Sad-Sack Role

The melancholy winter sky of Italy cleared briefly. Gratefully the Allies flung out their Air Force, sending 2,500 planes over German positions for the best day's work in three months. To the wet, cold, tired doughfoot slogging endlessly up Italian mountains and across Italian rivers, it was a welcome but temporary sight. The weather would soon close down again, return the infantrymen to the dreariest, most discouraging fighting in Europe.

It was slow and inconclusive on the ground. In some places the Germans attacked, won back a few mountain positions from the Fifth Army; in others the Allies attacked, won a few hundred yards from the Germans. The net result was still deadlock in months-old positions.

Lieut. General Mark W. Clark would soon take over his new post as Allied military commander in Italy. When he did he would probably reshuffle his staff, probably put into the line Italian troops now nearing the end of their training. But even Clark could not change the Italian theater's sad-sack military role: to keep the pressure on the Nazis with the troops available, while reinforcements went to the western front. For the troops available it would continue to be a hard, dangerous, uncomfortable winter.

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