Episode 6 One Tough Gut: Monte Cassino, Anzio, Gunsmoke’s James Arness, and a German Troop Train Escape

While Winston Churchill believed an Allied invasion of Italy would find it the soft underbelly of the Axis, most GIs agreed with General Mark Clark's description of it as "One Tough Gut" as they faced ferocious fighting at Salerno and along the Gustav Line at Mt. Sammucro, Monte Cassino and Anzio.  Episode 6 begins with Helen Callentine, a US Army Nurse whose hospital ship was bombed before she ever made it to Salerno; Russell Darkes who ordered his pinned down platoon at Mt. Sammucro to fix their bayonets before charging; Howard Fay who recalled the American dead that covered Monte Cassino's mountain slopes; Edgar Kuhlow and Leo Lawrence remembering the terror of Anzo Annie's 560 lb. shells that could fire for miles; Gunsmoke's James Arness, better known as Matt Dillon, who received a million dollar wound at Anzio days after the initial landing; B-25 pilot Jay DeBoer, show down over Italy, most of his crew executed by the SS, escaped capture by masquerading as an Italian soldier aboard a German troop train, and, finally, the liberation of Rome.

Helen Callentine

Russell Darkes

Howard K. Fay

Leo Lawrence

James Arness

Jay DeBoer