大象传媒

Anzio

I took part in five major Allied landings during WW2 and Anzio was the worst. You鈥檇 never have known that to begin with, though. I remember it started off on a clear, rather beautiful night in the Mediterranean, about 30 miles south of Rome. I was a Royal Navy signalman on a tank landing ship 鈥� LST410 - loaded with twenty Sherman tanks and I don鈥檛 know how many trucks and troops, bound for one of the beaches on a 15-mile stretch of coast. Before the war it had been a big holiday resort centred on the two towns of Anzio and Nettuno and it was almost as peaceful now. I had no idea just how rough it was going to get.

We鈥檇 already made two landings in Italy 鈥� in Sicily and Salerno 鈥� and they hadn鈥檛 been too bad. We鈥檇 liberated Naples and had quite a good time there. I even went to the opera for the first 鈥� and only 鈥� time in my life. It wasn鈥檛 in an opera house, though, it was on a tank landing ship 鈥� probably the first and only time this has ever happened, too 鈥� with Mount Vesuvius for a backdrop. There must have been a few hundred of us in the audience, packed on the deck, and the music carrying over the Bay of Naples. There was a feeling that the tide had turned in our favour. The Allied fleets dominated the Med and we had complete air supremacy and after the landings in Salerno 鈥� in September 1943 - the Italians surrendered. But then the Germans poured in troops and Panzer armoured divisions and established a highly-fortified line 鈥� the Gustav Line 鈥� across the narrowest part of the peninsular about 80 miles south of Rome from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Adriatic. The Allies got bogged down and for a while it was stalemate.

The purpose of Anzio was to land tanks and troops behind that line.

I was in one of three ships targeting a small beach on the 15-mile stretch of landings in the early hours of January 22nd, 1944. And at first, as I say, it was unopposed. The sea was flat calm, it was a fine night, no-one was firing at us 鈥� and although there must have been hundreds of ships involved in the invasion all we could see was the ship on each side of us and the dark coastline ahead. We ran up on to the beach dropped the ramp and the tanks rolled off the top deck just as dawn was breaking. We were anxious to get rid of them, of course, because we were a sitting duck there on the beach but still no one was firing at us and I remember as we kedged off and started the engines again the sun was up and it was a beautiful blue sky and warm 鈥� very warm for January 鈥� and I was thinking, well, that鈥檚 the end of that, then. But it wasn鈥檛.

What we didn鈥檛 know was that the tanks we鈥檇 cheerfully unloaded were heading into a whole world of trouble. Just beyond the beaches was a broken ground of marshes and rivers and rain-sodden valleys 鈥� the worst kind of country for tanks. The landings had taken the Germans by surprise but they poured in some of their best divisions and took over the high ground and kept us penned in within about four or five miles of the beachhead. So by the time we got back to Naples it had all gone pear-shaped. We took on another load of tanks and trucks and troops and headed back 鈥� this time for Anzio itself. It was a small harbour, then, a bit like St Ives in Cornwall, with a very narrow entrance and a breakwater and the mountains rising up directly behind it. The Germans had got a big gun up there 鈥� Big Bertha we called it 鈥� they can鈥檛 have been able to see what they were firing at but they鈥檇 got a fix on the harbour entrance and they kept lobbing shells in every few minutes. You鈥檇 wait until they fired and then make a dash for it and hope you got through before they鈥檇 reloaded. We鈥檇 just done this one time and were heading out to sea with sighs of relief all round when the look-out spotted a German bomber. It was so high we weren鈥檛 that bothered and we were all looking up at it 鈥� I remember it was a clear blue sky 鈥� and we saw what looked like a light underneath that kind of detached itself from the belly of the plane. I realised later it must have been the sun reflecting on metal but at the time it looked more like a flare. Anyway we were kind of discussing it, what do you think that light is, you know, and then suddenly one of the officers yells out 鈥淕lider Bomb!鈥� Apparently he鈥檇 read this AFO (Admiralty Fleet Orders) about a new German weapon that had sunk 17 Allied ships at Bari 鈥� a glider bomb that was slung under the belly of a Heinkel bomber and homed into the target by radio-control. So that stopped us being so complacent. There were three ships in line ahead, all coming out of Anzio harbour, and we were the second in line and it was coming straight at us. Now we didn鈥檛 have much in the way of armament, being a tank landing ship 鈥� just one 4鈥� gun aft and half a dozen Oerlikons 鈥� which were 20mm light anti-aircraft guns. We used to joke about one of the gunners 鈥� called Lefty Quayle 鈥� because he was cross-eyed. But we were so taken by surprise only Lefty was doing any firing. So I was watching this thing coming at us and thinking the only thing that鈥檚 going to save me is a cross-eyed gunner鈥� Then at the very last minute he must have hit something because it veered sharply off to the left and hit the sea with a huge explosion about 20 yards ahead of the third ship in line.

We didn鈥檛 know it at the time but there were about 18 Heinkels attacking from the north 鈥� we couldn鈥檛 see them but they could see us silhouetted against the sun and they had released six glider bombs. All the ships in the anchorage had been ordered to put up smoke as cover but there was a strong breeze blowing it away. We were still heading out to sea and a British cruiser passed us at full speed in the opposite direction, making smoke and all guns blazing. I heard later she was the Spartan, newly commissioned out of Devonport. She was making smoke from stem to stern but it was blowing behind her so she wasn鈥檛 covered. We were so busy getting over the attack on us I didn鈥檛 see much 鈥� just the flash of the explosion 鈥� I heard later it hit her just aft the funnel and blew up in the boiler room. A big fire developed and she heeled over to port. We were well out to sea by then and heading back to Naples. Apparently about an hour after being hit she had to be abandoned and sank with the loss of about 50 men.

That was my last action in Italy. Shortly afterwards we were ordered back to the UK 鈥� we didn鈥檛 know why 鈥� but it was for the D-Day landings. I had other things on my mind. On April 28th I got married to a Wren called Helen Hunter, my girlfriend from Liverpool鈥� I wouldn鈥檛 see her again for six months, courtesy of a German mine we hit in the English Channel just after the Normandy landings, but that鈥檚 another story.

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