The Day of Battle

by Rick Atkinson

  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, The 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.

  “taking it green”: W. S. Chalmers, Full Cycle, 177; John F. Hummer, An Infantryman’s Journal, 20 (smoking lamps); war log, U.S.S. Monrovia, NARA RG 38, OCNO, WWII war diaries, box 1233; “Account Written by Brig. Gen. McLain,” ts, summer 1943, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7 cc2, Sicily, “45th Div Landings,” box 247, 1 (sheer cliffs).

  “my communications with Washington”: Chandler, vol. 2, 1212; Crusade in Europe, 172 (“I wish I knew”).

  “all the winds of heaven”: Winton, 316; McCallum, 146 (“Road to the Isles”); Cunningham, 550–51 (“solid sheets”); Francis de Guingand, Operation Victory, 289–90 (gin).

  Eisenhower reviewed: Chandler, vol. II, 1247 (“the operation will proceed”), 1247n; F. M. Whitely to J. N. Kennedy, July 14, 1943, UK NA, WO 204/307 (reconnaissance plane); Stephen, 84 (“recklessness”); Roger Parkinson, A Day’s March Nearer Home, 137 (“not favourable”).

  “To be perfectly honest”: Three Years, 348–49; Alan Lloyd, The Gliders, 39 (searchlight beams); Garland, 109; John S. D. Eisenhower, Allies, 319 (lucky coins); Coles, “Participation of the Ninth and Twelfth Air Forces,” 81 (vital turn).

  “tell some stories”: Three Years, 350; Vincent Orange, Tedder: Quietly in Command, 225; Abraham, “Time Off for War,” 70 (razor).

  “in the lap of the gods”: Miller, 520; DDE, Letters to Mamie, 134–35. Death or Glory

  Patton woke: George S. Patton, War as I Knew It, 65; combat narrative, Mitchell Jamieson, “Invasion of Sicily,” May 2, 1944, NHC, 4–5; diary, July 9, 1943, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 2, folder 15 (pitched overboard).

  “We may feel anxious”: PP, 275–76.

  He found Hewitt: Albert C. Wedemeyer, Wedemeyer Reports!, 224; HKH, “The Sicilian Campaign,” n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, 270/19/6/3, box 242, 83 (ten knots); S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea, 1939–1945, 116 (Unruffled); N.L.A. Jewell, Secret Mission Submarine, 113 (“I saw hundreds”).

  “a mass of flames”: Patton, 65; diary, Hobart Gay, July 9, 1943, USMA Lib, 98; Bernard Stambler, “Campaign in Sicily,” ts, n.d., vol. 2, CMH, 2-3.7 AA.L (“All the beach”); Walter Karig, Battle Report: The Atlantic War, 238 (“Apparently the big ships”).

  The HUSKY commanders: Molony V, 55; SSA, 72, 82 (Yellow Line).

  “all-or-nothing affairs”: Molony V, 67.

  “You will find the Mediterranean”: John Mason Brown, To All Hands, 116; S.W.C. Pack, Operation Husky, 139 (Indonesian waiters); Christopher Buckley, Road to Rome, 27, 31 (Strathnaver’s E-deck); Flint Whitlock, The Rock of Anzio, 39 (friction tape); Martha Harris, ed., “The Harris Family in World War II,” s.p., 1996, 20.

  “the victim coast”: letter, Richard Pisciotta to father, May 18, 1944, 157th Inf, 45th ID, ASEQ, MHI; notes, Russell L. Nioses, ts, n.d., 179th Inf, 45th Div Museum (“wild Indians”); Lee G. Miller, The Story of Ernie Pyle, 268 (“breathing so hard”).

  “The ship is dark”: TR to Eleanor, July 9, 1943, TR, LOC MS Div, box 10.

  “Land the landing force”: Susan H. Godson, Viking of Assault, 70; “History of the 50th (Northumberland) Division During the Campaign in Sicily,” ts, n.d., UK NA, CAB 106/473, 16–17 (Winchester Castle); Three Assault Landings, 1st Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment, DTL, Ft. B, 10 (tots of rum); Farley Mowat, The Regiment, 56–57.

  “The rocking of the small landing craft”: Jack Belden, “As I Saw It,” in Albert H. Smith, Jr., The Sicily Campaign: Recollections of an Infantry Company Commander, 147–49; Bernard Nalty and Truman Strobridge, “The Lucky Chase,” Sea Classics, date uncertain, 14+ (“a basso coughing”).

  “Seasickness and fear”: Paul W. Brown, The Whorehouse of the World, 149; Malcolm S. McLean, “Adventures in Occupied Areas,” ts, 1975, MHI, 75 (pry loose the fingers); Paul W. Brown, 164 (“Oh, Jesus”); George J. Koch, memoir, ts, n.d., 1st Reconnaissance Troop, 1st ID, ASEQ, MHI (“not meant to be sailors”); Robert W. Black, Rangers in World War II, 86 (“American Patrol”); James B. Lyle, “The Operations of Companies A and B, 1st Ranger Battalion, at Gela, Sicily,” n.d., IS, 9 (“God be with you”).

  On the extreme left: admin log, LST-379, July 10, 1943, and action report, “Landing at Torre de Gaffi, Sicily, LST 379,” July 18, 1943; lecture, “Narrative by Rear Adm. Alan G. Kirk,” Pearl Harbor, Oct. 2, 1943, NHC, 6 (Cleats snapped); The Sicilian Campaign, 38–39 (“Our barrage rockets”); George Sessions Perry, “A Reporter at Large,” New Yorker, Aug. 14, 1943, 46+ (“knocking steel and fire”).

  Somehow the cockleshell: “Th
e Lucky Chase,” 14+; OH, “The Reminiscences of Walter C. W. Ansel,” 1970, John T. Mason, Jr., USNI OHD, 139 (“steer through the water”); Intelligence Notes No. 6, July 3, 1943, HQ, 1st ID (Coca-Cola).

  By two A.M.: Jack Belden, “Battle of Sicily,” Time, July 26, 1943, 27+; Donald J. Hunt, “USS LST 313 and Battery A, 33rd Field Artillery,” ts, 1997, MRC FDM, 33 (Coxswains steered); JPL, 42 (“beautiful phenomenon”).

  CHAPTER 2: THE BURNING SHORE

  Land of the Cyclops

  Few Sicilian towns: Robert D. Kaplan, Mediterranean Winter, 132; Karl Baedeker, Southern Italy and Sicily, 321; Pietro Griffo, Gela, 24, 49, 160, 211 (bald skull).

  Patton planned: Edwin M. Sayer, “The Operations of Company A, 505th Parachute Infantry,” Nov. 1947, IS, 6–7; Bradley Biggs, Gavin, 19–20; William B. Breuer, Drop Zone Sicily, 2 (washed out of flight school); Malcolm Muir, Jr., ed., The Human Tradition in the World War II Era, 178–84 (“He could jump”).

  His 505th Parachute Infantry: Muir, 183; Matthew B. Ridgway, Soldier, 62 (roughly one-third); William T. Ryder, “Report on American Airborne Phase of Operation HUSKY,” n.d., NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, box 44, 16; XO diary, 1st Bn, 505th Para Inf Regt, May 17–July 9 1943, NARA RG 407, 382-Inf-(505)-0.3.0, box 12459; MBR, SOOHP, John M. Blair, 1971–72, MHI, II-55 (injuries); Clay Blair, Ridgway’s Paratroopers, 78 (fifty-three broken legs); John C. Warren, Airborne Missions in the Mediterranean, 1942–1945, 25, 28 (without airborne expertise); Ed Ruggero, Combat Jump, 110 (“para-mule”); Ryder, “Report on American Airborne Phase,” n.d., NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, box 44, 17 (“in the bag”).

  white cloth knotted on the left: Robert M. Piper, “The Operation of the 505th Parachute Infantry in the Airborne Landings on Sicily,” 1948, IS, 13; Sayer, “The Operations of Company A, 505th Parachute Infantry,” IS, 6 (baggy trousers), 8 (Benzedrine); Blair, 86–87 (honeypots).

  As the first planes: Warren, 29, 33; James M. Gavin, On to Berlin, 19, 22 (prisoner-of-war tags).

  The slivered moon: Garland, 117.

  Nearly all found Sicily: Blair, 87; Breuer, 71 (fifteen hundred feet); Piper, “The Operation of the 505th Parachute Infantry,” 20 (before they hit the ground); OH, George Mertz, Oct. 2000, Lewis E. Johnston, “The Troop Carrier D-Day Flights,” CD-ROM, author’s possession, 146–57.

  “Stand up”: Breuer, 57; Ruggero, 133–37 (“George!”); James M. Gavin, Airborne Warfare, 2.

  “No one knew”: Charles E. Smith, “The American Campaign in Sicily,” ts, n.d., CMH, Geog Sicily 314.7, 10; Ryder, “Report on American Airborne Phase,” 40; Warren, 33–36 (“prodigious overestimate”); Gavin, On to Berlin, 22 (passwords); Ridgway, 70; “Proceedings of Board of Officers Considering Airborne Operations,” Aug. 1943, AFHQ, JPL, MHI, box 11; “Airborne Operations Conference,” July 24, 1943, Algiers, MHI, D763.S5 A5 (Eight planes); David G. Fivecoat, “Against All Odds,” thesis, May 6, 1993, USMA, 19–23 (three-day casualty tally).

  Certainly they wreaked havoc: Sayer, “The Operations of Company A, 505th Parachute Infantry,” 10–12; Jonathan M. Soffer, General Matthew B. Ridgway: From Progressivism to Reaganism, 1895–1993, 45 (SAFU).

  “At war’s end”: corr, MBR to C. B. Hansen, April 5, 1949, CJB, box 48.

  As paratroopers blundered: Garland, 99; Black, 87; James J. Altieri, Darby’s Rangers: An Illustrated Portrayal of the Original Rangers, 50; Allen N. Towne, Doctor Danger Forward, 67.

  The first Americans: Garland, 137; Harris, ed., 24–30 (“I’ve had it, Harry”).

  Italian gunners: “History of the 26th Infantry in the Present Struggle,” ts, n.d., MRC FDM, 1991.25, box 445, 6; “Personal Diary of Langan W. Swent,” July 10–11, 1943, HIA, box 1, copyright Stanford University; Jack Belden, “Battle of Sicily,” 27+ (“so much blood”); John W. Baumgartner et al., The 16th Infantry, 1798–1946, 38 (“Somebody left his pack”).

  a 16th Infantry rifleman: William T. Dillon, “Pearl Harbor to Normandy and Beyond,” ts, n.d., 1/16th Inf, ASEQ, MHI, 5.

  Shouts and curses: Stambler, “Campaign in Sicily,” 2-3.7 AA.L; Belden, “Battle of Sicily,” 27+ (“screaming and sobbing”).

  Dawn sluiced the eastern sky: Neil McCallum, Journey with a Pistol, 150; Building the Navy’s Bases in World War II, vol. II, 87; “Action Report, Commander Task Unit 86.222,” July 31, 1943, NARA (breaking ramp chains); AAR, 3/16th Inf, Aug. 16, 1943, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7 CC2, box 247; E. S. Van Deusen, “Trucks That Go Down to the Sea,” Army Ordnance, vol. 25, Nov.–Dec. 1943, 555+; James Phinney Baxter III, Scientists Against Time, 243–50 (DUKW); Geoffrey Perret, There’s a War to Be Won, 110–12; Linda Mayo, The Ordnance Department: On Beachhead and Battlefront, 163; Garland, 104; Henry F. Pringle, “Weapons Win Wars,” ts, n.d., CMH, 2-3.7 AB.B, 150–52 (Coast Guard crew).

  Mines proved more galling: OH, Samuel A. D. Hunter, naval intelligence, Advance Bases Group, March 7, 1944, NHC; AAR, HKH, “The Sicilian Campaign,” 55–56; Alfred M. Beck et al., The Corps of Engineers: The War Against Germany, 130; R.L. Carmichael, Jr., “Report on Italian Campaign,” June 15, 1944,#113, Observer Reports, NARA RG 337, AGF G-2, box 55, 8 (“Everything on them goes bad”); “Personal Diary of Langan W. Swent,” July 12, 1943, HIA, box 1; The Sicilian Campaign, 83.

  “The beach was a scene”: JPL, 43; “Action Report, Commander Task Unit 86.222,” July 31, 1943, NARA (Beachmasters bellowed); Sidney L. Jackson, “Signal Communication in the Sicilian Campaign,” July 1945, CARL, N-9425.4, 78; H. H. Dunham, “U.S. Army Transportation and the Conquest of Sicily,” March 1945, Monograph No. 13, ASF, Historical Program Files, NARA RG 336, box 141, 68 (athletic equipment).

  Dawn also brought: memo, D.L. Madeira, Aug. 7, 1943, Destroyer Squadron 17, in action report, U.S.S. Maddox, RG 38, OCNO, WWII Actions and Operational Reports, box 1219.

  “A great blob”: John Mason Brown, 131.

  Past the charred DUKWs: John P. Downing, “No Promotion,” ts, n.d., MRC FDM, 1994.41.1, 218; author visit, Sept. 1996; SSA, 60–61; McCallum, 151–52 (“red-and-yellow lamps”).

  Force X: David W. Hogan, Raiders or Elite Infantry?, 45; Jerome J. Haggerty, “A History of the Ranger Battalion in World War II,” Ph.D. diss, 1982, Fordham University, MHI, 139–40 (“no record of trial”); Michael J. King, William Orlando Darby, 74; “The Rangers,” Life, July 2, 1944, 59+; Thomas M. Johnson, “The Army’s Fightingest Outfit Comes Home,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nov. 5, 1944, in Reader’s Digest, Dec. 1944, 51+; James Altieri, The Spearheaders, 293, 247 (“Fightin’ Rangers”).

  “tearing roofs off”: “History of the 26th Infantry Regiment in the Present Struggle,” ts, n.d., version provided author by Gen. Paul Gorman, 9; Altieri, The Spearheaders, 268–70; Black, 87; William O. Darby and William H. Baumer, Darby’s Rangers: We Led the Way, 87–89 (thunderous salvos); AAR, 1st Ranger Bn, July 10–14, 1943, “Combat Reports,” USMA micro., MP63-8, roll 1 (fifty-two Italians); SSA, 104.

  On Highway 117: Garland, 152–53; diary, July 19, 1943, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 2, folder 15 (thermite grenade); John B. Romeiser, ed., Combat Reporter, 164 (“metal was red hot”); Altieri, Darby’s Rangers (“fled in disorder”); SSA, 104.

  By late morning: Robert Daumer, “Darby’s Ranger,” Darby interview with Jack Belden, www.grunts.net.; W. S. Allgood, “Once Upon a War,” in “2004 Reunion Program Book,” Fort Wayne, Indiana, Aug. 25–30, 2004, author’s possession, 101; Ralph G. Martin, The G.I. War, 1941–1945, 71 (Thomas Paine); Romeiser, ed., 163; “Report on the First Phase of Amgot Occupation, Sicily and Region II,” July–Aug. 1943, Frank J. McSherry papers, MHI, 18 (170 corpses).

  Fifteen miles west: Max Corvo, The O.S.S. in Italy, 1942–1945, 69–75; Stambler, “Campaign in Sicily,” 23; Pyle, 15.

  No one was more relieved: George Biddle, Artist at War, 225; OH, James M. Wilson, Jr., former aide, with author, Apr. 23, 2004, Washington, D.C.; Will Lang, “Lucian King Truscott, Jr.,” Life, Oct. 2, 1944, 97+ (polo handicap); corr, LKT Jr. to Sarah R. Truscott, Nov. 25, 1943, and Jan. 15, 1944, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, box 1, folder 6 (silver nitrate
); Roger J. Spiller, ed., Dictionary of American Military Biography, 1110 (finest combat commander).

  Truscott for six years had taught: Lang, “Lucian King Truscott, Jr.,” Robert H. Berlin, U.S. Army World War II Corps Commanders; Hugh A. Scott, The Blue and White Devils, 66 (“passive voice”); aide’s diaries, Sept. 12, 1943, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, box 18, folder 3 (“What is sin?”); OH, Robert T. Frederick, Jan. 7, 1949, SM, MHI (drank too much); CM, 206 (fifty-year sentences); OH, Wilson, with author (turpentine); memo, LKT Jr., to L. J. McNair, Dec. 27, 1943, Don E. Carleton papers, HIA, box 1 (“Truscott trot”).

  “Do you remember”: corr, LKT Jr. to Sarah, July 7, 1943, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, box 1, folder 6.

  Booby traps on the docks: Pyle, 20; John T. Mason, Jr., The Atlantic War Remembered, 285; Garland, 126–34; The Sicilian Campaign, 109; SSA, 86 (U.S.S. Sentinel).

  Infantrymen drowned: Pyle, 17; CM, 213–14; MEB, mss, #R-127, in “Axis Tactical Operations in Sicily,” ts, n.d., OCMH, #R-147, MHI (“self-demobilization”); memo, William W. Eagles, Jan. 17, 1951, SM, MHI (German shepherds); Norris H. Perkins, North African Odyssey, 82 (“poor Dagoes”).

  Dawn revealed: Karig, 252.

  “white as sharks’ teeth”: Richard Tregaskis, Invasion Diary, 23; Pyle, 22: corr, LKT Jr. to Sarah, July 25, 1943, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, box 1, folder 6.

  Across the Gulf of Gela: lecture, “Narrative by Rear Adm. Alan G. Kirk,” Oct. 2, 1943, Pearl Harbor, NHC, 6–7; Charles C. Bates and John F. Fuller, America’s Weather Warriors, 75; Robert L. Clifford and William J. Maddocks, “Naval Gunfire Support of the Landings in Sicily,” 1984, Monograph No. 5, MHI, 19 (white phosphorus); lecture, John F. Gallaher, U.S.S. Laub, “Naval Gunfire Support,” Oct. 29, 1943, NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, box 170 (cruiser shells).

  The first assault wave: SSA, 137; “Operations of II Corps in Sicily,” Sept. 1, 1943, NARA RG 338, 333.5, box 134 (eleventh-hour transfer); Samuel Eliot Morison, The Two-Ocean War, 259 (Punta Braccetto); Emajean Jordan Buechner, Sparks, 66–67 (grave diggers); AAR, 180th Inf Regt, July 10–Aug. 16, 1943, 45th ID Mus (“played havoc”).