Talk:Battle of Anzio

Misc

Might it be good to include some reference to the end of the operation?

Yes. I am puzzled because, strictly speaking, "Operation Shingle" is merely the initial landing and consolidation. Yet there is no real article on the full Battle of Anzio, despite its importance to the Italian campaign and its (slight, but not zero) influence on the Normandy campaign.

References to "battle of Anzio" elsewhere redirect to this article. It's good as far as it goes.

Maybe there should be a Battle of Anzio article that incoroporates this?

DMorpheus 17:37, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

This article is a mix of info about Operation Shingle (the landings) plus casualty figures for the entire battle of Anzio that follows. The actual Shingle casualties were only a few dozen - naval forces lost more men than the ground forces. I suggest this be re-cast as the Battle of Anzio, with Operation Shingle as one part.

Yup, really confused about this. Was just gonna write about it. What parts of the article concern the actual battle for the town? Are the casualties for both operations or not? To me Anzio has always been the landing and the battle for the town...But meh. 79.136.64.95 (talk) 07:36, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Blame consensus in intro?

Unless I am reading it wrong the intro seems to blame Lucas rather than Clark. I don't know enough to have an opinion either way (and my opinion would count for naught lacking citations anyway). I was wondering if that was a consensus among historians so well known that it did not require explanation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.63.9.46 (talk) 04:06, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

A battalion of the Italian Social Republic (RSI) in Anzio

In Anzio (beginning from March 3, 1944) fought the battalion "Barbarigo" of the Italian Social Republic: 1,180 soldiers. More than 563 were the Fallen of this unit. Near Nettuno there is a Cemetery for the Fallen. On June 1-4 1944, at Castel di Decima (Rome), fought the parachute regiment "Folgore" (1,500 men)of the RSI to protect the German disengagement.

The "Barbarigo" battalion precisely fought in the Nettuno zone, not in Anzio, and the Cemetery for the Fallen ("Campo della Memoria") is in the territory of Nettuno.--Marco Riggi Nettunense (talk) 12:55, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Angelita myth?

* Angelita was the name of a little girl, a war orphan abandoned child, found by soldier Christopher S. Hayes of Royal Scots Fusilers. She became the platoon mascott, but few days after a grenade killed her. Anzio's people erected a monument in Angelita's memory, unveiled in the International Year of the Child (1979).

According to D'Este this story is a myth. The trooper who 'found' the girl was not in Anzio at the time and the rest of the Regiment had no knowledge of the incident. I am not sure if the memorial exists or not but the story is bogus according to D'Este's Fatal Decision: Anzio and the Battle for Rome. DMorpheus 21:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

• The Angelita's memorial bronze statue exists, it is possible to see in Anzio, almost directly on the beach. It stands in memory not of a myth but of children victims of wars.

Luiclemens 21:15 29 November 2006

Re: Epilogue entry 20/3/7

I'd meant to add a bit more to my explanation of my new para in 'Epilogue'. Churchill's justifies his position in his WW2 biography and I can accept his justifications. I wanted to put something in there to state and link to his view, as there's a couple of sentences in the page which, to some extent, case some doubt on the point/purpose/use of the operation and the quality of Churchill's judgement in the matter. Which is fine of course, but I thought there should be defense on behalf of him and a pointer to said defence. Of course, the items I've included are not O.R.; they're taken from his journal. I hope what I've said is reasonable and ok. Roger. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Roger M.E. Lightly (talk • contribs) 18:09, 20 March 2007 (UTC).

Moving

I'd like to rename this article to "Battle of Anzio", are their any objections?

It makes sense since Shingle was just the landing and the article has been expanded to cover the subsequent operations in the bridgehead, the breaking of the Caesar C line and the capture of Rome. However, you need to be careful how this is done because by just renaming the article, all the numerous links elsewhere to this page will go dead. We need to continue to have an Operation Shingle page redirecting to the new Anzio page (unless you fancy tracking down all the Shingle references and changing them!). I'm no expert on Wikipedia technicalities so I think you need some advice from someone who understands the unintended consequences of the different options. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 12:43, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Anzio

Should this be a redirect or a new article? It is a stub on pl wiki (pl:Bitwa pod Anzio).--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:27, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Anzio M.A.W. Rogers VC

Sgt Rogers lost his life but won his VC at Anzio; why is there no mention of this in the article? Regards Robin Forster —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.254.84.111 (talk) 12:29, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Sgt Rogers seems to be lost in the mists of time = six books were on the shelves last year about anzio and not one of them mentioned him —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.147.146.1 (talk) 21:48, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Canada's involvement

I searched for the word "canada" and "canadian" in the article, and only found Canada listed under Belligerents and in the Categories section of the article. Was the Canadian Army actually part of this battle? And if so, why is it not mentioned throughout the text of the article? Sixer Fixer (talk) 13:34, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I wanted to ask the same question. I'd add that we have a fairly detailed order of battle which does not mention any Canadian units. john k (talk) 03:55, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Canada's involvement was through First Special Service Force which was a joint US / Canadian brigade. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 07:58, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps this ought to be clarified. john k (talk) 15:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Start Class rating for this article?

I would propose that this article is not 'start class' but should be upgraded to A or at least B class1812ahill (talk) 16:45, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Addressing the tag

I'm going to address the tag on the intro. I think I see what the problem is; the general significance of the battle and the train of events has been inundated by a flood of detail causing a terrible miasma in the general comprehension. What I want to do is cut through the swamp with overall conduits and reclaim the general understanding. I'm probably catching you by surprise but by the time you can react I hope to be in Rome. Naturally if you see any way to improve my attack and consolidate our position please do so, but it looks as though we have to get the pumps going in the swamp. And by the way this is far beyond a start class; we've been hanging around these fields for quite a long time now. I was thinking of building a stone house here if we can win the battle for the marsh.Dave (talk) 13:18, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Background rewrite

I'm addressing another tag, a request for a ref. Here is the part I propose to rewrite:

"Several Allied proposals were made to break the stalemate, but Winston Churchill's idea for "Operation Shingle" was initially looked upon with disdain by the US General George Marshall, who was more concerned with planning a massive Normandy invasion than listening to Churchill's ideas about amphibious operations. Only after Churchill made a personal plea was the idea accepted by Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin, who welcomed any major Allied offensive that would take pressure off the Eastern Front. A major attack in the south by the U.S. Fifth Army, commanded by Lieutenant-General Mark W. Clark, would draw Germany's depleted forces away from the area around Rome and from the hills between Rome and the coast. This would make possible a surprise landing by Fifth Army's U.S. VI Corps under the command of Maj. Gen. John P. Lucas in the Anzio/Nettuno area, and 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."

There a lot of things wrong with this, but the biggest one concerns strategy. The editor has Clark attacking in the south to divert the Germans away from Anzio. This is placing the cart before the horse! Anzio was undertaken, in the American view, to divert troops away from Cassino! That's where the stalemate was. If you are going to write these things, you ought at least to have played a few military games, for which the games companies paid some high-ranking officers for the priviledge of consulting. That's what they do in general school, play games. Churchill however, who was the only one as far as I can see to have any real understanding of the situation, had in mind an outflanking operation to seize the main objective, Rome. Marshall was not involved, neither was Roosevelt or Stalin; they were all far away. Stalin had been pressuring the allies to take the pressure off of his front but he was not involved in the planning for Anzio nor was HE consulted. Eisenhower was leaving the front for Overlord. I understand and appreciate your boyish enthusiasm for writing about battles but the battle is over and scholarship is what is required now. I say boyish having in mind General Wellington shedding tears and swearing never to fight another battle when the casualty list from Waterloo was read to him, or General Grant's geat drunken sobs in his tent at night as his numerous wounded burned up in a forest fire at the Battle of the Wilderness. He couldn't get them out. So, in honor of all these noble dead, let us try to get it right, hey? And another thing. I notice the sympathy for General Lucas. I'm sympathetic too and I feel sorry for myself for all my errors but the simple facts are he misunderstood the situation and screwed up badly, costing the lives of many thousands of men. We should not alter history in his behalf. No disrespect intended. He had to confront himself, I'm sure, just as we all do. Let's feel sorry for us all and start writing the truth.Dave (talk) 03:00, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

For anyone who's interested, there's a 1963 US TV documentary about Operation Shingle on YouTube here: [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.4.57.101 (talk) 18:46, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

The sole purpose of the landings at Anzio was to facilitate a rapid Allied advance (there was no opposition) on Rome before German reinforcements could arrive and to then enter the city in force thus allowing the pro-Allied members of the Italian Government led by Badoglio to safely stage a pre-arranged coup unseating Mussolini and his fascists. The Italian army and other forces would then have come over en masse to the Allies and effectively made Italy an ally instead of an enemy. This would then have allowed the Allies the use of Italian ports for off-loading troops, cargoes, etc, allowing rapid deployment of Allied forces all over Italy for use, assisted by now-friendly Italian units, against the remaining German army units in Italy, the only viable route by-which German reinforcements were able to be sent to them being via the South of France.

Thus the ultimate purpose of the operation was getting Italy to change sides. The secondary purpose was to force the Germans to reinforce their units in Italy with units then currently in the South of France. The British knew the Germans would send units from the South of France because they were reading the German Enigma traffic, which also included signals sent to and from the Deutsche Reichsbahn.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.100.238 (talk) 23:59, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Utter nonsense. Local commanders generally opposed the operation, but, the purpose was to create a dilemma for the Germans by landing in their rear, threatening to cut off the 10th Army defending Cassino. The weakening of the Cassino front would enable an advance northward from there. Clark knew it could not work. Far more force was needed, and the Germans were not inclined to panic. DMorpheus2 (talk) 00:23, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

There weren't many Germans in the area until later, the defence of Anzio was the responsibility of the Italians.

If Clark and Lucas had not had a bout of inertia and had instead ventured off of the landing areas they would have discovered that there were few enemy troops within miles. Some recce parties managed to get to the outskirts of Rome, without encountering any opposition.

Instead, while mumbling about Churchill and 'Gallipoli', they then went on to repeat almost exactly the problem that beset the invading forces at Gallipoli, i.e., being unable (or in their case, unwilling) to get off the beach.

No wonder Churchill was livid.

BTW, who became the leader of Italy after the later Italian surrender. Badoglio.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.18.228 (talk) 10:13, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, you haven't got a clue what you're talking about. Sending a small recon unit to Rome (and quickly back out again, although I note you left that out) is not the same as establishing a Corps-sized position that can be sustained. Lucas himself said he could easily have gotten into Rome.....where he would have been cut off from all supply and would have quickly collapsed. DMorpheus2 (talk) 14:24, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

They didn't need to send large numbers of Allied troops into Rome, only enough to give Badoglio and his men confidence that the Allies were there to stay. Then the Italians would have changed sides - six months earlier than they subsequently did.

Clark and Lucas didn't need large numbers of Allied troops to take Rome, they would have had almost the entire Italian army under Badoglio to support them. Defending Rome was the responsibility of the Italian Army and the only German troops in Rome were the ones on leave there.

Anzio in popular culture

Bobby Benson in Robert Wise's classic film, "The Day the Earth Stood Still," takes spaceman Klaatu to the cemetery where his father is interred. He tells Klaatu his father died at Anzio. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.98.136.119 (talk) 17:45, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect Casualty rate for 3rd Division on first day of Buffalo (May 23, 1944)

My grandfather was with the 30th Regiment of the 3rd Division in the first wave of this operation and his Regiment alone suffered 995 casualties on the first day (as referenced by the regimental history book he owned and I now possess). The 3rd Division thus did not suffer 955 casualties on the first day if one of its three regiments alone suffered 995. My guess is that this was a transcription error along the way where 995 casualties for the 30th Regiment became 955 of the entire 3rd Division.

By the way, anyone have an idea as to the exact location of "Ponte Rotto"? I don't think this "broken bridge" exists anymore as I failed to find it when I visited the beachhead and Cisterna area a few years ago on the 65th anniversary of the Anzio breakout. I think I was in the right general area, but I want to make sure I was roughly where he won his D.S.C. for bravery on May 23rd, 1944. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.56.4.26 (talk) 00:35, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Language

I have taken out the American English banner above because the article is for the most part actually written in British English and this has been a consistent feature since at least 2007 and certainly well before the time when the banner was unjustifiably (in terms of WP:RETAIN) added in 2011. The addition of the banner in 2011 had no effect on the English usage in the article and the only current exceptions to British spelling in the article are the (correct) use of "Armor" in the proper names of US Divisions and the date format which is more commonly used in US English. There is also an inconsistency in words ending in -ise / -ize. Either is acceptable in British English (-ize is actually preferred by the Oxford English Dictionary but other dictionaries and the majority of users tend to use -ise) but one or the other should be used consistently within the article. Frankly, there is no justification to change the article's language and no need for any banner which gives unneeded prominence to such an unimportant issue. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 22:28, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Article name

Considering that scope of article seems to be whole almost half year long Battle of Anzio (which also redirects here), I think that article should be also accordingly renamed, as I think that "Operation Shingle" covers only landing operation itself, not the prolonged fighting afterwards.--Staberinde (talk) 10:33, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 19 June 2014

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 13:44, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

---

Operation Shingle → Battle of Anzio – Aside the initial landing operation (Operation Shingle), article's scope clearly also includes Axis counterattack, following stalemate and later allied breakout. Therefore Battle of Anzio would be more accurate title per WP:PRECISION. Staberinde (talk) 19:07, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support The nom is clearly right about the scope of the article. Neljack (talk) 02:28, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
• Support Laughable that this has been proposed at least a couple times and never received enough attention. Chris Troutman (talk) 03:09, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
• Support, per Neljack. Brigade Piron (talk) 09:28, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
• Support Will make it easier for readers to find the article. Only someone who knows about the operation (and therefore probably doesn't need to read the article) will know it was Shingle. Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:22, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
• Support Article includes more than the landings (properly). --Lineagegeek (talk) 22:17, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
• Support No brainer, per nom. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 22:59, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
• Support Operation Shingle should be left for the allied order of battle and the landing itself; so agree with nom. Shire Lord 23:56, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
• Support wp:commonname of the article's scope. ^walk victor falk ^talk 14:47, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
• Support All of the above...Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs}

Discussion

Any additional comments:

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Redirects don't get categories

To editor Look2See1: Why are you adding cats to the Operation Shingle redirect? This seems to violate WP:RCAT. Explain. "For commonscat" isn't an edit summary that makes any sense to me. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:04, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

"Frontline of Anzio and Nettuno"

There's been some recent edits to generally correct the name of the "Battle of Anzio" to "Frontline of Anzio and Nettuno". Looking at these changes, and the articles at Anzio and Nettuno, I would suspect that the changes are more technically accurate.

But that's not the deciding factor at WP. Per WP:COMMONNAME, we don't "correct" the names of things, but follow the common and sourced naming. Thus we continue to have an article called Holy Roman Empire and not the more correctly named Schismatic German Association.

Some of the additions of "and Nettuno" might be helpful, but others may just be confusing readers. From what I remember, the headlines and history books in America just said "Anzio".

I'm for trimming these back. --A D Monroe III (talk) 23:48, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

504th

For the listing of forces, the 504th did not land by itself, but with its usual combat team in support. The 376th PFAB, and C company 307th AEB. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.247.138.52 (talk) 02:50, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Drainage Pumps

The intro mentions the Germans turning off drainage pumps to entrap and cause an epidemic, yet there is no discussion of this in the article proper. Did this actually happen during the battle? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.223.116.151 (talk) 14:06, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

The area was prone to flooding and this made it a Malaria-prone locale. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.18.228 (talk) 10:01, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

6th Battalion, Gordon Highlanders clarification needed

"...the companies of the 6th Battalion, Gordon Highlanders (of 2nd Brigade) were beginning to crumble and later lost 319 men as prisoners, three complete companies.[24]"

With three rifle companies generally making up a British infantry battalion, and the battalion - at full strength - being in the region of 800 men, a little clarification or rewording is needed. Did the remnants of the entire battalion surrender? Regards EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 17:09, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

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Lawton B. Evans

I have new information on the SS Lawton B. Evans involvement in the Battle of Anzio and images of the crew should it be incorporated into this article?Wikiinfomation (talk) 03:03, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

How many and what Liberty ships arrived at Anzio on January 22 other than SS Lawton B. Evans? What ones other than SS Lawton B. Evans were involved in the battle?Wikiinfomation (talk) 02:42, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

I think this one ship is getting disproprtionate coverage in the article; most ships there did pretty much the same things. Anmccaff (talk) 20:50, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Mauldin "series?"

Can you support this with -any- contemporaneous cites? Anmccaff (talk) 16:07, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Bill Mauldin wrote a memoir, "The Brass Ring" that gives the whole history of Willie and Joe and also details his time in Italy, including Anzio. There is no particular connection between Anzio and the characters; they were stand-ins for all US Infantrymen, they were created before Mauldin's unit (45th ID) even went overseas, and they do not appear in all his cartoons. DMorpheus2 (talk) 16:16, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Yepper. Stock characters. A point often forgotten is that Willie and Joe "reversed", the personalities traded places, more or less, fairly early on. I think there is a real Anzio connection, though; the cartoon with Willie pointing out the good view the Germans had over the entire allied position at Anzio. Anmccaff (talk) 17:09, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

By "Anzio connection" I did not mean to imply that none of Mauldin's cartoons were set there; lots of them were. I just meant that the characters did not originate at Anzio and it is completely random that some of the cartoons are set there; i.e., if Mauldin had been assigned to the Aleutians they would have appeared there instead. He usually drew settings from wherever he happened to be assigned or visiting at the time. DMorpheus2 (talk) 15:48, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, Mauldin's cartooning was essentially a trailing indicator of his own, and his unit's experiences. The main point I was raising was that it wasn't a "series" called "Willy and Joe," as a certain type of comics fanboi seem to think they are. Anmccaff (talk) 18:00, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Unsourced section on popular culture

Preserving here by providing this link. Please also see WP:MILPOP. K.e.coffman (talk) 22:25, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

First units to Rome

My father, Lieutenant Grayal L Farr was a platoon leader in the 1st Armored Division's 81st Reconnaissance Battalion (later Squadron). The "jeep patrol" that made it to the outskirts of Rome was probably his section of four M-8 armored cars.

His battalion landed D+2 and he was immediately dispatched up the highway towards Rome with instructions to keep moving 'till they contacted German forces. From the outset radio contact was poor. They moved quickly, encountering only a few small units of Germans who happened to be along the route. By the time he had good communications he was reading Roman street signs. He was ordered to return to the beachhead immediately. On the way back he encountered and had brush contacts with German units also moving toward the beachhead.

This is all recorded in an issue of "The Cavalry Journal." 16:18, 8 June 2019 (UTC)71.209.90.14 (talk)Grayyal E. Farr71.209.90.14 (talk) 16:18, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Shortened footnotes

This article primarily uses shortened footnotes. I plan to convert the remaining ref/citations to shortened footnotes so that the citation style will be uniform & consistent. Peaceray (talk) 14:15, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

 Done! Peaceray (talk) 20:23, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Removing Audie Murphy's apocryphal comment on MG John P. Lucas

I am removing the following text as apocryphal & without a reliable source:

Major General John P. Lucas is reported to have once visited the set of one of Murphy's films, where he was obliged by tradition to salute Murphy (i.e. Murphy had the Medal of Honor and Lucas did not). While Murphy returned the salute, he refused to shake Lucas's hand and walked away. Murphy later explained: "too damn many good men died at Anzio and Nettuno because of that son of a bitch. I'm damned if I'll shake hands with him."

References

Please note that I tried to search using the following criteria but found nothing reliable.

• ""Audie Murphy" ("John Lucas" OR "John P. Lucas") ("son of a bitch" OR "sonofabitch") -wiki". Google Search.

It may be that there is something in a book that Google has not indexed. If you can find a reliable citation for it, please add it back to the article. If not, please leave it out; we do not need to give credence to a fiction.

Peaceray (talk) 19:20, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Allied preparations

No mention currently of attacks on the Gustav line to draw German forces away from the beachhead? GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:02, 11 April 2024 (UTC)