Dunkirk to Anzio Day
“The future of this tormented world depends on such people as you of Dunkirk. . . You will remain. . . in the hearts of the Italian people, for this wonderful gesture on their behalf. I tell you, Dunkirk is a leader for America and a very, very, very big city in the world.”
— Alberto Tarchiani, Italy’s Ambassador to the U.S., Nov. 28, 1947
Dunkirk, NY, already was big globally when “the little town that changed the world” launched a new war-relief program. It’s heritage was solid thanks to the Dunkirk-to-Dunkerque relief program. So why another campaign to help people returning to another city after WWII?
Why should Dunkirk’s 18,000 people donate again? For Anzio, an Italian town 4,500 miles away? Why Anzio? What happened to make Anzio so needy?
Our story begins in 1937 when Italy joins an alliance with Nazi Germany and Japan. Those countries agree to help each other in case of war. The second chapter opens in 1940, after the Nazis trapped 240,000 British and French soldiers in Dunkerque, France.
That World War II defeat, familiar from the 2017 film, “Dunkirk,” leaves the Nazis in control of France. Germany’s victory thrills and emboldens Italy’s leader, the dictator Benito Mussolini. Putting earlier doubts aside, Mussolini joins Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and declares war on Britain and France.
Nazis to Italy: “We’re Staying!”
Another chapter begins on December 7, 1941, when Japan bombs Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The United States responds by declaring war on Japan. Germany and Italy — being Japan’s military partners — declare war on the United States. The United States responds by declaring war on Germany and Italy. Britain, already at war with Germany and Italy, declares war on Japan.
Hitler moves more troops into Italy to help Mussolini in case of an invasion by the Allies. It came in 1943. Allied soldiers land on Sicily, the big island near boot-shaped peninsula of mainland Italy.
The Allies, who included America and Britain, eventually conquered Sicily. Italy’s defeat intensifies the people’s hatred of Mussolini and the Nazi’s. They replace Mussolini with a new leader and make peace with the Allies. Italy declares war on Germany and fights with the Allies.
The Nazis, however, refuse to leave Italy. They seize control of Italian military facilities and move more forces to the Italian mainland. The Allies realize that it will take a second invasion, of the mainland, to liberate Italy. The invasion, called Operation Shingle, begins January 22, 1944 with 36,000 Allied troops. Where? About 30 miles south of Rome, on the beaches of Anzio and neighboring Nettuno.
A Terrible Toll
Fierce battles rage in and around Anzio in January, February, March, and April. Finally, the Allies drive the Nazis out and march north to liberate Rome in June. The Battle of Anzio took a terrible toll. About 7,000 Allied soldiers died, for instance, and 36,000 were wounded. Nazi casualties included 5,000 dead and 35,000 injured.
Damage to cities, towns, and villages was especially severe because the fighting lasted so long.
Damage to buildings was especially severe due to the nature of fighting between Nazis and Allies.
Many other WWII battles, including the Battle of Dunkerque, were over in days or weeks. The fighting around Anzio continued nonstop for 4 long months, from winter through spring.
The nature of that fighting also increased the damage. The Nazis, for instance, “dug in.” They set up defensive positions in buildings in Anzio, for instance. Their plan: Wait for the Allied soldiers in the relative safety of these protected positions. Then mow down the soldiers as they approached.
Yes, the Allies realized that many soldiers would be killed if ordered to storm those fortified positions. So they first sent in warplanes to bomb buildings where the Nazis hid. They fired explosive artillery shells from a safe distance. Battle tanks also fired on those buildings.
Dumb Weapons
Oh, it gets worse, because of the weapons used in those days. World War II fighters did not have precision-guided “munitions,” which means “weapons.” There were no “smart bombs,” for instance, guided by laser beams to hit one specific building in a town without damaging others.
Suppose that a Nazi or Allied bomber wanted to hit enemy soldiers firing machine guns from an apartment building.
Well, many of the bombs would miss. Those stray bombs might destroy nearby buildings and other “infrastructure.” That means buildings, roads, bridges, railroad tracks, electric power supplies, water and sewer pipes, food stores, schools, hospitals — everything we need for a civilized, everyday life.
With such dumb weapons, warplanes might have to drop 100 bombs to destroy a target that would crumble from a direct hit by just one bomb. What about those other 99 bombs? Well, they heavily damaged or completely destroyed the surrounding town or village.
Agony in Anzio
Such warfare killed many Nazi soldiers, and saved many Allied casualties. But it took a terrible toll on Italy’s civilians — people not in the military. About 70,000 Italian civilians, non-soldiers, died in the fighting and many more were injured. These included carpenters, experts in building things, farm workers, doctors, school teachers, and others important to help Italy recover after the war.
Estimates say that the war destroyed 10 percent of Italy’s infrastructure. Anzio got hit especially hard because the battles lasted so long. When Anzio’s 8,000 residents returned home, they found 70 per cent of the buildings in ruins. If a street had 10 buildings before the war, only 7 remained standing afterwards.
The fighting not only destroyed farms, cows and other livestock, and seed for planting new crops. It also destroyed roads, trucks, trains, and other parts of the Italian transport system needed to bring food into cities.
The Tipping Point
Have you ever heard people worry about reaching “the tipping point.” That’s the point of no return. Any additional problems or changes, no matter how small, will push things over the edge, triggering larger, more serious, perhaps life-threatening conditions.
World War II was the tipping point for Anzio and other parts of Italy. Italy was not a rich country before World War II. Many people had low incomes. They lived in run-down housing. Money was tight, there was not enough food, clothing, shoes, blankets, clean water, medicine, and other essentials.
From Bad to Worse
After the war, things got worse — much worse. Without help, people in Italy would have starved or fallen ill from diseases related to poor nutrition. People elsewhere in war-torn Europe also were struggling. Many had just enough for their own needs.
There was little or nothing to share. Italy had to look elsewhere for help. And its gaze fell upon the United States. But where to launch a national campaign for American donations to boot-strap Italy? There was a natural starting-point.
Dunkirk, NY, already was known around the world for generosity in helping war-devastated parts of Europe. Dunkirk’s 18,000 residents had donated $1 million to help people returning to Dunkerque, France. A few months later, Dunkirk donated twice as much, $2 million, for war-devastated parts of Poland. Dunkirk-to-Dunkerque. Dunkerque-to-Poland. Could there be another relief program? Dunkirk-to-Italy?
Dunkirk-to-Anzio
An organization in New York City, American Aid for Italy, asked Dunkirk to premier its national fund-raising campaign for Italy. Why Dunkirk for goodness sakes? Well, Dunkirk was famous for helping Dunkerque. A new relief program would get a lot of news media attention. News media publicity would make Dunkirk a national example and encourage other cities to help Italy.
Dunkirk also had an established system for fund-raising. It was “The Dunkirk Society.” This small group of committed citizens believed that people-to-people contacts were the key to world peace. And that idea was catching on. The Dunkirk Society about to become an national movement.
Another plus: Dunkirk’s Italian heritage. Many of the city’s residents had roots in Italy. Their parents or grandparents had moved to the United States from Italy and settled in Dunkirk. Some still had family members who lived in Italy and were suffering.
Most importantly, Dunkirk had generous people. People who knew an all-too-common secret — then as it is today: Individual people who take action can change the world. Dunkirk’s people knew this because they had done it twice before.
Dear Dunkirk, “You Ask What We Need. . .”
The Dunkirk Society at first considered helping a town or city in Sicily. That’s the island near the Italian peninsula’s boot-shaped southern tip. Why? Because many of Dunkirk’s Italian-Americans had roots in Sicily. But it turned out that Sicily had not experienced great damage in the war.
So Dunkirk picked an Italian town that experienced some of the war’s worst damage. That was Anzio. Naturally, the Dunkirk Committee contacted the mayor of Anzio to ask what gifts would be the most useful.
Vecchiarelli Malvito was the mayor of Anzio. He replied with expressions of gratitude for Dunkirk’s plans to help. Then Mr. Malvito got to the point: “You ask us what we need. And we frankly answer that we need everything!”
New Joiners
Because of the success of the Dunkirk-to-Dunkerque and Dunkirk-to-Poland programs, other communities near Dunkirk asked if they could asked to be included. Among them was the village of Fredonia, Dunkirk’s next-door neighbor.
The Dunkirk Society certainly moved fast, just the city did for Dunkirk-to-Dunkerque and Dunkirk-to-Poland. Preparations for Dunkirk-to-Anzio Day formally began on October 14, 1947. They had barely 6 weeks to complete the project since D-to-A Day would be on Thanksgiving Day.
People from the Dunkirk Society and city government met with 80 representatives of 50 area businesses, factories, labor unions, the local newspaper, churches, social organizations, community groups, and others. They all to support the Dunkirk-to-Anzio project.
An Important Observer
Just as in the two previous programs, people brought donations to fire stations, churches, stores, the city hall, and other places listed in the newspaper. The newspaper, the Dunkirk Evening Observer, was very important in all of Dunkirk’s relief programs. It ran stories supporting the programs, and urging people to donate.
Other stories and editorials gave updates on the progress, listed names of people who donated, discussed plans for Dunkirk-to-Anzio Day events, and offered other support for the idea. The Observer’s editor, Wallace A. Brennan, helped provide it. He was president of the Dunkirk Society.
Putting the names of donors in the newspaper was very positive. It gave credit to people who already had been generous and earned the admiration of their neighbors. It also set an example that encouraged others to donate and get their names in the newspaper, as well.
170,000 Pounds of Gifts
Just as with the D-to-D program, there were a wide assortment of donations. The items ranged literally from a-to-z, from a single apple given by a kindergarten pupil to an entire x-ray machine donated by a Dunkirk dentist.
The Dunkirk-Fredonia area had many farms and was a major producer of tomatoes, grapes, cherries, and other fruit. Many canneries operated during harvest season, packing this bounty into cans and bottles. These canneries donated 1,500 cases of canned tomato sauce, grape juice, jams and jellies — enough to overflow a railroad boxcar.
When everything was counted, people of the Dunkirk area had donated $205,000 in gifts and cash for their long-distance neighbors in Anzio. That’s double the amount donated in the Dunkirk-to-Dunkerque campaign. In today’s money, it would be more than $2 million. The aid-to-Anzio gifts weighed 85 tons.
What? No Parade of Gifts?
Remember the “Parade of Gifts” on Dunkirk-to-Dunkerque Day? It included a mile-long convoy of trucks laden with things donated for Dunkerque, France. They rolled down Central Avenue past thousands of spectators and a reviewing stand filled with dignitaries.
Plans called for a similar parade on Dunkirk-to-Anzio Day, which was Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1947. There certainly was plenty to display. But the celebration had to move indoors due to bitterly-cold weather. Radio broadcasts brought the ceremonies into homes around the world.
Those ceremonies included a stage play and a banquet. More than 1,200 people crowded into the warmth of a big movie theatre to watch the play. It focused on Italy’s scientific and cultural contributions to the world.
The banquet attracted more than 500 people. It featured speeches about Dunkirk’s impact on the world by Italy’s ambassador to the United States and others.
Dunkirk in Anzio
Wallace A. Brennan, president of the Dunkirk Society, gave one special speech. Mr. Brennan recalled how Dunkirk had amazed the world by moving ahead with war-relief programs on its own initiative. If others communities did the same, he said, it would provide war-torn Europe with $1,680,000,000. That’s more than $18 billion in today’s dollars.
While the Dunkirk-to-Anzio Day celebration was taking place, the people of Anzio were holding their own ceremony. The people were so grateful that they decided to put a little bit of Dunkirk, NY, in Anzio. Anzio decided to rename its main street after Dunkirk. The Italian word for “street” is “via.” So Anzio’s main thoroughfare became “Via Dunkirk.”
Sharing Dunkirk’s Generosity
When Allied troops invaded the Italian mainland, the military maps named Anzio as the landing site. However, people in the neighboring town of Nettuno claimed that troops actually landed on their beaches. Despite that, Anzio went down in history as the invasion site. And people talked about “the Anzio landing” and “the Battle of Anzio.”
Dunkirk’s gifts to Anzio created an uproar in Nettuno. Leaders of Nettuno claimed that they were the real beachhead city for the invasion. They demanded some of the gifts that Dunkirk give to Anzio.
News reports about the dispute appeared everywhere. Reporters gave their stories a humorous twist that made people read. They wrote, for instance, writing that Dunkirk’s gesture of peace eventually shares some of Dunkirk’s gifts. The squabble got world-wide attention via an Associated Press story, further enhancing Dunkirk’s status as leader in quest for world peace.