The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (The Liberation Trilogy) by Rick Atkinson
Eighth Army since invading Calabria: Molony V, 481, 482n, 483n; Battle, 146; Richard Doherty, A Noble Crusade, 173; msg, DDE to CCS, Nov. 4, 1943, SM, MHI, box 2; Fifth Army at the Winter Line, 7; Field Marshal the Viscount Alexander of Tunis, “The Allied Armies in Italy,” n.d., CMH, II-21 (“sufficiently stretched”).
That strategy still seemed plausible: Molony V, 493, 496; StoC, 258–59; B. H. Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill, 343 (“We will now hit them”); Richard Lamb, Montgomery in Europe 1943–45, 56 (“The road to Rome”).
The Bernhardt Line defenses: Doherty, 171; Thomas R. Brooks, The War North of Rome, June 1944–May 1945, 4 (“ridge and furrow country”); “Current Reports from Overseas,” March 11, 1944, War Office, CARL, N-148495 (“average range of vision”); Field Marshal Lord Carver, The Imperial War Museum Book of the War in Italy, 1943–1945, 98–99 (avenue of poplars).
Drenching winter rains: Doherty, 174; Battle, 148; Molony V, 488; Dharm Pal, The Campaign in Italy, 1943–1945, 35 (“malignant river”); Richard S. Malone, A Portrait of War 1939–1943, 201 (“could hear the wounded men”); StoC, 259 (losses in the 78th Division).
“an unprofitable sector”: OH, Howard Kippenberger, Feb. 4 and 12, 1947, SM, MHI; weekly intelligence summary, no. 67, Dec. 4, 1943, AFHQ, G-2, NARA RG 407, E 427, 95-AL1-2.6 (“lost the initiative”); Michael Pearson Cessford, “Hard in the Attack: The Canadian Army in Sicily and Italy, July 1943–June 1944,” Sept. 1996, Ph.D. diss, Carleton University, Ottawa, 215 (strategy of attrition); Molony V, 495–97.
“almost lunar in its desolation”: Farley Mowat, The Regiment, 137, 146; Doherty, 191 (“lay rigid”).
“To preserve sanity”: diary, O. Carpenter, Nov. 11, 1943, IWM, 79/38/1; John Gunther, D Day, 134 (“murder”); Gilbert Allnutt, “A Fusilier Remembers Italy,” ts, 1979, IWM, 80/46/1, 18, 23 (“Move forward”).
Montgomery kept his swank: Gunther, 129; Malone, 193–95.
“The army commander wants to see you”: L.S.B. Shapiro, They Left the Back Door Open, 44; OH, Francis de Guingand, March 31, 1947, G. A. Harrison, “OCMH WWII Europe Interviews,” MHI (“Sit down”); Stephen Brooks, ed., Montgomery and the Eighth Army, 313 (“go-as-you-please”); J. B. Tomlinson, “Under the Banner of the Battleaxe,” ts, n.d., IWM, 90/29/1, 108 (“And after the war”).
“I must have fine weather”: Nigel Hamilton, Master of the Battlefield, 449; Dick Malone, Missing from the Record, 53 (“You are useless”); Andrew Brookes, Air War over Italy, 1943–1945, 38 (“‘Stop frigging’”); Molony V, 511 (“the unusual gift”).
“a very good First World War general”: Richard H. Kohn, ed., “The Scholarship on World War II,” Journal of Military History, vol. 55, no. 3 (July 1991), 365+.
“untidy and ad hoc”: B. L. Montgomery, “Reflections on the Campaign in Italy, 1943,” Nov. 24, 1943, ts, IWM, micro, reel 4, BLM 48, 1–4.
Canada’s hour had finally come round: Mark Zuehlke, Ortona, 3; Martin Gilbert, The Second World War, 353–54; From Pachino to Ortona, CARL, N-14352; Arthur Bryant, The Turn of the Tide, 596 (feared that the war would end).
a decrepit sandstone castle: Combat Report No. 1, “Liberation of Rome,” 1944, Signal Corps film, NARA RG 111, CR001; Zuehlke, Ortona, 31–32, 37–39; Karl Baedeker, Southern Italy and Sicily, 190 (local landmarks); Daniel G. Dancocks, The D-Day Dodgers: The Canadians in Italy, 1943–1945, 173–76 (ten thousand souls); Steiger, “The Campaign in Southern Italy,” 30 (holes in the harbor mole); “Canadian Street Fighting in Ortona,” June 15, 1944, Military Reports from the United Nations, No. 19, NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, box 184 (easily severed).
The Canadian division commander: http://www.junobeach.org/e/3/can-pep-can-vokesep.htm; Zuehlke, Ortona, 14 (“pompous bully”), 18; Dancocks, 69 (“roughneck”), 191 (the Butcher); Mark Zuehlke, The Liri Valley, 166 (“a man’s fate is written”); Molony V, 504.
A lunge on the left flank: Dancocks, 156, 159 (“raving madhouse”); Mowat, 151 (“stupid bastard”); Zuehlke, Ortona, 124 (“translucent red”), 156, 160; From Pachino to Ortona, 133–34 (“confusing to the enemy”); war diary, Loyal Edmonton Regiment, Dec. 9, 1943, http://www.lermuseum.org/ler/cof/sacrifice/wwii/textwindow/wardiary1.html; “Victoria Cross Is Awarded Major Paul Triquet, Montreal, for Heroic Action in Italy,” March 6, 1944, Hamilton (Canada) Spectator, www.warmuseum.ca.
Beyond the Moro lay a ravine: Cessford, “Hard in the Attack,” 264; Zuehlke, Ortona, 48; Molony V, 504 (“Of eight assaults”); Dancocks, 171 (“You tell Monty”).
“filthy limbo”: Mowat, 161–65.
replaced by the 1st Parachute Division: From Pachino to Ortona, 139; Alexander, “The Allied Armies in Italy,” II-29 (“best German troops”); Zuehlke, Ortona, 161, 201.
Heavy losses and exhaustion: Christopher Buckley, Road to Rome, 256; Cessford, “Hard in the Attack,” 233 (“You feel nothing”); G.W.L. Nicholson, The Canadians in Italy, 1943–1945, vol. 2, 317 (Errant maps); Dancocks, 171 (“He frittered away everything”), 173; Zuehlke, Ortona, 212–14, 219 (“porridge pot”); Molony V, 503–5.
MORNING GLORY: Cessford, “Hard in the Attack,” 233, 241; Dancocks, 240; Buckley, 256.
“I wish I could see you”: Cessford, “Hard in the Attack,” 233.
first large, pitched urban battle: Molony V, 507.
Ortona had been spared razing: ibid., 509; “Canadian Street Fighting in Ortona” Nicholson, 323; Zuehlke, Ortona, 247; Dancocks, 186 (“butchered deer”); Steiger, “The Campaign in Southern Italy,” 63 (“Everybody was very sad”).
Side streets proved too narrow: Battle, 151–53; “Canadian Street Fighting in Ortona” (shot the tanks in the belly); Molony V, 507; Doherty, 184–85; The Tiger Triumphs, 28–29 (“gangster’s battle”); Zuehlke, Ortona, 278, 289; Nicholson, 328 (“miniature Stalingrad”); Dancocks, 181 (“three more shooting days”).
Rather than clear buildings conventionally: “Street Fighting,” intelligence report, 5778-44, May 29, 1944, British GHQ, Cairo, CMH, Geog Files, Italy, 370.2, 6–7; “Beehives,” appendix B, “Ortona,” HQ, 1st Canadian Div, Feb. 16, 1944, C. W. Allfrey papers, LHC, 4/8; Mowat, 163.
“The stench here”: Dancocks, 1, 179 (“We could beat you”); Buckley, 260.
Two dozen Edmontons were buried: war diary, Loyal Edmonton Regiment, Dec. 27, 1943, http://www.lermuseum.org/ler/cof/sacrifice/wwii/textwindow/wardiary1.html.
“We do not want to defend”: Steiger, “The Campaign in Southern Italy,” 65.
“There is no town left”: Zuehlke, Ortona, 348.
“This is Ortona”: Dancocks, 186, 189; From Pachino to Ortona (“a fairy tale”).
Alexander’s plan had miscarried: Molony V, 509; Dancocks, 186 (“The familiar world”).
Too Many Gone West
Removing his hat: Lord Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran, 159; W. H. Thompson, I Was Churchill’s Shadow, 124, 126 (for his sixty-ninth birthday).
“I want to sleep”: Roy Jenkins, Churchill, 719; WSC, Closing the Ring, 420 (flopped sopping); Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won, 268 (“specks of dust”).
At length the mystery: Jerrard Tickell, Ascalon, 14–15, 62–64; Three Years, 457 (“had been pacing”); Churchill, 457 (“end of my tether”).
Ringed by sentries: Gerald Pawle, The War and Colonel Warden, 277–80; Harold Macmillan, War Diaries, 326–27; Moran, 159; Roger Parkinson, A Day’s March Nearer Home, 234 (“much disturbed”); Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 7, 604 (“It’s pretty bad”); Danchev, 497 (“Hullo, hullo”).
“My master is unwell”: Gilbert, 606, 608 (“bumping all over”); Danchev, 497 (pathologist arrived); Moran, 161.
“He’s very glad I’ve come”: Moran, 161–62; Gilbert, 606 (“war is won”); Thompson, 129–30 (“In what better place”); Macmillan, 326–27 (“very breathless”).
The preceding fortnight: Richard M. Leighton, “OVERLORD Versus the Mediterranean at the Cairo-Tehran Conferences (1943),” Kent Roberts Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, 189–91; James Leasor, The Clock w
That Britain’s senior role: Keith Eubank, Summit at Teheran, 486–88.
“Brooke got nasty”: Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 305, 307; Maurice Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943–1944, 352, 353n; Greenfield, ed., 183–85.
“peripheral and indecisive”: Greenfield, ed., 182, 188–89; Leahy, 201; Ray S. Cline, Washington Command Post, 227 (“fish or cut bait”); Arthur Bryant, Triumph in the West, 35 (“swing the strategy”); Mark A. Stoler, George C. Marshall: Soldier-Statesman of the American Century, 103 (prayed every night); Pogue, 294 (“stick a knife”); Douglas Porch, The Path to Victory, 474; S. W. Roskill, The White Ensign, 330; S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea, 1939–1945, 203–5; Michael Howard, The Mediterranean Strategy in the Second World War, 46, 70–71; John Kennedy, The Business of War, 301–5.
Stalin gruffly threw his support: Kent Roberts Greenfield, American Strategy in World War II: A Reconsideration, 34; David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 575 (four words of English); Greenfield, ed., 197; Robert Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 799 (“getatable”); Maurice Matloff, “Mr. Roosevelt’s Three Wars: FDR as War Leader,” 1964, Harmon Memorial Lectures in Military History, no. 6, USAF Academy, 14 (“perfectly friendly”).
“first claim on the resources”: Greenfield, 40; Richard M. Leighton, “Overlord Revisited,” American Historical Review, July 1963, 919+; Stoler, 107; Sherwood, 803 (“could not sleep”); Carlo D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life, 467 (“best politician”).
As for Italy: Greenfield, ed., 191.
“Large families”: Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 475; OH, Ian Jacob, Verne Newton collection, “transcripts,” FDR Lib (“at arm’s length”).
The prime minister did not die: Danchev, 502; Jenkins, 727 (whisky with soda); Moran, 164 (white blood cell count); Vincent Orange, Tedder, 244 (“fire had gone out”); Pawle, 275 (Royal Navy cook); Churchill, 425 (“What calm lives”).
“The Bible says”: Gilbert, 609; Leasor, 271; WSC, Closing the Ring, 429 (“becoming scandalous”); Pawle, 277–80 (“don’t seem to know much”).
“Looking in his strange costume”: Macmillan, 338; Pawle, 277–80; Gilbert, 620 (“must be carried out”); Warren F. Kimball, ed., Churchill & Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence, vol. 2, 633 (“should decide the battle”).
Christmas had come: Pyle, 86; Tom Roe, Anzio Beachhead, 23; Glendower O. Haedge, “Memoirs of World War II,” ts, n.d., Texas MFM; John F. Hummer, An Infantryman’s Journal, 42; John Guest, Broken Images, 158.
Had he been home: JJT, XI-10; “History of the Peninsular Base Section,” 1944, 5 vols., CMH, 8-4 HA 1 (“morale crates”).
“Merry Typhus!”: Spike Milligan, Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall, 212; Alton D. Brashear, From Lee to Bari, 168, 171 ($10 per stripe); Buckley, 252–53.
Mark Clark on Christmas eve: diary, MWC, Dec. 24, 1943, Citadel, box 64; MWC to Ann Clark, Dec. 23, 1943, Citadel, personal corr.
In a Bari hospital: George S. Bergh and Reuben F. Erickson, eds., “A History of the Twenty-sixth General Hospital,” 133; S. W. Thomson, Canadian Military History, fall 1993, 24+; John Ellis, On the Front Lines, 279; Zuehlke, Ortona, 320–22; Strome Galloway, A Regiment at War, 118 (strumming a mandolin); Dancocks, 191 (Vokes dined alone).
“The stars have crept low”: Hans Juergensen, Beachheads and Mountains, 2; G.R. Stevens, Fourth Indian Division, 270; Edmund F. Ball, Staff Officer with the Fifth Army, 263; Ralph G. Martin, The G.I. War, 115 (“no more wars”).
“I had not seen men so exhausted”: Howard Kippenberger, Infantry Brigadier, 344–47; Donna Martha Budani, “Women, War, and Text: Orsognese Women’s Experience in a Sector of the Italian Front in World War II,” 1997, Ph.D. diss, American University, 119 (“poor sad Christmas”); order of the day, Dec. 25, 1943, 71st Panzer Grenadier Regt, “Intelligence Notes, No. 47,” AFHQ, Feb. 22, 1944, NARA RG 407, E 47, 95-AL1-2.18.
“Usual targets of opportunity”: James R. Pritchard, ts, n.d., 68th Armored FA Bn, ASEQ, MHI, 12; censorship morale reports, Nov. 1943–June 1944, NARA RG 492, MTO adjutant general, 311.7 (operated by flashlight); Julian “Duney” Philips, “War Is Not All Bad,” ts, n.d., 143rd Inf, Texas MFM, 2 (“Now is the time”); Leslie W. Bailey, Through Hell and High Water, 157.
The bottom of the year: “1944,” Life, Jan. 3, 1944, 20; Greenfield, ed., 183; Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 610; http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-fornv/germany/gersh-s/scharn2.htm (Scharnhorst); John Ellis, Brute Force, table 35 (175 German divisions).
“The campaign is heartbreakingly slow”: JPL, 278; “Fifth Army Medical History,” n.d., NARA RG 112, MTO surgeon general, 319.1, box 6, 183 (strength of 200,000); Fifth Army at the Winter Line, 87–88; Brashear, 168; “Summary of Activities,” June 1, 1944, NA TOUSA, CMH, 20 (Battle casualties had whittled away); MEB, “Shifting of German Units Before and During Nettuno Landing,” Jan. 1956, NARA RG 319, E 145, OCMH, R-75, 36 (six miles per month); Coakley, 181 (“no shipping available”); Richard M. Leighton, “Overlord Revisited,” American Historical Review, July 1963, 919+; Porch, 460 (British ports could not handle); StoC, ix (“static warfare”).
“One rather wondered”: Francis De Guingand, Operation Victory, 333; Farley Mowat, And No Birds Sang, 333.
“a plan that was distinctly conservative”: Moorehead, Eclipse, 60; Nigel Nicolson, Alex: The Life of Field Marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis, 238 (“weeks and months of forethought”), 239 (“average brain”); Mark M. Boatner III, The Biographical Dictionary of World War II, 379; “The German Operation at Anzio,” Apr. 1946, German Military Document Section, Military Intelligence Div., WD, MHI, JPL, box 9 (allowed German forces to shift); Ronald Lewin, Ultra Goes to War, 343 (better informed about his adversaries); F. H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, 182, 507 (“the Allies often knew as much”); J. Hamilton, “Italy, Sept.–Dec. 1943,” n.d., Cabinet Historical Section, UK NA, CAB 101/124, 42 (“old methodical way”).
Eisenhower privately wished: Eisenhower Diary, HCB, DDE Lib, A-756, A-773-74, A-779; diary, MWC, Dec. 10, 1943, Citadel, box 64 (groused about Lucas); memo, Oct. 11, 1943, JPL, MHI, box 12 (groused about Middleton); Robert R. Palmer et al., The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops, 467 (“The battalion commander problem”).
Twenty-three German divisions: Battle, 166–67; MEB, “Shifting of German Units,” R-75 (nearly 300,000); Louis P. Lochner, ed., The Goebbels Diaries, 1942–1943, 435; Steiger, “The Campaign in Southern Italy,” 59–60 (“For two months now”).
“What will 1944 do”: JPL, 283; memoir, P. Royle, ts, 1972, IWM, 99/72/1 (“You got the feeling”).
“A terrible year has ended”: David Hapgood and David Richardson, Monte Cassino, 95.
A ferocious storm with gale winds: N. P. Morrow, “Field Artillery in Italy,” Feb. 2, 1944, HQ, NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, ANSCOL, AGF OR M83, box 148; Wagner, 90; Bowlby, 13 (“pinched the enemy’s song”); Harriet Stradling, ed., Johnny, 251.
Truscott’s 3rd Division: aide’s diaries, Dec. 31, 1943, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, box 18, folder 3; LKT Jr. to Sarah, Jan. 2 and 5, 1944, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, GCM Lib, box 1, folder 6.
“I do not know if you will miss me”: De Guingand, 337, appendix A; Moorehead, Montgomery, 175
“So there we are”: B. L. Montgomery, “Reflections on the Campaign in Italy, 1943,” ts, addendum, Dec. 26, 1943, IWM, BLM 48, micro, reel 4; T.E.B. Howarth, ed., Monty at Close Quarters, 44n (“He was a real human”).
Eisenhower also left on the thirty-first: Chandler, vol. 5, 14; Michael J. McKeough and Richard Lockridge, Sgt. Mickey and General Ike, 98; Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 217 (“Allow someone else to run the war”); OH, Henry Maitland Wilson, Apr. 3, 1947, Howard M. Smyth, SM, MHI (hoped for three days’ overlap). Eisenhower asserted that he “exhaustively reviewed” the military situation with Wilson during Christmas dinner at La Marsa. Eisenhower, Crusade, 2
“rather going to seed”: Macmillan, 321; JPL, 273.
He left believing he had accomplished: Kenneth Strong, Intelligence at the Top, 169; DDE, “Allied Commander-in-Chief’s Report, Italian Campaign,” n.d., 155 (“Elimination of Italy”); Roskill, The War at Sea, 210 (more than a thousand ships); Anthony Eden, The Reckoning, 479 (Even Stalin had conceded).
From Algiers, he would take: Alexander S. Cochran, “Constructing a Military Coalition from Materials at Hand,” Apr. 16, 1999, paper, SMH conference.
“I am very disappointed”: Chandler, vol. 3, 1631, 1646n (uneasy at Churchill’s advocacy); “Press Conference of General Eisenhower, 1430 hours, 23 Dec 1943, AFHQ Advance, Italy,” MWC, Citadel, box 3 (“Jerry is going to write off”).
The White House sent a cooler: Three Years, 467; Dwight D. Eisenhower, Letters to Mamie, 161; Davis, 456 (“Nothing seems real”); John S. D. Eisenhower, General Ike, 100 (“heavier); John S. D. Eisenhower, Strictly Personal, 51 (“Hell, I’m going back”); Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952, vol. 1, 278, 280 (absentmindedly called his wife “Kay”).
“Until we meet again”: Chandler, vol. 3, 1650.
CHAPTER 7: A RIVER AND A ROCK
Colonel Warden Makes a Plan
Marrakesh in midwinter: Seth Sherwood, “In an Ancient Desert, a Modern Oasis Beckons,” NYT, Jan. 23, 2005; John Colville, The Fringes of Power, 463; http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=331; http://www.mincom.gov.ma/english/reg_cit/cities/marrakes/marrakes.html; James Parton, “Air Force Spoken Here,” 229 (“sat on his leather hassock”); “Marrakech Air Base,” n.d., in “Observations in A.B.S,” NARA RG 492, MTO, pm gen’l. corr, 333 (“statement of intercourse”).
The Red City: Roy Jenkins, Churchill, 727; Lord Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran, 167; Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 7, 626; Gerald Pawle, The War and Colonel Warden, 280 (“When the Midnight Choo-Choo”); Duff Cooper, Old Men Forget, 318 (“Colonel Warden”).
In Marrakesh he occupied La Saadia: Lisa Lovitt-Smith, Moroccan Interiors, 78 (wall mosaics); Colville, 457–59 (“wildly rash”); Cooper, 318; Gilbert, 634 (Pirates of Penzance); W. H. Thompson, I Was Churchill’s Shadow, 133 (“certainly heavy going”).