Caution at Anzio-big military Blunder or unfair criticism of lucas/clark?

[YoungIndia]

I have been reading a bit on this aspect of the war.

There has been heavy criticism of lucas for not taking the initiative to drive northwards when a patrol jeep has gone as far as the outskirts of Rome.Instead he preferred to consolidate the Anzio beachhead as he had little confidence that the initial forces were not strong enough. Kesserling ironically also shares the same view.


what do the military posters here think?

Monumental blunder in delay that costs lives? biggest blunder on the american side in ww2? or caution with reasonable basis?

[Officer of Engineers]

Generals do not second guess themselves.

[zraver]

Lucas had at least 30 hours to push hard and buy himself some breathing room, he didn't do so and it let Kesselring not just react, but seize the initiative.

[S2]

Lucas' objective wasn't to seize and hold a beach-head while posturing as a threat to the German rear. It was to seize a beach-head as an interim objective with the expressed ultimate intent of becoming a threat to the German rear. The orders to him, therefore, anticipated and welcomed a violent German reaction. What eventually followed after many months of stalemate remains an inexplicable lapse in military judgement along with a blatant disregard for the orders given Clark by General Alexander.

Clark's diversion of forces to the northwest gap around the Alban hills and towards Rome left open Route 6 for German forces further south in Cassino to escape. Doing so may well have written later the death sentence for many allied soldiers who found themselves fighting German forces north of Rome they might otherwise have avoided.

Clark proved a low-life POS commanding general.

[clackers]

I have been reading a bit on this aspect of the war.

There has been heavy criticism of lucas for not taking the initiative to drive northwards when a patrol jeep has gone as far as the outskirts of Rome.Instead he preferred to consolidate the Anzio beachhead as he had little confidence that the initial forces were not strong enough. Kesserling ironically also shares the same view.


what do the military posters here think?

Monumental blunder in delay that costs lives? biggest blunder on the american side in ww2? or caution with reasonable basis?

There really was conflict between all the decision makers, YoungIndia, that led to four months of pain. D-Day actually had to be delayed a month to make this mess possible.

The operation was done at Churchill's urging, frustrated by the lack of progress up Italy's spine. He complained afterwards that he had expected the Anzio invasion to pounce on the shore like a 'wildcat', but instead it beached like 'a stranded whale'.

Mark Clark divided his forces, and got the timing wrong of the preliminary assaults further down the peninsula (there will be Texans who can tell you of the agony of the 36th US ID's experiences).

John P Lucas, the ground commander at Anzio, once described as having 'the round face and the greying moustache of a kindly country solicitor', was fearful of the mission he'd been given, writing in his diary that "The whole affair has a strong odour of Gallipoli [the failed WWI invasion of Turkey] and apparently the same amateur [Churchill] was still on the coach's bench."

Surprise was actually complete, as Allan Millett and Williamson Murray write in A War To Be Won:

"The only Germans on the beach at Anzio when the Allied forces came ashore were four drunken officers in a Volkswagen Kubelwagen, who proceeded to drive up through the open doors of an LST (Landing Ship Tanks). The landing had caught the enemy by surprise; German military intelligence, the Abwehr, living up to its standards, had just delivered a report indicating that there was no prospect of an amphibious landing behind the Gustav Line. The response of Allied commanders reflected their overcautious approach to war ... On a visit to Anzio on the first day, Clark reinforced Lucas' caution by remarking that he "was not to stick his head out." ... Within eight days the Germans had part of all of eight divisions around the Anzio perimeter."

Lucas probably did not have the forces to do all that could have been hoped for. As the theatre commander, Field Marshall Harold Alexander, noted, a drive to the Italian capital would probably have resulted in "one night in Rome and eighteen months in PoW camps."

Lucas was outnumbered by the Germans, but IIRC was an artillery expert, had the navy behind him, and the inevitable attacks on his beachhead were repeatedly broken up by gunfire.

The Allies fired 65,000 rounds on the first day of General Mackensen's February 16 counterattack. 10 percent of German losses were due to Allied infantry, 15 per cent to aerial bombardment, and 75 percent to the artillery.

I'm with S-2 on his assessment of Mark Clark, but I think we also ought to add to the mix Alexander, a brave soldier, but one who failed to keep a tight grip on his subordinates and the Italian campaign as a whole.

[S2]

Clackers Reply

"...Lucas probably did not have the forces to do all that could have been hoped for. As the theatre commander, Field Marshall Harold Alexander, noted, a drive to the Italian capital would probably have resulted in 'one night in Rome and eighteen months in PoW camps.'"

Rome was Churchill's objective. Not necessarily Alexander's. Cutting Route 6 and isolating the Germans further south was more valuable and quite likely attainable. A fight was bound to happen regardless. If heavy combat couldn't be accepted then there was little point to the landings at all. The question had to be, "If a fight, where?"

Valmontone on Route 6 was a worthy objective. In Lucas' defense, however, 1st British Infantry Division, 3rd U.S. Infantry Division, two tank battalions, two airborne infantry regiments and a ranger regiment, two Royal Marine Commandos and the 45th U.S. Infantry Division along with CCA 1st U.S. Armored Division was a chancy collection of forces to be tasked with both holding a beach head while advancing 20 miles inland to Valmontone and giving battle there. NGF would have been lost except along the beach head. Air support over winter skies in Italy might have proved problematic leaving the advancing forces dependant solely upon their divisional artilleries for assured fire support.

No doubt that such a rapid advance would have caused immense consternation on the German high command. IMV, however, it would have been a shootout at the O.K. corral with no assuredness of victory.

Truscott faced a differing (and better) situation in May than Lucas in late January. Of that much there can be little doubt.

[clackers]

Rome was Churchill's objective. Not necessarily Alexander's.

Aye. I think it's hard to work out exactly what Alexander really wanted from his subordinates in the Mediterranean - Clark, Patton, Monty and Leese. As you say, Valmontone was worth fighting for, and Alexander should have ensured it, not Rome, was targetted.

King's College Head of War Studies Brian Reid wrote the Alexander chapter in John Keegan's Churchill's Generals, and began by mentioning his 'immaculate clothes, fastidiousness of person, coolness under fire and imperturbability were reminiscent of Wellington without the wit. The effortless superiority, languid manner and polished manners signalled that he was a perfect Anglo-Irish gentleman of a type that had officered the British Army for centuries.'

Amongst the interesting points Reid made:

• Where Montgomery was disgusted by the traumatic slaughter of the First World War and the detached style of his superiors, for Alexander, 1914-18 were 'the happiest years of my life'. His regimental historian was Rudyard Kipling.
  
• He commanded German and Baltic soldiers in Latvia against the Bolsheviks until 1920, after 1945 succeeding in helping a number of them get away from the avenging hands of the Soviet Union. The New York Times correspondent wrote 'Alex ... is the most charming and picturesque person I have ever met, and one of the two soldiers I have known who derived a strong, positive and permanent exhilaration from the worst of danger.'
  
• During the Dunkirk evacuation he commanded the British rear guard, having lost all his possessions except for 'my revolver, my field glasses and my briefcase'.
  
• He mishandled armour exercises to face Operation Sealion back in England, and was sent to Burma, where he underestimated the speed of the Japanese outflanking advance. Brooke re-posted him to command in the Middle East, confident that he wouldn't interfere with Montgomery's operational style.
  
• A Churchill favourite, he was a popular coalition commander, though his actual campaigns in Tunisia, Sicily and Italy suffered from mixed results.

Reid ends up being quite sympathetic:

He had none of Montgomery's iron dedication to the profession of arms, Slim's intellect, or Auchinleck's instinctive grasp of the ebb and flow of battle. Yet he rose to the pinnacle of his profession, and would have been [Chief of the Imperial General Staff] if Churchill had not persuaded him to go to Ottawa instead [to become Governor-General] ... Like another successful commander considered unintelligent by several critics, George Washington, the whole of Alexander's talents were greater than the sum of their parts. Judged by the demanding standards of his Edwardian ideals, the career of Alexander was a very great success.

Be that as it may, I don't think the quality of Allied leadership in Italy compared well with the excellent German trio of Albert Kesselring, Eberhard von Mackensen and Heinrich von Vietinghoff.

[clackers]

Truscott faced a differing (and better) situation in May than Lucas in late January. Of that much there can be little doubt.

Yep ... I have the Paul Jeffers biography of Truscott ... a wonderful soldier who didn't get promoted far enough, quickly enough ... Patton without the bluster!

My personal pick as best US general (in the field) of the ETO.

[Albany Rifles]

Both Clark and Lucas were leery due to the experiences at Salerno. There an aggressive move almost got the US Army cut off during a German counterattack.

Clark, in fact, ordered Lucas to "not stick his neck out." Lucas was an inexperienced commander and heeded his commander's admonishment. I have less inclination to blame Lucas than Clark.

That said, with the advent of D Day coming soon, was it really a neccesary battle?

[zraver]

The German units in Italy included a number of elite formations that could have had a major impact if present against either Overlord or Bagration..

German OOB

Heer
Panzer divisions: 16th and 26th
Panzer Grenadier: 3rd, 15th, 29th and 90th
Giebergs (Mountain) divisions: 5th, 157th, 188th
Fallschirmjager (parachute) divisions 1st and 4th
Infantry divisions: 34th, 42nd(jager), 44th (riechesgrenadier), 65th, 71st, 94th, 114th (jager), 148th (reserve), 162nd (Turkomen), 278th, 305th, 334th, 356th, 362, 715th
Tiger: 504th Bn.
Heavy AT: 633rd Bn(Elephants)

SS
LSSAH panzer division
16th SS (Riechesfurher div)
29th SS (Italia)

Lufwaffe
Herman Goering Panzer division
20th field division

Italian
2nd Div (Littorio)
3rd Div (San Marco marine)
4th Div Monte Rosa (Alpine)


The Italian campaign thus tied up a number of Germany's critical mobile units and a huge amount of men when she needed them the most. I think that can be argued as a strategic victory.

[clackers]

The units that were sent initially to Italy were certainly of high quality, Zraver, because Hitler's intuition told him that Italy was about to defect, and he wanted to send troops that could cope best with 'allies' around them suddenly changing sides.

But this was regarded by both the Allies and the Germans as a theatre that was never going to be decisive, and both sides pulled troops out and refused to reinforce the ones that were there - particularly, the Germans, who were expected by the High Command to wage an economical, delaying action - in which they were very successful.

A look at the OoB of the two sides is quite misleading, because while the Allies had 28 'real' divisions in Italy in June 1944, the Germans had 25 only in name.

The 94th Infantry Division at Cassino had a fighting strength of 740 men and 15th Pz Gr one of 405.

In September, 58 of the 81 infantry battalions belonging to Tenth and Fourteenth Armies contained less than 400 men and 35 had less than 300.

They were faced with an Allied invasion force that fielded around 3,000 medium tanks.

The Italian strategy was driven by the British, a campaign the Americans disagreed with, hampered Overlord by delaying the taking of Marseilles (which became the most important port supplying Eisenhower's armies until the Channel ports were freed up), and used up 800,000 US personnel in June 1944 according to Rick Atkinson in The Day of Battle.

The British historian JFC Fuller called Italy "tactically the most absurd and strategically the most senseless campaign of the whole war."

That's a big statement, but also Liddell Hart concluded it 'subtracted very heavily from Allied war resources ... a much larger subtraction from the total effort than the German had incurred by making a stand in Italy', while the great US diplomatic historian David Kennedy decried 'a needlessly costly sideshow ... a grinding war of attrition whose costs were justified by no defensible military or political purpose.'