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Italy

Battle Hardened, October 18 – May 5, 1944

Italy
September – May, 1944: Map of Italy and major locations where Lud and his 168th Infantry camped and/or engaged with the enemy. Not to scale.
December 12 - 26, 1943: 168th Infantry Regiment's Medical Detachment's Training Schedule.
Winter 1943/44, Italy: Typical scene of the muddy conditions in Italy slowing down the progress of the 34th Infantry Division
1944: American medics administering blood plasma in the field to a wounded soldier. Photo credit: National Archives. "We have plenty of plasma, all we want, and it’s the best thing we could have for treating shock and hemorrhage in the field. It isn’t quite as good as real fresh blood itself, of course. Plasma, when reconstituted by adding water, has no RBCs [red blood cells] in it -- it’s a pale clear amber color. The beauty of plasma is that it can be stored and transported easily. It comes well packed in a strong carton containing a bottle of distilled water and another bottle of the dried plasma powder which are mixed together just before it is given.
1943/1944, Appenine Mountain Range, Italy: “It’s a cold day and I’m set up in the basement of a large farmhouse. The only source of light is a window that must be left open and my fingers are getting a little stiff from the cold. It’s beautiful outside today. As I stood on a terrace behind the house, beside a green orange tree, I could see for miles across the valley in the sunshine. The mountains in the distance are all snowcapped—very beautiful in their quiet majesty, but hell to fight in.” —14 February 1944
December 1943, Jan/Feb 1944: Sant' Angelo d'Alife, Italy. A small village in the Apennine Mountains where the 168th Infantry Regiment found rest and rehabilitation from heavy combat on the frontlines.
The months-long battle for Cassino and the monastery on the mountaintop (January – May 1944) was one of the largest and most intense battles fought during World War II. Neither side would yield. Some historians note that General Mark Clark’s attempt to breach the Gustav Line was a blood bath and suicide mission, with no strategic gain.
14 March 1944: Major Arthur L. Ludwick Jr, M.D. of Waterloo, IA, is decorated with the Silver Star by Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark in a ceremony at Fifth Army Headquarters in Italy. A member of the 34th Infantry Division, Major Ludwick was honored for his "gallantry-in-action" at Mt. Pantano, Italy. Photo credit: NEA Service, Inc.
As part of the 34th Infantry Division (133rd/168th Regiments), Ludwick insisted on serving as far forward as possible to ensure that wounded soldiers were quickly treated where they fell and properly evacuated. As a result, he earned the Purple Heart in Tunisia and was decorated with the Silver Star in Italy, where during the bloody battle of Monte Pantano, the treatment and evacuation of the wounded had been slowed under intense enemy fire. For five days he made frequent trips to the battlefield to not only supervise and coordinate the treatment and evacuation of the heavy casualties, but to administer aid to the wounded, himself. “Due to his initiative and tireless efforts, many lives were saved that otherwise might have been lost,” reads the official commendation. “Major Ludwick’s courage and bravery were highly meritorious and a credit to the Armed Forces of the United States.”
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