All language subtitles for World.War.II.With.Tom.Hanks.S01E11.Italy.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

After their victory over
Germany in North Africa,

American generals want to attack
the Third Reich

directly through Northern Europe,

but Prime Minister Winston Churchill
and the British believe

an operation of that size
and scope is premature.

Failure would be catastrophic.

Churchill proposes they attack
Germany from the south,

for what he considers
the soft underbelly of Europe,

Italy.

All wars change the world,
but none of them changed the world

like the Second World War did.

Japan's on the march,
Germany's on the march.

No one can imagine the nightmare
they're about to unleash.

The most destructive war
in human history.

Suddenly the world is turned
upside down

and all hell is let loose.

The West is stunned
by the speed of the advance.

You get the Allies led by
the big three,

Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin.

Men who were dealing with
immensely complicated questions.

It's the biggest military
operation of human history.

The Allies have to come together,

not just militarily,
but industrial scale.

It's a global perspective.

They have to fight
in every climate,

from the Arctic,
to the jungles of the Pacific,

to the deserts of Africa,
and the depths of the ocean.

But there was no certainty
of victory.

It was going to be
a horrific bloodbath.

We see humans
at their absolute worst,

how they treat other human beings,

and we see them
at their absolute best,

willing to give their lives
that others might live.

World War II was a struggle
in which there could be one victor

and one vanquished.

In May, 1943,
the Prime Minister of Great Britain

and the President of
the United States

meet in Washington DC
for the third time

since American entry into the war.

Rarely in history have
political leaders

forged as personal a bond

as Winston Churchill
and Franklin Roosevelt.

Churchill still feels
he's the senior partner.

He can get what he wants
out of Roosevelt.

So after Tunis, after the big
victory in North Africa,

Churchill's argument is that there's
one logical next step,

and that next step is Sicily.

So campaigning in the Mediterranean
will not only knock over

one of the three big Axis powers ,
Mussolini's Italy,

it will also open a back door
to Hitler's Germany .

And the American commanders
are saying, "Why?

Let's just go straight for Berlin.
What are we doing?

Why are we dancing
around the edges here

with this Mediterranean nonsense?"

And they think that
Franklin Roosevelt

is being persuaded
by Churchill's pretty words.

There were charges then and since
that Churchill wanted to go up

through the bottom of Europe

in order to preserve
the British Empire.

Britain was a Mediterranean power.

The Americans suspected
that this was all about

defending British interests
in Egypt,

in the Suez Canal

that controlled India and
the Persian Gulf

where British oil was.

FDR's not interested
in preserving the British Empire,

but he understands there
are sound, strategic reasons

to capture Sicily.

One of Churchill's arguments was,
they had these commitments

to take some pressure
off the Soviet Union.

Joseph Stalin has been pushing
for a second front.

Churchill says,
"You have all of these armies

that are now freed up after
the North African campaign is over.

What are you gonna do with them?
They're right there."

The truth is that the Allies

still don't have enough
actual material

to conduct a cross-channel
invasion and land in France.

Allied military leaders
are already planning

a cross-channel invasion,
Operation Overlord,

but it will not be ready for months.

To relieve the military pressure
on the Soviets,

and sustain the momentum established
by the victory in North Africa,

FDR agrees to attack Sicily.

After Sicily, they will pull,
let us say,

the Allied A-team out
of the Mediterranean,

the leadership team,
most of the landing craft,

most of the air power,
deploy it to Great Britain

to begin, finally, preparations
in earnest for an invasion

of Western Europe.

Churchill's like, "Yes, of course,
I'm sure things will go really fast.

We'll be back in time for
a nice early D-Day in 1944."

He goes,
"Look, we're all dressed up,

we're ready to go to the ball.
Let's do Sicily."

The invasion of Sicily
is given the code name

Operation Husky.

At the time, Operation Husky
is the biggest amphibious operation

in history.

The scale of shipping and
manpower is unprecedented.

They're gonna put onshore
160,000 troops.

Both Italian and German troops
oppose the Allied landings.

But the Allies achieve surprise,
and quickly secure the beaches.

You've got two field commanders on
Sicily, Montgomery for the British.

Montgomery is given the key
role, Patton for the Americans.

Patton's job is really as a shield.

The British Eighth Army,
under General Bernard Montgomery,

will advance north to Messina,

while the American Seventh Army,
under General George Patton,

guards his left flank.

If you get to Messina,

any troops that are on Sicily
cannot cross back over

it into Italy proper.

And now you've captured
all the troops

that are on Sicily
and you own Sicily.

And that's especially crucial
for the German divisions,

so that the Allies won't have
to face them at some future point

in some future battle.

As in North Africa,
British and American forces

are required to operate
as one force.

This is a really ambitious
attempt to just bring two nations

with two different traditions
very, very close into harmony.

And as you might expect,
there's teething trouble.

Montgomery
and the British senior commanders

all had a similar attitude
to the Americans,

which is, they're green.

There were disasters
and setbacks in North Africa,

they're still learning their trade.
We've been at this since 1940.

Patton, on the other hand,
thinks Montgomery has no kind of

understanding of what American
servicemen can actually achieve.

Both armies endure
horrendous conditions.

The mountainous terrain,

the 100-plus degree heat,

thousands are felled by malaria.

Sicily in the summertime
is incredibly hot,

it is disease ridden.

Fighting there is brutal
for everyone.

Fire.

Facing stiff German resistance,
Montgomery's army stalls.

He's given access to the road
Patton's army has already taken.

Patton goes ballistic.

To his credit, Patton doesn't just
sit there seething.

He comes up with a plan.

What Patton sees is,
a drive north up to Palermo

would put a feather in his cap.

The Americans overrun
the western half of Sicily

before the Germans and Italians
know what is happening.

Patton captures
the Sicilian capital of Palermo

less than two weeks
after the initial landings.

This is the signal moment
for the US army

so far in World War II.

Patton's forces are greeted
in the streets of Palermo

by Sicilians who were never
a hundred percent

on board with fascism anyway,

and they're gonna greet
the arriving American army

as liberators.

Yet again,
Adolf Hitler must adjust

for Italian military weakness.

His major ally
on the European continent,

Benito Mussolini, seems unable even
to defend his own home territory.

Benito Mussolini and
his Italian fascist movement

had set the stage for Adolf Hitler

and the rise of
the Nazi party in Germany.

Mussolini is
the inventor of fascism,

is the embodiment of
the virility of the fascist man.

In the early phases
of this relationship,

Hitler himself looks up
at Mussolini,

and he aspires to do what
Mussolini has been able

to achieve in Italy.

Hitler consciously copied
Mussolini's grab for power.

Duce Duce Duce!

The symbolism.
- Sieg heil.

The political tactics.

The violence.

But Mussolini no longer commands
an iron grip on his nation

like Hitler does.

Mussolini's war has brought Italy
nothing but misery.

The Italian people wanted
very little part

of this war at the beginning,
they want no part of it now.

Things cannot go on like this.

Hitler's getting situation reports
of what's going on in Sicily,

basically saying
the Italians aren't fighting.

He makes the decision to go to Italy
to put some spine into Mussolini.

He is shocked by
the sight of Mussolini,

who's really a broken man
after the defeat in North Africa.

There isn't much fight left in him,

and Hitler is horrified
by what he's seeing.

Hitler harangues Mussolini
for hours about his failures.

His failure to instill
a war-like spirit

into the armed forces,

his failure to make true fascists
of the Italian people,

his failure to prosecute
the war with sufficient vigour,

and Mussolini has no choice
but to sit there and take it.

As Hitler and Mussolini meet...

...the Allies begin a bombing
campaign on Rome.

The news comes as a shock
to Mussolini,

and he tries to convey to Hitler
the gravity of the situation.

Hitler continues
as if nothing had happened.

The bombing of Rome adds fuel
to this already simmering fire

of questioning and doubt
about Mussolini's leadership.

The bombing of Rome
is a shock to the Italians.

The battles have
been fought elsewhere,

but now the price of
Mussolini's war hits home.

There's grumbling in the streets.

Mussolini thinks he has the fascist
brand counsel in his pocket,

he thinks he has the top leadership
in the military in his pocket,

he thinks he has
the King in his pocket.

Victor Emmanuel III has been
the King of Italy since 1900,

and he's the one that handed
the government

over to Mussolini in 1922.

On July 25th, the day after
the fascist council passes a vote

of no confidence for Mussolini,

the King summons him to his palace.

And he's told not
to wear his uniform.

This should have been
an indication to him

that trouble was afoot,
and his wife, in fact,

advises him not to go.

Mussolini tells her,
"No problem, I've got this."

But the King
has Mussolini arrested.

He's rushed away
in the back of an ambulance

to hide him from public view.

His 21-year fascist reign is over.

The fall of Mussolini leads to
a very confusing situation.

The new head of state
is the marshal of the Italian army,

Pietro Badoglio.

He actually makes an announcement
that the war goes on,

"We remain Germany's loyal ally."

After Mussolini is deposed,
FDR addresses the nation.

My fellow Americans,

our terms to Italy are still the
same, unconditional surrender.

Publicly, Badoglio states
repeatedly that

the war effort is going on
alongside the Germans.

Privately, he is actually starting
to make arrangements

for the Italians to get out
of the war.

Badoglio signals that Italy
might be open to an armistice.

He sends one of his generals
to secretly negotiate directly

with the Allies.

Badoglio might wish to surrender,

but he needs to have
someone at his back.

He knows that there will be
retribution from the angriest man

in Europe at the time,
and that will be Adolf Hitler.

In Sicily, Patton's army leaves
Palermo to get to Messina,

while the British are advancing
from the south.

Meanwhile, the Germans
are taking advantage

of the delay in getting to Messina

to begin getting off the island.

It's effectively the German Dunkirk,

because pretty much everyone
who could walk

and was able-bodied, got off,

and not only that, they got off
with all their equipment.

The entire purpose of the Allied
operational plan was to trap

the Germans on Sicily,
and they fail.

Still, things in Sicily go pretty
much as Churchill would've wished.

Not only do Allied troops
successfully drive

Axis forces outta of Sicily,

and it also proves to be the death
nail of Mussolini's fascist regime.

With the potential deal for
an Italian surrender in the works,

FDR and Churchill meet in Quebec.

And it's at this point
that Churchill is able

to say to Roosevelt, "Look, the
Italians are pulling out of the war.

We have an opportunity bloodlessly
take the Italian peninsula.

You know, what's not
to like in this operation?"

Churchill says, "The Italians are
begging us to come

and help liberate them
and switch sides.

We could be in Rome
in a couple of weeks here.

If we land in Italy,
it'll be a cakewalk.

We can't do Sicily
and then go home."

FDR agrees, but only with
assurance that Operation Overlord

will remain the Allies'
highest priority.

The difficult trade off
in the Italian campaign

is that the key resources,

the landing craft
and the best troops,

are gonna go back to the UK
to prepare for D-Day.

Supreme Allied
Commander Dwight Eisenhower

now picks one of America's youngest
generals to lead

the Italian invasion,

Mark Clark,
commander of the US Fifth Army.

Clark has a flare for showmanship.

Because once you pin on a star,

you're also becoming a little
bit of a politician as well.

Mark Clark has an immense amount
of talent,

but he also has
a corresponding ego.

He travels with a press corps.

He will only let them take pictures
of his favourite side,

which I think is his left side,

based on all the pictures
we see of him.

The Allied strategy in Italy
calls for two large forces.

The first will land
in and around Calabria,

and the second will land
a few days later at Salerno.

The two forces will then link,
and push north towards Rome.

At Calabria,
Montgomery's Eighth Army

lands almost uncontested.

Badoglio was supposed
to take to the airwaves

on the evening of September 8th
and announce the Italian surrender,

and this is crucial to the plan,

because it will tell
the hundreds of thousands

of Italian troops
in beach defence positions

not to fire at the Allies
as they land.

At his headquarters,
Eisenhower waits by his radio.

The Salerno landings
are just hours away.

6:30 comes, no Badoglio.
Seven o'clock, no Badoglio.

The entire plan hinges
on a well announced,

orderly Italian surrender.

Eisenhower decides to force
the issue

by going on the radio himself.

The Italian government
has surrendered its armed forces

unconditionally.

All Italians who now act to help
eject the German aggressor

from Italian soil will have
the assistance

and the support
of the United Nations.

Hitler anticipates
the announcement of the armistice.

From the moment Mussolini falls,

Hitler's convinced
that Badoglio's government

is going to withdraw from the war.

For weeks, Hitler has been
moving German troops into Italy.

He orders Operation Axis.

The Germans have an operation
they've been preparing,

which is that,
if the Italians do the dirty on us,

we're gonna disarm them
and we're gonna take over

the security of all of Italy.

Italy will become
an occupied nation.

Operation Axis is the disarmament
of the Italian army

and the occupation of the entire
Italian Boot by German forces.

It occurs with lightning rapidity.

The Italian army is on
its back foot.

They aren't so sure about who they
should be firing at, if any one.

Local Italian resistance
movements form

and fight the Germans.

Nazi retaliation is fierce.

The Italians were being executed
by the Germans

after they switched sides.

There were a lot of terrible things
going on, villages wiped out.

When the Allied invasion force
lands at Salerno...

...they believe they'll be welcomed
by Italian troops.

Underlying this operational plan
is intelligence that the German army

may evacuate Italy, that it has
no desire to defend Italy.

If all goes well,

the Allies should be up to Rome
with almost no casualties at all.

So what they're gonna do
is they're gonna land

without any pre-bombardment,

and they're gonna hope
for tactical surprise.

The Allies are expecting
to meet happy Italian faces,

perhaps handshakes,
taking over Italian positions

now that Italy had surrendered,

and instead, what the troops
at Salerno experienced

was a wall of German fire.

The whole of the beach
is being saturated with shellfire.

It's an absolute inferno.

It was a grim experience for those
first few crucial days

in which they're trying
to defend the beachhead.

And it's the fighting at Salerno

that really convinces Hitler to make
them fight for every inch of Italy.

Hitler moves more forces
to defend Italy.

He also discovers that Mussolini
is being held at a hotel

in the Apennine Mountains,

and decides to take action.

Hitler just can't quit Mussolini, apparently.

He orders a commando raid
onto the Gran Sasso

to rescue Benito Mussolini.

That force lands,
overcomes Mussolini's guards.

Mussolini is flown back
to Germany.

Hitler thinks that Mussolini
would give legitimacy

to the German occupation of Italy.

For the rest of the war,
Mussolini will be ruling

a kind of puppet regime
in northern Italy.

But he's a shadow of the figure
who used to strut across

the world stage in the 1930s.

The situation has
changed drastically

since Mussolini was the top dog
and Hitler the imitator,

to now,
Mussolini as Hitler's lap dog.

After a massive air
and naval assault,

Clark's Fifth Army breaks out
of Salerno and moves inland.

A modern mechanised army
is going to experience

great difficulty in driving north,

because the Germans recognised,

the terrain's gonna do
half the work for us.

Mountain ranges, ravines,
and fast flowing rivers

made Italy a sort
of natural fortress.

What the Germans do effectively
is scorched earth policy.

They rip up the railway tracks,
they flood the river valleys.

They make it almost impossible
to move through this terrain

unless you've taken the high ground.

It was very clear, very quickly,
that they were gonna struggle

to fight their way up
the Italian peninsula.

General Mark Clark
relabelled Churchill's description

of Italy as the soft underbelly
as the tough old gut.

It is said
that all roads lead to Rome,

but in the fall of 1943,

for the Allies,
there was only one...

...Highway 6.

As Allied forces are lured
deeper and deeper

by moving north up Highway 6,

the German strategy
very quickly becomes,

we're going to set up
a series of defensive lines,

and you come to us,
and we will then maul you.

It looked a lot like World War I
defences look.

There are mines, and mortars,
and machine guns.

On the high ground,
you have artillery observers,

who could have a full view
of the advance of the Allies,

and they would call artillery
to fire on the advances.

The frustration grows with
the costliness of this advance,

the slowness of this advance
up the Boot.

There's some
historical wisdom here,

and it traces back to
the great Napoleon who once said,

"Italy is a boot,
and like all boots,

has to be entered from the top,"
where there's a nice broad plain,

plenty of room to manoeuvre.

To fight up from the toe of Italy
after coming from Sicily,

look at the terrain of Italy.

Big mountain range
all down the centre spine.

This is the big problem in Italy.

Who would wanna put
an army into that area,

especially if it's raining?

It rains every day.

And General Clark once said,

"Anyone who ever talks
about sunny Italy

should be here in October,"
which is when the Allies were there.

Gains are measured not in miles,
but often in yards.

The Italian campaign soon turns into
a slog for the Allies.

And it's sapping their energy.

They're wet, they're cold,
they're tired.

All of that is draining morale,
as well as manpower.

One of the things that they resort
to is using mules

to carry supplies forward,

'cause at least mules can get
through that kind of terrain

in those kind of conditions.

I think it's fair to say,
when the war began,

in the war department
in Washington,

no one was thinking of mules.

It was arguably
the most horrendous fighting

that the Western Allies had
to experience

in the whole
of the European theatre.

There's no question that
some of the Americans

who've given the go ahead
for the Italian campaign

are now having second thoughts.

Churchill and the British
commanders promised

the Americans that, basically,
Italy would fall relatively quickly.

Churchill argues again and again

that it would be folly not
to continue once one has set out

on the Italian campaign,

arguing they must capitalise
on their gains.

What do you do, evacuate Italy?

No, you fight the enemy in front
of you. Before you know it,

you're embroiled in a massive,
costly, brutal war in Italy.

Highway 6 snakes into
the Liri Valley on its way up

the Italian peninsula.

Overlooking the valley
is a 1,700-foot rocky peak

called Monte Cassino.

Perched on top is a sixth century
Benedictine abbey.

Monte Cassino is the strong point
of the German's defensive formation,

the Gustav Line.

It must have seemed to the Allies,
as they gazed up there,

that this is a kind of perfect
defensive position

for the Germans to use.

From the commanding heights
of this terrain,

the Germans can rain down accurate
and effective artillery fire

at all times.

There is no way to get to Rome

without in some way dealing with
Monte Cassino.

The Allies hope
to get to Rome by Christmas,

but it's here in the shadow
of Monte Cassino

that the advance stalls.

In November,
Allied leaders gather in Tehran.

FDR is meeting Stalin
for the first time.

And the first thing that happens
is Roosevelt and Stalin seem

insistent on building
their own relationship,

sometimes freezing Churchill out,
and he takes this really badly.

He has to cede centre stage
with Roosevelt to Stalin.

And Churchill is in an interesting
kind of no man's land.

There's this old line that Stalin
didn't know much English,

but he knew two words,
second front,

because he said it over
and over and over again.

And when Stalin says second front,

he doesn't mean Sicily
or even mainland Italy,

he means France.

Churchill says,
"I was the little British donkey

sitting between
the great American eagle

and the Soviet bear,

and I was the only one
who knew the way home."

Churchill is still sticking
with his Mediterranean plan.

But he knows that,
coming out of Tehran,

it's really important to be able
to go back and win this victory.

Winston Churchill, the master
of out-of-the box thinking,

has an idea for a left hook,

an amphibious landing
on the western shore of Italy

behind the Gustav Line.

Troops will land at Anzio,
50 miles behind the German forces,

then drive inland, drawing German
defenders away from Monte Cassino.

Winston Churchill thinks that
this could break

the whole thing free.
This is the wildcat we need

to shatter this stalemate.

The Allies agree to do it,

mainly because Churchill
is convinced it can work.

But because so many men and
landing craft have been shipped

back to Britain to prepare
for D-Day,

the Anzio landing winds
up being two divisions only,

a drop in the bucket.

The Allied force at Anzio
lands on an empty beach.

There are almost
no Germans in front of it.

Surprise has been achieved.

Speed is of the essence.

As soon as you land,
you must get off the beachhead

as quickly as possible,
strike inland.

One jeep patrol actually gets
as far as the outskirts of Rome.

So clearly, there is
a route of advance open.

The commander of the invasion
is General John Lucas.

Instead of driving boldly
into the interior

and seizing the high ground
over the Anzio beachhead,

General Lucas stays put.

His thought is,
"I need to secure this port,

'cause that is how
we will be reinforced",

and so he sits.

As he sits, the German commander
Kesselring will basically pull

all the cooks, bakers, and
candlestick makers from round Rome

and build them up to pen in
the Anzio landing.

The Germans have
the high ground again,

and are able
to control the situation

by subjecting the Allied forces
to constant shelling.

Leading the way
in the German bombardments

were two enormous railroad guns,

known colloquially
to the Allies as Anzio Annie

and the Anzio Express.

These fire a 500-pound
shell 30 miles.

It would've sounded like
a freight train.

You could hear it kinda
whistling in, and then boom.

The Allies at Anzio
are sitting in a marsh.

They have no cover.

Around them are mountains
and German artillery,

and the artillery
never stops firing.

There was nowhere on
the beachhead you could go to

and get respite from enemy fire.

And so, what you basically gotta do
is burrow down into the ground

and hold tight.

It was just this horrendous grind

of being under fire
for 24 hours a day.

This is as miserable a position

as any force in World War II
found themselves.

Anzio is Churchill's plan.

And he said, famously,
after the event,

"I thought we landed
a wildcat on the shore.

What we got was a beach whale."

The Luftwaffe strafes
Allied troops on the beachhead.

Included in the effort to help
Lucas's forces off the beach...

...is the 99th Fighter Squadron,

part of what will become known
as the Tuskegee Airmen.

During that era of segregation,

most African Americans
serve in rear echelon units.

Tuskegee airmen are
frontline fighting units,

and they're changing
everyone's minds.

On one of their mission,
16 of them fly over Anzio...

...and then what they find
is the German aircraft

working over the landing craft.

They shoot down 10
of those German aircraft.

To the south,

multiple attacks on
the Monte Cassino abbey fail.

The Allies debate whether
to bomb the mountaintop

abbey from the air.

The Benedictine abbey that sits
on Monte Cassino

is a cultural relic.

The law of armed conflict would
say, we don't touch those.

Of course, this is one
of the most important libraries

of Christian thought
for millennia,

and many civilians
had taken refuge there.

But the assumption was that
the Germans were inside

the abbey and using it
as the perfect field artillery

observer's position.

We cannot allow the enemy
to continue to harass us

with artillery fire.

So, the abbey's gotta go.

Allied forces distributed pamphlets

warning that there
would be a bombardment,

and the residents, they thought,
they're not actually going to do it.

Allied bombers flatten
this shrine of Christianity.

The bombing actually
resulted in the killing

of hundreds of civilians
who were taking refuge there.

Allied intelligence was wrong.

The German observation posts had
not been inside the monastery walls.

The Germans who weren't occupying
the abbey

have now decided to occupy
the rubble,

which is incredibly effective
for defensive purposes.

So the Allies got
the exact opposite

of what they hoped to achieve.

Bombing the monastery gets
the Allies no closer to their goal.

At some point, infantry is going
to have to ascend a mountain

under enemy fire.

The Allies have
bombed the Monte Cassino abbey,

but the Germans still hold
the summit.

When the weather improves in May,
the Allies make yet another assault.

They take nearly
their entire force in Italy

and cram it into the narrow
western half of the peninsula,

using overwhelming strength now,

tanks, aircraft, ceaseless waves
of artillery bombardment.

You've got this extraordinary
United Nations of troops.

I mean, people from all
over the world are Cassino.

We got the British,
we got the Americans,

we got New Zealand Maoris,
we got Canadians, we got Indians,

we got French Moroccans, Goumiers,

that are wonderful
mountain fighters.

It is one of the places
where Japanese Americans fight.

Who gets assigned Monte Cassino?
The Poles.

World War II began in Europe
when Germany invaded Poland.

As much as anyone,

the Polish people have suffered from
the brutal rule of the Nazis.

The idea that Poles would never
miss an opportunity

to take it back out on the Germans
for what they did to them

should be lost on no one.

At Monte Cassino,

the Poles are that final
wave of fighters,

and they, with incredible bravery
and toughness,

go up this huge inclines.

As you advance up the hill,
you have to show yourself.

You're gonna be picked off,
you're a sitting duck.

We're talking
almost 4,000 casualties

for the Polish units attacking
against Monte Cassino.

The Poles finally overrun
the ruins of the abbey.

The Polish flag is unveiled
on the top of the monastery.

And they play this very,
very famous bugle call,

Hejnal Mariacki,

which translates to
St. Mary's trumpet call.

It's a symbol of resilience,
of national identity,

of hope for the future,
and of the fight for Poland

for every single Polish person.

And it sounds out over the monastery
once the fighting has died down.

The Gustav Line is broken.

The Americans are finally able
to break out of the Anzio beachhead.

There's a plan to encircle
and destroy the Germans.

The plan is for Mark Clark
to angle his troops to the northeast

and cut off Highway 6
at Val Montone.

Those were the orders he was given.

But Clark decides to make
a swift left turn, that is north,

towards Rome.

Rome is an irresistible target.

Nothing screams
we are making progress

than to have captured Rome.

And Mark Clark fundamentally thinks
that the Fifth Army,

who has slogged their way up
the Italian peninsula,

and him in particular,
should get credit for this.

The conquest of Rome is to take
out one of the great Axis capitals

in the war.
And what you're doing is

pointing out
to the rest of the world

that we're on the march,
it's happening,

and next stop, Berlin.

- The first of the Axis capitals
is now in our hands.

One up and two to go.

However, the liberation of Rome
is gonna be entirely overshadowed

because the next day is going
to be the launch of D-Day,

and Roosevelt can't say
anything about it.

After 10 months,

the Allies have reached
the Italian capital.

But General Clark's
decision to take Rome

allows the Germans
to escape once again.

Ever since,
he's had to answer questions

about those orders.

Was his ego simply
too large to pass up Rome?

Ultimately,
the liberation of Rome has

more symbolic than strategic value.

The Allies would continue to fight
the Germans in Italy

for almost another year.

I think Churchill went
to his grave thinking

there was an opportunity there
that was missed.

Churchill always believed
that it had been a good idea,

but it had been undone
by a bit of foot dragging

and some bad luck.

The Italian campaign is

the moment at which
Churchill overreaches himself.

He had insisted on
this vast continental campaign

that had led to nothing but misery.

Because of difficult terrain,

military miscalculation,
and determined resistance

from a skillful enemy,

the Allied effort in Italy
gained little and cost much.

The Italian campaign is
the last time

the British will have a
predominant presence

in the Allied forces.

America has been building
airplanes and tanks,

and creating soldiers.

As the American strength rises,

Winston Churchill's influence wanes.

The battle for Italy, which will
go on until the end of the war,

was fought with determination
and bravery.

Ordinary soldiers
fought for their nation,

but also for each other.

This kind of comradery is found
in all theatres

and on all battlefields.

War tests the best of us.

And nowhere would
men be tested more

than in the skies over Germany.

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