Norman finally came ashore at Anzio 48 hours after the official landings now a
sergeant Norman was in charge of his team, as they dragged their gun 5 miles
inland under enemy fire the plan was to march quickly on Rome but the Allies had
underestimated the Germans and was soon surrounded a lot of the area that the
Allied troops were holding was actually quite exposed and dangerous in fact if
we if we look at this photograph and get an idea of just how dangerous it was so
you can see the the pock marks from shells and from bombs bursting you can
actually even see an explosion in the distance here and you get an
appreciation of the the fact that these men lived in constant danger 24 hours of
the day somewhere is somewhere around here now to give you an idea of what the
conditions were like here the photograph of a select ranch or as the Americans
called it a foxhole it's seven feet deep and it's almost the dimensions of a
grave and some of these slit trenches tragically became the graves of the
soldiers it's something my granddad would have been in or around at the time
yes he would have lived in one of these somewhere close to his Bofors 40
millimeter gone so he's he's living in there he's sleeping in there
because there's literally nowhere safe in this area you can be shared you can
be bombed the Germans have two huge railway guns which the Allies called an
Giovanni and the ante were expressed the Germans called them Leopold and Robert
two hundred and eighty millimeter shells and these guns could actually fire to a
distance of 36 miles so literally from almost in the city of Rome they could
land a shell here where we are so some guy sitting in the gun in in Rome could
be shooting it the girl is sitting in here yes you kidding me I kid you not
Norman found himself in the middle of a brutal battle of attrition not unlike
the fighting in World War one living in trenches or foxholes in boggy wet
conditions continually bombarded with high casualty rates there was nowhere to
retreat except back to the sea and no ships there to rescue them the British
fleet had been sent north to prepare for the Normandy landings stuck with his gun
and surrounded on all sides there was no respite for Norman who
feared for his life 24 hours a day in Tunisia there was a lane of retreat they
could fall back and Anzio they have to stay where they are they hold their
ground or they become prisoners of war or they die and the siege lasted until
the end of May of 1944 for months you say they were here couldn't move yes
it's interesting because all my grandmother came back from the war he
developed this tickets nervous tic on it but dominantly around his head his face
and and that lasted for the rest of his life and it it was from from the war and
they call this shell-shocked what is shell shock shell shock is a
range of psychological conditions today we we class them as post-traumatic
stress and it's literally that constant living with fear of being killed or
being injured and it's it's something that is just going on day after day hour
after hour there is literally no escape from it in this area and that Tech is
probably as subconscious still reacting to aircraft sounds and memories being
triggered not even the best trained psychologists unless he's been out there
and seen it happen and endured can understand what these men have gone
through
hearing about the shell-shocked
yeah that always like he broke down yeah shit
I was upset now forget but here's for me it feels more intense feels very real
because they're not affected him here harder
because just with it
after four months and the loss of 14 thousand soldiers Norman and the Allies
finally broke the stalemate at Anzio on the 23rd of May Rome was liberated
thirteen days later on the 5th of June
when I was with my brother my mum and we were looking through my granddad's
service record and there's a few things in there but at the end when he left it
said exemplary it's not a standard signature if we compare the the rating
of soldiers service to modern exam results exemplary isn't a star so that
that's an outstanding soldier that's a soldier who's done his job very very
well he got exemplary that makes me very proud of him actually
my Nana and grandma I've loved each other very much they're mine for 64
years I don't know what my nan you about my granddad's war effort but I feel now
myself that I know a lot more than I did I know my granddad came back here on the
50th anniversary of Anzio I have this photograph here sitting on a boat about
here with my nan with her shoes she's thrown to the side
my granddad broke down here you know he broke down in such a way that my nan was
really really surprised but of course it all came flooding out the war and losing
friends and the battles and the heartache and the nights away from home
and and I suppose it probably would have helped my granddad to be able to share
that with his wife I'm just happy to have been to places where I felt closer
to my granddad I understand now how it affected him for the rest of his life
you