Desperate Valour

The Allied landings at Anzio, on the Italian coast, six months before the Normandy invasion were intended as an "end run" around the stalemate that had developed in Italy. The planners hoped that the Allied invasion would surprise the Germans and threaten their defensive line in southern Europe. But the invasion stalled a few miles inland and the Allies faced a five-month bloody fight. In the end, American and British troops accomplished one of the great defensive stands of all time, turning defeat into victory.

Using previously unpublished archival material, including memoirs from American, British, and German veterans, award-winning historian Flint Whitlock reveals the entire allied and German campaign, never forgetting the experiences of the soldiers in muddy, freezing, water-filled foxholes, struggling to hold off endless waves of infantry assaults, aerial bombardments, and artillery barrages.

Desperate Valour is the first comprehensive account of the unrelenting slugfest at Anzio and a stirring chronicle of courage beyond measure.

“"Anzio was the bloodiest stalemate for the Allies in Europe in World War II. German veterans remembered the ferocious combat as being worse even than Stalingrad. For the first time, Flint Whitlock has brought the full extent of the carnage and heroism to light. Desperate Valour will long remain the definitive account of this oft-forgotten epic of warfare."-- Alex Kershaw , New York Times bestselling author of The Liberator and The Longest Winter”

"Anzio was the bloodiest stalemate for the Allies in Europe in World War II. German veterans remembered the ferocious combat as being worse even than Stalingrad. For the first time, Flint Whitlock has brought the full extent of the carnage and heroism to light. Desperate Valour will long remain the definitive account of this oft-forgotten epic of warfare."--Alex Kershaw, New York Times bestselling author of The Liberator and The Longest Winter

"Flint Whitlock has delivered once again with his stirring account of the terrible fight at Anzio. His prose is crisp and paced, laden with new perspective and insight, while personal accounts bring the vicious struggle to life...a riveting read!"--Michael E. Haskew, editor of WWII History magazine and author of West Point 1915: Eisenhower, Bradley, and the Class the Stars Fell On

"Not maintained like more famous World War II battlefields, Anzio will be memorialized instead by inspiring books like this one. Flint Whitlock reveals that the American and British 'beached whale' there had plenty of teeth and claws, along with the courage and determination to hold off a four-month German onslaught before breaking out to help liberate Rome."--Conrad Crane, author of American Airpower Strategy in World War II: Bombs, Cities, Civilians, and Oil

Award-winning author and military historian Flint Whitlock is a former US Army officer who served on active duty from 1965 to 1970, including a tour in Vietnam. His books include Soldiers on Skis, The Rock of Anzio, and The Fighting First, among others. He is Editor-in-Chief of Military History Quarterly and a regular contributor to World War II and WW II History magazines. President of the newly formed Colorado Military History Museum, Whitlock lives in Denver, Colorado.

The Allied landings at Anzio, on the Italian coast, six months before the Normandy invasion were intended as an "end run" around the stalemate that had developed in Italy. The planners hoped that the Allied invasion would surprise the Germans and threaten their defensive line in southern Europe. But the invasion stalled a few miles inland and the Allies faced a five-month bloody fight. In the end, American and British troops accomplished one of the great defensive stands of all time, turning defeat into victory.Using previously unpublished archival material, including memoirs from American, British, and German veterans, award-winning historian Flint Whitlock reveals the entire allied and German campaign, never forgetting the experiences of the soldiers in muddy, freezing, water-filled foxholes, struggling to hold off endless waves of infantry assaults, aerial bombardments, and artillery barrages. Desperate Valour is the first comprehensive account of the unrelenting slugfest at Anzio and a stirring chronicle of courage beyond measure.

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