San Pietro Infine, Southern Italy • December 17, 1943 On this date in 1943 what little remained of the ancient Italian farming community of San Pietro Infine, population 1,400, fell to the U.S. 36th (“Texas”) Infantry Division of Lt. Gen. Mark Clark’s U.S. Fifth Army—this after the collapse of the Bernhardt Line (or Reinhard Line), an…
El Alamein, Northwestern Egypt • October 23, 1942 In 1942 El Alamein was a mean little railway station roughly 275 miles/440 km east of the Libyan-Egyptian border. The First Battle of El Alamein was fought there between July 1 and 27, 1942, by a mixed German-Italian army under newly minted Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in command of Panzer Army…
Anzio, Italy • February 16, 1944 On this date in 1944, a day after the historic Benedictine abbey at Monte Cassino was bombed by Allied aircraft, the Germans launched their long-delayed counterattack on the Allied-held beachhead at Anzio, a small Mediterranean resort and port some 35 miles/56 kilometers south of the Italian capital, Rome. Just the month…