The Liberation Trilogy Box Set

by Rick Atkinson

  God withdrew: Wilson to GCM, Dec. 12, 1942 (“calmest day”); Beck et al., 77; Landings in North Africa, 76; Garrison H. Davidson, OH, John T. Greenwood, 1980, CEOH, 172 (“Let’s do it”).

  Shore parties lacked: Bykofsky and Larson, 160; “Amphibious Training Command,” ts, n.d., USNAd, VII-36, 58; “Signal Communication in the North African Campaigns,” in Tactical Communications in World War II, part 1, 1945, MHI, 24; Leo J. Meyer, “Strategy and Logistical History: Mediterranean Theater of Operations,” ts, n.d., CMH, 2.37 CC1, III-15; Earl Burton, “The Invasion of North Africa,” in Armed Forces Series, vol. 2, 1992.

  A company of 113: “Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet,” 1946, ts, vol. I, USNAd, 431 (“bring order”); History of 67th Armored Regiment, 67; Taggart, ed., 23; “CSI Battlebook 3-A: Operation TORCH,” CSI, ADA 151 625 (“full of metal”); decoration citation, Walter J. Burns, 204th MP Co., NARA RG 338, Fifth Army, A 47-A-3948, box 56.

  Two hours later: H. Essame, Patton: A Study in Command, 55 (“flay the idle”); Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 1940–1945, 108 (“nasty blue” and “beach was a mess”).

  One officer quoted Patton: Codman, 21.

  Scourging would not: Taggart, ed., 29; Watters, ASEQ, MHI; Forrest K. Kleinman, “The Bizarre Battle for Casablanca,” Army, Aug. 1997, 38; GSP to DDE, Nov. 14, 1942; “Western Task Force: The Attack on Fedala,” 60.

  “Today has been bad”: Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 1940–1945, 109; DDE to GSP, Nov. 10, 1942, Chandler, 684.

  Battle for the Kasbah

  Of the nine major: LKT Jr. to MWC, Sept. 12, 1942, LKT Jr. Papers, GCM Lib, box 9 (“should not be”); Farago, 29; GCM to DDE, Oct. 5, 1942, NARA RG 492, MTOUSA, box 1386 (“noon Dog Day”).

  “Beloved Wife”: LKT Jr. to Sarah, Oct. 22, 1942, LKT Jr. Papers, GCM Lib; Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., Twilight of the Cavalry, xiii–xv; John K. Waters, SOOHP, William C. Parnell III, 1980, MHI; Boatner, 574; Truscott, Command Missions, 71; Theodore J. Conway, SOOHP, Robert F. Ensslin, 1977, I-22; diary, Oct. 15, 1942, GSP, LOC, box 2, folder 13 (“I am just”).

  Truscott’s opening gambit: Author visit, April 2000; P. M. Hamilton, OH, Nov. 30, 1949, SM, MHI; P. M. Hamilton, OH, July 1945, “Western Task Force: Attack on Mehdia and the Port Lyautey Airdrome,” ts, 1945, CMH, 2–3.7 AEI; Reck, 44.

  The failed diplomatic: “Western Task Force: Attack on Mehdia,” 27; “Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet,” 1946, ts, vol. I, USNAd, 416 (“with cold steel”); AAR, Carl E. Bledsoe, Jan. 27, 1943, NARA RG 337, E 15A, box 51 (“absolutely dumbfounded”).

  Nightfall made matters worse: Semmes, 121; “Western Task Force: Attack on Mehdia,” 63.

  On the broad: Truscott, Command Missions, 113–14.

  The troops ducked: LKT Jr. to GSP, Nov. 12, 1942, LKT Jr. Papers, GCM Lib, box 9 (“halfway to Bermuda”).

  Like Patton, Truscott concluded: Farago, 29–30 (“disaster against”); Peter Andrews, “A Place to Be Lousy In,” American Heritage, Dec. 1991, 100 (Truscott suspected); Truscott, Command Missions, 97–98 (“One of the first lessons”).

  Yet only luck: Semmes, 125; Semmes, reply to Armored School queries, Dec. 1949, SM, MHI; Truscott, Command Missions, 118 (“not a cheerful one”).

  At first light: AAR, Gordon Browne, n.d., OSS files, NARA RG 226, E 99, box 39 (“Tout va bien”); “Western Task Force: Attack on Mehdia,” 4; msg, GCM, Oct. 2, 1942, NARA RG 492, MTOUSA, Special Staff, box 1385 (“rivet attention”); Malvergne Silver Star documentation, NARA RG 338, Fifth Army, box 56; Roul Tunley, “A Frenchman Returns,” Sea Power, Jan. 1945, 13; AAR, Co C, 15th Engineer Combat Bn, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427, 9th ID, box 7455.

  Dallas yawed wildly: R. Brodie, Jr., OH, June 19, 1951, SM, MHI; NWAf, 165; Morison, Operations in North African Waters, 131.

  Two hours later: “Western Task Force: Attack on Mehdia,” 122; “Adventures by Men of the 60th Infantry Regiment in WWII,” ts, 1993, MHI, 9; Mittelman, 72; Truscott, Command Missions, 120 (“a beautiful sight”); Frederic A. Henney, “Combat Engineers in North Africa: The Capture of Port Lyautey,” Military Engineer, Jan. 1944, 1; Landings in North Africa, 53 (“Beau Geste”).

  Enemy resistance: NWAf, 164, 170 (“a brightly colored pageant”); “Western Task Force: Attack on Mehdia,” 96; Semmes, 139; Truscott, Command Missions, 123 (“Our parley”).

  The three-day fight: AAR, LKT Jr., Dec. 15, 1942, AFHQ G-3, NARA micro R-24-C; AAR, “Trip of Honduran SS Contessa,” March 22, 1943, in Wheeler, ed., The Road to Victory, 76; Fowler, “Twelve Desperate Miles,” 14.

  In a final twist: AAFinWWII, 77; Astor, 282 (“war hysteria”).

  “It’s All Over for Now”

  Gray with fatigue: Clagett, “Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, U.S. Navy,” 72, 75.

  Hewitt resumed: AAR, “Report on Operation TORCH by Capt. A. G. Shepard,” Jan. 9, 1943, NARA RG 38, OCNO, WW II Action Reports, box 3; “Aircraft Operations during the execution of TORCH,” March 30, 1943, CINCLANT, NARA RG 38, OCNO, box 3 (“No more Jean Bart”); Morison, Operations in North African Waters, 163; HKH, comment on Jan. 1950 Morison volume, HKH, NHC, box 1 (“Come a little closer”).

  For Patton, enough was enough: DDE to GSP, Oct. 13, 1942, NARA RG 492, MTOUSA Special Staff, AFHQ, box 1383; “Western Task Force: The Attack on Fedala,” n.d., CMH, 2–3.7 WE.

  At two A.M., about the time: 3rd ID field artillery officer, OH, n.d., SM, MHI; Codman, 40 (“Unless the French navy”); Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 1940–1945, 109 (“Staff wanted me”).

  At dawn, the guns: Arthur R. Wilson to GCM, Dec. 12, 1942, NARA RG 165, E 13, OCS, classified general correspondence, box 106 (“Report whether”); Wordell and Seiler, 162 (“Boys, it’s all”).

  Franco-American amity: Brooks, “Casablanca—The French Side of the Fence,” 909 (“Chicago, I give up!”); Taggart, ed., 30.

  At the Miramar: Geoffrey Keyes, OH, Feb. 15, 1950, SM, MHI.

  “They drank $40 worth”: GSP to Henry Stimson, Dec. 7, 1942, Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 1940–1945, 112; Morison, Operations in North African Waters, appendix II, 285; HKH, “Reminiscences,” 230.

  The conquest of Morocco: NWAf, 173; Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 1940–1945, 110 (“We are in”), 114 (“If you adhere”).

  Press dispatches: Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 1940–1945, 107 (“I realize”), 111, 116, 119.

  After leaving: “Report on Material and Logistics, Commander Task Force 34,” n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427, “Special Files,” box 24486; AAR, “Report on Operation TORCH by Capt. A. G. Shepard,” Jan. 9, 1943, NARA RG 38, OCNO, WW II Action Reports, box 3; Wilhm et al., “Armor in the Invasion of North Africa,” 47; HKH, “Reminiscences,” 230.

  And yet: AAR, “Report on Operation TORCH by Capt. A.G. Shepard,” Jan. 9, 1943, NARA RG 38, OCNO, WWII Action Reports, box 3; NWAf, 175; war diary, German naval staff, Nov. 1942, NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, box 645 (“Go after them”).

  “Good lads”: letter, E. S. Johnston to SEM, Apr. 1947, SEM, NHC, box 16; Wordell and Seiler, 173; John Ellis, Brute Force: Allied Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War, 528.

  Blackout drapes: Davidson, OH, 182; Codman, 47; author visit, April 2000.

  At 7:48 P.M., the festivities: Davidson, OH, 182.

  The German submarine U-173: “Reminiscences of Vice Admiral Charles Wellborn, Jr.,” 1972, USNI OHD (“you could see”); “Report on Material and Logistics, Commander Task Force 34,” n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427, “Special Files,” box 24486; AAR, “Report on Operation TORCH by Capt. A. G. Shepard,” Jan. 9, 1943, NARA RG 38, OCNO, WWII Action Reports, box 3; Morison, Operations in North African Waters, 169; Clay Blair, Hitler’s U-Boat War, vol. II, 110; uboat.net/ boats/u173.htm.

  The “goosing”: U.S.S.

  Brooklyn war diary, Nov. 11, 2156 hrs., SEM, NHC, box 15.

  Hewitt was furious: HKH, ts, n.d., comments on SEM, Operations in North African Waters, Jan. 1950 edition, HKH, NHC, box 1 (“extreme reluctance”).

  For more than an hour: HKH to USN, June 16, 1950, HKH, NHC, box 1; HKH, “Reminiscences” Mo
rison, Operations in North African Waters, 171.

  Finally, he could continue: AAR, “Report on Operation TORCH by Capt. A. G. Shepard,” Jan. 9, 1943, NARA RG 38, OCNO, WWII Action Reports, box 3.

  Hewitt slumped: HKH, OH, G. F. Howe, Jan. 23, 1951, NARA RG 319, 2–3.7, box 228; HKH, ts, n.d., comments on SEM, Operations in North African Waters, Jan. 1950 edition, HKH, NHC, box 1.

  As dusk sifted: Blair, Hitler’s U-Boat War, vol. I, 473, and vol. II, 111; Morison, Operations in North African Waters, 171; uboat.net/boats/u130.htm.

  Each hit home: AAR, Hugh L. Scott, Nov. 18, 1942, and “U.S. Atlantic Fleet, Amphibious Force, Action Report,” both in NARA RG 407, E 427, box 24490.

  Her two sisters: Landings in North Africa, 78; letter, E. S. Johnston to SEM, Apr. 1947, SEM, NHC, box 16 (“The damned fools”); msg, L. B. Ely to HKH, Nov. 12, 2025 hrs., HKH, NHC, box 1; Codman, 48.

  Fifteen hundred survivors: “United States Navy Medical Department at War, 1941–1945,” vol. I, part 3, ts, n.d., USNAd, 673; Albert W. Kenner, “Medical Service in the North African Campaign,” Military Review, Feb. 1944, 5; Harry McK. Roper, “Report on Observations Made as Observer with Task Force Brushwood,” n.d., NARA RG 337, Observer Reports, box 52; Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 1940–1945, 168 (“pieces of bacon”); Charles M. Wiltse, Medical Service in the Mediterranean and Minor Theaters, 119, 121.

  Friday’s dawn brought: AAR, NARA RG 407, E 427, U.S. Atlantic Fleet Amphibious Force, box 24430.

  Soldiers looking seaward: Blair, vol. II, 201; “Comments of Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, USN, on Operations in North African Waters (original edition), 26 Feb. 1947” HKH to SEM, March 13, 1947; HKH to J. L. Hall, March 13, 1947, all in HKH, NHC, box 1.

  General Clark’s arrest of Darlan: “Record of Events,” Feb. 22, 1943, NARA RG 338, Fifth Army, box 1, 25–28 (“Not once”); Murphy, 142 (“Merde!”).

  At noon on November 13: Three Years, 190; DDE to W. B. Smith, Nov. 11, 1942, Chandler, 693; DDE to Churchill, Nov. 11, 1942, Chandler, 689; DDE to GCM, Nov. 11, 1942, Chandler, 692.

  At the St. Georges: Funk, 248 (a coward).

  Eisenhower sighed: DDE to GCM, Nov. 9 and 11, 1942, Chandler, 680, 692; DDE to MWC, Nov. 12, 1942, Chandler, 698; DDE to W.B. Smith, Nov. 12, 1942, Chandler, 701; “Record of Events,” Feb. 22, 1943, NARA RG 338, Fifth Army, box 1; letter, Noguès to G. F. Howe, Jan. 1950, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2–3.7 CC1, box 225.

  Eisenhower shook hands: DDE to MWC, Nov. 11, 1942, Chandler, 699 (“When you are away”); Clark, 123 (“Now we can”).

  Sixty years after torch: NWAf, 173; Destruction, 154.

  The number of French killed: De Gaulle, 353; Marcel Vigneras, Rearming the French, 18; DDE to W. B. Smith, Nov. 16, 1942, Chandler, 718 (eighteen French battalions); Butcher diary, A-4, Nov. 25, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 166 (“remain embittered”). torch had lured: Milton Viorst, Hostile Allies: FDR and Charles de Gaulle, 123 (“It’s not very pretty”); DDE to W. B. Smith, Nov. 12, 1942, Chandler, 702 (“We are just”).

  The war’s momentum: Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography, 702–703.

  “habits of peace”: W.G.F. Jackson, The Battle for North Africa, 396.

  “For God’s sake”: DDE to W. B. Smith, Nov. 12, 1942, Chandler, 702; Leahy, 137 (the White House).

  CHAPTER 4: PUSHING EAST

  “We Live in Tragic Hours”

  At two A.M. on November 8: Twelve Apostles summary, n.d., NARA RG 226, E 99, OSS files, box 39 (with his Spanish maids); Tompkins, 141–42 (“They had better”); Boatner, 155; Cunningham, 186 (the Monk), 221; Philip Jordan, Jordan’s Tunis Diary, 132 (“fashion plate gone seedy”); Alan Moorehead, The End in Africa, 82 (“Hurry”).

  There was no need: Ralph Bennett, Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy, 190 (“panther’s leap”); Kriegstagebuch, 90th Panzer Armee Korps, Nov. 16–30, 1942, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 225; Volkmar Kühn, German Paratroops in World War II, 158–61; Paul Carell, The Foxes of the Desert, 311; Loerzer, “Negotiations with…Estéva,” n.d., FMS, #D-040, 2 (low, intimidating pass).

  French troops ringed: Paul Deichmann, “Mission of OB Süd…in North Africa After the Allied Landing,” n.d., FMS, #D-067, 6; Cunningham, 226; NARA RG 319, OCMH, “Background Papers to NW Africa,” box 222.

  Hitler had learned: Kühn, German Paratroops in World War II, 158; Walter Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 1939–1945, 271; Anthony Martienssen, Hitler and His Admirals, 147; msg, Hitler to Mussolini, Nov. 20, 1942, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7, box 225 (“Yours in”).

  Already 230: Horst Boog et al., Germany and the Second World War, vol. VI, The Global War, 793–94 (“cornerstone of our conduct”).

  On Tuesday, November 10: Walter Nehring, “The First Phase of the Battle in Tunisia,” 1947, FMS, #D-147, 29; Franz Kurowski, The History of the Fallschirm Panzerkorps Hermann Göring, 109; Kühn, 160; Gardiner, memoir, ts, 1970, USMA Arch, 84.

  Weak as the German vanguard: Blumenson, Kasserine Pass, 35, 37 (“I count on everyone”); Brooks, “The Unknown Darlan,” 879 (“November 8, we fight everybody”); Auphan and Moral, 251 (“The enemy is the German”).

  On November 12: Kriegstagebuch, Nov. 16, 1942, 2130 hrs, 90th Panzer Armee Korps, Nov. 16, 1942, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 225 (“only nodding”); Robinett, Armor Command, 73 (“After forty years”); NARA RG 319, OCMH, “Background Papers to NW Africa,” box 222; Blumenson, Kasserine Pass, 38 (“I shall be known”).

  Sadly, yes: Bennett, 191; Kriegstagebuch, Nov. 16–30, 1942, 90th Panzer Armee Korps, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 225 (“cannot read”); Carell, 311 (marched four abreast); Albert Kesselring, “The War in the Mediterranean,” part II, “The Fighting in Tunisia and Tripolitania,” n.d., FMS, #T-3 P1, 7; AAR, Bayerlein, Apr. 19, 1943, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7, box 225; Deichmann, 18; “Account of Marjorie Springs,” n.d., NARA RG 226, E 99, OSS, box 39 (newly fashionable goose step); Nigel Nicholson and Patrick Forbes, The Grenadier Guards in the War of 1939–1945, vol. II, 339.

  Soon enough, Derrien: Tompkins, 145; Auphan and Moral, 269; Kühn, Rommel in the Desert, 181–84.

  A French court: Morison, Operations in North African Waters, 241 (“national unworthiness”); Cunningham, 226 (“it is an honor”); Tompkins, 145; Auphan and Moral, 284–85 (Derrien, too); Clayton, Three Marshals of France, 73.

  “We live in tragic hours”: Blumenson, Kasserine Pass, 42.

  Conviviality reigned: Kesselring, FMS, T-3 P1, part II, 6; Kesselring, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring, 8–9; Macksey, Kesselring: The Making of the Luftwaffe, 155–56; Boatner, 271.

  On November 10: Macksey, 143 (poison gas); Kühn, German Paratroops in World War II, 172 (“drop of water”).

  The Allies had achieved: Siegfried Westphal, The German Army in the West, 121; Lowell Bennett, Assignment to Nowhere: The Battle for Tunisia, 101; H. A. Jacobsen and J. Rohwer, eds., Decisive Battles of World War II: The German View, 212.

  A Cold Country with a Hot Sun

  Five hundred and sixty: Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. II, 475; Middleton, Our Share of Night, 169 (“Those squareheads”); Freeland A. Daubin, Jr., “The Battle of Happy Valley,” Apr. 1948, ts, Armored School Advanced Officers Class, 9 (“that all of the Germans”).

  Town mayors donned: Gardiner, memoir, ts, 1970, USMA Arch, 79 (version also in PMR, “Tank Commander,” ts, n.d., GCM Lib., box 20); Moorehead, 73; Ralph Bennett, 225; Robert H. Welker, “G.I. Jargon: Its Perils and Pitfalls,” Saturday Review of Literature, Oct. 1944, 7; Harmon, Combat Commander, 107 (reparations).

  British troops dominated: Austin, 10 (“Edwardian motoring veil[s]”); Howard and Sparrow, 109; “History, HQ Detachment, 109th Medical Bn, 34th ID,” Feb. 1942–Nov. 1943, NARA RG E 427, box 9618; Moorehead, 91 (fishmongers in striped sweaters); A.A.C.W. Brown, “364 Days Overseas Service,” ts, 1981, IWM, 81/33/1; letter, Dan Rupert, May 22, 1943, MCC, YU; Jordan, 46.

  For the Yanks: Oswald Jett, ASEQ, “As I Saw the War,” ts, 1988, 1st AD, 47th Medical Bn, 287; Laurence R. Robertson, ASEQ, ts, n.d., 1st AD, MHI, 16
4; Powell, In Barbary, 102; Randle, Safi Adventure, 138; Frelinghuysen, 27.

  Eastward the caissons: Rame, 81–82 (“hanging like red lamps”); Peter Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 44.

  At dusk they bivouacked: Liebling, Mollie & Other Pieces, 31; Robertson, ASEQ, 1st AD, MHI, 164; Bolstad, 105 (“Gas!”); letter, Virginia Samsell, n.d., MCC, YU (burro named Rommel).

  Pilfering by the locals: Jensen, 51; Mayo, 120; Ralph G. Martin, The GI War, 1941–1945, 41; Hilary St. George Saunders, The Red Beret, 81; Howe, The Battle History of the 1st Armored Division, 51 (“If they”); McNamara, 30 (“useless, worthless, illiterate”).

  At dawn, the promenade: letter, Jack Pardekooper, Jan. 1943, MCC, YU (“Every town over here”); letter, Joseph T. Dawson, Nov. 21, 1942, MRC FDM (“The sky is almost”); Rame, 88 (“She’ll be”).

  Thanks to Ultra’s decipherment: Hinsley, vol. II, 466–67, 488–89 (“low category” and “probable scale”).

  There was much talk: Frierson, “Preparations for TORCH,” 1945, vol. I, CMH 2-3.7 AD, 46 (primarily to the British); Yarborough, SOOHP, 1975, MHI, 26; Howe, The Battle History of the 1st Armored Division, 51–54.

  Proverbially: Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 119 (“were not clearly understood”); DDE to E. N. Eisenhower, Nov. 16, 1942, Chandler, 724.

  “I get so impatient”: DDE to W. B. Smith, Nov. 11, 12, and 16, 1942; DDE to E. N. Eisenhower, Nov. 16, 1942, all in Chandler, 693, 703, 724.

  Nor was he yet: Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War, abridged ed., 256, 263, 267; Jackson, The Battle for North Africa, 399.

  Perhaps the biggest: Leighton and Coakley, 438; Beck et al., 63; Meyer, “Strategy and Logistical History: Mediterranean Theater of Operations,” vol. I, II–40; AAR, Henry C. Wolfe, Dec. 12, 1942, NARA RG 407, E 427, “Pre-Invasion Planning,” box 24348; Jordan, 40 (“Inevitably there was chaos”).