March 20, 1944 – On Anzio a beachhead order to the men to wear steel hats or pay fine
March 20, 2024March 22, 1944 – Rest camp, replacements, and those amazing LSTs
March 22, 2024March 21, 1944 – Bombing brings new suffering to Anzio hospital but swimming and baseball continues
Protected from everything except a direct hit, wounded Allied soldiers rest in their foxhole beds at an Anzio beachhead hospital. Engineers dug out the bed space, covered the pits with a tent and build sandbagged bunkers of dirt. Recently when 20 German shells combed the hospital area, all such patients escaped additional injury.[2]
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While enemy air attacks had diminished to raids by only a few aircraft daily, artillery shelling continued, and no structure and no person within the beachhead were safe.
Even hospitals clearly identified by a Red Cross became targets, resulting in the death and wounding of doctors, nurses, and patients.
Shocked by the Germans’ targeting of medical facilities, [General] Truscott sent a message to [General] Clark recommending that he bring this violation of the Geneva Convention to the attention of the theater commander.
He also directed Baehr to have the corps Fire Direction Center counterbattery every possible artillery position which could open fire upon the hospitals.
He ordered all hospital commanders to notify him immediately when their hospitals came under fire so that he could order the counter battery fire.
Living conditions, particularly for the dogfaces, were very primitive.
Many of the infantrymen literally lived in their foxholes, utilizing shelter halves to protect them from the elements.
More fortunate souls sought shelter in tents or in the few surviving buildings within the beachhead.
As spring arrived baseball and softball teams were organized, sometimes playing games as artillery shells burst within five or six hundred yards of the playing fields.
Swimming in the Tyrolean city also became popular as the weather warmed.[3]
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[1] Signal Corps Radiotelephoto by Acme. The Commercial Appeal. Tuesday Morning, April 4, 1944. News Clipping in small brown scrapbook with heavily embossed front.
[2] Associate Press Photo. The Commercial Appeal. Friday Morning, April 7, 1944. News Clipping in small brown scrapbook with heavily embossed front.
[3] Heefner. Dogface Soldier, 169-170.
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