1944 Jun 6: On to Anzio

On June 6 the Combat Team left Naples for Anzio aboard LSTs and LCIs, leaving Company E behind to await the arrival of the rest of the 2nd Battalion from Oran. The small fleet put into Anzio harbor the morning of June 7, but not before 75 percent of the personnel aboard had become violently ill. Ground swells were heavy and the landing craft displaced about as much water as an over-sized bathtub; the effect produced was about equal to the effect a cyclone would have on a larger ship. Debarking in the rubble of Anzio the troops marched about five miles to a bivouac outside the city, arriving in a state of collapse. Weeks at sea had gotten the men into terrible physical condition. The same night, June 7, German planes raided the supply dumps at Anzio and the men had a ringside seat to one of the biggest displays of aerial fireworks most of them had ever seen. Long red tracer streaks crisscrossed the sky, punctuated by the quick flashes of flak bursts as the gunners followed the flight of the German planes. No one in the Combat Team area was injured.