• 1944, 23 February: Truscott replaces Lucas as commander of VI Corps.
• 1944, 23 May: The breakout from the beachhead begins.
• 1944, 25 May: Beachhead forces link up with the main Fifth Army.
• 1944, 4 June: Allied troops enter Rome.

Why it matters

Anzio is often studied as a lesson in the risks of amphibious operations and the importance of speed and command decisions. It was a costly episode in the long Italian campaign, which continued until the German surrender in Italy in May 1945, weeks after the Battle of Berlin had begun.