I always wonder if the allies should have broke out of the beachhead right after the landing Who knows maybe that could've shortened the war Can anyone reccomened some good reading about Anzio?

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I always wonder if the allies should have broke out of the beachhead right after the landing Who knows maybe that could've shortened the war Can anyone reccomened some good reading about Anzio?

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Yes Zod, they should have drove on immediatly. Unfortunetly, Gen. John Lucas decided to wait for more reenforcements to arrive before moving inland. A great big blunder...the allies had the upperhand with the element of surprise on their side. By waiting on the beach, it gave the Germans time to mount a counter-offensive which nearly blew the allies back to the sea.

I wasn't able to lacate a book specifically on Anzio, but I was able to find a very good site from which you can read about it. Good pictures too.

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/anziobeach/anzio-landing.htm

We won the war precisely because of "those people". Of course they made mistakes, many of them tragic. But we are looking back with sixty years of hindsight, with knowledge that these men did not possess. Anzio was flawed from the very start, and Lucas did the best he could with what he had. Patton would certainly have driven fast to Rome, and entered the conquering hero. And, as DJ suggests, there he would have been captured or killed--now, owuldn't THAT have cemented a sterling reputation for Patton? At least if he had been killed, he would have gone out the way he wanted to. But really, it doesn't matter who was in charge, Pak, the logistics weren't there. And logistics is what ultimately wins wars. American commanders proved to be very adept at managing logistics--far better IMO than anyone else. Lucas was tossed on the beach and left there, without a port of any size to unload supplies and with the LSTs leaving for England and Overlord. The Anzio operation lacked an attainable mission, IMO. It never drew German forces from the front lines to the south, as Clark had hoped. The Germans reinforced from the north. The drive inland was towards Rome, not towards 5th Army, and so the Germans were not presented with a serious operational threat. I did my bachelor's thesis on this battle almost twenty years ago, looking specifically at historiography and analysis of the battle and how that changed with succeeding generations of historians (WAY before the wonders of internet reserarch). I came up with pretty much the same conclusion the recent writers have--Brave men acccomplished a great deal, but on an operational level were doomed from the start. Very sad.
Greg

Sir--I beg to differ. The operation should never have been conducted. The force was too small and lacked sufficient logistical support to sustain a drive outside the beach area.