“He was thrashing and fighting”: John Ellis, On the Front Lines, 331.
Two secure bridgeheads merged: Battle, 232–33; Molony VI, 80, 123; Trevelyan, 297 (“Flames of Jerry guns”).
In four days Eighth Army would advance: Trevelyan, 272; Molony VI, 128.
“Mark Clark has laid 4–1”: Ryder, 170.
Clark had troubles enough: James C. Fry, Combat Soldier, 17, 33, 43; John J. Roche, “First Squad, First Platoon,” 1983, 351st Inf, 88th ID, MHI, ASEQ, 6–7; Wyndham H. Bammer, “Operations of Company K, 339th Infantry, in the Attack on Hills 66 and 69,” 1948, IS; Douglas Allanbrook, See Naples, 179 (“who gets Rome?”).
Sheaves of fire from the entrenched 94th Division: G. K. Tanham, “Battlefield Intelligence in World War II: A Case Study of the Fifth Army Front in Italy,” Sept. 1956, Project RAND, RM-1792, CMH, 42; John J. Roche, “First Squad, First Platoon,” 1983, 351st Inf, 88th ID, MHI, ASEQ, 6 (“noise was all of a piece”); John Sloan Brown, Draftee Division, 107 (Red tracer vectors); Eric Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream, 390.
“a serpentine column of steam”: Roche, “First Squad, First Platoon,” 13; Sevareid, 388.
Yet neither division moved far: CtoA, 52, 54; Chester G. Starr, ed., From Salerno to the Alps, 201–2; http://www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/books/2387.htm; Sidney T. Matthews, “Writing Small Unit Actions with the Fifth Army in Italy,” SM, MHI, box 2, 2 (Frederick Schiller Faust); Sevareid, 388 (“stupefyingly dead”); John E. Wallace, The Blue Devil “Battle Mountain” Regiment in Italy, 13–18; Alexander, “The Allied Armies in Italy,” III-11.
That left Juin’s FEC: Anthony Clayton, Three Marshals of France, 83–85; “Draft Report on FEC,” SM, CMH, box 1; Starr, ed., 186–88.
Plunging fire greeted them: Diana F. Butler, “The French Expeditionary Corps in the Battle for Rome,” Cabinet historical section, UK NA, CAB 101/226, 13; Claude R. Hinson, “755th Tank Battalion Supporting the 3rd Algerian Infantry Division of the French Expeditionary Corps During the Advance on Rome,” 1948, IS (singed hair and burning flesh); George Bouille and Pierre Le Goyet, Le Corps Expeditionnaire Française en Italie, 1943–1944, n.d., MHI, trans. Antonio Ali Winston for author, 56–63 (Counterattacking grenadiers).
By midmorning on Friday, May 12: Douglas Porch, The Path to Victory, 556; Fred Majdalany, Cassino, 243; Butler, “The French Expeditionary Corps,” 13; Starr, ed., 267n (casualties approached sixteen hundred); “Draft Report on FEC” (“considerable alarm”); Parker, 320 (“dead take on a waxy look”).
Juin went forward shortly before noon: Michael Carver, ed., The War Lords, 607; Butler, “The French Expeditionary Corps,” 13 (three wounded battalion commanders); Sidney T. Matthews, “The French Drive on Rome,” Revue historique de l’armée, special issue, 1957, 128 (“the wrong foot”).
Through much of the afternoon he scrambled: Clayton, 83–85; John Buchan, “Report on a Visit to the French Expeditionary Corps,” n.d., CMH, appendix A, 1 (“It’s gone wrong”); “Draft Report on FEC” CtoA, 61; Porch, 556 (only reserve division); Carver, ed., 607 (“it will go”).
It went, spectacularly: Butler, “The French Expeditionary,” 15; Porch, 556; Clayton, 83–85; Bouille and Le Goyet, 74–78 (reported Monte Majo captured); Heinrich von Vietinghoff, “71st Infantry Division in Italy,” Sept. 1948, FMS, #C-025, MHI, 7–9, 22; Hans von Greiffenberg, “Field Fortifications in Central Italy,” 1950, FMS, #C-071, MHI, 3–5, 16; CtoA, 61 (“Accelerate the general withdrawal”).
By Sunday the French had advanced: Starr, ed., 188–89; Matthews, “The French Drive on Rome,” 128–29; Molony VI, 139, 145 (“En avant!”), 140 (“Most unpleasant”); Bouille and Le Goyet, 78 (worse than in Russia); Parker, 341; CtoA, 62; Buchan, “Report on a Visit,” appendix A, 1 (“warfare to which we are accustomed”).
The unpleasantries had only begun: “Draft Report on FEC” Starr, ed., 189–92.
“Dark men, dark night”: Trevelyan, 271; Robert Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, photo, 113; Fry, 43 (“troops of the last century”); O’Connor, “Mektoub,” 119 (“dozens of wristwatches”); Hinson, “755th Tank Battalion,” 10 (One unit kept a tiger); Joe Chmiel, “Invasion of Normandy,” ts, n.d., in Matt Urban file, 60th Inf Regt, 9th ID, SOOHP, MHI (“Smokie, smokie”).
It was said that in Sicily: Peter Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 47; OH, Robert J. Wood, 1973, William E. Narus, SOOHP, MHI, 3–42; John Steinbeck, Once There Was a War, 168; Roberta Love Tayloe, Combat Nurse, 77, 79, 83 (doctors assigned numbers); Huebner, 81 (“sing, chatter, and howl”); Alan Williamson, “Adviser to French Colonial Troops,” ts, n.d., Texas MFM, 4 (“women, horses, and guns”).
Up and up they climbed: Starr, ed., 192–93; Butler, “The French Expeditionary Corps,” 19 (“sky was a changeless blue”).
By four P.M. on May 15: Starr, ed., 192–93; Molony VI, 149 (“falling boulders”); Butler, “The French Expeditionary Corps,” 21; Buchan, “Report on a Visit,” appendix F (“grinning savages”).
Men and beasts had exhausted themselves: “Draft Report on FEC.”
On the French left: Brown, 117, 120; CtoA, 65–68, 77; Starr, ed., 207 (dust-churning flotilla).
“rushed off his feet”: Buchan, “Report on a Visit,” 1; Matthews, “The French Drive on Rome,” 128–29 (nearly extinct 71st Division); CtoA, 86 (no more than one hundred riflemen); Starr, ed., 210 (terrorizing horses); Macksey, 212 (“One could cry”).
All this buoyed the Allied high command: diary, MWC, May 14, 1944, Citadel, box 65 (“very pleased”); Carver, ed., 607 (“We’ve got them”).
Only Clark remained somber: diary, MWC, May 14, 1944, Citadel, box 65; CtoA, 77; Tanham, “Battlefield Intelligence in World War II,” 53 (compared with two miles); CtoA, 71–73 (“disciplinary action”); Brown, 127 (traffic snarls).
“I am disappointed”: diary, MWC, May 14, 1944, Citadel, box 65; GK, May 14, 1944 (“Called me about 6 times”).
Even as he lashed: Starr, ed., 226; diary, MWC, May 15, 1944, Citadel, box 65 (“effort of the Eighth Army”).
That same Eighth Army: Anders, 178; Terlecki, 83; Kurzman, 237; Ken Ford, Cassino 1944, 78–79; Molony VI, 130n (“oddments”); Rudolf Böhmler, Monte Cassino, 266 (“Impossible to get wounded”).
In danger of encirclement: Albrecht Kesselring, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring, 200–205; Jean-Yves Nasse, Green Devils, 113; Nigel Nicolson, The Grenadier Guards in the War of 1939–1945, vol. 2, 427; Butler, ed., “Human Interest,” 4; war diary, 1st Guards Bde, May 18, 1944, UK NA, WO 170/514 (“Cassino is lost”).
The struggle for the high ground: “Operations by 2nd Polish Corps,” 40; Anders, 179 (six-man patrol); John H. Green, “The Battles for Cassino,” AB, no. 13, 1976, 1+ (cracked church bell); Piekalkiewicz, 181 (Benedict’s candlelit crypt).
Just before ten A.M. the lancers’: Anders, 178; Parker, 352-53; http://www.krakowinfo.com/signal2.way; Trevelyan, 274.
At 11:30 A.M. British signalers: Butler, ed., “Human Interest,” 4; Nicolson, 427–28; Ryder, 169; “Operations by 2nd Polish Corps,” 41; Molony VI, 134; Smith, 172 (“means a great deal”).
For the first time in five months: war diary, 1st Guards Bde, May 18, 1944; Betsy Wade, ed., Forward Positions: The War Correspondence of Homer Bigart, 44–45; General Sir Sidney Chevalier Kirkman, “3rd and 4th Cassino,” Royal Artillery Historical Society, Proceedings, vol. 11, no. 3, Jan. 1969, 94+.
In the abbey itself, further investigation: Trevelyan, 274; Tommaso Leccisotti, Monte Cassino, 132–33; E. T. DeWald, “Inspection Trip to Abbey of Monte Cassino, May 27, 1944,” Henry C. Newton papers, MHI (“a Mesopotamian tell”).
A solitary American fighter pilot: Parker, 357; Walter Robson, Letters from a Soldier, 96–97.
General von Senger, freshly bemedaled: Frido von Senger und Etterlin, “War Diary of the Italian Campaign,” 1953, FMS, #C-095b, MHI, 124; Vietinghoff, “71st Infantry Division in Italy,” 31 (found the Gustav Line ruptured); Molony VI, 114, 143 (“frightful”); Frido von Senger und Etterlin, “The Drive on Rome,” Sept
. 1951, FMS, #C-097b, MHI, 11 (“the corps had been breached”); Neil Short, German Defences in Italy in World War II, 9n.
“It was left to me”: Frido von Senger und Etterlin, Neither Fear nor Hope, 248.
The task was formidable: Albert Kesselring et al., “German Version of the History of the Italian Campaign,” n.d., CARL, N-16671.1-3, 216; Walter Warlimont, “OKW Activities—The Italian Theater, 1 Apr.–31 Dec. 1944,” n.d., FMS, #C-099b, MHI, 23 (spotter planes); F. M. Sallagar, “Operation STRANGLE: A Case Study of Tactical Air Interdiction,” Feb. 1972, RAND, R-851, 68 (“unremitting Allied fighter-bomber”); II Corps G-2, May 19, 1944, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 6 (horses had been killed); memo, Joseph L. Langevin, VI Corps G-2, to LKT Jr., May 18, 1944, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, box 13, folder 4 (59 German battalions); John Ellis, Brute Force, 324 (only 405 men fit to fight).
Italian supply-truck drivers: journal, Fourteenth Army, May 19–22, 1944, “The German Operation at Anzio,” Apr. 1946, WD, John Lucas papers, MHI, box 9, 104; Kesselring et al, “German Version,” 127 (barrages severed phone lines); A. G. Steiger, “The Italian Campaign,” July 1948, historical section, Canadian Army HQ, report no. 20, MHI, 59 (“I demand a clear picture”); F. W. Winterbotham, The Ultra Secret, 116.
In truth, Kesselring had been outgeneraled: W.G.F. Jackson, Alexander of Tunis as Military Commander, 285; Matthews, “The French Drive on Rome,” 128–29; Sallagar, “Operation STRANGLE,” 70–71 (not until May 19); Kesselring, Memoirs, 201–5; Senger, “The Drive on Rome,” 11; Robin Kay, Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War, vol. 2, From Cassino to Trieste, 29; Walter Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 1939–1945, 416; Molony VI, 164.
“offensive against the cultural center of Europe”: weekly air intelligence summary, #78, May 15, 1944, Fifth Army, G-3 journal, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 6; corr, May 18, 1944, in G-2 report, II Corps, June 3, 1944, Robert H. Adleman papers, HIA, box 13 (“You have no idea”).
“like spontaneous fires exploding”: Fred Cederberg, The Long Road Home, 121; Blaxland, 107 (crammed along a six-mile front); C. F. Comfort, Artist at War, 153 (“a vaporous fantasy”); Trevelyan, 297 (“clear their own minefields”).
“the Shermans pitching like destroyers”: Kay, 46; Robin Neillands, Eighth Army, 293; Carver, 317; Butler, ed., “Human Interest,” 4–5 (eighteen hours to travel thirteen miles); Mark Zuehlke, The Liri Valley, 232 (“nose to arse”).
If the Hitler Line lacked natural impediments: Erich Rothe, “Tactical Mission, Trace and Organization of the ‘Senger-Riegel,’” May 1947, FMS, #D-170, MHI, 3–6; Molony VI, 183; Mayo, 215; Short, 10, 18, 30–31, 50; John E. Krebs, To Rome and Beyond, 66 (“only trace of the crew”).
“Head wounds are many”: Huebner, 77.
Sergeants doled out rum rations: Cederberg, 121; Carver, 194 (“I couldn’t run a race”); Butler, ed., “Human Interest,” 3–5 (“melancholy sight”); Krebs, 77 (shot through the heart).
On average a thousand German prisoners: memo, “Advances Made by Fifth Army Corps [sic],” n.d., MWC papers, Citadel, box 3; “Interrogation Reports,” May 1944, Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Center, NARA RG 407, E 47, AFHQ, 95-AL1-2.13, box 164 (“weird and wonderful collection”); Huebner, 76.
As the second week of the Allied offensive: CtoA, 94–97; author visits, May 6, 2004, Nov. 29, 2006; Blaxland, 119 (eight hundred artillery shells); Calculated, 323 (bulldozers were needed); Matthews, “The French Drive on Rome,” 135 (“bleeding to death”); “Draft Report on FEC” Butler, “The French Expeditionary Corps,” 25–26.
From west to east the Hitler Line: CtoA, 156; weekly intel summary, “No. 91, week ending 22 May 1944,” AFHQ G-2, NARA RG 407, E 427, 95-AL1-2.6 (“The enemy has denuded”).
A Fifth Army Show
Mark Clark shifted his command post: Calculated, 357; diary, MWC, May 22, 1944, Citadel, box 65; Sevareid, 393 (“Sit down, gentlemen”).
For half an hour, unhurried and precise: Robert H. Adleman and George Walton, Rome Fell Today, 188; Alexander, “The Allied Armies in Italy,” III-16; Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring, 603; CM, 372.
Under Operation BUFFALO: diary, MWC, May 22, 1944, Citadel, box 65; Sevareid, 394; Adleman and Walton, 188.
As the correspondents shuffled: Sevareid, 394 (“in personal command”); msg, MWC to A. Gruenther, May 23, 1944, MWC papers, Citadel, box 63 (“no restriction”).
If Clark had disclosed much: Calculated, 350–51.
A face-to-face meeting at Caserta: msg, J. Harding to MWC, May 19, 1944, MWC papers, Citadel, box 63; Calculated, 351–53; diary, MWC, May 20, 1944, Citadel, box 65.
Clark suspected double-dealing: Texas, 370; diary, MWC, May 20 and 22, 1944, Citadel, box 65.
“Hell, we shouldn’t even be thinking”: Adleman and Walton, 206–7; Calculated, 252–53 (“more than deserved”); msg, MWC to LKT Jr., May 21, 1944, 1705 hrs, LKT Jr. papers, GCM Lib, box 12, folder 11.
“Regrouping would take place”: diary, MWC, May 18, 1944, Citadel, box 65; Adleman and Walton, 206–7 (“the great prize”).
“I’m just a dog-face soldier”: Donald G. Taggart, ed., History of the Third Infantry Division in World War II, 149.
Light rain had fallen: CM, 371; Joseph A. Springer, Black Devil Brigade, 211 (parachute cord); John Shirley, I Remember: Stories of a Combat Infantryman in World War II, 4 (after receiving no mail from home); Sevareid, 395–96 (“nothing ever new”).
Clark had snatched a few hours’ rest: MWC to Renie, May 26, 1944, MWC pers corr, Citadel; msg, MWC to A. Gruenther, May 23, 1944, MWC papers, Citadel, box 63; aide’s diaries, May 23, 1944, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, box 18, folder 3; OH, Robert T. Frederick, Jan. 7, 1949, SM, MHI; CM, 371; Calculated, 357; Adleman and Walton, 188 (Neither man said much).
“They can hear this in Rome”: Sevareid, 395; diary, Robert M. Marsh, May 23, 1944, 81st Armored Reconnaissance Bn, 1st AD, MHI, ASEQ (like heat from a blacktop road); CtoA, 120.
Then, at 6:30, the riflemen spilled: Frank M. Izenhour, “Breakout Anzio Beachhead,” ts, 1946, CARL, N-2253.10; George F. Howe, The Battle History of the 1st Armored Division, 318; CtoA, 128; Shirley, 9 (“I rolled him over”).
Farther east, Company K: G-3 journal, 3rd ID, May 23, 1944, 0800 hrs, 1935 hrs, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 6 (“It is going too slow”); CtoA, 130, 133 (“We have no such words”).
Just past noon, five more Sherman tanks: msg, MWC to GCM, May 17, 1944, NARA RG 165, OPD, WD, top secret general corr, 312.4-319.1, box 16; Mayo, 210; OH, John A. Heintges, 1974, Jack A. Pellicci, SOOHP, MHI, 241; Shirley, 2–7.
Yard by bloody yard: Initial 3rd Division casualties for the day exceeded 1,600, but many of those were lost soldiers temporarily listed as missing. CtoA, 137; Taggart, ed., 164.
Damaged boys outnumbered the litter bearers: Nathan William White, From Fedala to Berchtesgaden, 113; Trevelyan, 284 (“Must I be knocked off”).
Truscott’s flanks found hard fighting: CtoA, 120, 138; OH, Frederick, Jan. 7, 1949; William G. Sheldon, “Anzio to Rome, Battle, 1944, “ts, n.d., in Robert H. Adleman papers, HIA, box 7, 5–6; Robert D. Burhans, The First Special Service Force, 216–17; G-3 journal, VI Corps, May 23–24, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 6 (“All hell has broken”); Flint Whitlock, The Rock of Anzio, 288, 300 (sidestepping skeletons).
By nightfall the 45th reported 458 casualties: CtoA, 138; Van T. Barfoot, “The Operation of the 3rd Platoon, Company L, 157th Infantry, in the Battle of Anzio During the Push to Rome,” 1948, IS. Sergeant Barfoot earned the Medal of Honor for his heroism on May 23.
“The fellow in the bed next to me”: F. Eugene Liggett, “No, Not Yet: Military Memoirs,” ts, n.d., 158th FA, 157th Inf, 45th ID, ASEQ, MHI, 7–8; Whitlock, 297 (“always getting cold”).
“Whether or not we can get our tanks through”: corr, E. N. Harmon to David G. Barr, May 15, 1944, NARA RG 319, CA, box 6; OH, T. J. Conway, Fifth Army planner, June 27, 1950, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 5 (hundred tanks in the first half hour); OH, James S. Simmerman, CO, 2nd Bn, 13th A
rmored Regt, Apr. 24, 1950, SM, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 5 (poorly marked American minefield); “History of Ordnance Service in the Mediterranean Theater,” n.d., CMH, 8-4 JA, 83; Howe, 324.
On the left, however, Combat Command A: CtoA, 121–23; AAR, “10th Engineer Combat Battalion, Cisterna-Rome Operation,” ts, n.d., CMH, Geog Italy, 314.7; OH, Robert Linville, CO, 3rd Bn, 6th Armored Inf Regt, May 9, 1950, SM, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 5 (tin cans filled with rocks); Howe, 324.
By one P.M. U.S. tanks had crossed: AAR, “Salerno to Florence,” Fifth Army Antiaircraft Artillery, 1945, MHI, 21–22.
fear that a premature detonation: OH, Linville, May 9, 1950; OH, ENH, Dec. 14, 1948; OH, Ben Crosby, XO, CCB, March 9, 1950, all in SM, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 5.
The day had cost Harmon eighty-six tanks: Anzio Beachhead, 119; OH, Lawrence R. Dewey, 1st AD chief of staff, July 20, 1948, SM, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 5; StoA, 267n.
Yet across the front fifteen hundred enemy: CM, 372–74; journal, Fourteenth Army, May 23, 1944, 107; CtoA, 140; Steiger, “The Italian Campaign,” 74.
“All attacks jumped off”: VI Corps G-3 journal file, May 23–24, 1944, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 6.
Harmon’s tanks looped behind Cisterna: Howe, 325; Carmene J. DeFelice, “Carmene’s Wartime Chronicle,” ts, n.d., 12th AR, 1st AD, ASEQ, MHI; Audie Murphy, To Hell and Back, 154 (“shooting skeets”); CtoA, 142–44; ADC journal, VI Corps, May 24, 1944, 1515 hrs, NARA RG 319, CA, box 6 (“I could get into Valmontone”).
Thursday morning was better yet: Howe, 328; Wiley H. O’Mohundro, “From Mules to Missiles,” ts, n.d., MHI, 57; “Lessons Learned in the Battle from the Garigliano to North of Rome,” July 15, 1944, Fifth Army, training memo, #12, DTL, Ft. B, 10; Paul A. Cundiff, 45th Infantry CP, 181 (most destroyed town); CtoA, 147, 155.
Clark watched with pleasure: Alfred M. Beck et al., The Corps of Engineers: The War Against Germany, 211; Sevareid, 400; CtoA, 220 (filled the craters).
“The joining up of my two Fifth Army forces”: msg, MWC to A. Gruenther, May 25, 1944, MWC papers, Citadel, box 63.
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