GENERAL MARK CLARK: Commander of US Fifth Army and Liberator of Rome

1-201480

Biography of Gen. Mark Clark, commander of the US Fifth Army and tasked with the invasion of Italy. From the September 1943 landing at Salerno, Clark and his army fought their way north against skilled German resistance, augmented by mountainous terrain. The daring January 1944 end-run at Anzio, although not immediately successful, set the stage for Fifth Army's liberation of Rome on 4 June 1944, after ten months of hard fighting.

The war in Italy was not over, but the taking of Rome intact was a tremendous achievement. Pitted against one of Hitler's most able commanders, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, Fifth Army spent another ten months in ferocious combat from the Gothic Line to the Po Valley, as Clark moved up to head all Allied ground forces in Italy as commander of 15th Army Group.