The Day of Battle

by Rick Atkinson

  Beyond the Moro lay a ravine: Cessford, “Hard in the Attack,” 264; Zuehlke, Ortona, 48; Molony V, 504 (“Of eight assaults”); Dancocks, 171 (“You tell Monty”).

  “filthy limbo”: Mowat, 161–65.

  replaced by the 1st Parachute Division: From Pachino to Ortona, 139; Alexander, “The Allied Armies in Italy,” II-29 (“best German troops”); Zuehlke, Ortona, 161, 201.

  Heavy losses and exhaustion: Christopher Buckley, Road to Rome, 256; Cessford, “Hard in the Attack,” 233 (“You feel nothing”); G.W.L. Nicholson, The Canadians in Italy, 1943–1945, vol. 2, 317 (Errant maps); Dancocks, 171 (“He frittered away everything”), 173; Zuehlke, Ortona, 212–14, 219 (“porridge pot”); Molony V, 503–5.

  MORNING GLORY: Cessford, “Hard in the Attack,” 233, 241; Dancocks, 240; Buckley, 256.

  “I wish I could see you”: Cessford, “Hard in the Attack,” 233.

  first large, pitched urban battle: Molony V, 507.

  Ortona had been spared razing: ibid., 509; “Canadian Street Fighting in Ortona” Nicholson, 323; Zuehlke, Ortona, 247; Dancocks, 186 (“butchered deer”); Steiger, “The Campaign in Southern Italy,” 63 (“Everybody was very sad”).

  Side streets proved too narrow: Battle, 151–53; “Canadian Street Fighting in Ortona” (shot the tanks in the belly); Molony V, 507; Doherty, 184–85; The Tiger Triumphs, 28–29 (“gangster’s battle”); Zuehlke, Ortona, 278, 289; Nicholson, 328 (“miniature Stalingrad”); Dancocks, 181 (“three more shooting days”).

  Rather than clear buildings conventionally: “Street Fighting,” intelligence report, 5778-44, May 29, 1944, British GHQ, Cairo, CMH, Geog Files, Italy, 370.2, 6–7; “Beehives,” appendix B, “Ortona,” HQ, 1st Canadian Div, Feb. 16, 1944, C. W. Allfrey papers, LHC, 4/8; Mowat, 163.

  “The stench here”: Dancocks, 1, 179 (“We could beat you”); Buckley, 260.

  Two dozen Edmontons were buried: war diary, Loyal Edmonton Regiment, Dec. 27, 1943, http://www.lermuseum.org/ler/cof/sacrifice/wwii/textwindow/wardiary1.html.

  “We do not want to defend”: Steiger, “The Campaign in Southern Italy,” 65.

  “There is no town left”: Zuehlke, Ortona, 348.

  “This is Ortona”: Dancocks, 186, 189; From Pachino to Ortona (“a fairy tale”).

  Alexander’s plan had miscarried: Molony V, 509; Dancocks, 186 (“The familiar world”).

  Too Many Gone West

  Removing his hat: Lord Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran, 159; W. H. Thompson, I Was Churchill’s Shadow, 124, 126 (for his sixty-ninth birthday).

  “I want to sleep”: Roy Jenkins, Churchill, 719; WSC, Closing the Ring, 420 (flopped sopping); Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won, 268 (“specks of dust”).

  At length the mystery: Jerrard Tickell, Ascalon, 14–15, 62–64; Three Years, 457 (“had been pacing”); Churchill, 457 (“end of my tether”).

  Ringed by sentries: Gerald Pawle, The War and Colonel Warden, 277–80; Harold Macmillan, War Diaries, 326–27; Moran, 159; Roger Parkinson, A Day’s March Nearer Home, 234 (“much disturbed”); Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 7, 604 (“It’s pretty bad”); Danchev, 497 (“Hullo, hullo”).

  “My master is unwell”: Gilbert, 606, 608 (“bumping all over”); Danchev, 497 (pathologist arrived); Moran, 161.

  “He’s very glad I’ve come”: Moran, 161–62; Gilbert, 606 (“war is won”); Thompson, 129–30 (“In what better place”); Macmillan, 326–27 (“very breathless”).

  The preceding fortnight: Richard M. Leighton, “OVERLORD Versus the Mediterranean at the Cairo-Tehran Conferences (1943),” Kent Roberts Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, 189–91; James Leasor, The Clock with Four Hands, 263 (22,000 pounds of meat); Macmillan, 320 (curried prawns); Molony V, 584 (80 bottles).

  That Britain’s senior role: Keith Eubank, Summit at Teheran, 486–88.

  “Brooke got nasty”: Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 305, 307; Maurice Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943–1944, 352, 353n; Greenfield, ed., 183–85.

  “peripheral and indecisive”: Greenfield, ed., 182, 188–89; Leahy, 201; Ray S. Cline, Washington Command Post, 227 (“fish or cut bait”); Arthur Bryant, Triumph in the West, 35 (“swing the strategy”); Mark A. Stoler, George C. Marshall: Soldier-Statesman of the American Century, 103 (prayed every night); Pogue, 294 (“stick a knife”); Douglas Porch, The Path to Victory, 474; S. W. Roskill, The White Ensign, 330; S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea, 1939–1945, 203–5; Michael Howard, The Mediterranean Strategy in the Second World War, 46, 70–71; John Kennedy, The Business of War, 301–5.

  Stalin gruffly threw his support: Kent Roberts Greenfield, American Strategy in World War II: A Reconsideration, 34; David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 575 (four words of English); Greenfield, ed., 197; Robert Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 799 (“getatable”); Maurice Matloff, “Mr. Roosevelt’s Three Wars: FDR as War Leader,” 1964, Harmon Memorial Lectures in Military History, no. 6, USAF Academy, 14 (“perfectly friendly”).

  “first claim on the resources”: Greenfield, 40; Richard M. Leighton, “Overlord Revisited,” American Historical Review, July 1963, 919+; Stoler, 107; Sherwood, 803 (“could not sleep”); Carlo D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life, 467 (“best politician”).

  As for Italy: Greenfield, ed., 191.

  “Large families”: Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 475; OH, Ian Jacob, Verne Newton collection, “transcripts,” FDR Lib (“at arm’s length”).

  The prime minister did not die: Danchev, 502; Jenkins, 727 (whisky with soda); Moran, 164 (white blood cell count); Vincent Orange, Tedder, 244 (“fire had gone out”); Pawle, 275 (Royal Navy cook); Churchill, 425 (“What calm lives”).

  “The Bible says”: Gilbert, 609; Leasor, 271; WSC, Closing the Ring, 429 (“becoming scandalous”); Pawle, 277–80 (“don’t seem to know much”).

  “Looking in his strange costume”: Macmillan, 338; Pawle, 277–80; Gilbert, 620 (“must be carried out”); Warren F. Kimball, ed., Churchill & Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence, vol. 2, 633 (“should decide the battle”).

  Christmas had come: Pyle, 86; Tom Roe, Anzio Beachhead, 23; Glendower O. Haedge, “Memoirs of World War II,” ts, n.d., Texas MFM; John F. Hummer, An Infantryman’s Journal, 42; John Guest, Broken Images, 158.

  Had he been home: JJT, XI-10; “History of the Peninsular Base Section,” 1944, 5 vols., CMH, 8-4 HA 1 (“morale crates”).

  “Merry Typhus!”: Spike Milligan, Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall, 212; Alton D. Brashear, From Lee to Bari, 168, 171 ($10 per stripe); Buckley, 252–53.

  Mark Clark on Christmas eve: diary, MWC, Dec. 24, 1943, Citadel, box 64; MWC to Ann Clark, Dec. 23, 1943, Citadel, personal corr.

  In a Bari hospital: George S. Bergh and Reuben F. Erickson, eds., “A History of the Twenty-sixth General Hospital,” 133; S. W. Thomson, Canadian Military History, fall 1993, 24+; John Ellis, On the Front Lines, 279; Zuehlke, Ortona, 320–22; Strome Galloway, A Regiment at War, 118 (strumming a mandolin); Dancocks, 191 (Vokes dined alone).

  “The stars have crept low”: Hans Juergensen, Beachheads and Mountains, 2; G.R. Stevens, Fourth Indian Division, 270; Edmund F. Ball, Staff Officer with the Fifth Army, 263; Ralph G. Martin, The G.I. War, 115 (“no more wars”).

  “I had not seen men so exhausted”: Howard Kippenberger, Infantry Brigadier, 344–47; Donna Martha Budani, “Women, War, and Text: Orsognese Women’s Experience in a Sector of the Italian Front in World War II,” 1997, Ph.D. diss, American University, 119 (“poor sad Christmas”); order of the day, Dec. 25, 1943, 71st Panzer Grenadier Regt, “Intelligence Notes, No. 47,” AFHQ, Feb. 22, 1944, NARA RG 407, E 47, 95-AL1-2.18.

  “Usual targets of opportunity”: James R. Pritchard, ts, n.d., 68th Armored FA Bn, ASEQ, MHI, 12; censorship morale reports, Nov. 1943–June 1944, NARA RG 492, MTO adjutant general, 311.7 (operated by flashlight); Julian “Duney” Philips, “War Is Not All Bad,” ts, n.d., 143rd Inf, Texas MFM, 2 (“Now is the time”); Le
slie W. Bailey, Through Hell and High Water, 157.

  The bottom of the year: “1944,” Life, Jan. 3, 1944, 20; Greenfield, ed., 183; Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 610; http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-fornv/germany/gersh-s/scharn2.htm (Scharnhorst); John Ellis, Brute Force, table 35 (175 German divisions).

  “The campaign is heartbreakingly slow”: JPL, 278; “Fifth Army Medical History,” n.d., NARA RG 112, MTO surgeon general, 319.1, box 6, 183 (strength of 200,000); Fifth Army at the Winter Line, 87–88; Brashear, 168; “Summary of Activities,” June 1, 1944, NA TOUSA, CMH, 20 (Battle casualties had whittled away); MEB, “Shifting of German Units Before and During Nettuno Landing,” Jan. 1956, NARA RG 319, E 145, OCMH, R-75, 36 (six miles per month); Coakley, 181 (“no shipping available”); Richard M. Leighton, “Overlord Revisited,” American Historical Review, July 1963, 919+; Porch, 460 (British ports could not handle); StoC, ix (“static warfare”).

  “One rather wondered”: Francis De Guingand, Operation Victory, 333; Farley Mowat, And No Birds Sang, 333.

  “a plan that was distinctly conservative”: Moorehead, Eclipse, 60; Nigel Nicolson, Alex: The Life of Field Marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis, 238 (“weeks and months of forethought”), 239 (“average brain”); Mark M. Boatner III, The Biographical Dictionary of World War II, 379; “The German Operation at Anzio,” Apr. 1946, German Military Document Section, Military Intelligence Div., WD, MHI, JPL, box 9 (allowed German forces to shift); Ronald Lewin, Ultra Goes to War, 343 (better informed about his adversaries); F. H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, 182, 507 (“the Allies often knew as much”); J. Hamilton, “Italy, Sept.–Dec. 1943,” n.d., Cabinet Historical Section, UK NA, CAB 101/124, 42 (“old methodical way”).

  Eisenhower privately wished: Eisenhower Diary, HCB, DDE Lib, A-756, A-773-74, A-779; diary, MWC, Dec. 10, 1943, Citadel, box 64 (groused about Lucas); memo, Oct. 11, 1943, JPL, MHI, box 12 (groused about Middleton); Robert R. Palmer et al., The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops, 467 (“The battalion commander problem”).

  Twenty-three German divisions: Battle, 166–67; MEB, “Shifting of German Units,” R-75 (nearly 300,000); Louis P. Lochner, ed., The Goebbels Diaries, 1942–1943, 435; Steiger, “The Campaign in Southern Italy,” 59–60 (“For two months now”).

  “What will 1944 do”: JPL, 283; memoir, P. Royle, ts, 1972, IWM, 99/72/1 (“You got the feeling”).

  “A terrible year has ended”: David Hapgood and David Richardson, Monte Cassino, 95.

  A ferocious storm with gale winds: N. P. Morrow, “Field Artillery in Italy,” Feb. 2, 1944, HQ, NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, ANSCOL, AGF OR M83, box 148; Wagner, 90; Bowlby, 13 (“pinched the enemy’s song”); Harriet Stradling, ed., Johnny, 251.

  Truscott’s 3rd Division: aide’s diaries, Dec. 31, 1943, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, box 18, folder 3; LKT Jr. to Sarah, Jan. 2 and 5, 1944, LKT Jr., GCM Lib, GCM Lib, box 1, folder 6.

  “I do not know if you will miss me”: De Guingand, 337, appendix A; Moorehead, Montgomery, 175

  “So there we are”: B. L. Montgomery, “Reflections on the Campaign in Italy, 1943,” ts, addendum, Dec. 26, 1943, IWM, BLM 48, micro, reel 4; T.E.B. Howarth, ed., Monty at Close Quarters, 44n (“He was a real human”).

  Eisenhower also left on the thirty-first: Chandler, vol. 5, 14; Michael J. McKeough and Richard Lockridge, Sgt. Mickey and General Ike, 98; Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 217 (“Allow someone else to run the war”); OH, Henry Maitland Wilson, Apr. 3, 1947, Howard M. Smyth, SM, MHI (hoped for three days’ overlap). Eisenhower asserted that he “exhaustively reviewed” the military situation with Wilson during Christmas dinner at La Marsa. Eisenhower, Crusade, 214.

  “rather going to seed”: Macmillan, 321; JPL, 273.

  He left believing he had accomplished: Kenneth Strong, Intelligence at the Top, 169; DDE, “Allied Commander-in-Chief’s Report, Italian Campaign,” n.d., 155 (“Elimination of Italy”); Roskill, The War at Sea, 210 (more than a thousand ships); Anthony Eden, The Reckoning, 479 (Even Stalin had conceded).

  From Algiers, he would take: Alexander S. Cochran, “Constructing a Military Coalition from Materials at Hand,” Apr. 16, 1999, paper, SMH conference.

  “I am very disappointed”: Chandler, vol. 3, 1631, 1646n (uneasy at Churchill’s advocacy); “Press Conference of General Eisenhower, 1430 hours, 23 Dec 1943, AFHQ Advance, Italy,” MWC, Citadel, box 3 (“Jerry is going to write off”).

  The White House sent a cooler: Three Years, 467; Dwight D. Eisenhower, Letters to Mamie, 161; Davis, 456 (“Nothing seems real”); John S. D. Eisenhower, General Ike, 100 (“heavier); John S. D. Eisenhower, Strictly Personal, 51 (“Hell, I’m going back”); Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952, vol. 1, 278, 280 (absentmindedly called his wife “Kay”).

  “Until we meet again”: Chandler, vol. 3, 1650.

  CHAPTER 7: A RIVER AND A ROCK

  Colonel Warden Makes a Plan

  Marrakesh in midwinter: Seth Sherwood, “In an Ancient Desert, a Modern Oasis Beckons,” NYT, Jan. 23, 2005; John Colville, The Fringes of Power, 463; http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=331; http://www.mincom.gov.ma/english/reg_cit/cities/marrakes/marrakes.html; James Parton, “Air Force Spoken Here,” 229 (“sat on his leather hassock”); “Marrakech Air Base,” n.d., in “Observations in A.B.S,” NARA RG 492, MTO, pm gen’l. corr, 333 (“statement of intercourse”).

  The Red City: Roy Jenkins, Churchill, 727; Lord Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran, 167; Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 7, 626; Gerald Pawle, The War and Colonel Warden, 280 (“When the Midnight Choo-Choo”); Duff Cooper, Old Men Forget, 318 (“Colonel Warden”).

  In Marrakesh he occupied La Saadia: Lisa Lovitt-Smith, Moroccan Interiors, 78 (wall mosaics); Colville, 457–59 (“wildly rash”); Cooper, 318; Gilbert, 634 (Pirates of Penzance); W. H. Thompson, I Was Churchill’s Shadow, 133 (“certainly heavy going”).

  The borrowed Cadillac roared: Pawle, 288; Cooper, 318; Thompson, 133 (V-for-victory); Moran, 167–70.

  “Can’t I ever get any commanders”: OH, C.A.P. Portal, Feb. 7, 1949, FCP, MHI; OH, C. E. Lambe, Feb. 26, 1947, FCP, MHI (“negative as usual”); Gilbert, 650; Cooper, 319.

  “Undue discretion”: Harold Macmillan, The Blast of War, 1939–1945, 370; Harold Macmillan, War Diaries, 347; Danchev, 510; Moran, 170.

  Churchill’s “bright idea”: diary, Oct. 21, 1943, MWC, Citadel, box 64; OH, Lyman Lemnitzer, Jan. 16, 1948, SM, MHI; Martin Blumenson, “General Lucas at Anzio (1944),” Kent Roberts Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, 245–50; diary, Dec. 18, 1943, MWC, Citadel, box 64; CM, 292 (“destroy the best damned division”); SSA, 324; GS V, 209.

  “It would be folly”: “Record of conference held by the prime minister at Tunis,” Dec. 25, 1943, H. Alexander papers, UK NA, WO 214/13; H. M. Wilson, “Report by the Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean,” n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, historical background files, American Forces in Action, Anzio, box 119, 7–8 (“regard our campaign”); SSA, 325 (“whoever holds Rome”); Calculated, 260 (“peter out”); StoC, 352 (“the decisive way”).

  “a good idea to go around”: StoC, 352; Robert H. Adleman and George Walton, Rome Fell Today, 116 (“hasn’t been predictable”); Greenfield, ed., 250; “Record of conference held by the prime minister at Tunis” (“signified their agreement”); Three Years, 465 (“taken tactical command”).

  “I have arrived in Italy”: Christopher Lee Lewis, “The Byzantine Invasion of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy,” Proceedings, Nov. 1943, 1435+; John Ellis, Brute Force, 321 (45,000 landing vessels); Alan Gropman, ed., The Big “L,” 349 (every major Allied campaign).

  “Shipping [is] at the root”: Richard M. Leighton and Robert W. Coahley, Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940–1943, 697; H. M. Wilson, “Report by the Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean,” 1946, part 1, 7 (sustain two divisions); GS V, 210; James Leasor, The Clock with Four Hands, 273 (“set after set”); msg, WSC to FDR, Dec.
28, 1943, Warren F. Kimball, ed., Churchill & Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence, vol. 2, 638.

  “Clark and I are confident”: msg, H. Alexander to Col. Warden, Jan. 4, 1944, NARA RG 331, AFHQ micro, R-369-F, box 216; OH, MWC, 1972, Forrest S. Rittgers, Jr., SOOHP, MHI, 86-88 (three-division landing); diary, MWC, Jan. 2 and 4, 1944, Citadel, box 65.

  Regardless of Fifth Army’s request: Hill/O’Neill, 1; diary, MWC, Dec. 27, 1943, Citadel, box 64; msg, WSC to H. Alexander, Dec. 26, 1943, UK NA, WO 214/13; msg, H. Alexander to WSC and A. Brooke, Dec. 1943, UK NA, WO 214/13 (“the best American corps commander”). Some accounts assert that Clark was not invited to the conference. Lloyd Clark, Anzio, 73.

  The conference convened at La Saadia: Pawle, 285; Hill/O’Neill, 1; StoC, 303, 353; Anzio Beachhead, 5; GS V, 218.

  “the seamy side of the question”: Kenneth Strong, Intelligence at the Top, 171; OH, Kenneth W. D. Strong, Oct. 30, 1947, SM, MHI; Michael Carver, Harding of Peterton, Field-Marshal, 123 (“Of course there is risk”); Hill/O’Neill, 2.

  The conclave broke for supper: Hill/O’Neill, 3; Macmillan, War Diaries 295 (“sum total of their fears”); H. Alexander, “The Allied Armies in Italy,” n.d., CMH, II-25.

  Could the Germans quickly reinforce: Nigel Nicolson, Alex: The Life of Field Marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis, 228; memo, I. Jacob to Hollis, record of Christmas conference, n.d., NARA RG 331, AFHQ micro, R-369-F, box 216; Greenfield, ed., 250 (“unavoidable risk”); Calculated, 284 (“seal off the beachhead”).

  “he is getting old”: Eisenhower Diary, Jan. 20, 1944, HCB, DDE Lib, A-995; “Hill/O’Neill,” 3 (“Not until Saturday morning”); Nicolson, 228–30 (“Keep a reserve”).

  Bleary-eyed, they reassembled: Hill/O’Neill, 3; JPL, Jan. 10, 1943, 295 (“astonish the world”); Pawle, 285 (“I do hope, General”); Macmillan, The War Diaries, 304 (“more and more dogmatic”).

  “It was a bluff”: OH, H. Alexander, Jan. 10–15, 1949, SM, CMH, Geog Files, II-5; F.H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, 185 (No flinty-eyed assessment).