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00:00["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"]
00:30["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"]
00:56And now, Roman Renaissance.
01:00["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"]
01:10Hitler heads south to harden his pact of softening steam.
01:14From the Brenner Pass, which links Germany and Italy through the Alps,
01:17his official train races to Rome for a high meeting of state.
01:21The Fuhrer controls all Europe, and after four years of war,
01:25his Axis partner, Italy, has sunk to the status of a satellite.
01:30["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"]
01:55["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"]
02:00Italy's dictator, Mussolini, and Italy's king, Victor Emmanuel III, greet their German overlord.
02:07All Rome is on dress parade.
02:10And behind the props of the black-shirted fascists,
02:13it is the brown-shirted Nazis who call the tune.
02:17["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"]
02:45["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"]
03:15["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"]
03:22The grandeur that was Rome, debased, mocked to make an Axis holiday.
03:29After two decades of dictatorship, Mussolini's regime still retains its outward flamboyance
03:34and flashes a gaudy front to the world.
03:37But the foundations of fascism are crumbling.
03:40Its days are numbered.
03:43This is the twilight of a new era.
03:45["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"]
03:52Across the blue waters of the Mediterranean, on the hot sands of newly won North Africa,
03:57Allied commanders dream, plan, perfect the design which will bring the Axis to its knees
04:03and bring Allied soldiers to the continent of Europe.
04:06Sicily is the stepping stone.
04:09General Montgomery will command the British troops, General Patton the Americans.
04:14The greatest convoy yet organized, almost 3,000 ships and landing craft,
04:19from ports stretched all the way east to Suez, all the way west to Gibraltar,
04:23will deliver the punch on which hangs the fate of the Italian Empire.
04:28In July 1943, the convoy puts to sea under the scrutiny of His Majesty King George VI.
04:35["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1"]
04:51One hundred and sixty thousand Allied soldiers move toward Sicily.
04:55No enemy action challenges the passage of the ships,
04:58but another and more awful hazard intervenes.
05:02In the path of the smooth-sailing convoy, a storm is making up.
05:06Unseasonable, unpredictable, threatening weather.
05:10It is too late to turn back. Land-loving troops sail into the tempest.
05:15["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 2"]
05:45["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 3"]
06:14["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4"]
06:42The convoy and its men weather the storm.
06:45Sicily. Ancient fortress. Forgotten kingdom.
06:49Rugged island separated by a mere two to twelve mile strip of water from the Italian mainland.
06:55But it takes six weeks of vigorous fighting before Sicily falls,
06:58and the last prisoners from the broken ranks of the Axis call it quits.
07:02["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5"]
07:23Wind, wave, weather ignore man's war.
07:27Again, nature lashes the Allied sailors, this time carrying Axis prisoners back to North Africa.
07:33Allied ships may found them, but of greater significance,
07:38Axism itself has found them.
07:41["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 6"]
08:08["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 7"]
08:11From Genoa, from Spezia, the Italian fleet sails to its demise,
08:15sails to the island of Malta to surrender.
08:19The long, cruel naval battle for the Mediterranean is over.
08:23["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 8"]
08:34Tiny Malta, which has endured the worst of Axis lashings,
08:38ironically becomes the scene of Axis dissolution.
08:41It is September 1943.
08:44Italy signs an armistice.
08:46Mussolini has fallen.
08:48His successor, Field Marshal Badoglio, brings Italy over to the Allied side.
08:54["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
09:08But if the Axis is broken, the dominant half remains intact.
09:12The Germans turn Italy into an occupied country.
09:15Mussolini and his fascists are now the slaves of Hitler and his Nazis.
09:20From France and from the Balkans, the Germans send fresh troops
09:23into their new province of Italy.
09:25Their high command is calculated correctly.
09:28The next Allied blow will fall in the Gulf of Salerno,
09:31185 miles northeast of Sicily on the Italian coast.
09:36The attack calms, and the Germans are waiting.
09:40["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
09:54["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
09:58September 9, 1943, exactly four years after the beginning of World War II,
10:04the United States Fifth Army and the British Tenth Corps hit the Italian mainland,
10:08and blocked the first hole into the fortress of Europe.
10:11Salerno is only 40 miles south of Naples, the greatest fort in southern Europe.
10:16That is what the Allies are after.
10:19But first they must slug it out with the Germans.
10:22The Gulf of Salerno becomes the Gulf of Despair.
10:25["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
10:42Allied sailors give close, continuous support to the soldiers.
10:46The invasion becomes a duel of cannon, guns afloat against guns ashore.
10:51["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
11:19From Italian bases, the German Luftwaffe throws everything it has against the invaders,
11:24hoping to smash the landings and pin down the Allies south of Naples.
11:28The butchered Italian campaign hovers in the balance.
11:33["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
11:59Through the airwaves, German propaganda blankets the world with the news
12:03that the invaders are being thrown into the sea.
12:06But the flow of Allied men and supplies continues
12:09in the face of a new, fearsome weapon used by the Germans for the first time,
12:13the remote-controlled glider bomb.
12:16["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
12:46["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
13:04To the fog of battle is added the protecting cloak of destroyer's smoke screens.
13:09Survival on the beachhead rests on survival of the ships that support it.
13:14["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
13:36At Sicily and at Salerno, the landing ships' tanks, the LSTs,
13:41are formally christened in action, in fire.
13:45They are destined to become an integral part of all future amphibious operations.
13:49["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
14:18["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
14:35The Germans launch their crucial counterattack,
14:38delivered with all the skill and fury that have made Hitler's legions the terror of Europe.
14:43The Allies are almost split in two, almost driven off the beaches. Almost.
15:13["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
15:29October the 1st, 1943.
15:32Natives. The Germans have failed.
15:35The Germans fall back to the north.
15:38The Allies have their court.
15:40The city reeling from air raids, ravaged by typhus, ricketed from hunger.
15:45But for the Neapolitans, defeat means peace.
15:50For the troops, Naples is only a way station on the weary march to Rome.
15:55["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
16:12["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
16:15See Naples and die.
16:18It is an old saying, but war has given it a new and bitter meaning.
16:23Thousands have died for the harbor of Naples,
16:26and the Germans have systematically, ruthlessly, thoroughly ruined it,
16:30sinking every ship, blocking every channel.
16:34But such as it is, the Allies have it.
16:38["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
16:58One of the greatest salvage feats in the annals of war
17:01is performed by Allied engineers in the Bay of Naples.
17:04Within a fortnight, the harbor is operating.
17:07Within a month, 50 hulks are raised and the port is cleared,
17:11cleared to receive the avalanche of supplies
17:13needed to sustain and broaden the Italian campaign.
17:17Naples is the reward for the ordeal of Salerno.
17:20["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
17:49["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
18:19The troops pour in, the supplies pile up.
18:23But inland, at Cassino, the Germans stand entrenched, immovable,
18:28and the campaign becomes a bloody, futile stalemate.
18:32Checked on land, the Allies counter with a sweeping flank attack by sea.
18:37From Naples and Salerno, a convoy sails 120 miles up the coast to Anzio,
18:42only 30 miles south of Rome itself.
18:45The Americans call it an end run.
18:47The British call it a cat claw.
18:5050,000 troops are put ashore behind the flabbergasted Germans.
18:54["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
19:06January 22, 1944.
19:09The initial landings are unopposed,
19:11but Allied success is checked by Allied airmen.
19:14Instead of swift exploitation and immediate breakout,
19:17the invaders dig in, giving the Germans time to rally their defenses,
19:21time to isolate, imprison the beachhead in a perimeter of steam.
19:25The hell of Salerno pales before Anzio's inferno.
19:31["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
19:47From captured bases at Foggia,
19:49Allied airmen fly to the rescue of their frantic comrades at sea and on land,
19:53sailors and soldiers whose blood holds Anzio.
19:57And from the Balkans, the Germans bring in more planes
20:00to slaughter the precarious invaders.
20:02["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
20:32["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
20:38Anzio.
20:40Intended as a swift, decisive stroke to open the road to Rome.
20:44Anzio.
20:46In reality, 123 days of incessant carnage.
20:50A long-drawn night.
20:53["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
21:23["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
21:48It was January when the Allies landed at Anzio.
21:52It is May when the Germans collapse.
21:55Three crack Nazi divisions have been destroyed.
21:5830,000 young men are lost in Hitler.
22:01["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
22:21From the coast and up from the south, the Allied armies stream together,
22:25forming a swelling, flowing tide whose billows are lashed by victory.
22:30The march begins.
22:32The march to Rome.
22:34["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
23:04Destruction is the benediction of fascism, of dictatorship.
23:09In Italy, Hitler has been compelled to squander and disperse his forces,
23:13weakening his Russian front,
23:15sapping the strength needed to oppose impending Allied landings in France.
23:19The price paid by the Allies on the Italian front today
23:23will be refunded in France and Russia tomorrow.
23:26And Mussolini, he and his age pass into history.
23:31["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
24:01["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
24:08North would flee the Germans.
24:10North would return and fight again.
24:13But Rome is free.
24:15Free again.
24:17["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
24:47Rome.
24:49The city of all time and of all the world.
24:52And all the world, it seems,
24:54comes marching into Rome on this fourth day of June in the year 1944.
24:58The Americans come and the British come.
25:01So do the Canadians in Greece, the Indians and Irish,
25:04the South Africans in French, the Moroccans, the Poles,
25:07Brazilians, Dutch, and the Italians, too.
25:11An army speaking 40 different languages,
25:14all with the same meaning.
25:16The Roman Renaissance.
25:18The rebirth of a city.
25:20The rebirth of a nation.
25:22The rebirth of freedom for the humble.
25:24The oppressed.
25:26["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]
25:56["Pomp and Circumstance March No. 9"]