“We were just down in that [foxhole], and we stayed for almost four months.” (Video Interview, 5:20)

Robert H. Rudolph

Robert Rudolph, detail from video War: World War II, 1939-1946 Branch: Army Unit: Company M, 157th Regiment, 45th Division Service Location: Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; St. Louis, Missouri; Camp Butner, North Carolina; Africa; Sicily; France; Anzio, Italy Rank: Staff Sergeant POW: Yes Place of Birth: Kansas City, MO

Robert Rudolph spent the winter months of early 1944 in a foxhole at Anzio, getting out only at night to retrieve supplies. The Allies did not make an advance on the Anzio beachhead until May 23, 1944, and though, as Rudolph says, being able to make some semblance of progress was a relief after the tedium of the foxhole, he was wounded in action the very next day and evacuated to Naples. Rudolph is candid about his fears as a young soldier, and about the stress of waiting nearly four months in a hole while the Germans kept the Allies pinned down. After recuperating from his wounding at Anzio, Rudolph would go on to see service in France through the end of the war.