BEACHHEAD OPERATION - ANZIO

[Music] you you let me some bring March it nuh to know aight bro it and do the main morning along lovely Italian coat [Music] the quartermaster had a bakery around here that's only on Navy from offshore the loop time said you understand the shells don't whistle in German now the Baker's have moved around the corner when they send the bread out with a thick dark crust the boys at the ovens have spent the night in a trench shells or no shells every day fourteen thousand loaves go out precision work one jump away from the foxhole [Music] 45 minutes is quite a while at anfield the dough has to set for 45 minutes while the yeast gets to work the burners em 1937 fire units they get shaken up around here in disassembly cleaning and reassembly the main thing is to have the proper wrenches Stillson wrenches and pliers will beat up the unit so the boys won't get me bread at all punching the dough helps oxidize the yeast and drives out excess gas it says in the book that gives you a smoother load on the molding table each piece weighs in at two pounds for out a little of this is lost in the baking in molding you use the heel of your hand for the pressure and the palm only is a guy after an hour and 20 minutes under 425 degrees loaves go onto the show too cool for a while when the night shift at the bakery is over and the sun filters through the smoke and dust over a co on the waterfront a barrage balloon crew goes to work they've cleared a space of all sharp object laid out the protective ground cloth and now ties a symbol assembly type to prevent leaks with the hydrogen turned on the balloon Rises and stands with the others to close out the harbor to enemy low altitude reconnaissance torpedo launcher mine Lee b stand guard to seaward but to land worth where the Germans look down upon an 0 from the sudden he'll no balloon can forbid the air to the flight of shell to the south near the edge of no-man's land as a temporary lull in the bras the engineers are throwing a dam across the muscle any drainage canal the water held back by the dam can be loosed some night across the face of a Nazi counter-attack like another government waterworks no trespassing sign have to be planted roundabout but the enemy pays no attention to English so he must be held off by more unmistakable means like steaks pounded into the ground port barbed wire camouflage nets to blend bridge approaches with the terrain TNT planted in the ground no trespassing in German one team digs the holes and carefully collects the spoil and burlap bags the platter follows along with an anti-personnel mine [Music] a second-team plants the anti-tank mines they replaced the turf in the same spot and remove all signs of disturbance [Music] the canal is a natural tank barrier and if any Germans should get lost and stay into the neighborhood the barbed wire concertina will hold them until they can be set on the right Road one strand of wire can be cut but this tangled roll will take time and skill and undisturbed good luck before the enemy can penetrated by surprise the Sun climb the morning goes and even bomb shaken heroes was yell for child in town at the bakery the day shift is getting ready to ship the fresh loaf they've been mixed and molded baked and cooled fresh nerves muscles and brain to hold the front [Music] a new Christmas doggin from nineteen forty four the GI mattress cover his sleep on it you tried silverware with it and it's taken the place of the Middle West with American read back the GI mattress cover brings home the groceries well not home exactly but the best the neighborhood offers the mattress cover keeps the fresh bread clean making for less handling of the loaves themselves and providing a more sanitary means of distribution [Music] don't worry go to their own p24 the first four engines twintails bread dams mines wire balloon if the beachhead is to live a single brain must direct the sinews supply these things together here were the Germans whenever they please can pound every foot of Earth which shelled the brain of the six Army Corps is deep on the ground like the Skull surrounding a man's head the solid rock walls of an old wine cellar in case the staff and command of the 6th Corps here the planners and specialists have their headquarters the special staff ordinance office it takes a prodigious armed enemy shell to search out its dimensions devices materials the ordnance officer is one of many staff specialist artillery engineers quartermaster medical and the several administrative services these men provide the facts and estimates on which the plans of the general staff of base these men assemble the stuff of which plans are executed the office of the core finance department paymaster an accountant for a city with no permanent location each nation that passes under the feet of the infantry requires a new currency at Anzio if there were anything to buy the soldiers could spend these Italian invasion lira the finance department operates a gigantic Bank of issue whose place of business never stays long in one spot and whose payroll list changes from day to day the money's counted out but seventy percent of their pay on the average the soldiers sent home to their families [Music] the staff signal officer lived by his Bible the SOP standing operating procedures the law and the prophets of military communications its Commandments will turn a wine vault into a telephone exchange bring a hundred thousand men within reach of one voice and bend them to one purpose under one command this commonplace miracle can't be sustained by faith alone it has to be checked constantly for shortening ground breaks especially to the complex terminal strip [Music] maps and aerial mosaic our newest guidebooks would travel abroad what to look for near historic Anzio Italy the day the office finds a new point of interest not a Roman ruin but a road darker and heavier than normal with enemy troop movements a patrol will have to visit the locality once before that road loves black with traffic and two days later when the Germans attacked we nearly had to swim back to Naples definitely an infantry patrol must be sent to seal out the enemy and to bring in some prisoners for questioning the patrol leader sketches in the dose on this road it looks like the crowds are too busy in this village we tried with prisoners from an enemy okay here's our plan anybody got any questions let's go [Music] headquarters orders out and infantry Patrol headquarters also warns the artillery to pack a few rods in case the enemy mob is out of trouble the artillery digs in an 8-inch howitzer a couple of Gunners used a spoil to sandbag the revetments another checks on the breech and firing [Music] while the revetments go up one member of the crew chops log was the camouflage net new artillery emplacements mean new communication from a drum dr5 the wire will pay off quickly and easily the dr five fits onto a mount built into the back of a jeep with one man walking behind to lay the wire out of the way of the traffic the jeep will do the heavy work and get the lines inside the wire runs down the side of the road out of the way of trucks and tanks but first it's got to be anchored with a fence running along right next to the highway it's simple enough to pull the end of the line also the drum and tie it onto a fence post with a simple pitch [Music] one man share of victory could be to step over a while like this though it's not to cut it with his boots beyond the wire the big gun the patrol in search of Nazi prisoners sneaks across the German line tourists without passports they cross the receding borders of the greater right in a wedge formation keeping low seeking cover silence with a sharp guard to front rear and flanks [Music] the first objective of probable enemy outpost par-4 fake fire around the wall to move up for the rear door [Music] you [Music] creeping and crawling of diamond formation closes in riflemen cover a grenade thrower now with rifles covering every door and window in fact while the enemy is still stunned no one home the Opie is been abandoned on into town headquarters waste the artillery is waiting camouflage nets not only masks the guns but also make a weapon of surprise when the gun play starts the nets are garnished heavily in the middle thinning out toward the edges and always in colors to match the season and terrain the signalmen to speed their job of tap to commercial lines for a stretch but now they cross over to some woods before heading toward a command post and Elsie 61 plough lays the wire and buries it giving protection and increased talking range the wires going in the big guns wait everything hangs on getting word from the infantry patrol they filtered into the village no protective gullies here no tall grass perhaps no natsu mortar fire one man killed lesson one and hating the enemy [Music] back at battery headquarters the line is in tests okay down it goes to the observers in the opie by hand real over fields and swamps the artillery is ready and to bring the guns the information they need a tired infantry patrol walked out of Nazi land back onto the beachhead they're bringing a few unwilling immigrants with them will doubtless be detained by the authorities Nazi prisoners out of whose mouths needed information will leak during careful questioning [Music] name rank and serial number [Music] have you been long in this sector no not alone the prisoner unwittingly confirms the news of enemy concentration and the word is flashed ahead and then through the headquarters headquarters passes the intelligence down to the artillery the artillery checks for herself through an Opie accrual the observation post with a BC scope and binoculars study the sector and spot the activity at a crossroad on the edge of the hill they must plot the position on a grid map of the sector so they can telephone precise information and grid numbers back to fire Direction Center by translating geography into symbols on a map a Gunners can annihilate an enemy they never see the military map gives the army of common language more precise and deadly and international and German or English at Japanese the target is pinned down and the letters and numbers it goes to the counter battery officer who checks on the overlay to see what enemy guns are in the area we must know this to protect our own guns from destruction the sergeant at the flooding Board finds which of our batteries are within range of the target this is to be in artillery bingo every available piece of every caliper like the Virage have stopped the first German counter-attack and killed 25,000 not news bingo the man says sector fish l 841 a crew of the 8 inch how that goes into action [Music] ah [Music] [Music] a railway mounted naval gun joins in and the 90 millimeter anti-aircraft the little pack howitzers kicking around 75 on a Sherman tank self-propelled 1050 tank Jackie the 155 and the eight inches the Germans will never take this lying down headquarters knows that and is planning measures of protection the daylight hours are not quite over so an order goes out to pull a concealing blanket up over the beachhead 100 gallons an hour of oil and eight gallons of water are heated and pressed together in the Milky fog the mixture is constantly checked to get the combination that best suits the velocity of the wind and the humidity of the air the smoke harmless the lungs and clothing streams 10 of 12 miles in a gentle cover the generators have been scattered to be ready regardless of the wind [Music] under the smoke the virage goes on above the smoke night falls on Anzio through the smoke and night a gun still speak they tell the story of the beachhead the thing that the knot is an unpredictable thing they have in front of you saying that the sea is an unfriendly thing to have it your back [Music]