Third Infantry Division At The Battle Of Anzio-Nettuno

Lt.-Col Gregory A. Harding

• Publisher: Lucknow Books
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781782895046
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

This is a historical narrative of the Third Infantry Division's experiences at the Anzio-Nettuno beachhead from 22 January to 2 June 1944. It identifies major contributing factors to the Third Infantry Division's battlefield success at the battle of Anzio-Nettuno. The battle is broken down into five distinct stages and investigated in a chronological manner. Potentially significant factors are evaluated in each stage of the battle and include terrain, weather, Allied air superiority, and the quality of military intelligence available to the Third Infantry Division's commander. Also compared for each side are the quality of senior leadership, previous combat experience, the quality and quantity of manpower replacements, and available artillery resources. This thesis concludes that the Third Infantry Division's battlefield success at Anzio-Nettuno appears to have been, to a large extent, a result of the quality and stability of the division's senior leadership, failures and missteps on the part of the higher German command echelons, the division's masterful employment of field artillery, and a highly effective training program.

 

CHAPTER 1 — INTRODUCTION

The Allied invasion at Anzio-Nettuno on 22 January 1944 (Operation SHINGLE) remains one of the most controversial operations undertaken by the Allies during World War II. Much has been written on the subject by authors examining the American, British and German perspectives. Most of what has been written deals with questions at the strategic or operational levels of war; e.g., Was Operation SHINGLE necessary? Was the size of the invasion force too small to achieve the intended results? Was SHINGLE the US Fifth Army's main effort or a supporting attack? Why did General John Lucas (VI Corps commander) not advance on the Alban Hills when he had the chance? And, why did General Mark Clark (US Fifth Army commander) disregard General Sir Harold Alexander's (15th Army Group commander) desire for the VI Corps main effort to be directed toward Valmontone during the breakout from the beachhead in May 1944?

This study is intended to add to the body of knowledge of Operation SHINGLE at the tactical level. It seeks to, in a chronological pattern, answer the question “what were the major contributing factors to the Third Infantry Division's successes at Anzio-Nettuno from the initial assault in January 1944 through the breakout from the beachhead in May 1944?” Subordinate questions to be examined include: “What effect did senior leadership have upon the division's operations?”, “What effect did German units opposed to it have upon the division?” and “What effect did the division's previous combat experiences have upon it at Anzio?”

Little has been published to tell the story of Anzio-Nettuno at the tactical level. It is told in a single chapter of the Third Infantry Division's World War II history, and only a single chapter is included in the history of two of the division's regiments. The situation is similar for the Thirty Fourth and Forty Fifth Infantry Divisions, as well as the First Armored Division. Most of what has been written about the battle at the tactical level fails to analyze in detail the effects of leadership, weather, enemy forces, or previous unit experiences on the outcome. These factors obviously are critical to any understanding of what actually occurred. Why study the Third Infantry Division's experiences and not one of the other American divisions inside the beachhead? Of the five American divisions that attacked out of the Anzio-Nettuno beachhead in May 1944 (the Third Infantry, Thirty Fourth Infantry, Thirty Sixth Infantry, Forty Fifth Infantry, and First Armored), only the Third Infantry Division had been in the beachhead for virtually the entire battle. That, plus the fact that the division came through the battle with its impressive reputation as a fighting division further enhanced and finished the war as one of the truly outstanding divisions in the European Theater of Operations make it the logical choice for this study.

The methodology selected for this study involves the use of numerous primary (written and oral) and secondary sources as well as a terrain walk over the battlefield itself. Many of the numerous secondary sources are used to provide a background setting at the strategic and operational levels for the research. Primary source documents originating from both the American and German sides are used to provide the majority of data detailing the day-to-day operations at the tactical level. These primary source documents have been augmented with personal interviews conducted by the author with former members of the Third Infantry Division during a terrain walk in June 1994 of the division's World War II route of advance in Italy.

This thesis is organized in a chronological manner. It begins by providing background material to identify the complex strategic and operational issues affecting Operation SHINGLE. The second chapter contains a discussion of the perceived/real need for an amphibious end run to cut German lines of communication between Rome and the Gustav Line, where the Fifth Army was stalled. It also addresses why Anzio-Nettuno was finally chosen as the objective versus where the Germans expected the invasion to come, i.e., beaches nearer Rome or farther north. The chapter presents extracts from a superb terrain analysis of the Anzio-Nettuno area prepared during the invasion planning by US Fifth Army engineers. It also includes a discussion of German pre-invasion preparations to include invasion alert plans, disposition of units and headquarters to the rear of the German Tenth Army and in the invasion area, as well as German beliefs regarding the expected timing and location of the anticipated assault. The chapter also introduces the Third Infantry Division of 22 January 1944. It examines the division's previous combat experiences in North Africa and Sicily as well as on the Italian mainland, its special training in preparation for Anzio-Nettuno, and the division’s senior leadership.

The next chapter of the study examines the Third Infantry Division's experiences during the initial assault and establishment of the beachhead against almost negligible German resistance. It discusses the magnitude of the Third Infantry Division's responsibilities on the VI Corps beachhead line regarding overall frontage, as well as the suitability of terrain in the division's portion of the beachhead for defense against German counterattacks. The D Day activities of the division are analyzed beginning with the landing of the division's assault battalions, the movement off the beach itself, the establishment of the initial beachhead line, and first attempts to expand the beachhead beyond the initial line. The initial German responses to the mission are also examined and analyzed.

In the next chapter, the study examines attempts by the division to expand its portion of the beachhead beginning on 24/25 January 1944, culminating with the failure to capture Cisterna and the shift to a defensive posture. It will discuss in depth the early attempts to infiltrate past German outposts and strongpoints at small unit level, and the eventual shift to large scale attacks using virtually the entire Third Infantry Division.

The violent German counterattacks which attempted to hurl the VI Corps back into the sea are the third phase of the battle to be studied. The Third Infantry Division's success in withstanding the very determined German counterattacks, pressed home violently in an attempt to destroy the beachhead, are discussed in detail. Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's and General Eberhard von Mackensen's differing views on the plan to counterattack are examined in an attempt to identify potential contributing factors to the failure of both counterattacks.

Next, the study examines in detail the resulting stalemate, which lasted for approximately two and one-half months, until the final phase of the battle, the breakout. During the stalemate, the Germans never again seriously threatened the beachhead, yet the Third Infantry Division was not strong enough to crack the German ring around the beachhead, without external pressure by the US Fifth and British Eighth Armies in mid to late May. This study discusses changes in the Third Infantry Division's task organization and examines in detail highly specialized training for the upcoming breakout.

Finally, the division's breakout from the beachhead and advance to Valmontone are analyzed, beginning with the Third Division's capture of Cisterna. The advance to Cori and through the Velletri Gap to Artena are examined in detail, as are the actions of the division's German opponents, the 362d and 715th Infantry Divisions. The climax of the breakout was the final battle before Valmontone between the Third Infantry Division and its old adversary, the Hermann Göring Panzer Division.

The thesis ends with conclusions regarding the significance of major factors contributing to the success of the Third Infantry Division at the battle of Anzio-Nettuno. Factors identified and discussed include the division's senior leadership, its masterful employment of field artillery, failures and missteps on the part of the German defenders, and procedures for ensuring highly trained and well-rested soldiers prior to critical points in the battle. The role played by weather and air superiority on the Third Division's success are also discussed. Appropriate maps with overlays are included in the appendix.

CHAPTER 2 — BACKGROUND

Strategic and Geographic Overview

As dawn arrived at Anzio-Nettuno on 22 January 1944, high noon had come and gone for the Third Reich, but it was still to be fifteen and one-half terrible and bloody months before the nightmare ended. None of the soldiers of the Third Division assaulting across the beaches of Nettuno that morning knew this and many, in fact probably most, expected the war to be over much sooner.

What those Third Infantry Division soldiers did know, those who had been keeping up with the war news, was that on the eastern front the Germans had suffered a crushing defeat at Stalingrad in February 1943 and had suffered another terrible defeat at Kursk that July. Some of their leaders at division, corps, and army headquarters would have also known that the Russian summer offensive from July through November of 1943 had resulted in the liberation of Smolensk in September and the recapture of Kiev in November. The Russian winter offensive in the south began in December in the Pripet Swamp and along the Dnieper River, while in the north Novgorod was liberated and the siege of Leningrad lifted, both just days before Anzio-Nettuno.{1}

In the west, the buildup for Operation OVERLORD continued. Although German U-boat sailors continued to fight desperately and valiantly, the Battle of the Atlantic had already reached its turning point in May of 1943.{2} The line of communication between the United States and the United Kingdom would never again be seriously challenged during the war.

Over occupied Europe, the strategic bomber offensive was in high gear as decided at the Trident Conference between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Washington during May of 1943.{3} Operation POINTBLANK, the around-the-clock combined British and American bomber offensive, had already introduced German citizens of Wilhelmshafen, Hamburg, Berlin, Schweinfurt, Regensburg, and many others, to the concept of total war during the summer and fall of 1943.{4} While full of great promise from the Allied perspective, the strategic bombing campaign was proving problematic for not only the Germans, but for the Allies as well. Innovative German tactics and use of new technologies as well as predictable Allied tactics resulted in losses of Allied aircraft and air crews, which were unsustainable over the long term. No air force in the world could sustain indefinitely the casualty rates of the raids on Schweinfurt and Regensburg. As the Third Division prepared to conduct the amphibious assault at Anzio-Nettuno, the Allied air forces continued to improve their tactics and reduce their proportionate losses, while continuing to hit German targets. The Germans, however, were not accepting the status quo either. They continued to develop new tactics and weapons for their day and night fighters and were so effective in dispersing much of their industrial production capability that 1944 would actually see production go up from 1943 levels in many categories.

In the Mediterranean theater, the British Eighth Army captured the airfield at Foggia in late September 1943. This forward operational base allowed the Allied air forces to bomb southern Germany and the Rumanian oil fields at Ploesti more effectively than possible from North African bases.{5} Field Marshal Albert Kesselring was proved devastatingly correct when he observed:

Enemy possession of the North African coast meant long-range bomber raids on southern Germany and opened up invasion possibilities at any point in the south of Europe. With every step the Allies advanced towards the north the conditions for an air war on southern Germany were improved.{6}

While things were progressing towards the American and British strategic goal of defeating Germany by January 1944, perhaps nowhere else were the British and American points of view on how to achieve that goal more visibly at odds than in the Mediterranean theater. The Italian campaign was a source of British/American friction dating from the closing days of the North African campaign. After the defeat of the Axis forces in North Africa, the Allies were faced with the problem of where to go next. The Allies had large numbers of troops committed to the Mediterranean theater in 1943 which, no matter how badly the Americans wanted, could not be employed in 1943 in France. These same troops could, however, be employed in Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Italy, or the Balkans to pull German troops away from France (as well as the Russian Front) and to try to knock Italy from the war.{7}

The British perspective was born of hundreds of years opposing European continental powers. Most of the senior British leaders were survivors of the massive butchery of the First World War. Their personal and national history told them that to successfully defeat a great continental power, such as Germany, they must build and manipulate alliances; subvert their weaker opponents, e.g., Italy; and attack their enemy by sea and air on the periphery until he was weakened sufficiently for the final blow.{8} Those who had survived the slaughter of Ypres, the Somme, and Passchendaele and were now leading the British forces vowed they would not forget nor would they repeat the mistakes of their predecessors.

The British obsession with the indirect approach, the “soft under-belly” as Churchill referred to it, placed the British at odds with the American strategic school of thought on how best to defeat Germany. While the British had agreed to Operation OVERLORD, the invasion of Normandy, they were not as keen to undertake it as promptly as were the Americans. Churchill wanted to attack through the Mediterranean and Balkans and, in conjunction with the Russian front, weaken the Germans so badly that their ability to successfully counter OVERLORD would be severely diminished.{9} He was dissu...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• ABSTRACT
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER 2 - BACKGROUND
• CHAPTER 3 - INITIAL ASSAULT AND BEACHHEAD ESTABLISHMENT
• CHAPTER 4 - ATTEMPTS TO EXPAND BEACHHEAD - (23 JANUARY 1 FEBRUARY 1944)
• CHAPTER 5 - GERMAN COUNTERATTACKS (FEBRUARY MARCH 1944)
• CHAPTER 6 - STALEMATE (MARCH MAY 1944)
• CHAPTER 7 - BREAKOUT (23 MAY 2 JUNE 1944)
• CHAPTER 8 - CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
• APPENDIX - MAPS
• BIBLIOGRAPHY