World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF ITALY: Doughboys' Beachhead

With the men at the Nettuno beachhead (see map) was TIME Correspondent Will Lang. Of the local, intermittent fighting in the first days, he cabled:

I joined a battalion moving up for the first attack at dawn. We turned left at the first intersection and passed three huge silhouettes by the roadside. "Tanks. That's good. As long as they stay away from our doughfoots," someone muttered.

We crossed a bridge. E and G Companies were somewhere ahead of us, trying to find something resembling the German line. It was quiet as a graveyard, yet miles ahead apprehensive Germans began shooting up flares—green,...

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