April 24, 1944 — A letter home to mom from Anzio
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April 26, 2024April 25, 1944 – German intelligence increasingly confused and anxious about the coming Anzio breakout
Late April found Dad’s 3rd Infantry Division still attacking in small groups while the enemy continued to probe the Allies’ defenses, looking for the opening that never appeared. Enemy aircraft became especially active just when the 3rd Division was being relieved by the 45th Division.[1]
As a result, the Germans were increasingly on edge. They knew another attempt at a breakout from the beachhead was in the offing, they just could not figure out when or where.
German intelligence analysts had identified nine of twenty-two Allied regimental command posts on the Fifth Army front, but could pinpoint none of them; nor could they identify or locate most Allied division headquarters.
German gunners so consistently fired leaflets in the wrong language to the wrong troops — Urdu to the Kiwis, Arabic to the British, English to the French — that Clark’s G-2 wrongly believed “it could be only a deliberate attempt to conceal his knowledge of our order of battle.”[2] In point of fact, it actually demonstrated how poor the German intelligence was,.
A Moroccan deserter several weeks earlier had sworn that the Allied offensive would begin April 25. Senior Wehrmacht officers packed their kit and rose early, only to feel “rather sheepish” when the front remained completely quiet that day.[3]
[1] Taggart, 147.
[2] Atkinson, The Day of Battle, 517.
[3] Atkinson, The Day of Battle, 517.
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