Third Landing

The Tyrrhenian Sea lay calm. Somewhere above the moonlit clouds purred Allied planes. To the east, two miles away, loomed Italy's dark shape. Landing craft churned towards Nettuno's eroded, frosted beach. Tense, eager men jumped into the icy rollers, waded ashore.

Thus last week began the third Allied landing in Italy. Of the three, this was the best planned, most spectacular, potentially the most important. With luck it would end the campaign for southern Italy and Rome within a few weeks.

Stalemate's End. For 141 days, the Allies had painfully slogged northward over rugged mountain folds. The progress was costly in blood and time, gave the Germans opportunity to fortify new lines.

On Nettuno's beaches last week, the Allied Command tested the alternative to frontal assault. It worked. The Allies had found a short cut to Rome; they had also outflanked the enemy, massed to meet them in the south.

Twice before the Allied Command had planned a flanking blow. In mid-September all was ready to strike at Rome with airborne troops. The men were already in their planes when Marshal Pietro Badoglio withdrew pledged support, compelled the Allies to give up the operation.

Weeks later General Dwight D. Eisenhower blueprinted the bold coup at Nettuno. But December's bad weather, the lack of ships, the High Command's reluctance to release the needed men and supplies delayed the plan.

It's So Easy. For weeks, landing craft cluttered up Allied-held harbors in the south. Countless Italians bandied the news, until it seeped across the front line to the Germans, across the Mediterranean to Algiers. Allied intelligence officers cursed, still hoped that the elements of surprise in time and place would fool the foe.

The enemy was fooled. When the invasion forces swept ashore some 30 miles below Rome, they met no opposition. Three crack German divisions which might have produced another Salerno had been ingeniously lured south, to save the sagging Gustav Line (see map, p. 26).

U.S. and British soldiers crouched on the dark beaches, waited for ambushes, hunted for snipers. None was seen. German batteries four miles inland kept their peace. Of the few Germans in sight, four were drunks caught in a staff car, four others were found asleep. The few casualties were caused by mines. Wrote astonished Associated Pressman Don Whitehead: "It was so easy . . . American troops are standing with their mouths open and shaking their heads in utter amazement."

Hours too late, the German Command recovered: 18 dive-bombers came over to attack the invasion ships. But the beachhead was already secure, Allied patrols were halfway to Rome, tanks and Bren gun carriers were ashore, Allied airmen controlled the skies. If the Germans planned a strong counterattack, no hint of it had come in the first, crucial 48 hours. Instead, Berlin reported new Allied landings at Gaeta and Terracina, just behind the German defense lines.

Teamwork Is All. In preparation, Allied aircraft had ranged far and wide, attacking German railheads, highways, bridges, airfields, fuel dumps. Before D-day arrived, only one German fighter field within easy range of the Nettuno beachhead remained usable. On the invasion's second day, the Luftwaffe made only 100 sorties to the Allies' 1,300.

Almost as important was the land-sea teamwork. Under the quiet, good-natured Iowan, Vice Admiral Frank Jacob Lowry, U.S.N., an international naval force (U.S., British, French, Greek, Dutch) raked the beaches ahead of the invaders. Germans put the fleet's strength at two battleships, three aircraft carriers, five cruisers--a piddling force by comparison with the fleets which moved on Sicily, but enough for last week's economical operation. The men who went ashore were battle-tested, battle-hungry: U.S. Rangers, British Commandos, soldiers of Lieut. General Mark Clark's toughened Fifth Army.

Traps for Trappers. Invasion at Nettuno was coupled with heavy punches at the Gustav Line to the south. On its lower end, the Fifth's Tommies crossed the 70-yard-wide Garigliano River, captured the ruined town of Minturno, whence the old Roman Via Appia streaks across the Pontine Marshes to Rome, 76 miles away.

U.S. and French troops crossed the 40-yard-wide Rapido, inched closer to Cassino's whitewashed walls, on the strategic Via Casilina to Rome. But the U.S. doughboys ran short of ammunition, turned to bayonets, retreated back to the icy river's right bank.

At both Minturno and Cassino the foe was strong, skilled, determined. Allied sources put German strength at 100,000 men, guessed that the German Command feared a major Allied thrust here, had perhaps planned an all-out counteroffensive to push the Allies back to Naples. Now this force was in a trap whose jaws had yet to be closed.

Objective: Corpses. Rome is a rich political prize: Italy's nerve center, one of Europe's great capitals, the heart of Catholicism. But as the Russians had found out, men killed rather than cities gained decide wars. Rome's capture is less important than the destruction of Field Marshal Albert von Kesselring's army in southern Italy.

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