Anzio at 75!

MikeBo’s Blog

Sunday February 17, 2019

Partly Cloudy 54°F/12°C in Cedar Park, Texas

Clear 54°F/12°C in Anzio, Lazio, Italy

Buonagiornata,

The other day, when I walked Lola over to the mail center at my apartment complex, I reached into my mailbox and pulled out my copy of LST Scuttlebutt, the newsletter of the U.S. LST

Mike Botula at Polish Military Cemetery

at Montecassino, Italy

Association, which I joined back in 2003 when I first began researching my father’s Navy service in World War 2.  The cover story this month is devoted to the  75^th Anniversary of the Allied invasion at Anzio, about 32 miles south of Rome and was the first step in the long, bloody offensive which resulted in the liberation  of the Italian capital on June 5^th  1944 – the day just before the Allied landings at Normandy on D-Day, June 6^th 1944. The Normandy landings completely overshadowed the Fall of Rome and the actions of the general who commanded the Allied Fifth Army, General Mark Clark.  The Anzio campaign commanded the world’s attention in the months between January and June of 1944 and reverberated throughout history for years afterward. It was one of the bloodiest campaigns of the war for the Americans who fought their way up the boot of Italy. And in 2017 on one of my visits with Michael and Laura in Rome, I asked them to indulge me and take me to the monastery at Montecassino and the beach at Anzio.

When I returned to Texas, I devoted one of my Rome Diary pieces to the visit.

      Here is the blog: