The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (The Liberation Trilogy) by Rick Atkinson
“I told him he had embarrassed me”: diary, MWC, May 8, 1944, Citadel, box 65.
At four P.M. on Tuesday: diary, MWC, May 9, 1944, Citadel, box 65; Clark press conference, May 9, 1944, MWC, Citadel, box 63, folder 3 (“not quite up to strength”); Matthews, “The French Drive on Rome,” 122; Ralph Bennett, Ultra and the Mediterranean Strategy, 279–81; F. H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, 202.
“Everybody throws everything they have”: “Notes on Conference,” May 5, 1944; Clark press conference, May 9, 1944 (“The more Boche we can hold”).
He made no mention of his quarrel: In a postwar interview with the Army historian Sidney Matthews, Clark acknowledged that he “foresaw that the time might come when the shift in the axis would be desirable.” OH, MWC, May 10–21, 1948, SM, MHI, 72.
“The attack I would like to make”: Clark press conference, May 9, 1944.
Albert Kesselring knew nothing: Count von Klinckowstroem, “Italian Campaign,” 1947, FMS, #T-1a, chap. 10, 5, 8; Battle, 227–28; Tanham, “Battlefield Intelligence in World War II,” 33–35 (nine of twenty-two Allied regimental command posts); StoA, 211; Harold E. Miller, “G-2 Report on Italian Campaign,” 7; Robin Kay, Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War, vol. 2, Italy: From Cassino to Trieste, 16.
A Moroccan deserter several weeks earlier: A. G. Steiger, “The Italian Campaign, 4 Jan.–4 June 1944,” July 1948, Canadian Army HQ, historical section, report #20, 33; Kesselring et al, “German Version,” 119 (May 20 or later); Bailey, “The German Situation in Italy,” 114 (did “not expect anything”); Frido von Senger und Etterlin, “War Diary of the Italian Campaign,” 1953, FMS, #C=095b, MHI, 114–16.
If Kesselring was blind and misinformed: Kesselring et al., “German Version,” 117; Battle, 226; CtoA, 17–18, 111; Bailey, “The German Situation in Italy,” 58 (“make the enemy exhaust himself”), 67; Molony VI, 71n; Porch, 549 (82,000 held the southern front).
“To my great pleasure, everything is quiet”: Steiger, “The Italian Campaign,” 39.
“It was like a goodbye gift”: C. T. Framp, “The Littlest Victory,” ts, n.d., IWM, 85/19/1, 102; Beckett, 150 (conspicuously white animals); Peter Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 213, 216 (guide to Italian cities); Huebner, 61 (“Blackjack for twenty dollars”).
“Who the hell would want to live here”: Fred Cederberg, The Long Road Home, 113; Majdalany, Cassino: Portrait of a Battle, 228 (“a cause in its own right”); Charles Connell, Monte Cassino, 179 (“alive with rats”); Trevelyan, 273.
A dozen miles to the southwest: Nicole Solignac O’Connor, “Mektoub: A Young Woman’s War Journal,” ts, 2002, author’s possession, 124.
On the gunline in the rear: C. V. Clifton, “The 240mm Howitzer & the 8-inch Gun in a Mobile Situation,” June 27, 1944, CARL, N-7276, 3; Mayo, 205; Constance M. Green et al., The Ordnance Department: Planning Munitions for War, 362; N. P. Morrow, “Employment of Artillery in Italy,” FAJ, Aug. 1944, 498+; “Lessons from the Italian Campaign,” 91–94.
“Busy days, nerve trying days”: JJT, XIV-3-8.
“If Alex is a military genius”: GK, May 10, 1944; Nicolson, Alex (“Our objective is the destruction”); msg, W. Churchill to GCM, Apr. 16, 1944, NARA RG 165, E 422, OPD exec files, 390/38/2/4-5, box 18
H-hour was fixed for eleven P.M.: CtoA, 37; Orpen, 34; The Princeton Class of 1942 During World War II, 509 (“I do not know where my son is”); Alexander, “The Allied Armies in Italy,” III-10 (“strange, impressive silence”); Michael Pearson, “Hard in the Attack: The Canadian Army in Sicily and Italy,” Sept. 1996, Ph.D. diss, Carleton University, Ottawa, 332 (“New boys with fear”).
CHAPTER 12: THE GREAT PRIZE
Shaking Stars from the Heavens
The BBC pips had not finished: Matthew Parker, Monte Cassino, 309; Viscount Alexander of Tunis, “The Allied Armies in Italy,” n.d., CMH, III-10 (two thousand gun pits); C. T. Framp, “The Littlest Victory,” ts, n.d., IWM, 85/19/1, 102 (“shake the very stars”).
Men peered from their trenches: Diana F. Butler, ed., “Human Interest,” n.d., UK NA, CAB 101/346, 3–4; Klaus H. Huebner, A Combat Doctor’s Diary, 61–63, 73 (“Rome, then home”); Rowland Ryder, Oliver Leese, 165 (Nightingales had sung); David Scott Daniell, The Royal Hampshire Regiment, vol. 3, 167 (“full of noises”).
Gunners draped wet rags: Olgierd Terlecki, Poles in the Italian Campaign, 1943–1945, 73; Lida Mayo, The Ordnance Department: On Beachhead and Battlefront, 211 (174,000 shells); Mountain Inferno, 749 (“bridge of iron”); Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 7, 769 (“Zip”).
At midnight on the Allied right: E. D. Smith, The Battles for Cassino, 153, 162 (“no Germans could possibly outlive”); Fred Majdalany, Cassino: Portrait of a Battle, 231.
“Soldiers! The moment for battle”: W. Anders, An Army in Exile, 174; Raleigh Trevelyan, Rome ’44, 269, 273 (Troops surged up Snakeshead Ridge); “Operations by 2nd Polish Corps Against the High Ground, Monte Cassino,” June 1944, possession of Roger Cirillo, 26–31 (Nine German battalions).
“Many of us had lost”: Janusz Piekalkiewicz, The Battle for Cassino, 169, 172–73; Majdalany, Cassino, 246; Anders, 175–76 (“small epics”); CtoA, 44; Dan Kurzman, The Race for Rome, 235 (“If they do not obey orders”); “Operations by 2nd Polish Corps,” 29 (of twenty engineers”); Robert Wallace, The Italian Campaign, 164 (“how dreadful death can be”).
At dawn, the rising sun: Charles Connell, Monte Cassino, 186 (“sitting birds”); memo, “Flamethrowers and Napalm,” July 1944, HQ, 2nd Polish Corps, NARA RG 492, MTO chemical warfare section, 470.71, box 1756; Trevelyan, 271 (“I was working on my knees”).
Yet even Polish valor could not win: Terlecki, 75; Battle, 233; Piekalkiewicz, 171 (“costly reconnaissance”).
“Let’s pick some cornflowers”: Ryder, 166.
“What do we do now?”: Kurzman, 215.
Vehicles crept forward, hauling boats: newsletter, 8th Indian Division, March–Nov. 1944, Dudley Russell papers, LH, 5; The Tiger Triumphs, 73 (banged angle iron).
Fire they drew, but so did the rest: Dharm Pal, The Campaign in Italy, 1943–1945, 160–61; Ryder, 166 (“yellow London fog”).
Men stumped about in flame-stabbed confusion: The Tiger Triumphs, 73; Pal, 161–62; Field Marshal Lord Carver, The Imperial War Museum Book of the War in Italy, 1943–1945, 184–85 (“Oh, God, don’t let me die”).
Twelve of sixteen Gurkha boats: Pal, 162; Alexander, “The Allied Armies in Italy,” III-11; David Scott Daniell, History of the East Surrey Regiment, vol. 4, 207.
By midday, no battalion: Gregory Blaxland, Alexander’s Generals, 89; Robin Neillands, Eighth Army, 291 (“an autocratic man”); Molony VI, 99 (“sough and whiffle”); Parker, 314 (“passed ever so slowly”).
Yet the enemy had missed: Molony VI, 112; Kenneth Macksey, Kesselring: The Making of the Luftwaffe, 211; Blaxland, 95–96; CtoA, 55.
Three bridges, dubbed Cardiff, Oxford, and Plymouth: “Engineers in the Italian Campaign,” ts, n.d., UK NA, CAB 106/575, 34–35; Pal, 165; The Tiger Triumphs, 74–75; newsletter, 8th Indian Division, March–Nov. 1944, Dudley Russell papers, LHC.
Upstream between Sant’Angelo and Cassino town: Daniell, History of the East Surrey Regiment; Beckett, 157–58 (“Cries for help”); Frank Mills, “Well Dressed at Cassino,” n.d., author’s possession, 3–4 (glimpses of the abbey).
Gurkhas twice surged into Sant’Angelo: Molony VI, 121; Pal, 165; The Tiger Triumphs, 75–76.
Putrefying corpses were soaked in petrol: memoir, P. Royle, 1972, IWM, 99/72/1, 122–23 (“I had no regrets”); Connell, 191 (wounds dressed with paper); Blaxland, 99 (“This is real war”).
They pushed on: C. N. Barclay, History of the 16th/5th The Queen’s Royal Lancers, 125, 126n.
“He was thrashing and fighting”: John Ellis, On the Front Lines, 331.
Two secure bridgeheads merged: Battle, 232–33; Molony VI, 80, 123; Trevelyan, 297 (“Flames of Jerry guns”).
“Mark Clark has laid 4–1”: Ryder, 170.
Clark had troubles enough: James C. Fry, Combat Soldier, 17, 33, 43; John J. Roche, “First Squad, First Platoon,” 1983, 351st Inf, 88th ID, MHI, ASEQ, 6–7; Wyndham H. Bammer, “Operations of Company K, 339th Infantry, in the Attack on Hills 66 and 69,” 1948, IS; Douglas Allanbrook, See Naples, 179 (“who gets Rome?”).
Sheaves of fire from the entrenched 94th Division: G. K. Tanham, “Battlefield Intelligence in World War II: A Case Study of the Fifth Army Front in Italy,” Sept. 1956, Project RAND, RM-1792, CMH, 42; John J. Roche, “First Squad, First Platoon,” 1983, 351st Inf, 88th ID, MHI, ASEQ, 6 (“noise was all of a piece”); John Sloan Brown, Draftee Division, 107 (Red tracer vectors); Eric Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream, 390.
“a serpentine column of steam”: Roche, “First Squad, First Platoon,” 13; Sevareid, 388.
Yet neither division moved far: CtoA, 52, 54; Chester G. Starr, ed., From Salerno to the Alps, 201–2; http://www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/books/2387.htm; Sidney T. Matthews, “Writing Small Unit Actions with the Fifth Army in Italy,” SM, MHI, box 2, 2 (Frederick Schiller Faust); Sevareid, 388 (“stupefyingly dead”); John E. Wallace, The Blue Devil “Battle Mountain” Regiment in Italy, 13–18; Alexander, “The Allied Armies in Italy,” III-11.
That left Juin’s FEC: Anthony Clayton, Three Marshals of France, 83–85; “Draft Report on FEC,” SM, CMH, box 1; Starr, ed., 186–88.
Plunging fire greeted them: Diana F. Butler, “The French Expeditionary Corps in the Battle for Rome,” Cabinet historical section, UK NA, CAB 101/226, 13; Claude R. Hinson, “755th Tank Battalion Supporting the 3rd Algerian Infantry Division of the French Expeditionary Corps During the Advance on Rome,” 1948, IS (singed hair and burning flesh); George Bouille and Pierre Le Goyet, Le Corps Expeditionnaire Française en Italie, 1943–1944, n.d., MHI, trans. Antonio Ali Winston for author, 56–63 (Counterattacking grenadiers).
By midmorning on Friday, May 12: Douglas Porch, The Path to Victory, 556; Fred Majdalany, Cassino, 243; Butler, “The French Expeditionary Corps,” 13; Starr, ed., 267n (casualties approached sixteen hundred); “Draft Report on FEC” (“considerable alarm”); Parker, 320 (“dead take on a waxy look”).
Juin went forward shortly before noon: Michael Carver, ed., The War Lords, 607; Butler, “The French Expeditionary Corps,” 13 (three wounded battalion commanders); Sidney T. Matthews, “The French Drive on Rome,” Revue historique de l’armée, special issue, 1957, 128 (“the wrong foot”).
Through much of the afternoon he scrambled: Clayton, 83–85; John Buchan, “Report on a Visit to the French Expeditionary Corps,” n.d., CMH, appendix A, 1 (“It’s gone wrong”); “Draft Report on FEC” CtoA, 61; Porch, 556 (only reserve division); Carver, ed., 607 (“it will go”).
It went, spectacularly: Butler, “The French Expeditionary,” 15; Porch, 556; Clayton, 83–85; Bouille and Le Goyet, 74–78 (reported Monte Majo captured); Heinrich von Vietinghoff, “71st Infantry Division in Italy,” Sept. 1948, FMS, #C-025, MHI, 7–9, 22; Hans von Greiffenberg, “Field Fortifications in Central Italy,” 1950, FMS, #C-071, MHI, 3–5, 16; CtoA, 61 (“Accelerate the general withdrawal”).
By Sunday the French had advanced: Starr, ed., 188–89; Matthews, “The French Drive on Rome,” 128–29; Molony VI, 139, 145 (“En avant!”), 140 (“Most unpleasant”); Bouille and Le Goyet, 78 (worse than in Russia); Parker, 341; CtoA, 62; Buchan, “Report on a Visit,” appendix A, 1 (“warfare to which we are accustomed”).
The unpleasantries had only begun: “Draft Report on FEC” Starr, ed., 189–92.
“Dark men, dark night”: Trevelyan, 271; Robert Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, photo, 113; Fry, 43 (“troops of the last century”); O’Connor, “Mektoub,” 119 (“dozens of wristwatches”); Hinson, “755th Tank Battalion,” 10 (One unit kept a tiger); Joe Chmiel, “Invasion of Normandy,” ts, n.d., in Matt Urban file, 60th Inf Regt, 9th ID, SOOHP, MHI (“Smokie, smokie”).
It was said that in Sicily: Peter Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 47; OH, Robert J. Wood, 1973, William E. Narus, SOOHP, MHI, 3–42; John Steinbeck, Once There Was a War, 168; Roberta Love Tayloe, Combat Nurse, 77, 79, 83 (doctors assigned numbers); Huebner, 81 (“sing, chatter, and howl”); Alan Williamson, “Adviser to French Colonial Troops,” ts, n.d., Texas MFM, 4 (“women, horses, and guns”).
Up and up they climbed: Starr, ed., 192–93; Butler, “The French Expeditionary Corps,” 19 (“sky was a changeless blue”).
By four P.M. on May 15: Starr, ed., 192–93; Molony VI, 149 (“falling boulders”); Butler, “The French Expeditionary Corps,” 21; Buchan, “Report on a Visit,” appendix F (“grinning savages”).
Men and beasts had exhausted themselves: “Draft Report on FEC.”
On the French left: Brown, 117, 120; CtoA, 65–68, 77; Starr, ed., 207 (dust-churning flotilla).
“rushed off his feet”: Buchan, “Report on a Visit,” 1; Matthews, “The French Drive on Rome,” 128–29 (nearly extinct 71st Division); CtoA, 86 (no more than one hundred riflemen); Starr, ed., 210 (terrorizing horses); Macksey, 212 (“One could cry”).
All this buoyed the Allied high command: diary, MWC, May 14, 1944, Citadel, box 65 (“very pleased”); Carver, ed., 607 (“We’ve got them”).
Only Clark remained somber: diary, MWC, May 14, 1944, Citadel, box 65; CtoA, 77; Tanham, “Battlefield Intelligence in World War II,” 53 (compared with two miles); CtoA, 71–73 (“disciplinary action”); Brown, 127 (traffic snarls).
“I am disappointed”: diary, MWC, May 14, 1944, Citadel, box 65; GK, May 14, 1944 (“Called me about 6 times”).
Even as he lashed: Starr, ed., 226; diary, MWC, May 15, 1944, Citadel, box 65 (“effort of the Eighth Army”).
That same Eighth Army: Anders, 178; Terlecki, 83; Kurzman, 237; Ken Ford, Cassino 1944, 78–79; Molony VI, 130n (“oddments”); Rudolf Böhmler, Monte Cassino, 266 (“Impossible to get wounded”).
In danger of encirclement: Albrecht Kesselring, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring, 200–205; Jean-Yves Nasse, Green Devils, 113; Nigel Nicolson, The Grenadier Guards in the War of 1939–1945, vol. 2, 427; Butler, ed., “Human Interest,” 4; war diary, 1st Guards Bde, May 18, 1944, UK NA, WO 170/514 (“Cassino is lost”).
The struggle for the high ground: “Operations by 2nd Polish Corps,” 40; Anders, 179 (six-man patrol); John H. Green, “The Battles for Cassino,” AB, no. 13, 1976, 1+ (cracked church bell); Piekalkiewicz, 181 (Benedict’s candlelit crypt).
Just before ten A.M. the lancers’: Anders, 178; Parker, 352-53; http://www.krakowinfo.com/signal2.way; Trevelyan, 274.
At 11:30 A.M. British signalers: Butler, ed., “Human Interest,” 4; Nicolson, 427–28; Ryder, 169; “Operations by 2nd Polish Corps,” 41; Molony VI, 134; Smith, 172 (“means a great deal”).
For the first time in five months: war diary, 1st Guards Bde, May 18, 1944; Betsy Wade, ed., Forward Positions: The War Correspondence of Homer Bigart, 44–45; General Sir Sidney Chevalier Kirkman, “3rd and 4th Cassino,” Royal Artillery Historical Society, Proceedings, vol. 11, no. 3, Jan. 1969, 94+.
In the abbey itself, further investigation: Trevelyan, 274; Tommaso Leccisotti, Monte Cassino, 132–33; E. T. DeWald, “Inspection Trip to Abbey of Monte Cassino, May 27, 1944,” Henry C. Newton papers, MHI (“a Mesopotamian tell”).
A solitary American fighter pilot: Parker, 357; Walter Robson, Letters from a Soldier, 96–97.
General von Senger, freshly bemedaled: Frido von Senger und Etterlin, “War Diary of the Italian Campaign,” 1953, FMS, #C-095b, MHI, 124; Vietinghoff, “71st Infantry Division in Italy,” 31 (found the Gustav Line ruptured); Molony VI, 114, 143 (“frightful”); Frido von Senger und Etterlin, “The Drive on Rome,” Sept. 1951, FMS, #C-097b, MHI, 11 (“the corps had been breached”); Neil Short, German Defences in Italy in World War II, 9n.
“It was left to me”: Frido von Senger und Etterlin, Neither Fear nor Hope, 248.
Italian supply-truck drivers: journal, Fourteenth Army, May 19–22, 1944, “The German Operation at Anzio,” Apr. 1946, WD, John Lucas papers, MHI, box 9, 104; Kesselring et al, “German Version,” 127 (barrages severed phone lines); A. G. Steiger, “The Italian Campaign,” July 1948, historical section, Canadian Army HQ, report no. 20, MHI, 59 (“I demand a clear picture”); F. W. Winterbotham, The Ultra Secret, 116.
In truth, Kesselring had been outgeneraled: W.G.F. Jackson, Alexander of Tunis as Military Commander, 285; Matthews, “The French Drive on Rome,” 128–29; Sallagar, “Operation STRANGLE,” 70–71 (not until May 19); Kesselring, Memoirs, 201–5; Senger, “The Drive on Rome,” 11; Robin Kay, Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War, vol. 2, From Cassino to Trieste, 29; Walter Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 1939–1945, 416; Molony VI, 164.
“offensive against the cultural center of Europe”: weekly air intelligence summary, #78, May 15, 1944, Fifth Army, G-3 journal, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 6; corr, May 18, 1944, in G-2 report, II Corps, June 3, 1944, Robert H. Adleman papers, HIA, box 13 (“You have no idea”).
“like spontaneous fires exploding”: Fred Cederberg, The Long Road Home, 121; Blaxland, 107 (crammed along a six-mile front); C. F. Comfort, Artist at War, 153 (“a vaporous fantasy”); Trevelyan, 297 (“clear their own minefields”).