The Hell Hole at Anzio

"Frog", imitating Hitler, in a typical dugout. The can was used as a coffee pot.

On the 19th of January we loaded our designated LST. This took most of the day and the ship pulled out to sea the following afternoon. The convoy it joined headed north. The anti-tank guns had been loaded into the DUCKs so that we could fire them foreword as we went to the beach.

That evening we were given our sacrificial last meal aboard ship. It was always the best meal that the Navy could prepare. Since this was my third landing it was my third last supper. The chaplain held services after dinner and then we all went to our quarters and pretended to relax and tried to put the landing out of our minds which was a total impossibility.

Some of the boys just before departure to Anzio.

I tried to think of everything I had learned in the past about saving my own life while eliminating another. The thoughts kept creeping into my mind no matter how hard I tried to think of other things. I took one of Patricia's letters out of my pocket to read it over for the tenth time. I thought about her and how I wished I could be in her company now. It let me forget about the landing for a short time but an incredible fear eventually filled my body. I found myself entirely engulfed in fear for the first time but not the last.

I knew this would go away as soon as we hit the beach and I had something physical to do. At 0400 in the morning we got up and went to the lower deck and climbed into the DUCKs. At 0430 the large doors of the LST opened and, one by one, the DUCKs slipped down the ramp and quietly into the water. We pulled away from the ship and headed toward the beach after about five minutes the beach was "prepared" with fire from a dozen landing barges loaded with two thousand rockets each that were all fired in less than ten minutes. If this was supposed to be a surprise it was all over now and we were still a mile out and about 15 minutes from shore.

Vehicles line up near Naples in early August 1944 destined for southern France.

Those old DUCKs didn't travel very fast in the water. As we were moving toward the beach, a big destroyer pulled up along side and directed us toward our designated beach area. That ship seemed so big compared to our little DUCK that only had about two feet of free board while the destroyer had thirty feet and superstructure above that. In the dark it seemed like a monster. We turned in the direction we were instructed and waited for sounds of shellfire from shore but there was none. Just before we got off the LST, I found a case of peaches under one of the bunks and I put two cans in my pack for future use. They added about four pounds to my pack but I knew I could carry the extra weight.

Silent Welcome

Infantry soldiers approach the beach at Anzio in January 1944.

We reached shore just as night was turning to day. It was amazing there was absolutely no resistance. Our guns were unloaded and pulled to an assembly area to await the jeeps that would take them where they were needed. The anti-tank platoon prepared to move out on foot when all of a sudden a German plane can over and strafed the beach. He only made one pass and left, but it took us out of our picnic attitude.

The platoon started moving inland across the fields. I walked up to a farmhouse just as the farmer had finished milking his cow and he offered me some fresh milk some of which I drank and some I saved to put in coffee that I prepared on his stove. After the coffee break the platoon continued on and there was still no sounds of war; it was certainly a spooky situation. We went in eight miles and there was no opposition. All units took the first day's objectives with no problem. Our jeeps and guns came up about 4:00 in the afternoon but we didn't know where to put them in because the enemy was nowhere to be found.

The trustworthy DUKW.

Night came on and we ate a dinner of K-rations, got our blankets out and found a place to sleep for the night. The following day was just as quiet. The commanding general [General Lucas] wouldn't let the troops advance too far because the line would be spread to thin. He thought we must wait for more men, equipment and supplies before we could push on, a strategy that is still being debated by military men today.

The truth was that we were short of artillery and the ammunition for the large guns we already had ashore. There were also a limited number of ships to carry those supplies; I think we were limited to twenty LSTs to bring in more tanks and the gasoline to run them. We also needed enough food to feed 40,000 men, equipment for the engineers, command posts and hospitals.

As darkness came on the second night, I prepared to sleep with only a shelter half and blanket and there was a light frost. At least we weren't receiving any artillery fire. Our outposts were challenged this night but it was just a small patrol that came to check things out.

On the third night our outposts were established in a line for the first time. On the fourth night we had a visit from the German air force. A few bombs dropped around us and the planes left. But this was just the beginning of what would become 1,700 air raids that flew over the Anzio beachhead during the four months the Allied army spent there.

The "war" was starting to catch up with us, but we were yet to realize how bad it was going to get. On the fifth day we started to use our artillery, which meant there were targets to shoot at. This meant that the German army, previously and conspicuously missing, were moving in. Soon our anti-tank guns were dug in on the frontline and I submitted my location overlay to regimental headquarters.

On the tenth day the anti-tank guns had been moved and the machine guns and mortars had been moved and I submitted new overlays from our platoon headquarters we had set up in a farmhouse. Sergeant Leaser and Trembly and I stayed there. The farm had a couple hundred chickens that provided fresh eggs for breakfast and meat for dinner. Every day we killed four or five chickens cut them up and boiled them until tender and then fried them until tasty. Sometimes we put a tomato sauce over these delicious morsels. All this was pretty much an all day process, which occupied our minds and kept us from thinking about the war that was getting rougher each day.

We took most of the chicken we cooked to the gun crews sitting on the line everyone was always thankful, and as the days passed, always expecting their chicken. But all good things must come to an end; after about eight days we had to move up about two miles. When we moved I was told to stay at battalion headquarters and do my liaison job. Colonel Kenny, our battalion commander, set up his CP in one of the farmhouses. Most farmhouses were still fairly complete at this stage of Anzio campaign. First Sergeant Johnstone and I found a cellar under the house that we claimed as our residence. Nobody else knew it was there since the entrance was completely hidden. During our move the night before we had passed farm about a half mile back that had a lot of turkeys in a pen. I told Johnstone I would go back and get one of the turkeys to eat if he would kill, clean and butcher the bird. Johnstone said he could handle that part, so I took off to the rear to catch one of those nice plump turkeys.

I don't think I was gone more than 30 minutes. I returned with this big white turkey and gave it to Johnstone. He took it out behind the house and murdered it. An hour later he came back into the cellar with the bird all dressed out. He hung it up and we agreed we would cook it tomorrow. We went to sleep dreaming about a turkey dinner. In the morning we could hear one of the officer's that was staying upstairs in the house cussing and swearing about all the white feathers blowing around in the yard. All the while Sergeant Johnstone and I were under the house trying to fry the turkey meat in our mess kits over a Coleman gas burner. It seemed like the more we cooked it the tougher it got. It turned out to be a futile effort. I'm sure it would have been better if we had an oven to put it in and baked it for hours, but the officers had the oven. I never did try to cook turkey again.

The beachhead was getting more and more angry everyday and our casualty rate was climbing. The Germans were bombing us every night with large bombs that made big craters in the fields and on the roads. One evening I was taking a jeep load of supplies up to the men on the guns on the frontline when in the dark I ran the jeep into a bomb crater. I had to go back to get help to pull the jeep out and by the time we got back up to where it was, the German bombers were overhead and the men that came up to help were not too happy about the whole situation and told me very emphatically never to do it again.

The Germans were perched comfortably on the surrounding hills, enemy observers with high powered binoculars and artillery range finders were able to view nearly every foot of ground that the Allied armies held. A soldier could hardly make a move without a shell being fired at him. You had to develop an attitude like, "What the hell, if I get hit I'm either dead or alive, if I'm dead I don't have to worry about it and if I'm alive maybe I have another day to get the bastards that tried to kill me."

A person can only stand so much of this kind of living and many cracked under the strain of constant shelling, bombing and patrolling. The harsh living conditions alone put 5,000 men in the hospital temporarily to get over such things as trench foot, pneumonia and other ailments. Most of these returned to duty within a few days to a few weeks.

Nowhere to Hide

Enemy artillery hit this 56th Eavacuation Hospital tent at Anzio. The hospital area was hit many times with many casualties.

Anzio began to take on the look of WWI at the Somme, Ypres and Verdun. Stagnated in the mud. There was pretty much a common denominator at Anzio and that was the rear areas were just as vulnerable to shelling as the front line. Shells killed staff officers of 6th Corps as they emerged from their underground headquarters at Nettuno, quartermaster soldiers were killed by artillery as they unloaded ships at the docks. The hospital was shelled many times killing nurses and doctors, some times as they were operating.

The men at the front got to the point where they wouldn't report minor injuries just to stay away from the hospital, they felt that it was safer on the frontline. Axis Sally the German propaganda radio reporter used to report on the radio, "Hello out there boys and girls at Anzio. How does it feel to be cooped up in the world's largest self-sustaining prisoner of war camp?"

We used to make radio crystal sets out of a piece of shell fragment, a little wire for a cats whisker and more wire for an antenna with a sound power telephone that every squad had. With this setup we could get broadcasts from Rome.

February - March

As the days passed, the smell of death was everywhere. I was fortunate being battalion liaison and I thanked Lieutenant Schultz many times for getting me the job. I didn't have to sit on the frontline so I spent most of the time just a short distance behind the line. This was usually anywhere from a couple hundred yards to a half mile. I did volunteer to go on a couple patrols and on one of these we ran into a German patrol that outnumbered us by four to one so we hid and let them go by.

Another time we moved our 37mm anti-tank gun into an exposed position at night and fired a few rounds at a machine gun position that was giving us a bad time. I think we shook them up a bit because it was several days before they started up again and then we moved to a new location. During the months of February and March the Third Division received about 5,000 replacements and we finally got needed armor and artillery. During these months the Germans threw ten divisions at the three divisions we had on the beachhead. Their orders were to drive us into the sea but we always held them.

On February 16, the day after the Ranger Battalion was destroyed on its assault towards Cisterna, the Germans made a big counterattack. We captured 1,200 of the enemy so it partially evened the score. On that day I was sent on a mission as a runner and was gone about three hours. When I returned the house that I had been staying in had been hit 19 times and there was only one room left.

The months of February and March were real bitches. The Krauts threw everything they had at us. They brought in divisions from northern Italy, southern France, and Yugoslavia for a total of ten divisions. The Germans kept attacking and we were whittled down to not much more than two. There was a short time when the only thing we could do was set up strong points with large gaps in between. The Krauts would run patrols through the gaps since they thought they could attack with a large force through these places. They never seemed to figure out that all of our strong points were on high ground and that every time they tried to punch their way through our line we looked down on them and would blow the hell out of them.

During this desperate time we had an order to keep 4,000 rounds at each heavy machine gun position and 500 rounds for each 81mm mortar. Also during this period we were rationed to ten rounds a day because the people working in the defense plants were on strike for higher wages. All the soldiers at Anzio wanted to go on strike for higher wages also because we were having an average of 200 casualties a day and that didn't count the British troops. We were fighting just to save our butts and needed 200 replacements a day just to keep up. As it was, we only got 800 to 1,000 if we were lucky and it just kept going down hill.

Around the first of April 1944 the Kraut attacks leveled off so the Third Division went back to the beach to a pine grove that hid us from view but we still had to dig in just in case of shelling or bombing but life was more relaxed. We were able to watch movies, get showers and clean clothes and write letters home. We still had training periods during the day, mainly to train all the replacements we had received for the past two months. While in the pine grove during this semi-rest period I was corporal of the guard one day and I had posted the guard about five in the morning. By the time I had finished posting the guard, the cooks were just getting up and coming to the kitchen to start breakfast. I saw them so I went to the kitchen hoping to get the first cup of coffee.

Sergeant Whitehead told me I could speed up the process if I would help pump up the gas stove. This was done with an old fashion tire pump. I grabbed the tire pump and set to work after five burners were pumped up I had a blister on the palm of my hand I didn't pay any attention to it until the next day when it hurt so bad I went to the medical aid station and had them lance the blister and put medication and a band aid on it. The next day it hurt more so I went to the doctor and he said it was infected and to soak it in hot water. By the third day my whole hand was swollen and it hurt all the way to my shoulder. On the fourth day I went to Doc Daly at the regimental aid station and he sent me to the Hospital.

The Battalion moved out two days latter and went back to the front. I stayed in the field hospital for almost four weeks soaking my hand by the hour in medicated water and taking a dozen sulfa pills a day. While in the hospital I was able to read about four books including Withering Heights that was one of the few books left. Each night the German bombers came over to bomb the airport that was only a half-mile away. The hospital tents were riddled with holes from falling shell fragments of our anti-aircraft artillery. Some of the soldiers were wounded a second time, from falling fragments while lying in bed trying to heal other wounds.

After three and a half weeks I left the hospital and returned to my unit. The Doctor let me go even though my hand was still bandaged. My battalion was back in the pine grove and was getting a rest before they were going to push out of the Anzio beachhead. My Doctor let me leave the hospital with an open sore in my hand so that I could take part in the break out attempt. They probably thought that I wouldn't live long enough for the hand to get reinfected. Anyway I wanted to get back to get my mail and hopefully a letter from Patricia. When I did get back everyone had to tell me what a rough three weeks they had on the front. I told them my heart really bled for them and that I felt sorry as hell that I couldn't have been there.

A Day of Casualties: Anzio Breakout

Everyone was now preparing for our big offensive. We studied area maps and worked tactics in the sand box and discussed how we were going to proceed with the war. Everyone cleaned and oiled their weapons and made certain they operated Sergeants made certain everyone had hand grenades. This was going to be a do or die operation. The air was filled with much anxious tension and fear. We were anxious to get going and get the thing over with and yet fearful of what might happen. The men in anti-tank unit cleaned and bore sighted the 37mm guns. We also took time to take showers and get clean clothes so that we felt like human beings again.

We ate from the kitchen and had time to write letters home. For some it would be their last, but these thoughts were driven from our minds, after all, it was going to be the other guy and not you. On the 22nd of May 1944 at 1600 hours all three regiments of the Third Infantry Division marched out of the pine grove rest area in the direction of the front. Every man was a well-trained killer and many were very experienced in the art of killing. As we came out of the pine grove there was a band that played military marches and finished with the division song "Dog Faced Soldier."

As we got 100 yards beyond the band we fell into battle march formation, which was a ten-yard interval between men. It became very quiet as we trudged along and each man was deep in his own thoughts and each one listening for incoming shells or enemy airplanes. By the time we arrived at our destination that was about a 100 yards from the line of departure it had already been dark for a couple of hours so we tried to get a little sleep before we jumped off into the man-made Hell that would come in the morning.

As Battalion runner I was to move out with the 2nd Battalion, the first to attack. I was to follow the battalion and when they reached their objective I was to rush back and lead the 1st Battalion up so they could push through to their own objective. Although this distance was only 1,500 yards, on this day it seemed like 1,500 miles. I was running so we could maintain radio silence.

I managed to get about three hours sleep then at 0415 hundred hours, 500 large-bore howitzers and rifles sent high explosives and shredded steel into the enemy's territory for 45 minutes. At the same time there were 300 50-cal. machine guns and 400 mortars pumping out round after round into the German fortifications. The 1st Battalion was only 300 yards from where these rounds were exploding. It seemed like the ground was turned over and over and one couldn't imagine how anything could live through it and yet when the Second Battalion passed through the line, they were met with horrifying resistance.

There were many Congressional Medals to be won today. I still cannot believe the many men that voluntarily sacrificed their lives this day. When I moved out following the 2nd Battalion I had to crawl over and around body after body that lined the shallow ditch where the rifle companies had advanced.

The ditch was only 18-24 inches deep and only gave protection when a person was in a prone position but it was the only cover available that led to the German lines. I followed until the 2nd reached a rise in the terrain at the first objective. As soon as I saw the men on the hill, I turned and again crawled back over the same dead in the ditch to report to the 1st Battalion that the 2nd had reached their objective.

As it was, I found that the rifle companies had already shoved off and were advancing threw the 2nd. So I lead the anti-tank platoon up again crawling over and around the dead again. This time our tanks were moving up and one of the tanks, only about 100 feet away, set off a thousand pounds of TNT in the form of Bangalore torpedoes to clear the mine fields ahead. The charge exploded such a short distance from me that I thought the world had just exploded.

Was I scared? I don't know. I lived with fear so much that it seemed natural and you just focused on controlling the emotions.

The other regiments, the 7th and the 15th, were also trying to punch their way through the enemy lines as we were and other men were dying for their country in those sectors.

The Third Division lost more men on this day than any other division in a single day's action during the war: 995 casualties, one third of our riflemen on the first day. All objectives had been taken but we still hadn't passed through all of the German defenses. The enemy could have reorganized and attacked but they didn't. I believe our incessant shelling had depleted there ranks to the point where there were few combatants left. At least it is what I like to believe.

Friendly Fire: Cisterna - Cori

The second day the division reached the railroad tracks that went through the town of Cisterna. Early on the May 25 we completely surrounded the town. One could hear very little fire from the enemy so I went to reconnoiter the area ahead for possible new anti-tank gun positions. I was probably about 1,500 yards ahead of my platoon when all of a sudden a shell exploded only about a 100 feet from me, and I took off like a scared rabbit as three more rounds rained down before I could reach a dry wash that give me some protection. I couldn't believe a tank would reveal its position just to shoot at one person, but I had found out where the enemy was. It also gave me a rush of adrenalin that lasted the rest of the day.

On the march

The next day we advanced toward Cori a town we could see very often on clear days from the beachhead prison and we were sure they could see us. We reached the town early in the morning. We found the town fairly well intact and I wondered why the air force had not ruffed it up a bit. The men in my platoon found a German motor pool that held many vehicles still able to run. We took a truck so we could load everything we were carrying on board.

Following the jeep and its gun is the German truck we confiscated that made our march easier.

Looking over the hood of a jeep, Third Division soldiers march forward.

We traveled light from Cori to Rome. The only thing we carried was our weapons. As left Cori we had to merge with other military traffic. The two-lane road was filled with men and vehicles all moving in the same direction: to Rome. We merged in but only went a few feet before we came to a complete stop. We were still near the German motor pool where we got the truck so I got out and went back to see what else I could find.

I found a motorbike that looked like it might run so I pushed it out to the road put it up on a stand that held the rear wheel off the ground. I knew nothing about riding a motorbike but I got it started just as our air force came over and bombed the column about two hundred yards ahead of where we were I could see the bombs coming down through the trees. When the bombing started I dove for a culvert that was only about ten feet away that ran under the road.

This is the second time our air force bombed us in two days but they didn't do so much damage the day before. But this time we had three tanks destroyed and about 40 men killed or wounded. After it was over there was nothing much we could do but wait until the mess was cleaned up.

We had advanced so fast that the pilots didn't realize we weren't the enemy. Fortunately only three planes dropped their bombs before they realized we were friendly troops. Because of the bombing we were held up for a couple of hours. This delay gave me some time to learn how to ride the motorbike. On my first try I rode uphill on a gravel road. Going uphill wasn't all that bad. It was coming downhill on the gravel that was hard. The bike slid on the gravel and I ran into a tree and bent the front fork.

A tanker saw me abandon the bike and asked if he could have it. I told him he was welcome to it. I went back to the motor pool and got another motorbike and was more careful with the second bike and rode it up and down the hill several times. I abandon the bike on the side of the road when the column started to move.

Valmontone - Artena

We were headed for Valmontone to cut Highway 6 and try to stop the German retreat. Valmontone was built on the side of a hill and all the rubble from some intense bombing was sliding down the hill. We linked up with the troops coming from the south and they happened to be French. After this link up was made the Germans were cut off from using Highway 6. Most of the German soldiers caught in the trap just gave up.

The smoke is from artillery blasting the German line.

From Valmontone the division swung to the north to head for Rome. As we started we ran into stiff resistance at Artena. We were shelled all day and had several casualties I was holed up in a wine cellar with my friend Allen Mabbutt and felt fairly safe while the 15th Regiment made a flanking movement on the enemy. As night was coming on it seemed like we were going to be there all night so Allen went out to his jeep to get some blankets. A shell hit near the jeep and Allen was wounded. He left with the first aid man and we never saw him again until five months later in October when we were in France.

Victory at Rome

After Artena I don't recall very much except we kept moving toward Rome. The third division entered Rome on June 5, 1944. The anti-tank platoon went through Rome and ended up at the racetrack that was near Mussolini's Olympic Pavilion. As battalion runner I stayed with battalion Headquarters on the 10th floor of a high rise apartment building. There was a penthouse garden and recreation area on the top.

The anti-tank platoon enters Rome on June 5, 1944. Pvt Hughes is looking back at the camera.

The battalion C.P. was set up there for the day and several ladies brought us sandwiches and drinks. It was like the war was suddenly over. Some of the battalion officers looked like they were looking for targets to fire artillery at but they never did call in a fire mission. I stayed with headquarters until about 10:00 that night. I left and found a jeep and took it to the racetrack and found a place to sleep in an office on the floor.

The following morning after a breakfast of K-rations, several of us went for a swim in the Olympic diving pool. We also received orders to turn in all foreign vehicles so we lost our beloved German one-and-a-half ton truck that we picked up in Cori. It was also on the sixth of June that we received news that Allied forces had crossed the English Channel and were opening a second front in France. We all felt like it was about time someone else got involved in this damn dirty business.

The anti- tank platoon was ordered to leave the racetrack quarters and report to a city park where we set up pup tents and a kitchen so we could get some decent hot food. We were camped very near the center of Rome. We could walk to St. Peters and the Vatican was only about a mile and a half to two miles away. The news was that the Third Division was going to garrison Rome. Signs were made and installed on the front gate of the University of Rome that was designated Third Division Headquarters.

I was volunteered to be on the honor guard at division headquarters. The honor guard was to be quartered at the University and guard the headquarters and be available for special functions. I reported there for duty and was given many pairs of underwear and two complete sets of outer clothes. As soon as I got my cot set up and found the bathroom we were ordered to spend four hours of close order drill every day. Being a corporal I was given a squad to drill. I had never given drill orders before.

The next day I went back to my outfit to tease them about my new clothes and my posh living conditions but of course I didn't tell them about the close order drill. That same evening I went to the N.C.O. club opening. The club was in a mansion owned by the man that owned all the movie theaters in Rome so it was really quite a layout.

For me, the evening turned out to be a complete disaster for me. I drank too much and passed out. I was taken back to my old pup tent completely out of my mind. I woke up at 5:00 in the morning and I had to get back to the University, five miles away, before 7:00. A trackless trolley got me about half-way there but I made it back just in time to start close order drill in the hot sun with my head as big as a mountain and throbbing like a steam engine ready to burst. After two hours of drill we were told that our orders had changed and to report back to our original units. That was the end of the Third Division's occupation of Rome.

Training for Combat Again

The division was sent back to the 35-mile hikes with five-mile "Truscott Trots" spaced in between. Soon we were at our peak and ready to go. The anti-tank platoon had three .50 caliber machine guns, three 60mm mortars, three 57mm anti-tank guns, nine bazookas, and each man's personal weapons. I felt real good about having all this firepower for I new we could stand off one hell of an attack.

Probably two thirds of the men had seen much of the combat at Anzio and been through a lot of action before that. Nobody could teach them anymore about the art of war. Of these men that had been through a lot of combat most were sergeants and leaders. War was old to them and they are the masters of it and have become the senior partners in this institution of death.

We had the most experienced upper level officers. Many new lieutenants were brought in but there were many sergeants old in experience to guide them. I went to numerous meetings run by experienced sergeants and lieutenants who told us some of the tricks of the trade. I will never forget the professionalism displayed by these people instructing at these meetings. They were the best and it made me feel good to be a part of this team. I know many of these men received battlefield commissions when we got to France.

Now I must tell you about a little incident that happened during this training. We had an N.C.O. club set up in a little house about three blocks from our camp. One day when we got off duty early at about 1600. After showering and getting into some clean clothes Sergeant Leaser and I went to the N.C.O. club for a few drinks before dinner. After three drinks and a lot of conversation we headed back to our apple orchard camp for dinner. We ate but I am unable to tell you what the main course consisted of but I do remember we had a rare treat of ice cream for dessert. After dinner, Leaser and I went back to the N.C.O. club and stayed until around 9:30 PM when it closed. When we arrived back at camp everyone was gone.

We finally found a medical aid man and he was sicker than a dog that ate too much road kill. We asked him where everybody was and he told us they had all gone to the hospital. He said they all got food poisoning from the ice cream. Sgt. Leaser and I felt fine so we went to bed, and slept late into the next morning. When we finally got up we both went to the kitchen made our own breakfast of scrambled eggs, ham, toast and coffee. After cleaning up our breakfast dishes and getting cleaned up for the day and with nothing else to do we went back to the N.C.O. club and had a few more drinks and discussed the fact that the alcohol in the drinks must have saved us from the food poisoning.

About 2:00 the poison victims started to dribble back into camp. The following day there was only a couple of people that hadn't returned. They all wondered how Sgt. Leaser and I escaped being sick. I guess there is a good reason to have a before and after dinner drink sometimes.

Pozzuoli: countdown to D-day

The last four weeks before our next invasion, we were in the Pozzuoli area near Naples. I went every afternoon with our company commander to the officers club in Naples. He was in charge of the officers club. He needed me there to control the liquor locker so the waiters wouldn't steal any booze. Whenever they took a bottle out they had to check it out with me and I kept a tally on it. For this duty I got to eat dinner there and also got a bottle of liquor of my choice. So I kept everyone in the squad supplied with their favorite booze.

As it turned out we had a lot of liquor left when we were set to sail so we gave it to the N.C.O. club. It amounted to a full case and they were glad to get it. The second week in July we got a new 2nd lieutenant platoon leader. He seemed to be a very nice person and right off he said be could learn everybody's name in twenty minutes. He also tried to get everyone any PX supplies that they wanted and he did come through. I wish I could remember his name now but too much time has past.

On the 9th of August 1944 we started to load onto the ships that would take us to southern France. As news commentators said, we were the best equipped, best trained and the most-experienced troops ever to make an invasion. Our morale was never higher. If old Hitler knew what was coming after him and his henchmen he would have given up before we got there.

We also had the 36th and the 45th divisions joining us and they were extremely well experienced in combat. We all knew so much about war that there was nothing that could stop us. I couldn't explain it but you could just feel the confidence in the air as the ships pulled away from the piers. Of course each man had his own little bag of fear but he wouldn't let this keep him from doing his job of being a skilled soldier. Anyone that didn't have some small bit of fear was as good as dead because a little fear kept people alive.

The L.C.I. that I was aboard pulled away from its Naples's pier on the 11th of August. We cruised around waiting for the rest of the fleet to assemble. There was a cool breeze coming off the Mediterranean Sea that tempered the warm August day that would make the trip more comfortable. If going to war can be comfortable. The following day we dropped anchor near the Island of Corica again waiting for the rest of the fleet to catch up.

On the 15th of August the invasion force would land at Cavalaire in the French Riviera. Of course the Germans knew we were coming with every thing that took place in the Naples area before we left. There had to be some dirty little spies that told the enemy we were coming. Then again we had some nice little spies of our own in France that told where every little machine gun position was on the beach so it worked both ways.

Many things were going to be different on this landing than any of the other three landings I had been on. We had never before encountered underwater obstacles and we were to land during daylight. The plan was to overcome the daylight with massive firepower and by putting more troops ashore faster than they had done in Normandy and with calm seas it was possible.

Charles O. Beardslee |  Prelude |  Signing Up |  Africa |  Sicily |  Italy |  Anzio | 
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