The Middle of the Forest

 Anzio:

The Lesson of Futility

        “It all started in an atmosphere of fine cognac and good cigars, this Anzio thing,” wrote Fred Sheehan in Anzio: Epic of Bravery.  Before it was over, the situation at Anzio would prove to illuminate Joseph Campbell's description of the increasingly dark nature of the adventure, which, “after the first thrills of getting underway,” he wrote, “develops into a journey of darkness, horror, disgust, and phantasmagoric fears.”[i]  

         After the 3rd Division was pulled from the Italian Front at Mignano, Clark's 5th Army stalemated.  In mid-November, he halted the attack and withdrew to regroup and replan.  When Kesselring pulled some of his forces to slow down Montgomery's advance, he tried again.  For the first two weeks of December, the 36th Division tried to break through at San Pietro.  They suffered extremely heavy casualties.[ii]

     The stalemate could in no way be attributed to the lack of skill or valor on the part of the soldiers.  The entire warrior-hero concept that developed during the ten millennia of the Agricultural Era of human existence was being challenged by the technology that developed out of the Industrial Revolution that occurred over a hundred years earlier.  The mechanization of combat that the foot soldier faced was compounded by the technological improvements in transportation and communication that allowed major decisions to be made by armchair "generals" who never saw the battlefield.  The debacle at Anzio is a prime example.  On the German side, Adolph Hitler saw what he had in Albert Kesselring as he forced the Allies to give up time and lives on their push from Salerno, and put the decisions in his hands.  According to William Allen, “When the Fuhrer placed his confidence in Kesselring instead of Rommel, the major battles of the Rapido River and at Anzio became inevitable.”[iii].....

        .....While Murph was being treated in a hospital in Naples, the initial landing went well.   As Edward Murphy reported in Heroes of WWII,  “By noon the British had pulled two miles inland, the Americans, three.  By the end of the day over thirty-six thousand troops were ashore.”   But the positive landing results were not to last long, as he continues,  “Field Marshal Kesselring reacted swiftly to this new threat.  By nightfall three fresh German divisions were headed south from Northern Italy.  Elements of four more divisions were withdrawn from Monte Cassino...By the end of the fourth day Kesselring had nearly eight divisions ringing Anzio.  Five more were on their way.”[iv]   The Anzio commander, Major General John Lucas, did not want to push inland until he had more men and supplies ashore.  At this point, he had only moved ten miles inland.  Lucas had been concerned about the plan from the beginning.  He wanted more time.  The plan's success depended on Mark Clark's men getting there in time to reinforce them.[v]  In later years, the major blame for the debacle that was to follow would be placed on Lucas' shoulders, but on January 20, when Clark tried to attack across the Rapido River, he failed.  “Through torrential rain the Corps strove to keep supplies coming up,” wrote Morrison.  “Casualties mounted, the push slowed down, and after two bloody days the Rapido bridgehead was abandoned on the very day of the Anzio landings.  All of the valor and energy of this attack went for naught.”  Morrison would conclude that, “Defeat on the Rapido doomed the Anzio beachhead to a long stalemate, if not to failure,” and that, “If blame there be, Generals Clark and Alexander must share it with General Lucas.”[vi]

     In the meantime, Sgt. Murphy, recovering from his bout with malaria, joined his company on the beachhead.  He arrived in time to lead a night reconnaissance patrol into the German lines, and to learn that one of his closest friends has died.  “A spasm of loneliness seizes me,” he wrote, “I am not one to question the way of things, but, almighty God, why did it have to be Little Mike?”  Mike Novak was a fictionalized version of Murph's friend Joe Sieja.[vii]  When the war finally ended, Murphy would write the book To Hell and Back about his experiences and dedicate the book to two of his lost buddies.  Joe Sieja was one of those buddies.

     Lucas ordered an attack on the Alban Hills on Jan 30.   According to Fred Sheehan, “Far to the east and simultaneous with the British attack, the U. S. 3rd Division began to probe around Cisterna...General Truscott ordered an attack in force...the 15th Infantry attacking on the right along the Canca-Cisterna road.”[viii]   The attack did not succeed, but Morrison feels that Lucas was not remiss in holding off the push into the Alban Hills.  “He showed sound tactical sense in making consolidations of the beachhead paramount.  He knew that the Germans were past masters at cutting off flying columns and pinching out salients.  If Lucas had ‘stuck his neck out,’ he would in all probability have lost his neck, and the beachhead, too.”[ix]

     The 15^th Regiment started up the road toward Cisterna during the early morning hours of January 30.  Murph and his men are prepared for the coming attack. They begin to move forward, "Fear is moving up with us," writes Murphy,  "It always does…."  He says he is, "well acquainted with fear," and goes on to explain how  "it strikes first in the stomach, coming like a disemboweling hand that is thrust into the carcass of a chicken.  I feel now as though icy fingers have reached into my mid-parts and twisted the intestines into knots."[x]  Years later he would speak often about fear, that it was a natural instinct we should not be ashamed of.  "I was scared before every battle.” Harold Simpson would later report him as saying, “That old instinct of self-preservation is a pretty basic thing, but while the action was going on some part of my mind shut off and my training and discipline took over and I would do what I had to do."[xi]

     William Allen describes the situation faced by Sgt. Murphy and his men.  “German machine gunners set up in the several farmhouses pinned down the advancing Americans, and an enemy self-propelled gun knocked out four of the accompanying tanks of the 751st tank Battalion.  Before additional armor could be brought up, German Infantry advanced down the hidden streambed from Isola Bella and drove back the outposts along the 15th's right flank.  Intermittent firefights continued throughout the remainder of the day across the 3rd Division front."[xii]

     The moments just before the battle begins are the worst, according to Murph.  “It will be far better when the guns open up.” He explains.  “The nerves will relax, the heart stop its thumping.  The brain will turn to animal cunning.  The job is directly before us: Destroy and survive.”[xiii]