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Almost as important was the land-sea teamwork. Under the quiet, good-natured Iowan, Vice Admiral Frank Jacob Lowry, U.S.N., an international naval force (U.S., British, French, Greek, Dutch) raked the beaches ahead of the invaders. Germans put the fleet's strength at two battleships, three aircraft carriers, five cruisers—a piddling force by comparison with the fleets which moved on Sicily, but enough for last week's economical operation. The men who went ashore were battle-tested, battle-hungry: U.S. Rangers, British Commandos, soldiers of Lieut. General Mark Clark's toughened Fifth Army.
Traps for Trappers. Invasion at Nettuno was coupled with heavy punches at the Gustav Line to the south. On its lower end, the Fifth's Tommies crossed the 70-yard-wide Garigliano River, captured the ruined town of Minturno, whence the old Roman Via Appia streaks across the Pontine Marshes to Rome, 76 miles away.
U.S. and French troops crossed the 40-yard-wide Rapido, inched closer to Cassino's whitewashed walls, on the strategic Via Casilina to Rome. But the U.S. doughboys ran short of ammunition, turned to bayonets, retreated back to the icy river's right bank.
At both Minturno and Cassino the foe was strong, skilled, determined. Allied sources put German strength at 100,000 men, guessed that the German Command feared a major Allied thrust here, had perhaps planned an all-out counteroffensive to push the Allies back to Naples. Now this force was in a trap whose jaws had yet to be closed.
Objective: Corpses. Rome is a rich political prize: Italy's nerve center, one of Europe's great capitals, the heart of Catholicism. But as the Russians had found out, men killed rather than cities gained decide wars. Rome's capture is less important than the destruction of Field Marshal Albert von Kesselring's army in southern Italy.