“What would Jackson”: Susan H. Godson, Viking of Assault, 65; Michael Carver, ed., The War Lords, 558 (pilot’s license).
“Read up on Cromwell”: Stanley P. Hirshson, General Patton: A Soldier’s Life, 353); Ellen Birkett Morris, “The Woman Behind the Man,” The Patton Saber, newsletter, Patton Museum Foundation, fall 2002, 1 (rice powder); R. H. Patton, The Pattons, 251 (“What a man”).
“I have no premonitions”: PP, 273; diary, May 7, 1943, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 2, folder 15 (“my fate”).
Patton had designed: corr, Oscar W. Koch to James A. Norell, Dec. 15, 1960, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 250; MWC, “General Patton,” ts, n.d., Subject Files, MWC, Citadel, box 70, 4 (“If you charge”); Taylor, 49 (“you bastards”).
From east and west: Perry, “A Reporter at Large,” 50; Dickson, War Slang, 113–33.
At last the troops learned: Brown, To All Hands, 83–86; Peterman, “U.S.S. Savannah” (anxious landlubbers); Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex Warner, 537.
The Monrovia steamed past Bizerte: war log, U.S.S. Monrovia, July 7–8, 1943, NARA RG 38, OCNO, WWII war diaries, box 1233; Bernard Stambler, “Campaign in Sicily,” ts, n.d., vol. 2, CMH, 2-3.7 AA.L, 45; Pyle, 8; “Convoy to Gaeta,” combat narrative, #210, 1944, “WWII Histories and Historical Reports,” OCNO, NHC (“must be afloat”).
Calypso’s Island
FINANCE: “Geographical Code for Operation HUSKY,” May 17, 1943, AFHQ G-2, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 250; Karl Baedeker, Southern Italy and Sicily, 402 (St. Paul); Homer, The Odyssey, trans. Robert Fagles, 34, 78–80, 153–57.
In 1530: John Gunther, D Day, 155–57; Douglas Porch, The Path to Victory, 15–16 (illiterate peasants).
The first of 3,340: “Malta C.G.,” AB, No. 10, 1975, 1+; Gunther, D Day, 85, 157–58; Charles A. Jellison, Besieged: The World War II Ordeal of Malta, 1940–1942, 166, 258, 178 (“Beauty was slain”).
Those not killed: Jellison, 111, 133, 167, 174n, 221, 229; Gunther, D Day, 86 (learned to live without); Jack Belden, Still Time to Die, 197 (contraceptives).
victory in North Africa: Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope, A Sailor’s Odyssey, 532; James Leasor, The Clock with Four Hands, 255–56 (“too thin and listless”); Gunther, D Day, 43, 82 (Indian cigarettes); code, appendix 2, communication plan, MTOUSA SOS, NARA RG 492, 290/55/1-2/7-1, box 2738 (BULLDOGS).
“Everyone was on tiptoe”: William Ernest Victor Abraham, “Time Off for War,” ts, n.d., LHC, 69.
Motorcyclists with numbers: “Malta C.G.,” 1+; Charles Cruickshank, Deception in World War II, 53–54 (radio traffic); F.A.E. Crew, The Army Medical Services, vol. III, 14–15 (hospital port); HCB, July 10, 1943, DDE Lib, A-559; Michael J. McKeough and Richard Lockridge, Sgt. Mickey and General Ike, 85 (lucky coins).
“There are several rooms”: Gunther, D Day, 49–50; Kenneth S. Davis, Soldier of Democracy, 428 (“it’ll do”).
Nine months earlier: David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 689; OH, Hastings L. Ismay, Dec. 17, 1946, FCP, MHI (“No one else”).
“incarnation of sincerity”: Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 690; Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower, vol. 1, 273 (“bits of metal”); James, 95 (“utterly fair”); Merle Miller, Ike the Soldier, 514; John Kennedy, The Business of War, 289 (“powers of expression”); Drew Middleton, Our Share of Night, 308.
“I’m a born optimist”: Richard Tregaskis, Invasion Diary, 54; Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 689 (“studious reflection”); John Gunther, Eisenhower: The Man and the Symbol, 27 (“one officer in fifty”); OH, DDE, Aug. 29, 1976, D. Clayton James, DDE Lib, OH-501, 3–6 (“I would refuse”); Chandler, vol. 2, 1165 (“at least $25,000”).
“You are fighting”: HCB, June 19, 1943, DDE Lib, A-491; Gunther, Eisenhower, 19 (“hate my enemies”); John S. D. Eisenhower, Strictly Personal, 67 (“the Almighty”).
“A coordinator”: Brian Horrocks, A Full Life, 159; Brian Harpur, The Impossible Victory, 115 (“a compromisor”); JPL, May 24, 1943 (“keep in touch”).
“solve problems through reasoning”: Carlo D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life, 418; Gunther, D Day, 59; David Fraser, Alanbrooke, 347 (“a grave risk”); Harold Macmillan, War Diaries, 260.
The long summer twilight: Three Years, 343; Thomas W. Mattingly and Olive F. G. Marsh, “A Compilation of the General Health Status of Dwight D. Eisenhower,” n.d., Mattingly Collection, DDE Lib, box 1, 19–22, 53 (“disabling injury”); Gunther, Eisenhower, 29 (sixty or more Camels); Chandler, vol. 2, 1344 (he paid John); HCB, June 29, 1943, DDE Lib, A-508c (gas fumes).
Cigarette in hand: Michael Simpson, A Life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham, 161 (Tars scaled); John Howson, ts, n.d., LHC, 302 (“Every Nice Girl”); Ernle Bradford, Siege Malta, 1940–1943, 86–87 (limestone walls); Cunningham, 547 (“extremely smelly”); McKeough and Lockridge, 87 (banana cordials).
Eisenhower strode: Gunther, D Day, 53, 61; Alden Hatch, General Ike, 173 (four hundred years); Gunther, Eisenhower, 23–24.
He shrugged off: Harry L. Coles, Jr., “Participation of the 9th and 12th Air Forces in the Sicilian Campaign,” AAF Historical Studies, no. 37, n.d., CMH, 56; Gunther, D Day, 80.
his red-veined face: John Winton, Cunningham, 313; Daniel C. Dancocks, The D-Day Dodgers: The Canadians in Italy, 1943–1945, 27; George Kitching, Mud and Green Fields, 147, 151 (three Canadian ships); Three Years, 349 (heard from Malta); Martin Stephen, The Fighting Admirals, 65, 77, 83 (“velvet-arsed”); Simpson, 161; Gunther, D Day, 64 (“like a bulldog’s”).
“The coast is everywhere”: “Tactical Study of the Terrain—Sicily,” AFHQ G-2, Feb. 1943, CMH, Geog Sicily 354, 1; Molony V, 13 (thirty-two beaches); L. V. Bertarelli, Southern Italy, 418; Ernest Samuels, ed., The Education of Henry Adams (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), 367.
An amphibious landing: Geoffrey Perret, There’s a War to Be Won, 110.
If amphibious warfare: Garland, 54–58; Sidney L. Jackson, “Signal Communication in the Sicilian Campaign,” July 1945, SC Historical Project E-3, CARL, N-9425.4, 6–7 (couriers shuttled); Arthur S. Nevins, “Looking Back,” ts, n.d., A.S. Nevins papers, DDE Lib, box 1, 16 (frigid officers).
Eisenhower in March: “Allied Commander-in-Chief’s Report on Sicilian Campaign 1943,” 75; Meyer, “Strategy and Logistical History: MTO,” XIII-14 (“grossly exaggerating”); GS IV, 368–69 (“defeatist doctrines”); Garland, 58.53 “Let’s finish this”: OH, Francis de Guingand, March 31, 1947, G. A. Harrison, OCMH WWII, “Europe Interviews,” MHI, 2; Abraham, “Time Off for War,” 68 (“how it would suit us”).
The existing plan: Hunt, 189–90; Molony V, 22; Garland, 61 (“wooly thinking”); Stephen Brooks, ed., Montgomery and the Eighth Army, 191, 207, 217, 223, 226 (“military disaster”).
Rather than divide: diary, Lt. Gen. Sir Charles Gairdner, IWM 04/271/1, 39 (a thousand francs), 36 (run by Monty); Martin Blumenson, Sicily: Whose Victory?, 24; Carlo D’Este, A Genius for War, 493 (men’s latrine).
A day later: Cunningham, 532–37; Garland, 62; SSA, 20n.
“I can’t understand”: diary, Lt. Gen. Sir Charles Gairdner, IWM 04/271/1, 37.
HUSKY now called: Richard Doherty, A Noble Crusade, 140; Garland, 88–91.
“Stick them in the belly”: SSt, 114; George F. Howe, “American Signal Intelligence in Northwest Africa and Western Europe,” U.S. Cryptologic History, series IV, vol. 1, NSA, NARA RG 57, SRH-391, 48–49; “Trip Reports Concerning Use of Ultra in the Mediterranean Theater, 1943–1944,” NARA RG 457, SRH-031, 36; Ralph Bennett, Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy, 401–3; Peter Calvocoressi, Top Secret Ultra (“panoramic knowledge”); F. H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 3, part 1, 75, 483–86 (Hyena).
Eisenhower also knew: SSA, 35, 56; Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani, The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1940–1943, 313 (“blindfolded”); “I Reparto Riunione dal Duce del Giorno 3 Aprile 1943,” Italian Collection, item 26, OCMH, SSI, NARA RG 319, 270/19/6/3, box 243 (lightbulbs).
What Eisenhower did not know:
Battle, 35.
The Combined Chiefs had approved: Richard M. Leighton, “Planning for Sicily,” Proceedings, July 1962, 90+; Garland, 67 (“Your planners”).
Marshall was right: Battle, 46; Garland, 89; “Outline Plan,” Force 343, May 18, 1943, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 270/19/6/3, box 242; Cochran, “Chicken or Eggs?”; Alexander S. Cochran, “Constructing a Military Coalition from Materials at Hand: The Case of Allied Force Headquarters,” paper, SMH conference, Apr. 16, 1999, 10–12 (Amphibious doctrine).
A “terrible inflexibility”: Smith, “Mediterranean Operations,” 1; Garland, 92–93.
In mid-June, Eisenhower: Three Years, 333; DDE, Crusade in Europe, 170; Davis, 425–26 (“Don’t ever do that”).
Feints and deceptions: SSA, 167; memo, C. B. Hazeltine to McClure, July 14, 1943, AFHQ Psychological Warfare Branch, Carl A. Spaatz papers, LOC MS Div, box 13; The Sicilian Campaign, 8.
Verdala Palace: Three Years, 347–48, 353; DDE, Letters to Mamie, 125.
Translators, for example: DDE to GCM, May 7 and 11, June 22 and 28, 1943, NARA RG 165, E 422, OPD Exec Files, box 16.
“Aged Military Gentlemen”: C.R.S. Harris, Allied Administration of Italy, 1943–1945, 82; Paul Dickson, War Slang, 118; http://www.sokrates-digital.de/produktkatalog/AQ493328.php; DDE to AGWAR, June 1, 1943, NARA RG 165, E 422, OPD Exec Files, box 16. The abbreviation was shortened in August to AMG.
he worried about his wife: Ambrose, vol. 1, 244.
Kathleen Helen Summersby: Kay Summersby Morgan, Past Forgetting, 126, 136; finding aid, Barbara Wyden papers, DDE Lib; Miller, 516 (Grief and strain); Piers Brendon, Ike: His Life & Times, 125.
Just please remember: DDE, Letters to Mamie, 128.
“The Horses of the Sun”
The convoys from Algeria: Karig, 235–36; SSA, 62–65; Tregaskis, 15 (abacus); war log, U.S.S. Monrovia, July 8–9, 1943, NARA RG 38, OCNO, WWII war diaries, box 1233 (thirteen knots).
Ships wallowed: Total tonnage included follow-on convoys. Memo, “Observations ‘HUSKY’—Joss Task Force,” July 10, 1943, MTOUSA, NARA RG 492, SOS, 290/55/1-2, 7-1, box 2736; msg, AFHQ to AGWAR, June 25, 1943, NARA RG 165, E 422, OPD Exec Files, box 16; Jackson, “Signal Communication in the Sicilian Campaign,” 3; “Orders for Operation HUSKY,” n.d., AFHQ, S.S.O. 17/3, CARL, N-14793A; msgs, DDE to AGWAR, May 28, 1943; AGWAR to AFHQ, June 10, 1943; and Office of Fiscal Director, WD, to DDE, June 17, 1943, all in NARA RG 165, E 422, OPD Exec Files, box 16 (rat traps); Robert W. Komer, “Civil Affairs and Military Government in the Mediterranean Theater,” 1954, CMH, 2-3.7 AX, II-24 (occupation scrip); memo, “Medical Planning Instruction,” Force 141, March 14, 1943, A. S. Nevins papers, MHI, box 1 (condoms); “British Abbreviations and Glossary,” A. S. Nevins papers, MHI, box 1 (glossary).
Half the tonnage: Mayo, 154; “Logistical History of NATOUSA/MTOUSA,” Nov. 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427, 95-AL1-4, box 203, 58.
“what they thought they needed”: “Reminiscences of Walter C. W. Ansel,” John T. Mason, Jr., 1970, USNI OHD, 148; AAR, 6681st Signal Pigeon Co., July 9, 1944, NARA RG 407, SG Co-6681-0.1, box 23228; msg, AGWAR to DDE, June 17, 1943, NARA RG 165, E 422, OPD Exec Files, box 16 (pigeons); Max Corvo, The O.S.S. in Italy, 61; “Reminiscences of Phil E. Bucklew,” 1980, John T. Mason, Jr., USNI OHD, 44; memo, “Final Outline Plan, Force 343,” June 8, 1943, NARA RG 338, II Corps historical section, box 148; “Beaches of Sicily,” Strategic Engineering Study, No. 31, Nov. 1942, MHI (rumrunner); msgs, GCM to DDE, May 2 and 27, 1943, NARA RG 165, E 422, OPD Exec Files, box 16; Blanche D.Coll et al., The Corps of Engineers: Troops and Equipment, 455–56 (wooden crates); Nicholas, 222, 226, 234 (motorcycle courier).
Much had been learned: memo, HQ, I Armored Corps, annex 2, June 14, 1943, MTOUSA, NARA RG 492, SOS, 290/55/1-2, 7-1, box 2736; “Operating Instructions HUSKY,” vol. IV, Force 343, FO No. 1, June 20, 1943, NARA RG 407, E 427, 95-AL1-3.17, box 201 (chart distributed to medics); memo, HQ, SOS NATOUSA, June 29, 1943, and “Graves Registration Directive,” MTOUSA, NARA RG 492, SOS, 290/55/1-2, 7-1, box 2736; memo, “Disposition of Personal Effects,” May 24, 1943, Harlan W. Hendrick, ASEQ, 1st ID, MHI.
welfare of civilians: “British Administrative History of the Italian Campaign,” appendix, 1946, NARA RG 94, E 427, 95-USF2-5.0; Komer, “Civil Affairs,” II-20 (vast stocks); “Post-HUSKY Operations, Military Government,” NARA RG 319, OCMH, 270/19/6/3, box 242 (nineteen million mouths); “History of Planning Division, Army Service Forces,” n.d., CMH, 3-2.2 AA, vol. 1, 92 (“self-supporting”).
Kent Hewitt spent the passage: OH, HKH, 1961, John T. Mason, Col U OHRO, 314; HKH, AAR, “The Sicilian Campaign,” n.d., 107; John H. Clagett, unpublished bio of HKH, ts, n.d., NHC, 392 (“God couldn’t be”).
“sea-going bedpan”: “History of Amphibious Training Command, U.S. Atlantic Fleet,” 1951, USNAd, #145 a–c, VIII, 24; Beck et al., 118; Perry, “A Reporter at Large,” 50 (“ensign-eliminators”); author visit, LST 325, Alexandria, Va., May 28, 2005; Perret, 134 (rumrunners); Barry W. Fowle, ed., Builders and Fighters, 407; Kendall King, “LSTs: Marvelous at Fifty Plus,” Naval History, 1992 (river yards); Pyle, 157 (even in drydock).
Hewitt knew: Beck et al., 124; Mason, 273–78 (Sherman tank).
“take his chances”: “Reminiscences of Walter C. W. Ansel,” 149; HKH, AAR, “The Sicilian Campaign,” 44 (“illusory”); Hinsley, 86 (fourteen had been lost).
In his own cabin: PP, 275, 271 (horses of the sun); diary, GSP, July 8, 1943, LOC MS Div, box 3, folder 1 (“Attack and then look”); Mason, 284 (“on their necks”).
Field Order No. 1: HQ, Force 343 (7th Army), June 20, 1943, NARA RG 319, OCMH, SSI, box 242; “Seventh Army Report Summary,” n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7 CC2 Sicily, box 250 (“We shall win”).
“You are a great leader”: PP, 272; John North, ed., The Alexander Memoirs, 1940–1945, 45–46; Hirshson, 360 (“Do you kill?”); GSP to DDE, Feb. 20, 1942, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 91 (“You name them”); memoir, Kenyon Joyce, ts, n.d., MHI, 345 (“colorful”).
“a question of destiny”: GSP to Bea, July 5, 1943, LOC MS Div, Chrono File, box 10.
Ernie Pyle was with them: SSA, 66; Pyle, 12 (“On fine days”); Lee G. Miller, The Story of Ernie Pyle, 267 (he rose at three A.M.).
“older and a little apart”: David Nichols, ed., Ernie’s War, 18; Quentin Reynolds, The Curtain Rises, 256 (“a family Bible”); Miller, 261 (“fundamentally sad”).
“lost in the dark”: Richard Collier, Fighting Words, 140, 144, 152; Miller (“athlete’s foot”).
thirty cubic feet: Harold Larson, “Troop Transports in WWII,” ts, March 1945, CMH, 4-13. AA12, 53; Brown, The Whorehouse of the World, 142; IG investigation, fall 1943, MTOUSA AG, NARA RG 492, 333.7, box 1432 (Army inspectors); Russell B. Capelle, Casablanca to the Neckar, 18 (its mystery).
They made do: Valentine, 10; George F. Hall papers, HIA, box 1 (seven times as high); AAR, 26th Inf Regt, “The Beginning of the End,” n.d., MRC FDM (hellhole); Williamson, “Tales of a Thunderbird,” 86 (“bona sera”).
They packed and unpacked: annex, Admin Order No. 1, June 14, 1943, Seventh Army, Walter J. Muller papers, HIA, box 2; chart, Wayne M. Harris, ASEQ, 157th Inf, MHI (82.02 pounds); Harold W. Thatcher, “The Development of Special Rations for the Army,” 1944, Historical Section, QM General, MHI, 4-5 (“D rations”).
“It’s interesting to see”: corr, TR to Eleanor, July 7, 8, 1943, LOC MS Div, box 10.
“Commander Houdini”: Graeme Zielinski, “Capt. Richard Steere, 92; Meteorologist for Patton,” WP, March 22, 2001, B-6; “Navy Honors D.C. Officer, Weather Expert,” WP, Dec. 7, 1943, B-9.
Summer blows: Charles C. Bates and John F. Fuller, America’s Weather Warriors, 74.
“flat-bottomed delight”: Collins, 200; Jack Belden, “As I Saw It,” in Albert H. Smith, Jr., The Sicily Campaign: Recollections of an Infantry Company Commander, 143 (“Mussolini wind”); memo, Bert M. Rudd, “Landing Craft and Bases,” AGF Observer, July 16, 1943, ANSCOL, NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, box 150, 6; Bill Mauldin, Th
e Brass Ring, 143 (two dozen balloons); “Personal Diary of Langan W. Swent,” July 9, 1943, HIA, box 1 (helmsmen struggled); Pyle, 13.
Never had the amphibious vessels: CM, 209; Karig, 255 (“green water cascaded”); Donald J. Hunt, “USS LST 313 and Battery A, 33rd Field Artillery,” ts, 1997, MRC FDM, 46 (heavy shudder); William A. Carter, “Carter’s War,” ts, 1983, CEOH, box V-14, VII-3 (“47 degrees”); Mason, 279–82 (“nothing to the right”); James Phinney Baxter III, Scientists Against Time, 77 (charms on a watch chain); Karig, 237 (Florence Nightingale).
“You probably enjoy”: What to Do Aboard the Transport, 244.
“All of us are miserable”: Samuel David Spivey, A Doughboy’s Narrative, 85; Franklyn A. Johnson, One More Hill, 81 (“First I am afraid”); John Ellis, On the Front Lines, 60 (“Bags, Vomit”); Ralph G. Martin, The G.I. War, 1941–1945, 67 (“secret shame”).
“Land of My Fathers”: Buckley, 24; Farley Mowat, And No Birds Sang, 46–50 (“green and groaning”); Francis A. Even, “The Tenth Engineers,” ts, 1996, author’s possession, 7 (African donkeys); memo, Bert M. Rudd, “Landing Craft and Bases,” AGF Observer, July 16, 1943, ANSCOL, NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, box 150, 6 (“Ship rolled thirty degrees”); Martha Harris, ed., “The Harris Family in World War II,” 23 (peritonitis); Steve Kluger, Yank, 105 (“walk and walk”).
“‘Is God on our side’”: Strome Galloway, A Regiment at War, 70.
“It’s goddam foolish”: Jack Belden, “As I Saw It,” in Smith, 144; “Reminiscences of Walter C. W. Ansel,” 145 (“first to yelp”).
On Monrovia: SSA, 68; Garland, 109 (at least four hours); Hewitt, “Naval Aspects of the Sicilian Campaign,” 705 (“get ashore”); OH, HKH, Jan. 23, 1951, Howard M. Smyth, SM, MHI.
Late on Friday afternoon: lecture, “Narrative by Rear Adm. Alan G. Kirk,” Oct. 2, 1943, Pearl Harbor, NHC; Clagett, unpub bio of HKH, 392–98; Bates and Fuller, 74; Bernard Fergusson, The Watery Maze, 240–44.
“Always the vibration”: McCallum, 150; letter, John T. Dawson to family, July 9, 1943, MRC FDM.
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