It’s been months since I have made a post. This is partly because I have been moving around a lot and partly because I feel like i have nothing to say. The work continues. This project finishes a new one starts. The holidays come and go. But today deserves a post all its own.
75 years ago today (January 22, 1944) the Americans landed in Anzio, Italy. The landed took the Germans by surprise and made good progress in the first few hours. But things quickly turned badly and the allies were stalled for months. Every inch of the landing area was reachable by the German guns. The battle raged until May. Eventually the Allies did brake out and succeeded in liberating Rome. The German army however was able to make a orderly retreat and lived to fight another day.
Today I visited the now picture perfect seaside town of Anzio. A quick stop in the history museum in city hall basement where they were playing a black and white film of footage from the battle mixed with interviews of vets 10 years after. One of the vets was talking about how was it wasn’t worth it. The interviewer asked what he meant. “Well it was all terribly important at the time to somebody. But now it looks just like any other beach side town. Here or in England.” And in many ways he is right. The collection was bigger than the space and many things were squished in so tight they where have to see. After that I made my way down towards the beach. As I was approaching the harbor I started to fallow the crowd that was gathering for the wreath laying ceremony. They had the Italian army band, a group from the navy, Carabinieri , and flag waving school children. The school choir sang a few songs no one could hear because their background music was too loud. Several speeches where made. (One by a admiral who was whisked away by his bodyguards as soon as he was done.) The bugler played taps and the children waved their flags. The most interesting thing was not the 45 Brits that came and got an honorable mention but rather the fact that the children were given not only Italian, British, and American flags but also German flags too. For a town that doesn’t forget his history they seem to have forgotten who lost.
After a few kilometers walk I arrived at the American cemetery. I had missed the wreath laying ceremony there but a group of four Americans were reading the names of the fallen. A different group was working it’s way around the cemetery making sure every single grave had a candle and that the candle was still lit. (It was a windy day). There was more scheduled for latter in the evening but it was time for me to go home. A hour by train to Rome. A journey that took the Americans 5 months to do in 1944.
