• Anzio – January 12 – February 4, 1944

William Russell Hinckley wrote a diary through the war.  Most of it is in his small five year diary he kept.  For some reason he wrote from January 12 to February 4 1944 on stationary.  I do not know why but suspect that it is because he was in on the landing at Anzio and they did not want papers on them to give the enemy clues on anything they had done so he wrote this on stationary and then retrieved his diary later.  I follow his spelling, most notable is that he spelled off as of.  (WSH)

Dear Diary,

Here it is Jan. 12.  Eggy’s friend left this morning.  St. Agata is still thriving due to American Soldier trade.  I played 500 Rummy in the orderly room until 4:30AM Had just crawled into bed, when Egg woke us.  We are going back to Headquarters.

January 13:

Am early to breakfast and loaf until noon.  Close down at noon and “tare down & load up”.  Just three months ago to the day, that we arrived here.  We have all become attached to the place.  Cpt called a meeting and told us that we are invasion bound.  A “grubstake show” How right his words of warning turned out to be.

January 14. V.H.F. moved a day ahead of schedule. A long grueling ride back the sorrento peninsula to the main land.  Past beautiful villas and vacation camps.  Over much bombed roads and by destroyed factories.  Vesusvious slips by our right as we pull into naples.

I detest Naples, dirty! And of oh! So ancient design.  It smells! We climb the hills behind Naples pass the municipal airfield (now a bomber and fighter base) and pull into headquarters.

For Cozy and I, it is a quick meal, a fast ride to 2691S. H.W. and the beginning of a long ride back to St. Agata.  Steering gear trouble put us into a tank trap.  Two hours delay and we are on our way.  A rough ride and an awful tragic accident in castlemore.  A Englishman and our truck.  We handed the Englishman over to an M.D.S. station and went on to Sorrento.  Here we paid our last visit to Pop, Had our last good meal.

Went on to St. Agata all the plotters and Officers were throwing on last one.  Reported to Capt. Weizel and helped Cozy drink a quart of champagne.  Morning came awful early and we took of again.  This time on top of moody Howards truck.  Had a qt. To keep from freezing to death.

Lots of traffic, big show coming soon.  Went from stageing area to chow at 64th fighter wing.  Saw Spec, simmons, west and boys.  Just got back to hdqts when Val asked for two men to drive a ration truck in D-Day.  Miller and I volunteered.  We threw our stuff into the 2 ½ tonner, and took of for Ops # 2 again.  Their we loaded our rations and gasoline and went to Kings Forest in Naples.  Where we spent the first night.  Next day was spent in water proofing our truck.  We are hauling rations so we eat good.

Dark and cold as heck in forest.  All invasion stuff is being water proofed here.  Three nights and two days we spent in this restricted area.  My guess is it will come of the 22nd of Jan. Bright and early we pulled out and headed for the docks.  Our truck is running like a “maytag” since the water prooffing.  How in the hell we will hit the “drink” and pull to shore beats me.  We loaded on an English manned L.S.T. #62.  First thing to do is steal, I mean “moonlight requisition” all the rations we can.

Our beds are in the back of our truck.  Our LST is the cleanest English ship I have ever been on, chow is fair.  But the yankee boat next to us is really putting out the chow.  We were supposedly restricted to the boat.  But we stood on shore in front of it, just because we hated to leave shore.  Three nights were spent on board while the ship was in dock.  By now we are all filthy and with out showers or clean clothes we present a mangy looking crew.

We have divided forces, so if are ship is lost we will not loose the whole outfit.  20% of us are going in D-Day.  The rest will come in D-five.  Anchor is hoisted, and we pull out of a much bombed harbor, heavy with allied shipping.

We travel north and west along the mainland, passing between Ischia (sp) and the mainland.  We come into a cove not fifteen miles above Naples that is heavy with invasion ships making the appointed rendevous.  Native “dagoes” were fast to row along side our boat and sell everything from nuts & apples to liquers.

The invasion shipping all piled in, in the next two days. Crap games and all kinds of card games run twenty hours a day.  Little is said about the show, except for a few scattered guesses.  Most talk is of home and regular G.I. stuff.

We pull out the 21st tension is keyed up to the boats speed.  Pretty high at last come the briefing, just below Rome at the towns of Anzio and Nettuno.  Beaches are bad.  English 1st division above, rangers take the towns, American 3rd division below.  Intelligence shows two “jerry” divisions in Rome vicinity with twenty or thirty tanks within two days he can bring as many more men from Northern Italy.

Object, to aid and assist in the capture of Rome.

Now we sweat out H-Hour- (spmJan-22) which is tomorrow.  Lots of time is spent going over maps showing routes to our rendevous point.  We go in D-Day.  Joe, Capt Jordan and I have f.m. set up on ships top deck by two.  One of the blackest nights Ive seen.  Show starts on time, no sound, just brilliant flashes of the naval bombardment.  Our radio net keeps an hourly watch.  About 5 pm reports begin to drift in.  All landings successful, operations going forward as arranged.  First eight waves ashore, before meeting opposition.  Rangers take both towns in twenty minutes, complete surprise.

Dawn finds us a couple miles off shore, with nothing but shipping as far as we can see.  As we continue toward shore we taste our first action.  One Jer. 88 st looks to easy.  We anchor about 500 yards off shore an LCI burns on the beach, victims of a mine.  Ten minutes later a large yankee mine sweep hits another and sinks in three minutes.  Seven men saved as if this were a signal all hell broke loose from then on.  God Jerry made it miserable but we were lucky. Eight bombs fell within a radius of 50 yards to us.  I have never felt so helpless.  What a barrage our ack-ack puts up.  Sure I was scared.  Scared to death.  We unloaded onto our L.C.T. and hit the beach.  I have never been so thankful for land.

Water came above our running boards. We stalled on the beach just at deep dusk.  An engineer “cat” pulled us out to the road.  Black as ive ever seen it and us trying to find the meeting place.  We dewater proofed at an M.P. station three trucks of our unit spent the night not 100 yards from the beach.  All night long 88’s pounding away at us.  From then until D-5 it was hell and more hell.  We got into operations Hink cooking and seat out evening artillary and planes.  Cozy, egg and bunch came in D-4 most intensified raid, Hospital ships sunk and burning ammunition dumps and boats (large and small) going sky high. Dog fights all the hell that makes a war.

Have seen no civilians in five days.  Concussions from shells and bombs are terrific.  Lord it’s rugged sweating them out especially “whistling willie”.  We move to new location in big beautiful park of Anzio.  Bare Dago boy came to Dr. with holes in his head the size of quarters.  Beach head hasn’t changed size in days.  Fighting is very intensive.  We lived in Jerry “mortor” house lots of machine gun nests, old tanks, etc, lying around.

Danger from falling shrapnel is high. Lots of near misses and holes in tents.  Our pyrimidal is comfortable but not as safe as our fox holes. Ive dug so many lately and lived under ground so damn long I begin to look like a mole.

(The stationary diary ends here and takes up in his small diary.