more at
http://news.quickfound.net/intl/rome_news
.html
"DOCUMENTARY FILM ON THE CAPITULATION OF
ROME IN
WORLD WAR II."
"
Reel 1,
Gen. Montgomery and the
British 8th Army land at
Reggio Calabria.
The Italian navy surrenders to the
Allies. Gen.
Mark Clark and the
U.S. 5th Army land at Salerno behind an intense naval bombardment. The
Luftwaffe bombards the beachhead. The 5th and the 8th Armies meet.
The Allies take the
Foggia airfield and later enter
Naples.
Refugees return to the city. U.S. troops cross the
Volturno River and advance through mud. Reel 2,
Ortona is taken after street fighting and a savage tank battle.
Gens.
Eisenhower and
Clark inspect
Cassino defenses.
5th Army units land at
Anzio. Gens.
Rommel and Kesselring direct the arrival of
Nazi reserves.
British Gen.
Alexander directs an artillery bombardment on the
Gustav Line. Cassino falls.
Allied tanks roll toward
Rome.
The Nazis evacuate the city and 5th Army units enter. "
Public domain film from the
US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/
3.0/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Anzio
The Battle of Anzio was an important battle of the
Italian Campaign during
World War II that took place on
January 22,
1944, with the Allied amphibious landing known as
Operation Shingle against the
German (and several
Italian R.S.I.) forces in the area of Anzio and
Nettuno. The operation was commanded by
Major General John P. Lucas, of the
U.S. Army, commanding U.S.
VI Corps, and was intended to outflank
German forces at the
Winter Line and enable an attack on Rome.
The success of an amphibious landing at that location, in a basin consisting substantially of reclaimed marshland and surrounded by mountains, depended completely on the element of surprise and the swiftness with which the invaders could move relative to the reaction time of the defenders. Any delay could result in the occupation of the mountains by the defenders and the consequent entrapment of the invaders.
Lieutenant General Mark Wayne Clark, commander of the
United States Fifth Army, understood that risk, but Clark did not pass on his appreciation of the situation to his subordinate,
General Lucas, who preferred to take time to entrench against an expected counterattack. The initial landing achieved complete surprise with no opposition and a jeep patrol even made it as far as the outskirts of Rome.
Despite that report, Lucas, who had little confidence in the operation as planned, failed to capitalize on the element of surprise by delaying his advance until he judged his position was sufficiently consolidated and his troops ready.
While Lucas consolidated,
Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, the German commander in the Italian theatre, moved every spare unit to be found into a ring around the beachhead, where his gunners had a clear view of every Allied position.
The Germans also stopped the drainage pumps and flooded the reclaimed marsh with salt water, planning to entrap the Allies and destroy them by epidemic. For weeks a rain of shells fell on the beach, the marsh, the harbour, and on anything else observable from the hills, with little distinction between forward and rear positions.
After a month of heavy but inconclusive fighting, Lucas was relieved and sent home, replaced by Major General
Lucian Truscott. The Allies finally broke out in May, but instead of striking inland to cut lines of communication of the
German Tenth Army's units at Cassino, Truscott, on Clark's orders, reluctantly turned his forces north-west towards Rome, which was captured on 4 June. As a result, the forces of the German Tenth Army fighting at Cassino were able to withdraw and rejoin the rest of Kesselring's forces north of Rome, regroup, and make a fighting withdrawal to his next major prepared defensive position on the
Gothic Line...
- published: 01 Sep 2015
- views: 820