Battle of Anzio

Old age and death, via memories of an elderly man, are touched on at the beginning of the song.

There's also a reference to Waters' father, who was killed during Operation Shingle during World War II in, uh, 1944.

So Roger was born in '43, so he was a little, a little tyke when his, uh, father was, was killed in the war.

Uh, Waters would subsequently return to this theme on The Wall and The Final Cut.

And now, back to our story.

The Special Force Brigade was withdrawn from the mountains in January, and on February 1, was landed at the beachhead created by Operation Shingle at Anzio, south of Rome, replacing the 1st and 3rd Ranger Battalions, which had suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Cisterna.

Their task was to hold and raid from the right-hand flank of the beachhead marked by the Mussolini Canal.

First Regiment was positioned on the force's right front, which comprised one-third of the entire line, while the Third Regiment guarded the remaining two-thirds of the line.

And his brother has sent a letter, and it's basically a goodbye.

Um, and his brother was at the Battle of Anzio in World War II.

So I did a quick Google.

There were 43,000 casualties at the Battle of Anzio, and there were 7,000 dead.

Good grief.

And that's an underplay of all of this.

Born in Cadiz, Kentucky, Hugh served in the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division during World War II.

During the war, he was wounded in the Battle of Anzio and wounded a second time crossing the Waal River in Holland during Operation Market Garden.

He concluded his World War II experience at the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium.

After the war, Hugh worked as a television repairman in Fort Wayne, eventually starting his own business, Wallace TV.