Early on the morning of Sept. 9, 1943, U.S. soldiers of the 142nd Infantry Battalion, 36th Infantry Division climbed down the ropes of transport ships into landing craft, bobbing on the waves of Italy’s Gulf of Salerno. Shells, fired from German guns in the nearby mount ains, began to rain down. The landing craft took direct hits, spilling men into the sea. When the boats grounded on the beach at …
