Operation Shingle - Background

Background

At the end of 1943, following the Allied invasion of Italy, Allied forces were bogged down at the Gustav Line, a defensive line across Italy south of the strategic objective of Rome. The terrain of central Italy had proved ideally suited to defense, and Field Marshal Albert Kesselring took full advantage.

Operation Shingle was originally conceived by Winston Churchill in December 1943, as he lay recovering from pneumonia in Marrakesh. His concept was to land two divisions at Anzio, bypassing German forces in central Italy, and take Rome, the strategic objective of the current Battle of Rome. By January he had recovered and was badgering his commanders for a plan of attack, accusing them of not wanting to fight but of being interested only in drawing pay and eating rations. General Harold Alexander, commander of Allied Armies in Italy, had already considered such a plan since October using five divisions. However, the 5th Army did not have either the divisions or the means to transport them. Clark proposed landing a reinforced division to divert German troops from Monte Cassino. This second landing, however, instead of failing similarly, would hold "the shingle" for a week in expectation of a breakthrough at Cassino and so the operation was named Shingle.

The Anzio and Nettuno beachheads are located at the northwestern end of a tract of reclaimed marshland, formerly the Pontine Marshes, now the Pontine Fields (Agro Pontino). Previously uninhabited and uninhabitable due to mosquitoes carrying malaria, Roman armies marched as quickly as possible across it on the military road, the Via Appia. The marsh was bounded on one side by the sea and on others by mountains: the Monti Albani, the Monti Lepini, the Monti Ausoni and further south the Monti Aurunci (where the allies had been brought to a halt before Monte Cassino). Overall these mountains are referenced by the name Monti Laziali, the mountains of Lazio, the ancient Latium. Invading armies from the south had the choice of crossing the marsh or to take the only other road to Rome, the Via Latina, running along the eastern flanks of the Monti Laziali, risking entrapment, as had been a Roman army at the Battle of the Caudine Forks in 321BC. The marshes were turned into cultivatable land in the 1930s under the command of the dictator, Benito Mussolini. Canals (over which the battle was fought) and pumping stations were built to remove the brackish water from the land which divided it into personal tracts with new stone houses for colonists from north Italy. Mussolini also founded the five cities destroyed by the battle.

When Truscott's 3rd Division was first selected for the operation, he pointed out to Clark that the position was a death trap and there would be no survivors. Agreeing, Clark canceled the operation, but Prime Minister Churchill revived it. Apparently the two allies had different concepts: the Americans viewed such a landing as another distraction from Cassino, but if they could not break through at Cassino, the men at Anzio would be trapped. Churchill and the British high command envisioned an outflanking movement ending with the capture of Rome. Mediterranean Theatre commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower, leaving to take command of Operation Overlord, left the decision up to Churchill with a warning about German unpredictability. Both sides finally agreed that the troops could not remain at Anzio, but Lucas received somewhat equivocal orders. He was to lead the Fifth Army's U.S. VI Corps in a surprise landing in the Anzio/Nettuno area, and make a rapid advance into the Alban Hills to cut German communications and "threaten the rear of the German XIV Panzer Corps" under General Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin. It was hoped that this threat would draw Germany's forces away from the Cassino area and facilitate an Allied breakthrough there. No one saw the point of taking the Alban Hills, nor was Churchill's idea of a flanking movement expressed.