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We sailed from Biserta and headed for Italy landing Naples. The conditions in Naples at that time were atrocious for civilians. Anything could be had for a tin of bully beef or a packet of hardtack biscuits. Children would come up to us and ask if we wanted their sister, which shows how desperate things were. I will never forget seeing children diving in our swill bins for something to eat. We then moved across Italy to Bari, where we continued practicing our skills with all the various jobs the Royal Engineers have to do. After a period we were on the move again, this time to join the 8th Army, but we were waylaid by the military police and diverted back to near Naples. Here we were told to get on with the job of water-proofing our vehicles. This led to the rumours that we would be invading the south of France, but in fact we landed up at Anzio on the 22nd of January 1944.
I was not on the initial landing, but drove off of an LST (Landing Ship Tank) with my brother sitting in the seat beside me, he had been left behind in North Africa having contracted Jaundice, and caught up with us just in time to grab a lift with me. I drove off, turned left along the coast a short way, then turned right and up into the Padiglioni Woods. The first night I slept under the stars. We were very lucky to have landed without any opposition, but within a couple of days the Germans started pouring troops down from the north of Italy. Suddenly we were hemmed into an area roughly twelve miles along the coast and six miles inland. In the initial landing three American divisions, which were not as big as a British division came ashore. The Americans landed at Nettuno and we at Anzio. Our First British Infantry division was 18,000 strong on landing, and the Division lost 8,868 officers, n.c.o.s and men killed wounded and missing during the battle for Anzio.
On the day after landing on the beachhead the order came to dig in. I dug a hole for myself and slept in it for one night. It was then decided that we should dig dugouts in pairs. Sammy another driver and I dug a hole 8ft long, 6ft deep and 4ft wide covered by timber and sandbags, with a bivouac covering to keep the water out. It had a zig-zagged entrance so that any shrapnel could not enter. That was how we lived from January until the 3rd of June when we broke out of the beachhead. We also had to dig the noses of our trucks in, and surround them with sandbags so that no shrapnel could damage the radiators. You may wonder why after having driven off the LST with my brother, he wasn’t still with me. He was L/Cpl of the signals section, and had to dig in with HQ platoon. This digging had to be done during rain and snowstorms, the weather having turned against us.
The fighting then increased as the enemy tried to push us back into the sea. If it had not been for Hitler’s order to attack us head on, instead of attacking from the flanks, they may well have succeeded. It was our 25 pounder artillery that saved us. Their accurate fire slaughtered the German troops as they ran straight into a hail of steel. Still they came on until they were nearly annihilated. They were some of Hitler’s crack troops, one being the Herman Goring division.
Then came a lull in the fighting, the battle becoming a stalemate, not unlike the First World War, with our infantry occupying the wadis on one side and the enemy a short distance on the other. No man’s land was in between. This meant much work for the 248 Fld Coy, laying mines, lifting mines wiring, and doing whatever the infantry required to be done. It was during this period that my silver spoon came into its own again. All the action at this time had to take place during the period of darkness. I was detailed to load my truck with timber etc, and go up to the front with the Sherwood Foresters’ convoy, this convoy went up every night to take ammunition, food and to relieve those troops who had been there since the night before.
The Foresters wanted a command post building in the wadi they occupied, and it fell to my platoon to carry out this task, This meant that I had to drive in the dark with no lights, and only a tiny axle light from the truck in front to follow. We reached the front and proceeded to unload the timber and stores. The infantry did their change over and went back to their base. I had to stay and take the sappers back to our base before it got daylight. The sappers went down into the wadi to build the command post, leaving me on top with my truck. It was not long before I realized that a Spandau machine gun was letting fly, bullets were zipping past me. There was no room for me down where the work was going on. I softly spoke to the sergeant in charge and told him its bloody dangerous up here, he then told me to go back about half a mile to where there was an advanced dressing station (ADS) and to wait there. A convenient ditch was at the side of the track, in which I spent a lot of time waiting for the sappers to finish their night’s work, and come to where I was waiting to take them back to our base.
This job took a number of nights to complete, and I spent many a miserable lonely hour waiting. I used to go into the ADS where the medical corps was kind enough to give me a cup of tea. One night sensing that something was not right, I lay in the ditch listening to voices. When I thought all was quiet, I went into the ADS only to find that an enemy patrol had been through to check on the wounded laying on the stretchers. Once again my silver spoon saved the day otherwise I may have been taken prisoner.
Life such as it was at Anzio, dragged on with many of my comrades being killed or wounded. Many incidents occurred all of the time. One such comes to mind. We picked up a bell from the ruins of Anzio and it stood outside the cookhouse. It was used to call HQ platoon for their meals, each platoon having their own cook. One day, without warning, an enemy fighter- bomber FW 190 came from out of the sun with all guns blazing. One bullet went through the bell and the next went through poor Alfie Malam, the headquarter’s cook.
On the 60th anniversary of the landings I retuned to Anzio found Alfie’s grave and some others of the 248 who are buried in the Commonwealth Cemetery. I photographed their graves, and on my return home I entered an advert in the local paper for relatives to get in touch, so that if they wished I would send them a photograph I had no replies. However I had better response on going back for the 61st anniversary, and this and the story of the bell can be found on my website which is www.odell.silversurfersatbedford.org.uk/anzio.
Another time we were building a road through some woods when we were shelled, we dived into the ditch beside the road that had been dug to take the water away. With us we had a re-enforcement, who had only joined the company the day before. Unfortunately he had left his jacket on top of the ditch, reached up to get it and was hit and killed. This happened because of his lack of battle experience, the battle-hardened soldiers kept their heads down. My vehicle was the only truck available so I had to take his body to the casualty clearing station, where he was wrapped in a blanket. The next morning Bill Summerfield and myself had to bury him in the field, where graves had been bulldozed ready for the dead, Bill before the war was a Sexton so he knew all about burials. A few months later poor Bill was taken ill, diagnosed with TB and was evacuated back to the UK, he was then admitted to Moggerhanger sanatorium where he died, he is buried in his home village Cardington near to where those who perished when the airship R101 crashed in France, and who were lain to rest in Cardington cemetery.
During this period of stalemate we amused ourselves by playing deck quoits and other games. We even had a football pitch bulldozed in the open space behind the wood. One evening while we were playing an inter platoon match, enemy ME 190s came out of the sun shooting us up. There was an almighty scramble for the nearest ditch, and I dived in and landed on top of our Quartermaster. He let out a yell and so did I as my foot went into his back, which must have really hurt him, He then said don’t bother to come to me for any new clothing, but as no one had been hit, he soon came round and had only been joking.
I was told to go and see the medical officer. Lo and behold my false teeth had been made and followed me from North Africa. They fitted well and it was nice to be able to chew food, such as it was, again. Bringing in supplies of ammunition and food was a mighty big job, many ships being sunk by German E Boats, and aircraft. Only a few LST s could get into the harbour at one time. They were constantly shelled by a massive gun, which we called Anzio Annie. It was on a railway track, and had a range of around thirty odd miles. It was hidden in a tunnel when not in use.
Unloading the shipping bringing our supplies in was a huge problem. The bigger ships bringing in supplies stayed offshore, and were unloaded by DUKWs plying to and fro from ship to shore. We also had backup from the Navy with cruisers, one being HMS Penelope, firing over our heads, and from our dugout could watch much of what was going on out to sea. One of the cruisers sunk was HMS Spartan, hit in Anzio bay by a glider bomb fired from an enemy aircraft. One of our officers watched as the bomb left the aircraft, and was directed on to the ship. The bomb caused a great many casualties with most of the crew lost.
It was through one of the survivors of the Spartan, Geoff Smith that I have managed to return to Anzio, for the 60th and 61st anniversary of the landings. The dignitaries and citizens of Anzio each year on the 22nd of January organise big parades in honour of all who died in the battle. We have been given a certificate of honour, with a picture of a LST unloading and the wording on it says “To those who fought so valiantly, without fearing for their own lives, on the beachhead during the battle of Anzio. Lest we forget. It is signed by the President of the Anzio Beachhead Museum. On going back for the 61st anniversary last January, my wife came with me and we were invited to go out to sea, on an Italian Navy ship with some of the Spartan survivors, where wreaths were laid on the spot where the ship still lies. This was a very moving experience. The first parade last January was to bury a soldier whose body had been found whilst excavation work was being carried out. It was believed he was with The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. After 61 years he was buried with much ceremony, as an unknown soldier, in the beachhead cemetery. We then moved on to the Commonwealth cemetery, where some of the Bedford 248 Field Company are buried, Colonel Mike Montague (the British Defense Attaché to Rome) and myself laid our wreaths at the memorial, stepped back and saluted while the Last Post was played. All this was very sad for me and I’m not ashamed to say brought tears to my eyes.
However, back to the battle, and this story is also on my website. The front line for the First Division became the flyover bridge. This was about six miles inland. You came out of the woods and then had a couple of miles of dead straight road leading up to it. The powers that be decided that they wanted a tunnel dug into one of the embankments to observe the enemy on the other side. The bridge consisted of a road over the railway and the road to Rome. At first we went up to the bridge in daylight. However we were shelled constantly, so the run up to the flyover became a night-time job. This meant that the driver had to take the sappers up when it got dark, bring those back who had been tunnelling during the day, and do the same changeover again before daylight came. This was a very nasty task. I drove an American White scout car, which being half armoured gave us some protection. However, to drive along in the dark with no lights, and having to avoid knocked-out tanks on the way was difficult to say the least. To make matters worse the enemy had 88 millimetre guns firing shells through the bridge, which whistled by as we were creeping along. We used to drive along the road to the flyover; turn left over the railway lines, and then were in comparative safety sheltered by the embankment. During this tunnelling, two of the sappers were buried when a shell exploded on top of the embankment. Luckily they were pulled out and were ok although shaken up.
Another rather funny incident took place when an enemy cook wandered through the flyover in the dark with a large canister in each hand containing stew. He was relieved of his canisters and taken prisoner but he managed to escape. The sappers ate his stew and carried on tunnelling. I wonder what excuse he made to his comrades about their missing meal, if and when he arrived back in his own lines. During this period and while the tunnel was getting near to completion, the sappers were amazed to see a what looked like a small tank coming through the bridge, this was another invention by the Germans, and was indeed a tank roughly six feet long filled with explosive and controlled by radio, and was intended to be guided onto a suitable target, one was captured intact, defused and brought back to our lines, where it was inspected with much interest.
When completed the tunnel was a fine piece of work, and used by the infantry and artillery in comparative safety to observe what the enemy were doing on the other side. The flyover bridge is still there, more or less as it was, with trains and traffic flowing under and over on roads which are different to the shell-cratered track we had to crawl along. The bridge is kept as a memorial to those who lost their lives fighting around it.
One day an artillery officer came up to me, and to my surprise he was Ron Fortnum, a man from my Sandy. His Father owned the fish shop. Somehow he had found out that my brother and I were on the beachhead, probably because of our company, the 248, was a Bedford unit. It turned out that he was a pilot in the army air corps and flew a Lysander. His job was to direct our artillery on to enemy targets. This was a very dangerous task, as you stood a good chance of being shot down by your own guns. In fact this did happen to one of his comrades on the beachhead. During our conversation he asked me that if I wished, he could probably arrange for me to go up with him and have a look at the beachhead from above, to which my answer to that was, not bloody likely I can see enough of it from down here thank you very much. I never saw anymore of him after that meeting, but I do know that he survived the war.
We were supported as well from the air with American B 17s (Flying Fortresses) and Mitchell bombers, who came over in waves and pounded targets behind the enemy lines, and we could do nothing but watch as some were hit and fell from the sky, and it was with some relief to see parachutes drifting down. The enemy anti aircraft fire directed at the American bombers always started exploding over our heads. We were ordered to wear our tin hats all the time when above ground. This led to me getting a ticking off by the red caps, when instead of wearing it I had laid it on the battery box beside me whilst driving my truck. RAF Spitfires were often involved in dogfights with enemy ME109s overhead. I watched as one Spitfire that had been shot up, came down quite close to our dugout. We looked out onto an open field with two trees in it that were just a few yards apart. The Spitfire dived between the trees and turned upside down with the pilot hanging from it. What a lucky escape he had as he only broke a leg and an arm!

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