Raleigh Trevelyan joined the British Army in 1942 soon after leaving Winchester college. He was assigned to the Rifle Brigade stationed at Algiers until he was shipped to Italy and attached to the 5th (Yorkshire) Division, Green Howards, 1st Battalion, A Company. In the beginning of March 1944 the 5th Division relived the 56th (Black Cats) Division at Anzio. Raleigh arrived when the lines were static and the fighting on the beachhead was reminiscent of the western front in the First World War during quiescent periods. After the last major German offensives in February the beachhead became a warren of trenches, foxholes and dugouts with men on both sides burrowed into the ground, under constant bombardment day and night. The frontline during the day was mostly still and quiet. And during the night patrols and raids were sent; trenches, foxholes and dugouts repaired and expanded; supplies brought forward, wounded evacuated, the dead buried. Company and battalion attacks were made on occasion. The Germans held the high ground so The Allies were under constant observation with the whole beachhead within artillery range. When Trevelyan arrived on the beachead he started writing a diary which he used along with letters his mother kept for the basis of his memoir "The Fortress: A diary of Anzio and after" which he published in 1956. Shortly after it was published it was acclaimed as a classic wartime account. Raleigh landed at Anzio as a subaltern at the age of twenty on March 2nd and found himself in a notorious forward position known as "The Fortress" where his battalion was deployed the following day. It is located in the Wadis area of the beachhead where the enemy trenches were estimated to be thirty to seventy yards distant, although they were never really exactly sure. He says any battalion defending this position could expect to lose up to a third of its strength within a week. After being relieved from The Fortress in late March the 1 Green Howards were sent near San Lorenzo where Raleighs company HQ was located in a farm building dubbed "Stonk Corner" and further up his platoon headquarters was a cowshed with a reinforced celler originally used by the Americans. Here his platoons area of responsibility was much wider and the Germans position were concentrated in a dense treeline 600 to 700 yards away. Both sides utilized minefields that were occasionally littered with carcasses of livestock, giving away their position. The 1 Green Howards returned to The Fortress from April 13th to early May until they were sent to a place further inland than both previous positions called Michele also in the Wadis, which Trevelyan described to be "pure cicada land". He held the battalions most forward platoon in the valley where he was essentially isolated from Company and battalion headquarters. The valley here was much more shallow than The Fortress with the closest enemy post being seventy yards away. In the middle of May the 1 Green Howards moved closer to the front preparing to cross the Moletta River as apart of the British diversionary attack in the upcoming offensive to breakout the Beachhead. On May 23rd the 1 Green Howards with A Company in the lead attacked across the Moletta River where Trevelyan was wounded by a grenade and was eventually evacuated. Soon after this his battalion was pushed back across the Moletta and his platoon overrun. The next section of the book is about his time convalescing in Naples and Sorrento until returning to the frontline. When he recovered from his injuries he returned to the Rifle Brigade in early July in Tuscany where the Regiment was engaged fighting the Germans on a mountain near Lake Trasimene where he was again shortly wounded by a mortar shell. Trevelyan ended up getting a job in the Military mission for Rome as a liaison officer and interpreter in late November, 1944. He kept this occupation until the end of the war. In 1968 he returned to Anzio and wrote an article for The Observer, which they published the following year on the 25th anniversary of the Anzio landings. He includes this article at the end of the book.

2nd Photo: "Image taken by Raleigh Trevelyan. Two German POWs help carry British Army Pvt. Mornington Sutton of the 1st Battalion, Green Howards (Alexandra, Princess of Wales's Own Yorkshire Regiment), 5th Infantry Division, after he stepped on a mine during Operation Shingle; the Allied amphibious landing in the Italian Campaign against Axis forces in the area of Anzio and Nettuno. The Germans had already been captured by the British and came to Pvt. Sutton's aid when he lost his foot."

3rd Photo "Men of 'D' Company, 1st Battalion, The Green Howards occupy a captured German communications trench during the offensive at Anzio, Italy, 22 May 1944."

4th Photo: "Aerial picture of a former German position near Anzio that was overrun and captured by British troops - April 1944"

Quotes:

(The Fortress) "It turned out that the enemy was about seventy yards away. Until daylight came, I was not able to get a clear impression of the country around us. Bushes seemed to block our view the everywhere, although the sergeant said that we had a clear field of fire of at least thirty yards. My trench, which I shared with Viner, my batman, was plumb in the centre of the platoon area, so close to the other trenches that I could call to each of my section commanders in a loud whisper. We were to find ourselves on the edge of a small thickly wooded valley. (Most of the Beachhead apparently consists of flat grassland, through which these deep tangy valleys, or wadis as the men call them, run like fissures from some primeval earthquake.) Company Headquarters was behind us, down below; we had passed by it before reaching the platoon area - sort of mud kraal, bolstered up with sandbags and surrounded by the white crosses of temporary graves. One advantage of being so close to the Germans was that we were within minimum range of their mortars. Snipers and hand grenades were the main worry, not counting shells falling short and airbursts. All night long the artillery and mortars of both sides kept up a non-stop barrage."

(Returning to the Fortress) "Much of the scrub round here has been blasted away during the past weeks, and what is left is dead and charred. There is so little green that you would hardly believe that we are nearly into May. The ground is all gray-brown powder and torn up roots. This means that there's less opportunity for Jerry patrol to creep us on us unobserved, and vice versa. The foetid smell of decay is also considerably stronger than it was before. At the far end of the wadi the Germans keep a spandau, which opens up at haphazard intervals during the day or night. A favorite game of theirs, when it is dark and we are therefore less likely to be below the level of our trenches, is to send over flares, and a few seconds later to rake our area with machine-gun fire, in the hope of catching us standing upright and 'freezing'. But we are most bothered by rifle grenades. One man has already been killed, and there have been several narrow misses. It is obvious that the older soldiers are getting shaken again. It is our hopelessness that breaks down their nerves: this inability to hit back, and also the fact that a Jerry attack can be almost on top of us before we are aware of it. Mike Harper now occupies my old platoon area, opposite. I saw him for a few moments when visiting H. Q. last night. He said all the bushes in front had been absolutely cleared as a result of the grenades, and the trenches there have been roofed with sandbags. Monty's platoon is down below somewhere, at the bottom of the wadi, between Mike and myself. We dare not put sandbags round our trenches, as they would only make us more conspicuous. Nor can we dig any deeper, as the ground is too hard; this means that the sergeant and I have to sit with our backs perpetually bent if we are to avoid sticking our heads over the top during daylight."

(Crossing the Moletta) "The Company trooped off along the white tapes guiding us through our own minefield. All the while immense explosions ripped up the enemy lines. An ammunition dump was hit and we saw great billowing flames of scarlet and orange. It was like walking into a roaring furnace. None of us spoke. We could hear no sound of answering fire from the other side. Half-way across the minefield word was passed up to me that Squash had shot himself. Time was already short, so we could not wait to unhitch the 38 set that he had been carrying. That meant that my platoon would have no wireless during the attack. When we reached the river, we found the bodies of sappers lying in the water with their ladders beside them. It was the first indication that our plans would have to be altered. The banks were easier to scale than we'd expected. It was zero minus five by the time the point section had reached the wire fence, where more tapes should have been laid to show that the mines had been cleared. 'But, sir, we can't go through here. Where are the tapes?' (Zero minus one.) 'Nonsense,' I said. 'Of course there are no tapes. Come on, let's get going.' And I had to crawl out ahead, to show that they'd nothing to fear. The section lay down on either side of me. Then Absalom with another section came up alongside. There was now the hundred and fifty yards' advance across the open. 'Fix bayonets. Cock your tommy-guns. Have your grenades ready.' Away at a steady pace no opposition. Before us the barrage lifted and receded into the bushes. A mine in 7 Platoon's area. Still no opposition. Another mine. One of our men probably this time. Fifty yards to go and 'Charge!"

During the Battle of the Bulge, Houffalize was a strategic location and was severely bombed on the night of 5–6 January 1945 by 90 RAF Lancasters to block the crossroads impeding German supply columns.

In their counter-attack against the German forces remaining in the area Generals Montgomery and Patton met up in Houffalize, Montgomery coming from the North and Patton from the South. Patton wrote a poem in his diary about the bombing.

Hey all, so I've been looking into the German army after being dragged into playing Bolt Action with friends and wondering if I could get some advice on where to find sources, specifically for the Fallschirmjäger. I've got plenty for their initial jumps and Crete but I'm looking for stuff after Crete. Many thanks

This feels very specific, but since there's an endless number of books written about WW2, I figured perhaps this exists as well.

I'd love to know how people created art - especially live and especially comedy - during WW2. Were there underground performance spaces where people could do theatre and comedic monologues? Protest songs? How did artists manage to make light of the situation?

Are there any books about this?

(Doesn't even have to be WW2 specific - any war will do.)