Settled Front

The Italian fronts were dug in and stabilized. It was a return to trench warfare, with modern modifications--a stalemate that U.S. military professionals once vowed they would never tolerate again. Crack German resistance, plus a shortage of Allied troops, had made a mock of their vow. Life behind the fronts had settled into the jumbled, fantastic pattern of 1917-19.

Anzio: the Pawns. The little town leaned down to the harbor in a frozen cascade of wreckage. German shells still battered it and geysered around busy harbor craft shuttling between ships and shore. Soldiers lived in holes in the ground, making the best of a poor situation. Items:

P: A club was organized: The Protective Order of Moles. To share the deep wine cellar in a limestone cliff, one must swear that he had been driven to the molehill by a "Whistling Willie" or "Jerry, the Bomb Dropper."

P: A new step was recognized: the Anzio Amble, a shuffling, crouching gait while hugging the walls on the lee side of German artillery bursts.

P: 20,000 gallons of G.I. beer, brewed in Naples, arrived in Anzio.

P: A lieutenant claimed that a snake had a dugout below his, that whenever he drew a bead on the serpent it fox-holed.

Naples: the Knights. Naples, partially cleaned up and restored, was taking on some of the tawdry shimmer of Cairo. Though only 50 miles from the war, life had grown easy. The sea was warm, spring flowers were out, well-dressed girls appeared on the crowded sidewalks, restaurateurs and private citizens unearthed hidden stocks of liquor; hurdy-gurdies were playing. Taking a hint from the tactical situation, staff officers began to stabilize working hours, began to grouse at war's overtime.

P: Fifteen hundred American M.P.s were on duty to handle traffic, crime, tipsy soldiers. Two streams of human traffic--Americans, English, Scots, Canadians, French, Poles, Italians, and striped-bath-robed Goumiers--flowed up & down the sidewalks into Via Roma.

P: Black markets flourished. Hijacking of U.S. provision trucks at night was common until armed guards were ordered to shoot for results. G.I. blankets brought $15 apiece on the black market; women dyed them, cut them up to make spring coats.

P: Enlisted WACs and officers of the Fifteenth Air Force, denied the right to mingle unless engaged, filed 14 applications for betrothal. Told that the announcement would be sent to home-town papers, 13 withdrew application.

P: Invitations to Italian villas were social prizes. Cocktail parties grew more expansive. New and more luxurious nightclubs opened, with tail-coated waiters. Marlene Dietrich, in clinging white lace, was making camp appearances, singing throatily. Ten movie houses for Americans alone had been opened.

P: "There ain't anything they won't do for a can of meat and beans," said one dough-foot in wondering tones. The venereal rate rose higher than in Britain or North Africa.

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