July wore on. The men’s intense day and night training programs carried on and the men now believed it was approaching its conclusion. The rumors were swirling that their D-Day — likely to be in southern France — would be sooner rather than later. The men were betting on an August attack.

Physical conditioning was maintained primarily through speed marches and night marches.

Training, following the procedure which had paid such rich dividends on previous landings, included

• attack of pillboxes and fixed fortifications,
• gapping and crossing wire,
• mine removal,
• use of flamethrowers, bangalore torpedoes, rifle grenades, bazookas and similar specialized equipmen, and
• infantry-tank cooperation.

Assault troops were drilled in loading and disembarking from landing craft. Several landing exercises were conducted over beaches of Mondragone, about thirty miles north of Pozzuoli.

The 10^th Engineer Battalion drew the nastiest assignment of the period. Previous experience dictated the necessity of a full-scale “dress rehersal,” omitting nothing but the presence of enemy troops.

There was only one area within practical distance which closely resembled the actual landing area—the Formia-Gaeta sector north of the mouth of the Garigliano. This area was directly behind the German lines all during the previous winter’s campaign, having been back of the “Winter Line.” German engineers had mined everything so completely that it was one of the most fortified areas in all of Italy.

Friendly troops who eventually overcame enemy resistance in the push north took time only to demine the immediate roadside areas. The remainder bristled with every fiendish design of explosive and boobytrap know to the mine-conscious German Army. It fell to the 10th Engineers to clear the beaches and hills between the road and shoreline, in order for 3d Infantry Division to hold its exercise.

The battalion, in completing this mission, suffered a total of eighteen men killed and forty-three wounded; ironical to a unit at the time “out of combat.”

From one small knoll on the right flank of the left beach—“Beach Yellow”—alone, 751 “S”-mines were cleared before the area was given up as being hopelessly covered.

When the landing operation—the final rehearsal—was conducted toward the end of July, the Formia-Gaeta area had still much hidden death in wait for the Division, and a few casualties were suffered in order that many more lives might be saved later.

The last “bugs” were ironed out of landing plans on this exercise, and the 3rd Infantry Division was again at peak condition … ready for anything.

Security as to exact time and place of the coming operation was excellent, but the fact could not be disguised from German agents and sympathizers among the Italians that a large-scale amphibious expedition was shortly to set sail. There were still too many pro-Nazis and unconverted Fascists in order for our large-scale preparations to remain a secret. Consequently, the mission coming up was increasingly “sweated out” by the men who were to accomplish it, more than any other since the initial landings in Africa.

For several days, in the latter part of July and early August, the Axis radio trumpeted nervously that a new invasion was ready to strike at southern France. Only the fact that such shots had been apparently “called” by the enemy on previous occasions, and then subsequently carried successfully to completion anyway, prevented our forces from a too overbearing concern over the enemy’s feigned knowledge of coming events.

Southern France was a logical target, and it was much more so now that the beachhead forces in Normandy had broken loose and were in the process of overrunning the Brittany Penisula.[1]

[1] Taggart, 193, 195.

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