The Anzio Maneuver - 1944

On the morning of January 22, 1944, troops of the Fifth Army landed on a 15-mile stretch of Italian beach near the town of Anzio.

German commanders, who had been informed by their superiors that an amphibious assault would not take place during January, were unprepared to react offensively.

However, as Allied troops prepared to break out of the beachhead, the Germans gathered troops to eliminate what Adolf Hitler called the "Anzio abscess".

Four months of brutal fighting would follow.