The Day of Battle

by Rick Atkinson

  “There were still Germans”: diary, Oct. 19, 1943, JMG, MHI, box 10; Downes, 158 (red Italian grenades); Robert Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 102–3; Biddle, 152–57; George Biddle, George Biddle’s War Drawings, 49.

  “the most beautiful city”: Naples with Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast, 35; C.R.S. Harris, Allied Administration of Italy, 1943–1945, 85 (blew up the main aqueduct); msg, Fifth Army to AFHQ, Naples damage estimate, Oct. 13, 1943, MWC, Citadel, box 63 (forty sewer lines); Building the Navy’s Bases in World War II, vol. 2, 88; “German Demolition Policy in Occupied Russia and Italy,” June 15, 1944, Ministry of Economic Warfare Intelligence Weekly, NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, ANSCOL, box 467; Alfred M. Beck et al., The Corps of Engineers: The War Against Germany, 168; Leo J. Meyer, “Strategy and Logistical History: MTO,” ts, n.d., CMH, 2-3.7 CC5, XIX-11 (crashing two trains); “Engineer History, Fifth Army, Mediterranean Theater,” n.d., MHI, 69 (Coal stockpiles); “History of the First Special Service Force,” n.d., Robert T. Frederick papers, HIA, box 1, 52–53 (Even the stairwells).

  The opportunities for cultural atrocity: Tompkins, 276; SSA, 311 (city archives); memo, Mason Hammond and F.H.J. Maxse to F. J. McSherry, Nov. 5, 1943, “Report of AMGOT Divisions, up to Nov. 1, 1943,” part 3, Frank J. McSherry papers, MHI; Downes, 159n; Lynn H. Nicholas, The Rape of Europa, 232 (stored in Nola).

  Worse yet was the sabotage around the great port: U.S. Army engineers estimated that half the damage was from Allied bombs, half from German demolitionists. Beck, 167.

  Half a mile inland: Tregaskis, 158; H.V. Morton, A Traveller in Southern Italy, 230; Homer, The Odyssey, trans. Robert Fagles, book 12, line 199 (“high, thrilling song”); memo, Paul Gardner, damage to cultural facilities, Naples, Oct. 27, 1943, and draft report, MTOUSA IG, Dec. 20, 1943, both in NARA RG 492, MTOUSA, IG, 333.5, box 2014; Gervasi, 499 (Grand hotels); Paul W. Brown, The Whorehouse of the World, 216.

  Not a single vessel: Meyer, “Strategy and Logistical History,” xix–10; Joseph S. Gorlinski, “Naples: Case History in Invasion,” Military Engineer, vol. 36, no. 222 (Apr. 1944), 109+; Battle, 124; Beck, 168 (fifty-eight of sixty-one berths); “Rehabilitation of the Port of Naples,” May 1944, NARA RG 336, ASF, Historical Program Files, chief of transportation, 190/33/30/00, box 559, 4–6 (Pier F); “Logistical History of NATOUSA/MTOUSA, Nov. 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427, AFHQ, 95-AL1-4, box 203, 104 (pair of ninety-ton cranes); HKH, “Action Report of the Salerno Landings, Sept.–Oct. 1943,” 1945, CMH, 156–57 (seeded the harbor).

  “small, aged animals”: Brown, 219; SSA, 311; lecture, W. A. Sullivan, “Ship Salvage and Harbor Clearance,” 1947, Society of Military Engineers, Cincinnati, in “World War II Histories and Historical Reports,” #445, NHC, 16 (“demolitions for revenge”); Meyer, “Strategy and Logistical History,” XIX–13 (Marseilles and Cherbourg).

  equivalent of sixty-eight Liberty ships: HKH, “Action Report of the Salerno Landings, Sept.–Oct. 1943,” 1945, CMH, 156–57; Gorlinski, “Naples,” 109+.

  Twenty-nine Italian divisions: StoC, 7; F. W. Deakin, The Brutal Friendship, 530; Tompkins, 229 (forged orders); David Hunt, A Don at War, 221 (“Each bomb is chipping”).

  island of Cephalonia: E. F. Fisher, “Memo for the Record,” March 28, 1973, from Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht, Band III, zweiter Halbband, 1118–133, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 006; Richard Lamb, War in Italy, 1943–1945, 132–33; R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini’s Italy, 504; Alex Bowlby, Countdown to Cassino, 7n; Lamb, 132–33 (sunk at sea); Melton S. Davis, Who Defends Rome?, 466 (“Italians are burning”).

  “The only Italian army”: Lamb, 87, 88–89, 104; Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich, 741–42 (“military internees”); Karl Theodor Koerner, “Rail Transportation Problems in Italy,” Apr. 1947, FMS, #D-010, MHI, 8.

  A German radio intercept: Albert Praun, “German Radio Intelligence,” March 1950, FMS, #P-038, CMH, 68; John Winton, Cunningham, 329; Hunt, 230–31 (“size of a tennis court”); Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani, The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 307; Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vol. 7, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 248, 931 (catalogue of booty); “Under the German Yoke,” ts, n.d., U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Historical Division, X-39, 1 (60,000 motor vehicles).

  The second escape: S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea, 1939–1945, 188; SSA, 304–8 (“even more astonishing”).

  The third escape: “Military Campaigns and Political Events in Italy, 1942–1943,” Jan. 1946, WD, Strategic Services Unit, A-63366, CMH, Geog Files, Italy, 370.22, 34–35; Elizabeth Wiskemann, The Rome-Berlin Axis, 311; Otto Skorzeny, Skorzeny’s Secret Missions, 57–58; Gerald Pawle, The War and Colonel Warden, 249–60; “The Rescue of Mussolini,” AB, no. 22, 1978, 12+ (vacated ski resort); Bruton F. Hood, “The Gran Sasso Raid,” MR, Feb. 1959, 55+; Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini, 300 (endless carping); Benito Mussolini, My Rise and Fall, 137 (removed all sharp objects); Peter Neville, Mussolini, 177 (“one must suffer”).

  Soon enough his whereabouts leaked: O. Skorzeny and K. Radl, “The Rescue of Mussolini,” n.d., intelligence translation no. H-7563, DA, 72–93; John Toland, Adolf Hitler, 754 (badly scarred visage); “Military Campaigns,” 47 (gliders began skittering); Skorzeny, 98–99 (“the Führer has sent me”); “How Strong Is the Enemy Today?” 1944, OSS film, NARA RG 111, M2997 (Storch airplane); StoC, 539; Louis P. Lochner, ed., The Goebbels Diaries, 468–69.

  two dozen Jews: Martin Gilbert, The Second World War, 462.

  The first German time bomb: Clark, “Salerno,” 1; “History of the Peninsular Base Section,” 1944, CMH, 8-4 HA 1, vol. 2 (“The first two floors”); Robert H. Welker, A Different Drummer, 208–9.

  The blast killed and wounded: Clay Blair, Ridgway’s Paratroopers, 164; Welker, 212–14.

  Three days later, on Sunday morning: “Engineer History, Fifth Army,” 35; Blair, 164; Calculated, 218; OH, Louis Bednar, 82nd Airborne Div, Sept. 17, 2002, VHP (“sacks of burlap”); Ross S. Carter, Those Devils in Baggy Pants, 55 (“Nice work, boys”); MWC to Renie, Oct. 10, 1943, MWC, Citadel; memo, “Security of Material Bombs Explosion in Naples,” n.d., 158th Bomb Disposal, NARA RG 331, AFHQ micro, R 367-F, box 216 (Prince of Piedmont barracks).

  “bodies overcome by the ash”: Norman Lewis, Naples ’44, 40; “History of the Peninsular Base Section,” vol. 2; “Engineers in the Italian Campaign, 1943–1945,” n.d., UK, MHI Lib, 21; Harry L. Coles, “The Army Air Forces in Amphibious Landings in World War II,” 1953, USAF Historical Division, no. 96, 34 (“suspicious noises”).

  Fears that more hidden bombs: memo, J. G. Barney to PWB, Fifth Army, Nov. 3, 1943, C. D. Jackson papers, DDE Lib, box 1; Margaret Bourke-White, Purple Heart Valley, 29; Lewis, 43; Malcolm Muggeridge, The Infernal Grove, 229.

  “There are 57 varieties of grief”: Harry L. Coles and Albert K. Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors, 316; Lewis, 31, 61; “History of the Peninsular Base Section,” vol. 2; Biddle, 160; Robert L. Wagner, The Texas Army, 58; William J. Diamond, “Water Is Life,” Military Engineer, Aug. 1947, 330+; Sullivan, “Ship Salvage and Harbor Clearance,” 19.

  Twenty-six thousand tons: Harris, 88; George C. S. Benson and Maurice Neufeld, “American Military Government in Italy,” in Carl J. Friedrich, ed., American Experiences in Military Government in World War II, 137–40; Gervasi, 501; Lewis, 84 (bitter jest).

  Reconstruction had begun: “History of the Peninsular Base Section,” vol. 2; Gorlinski, “Naples: Case History in Invasion,” 109; Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope, A Sailor’s Odyssey, 572 (“army of ants”); Lida Mayo, The Ordnance Department: On Beachhead and Battlefront, 187; H. H. Dunham, “U.S. Army Transportation and the Italian Campaign,” ts, Sept. 1945, mono #17, NARA RG 336, ASF, historical program files, chief of transportation, box 142, 60 (only three berths); booklet, 6th Port Bn, Walter J. Muller papers, HIA, box 2 (more tonnage handled); McLean, “Adventures in Occupied Areas,” 92.

  Garbagemen sang: OH, Frank Schultz, Apr. 2002, March 2006, with author, Washington, D.C.; Lewis, 51–52 (hunchbacks); Carter, 53 (“
wasn’t safe to go to town”); Warren P. Munsell, Jr., The Story of a Regiment, 40n (dropped your voice); Mina Curtiss, ed., Letters Home, 93; Anders Kjar Arnbal, The Barrel-Land Dance Hall Rangers, 164 (Monopoly money); “Second Orientation Conference at Fifth Army Headquarters,” Nov. 15, 1943, AGF observer report, #77, NARA RG 337, E 15A, box 53 (resistant to sulfa); John F. Hummer, An Infantryman’s Journal, 37, 44; diary, William Russell Hinckley, Oct. 6, 1943, author’s possession (“‘Fik’ can be had”).

  Some soldiers behaved badly: memo, Paul Gardner to W. W. Pence, Nov. 19, 1943, NARA RG 492, MTOUSA IG, box 2014; Nicholas, 233 (“stuffed toucans”); memos, Palazzo Reale custodian, Nov. 26, Dec. 5, 1943, in draft report, IG investigation, Dec. 20, 1943, NARA RG 492, MTOUSA IG, box 2014; T. Moffatt Burriss, Strike and Hold, 57, 61 (“He drained his glass”).

  Airdromes at Foggia: Mary H. Williams, ed., Chronology, 1941–1945, USAWWII, 138.

  Everywhere, Allied forces: Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms, 616–17, 636, 643; Gilbert, 455, 462–64 (“We are still retreating”).

  “He always wants speed”: JPL, 165, 167.

  “Rome by Christmas”: Strome Galloway, A Regiment at War, 103; Chandler, vol. 3, 1485; Russell B. Capelle, Casablanca to the Neckar, 21 (studying German); Ralph Bennett, Ultra and the Mediterranean Strategy, 252 (“strength to make a front”); Gilbert, 455 (“as soon as the Russians”); Robert Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 764 (“should be in Rome”).

  “Watch Where You Step and Have No Curiosity at All”

  inaugural crossing in Europe: From the Volturno to the Winter Line, 53.

  “Sleep, swine”: Audie Murphy, To Hell and Back, 31; John A. Elterich, “Patrol Actions Prior to and During the Operation of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment,” 1948, IS, 11; Tregaskis, 169–72.

  rafts borrowed from the Navy: OH, Robert Petherick, n.d., CMH, Geog, Italy, 370.24; Orrin A. Tracy, “The Operations of the 7th Infantry, Volturno River Crossing,” 1946, IS, 14, 19; Barry W. Fowle, ed., Builders and Fighters, 425–27; CM, 268–69.

  “Unfortunately I’m beginning to realize”: LKT Jr. to Sarah, Sept. 1, 30, 1943, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, box 1, folder 6; StoC, 197–98 (1:55 A.M.); “Lessons from the Italian Campaign,” March 10, 1944, HQ, NATOUSA, CMH, Geog Italy, 353, 41 (three miles wide).

  British infantrymen struggled: Chester G. Starr, ed. From Salerno to the Alps, 45–46; memoir, Aidan Mark Sprot, ts, 1947, LHC, 93; “Invasion of Italian Mainland, Summary of Operations Carried Out by British Troops Under Command 5 U.S. Army,” n.d., CMH, 370.2, 15–16 (six hundred yards deep); CM, 271; Moorehead, Eclipse, 62.

  With his left flank exposed: aide’s diaries, Oct. 13, 1943, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, box 18, folder 3; AAR, “Report on Crossing of the River Volturno,” 36th Engineer Regt, Nov. 5, 1943, JPL, MHI, box 11; Will Lang, “Lucian King Truscott, Jr.,” Life, Oct. 2, 1944, 96+ (“Have you tried it?”).

  At eleven A.M. the first Sherman: From the Volturno to the Winter Line, 31; Beck et al., 176; AAR, H. K. Koberstein, 10th Engineer Bn, “Engineer Phase on the Crossing of the Volturno River,” Nov. 3, 1943 (eighty jeeps); “Invasion of Italian Mainland, Summary of Operations Carried Out by British Troops,” 36 (only 3,500 engineers [as of early November]); Leslie W. Bailey, Through Hell and High Water, 131; Edmund F. Ball, Staff Officer with the Fifth Army, 232.

  “Like the earthworm”: LKT Jr. to Sarah, Oct. 14 and 22, 1943, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, box 1, folder 6.

  Anglo-Americans had advanced thirty-five miles: Albert Kesselring et al., “German Version of the History of the Italian Campaign,” CARL, N-16671.1-3, 36; Kenneth S. Davis, Soldier of Democracy, 450 (“masterminding”).

  Italy would break their backs: “Narrative: Operations Against Italy,” Oct. 20, 1943, Arthur S. Nevins papers, MHI.

  German demolitions had begun: “Engineer History, Fifth Army,” 7, 10 (“only five prefabricated”), 77 (“whole trees to bulls”); “Second Orientation Conference at Fifth Army Headquarters”(“no bridge or culvert”); diary, MWC, Nov. 1, 1943, Citadel, box 64 (one thousand bridges); Fowle, ed., 191 (three thousand spans); Beck, 178 (eighteen feet in ten hours).

  “new tracks across the rubble”: CM, 263; Ralph G. Martin, The G.I. War, 1941–1945, 105 (“broken bathtubs”); “Engineers in the Italian Campaign, 1943–1945,” 23 (rolling mills); Beck et al., 175 (They used timber).

  “It got darker”: Don Robinson, News of the 45th, 149; Frank Henius, Italian Sentence Book for the Soldier, 1943 (raining torrents); Ronald Blythe, ed., Private Words, 4 (“one may write of mist”); Lawrence D. Collins, The 56th Evac Hospital, 94 (“spots on the dice”), 121; memoir, Henry E. Gardiner, ts, n.d., USMA Arch, 181 (pooled in their messkits).

  “The desert war”: Battle, 122; Peter Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 247 (“honest color”); Martin, 105 (“too thick to drink”); Albert F. Simpson, “Air Phase of the Italian Campaign to 1 January 1944,” June 1946, AAFRH, #115, CMH, 351n (undermined air superiority); John North, ed., The Alexander Memoirs, 1940–1945, 117 (“savage versatility”); Don Woerpel, A Hostile Sky, 140 (“German weather”).

  Mines made it much worse: OH, Andrew J. Goodpaster, Aug. 17, 2004, with author, Washington, D.C.; From Pachino to Ortona, Canadian Army at War, CARL, N-14352, 104 (“All roads”); “German Tactics in Italy, No. 1, Salerno to Anzio,” May 28, 1944, AFHQ, G-2, CMH, Geog files, 11–12; John H. Roush, ed., World War II Reminiscences, 60–61 (“I never had a moment”); “Second Orientation Conference at Fifth Army Headquarters” (“Watch where you step”).

  “you could follow our battalions”: report, AGF Board, Dec. 5, 1943, NARA RG 407, E 427, NATOUSA, 95-USF1-2.0; Frank Gervasi, “Battle at Cassino,” Collier’s, March 18, 1944, 20+; Gerald Linderman, The World Within War, 117 (“nutcracker”); Charles F. Marshall, A Ramble Through My War, 19; Beck et al., 181; G-2 Periodic No. 28, II Corps, Aug. 9, 1943, Benjamin A. Dickson papers, MHI, box 4; report, AGF Board, Dec. 5, 1943, NARA RG 407, E 427, NATOUSA, 95-USF1-2.0 (two chaplains lost legs).

  “A man’s foot”: Klaus H. Huebner, A Combat Doctor’s Diary, 73; OH, Richard A. Williams, Jan. 25, 2003, with author (“they would still scream”); Bill Mauldin, The Brass Ring, 200; James Phinney Baxter III, Scientists Against Time, 101–2; Fowle, ed., 164–68; Beck et al., 183; Erna Risch and Chester L. Kieffer, The Quartermaster Corps: Organization, Supply, and Services, vol. 2, 331 (“M dogs”).

  expedient fighting withdrawal: Kent Roberts Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, 235.

  an intense debate raged: Walter Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 1939–1945, 385–86; David Irving, The Trail of the Fox, 309–10 (“Domineering, obstinate”).

  Italy remained a comparatively minor theater: Molony V, 381–82; Rudolf Böhmler, Monte Cassino, 67–68 (more vulnerable to enemy bombers).

  The Italian peninsula was narrowest: H. Alexander, “The Allied Armies in Italy,” CMH, II-7; brochure, “Ciociaria: A Land to Experience,” n.d., Regione Lazio, 33 (wolves and bears); memo, A. Kesselring, Nov. 1, 1943, A. G. Steiger, “The Campaign in Southern Italy,” Nov. 1947, Canadian Army hq, Ottawa, appendix L (“impregnable system”); Wallace, 101 (“break their teeth”).

  changed his mind in favor of Kesselring: Böhmler, 71; Basil Liddell Hart, ed., The Rommel Papers, 445–47; Kenneth Macksey, Kesselring: The Making of the Luftwaffe, 186 (“leadership without optimism”); Thomas R. Brooks, The War North of Rome, 28 (“extraordinarily brave”).

  “I’ll take it as it comes”: Liddell Hart, ed., 447; Greenfield, ed., 242 (“end of withdrawals”); Irving, 311–14 (“hard times lie ahead”).

  Thanks to Ultra: Ralph Bennett, Ultra and the Mediterranean Strategy, 251–53; F.H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, 173–74.

  “We are committed”: “Review of Battle Situation in Italy, 21 October 1943,” in H. Alexander, “The Allied Armies in Italy,” CMH, II-50, II-13 (“cul-de-sac”); GS V, 69 (only eleven facing a German force); Molony V, 474n (Twenty inches of rain); StoC, 219–20 (less than a mile a day). The German forc
e in Italy soon reached twenty-five divisions.

  “essential for us to retain the initiative”: Chandler, vol. 3, 1529.

  Nor did the high command: StoC, 185–87; Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring, 247 (“vindicates our strategy”).

  The prospect of waging: Molony V, 473; StoC, 187 (line on a map).

  Alexander’s despondency: W.G.F. Jackson, Alexander of Tunis as Military Commander, 248; Gervasi, 518 (“punch, punch, punch”); Lord Tedder, With Prejudice, 488 (“ever get to Rome”).

  “ancient truths”: Jackson, 253; corr, B. L. Montgomery to A. F. Harding, Oct. 31, 1943, Bernard L. Montgomery collections, IWM, ancillary collections 14, file 3.

  The Mountainous Hinterland

  “The road to Rome is a long one”: JJT, XIII, 12.

  among two thousand veterans transferred: memo, LKT Jr. to MWC and CG, NATOUSA, Dec. 17, 1943, NARA RG 407, E 427, NATOUSA, 95-USF1-2.0.

  “Life is good”: JJT, X-1, 5; Biddle, 169, 172.

  Victory Road: Gervasi, 513; “Lessons from the Italian Campaign,” March 10, 1944, NARA RG 407, E 427, 95-USF1-04, box 250, 10 (“mountainous hinterland”); Alice Leccese Powers, Italy in Mind, 64 (chimneys poking like snorkels); McLean, “Adventures in Occupied Areas,” 65 (Peasants keened); Biddle, 187, 204 (“Nothing I can do”).

  Across the cobblestones: StoC, 210, 218; Lewis, 161; Marshall, 20 (diapered in newspapers); George Biddle’s War Drawings, 2 (“The stretchers are coming”).

  Biddle sketched the tableau: Biddle, Artist at War, 166–67, 204, 219; Brown, 337 (powdered water); Lloyd M. Wells, From Anzio to the Alps, 35 (“Easy, boys”).

  For a few weeks, Biddle: George Biddle, “Report from the Italian Front,” Life, vol. 16, no. 1 (Jan. 3, 1944), 13+; George Biddle’s War Drawings, 2 (“a swivel chair”); Biddle, Artist at War, 176 (“killing instincts”).

  “Bragg would look good”: JJT, X-6, 17; Biddle, Artist at War, 194–95; George Biddle’s War Drawings, 3; corr, LKT Jr. to DDE, Nov. 24, 1943, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, box 11, folder 11 (two other battalion commanders).