This case study analyzes the role of operational art in Allied operations at Anzio, Italy and the battle for Rome (January 22-June 4, 1944). As part of the Allied Campaign in Italy, the amphibious assault on Anzio-code-named Operation Shingle, and the subsequent drive to Rome remains one of the most controversial military operations in history. Although the Allies eventually captured Rome from the Germans, the failure to use 'operational thinking' led to a poorly planned and executed operation. Most historical accounts blame the failures at Anzio on the lack of aggressiveness by the Operation Shingle commander Major General John P. Lucas. However, when viewed in the larger context of the strategy to defeat Germany and the Allied Campaign in Italy, Operation Shingle is a showcase of failure at the operational level of war. Political rather than military considerations drove Shingle-dooming the operation from the start. Anzio demonstrates the importance of linking tactical actions to operational and strategic objectives. At the strategic level of war, the Allies had a sound strategy to defeat Germany. However, at the operational level of war, the decision to launch Shingle did not adequately assess risk. In operational design, commanders failed to define an objective, lacked sufficient mass, and did not include alternative plans based on potential enemy actions. During planning and preparation, the Allies misjudged the enemy's center of gravity and failed to exploit valuable intelligence. During execution, operational leadership lacked initiative. Finally, the complexity and tensions created by the combined operation made unity of effort difficult. These lessons should benefit future operations.

This case study analyzes the role of operational art in Allied operations at Anzio, Italy and the battle for Rome (January 22-June 4, 1944). As part of the Allied Campaign in Italy, the amphibious assault on Anzio-code-named Operation Shingle, and the subsequent drive to Rome remains one of the most controversial military operations in history. Although the Allies eventually captured Rome from the Germans, the failure to use 'operational thinking' led to a poorly planned and executed operation. Most historical accounts blame the failures at Anzio on the lack of aggressiveness by the Operation Shingle' commander Major General John P. Lucas. However, when viewed in the larger context of the strategy to defeat Germany and the Allied Campaign in Italy, Operation Shingle is a showcase of failure at the operational level of war. Political rather than military considerations drove Shingle-dooming the operation from the start.

The University of Illinois Press continues its paperback release of Samuel Eliot Morison's panoramic fifteen-volume naval history with three volumes that chronicle the war in the Pacific from May 1942 through May 1944. This new edition will be issued in increments of three volumes per season through Spring 2003.Morison's genius for capturing the flash and fire and the pathos of combat infuses his narrative with an immense vitality and suspense. This is not an official history, in the ordinary sense of that term, but Morison's history, a gripping, face-to-face encounter with the human drama of war.Volume 4: Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions, May 1942 -- August 1942 details the American victory in the Coral Sea and the U.S. Navy's stunning defeat of a far superior Japanese force at Midway, as well as the events leading up to the six-month struggle at Guadalcanal. This volume also provides a richly detailed look at the first-year exploits of the Silent Service: the fledgling American submarine corps in the Pacific. Morison supplements his firsthand experience of American operations and access to Allied documents with critical information from the Japanese side.

This is a historical narrative of the Third Infantry Division’s experiences at the Anzio-Nettuno beachhead from 22 January to 2 June 1944. It identifies major contributing factors to the Third Infantry Division’s battlefield success at the battle of Anzio-Nettuno. The battle is broken down into five distinct stages and investigated in a chronological manner. Potentially significant factors are evaluated in each stage of the battle and include terrain, weather, Allied air superiority, and the quality of military intelligence available to the Third Infantry Division’s commander. Also compared for each side are the quality of senior leadership, previous combat experience, the quality and quantity of manpower replacements, and available artillery resources. This thesis concludes that the Third Infantry Division’s battlefield success at Anzio-Nettuno appears to have been, to a large extent, a result of the quality and stability of the division’s senior leadership, failures and missteps on the part of the higher German command echelons, the division’s masterful employment of field artillery, and a highly effective training program.

A former Harvard professor of decision science and game theory draws on those disciplines in this review of controversial strategic and tactical decisions of World War II. Allied leaders--although outstanding in many ways--sometimes botched what now is termed meta-decision making or deciding how to decide. Operation Jubilee, a single-division raid on Dieppe, France, in August 1942, for example, illustrated the pitfalls of groupthink. In the Allied invasion of North Africa three months later, American and British leaders fell victim to the planning fallacy: having unrealistically rosy expectations of an easy victory. In Sicily in the summer of 1943, they violated the millennia-old principle of command unity--now re-endorsed and elaborated on by modern theorists. Had Allied strategists understood the game theory of bluffing, in January 1944 they might well not have landed two-plus divisions at Anzio in Italy.

Bloodstained Sands tells the untold story of the men who stormed beaches around the globe during World War II, from the Sword and Juno Beaches on D-Day to the sands of Iwo Jima. For the men who served in America's Amphibious Forces during World War II, the conflict was an unceasing series of D-Days. They were responsible for putting men ashore in more than 200 landings throughout the conflict, most against well-entrenched enemy positions. Bloodstained Sands: US Amphibious Operations in World War II tells the story of these forgotten men for the first time, tracing their operational history from Guadalcanal to Casablanca, Sicily, Normandy, Iwo Jima and finally Okinawa. The men's stories are told in their own voices, with fascinating accounts from Underwater Demolition Teams, Attack Transport crews and many other unsung heroes of World War II. First-hand interviews, entries from personal diaries and Action Reports create a unique history, perfectly complemented by historic illustrations and detailed maps. These are timeless tales of determination, sacrifice, and triumph of the human spirit - tales of US Amphibious Forces that for too long have gone forgotten and untold.

Sections 1-2. Keyword Index.--Section 3. Personal author index.--Section 4. Corporate author index.-- Section 5. Contract/grant number index, NTIS order/report number index 1-E.--Section 6. NTIS order/report number index F-Z.

In June 1944 the Allies opened the long-awaited second front against Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, and this was to be the start of a long struggle throughout Western Europe for the Allied forces in the face of stiff German resistance. The European Theatre was where the bulk of the Allied forces were committed in the struggle against Nazi Germany. It saw some of the most famous battles and operations of the war – Normandy, Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge – as the Allies sought to liberate Western Europe in the face of bitter and hard-fought German resistance. From the beaches of D-Day through to the final battles in war-ravaged Germany, the war across the breadth and depth of Western Europe is brought to life through scores of carefully researched and intricately detailed maps.