World Battlefronts: Neither Rain Nor Snow . . .

The march on Rome slithered forward. Despite mud, mountains and fresh men brought down from the north by Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, the Allied armies worked into position for a wheeling drive. Lieut. General Mark Clark’s Fifth held the hinge along the Garigliano River, pinned down the bulk of ten Nazi divisions. General Sir Bernard Montgomery’s Eighth butted to the Sangro River, threatened to envelop the German defense of Rome from the Adriatic flank.

It was slow, bitterly difficult fighting. U.S. Colonel Raymond C. Hamilton, just back in Washington from the Italian front, gave a vivid, firsthand account:

Against the Elements. A cold, dismal rain drips steadily on American infantrymen slogging through the mud. Snow caps the high hills. On roadsides, in vineyards and olive groves of “sunny Italy,” troops snatch much-needed rest. Punch-drunk with weariness, shoulders hunched against the chill wetness, they sit with their feet in the gumbo. Hot coffee is a Waldorf luxury. Wood is too wet to burn. When some anonymous genius discovered that the two wrappings around the K rations would burn just long enough to heat a canteen-cup of coffee, he won the soldiers’ undying gratitude.

A big problem is to get blanket rolls up to the front. A soldier needs three blankets against the cold and rain. But he cannot carry them and fight, too. Usually a platoon, when it moves on, leaves its rolls to be picked up by trucks. But trucks are hard to get, and they have a hard time reaching the platoon by night.

Against Demolitions. Said Colonel Hamilton: “This is a war of marching and fighting, more marching and more fighting.” It is also an engineers’ war. The fight goes from height to height along twisting mountain roads that run three miles for every air mile. High-span bridges are blown out everywhere. Once Colonel Hamilton took a trip from divisional to regimental headquarters. In 13 miles, he found four or five bypasses built around bridges that had been demolished by the retreating Germans.

Bulldozers are as necessary as bridge builders. Italian villages are perched around and above the winding roads. Advancing soldiers hear terrific explosions, come upon the ruins of whole villages sprawling across their passage.

Against Darkness. Allied troops do an amazing amount of night fighting. Explained Colonel Hamilton: “After a bridge is blown up, the enemy retreats up the line, where he places his artillery on the heights, his tanks in the pass. The Germans always have the advantage of high ground, and they have very good optical instruments.

“Our engineers bulldoze a grade down to the riverbed, up the other side. Then in the darkness our infantry moves up to the next height with bayonet and grenade.”

Commanders in the field told Colonel Hamilton that training at home ought to stress night fighting. They said: “We mean to take possession at night. Then, let the enemy counterattack at daylight. We can see him.”

Against Fatigue. The slow Allied advance led one officer to grumble: “We will not get back in time to see our grandchildren.” But morale is very good. Colonel Hamilton told the story of a little red-headed private, an Irishman, who crawled within 15 yards of a German tank, knocked it out with his bazooka.

German morale shows no sign of crumbling. But the enemy undergoes an ordeal, too. Letters left behind tell of the terrible American artillery fire, the dread of cold steel, the misery of rain. Wrote one Nazi: “He who knows Italy learns to love Russia.