The Liberation Trilogy Box Set

by Rick Atkinson

  “perfectly asinine”: OH, MWC, Rittgers, 54–57, 77; memo, AFHQ G-3 to W. B. Smith, Aug. 13, 1943, NARA RG 331, AFHQ micro, job 10A, R-13-C, in NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 244 (“tactically unsound”); R. P. Eaton, 82nd Airborne chief of staff, “Contact Imminent,” ts, Dec. 26, 1943, Ralph P. Eaton Papers, MHI, 4; James M. Gavin, “Airborne Plans and Operations in the Mediterranean Theater,” IJ, Aug. 1946, 22+ (“not one individual”); Clay Blair, Ridgway’s Paratroopers, 126 (“missions and remissions”).

  GIANT II: Blair, 132–33; Smyth, “The Armistice at Cassible,” 13; Garland, 488–89.

  The more Ridgway heard: corr, MBR to W. B. Smith, Dec. 5, 1955, and MBR to G. Castellano, Dec. 20, 1955, CJB, MHI, box 48, chrono file Italy; corr, MBR to Hal C. Pattison, Nov. 10, 1964, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7 CC2 Sicily, box 251 (“deceiving us”); OH, W.B. Smith, May 13, 1947, Howard M. Smyth, SM, MHI (“kettles, bricks”); memo, MBR, “Development of Operation Giant,” Sept. 9, 1943, CJB, MHI, box 48, chrono file Italy (“full faith”); Matthew B. Ridgway, Soldier, 81 (“Contact will be made”).

  As the sun sank: AAR, Maxwell D. Taylor and W. T. Gardiner, “Mission to Rome,” Sept 9, 1943, in Simpson, “Air Phase,” 381–86; Richard Thruelsen and Elliott Arnold, “Secret Mission to Rome,” Harper’s, Oct. 1944, 462+; Maxwell D. Taylor, Swords and Plowshares, 55–57; Richard Tregaskis, Invasion Diary, 103–8; Melton S. Davis, Who Defends Rome?, 346–48.

  In truth they were Italians’ guests: Mark W. Boatner III, The Biographical Dictionary of World War II, 555 (graceful Missourian); John M. Taylor, General Maxwell Taylor, 65; Robert Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 89 (money belt); Thruelsen and Arnold, 462 (“If you get captured”).

  By 8:30 P.M.: AAR, Taylor and Gardiner, “Mission,” 381–86; Thruelsen and Arnold, “Secret Mission to Rome,” 462+; Taylor, 55–57; Tregaskis, 103–8; Davis, 346–48.

  The excellent crêpes: Smyth, “The Armistice at Cassibile” Taylor, 56–57 (“professional dandy”); Garland, 500; Volkmar Kühn, German Paratroops in World War II, 195.

  Italian garrisons had been virtually immobilized: Garland, 495; Davis 353.

  He passed his days playing cards: Douglas Porch, The Path to Victory, 465; Boatner, 23; Tompkins, 58–60 (five thousand bottles); Macmillan, The Blast of War, 330 (“I was a Fascist”).

  “Castellano did not know”: Davis, 353–55; Thruelsen and Arnold, “Secret Mission,” 462 (“Your bombers have blown up”).

  “GIANT TWO is impossible”: AAR, Taylor and Gardiner, “Mission to Rome,” in Simpson, “Air Phase,” 381–86; Tregaskis, 107 (“endeavoring to click our heels”).

  “You will return to Allied headquarters”: Thruelsen and Arnold, “Secret Mission,” 462; Taylor, 55–57.

  Eisenhower left Algiers: Michael J. McKeough and Richard Lockridge, Sgt. Mickey and General Ike, 83–84; Kay Summersby, Eisenhower Was My Boss, 108 (“illusion of being on the march”); OH, DDE, Feb. 16, 1949, Smyth (“rather stretched out”); Dwight D. Eisenhower, Letters to Mamie, 141, 147 (“creature of war”).

  Smith forwarded the doleful message: Chandler, vol. 3, 1403n; msg, GCM to DDE or W. B. Smith, Sept. 8, 1943, NARA RG 165, E 422, OPD exec files, 390/38/2/4-5, box 10; “Unpublished Autobiography of General John E. Hull, USA (ret.),” ts, n.d., MHI (“what you would expect”).

  In the small schoolhouse: OH, Lyman L. Lemnitzer, March 4, 1947, Howard M. Smyth, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 6; Peter Lyon, Eisenhower: Portrait of the Hero, 241 (mouth tightened); Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower, vol. 1, 259–60 (snapped it in half); David Hunt, A Don at War, 224 (“with great violence”); OH, DDE, Feb. 16, 1949, Smyth (“revolver against his kidneys”); Chandler, vol. 3, 1402, 1403n (“I do not accept”).

  “I always knew”: OH, Arthur Coningham, Feb. 14, 1947, FCP, MHI; Chandler, vol. 3, 1404.

  Clearly a deviation was needed: memo, MBR, “Development of Operation Giant,” Sept. 9, 1943, CJB, MHI, box 48, chrono file Italy; L. James Binder, Lemnitzer: A Soldier for His Time, 113–14.

  Sixty-two transports: OH, Lemnitzer, March 4, 1947, Smyth; Garland, 508–9;. Ridgway, 95 (“trying to reconcile myself”); Binder, 113–14 (“What message?”).

  Jeeps raced about: Patrick K. O’Donnell, Beyond Valor, 66; Blair, 141 (stumbled into a tent).

  “The Italian government has surrendered”: msg, DDE, Sept. 8, 1943, NARA RG 165, E 422, OPD exec files, 390/38/2/4-5, box 10; Garland, 509–13.

  For 1,184 days: Hugh Pond, Salerno, 10; David Irving, The Trail of the Fox, 305 (“Italy’s treachery is official”).

  In the hours following Badoglio’s announcement: Garland, 513; “Memorandum Concerning the Events of September 8–9–10 in Rome,” n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 249, 3 (Telephone queries); Robert Katz, The Battle for Rome, 32 (fourteen of sixteen government ministers); Howard McGaw Smyth, “The Command of the Italian Armed Forces in World War II,” Military Affairs, spring 1951, 38+ (summoned a notary).

  No effort was made to stop six battalions: Kühn, 196, 198; Badoglio, 81 (only escape route); Davis, 403, 407 (green Fiat); msg, F. N. Mason Macfarlane to DDE, Sept. 14, 1943, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 244 (“rather gaga”); memoir, Kenyon Joyce, ts, n.d., Kenyon Joyce papers, MHI, 322; Katz, 32; “Military Campaigns and Political Events in Italy, 1942–1943,” Jan. 1946, Strategic Services Unit, WD, A-63366, CMH, Geog Files, Italy, 370.22, 45 (ingesting drops); Tompkins, 271 (“change sides twice”).

  German troops snared thirty generals: B. H. Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill, 360; “Memorandum Concerning the Events of September 8–9–10 in Rome,” n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 249, 3 (firefights erupted); John Patrick Carroll-Abbing, But for the Grace of God, 35 (Italian snipers); Jane Scrivener, Inside Rome with the Germans, 15–16 (“The Jews are in a panic”).

  Field Marshal Kesselring was disinclined to parley: Simpson, “Air Phase,” 102; Andrew Brookes, Air War over Italy, 1943–1945, 28; Albrecht Kesselring, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring, 176; Hunt, 264; Count von Klinckowstroen, “Fighting Around Rome in September 1943,” 1947, FMS, #T-1a, MHI, 5; Pond, Salerno, 7; Kesselring, “Commentary on MS #D-301,” n.d., FMS, #D-313, MHI, 3; Garland, 526–27 (threatened to blow up Rome’s aqueducts); “Translations, Campaign in Italy,” NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 245 (“It is finished”).

  Kesselring, now viceroy: Klinckowstroen, “Fighting Around Rome,” 10–11; Albert Kesselring, “Special Report on the Events in Italy Between 25 July and 8 September 1943,” n.d., FMS, #C-013, MHI, 5 (“sheet lightning”); Kesselring, Memoirs, 177 (“card missing from the pack”); Franz Kurowski, Battleground Italy, 1943–1945, 12 (“I loved these people”).

  The Stillest Shoes the World Could Boast

  Unmolested and apparently undetected: StoC, 57; E. McCabe, “The Plan for the Landing at Salerno,” 10–11 (HARPSICHORD); Warren P. Munsell, Jr., The Story of a Regiment, 21; Angelo Pesce, Salerno 1943, 99 (“converted Polish liner”); Howard H. Peckham and Shirley A. Snyder, eds., Letters from Fighting Hoosiers, vol. 2, 62 (“Whenever I tore a bun”); J. M. Huddleston, VI Corps surgeon, “Report for Colonel Carter,” n.d., in Norman Lee Baldwin papers, HIA (knotted condoms).

  The usual muddles: Mayo, The Ordnance Department: On Beachhead and Battlefront, 182 (sailed without weapons); Texas, 223 (white-star insignia); AAR, “Signal Reflections on the Planning and Execution of Avalanche,” Oct. 13, 1943, 10th Corps, UK NA, CAB 106/395, 7 (carrier pigeons); “Observations in the European Theater,” 2 (“military impedimenta”); Dunham, “United States Army Transportation and the Italian Campaign,” 26–27; “The Administrative History of the Eighth Fleet,” ts, n.d., U.S. Naval History Division, #139, NHC, folder 3, 34; John H. Clagett, unpublished biography, n.d., HKH, box 16, 436 (Hewitt was so incensed).

  endless games of housey-housey: Hickey and Smith, 78; Eric Morris, Salerno: A Military Fiasco, 83 (boiling coffee); Norman Lewis, Naples ’44, 11 (“We know nothing”); Italian Phrase Book, U.S. War Department, 1943.

  Aboard Hewitt’s flagship: http://www.nightscribe.com/Military/ww2/ancon_history_front.htm; D
onald Downes, The Scarlet Thread, 140; Reynolds, 281 (“in the lion’s mouth”), 300 (“the Yale Club”); diary, MWC, Sept. 7, 1943, MWC, Citadel, box 64 (“feeling the strain”).

  Some 55,000 assault troops: Calculated, 185; Hickey and Smith, 52–53 (“the most daring plan”).

  The 36th, entering combat for the first time: Lee Carraway Smith, A River Swift and Deadly, 5; Steven E. Clay, mss, 16th Infantry history [Blood and Sacrifice], MRC-FDM, 14 (“Deep in the Heart of Texas”); Hickey and Smith, 56 (Lone Star flag).

  “We can’t expect to achieve”: Shapiro, 122; HKH, “Action Report of the Salerno Landings, Sept.–Oct. 1943,” 1945, CMH, 130 (fifteen-minute cannonade), 142; FLW to MWC, “Conclusions Based on the Avalanche Operation,” Oct. 11, 1943, CARL, N-6818, 1; Texas, 230–31 (“may not be discovered”); OH, FLW, May 15, 1953, John G. Westover, SM, MHI; StoC, 57; target list, operation plan 7-43, annex B, appendix 1, HKH, LOC MS Div, box 8, folder 8; Samuel Eliot Morison, The Two-Ocean War, 351 (“fantastic to assume”); Merrill L. Bartlett, ed., Assault from the Sea, 268; OH, MWC, 1972–73, Forest S. Rittgers, Jr., SOOHP, MHI, 53; lecture, Don Brann, ts, n.d., in Robert J. Wood papers, MHI, 4 (Clark had sided with Walker).

  Eisenhower’s armistice announcement: diary, MWC, Sept. 8, 1943, MWC, Citadel, box 64; The Grenadier Guards, 1939–1945, 27 (officers with megaphones).

  Jubilation erupted: Downes, 3; Robert Wallace, The Italian Campaign, 53 (“The Eyeties”); Hickey and Smith, 42; Travis Beard, “Turning the Tide at Salerno,” Naval History, Oct. 2003 (“The war is over”); John T. Mason, Jr., The Atlantic War Remembered, 328n (“Yap, yap, yap”); Pond, 16; The Grenadier Guards, 1939–1945, 27; Philip Vian, Action This Day, 117 (“Seldom in history”).

  Soldiers jettisoned bandoliers: Wood, “The Landing at Salerno,” 13; “Reminiscences of Phil H. Bucklew,” 1980, John T. Mason, Jr., USNI OHD, 64; Pond, 18 (dinner jacket); StoC, 55 (“sheer joy”); corr, Armand G. Jones to father, n.d., 155th FA, Texas MFM, 3; Robert L. Wagner, The Texas Army, 4.

  “keen fighting edge”: HKH, “Action Report,” 91; Downes, 3 (“bloody fools”); Pond, 68 (“Take your ammunition”); Newton H. Fulbright, “Altavilla: A Personal Record,” ts, n.d., Texas MFM, 12 (“horned Comanches”); Clifford H. Peek, Jr., Five Years, Five Countries, Five Campaigns, 15 (“Expect a hostile shore”).

  “Gunners, man your guns”: Shapiro, 122; Quentin Reynolds, The Curtain Rises, 287 (“ship will be hove to”); SSA, 252; Fulbright, “Altavilla,” 2 (“Imagination makes cowards”); John Steinbeck, New York Herald Tribune, Oct. 3, 1943, in Reporting World War II, vol. 1, 636–37.

  Just before ten P.M.: chronology, HKH, “Action Report,” NHC; Shapiro, 18 (“they’re blind”); AAR, H.M.S. Brecon, Sept. 22, 1943, in “Operation AVALANCHE—Report on Northern Assault,” Oct. 16, 1943, CARL, N-6837 (ruby glow); SSA, 253 (“silver sea”).

  Twelve miles offshore: Pond, 39; Salerno: The American Operation from the Beaches to the Volturno, 14; Anthony Kimmins, Half-Time, 204 (“honeymoon couples”); Fulbright, “Altavilla,” 2.

  Clark stood beside Hewitt: Reynolds, The Curtain Rises, 288; Hickey and Smith, 82 (“You’ll be in total command”); Jack Maher, memoir, n.d., http://home.wi.rr.com//johnmaher (“down a ten-story building”).

  “tall, smiling, appearing unconcerned”: Reynolds, The Curtain Rises, 292–93; chronology, HKH, “Action Report,” NHC (“Arrived at transport area”); diary, MWC, Sept. 9, 1943, MWC, Citadel, box 64.

  “What’s the weather like”: SSA, 271; Karl Baedeker, Southern Italy and Sicily, 167; Robert M. Coates, South of Rome, 52; L. V. Bertarelli, Southern Italy, 316–17 (Salerno’s medical school).

  The latter-day town had grown: Pond, 40–41; Morton, 303, 396 (predatory Saracens); Salerno, 6.

  Neither Kesselring nor his lieutenants believed: “Special Investigation and Interrogation Report: Operation Lightening” [sic], March 15, 1947, Military Intelligence Service, Austria, CMH, Geog Files 370.2, 7 and 13; intelligence summary, Sunset No. 91, Aug. 30, 1943, NARA RG 457, E 9026, NSA records, box 1; SSA, 261; war diary, Sept. 6, 1943, “Salerno Invasion,” German naval command, box 649 (“a strike in the direction”); StoC, 67; Molony V, 274; Kurowski, 107 (“large naval force”).

  Following the capitulation announcement: diary, Wehrmachtführungstab, OKW, Aug. 29, 1943, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 245 (invoked ACHSE); SSA, 261 (“completely annihilated”).

  That German might took the form of Tenth Army: StoC, 67, 69 (“No mercy”); A. Kesselring, testimony, war crimes trial, March 3, 1947, NARA RG 492, MTO, AG HQ, 000.5, box 816 (“a spiritual burden”); Hickey and Smith, 50; Pond, 9 (“died as a great soldier”).

  first German unit on the Volga: Pond, 41; Rudolf Böhmler, Monte Cassino, 51 (four thousand survivors); MEB, “16th Panzer Division at Salerno,” 1953, OCMH, R-series, NARA RG 319, E 145, R-36, 2–3 (best-equipped division in Italy).

  Sieckenius had split his forces: “The German Defense at the Gulf of Salerno,” Feb. 23, 1944, W.O.W.IR. #28, NHC, folder 33, 18–19, 23.

  On the far right of the Allied line: StoC, 74; Harold G. Horning, “The Army Years,” ts, n.d., part 2, 155th FA, Texas MFM, 36 (“stood up to see”).

  Bullets plumped the sea: Belden, 292; Leo V. Bishop et al., eds., The Fighting Forty-fifth, 41 (“You can’t dig foxholes”); corr, James E. Taylor, 131st FA Bn, to Walter H. Beck, March 2, 1944, Texas MFM, 2 (“spring rain”); AAR, “Historical Record, Headquarters, VI Corps, September 1943,” JPL, MHI, box 12, 3; AAR, “Record of Events,” 142nd Inf, Sept. 3–20, 1943, CARL, N-6818; Chester G. Starr, ed., From Salerno to the Alps, 17; “Field Operations of the Medical Department in the MTOUSA,” Nov. 10, 1945, NARA RG 94, E 427, 95-USF2-26-0, 224 (“Shells were wopping”); Peek, 21 (“seemed to rise completely”); Glenn G. Clift, A Letter from Salerno, 6–7 (“boys were on fire”).

  On the beach, soldiers wriggled: Salerno, 21; Peek, 22 (“a baby girl”); Wood, “The Landing at Salerno,” 14; author visits, Oct. 1995, May 2004; Mayo, 178; diary, J. M. Huddleston, VI Corps surgeon, Sept. 9, 1943, Norman Lee Baldwin papers, HIA (“great deal of confusion”).

  The first Luftwaffe planes: H. Kent Hewitt, “The Allied Navies at Salerno,” Proceedings, Sept. 1953, 958+; SSA, 261; Bill Harr, Combat Boots, 40–41 (“Steady, now, steady”); Wood, “The Landing at Salerno,” 13 (“someone had let them down”); Don Whitehead, “Beachhead Don,” 37.

  By six A.M. two infantry regiments: “Amphibious Operations,” Aug.–Dec. 1943, CINC, U.S. Fleet, CMH; Brooks E. Kleber and Dale Birdsell, The Chemical Warfare Service: Chemicals in Combat, 335 (smoke pots); Paul W. Pritchard, “Smoke Generator Operations in the Mediterranean and European Theaters of Operation,” n.d., Office of the Chief of the Chemical Corps, CMH, 4-7.1 FA 1, 53; Norman Hussa, “Action at Salerno,” IJ, vol. 53, no. 6 (Dec. 1943), 25+; John Steinbeck, Once There Was a War, 162; “COHQ Bulletin No. Y/25,” Apr. 1944, CARL, N-6530.10; AAR, LST 324 and LST 363, in “Operation AVALANCHE—Report on Northern Assault,” Royal Navy, Oct. 16, 1943, CARL, N-6837 (“Ventilation fans sucked smoke”); “Amphibious Operations,” Aug.–Dec. 1943, CINC, U.S. Fleet, CMH (compass headings).

  Still, German observers: StoC, 80; Roskill, 175; AAR, 191st Tank Bn, n.d., AGF Board Reports, NARA RG 407, E 427, NATOUSA, 95-USF1-2.0; Bishop et al., eds., 41; memoir, Aidan Mark Sprot, ts, 1947, LHC, 72 (LST officers scampered); Walter Karig, Battle Report: The Atlantic War, 265, 268 (“jolly well shot up”).

  AVALANCHE planners had hoped: R. L. Connolly, “Operations of Landing Craft in the Mediterranean,” Oct. 14, 1943, NARA RG 334, E 315, NWC Lib, ANSCOL, L-2-43, C-75, box 170; Downes, 14; SSA, 265 (pinned to the dunes); Mark W. Clark, “Salerno,” AB, No. 95, 1997, 1+; Peek, ed., 20; Wagner, 11 (“I saw riflemen swarm”).

  “in a row, side by side”: Norman Lewis, Naples ’44, 12; Paul A. Cundiff, 45th Infantry CP, 62 (“the stillest shoes”); Peckham and Snyder, eds., vol. 2, 63 (“wouldn’t look so bad”); Reynolds, The Curtain Rises, 300 (“On what beach”).

  Salvation arrived shortly after
nine A.M.: Richard J. Werner, 141st Inf Regt, in FLW to MWC, Oct. 11, 1943, CARL, N-6818, 1-2; StoC, 82; “Historical Tactical Study of Naval Gunfire at Salerno,” 1948–49, Amphibious Warfare School, USMC, Quantico, Va., SEM, NHC, box 51, 25; “Amphibious Operations,” Aug.–Dec. 1943, CINC, U.S. Fleet, CMH; Shapiro, 132 (steamed within a hundred yards); action report, U.S.S. Philadelphia, Sept. 25, 1943, NARA RG 38, OCNO, WWII Action and Operational Reports, box 1318; SSA, 280 (Eleven thousand tons of naval shells).

  “the cover of a Latin book”: Fred Howard, Whistle While You Wait, 167; memo, “Shore Party Organization for Amphibious Operations,” AFHQ to WD, Dec. 17, 1943, NARA RG 407, E 427, 270/50/28/36; “Lessons from the Italian Campaign,” March 10, 1944, NARA RG 407, E 427, NATOUSA, 95-USF1-04, box 250, 12.

  Near a tobacco barn at Casa Vannula: journal, 36th ID chief of staff, Sept. 9, 1943, SM, MHI; StoC, 84; corr, James E. Taylor, 131st FA Bn, to Walter H. Beck, March 2, 1944, Texas MFM, 2 (“hip-shooting”); corr, Miles A. Cowles, 36th Div artillery CO, in Texas, 409 (two hundred yards’ range); “Lessons from the Italian Campaign,” March 10, 1944, HQ, NATOUSA, CMH, Italy 353, 12; FLW to MWC, Oct. 11, 1943, CARL, N-6818, chronology; Texas, 237 (“It was thrilling”).

  Dive-bombers caught the U.S.S. Nauset: http://www.ussorleck.org/Namesake.asp; SSA, 274.

  But the preliminary naval bombardment: action report, LCA 403, Sept. 22, 1943, in “Operation AVALANCHE—Report on North Assault,” RN, Oct. 16, 1943, CARL, N-6837; Phil H. Bucklew, “Skipping Salvos off Salerno,” in Mason, 318; Pond, 59–61, 88 (“This way to Naples”), 91; Wallace, 58 (a piano).

  By day’s end, X Corps would land: Molony V, 286; Pond, 61 (“unutterable confusion”); E. McCabe, “The Plan for the Landing at Salerno,” 190a (LST 357); AAR, HM LST 430, Sept. 12, 1943, in “Operation AVALANCHE—Report on Northern Assault,” Oct. 16, 1943, CARL, N-6837.

  Beyond the beaches, the invasion unfolded: Molony V, 284; Simpson, “Air Phase,” 339n; AAR, “Operation Avalanche,” Apr. 21, 1945, Mediterranean Allied Tactical AF, CARL, N-11606, 17 (88mm shells riddled the fuselage).