the high peaks secured the US forces launched their drive along highway 6. The attack started well when forces from 168th lead battalion were ambushed by elements of III/132 under Lt Prandl who captured 2 officers and 68 men. The Americans, however, went on into the village of Venafro with the 135th US Regiment, and after two days of difficult fighting, captured it, taking 170 prisoners from the 44th Division. The US forces then pressed on to the ridge behind the village, La Chinia, one of their major objectives, which at that point was still held by the III/132. The German battalion was forced off the summit after 2 days of fighting. The 44th Division had suffered heavy casualties and had everywhere been driven from its defences. von Senger, the korps commander, then brought up fresh forces to slow the Allied advance and allowed the 44th to fall back into the Gustav positions in and around Cassino for a few days' rest and replenishment. Cassino British 10 Corps were the first to attack the Gustav line proper, in the coastal sector, and with some success, necessitating Kesselring to commit his mobile reserves down from Rome to stop them. This allowed the US VI Corps to land successfully and virtually unopposed at Anzio on 22 January 1944 and form a beach head. With the Anzio landings in full swing but the British drive now almost completely stopped, General Clark, commander of the US 5th Army needed to keep the pressure up on the Gustav line to prevent the Germans shifting reserves back to Anzio. A crack in the Gustav line, together with the threat of the Anzio beachhead would render the whole of the German defensive position south of Rome untenable. The attack by the 36 US infantry division across the Rapido in the Liri valley was a costly failure, so General Clark now launched Juin's French expeditionary force, and the US 34 US ID against the Cassino Massif itself. The French would attack from the village of St Elise at the head of the Rapido, across the Belmonte valley and up and onto Mt Belvedere and beyond that Colle Abate, which, at 919 m high, dominated the whole area. The US division would attack across the flooded Rapido, capture the hills beyond, wheel left and take the town and monastery hill. German dispositions The renewed Allied attack would crash straight