remaining tanks withdrew, leaving the German infantry—who had broken into the center of the company area—to fight alone. The TD opened fire on the Germans with the .50-caliber AA machine gun and mowed down the attackers by the score. The doughs credited the TD crew with breaking up the assault, but the M10 had expended all of its ammo and had to withdraw. Company E was almost wiped out over the next twenty-four hours.30
The German attack pushed into the seam between the 157th and 179th Infantry regiments. Tanks, SP guns, and artillery pounded the line, but the men grimly held on. American artillery struck furiously in return. The TDs of the 645th engaged in a wild shootout with the advancing panzers. Second Lieutenant Jack Lindenberg’s 2d Platoon, Company A, battled three Tigers and two Mark IVs in thick smoke at only three to four hundred yards. The American gunners caught two of the Tigers from the flank and forced the Germans to pull back. But Jerry destroyed one M10 in return and sent another limping to the rear with one of its two diesel engines shot out. Similarly, 1st Platoon killed one Mark IV for the loss of one TD, while 3d Platoon KO’d a Mark III and a Mark IV but left one burning M10 on the battlefield. Company C, meanwhile, claimed five panzers for the loss of three TDs.31
By day’s end, the defenders had grudgingly backpedaled about one mile, but the Germans had failed to break through.32
Germany’s Tank Destroyers
The fighting at Anzio took place at roughly the same time that the German armed forces began to field a class of armored vehicles specifically designed as tank killers. These were turretless, well-armored, self-propelled guns carrying cannon capable of dealing with the heaviest Allied (including Soviet) armor. Indeed, unlike the American designs, they were developed with the all too common slugging match in mind—not the rarely seen speedy response to an armored thrust.
The German Panzerjager, or tank hunters, were an evolutionary product of assault guns designed to provide the infantry with close-in fire support that had seen service as early as the invasion of France. Indeed, when the Sturmgeschutz (StuG) III—the most widely produced assault gun—was given a powerful 75mm cannon and thicker armor in early 1942, the vehicle was initially used solely in an antitank roll on the Eastern Front. Official German sources credited the StuG III with twenty thousand Allied tank kills on all fronts.33
The Germans had built some jerry-rigged tank destroyers mounting AT guns in lightly armored superstructures on obsolete or foreign-made tank chassis. But in January 1944, the first Jagdpanzer IV vehicles entered service with combat units. This vehicle carried a long-barreled 75mm gun in an armored superstructure on the Mark IV chassis and had 80mm (three-plus inches) of well-sloped frontal armor. In February, series production of the Jagdpanzer V (Jagdpanther or Hunting Panther) began. The Jagdpanther carried the 88mm gun on a Panther chassis with sloped front armor 80mm thick.34
Other tank killers were produced, from the rare, giant Ferdinand to the widespread, diminutive, and deadly Hetzer. Unfortunately, American AARs often lumped the panzerjagers, assault guns, and SP artillery together under the “SP” heading. TD battalion kill statistics also broke out SP guns from the tanks, although the latter could be even more dangerous than actual tanks.
The German tank-killer units in practice operated more or less the same as their American counterparts, with platoons or companies parceled out in support of infantry or armored line units. A StuG III crew, for example, would typically take part in the pre-assault artillery barrage, join the main body in the attack, fire on strongpoints such as bunkers, and switch to the tank-destroyer role if enemy tanks appeared.35 As in the U.S. Army, the tank hunters were not organized as part of the armored force (the assault gun crews were artillerymen), although they increasingly took on the role of tanks. After 31 March 1943, however, panzerjager battalions not attached to the infantry were considered part of the Panzertruppe.36
The forward defenses buckled further on 17 February under the pressure exerted by three tank-supported infantry divisions. American troops gave ground almost to the line that Lucas had declared to be his final position. Further retreat, he said, would mean the destruction of the beachhead.
Realizing his peril, Lucas threw fresh armor into the fray. A battalion of the 6th Armored Infantry Regiment, vanguard of the 1st Armored Division, moved into the line to buttress the doughs of the 45th Infantry Division, and tanks advanced to help the slowly withdrawing 2/157th Infantry.37
The artillery barrage supporting the German attacks against the 45th Infantry Division during the day also hit the positions of Company A, 701st Tank Destroyer Battalion. One man was killed and another was wounded.
Company I of the 157th Infantry Regiment dug a semi-circular arc of foxholes in front of the overpass and at dusk repulsed the first of the infantry attacks that would crash into the position over the next several days. At approximately 1730 hours, the 1st Armored Division ordered the TDs of A/701st to take up firing positions at the overpass to support the doughs. The M10s arrived by 2300 hours, and the crews dug their vehicles in.
Lieutenant John Hudson deployed his 2d Platoon on the left in what was technically the British zone but contained many empty foxholes. The former infantry officer recalled from his training at Ft. Benning that a commander should never use a natural line—in this case the Albano–Anzio road—as the boundary between tactical units because neither outfit will view the feature as its problem. He sited his four M10s so that they could use the earthen ramp of the overpass as an ersatz revetment.
On 18 February, renewed attacks by fresh formations—the 29th Panzergrenadier and 26th Panzer divisions—broke through the 179th Infantry Regiment’s line.38 Two hull-down M10s from 2d Platoon, B/645th Tank Destroyer Battalion, engaged a dozen panzers pushing down the highway toward the overpass. Boggy ground made off-road maneuver impossible for the TDs, but it also forced the German tanks to stick to the roads. Sergeant Tousignant reported: “Three Mark VIs [were advancing], interval between them of approximately one hundred yards. We opened fire on first tank, knocked [it] out while broadside in road. Opened fire on second tank, which pulled in behind house out of view. Third tank came down road. Fired on him, knocking him out broadside in road, blocking road. In the meantime, second tank behind house turned around, started back north toward their lines, got out in the open, and we knocked [it] out.”39
Return fire disabled the second M10, however.
As the Germans sought to exploit the hole in the American line, the massed fire of two hundred Allied guns fell on advancing panzers and infantry. The attack disintegrated, and artillery wrecked four more German thrusts over the next hour.40
By day’s end, the 645th had lost a total of eleven tank destroyers battling the German offensive (plus six more abandoned in deep mud), but it had killed twenty-five panzers with direct fire, plus twelve through artillery concentrations directed by battalion personnel.41 Company A, 894th Tank Destroyer Battalion, was attached to the 645th during the day to compensate for the 645th’s losses. But February proved a costly month for the 894th, too: The outfit lost seven men killed, fifty-two wounded, and fourteen missing.42
Lieutenant John Hudson‘s men at the overpass itself were bombed and strafed frequently on 18 February, but the guns were well protected, and the outfit suffered no casualties. That night, Hudson crawled infantry-style down a drainage ditch that ran beside a rail line parallel to the road to do some scouting. As he neared a culvert, he could hear the voices of a German patrol from inside the pipe.
At 0400 hours the next morning, a strong German infantry assault supported by panzers tried to push down the Albano–Anzio road through the defenses at the overpass. Hudson’s 2d Platoon stood right in the way of the advancing panzers.
Hudson spotted the panzer column as it clanked into view. A Tiger was the first vehicle in line. Hudson ordered his guns to fire at five hundred yards. Staff Sergeant Merle Downs, a small, quiet, but immensely competent noncom, opened up first. Hudson watched in dismay as fifteen 3-inch tracer rounds deflected off the Tiger’s thick hide. He began to wonder how the encounter was going to turn out. Fortunately, the ground was still too soft for the panzers to deploy off the road and engage the outnumbered TDs.