The Irish Guards

General Harold Alexander

 At Anzio

The long-awaited German attack exploded at 0600 hours on February 16th. As far as the eye could range from the slopes of the Alban Hills to the extreme eastern flank, gun flashes spoke of the great offensive. And the eruption of smoke and pulverized earth around the Factory showed where the shells were going. Then accompanied by tanks, came the German Infantry. Every gun on the beachhead was ranged on the narrow front, and some of the heavies were backed into the sea itself in an endeavour to drop their minimum range so as to reach this new target. Again and again, suffering frightful casualties in the process, the German Infantry advancing across open ground were driven back. Again and again they came on. Despite some of the bitterest resistance of the whole Anzio campaign, by the end of the day an ominous gap had been punched in the Allied line. The Battalions of 24th Guards Brigade were called forward to take up a last-ditch defensive position barring the exit of the main road, but the heroic resistance, particularly of the 1st Loyals and the 2nd Battalion of the U.S 157th Regiment Combat Team, held off the Germans - though only just. Crisis was reached on the long night of February 18th. Attack after attack was mounted by the persistent Germans, and they all but got through. But then even they had had enough, and as dawn broke the onslaught simmered and died down. In retrospect it is now possible to see that this was the vital day and the beachhead was now safe, nut no one present on that glorious spring morning appreciated. To the 1st Battalion Irish Guards the battle sounded disastrous. All the well-known place-names fell one by one. Hourly the Guardsmen expected to be called - but no summons came until after lunch on the 21st. The gullies in which the battalion found themselves were in shape roughly like a boot. They were on average about 20 feet deep, precipitous and covered in brambles. Their slippery sides made it almost impossible for anyone once in a gully to get out again. The top of the boot was to the north and the whole ran parallel to the main road and about 300 yards from it. At the of the boot was a junction. Here was Number 2 Company's position, and an uninviting place it was. As Number 2 Company were making the best of their precarious existence the remaining company, Number 3, headed north. They contacted the American company, whom they were to relieve, and were in the very process of taking over the position, when all the conversation was blotted out by two German aircraft flying very low. No one paid any notice until, suddenly, the ground erupted in a kaleidoscope of flashes - the entire bomb load of anti-personnel bombs had been dumped on the company. Over 70 mmen were wounded, mostly Americans, but also 30 Guardsmen, nearly fifty percent of the company. To make matters worse the Germans started shelling the area, and long-range machine-gun fire swept the ground around them. To provide distraction Guardsmen Adamson and Montgomery ran up the road with their Bren-gun and engaged the enemy with such effect that most of the German fire was from then on directed on them. Three days and four nights of bitter close-quarter fighting followed for the Battalion. Each German attack was immediately succeeded by an even more ferocious counter-attack. This form of aggressive defence which the Micks had practised to such excellent effect at ' The Bou ' again stood them in good stead; costly as these forays were they maintained morale in a most wonderful fashion and made the Germans keep a respectful distance. In Number 2 Company's area Sergeant Gundel took note of the position of enemy snipers and then at night he sallied forth and wiped them out; he preferred to work alone. If a shot whistled past a man's head, he was sure to raise a laugh by shouting, ' Take his name, Sergeant Gundel. ' A small thing, perhaps, but small things matter in that kind of fighting. For their part Number 3 Company showed an equal reluctance to remain on the defensive. They turned the gullies into a murderous maze in which men like Major Kennedy, M.C , Lance-Sergeant Murphy MM, Guardsman Montgomery DCM and Guardsman Adamson DCM ( all awarded later ) hunted down Germans. Montgomery and Adamson were old soldiers and old friends, both Bren-gunners, and two of the few survivors of Number 1 Company then serving with Number 3. Major Kennedy allotted them an outpost position. There they established themselves well forward of the company and for the rest of the day conducted a private war. They could be seen quite clearly as they moved from place to place, covering each other till they came to the final phase of each little operation, when, under protecting fire from Montgomery, Adamson closed in on the sniper or Spandau post and, not having the means or the inclination to take prisoners, shot the Germans with a Tommy-gun. In the afternoon Montgomery was wounded but Adamson continued operations alone for the last 3 hours of daylight. At dusk he came into Company Headquarters and asked a stretcher-bearer to dress what he called a slight wound on the side of his face. Before this could be done, he fainted. No one knew exactly when Adamson had been wounded, but it is ceratin that, for some time, he must have been fighting in a state of pain which would have incapacitated a man of lesser determination. The story of the next few days is therefore the record of the courage and skill of individual officers and men, each continuously fighting his own personal battle, knowing it to be essential to the beachhead. The driving force behind the battalion and the will that knit all these isolated actions into one battle came from Colonel Andrew Scott, D.S.O. Colonel Scott kept a firm hand on everybody. It looked so easy the way he did it, no fuss, no hurry, no gestures, just an endless round of visits and an impressive air of absolute confidence in the man he was talking to. Almost as essential to the Battalion was the support of 19th Field Regiment, R.A . These remarkable gunners dropped shells wherever the Battalion asked asked for them, they supported section attacks, they broke up large and small German assaults, they put defensive fire in front of ever-changing positions, and on several occasions they laid smoke to cover the withdrawl of one man. It was a bitter war; as the two sides roamed the gullies, attack after attack was beaten off. When one leader died another stepped into his place. Guardsman O'Brien created a Sergeant on the spot, commanded one platoon with distinction; Guardsman McCracken proved an outstanding section commander. But primarily it was an idividual war. Whenever a particularly difficult job required doing, some Guardsman, unbidden, stepped forward and offered to go. There was never any panic when a man or a section became cut off, as inevitably happened. They lay up until dark and then made their own way back to the Battalion. The Battalions of the 24th Guards Brigade were in the enviable position of having only Guardsmen, Depot trained, in their ranks. As Guardsmen they behaved and in some peculiar way the Depot basic training, considered initiative-sapping by some outsiders, proved the perfect grounding for individual prowess, bravery and enterprise. As soon as it was light enough to see on their first day in the gullies - February 22nd - the two companies dug deeper into their holes, and there they waited for the next twist of fortune. Number 3 Company, spent a peaceful morning, but they were expecting the worse, and at three o'clock it came. Under cover of some tanks in the farm across the main ditch a solid wall of German infantry rose and advanced. Major Kennedy reported cheerfully that he was ' more or less surrounded. ' The Germans pressed their assault closely. Supported by fierce bombardment, Number 13 Platoon took the full force of the attack. They fired as they had never fired before, until the rifle bolts expanded with intense heat of their rapid fire and refused to function. The platoon was swamped. Then along the track leading to Company Headquarters appeared a full German company. They were within a hundred yards of the slit-trenches. ' S.O.S right on top of us ' shouted Kennedy over the wireless to the guns. ' The guns resonded more accurately than i deamed possible ' recorderd Major Kennedy later ' and i called for three minutes' rapid and two minutes' smoke. It would be hard to say what happened during that time, as i only caught glimpses of the Germans, but the concentration was dead on them and about fifty yards in front of us. The smoke thickened and we attacked to round up those Germans who had not run or were dead. The battle was hardly over when we saw about a company of Germans pouring out of the farm ahead and coming down the green grass towards us. It was on that green grass that most of them died, for they were caught flat in the fire of Number 15 Platoon's Bren-guns under Corporal Doran, and by Abbott and Nicholson's Browning. ' Number 3 Company had been successful, but their losses were appalling. In 24 hours they had lost 70 men out of 90. The wounded were a problem until Guardsman Ryan, who had heard the Adjutant assure Kennedy that he would get them out somehow, stepped forward: ' I'll go and get the boys, sir. ' Two stretchers were clamped across the back of the jeep and a bandage tied to a windscreen to flutter as a pennant in the wind. Ryan carefully lit a cigarette, reversed the jeep out of its ditch and slammed it up the track towards ' White Cow ' farm. Nobody expected to see him again, but he reappeared, driving slowly this time, and waited only long enough for the two silent men to be lifted off their stretchers. This was Ryan's occupation for the next two days. He ran a one-man ferry service back to the R.A.P and then, since there was no ambulance available, from the R.A.P to the Advance Dressing Station.