Battle
The 1st and 3rd Ranger Battalions—preceding the main attack by the 4th Ranger Battalion and the 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment—attempted a night infiltration behind German lines into the town of Cisterna. Their objective was to seize the town in a surprise attack and hold it until the main attack came through.
The two battalions—totaling 767 men and supported by a platoon of 43 men of the 3rd Reconnaissance Troop—moved out at 01:30 and moved in the darkness along a drainage ditch in column formation. Although they were able to bypass numerous German positions, at first light they were still short of their objective and needed to cross open ground for the final portion of the approach. At this point the Rangers were attacked by strong German forces of the 715th Motorized Infantry Division and Herman Göring Panzer Division, including at least seventeen German Panzer IV tanks. According to the Army history of the operation, the infiltration movement had apparently been discovered and an ambush prepared.
The 1st Battalion commander—Major Dobson—personally knocked out one tank by shooting the commander with his pistol, climbing atop the tank, and dropping a white phosphorus grenade down the hatch. Two other tanks were captured by Rangers, but then knocked out by other Rangers who did not know they had been captured. Despite fierce fighting, there was little chance of success once the Rangers were attacked on the open ground. German units put Ranger prisoners in front of their tanks and commanded other Rangers to surrender. After the approximately seven-hour battle, only six of the 767 Rangers and one member of the 3rd Recon troop returned to Allied lines, resulting in an overall loss of 803 men. The exact number of killed, wounded and captured is unknown, although historian Carlo D'Este estimated well over 400 Rangers became POWs. German casualties reached a similar level.
A fictionalized account of the battle was produced in the motion picture Anzio in 1968.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Cisterna
Famous quotes containing the word battle:
“Fold up the banners! Smelt the guns!
Love rules, Her gentler purpose runs.
A mighty mother turns in tears
The pages of her battle years,
Lamenting all her fallen sons!”
—Will Henry Thompson (1848–1918)
“No slogan of democracy; no battle cry of freedom is more striving then the American parent’s simple statement which all of you have heard many times: ‘I want my child to go to college.’”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“In a time of war the nation is always of one mind, eager to hear something good of themselves and ill of the enemy. At this time the task of news-writers is easy, they have nothing to do but to tell that a battle is expected, and afterwards that a battle has been fought, in which we and our friends, whether conquering or conquered, did all, and our enemies did nothing.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)