Truscott, stopped at Cisterna by the Hermann Göering and 26th Panzergrenadier divisions, decided to use Darby’s three lightly armed Ranger battalions to spearhead the 3rd Division’s assault on the town on January 30. The Rangers’ attack was a shambles. Ambushed by German tanks and heavy artillery as they approached the town, the Rangers were pinned down and torn to pieces.

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Vexed that little had been accomplished in the week since the landings, Alexander urged Clark to concentrate his efforts on full-scale attacks to capture Cisterna and Campoleone, followed by a rapid advance on Velletri, seven miles north of Cisterna.

But Clark estimated that Kesselring’s reinforcements were too strong for any quick thrust to be successful. Much of this belief stemmed from intelligence reports that indicated more German units in the Anzio area than were actually present, the result of fragments of larger units that had been hurriedly thrown into the line (if a battalion or regiment of a division were present, G-2 officers assumed the entire division was on line). And, so, on February 1, 1944, Lucas’ attack petered out. What Clark did not know and could not appreciate was the fact that VI Corps’ assault had come very close to succeeding. The Germans had suffered some 5,500 casualties–about the same as the Allies’, but the numbers of troops actually present slightly favored the Allies.

Fearing a German counterattack, Clark and Alexander directed Lucas to establish defensive positions. Reinforcements arrived on February 2–the 1st Special Service Force and the British 56th Division–and the Allies dug in behind hastily laid minefields and barbed wire, allowing the Germans to go over onto the offensive.

On the drizzly morning of February 4, Mackensen’s Fourteenth Army began to roll, with infantry and armor slamming into British positions near Campoleone and driving them back. By nightfall, after much dogged fighting, the British lines stiffened, and they retook their lost positions. But Lucas, feeling the British salient was vulnerable, ordered the Tommies to withdraw during the night to a more defensible line, and Clark ordered him to hold until offensive actions seemed warranted.

The Germans sensed their opportunity. At 9 a.m. on February 7, Mackensen launched another attack, this time to dislodge the British troops holding Aprilia. Only a heroic, Waterloo-like stand, along with artillery and naval gunfire from three cruisers, kept the German 715th Division from taking the shattered town. The stand was in vain, however; two days later, in another all-out assault, German troops succeeded in capturing Aprilia.

While Alexander exhorted Lucas to begin a new offensive and Mackensen prepared for a final, massive assault that would drive the Allies into the sea, one of the most controversial actions of the war was about to be played out 60 miles south, at the once-peaceful Abbey of Monte Cassino.

The ancient abbey sat like a magnificent crown upon a 1,700-foot hill that overlooked the approaches to the Liri Valley. Because of its historical significance (it was begun in 529 AD by St. Benedict), its magnificent collection of priceless works of art, and the fact that it was home to some 2,500 monks, nuns and civilian refugees, Eisenhower had placed the abbey strictly off-limits to Allied bombers and artillery. The Germans, too, had hoped to respect the abbey’s importance. But the pronouncements of generals would not be sufficient to spare this treasure.

By establishing observation posts and fortified defensive positions outside the abbey’s walls, the Germans presented a threat to the Allied push into the Liri Valley that could not be ignored. The 4th Indian Division, given the task of taking Monte Cassino, requested an aerial bombardment of the abbey. After much discussion, which went all the way to Alexander, the request was approved over Clark’s objections.

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