The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (The Liberation Trilogy) by Rick Atkinson
“A man’s foot”: Klaus H. Huebner, A Combat Doctor’s Diary, 73; OH, Richard A. Williams, Jan. 25, 2003, with author (“they would still scream”); Bill Mauldin, The Brass Ring, 200; James Phinney Baxter III, Scientists Against Time, 101–2; Fowle, ed., 164–68; Beck et al., 183; Erna Risch and Chester L. Kieffer, The Quartermaster Corps: Organization, Supply, and Services, vol. 2, 331 (“M dogs”).
expedient fighting withdrawal: Kent Roberts Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, 235.
an intense debate raged: Walter Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 1939–1945, 385–86; David Irving, The Trail of the Fox, 309–10 (“Domineering, obstinate”).
Italy remained a comparatively minor theater: Molony V, 381–82; Rudolf Böhmler, Monte Cassino, 67–68 (more vulnerable to enemy bombers).
The Italian peninsula was narrowest: H. Alexander, “The Allied Armies in Italy,” CMH, II-7; brochure, “Ciociaria: A Land to Experience,” n.d., Regione Lazio, 33 (wolves and bears); memo, A. Kesselring, Nov. 1, 1943, A. G. Steiger, “The Campaign in Southern Italy,” Nov. 1947, Canadian Army hq, Ottawa, appendix L (“impregnable system”); Wallace, 101 (“break their teeth”).
changed his mind in favor of Kesselring: Böhmler, 71; Basil Liddell Hart, ed., The Rommel Papers, 445–47; Kenneth Macksey, Kesselring: The Making of the Luftwaffe, 186 (“leadership without optimism”); Thomas R. Brooks, The War North of Rome, 28 (“extraordinarily brave”).
“I’ll take it as it comes”: Liddell Hart, ed., 447; Greenfield, ed., 242 (“end of withdrawals”); Irving, 311–14 (“hard times lie ahead”).
Thanks to Ultra: Ralph Bennett, Ultra and the Mediterranean Strategy, 251–53; F.H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, 173–74.
“We are committed”: “Review of Battle Situation in Italy, 21 October 1943,” in H. Alexander, “The Allied Armies in Italy,” CMH, II-50, II-13 (“cul-de-sac”); GS V, 69 (only eleven facing a German force); Molony V, 474n (Twenty inches of rain); StoC, 219–20 (less than a mile a day). The German force in Italy soon reached twenty-five divisions.
“essential for us to retain the initiative”: Chandler, vol. 3, 1529.
Nor did the high command: StoC, 185–87; Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring, 247 (“vindicates our strategy”).
The prospect of waging: Molony V, 473; StoC, 187 (line on a map).
Alexander’s despondency: W.G.F. Jackson, Alexander of Tunis as Military Commander, 248; Gervasi, 518 (“punch, punch, punch”); Lord Tedder, With Prejudice, 488 (“ever get to Rome”).
“ancient truths”: Jackson, 253; corr, B. L. Montgomery to A. F. Harding, Oct. 31, 1943, Bernard L. Montgomery collections, IWM, ancillary collections 14, file 3.
The Mountainous Hinterland
“The road to Rome is a long one”: JJT, XIII, 12.
among two thousand veterans transferred: memo, LKT Jr. to MWC and CG, NATOUSA, Dec. 17, 1943, NARA RG 407, E 427, NATOUSA, 95-USF1-2.0.
“Life is good”: JJT, X-1, 5; Biddle, 169, 172.
Victory Road: Gervasi, 513; “Lessons from the Italian Campaign,” March 10, 1944, NARA RG 407, E 427, 95-USF1-04, box 250, 10 (“mountainous hinterland”); Alice Leccese Powers, Italy in Mind, 64 (chimneys poking like snorkels); McLean, “Adventures in Occupied Areas,” 65 (Peasants keened); Biddle, 187, 204 (“Nothing I can do”).
Across the cobblestones: StoC, 210, 218; Lewis, 161; Marshall, 20 (diapered in newspapers); George Biddle’s War Drawings, 2 (“The stretchers are coming”).
Biddle sketched the tableau: Biddle, Artist at War, 166–67, 204, 219; Brown, 337 (powdered water); Lloyd M. Wells, From Anzio to the Alps, 35 (“Easy, boys”).
For a few weeks, Biddle: George Biddle, “Report from the Italian Front,” Life, vol. 16, no. 1 (Jan. 3, 1944), 13+; George Biddle’s War Drawings, 2 (“a swivel chair”); Biddle, Artist at War, 176 (“killing instincts”).
“Bragg would look good”: JJT, X-6, 17; Biddle, Artist at War, 194–95; George Biddle’s War Drawings, 3; corr, LKT Jr. to DDE, Nov. 24, 1943, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, box 11, folder 11 (two other battalion commanders).
“climbing a ladder”: Richard Doherty, A Noble Crusade, 169; “Lessons from the Italian Campaign,” March 1944, HQ, NATOUSA, DTL, Ft. B, 113 (dull the glint), 48 (mewing cats); Arnball, 161 (Barbasol); CM, 276 (lack of overcoats); Bourke-White, 142 (debated with theological intensity).
“I’m goddam sick and tired”: Biddle, Artist at War, 197, 207, 212–13.
“Be alert and live”: ibid., 228–30 (“lips parted in that rictus”), 216–20 (“all the way into Germany”); Biddle, “Report from the Italian Front,” 13+; CM, 283 (“haggard, dirty”).
“Just so many dead”: Biddle, Artist at War, 233 (“wrestling with the dead”), 177 (“I wish the people at home”); JJT, X-22 (“my continued existence”).
The panorama from Monte Cesima: Fifth Army at the Winter Line, 8.
“Every step forward”: StoC, 231–32.
“a steep, solid rock”: Bowlby, 58; The Grenadier Guards, 1939–1945, 31 (only German pickets).
Three panzer grenadier counterattacks: Michael Howard and John Sparrow, The Coldstream Guards, 1920–1946, 167, 170 (stripping rations); David Erskin, The Scots Guards, 1919–1955, 186; Molony V, 453.
Too great as well for Truscott’s 3rd Division: CM, 284.
“faces of the dead”: Murphy, 50; memo, LKT Jr. to MWC and CG, NATOUSA, Dec. 17, 1943, NARA RG 407, E 427, NATOUSA, 95-USF1-2.0 (8,600 casualties); “Statistical Survey for the Italian Campaign, Sept. 17–Nov. 19, 1943,” 3rd ID, CARL, N-12185, (four hundred officers); Peter R. Mansoor, The GI Offensive in Europe, 116 (70 percent of their strength); corr, LKT Jr., to W. B. Smith, Dec. 1, 1943, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, box 11, folder 11.
“You are in my thoughts”: LKT Jr., to Sarah, Nov. 10 and 25, Dec. 5, 1943, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, box 1, folder 6; aide’s diaries, Nov. 10, 1943, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, box 18, folder 3 (thirty-five bottles of cognac).
“The land and the weather”: Pyle, 68, 73, 78, 97; Collins, 127–28 (“No shelves”).
“protections against crackup”: McLean, “Adventures in Occupied Areas,” 68; Spike Milligan, Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall, 37, 105, 185 (“Stretcher bearer!”).
the Ghouls: Munsell, 37; Milligan, 186 (“loss of dirt”); Lee G. Miller, The Story of Ernie Pyle, 294 (“pig shed”); McLean, “Adventures in Occupied Areas,” 67 (Villa des Chilblains); Farley Mowat, The Regiment, 179 (“Latrines”); Wells, 61 (“Big Six”).
“She’s been yelling like that”: Tregaskis, 181; George Kerrigan, “A Night at the Opera,” ts, n.d., Co. A, 142nd Inf, Texas MFM (“You can pray forever”).
“You can’t believe”: The Princeton Class of 1942 During World War II, 278.
At 9:30 A.M. on Thursday, November 11: diary, MWC, Nov. 11, 1943, Citadel, box 64; Tregaskis, 193.
“war could be won in this theater”: diary, MWC, Nov. 4, 1943, Citadel, box 64.
ten thousand casualties since mid-October: Starr, ed., 77; “Second Orientation Conference at Fifth Army Headquarters” (“equivalent of two divisions”); diary, MWC, Nov. 23, 1943, Citadel, box 64 (more than three thousand dead); StoC, 226; Christopher Buckley, Road to Rome, 119 (“Nothing But Jerry”).
The British had disappointed Clark: diary, MWC, Nov. 5, 1943, Citadel, box 64; OH, Robert J. Wood, March 4 and 15, 1948, SM, MHI (“Why in the hell”); corr, MWC to John Meade, Sept. 22, 1955, SM, MHI (“only ones”); Starr, ed., 53, 60.
Few of the troops butting at the Bernhardt Line: Just as the only U.S. armor division to fight in the desert was the only one to receive no desert training, so the 34th and 36th Divisions had little mountain training. “Lessons Learned in the Battle from the Garigliano to North of Rome,” July 15, 1944, Fifth Army, training memo #12, DTL, Ft. B, 8.
“head-on battering”: Molony V, 389; Will Lang, notebook, n.d., USMA Arch.
Wool clothing scheduled to arrive: OH, Ralph Tate, Fifth Army G-4, Jan. 19, 1949, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 005; “History of Planning Division
“Cold ground trauma”: Bowlby, 174; diary, MWC, Nov. 16, 1943, Citadel, box 64 (Clark was aghast); JPL, 237–39.
Kesselring had stabilized the front: Böhmler, 89; Bowlby, 73 (two thousand casualties); StoC, 214 (“My morale”); G. R. Stevens, Fourth Indian Division, 272 (“The lice are at me”); memo, 3rd ID G-2 to VI Corps, Oct. 7, 1943, captured documents, NARA RG 407, 206-2.9 (“beyond the borders”).
Clark concluded that the time had come: StoC, 251; diary, MWC, Nov. 13, 1943, Citadel, box 64 (“hold to its present positions”); Tregaskis, 195 (“mustn’t kid ourselves”); JPL, 195 (“in better country”).
“The Entire World Was Burning”
U.S.S. Iowa swung on her chains: “Log of the President’s Trip to Africa and the Middle East,” Stephen T. Early papers, FDR Lib, box 37; Elliott Roosevelt, As He Saw It, 133; Chandler, vol. 3, 1590 (CARGO).
Autumn at AFHQ: OH, Lyman Lemnitzer, Jan. 16, 1948, SM, MHI; msg, UK chiefs of staff to Joint Staff Mission, Nov. 4, 1943, NARA RG 165, E 422, OPD executive files, 390/38/2/4-5, box 18 (“We are very much disturbed”); Coakley, 231 (might require postponement); Three Years, 424; Eisenhower Diary, HCB, DDE Lib, A-884 (eclipsed 100,000), A-869; Chandler, vol. 3, 1529 (“little difference what happens to us”), 1555 (“a mere slugging match”).
“The God of Justice”: Chandler, vol. 3, 1553.
Politics and folderol: Ibid., 1504, 1535, 1611; Three Years, 423–24 (“keep the home front frightened”), 438.
“He usually blew his top”: Merle Miller, Ike the Soldier, 565; Dwight D. Eisenhower, Letters to Mamie, 151 (“acutely uncomfortable”); Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 209 (“malicious gossip”).
“Roosevelt weather!”: Roosevelt, 133.
“heavy maleness of the war”: Kay Summersby, Eisenhower Was My Boss, 86; Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 473 (“president’s sons”).
near sinking of the Iowa: Charles F. Pick, Jr., “Torpedo on the Starboard Beam,” Proceedings, Aug. 1970, 90+; war diary, U.S.S. Iowa, Nov. 1943, NARA RG 38; war diary, U.S.S. William D. Porter, Nov. 1943, NARA RG 38; deck log, U.S.S. Iowa, Nov. 1943, NARA RG 24; deck log, U.S.S. William D. Porter, Nov. 1943, NARA RG 24.
“Tell me, Ernest”: Ernest J. King and Walter Muir Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King, 500–501; Sherwood, 768; William D. Leahy, I Was There, 196; Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 301.
“damned Republican”: H. H. Arnold, Global Mission, 455. Porter would be sunk in a kamikaze attack in June 1945.
“The war, and the peace”: Roosevelt, 133.
The president had planned: Eisenhower, Crusade, 196; Summersby, 93–94.
They stopped for lunch: “Log of the President’s Trip to Africa and the Middle East” Piers Brendon, Ike: His Life and Times, 124; Robert D. Kaplan, Mediterranean Winter, 81; (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Cato_Minor*.html (Cato the Younger); Eisenhower, Crusade, 209 (“you had offered to bet”).
“Eisenhower showed no signs”: Leahy, 198; Eisenhower Diary, HCB, DDE Lib, A-907; Three Years, 446; Roosevelt, 137 (a more formidable figure); Eisenhower, Crusade, 197 (“dangerous to monkey”).
“The eternal pound, pound, pound”: Eisenhower, Letters to Mamie, 157–58.
The Adriatic seaport of Bari: L. V. Bertarelli, Southern Italy, 385; Karl Baedeker, Southern Italy and Sicily, 209 (St. Nicholas); Morton, 99–100 (smacked dead octopuses), 110–12 (comely temptress); Evelyn Waugh, The End of the Battle, 219; Karel Margry, “Mustard Disaster at Bari,” AB, no. 79 (1993), 34+ (Bambino Sports Stadium).
“the novelty had worn off”: I. G. Greenlees, “Memoirs of an Anglo-Italian,” ts, n.d., IWM, 89/1/1, 174, 179; Buckley, 216 (silk stockings); John Muirhead, Those Who Fall, 31–32 (Palmolive soap); “Engineers in the Italian Campaign, 1943–1945,” 20, 79 (350 tons each); George Southern, Poisonous Inferno, 26 (a thousand stevedores).
They had much to unload: Simpson, “Air Phase,” 251; StoC, 239; Andrew Brookes, Air War over Italy, 1943–1945, 38 (five thousand tons); AAFinWWII, 564–67; James H. Doolittle, I Could Never Be So Lucky Again, 367–68; Mark M. Boatner III, The Biographical Dictionary of World War II, 139.
Doolittle’s job: Simpson, “Air Phase,” 226, 365n; Brookes, 21, 38, 46; Vincent Orange, Coningham, 175.
“I would regard it as a personal affront”: Orange, 175.
As Coningham issued this challenge: “Manifest of John Harvey,” in “Report on the Circumstances in Which Gas Casualties Were Incurred at Bari,” March 14, 1944, NARA RG 492, MTO, chemical warfare section, 350.01, box 1747; minutes, board of officers, June 28, 1944, “adequacy of protective measures at Bari,” NARA RG 331, AFHQ micro, 290/24/28/3, box 187, R-87 (“as safe a place”).
No Axis chemical stockpiles: Brooks E. Kleber and Dale Birdsell, The Chemical Warfare Service: Chemicals in Combat, 108, 122; “Planning Instruction No. 9,” March 23, 1943, “Operating Instructions Husky,” NARA RG 407, E 427, 95-AL1-3.17, box 201; memo, DDE, “Chemical Warfare Policy,” Apr. 21, 1943, NARA RG 492, MTO, 321.011, box 1744; memo, eyes only, DDE to GCM, Aug. 21, 1943, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 270/19/6/3, box 244; memo, J. Devers to DDE, n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7 CC2 Sicily, box 247; memo, “Former Naval Person to the President,” No. 405, Aug. 5, 1943, NARA RG 319, OCMH 2-3.7 CC2 Sicily, box 249; POW reports, NARA RG 492, MTO, chemical warfare section, 350.09 (interrogations of prisoners); C. Reining, “IPW Report No. 9,” Nov. 8, 1943, Fifth Army HQ, NARA RG 492, MTO, chemical warfare section, 350.09 (new, egregiously potent gas); G-2 report No. 35, Oct. 11, 1943, Fifth Army HQ, NARA RG 492, MTO, chemical warfare section, 350.052, “CW Intel Miscl” (“Adolf will turn to gas”); “Enemy Capabilities for Chemical Warfare,” Military Intelligence Service, WD, NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, box 602 (Nineteen plants in Germany).
Twenty-eight different gases: Kleber and Birdsell, 3–5, 122; James W. Hammond, Jr., Poison Gas: The Myth Versus Reality, 16–17 (Hitler himself), 36; Glenn B. Infield, Disaster at Bari, 14–16 (“swift retaliation”); “Observations in the European Theater Including Landing Operation at Salerno,” Oct. 25, 1943, HQ, USMC, NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, MC OR, box 556 (depots near Oran); Owen C. Bolstad, Dear Folks, 177 (“report any poison gas leaks”). Later investigations found little German appetite for another chemical war against Allied forces.
more than 200,000 gas bombs: “Implementation of Theater Plans for Gas Warfare,” Aug. 18, 1043, WD; also, memos and draft memos dated Aug. 30, Sept. 7, 1943, Jan. 12, Feb. 14, March 11, July 15, 1944; memo, “Report by Assistant Chief of U.S. Chemical Warfare Service,” Oct. 27, 1943, all in NARA RG 492, MTO, chemical warfare section, 381, box 1706; Margry, “Mustard Disaster at Bari,” 34.
How the Germans would be deterred: Kenyon Joyce, “Italy,” ts, n.d., Kenyon Joyce papers, MHI, 332; “Report on the Circumstances,” etc.; Infield, 14–16 (forward dumps at Foggia).
Several thousand Allied servicemen: Margry, “Mustard Disaster at Bari,” 34; Infield, 93, 118; Southern, 61 (Sergeant York), 130; H.V. Morton, A Traveller in Southern Italy, 99 (Italian women drew water); Gerald Reminick, Nightmare in Bari, 95 (cribbage board).
The first two Luftwaffe raiders: C. L. Grant, “AAF Air Defense Activities in the Mediterranean,” n.d., USAF Historical Study, No. 66, 107–8; Edward B. Westermann, Flak, 21; “Report on the Operation of Radar in Operation AVALANCHE,” Dec. 31, 1943, AFHRA, 626.430-1; http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/milestones-of-flight/british_military/1943_4.html; Southern, 130–34 (confused Allied searchlight radar); Ar
That moment soon arrived: action report, Murdoch Walker, Lyman Abbott, to CNO, March 10, 1944, NARA RG 38, OCNO, Naval Transportation Service, Armed Guard files, 370/12/31/4, box 437 (firing by earshot); Infield, 93 (“We’re taking a pasting”), 117, 122.
Bombs severed an oil pipeline: “Report on the Circumstances,” etc.; “History of the Naval Armed Guard Afloat,” n.d., U.S. Naval Administration in World War II, NHC, Command File, World War II, 166–68 (Joseph Wheeler); Infield, 55–56, 66, 141–42; msg, Alfred Bergman to supervisor, U.S. Merchant Marine Cadet Corps, “SS John Bascom, loss of,” Feb. 23, 1944, SEM, NHC, box 58; Southern, 7; diary, L. Stevenson, IWM, P100.
The Liberty ship Samuel J. Tilden: msg, Robert Donnelly to supervisor, U.S. Merchant Marine Cadet Corps, “SS Samuel J. Tilden—loss of,” Feb. 2, 1944, SEM, NHC, box 58; “History of the Naval Armed Guard Afloat,” 166–68; Southern, 36 (“harbor was aflame”).
Among those burning vessels was the John Harvey: Southern, 49, 53, 62–66; minutes, investigative board, Bari raid, June 28, 1944, NARA RG 331, AFHQ micro, R-87, box 197 (Windows shattered seven miles away); Gregory Blaxland, Alexander’s Generals, 13; Walter Karig, Battle Report: The Atlantic War, 277 (“the entire world was burning”).