gjw, I speak Italian. I lived in Rome for 5 years and know very well that campaign. Anzio was a horror (and I once played a golf tournament down there). I will offer an opinion about Marc Clark though. He was an egotistical A$$. He had the chance to cut off the Germans after the French mountain troops finally breached the Gustav Line West of Monte Casino. But for the first time ever he acted on the Eureka code break information that the Germans were evacuating Rome and decided he'd be the "liberator." He never paid much attention to the signals intelligence before.
The Italian campaign was grinding. I had a friend in charge of the Battle Monuments Commission in charge of the South US cemeteries - Tunis, Anzio, Florence, Marseilles...they are amazing and the missing air-crews at the Anzio graveyard...bomber after bomber which angered in to the Serbian mountains is difficult to see.
I once called an Indian Lt. General I was friends with in New Delhi who had been wounded at Monte Casino... I told him I was sitting in the Monestary and I could see ever gnat below me,....how did he survive?
