The Day of Battle

by Rick Atkinson

  With the average worker earning only sixty lire: “Fifth Army Medical History,” 71, 75 (“60 percent of all women in Italy”); Hill and Craig, 56; “History of the Peninsular Base Section” “Observations at P.B.S.,” ts, n.d., NARA RG 492, MTO, pm, gen’l corr, 290/54/26/2, box 2209 (“finest pimp system”); Brashear, 168–69 (“DDT hairdos”); Bill Harr, Combat Boots, 52 (hung a sign around his neck); Charles M. Wiltse, The Medical Department: Medical Service in the Mediterranean and Minor Theaters, 258; Lewis, 112 (“Madame Four-Dollars”).

  The “perfunctory jogging”: Don Graham, No Name on the Bullet, 74; “Logistical History of NATOUSA/MTOUSA,” Nov. 1945, NARA RG 407, E, 427, 95-AL1-4, box 203, 299–300; “Fifth Army Medical History,” 81–86; “Operations of British, Indian and Dominion Forces in Italy,” part V, n.d., UK NA, CAB 106/453, II-1 (“Italian strain of gonococci”); Wiltse, 258; OH, Albert Kenner, May 27, 1948, FCP, MHI (same black market price as morphine); Eric Lax, The Mold in Dr. Florey’s Coat, 227–28 (“best military advantage”).

  “Girls Who Take Boarders”: Gervasi, 563; corr, G. Erdwurm to author, Jan. 5, 2004 (“ablution centers”); Brown, The Whorehouse of the World, 253, 290; “History of the Peninsular Base Section” (15 percent); “Fifth Army Medical Service History,” 78 (“whorespitals”); Trevelyan, 295; “Observations at P.B.S.” Wiltse, 336; memo, N. P. Morrow, Feb. 26, 1944, VI Personnel Center, NARA RG 407, E 427, 95-USF1-2.0, AGF board reports (tear gas grenades).

  “The chaplains thought the whores”: memoir, Edward R. Feagins, ts, n.d., 143rd Inf, Texas MFM, 30.

  “that huge and gassy thing”: Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty, 320; “Beachheads and Mountains,” MTO pamphlet, June 1945, Theodore J. Conway papers, MHI (keep a single GI fighting).

  “prodigy of organization”: Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief, 120; Bernard C. Nalty et al, With Courage, 137 (86,000 planes); Alan Gropman, ed., The Big L, 89–93; Henry F. Pringle, “Weapons Win Wars,” ts, n.d., WD, CMH, 2-3.7 AB.B, 159; James A. Huston, The Sinews of War, 477 (71 million rounds).

  The nation’s conversion from a commercial: Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won, 195; Logistics in World War II, 95.

  In February 1944, the U.S. Army shipped: Harold Larson, “Handling Army Cargo in the Second World War,” ts, 1945, CMH, 4-13.1 AA 19, 5; OH, LeRoy Lutes, Nov. 12, 1974, Maclyn Burg, DDE Lib, OH-408, II-108 (six million separate supply items); Brehon B. Somervell, “Army Service Forces,” Aug. 9, 1943, NARA RG 334, “Records of Interservice Agencies,” NWC Library, ANSCOL, L-1-43, box 167; Lee B. Kennett, G.I.: The American Soldier in World War II, 96–97 (three sheets per soldier); Marvin A. Kreidberg and Merton G. Henry, History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army, 1775–1945, 674–75 (Lend Lease program); Overy, 254 (“Second Fronts”); OH, Frederick E. Morgan, n.d., FCP, MHI (“American bounty”).

  “one ship out of every five is stolen”: corr, B. B. Somervell to DDE et al, March 23, 1945, and E. S. Hughes to B. B. Somervell, Apr. 26, 1943, NARA RG 336, ASF, historical program files, chief of transportation, 190/22/30/00, box 58; Lewis, 119 (“derives from transactions”); “Logistical History of NATOUSA/MTOUSA,” 159, 176; memo, unsigned, to Walter A. Hardie, Dec. 28, 1944, NARA RG 492, MTO, pm, gen’l corr, 333, 290/54/26/2, box 2209 (tapped fuel pipelines); Gervasi, 566; Charles F. Marshall, A Ramble Through My War, 119 (funeral hearses); Hill and Hill, 17, 38 (“Pork. Beef”).

  A separate prison was built at the port: memo, “Port of Naples,” HQ, SOS, Sept. 11, 1944, NARA RG 492, MTO, pm, gen’l corr, 333, 290/54/26/2, box 2209; Schrijvers, 122 (“whip the gold”); Lewis, 134–35.

  “Total war” was largely a German concept: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-52981; Richard M. Leighton and Robert W. Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy: 1940–1943, 14 (Americans made it their own); Overy, 198 (fourfold in heavy guns); Gropman, ed., 91 (sevenfold in transport planes), 54–55 (tank production in 1943 alone); John Ellis, Brute Force, xviii (seventy thousand trucks).

  Even though Kesselring’s divisions: Walter Warlimont, “The Drive on Rome,” Sept. 1951, FMS, #C-097a, MHI, 11; “The German System of Supply in the Field,” Feb. 1946, AFHQ, G-2, CARL, N-13305.1, 92, 85, 123 (“severe pinch”); Max Wehrig, “Duties and Operation of the Italian Section of the Chief of Wehrmacht Motor Transportation,” 1947, FMS, #D-126, MHI, 23 (three thousand different types).

  Wehrmacht quartermasters reported: “The German System of Supply in the Field,” 86, 106, 135; Albert Kesselring et al., “German Version of the History of the Italian Campaign,” n.d., CARL, N-16671.1-3, 227 (Shortages of trucks and dray horses); Hans Henrici, “The Use of Italian Industry in the Service of German Munitions Production,” March 1947, FMS, #D-015, MHI, 1–2 (scheme to produce German munitions).

  Allied quartermasters had their own woes: OH, Francis Oxx, PBS commander, May 21, 1948, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 005; msg, SOS NATOUSA to PEMBARK, Feb. 9, 1944, NARA RG 331, AFHQ micro, R-369-F, box 216; William G. Ashmore, “Supply Planning for Beachhead Operations,” Quartermaster Review, Jan.–Feb. 1945, 18+ (toll in water cans); “Ordnance Activities in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations,” Nov. 1942–June 1945, CMH, 5 (ordnance requisitions, in sextuplicate); Robert Wagner, The Texas Army, 195 (“most hated folk in Italy”); E. R. Keller, “Quartermasters—Battle Proved,” Quartermaster Review, May–June 1944, 24+ (4AA to 16EEE).

  As the fifth year of carnage played out: Leighton and Coakley, 14.

  The Weight of Metal

  Now overwatched by the gray stub: Janusz Piekalkiewicz, The Battle for Cassino, 10.

  All approaches from the south: Martha Gellhorn, The Face of War, 126–27; Christopher Buckley, Road to Rome, 308 (“straight as a bar of steel”); E. D. Smith, The Battles for Cassino, 99 (“Time seems to have stopped”).

  Not far from here, in 217 B.C.: Livy, The War with Hannibal, 117–18; http://www.greektexts.com/library/Plutarch/Fabius/eng/print/502.html.

  “master of his own destiny”: Smith, 96; Field Marshal Lord Carver, The Imperial War Museum Book of the War in Italy, 1943–1945, 151; Bishenwar Prasad, ed., Official History of the Indian Armed Forces in the Second World War, 1939–1945: The Campaign in Italy, 1943–1945, 117; Andrew Brookes, Air War over Italy, 71 (tail now wagged the dog).

  “Anything that will divest me”: diary, MWC, Feb. 28, 1944, Citadel, box 65. Until mid-February, when the responsibility had been shifted to others, Clark had also overseen the plans for landings in southern France, which eventually occurred in August 1944.

  Before that happy day arrived: Battle, 209; Smith, 98 (Minefields and inundations); Prasad, ed., 119 (“faith in the weight of metal”).

  As the abbey had been pulverized: Ian Gooderson, Cassino 1944, 93; StoC, 435 (six to twelve hours).

  The use of airpower to bludgeon: msg, H. Arnold to I. Eaker and J. Devers, Feb. 24, 1943, NARA RG 492, MTOUSA, SGS, “Eyes Only, General Devers, Incoming,” box 135; James Parton, “Air Force Spoken Here,” 372 (“lack of ingenuity”); corr, H. Arnold to I. Eaker, n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 6 (“really make air history”).

  Lieutenant General Eaker yielded to no man: OH, Ira C. Eaker, 1972, Joe B. Green, SOOHP, MHI; Mark M. Boatner III, The Biographical Dictionary of World War II, 145.

  “due to cratering and debris”: “Air Support of Fifth Army for Rapido River and Cassino Attacks,” Apr. 7, 1944, HQ, Fifth Army, air support control, MHI, Robert J. Woods papers, “Report on Cassino Operations” corr, I. Eaker to H. Arnold, March 6, 1944, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 6 (“Do not set your heart”); StoC, 434–35 (“We shall go forward”).

  Yet in the absence of a plausible alternative: StoC, 434–35; N. C. Phillips, Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War, vol. 1, 244 (“deep sounding of its bell”).

  Freyberg insisted the bombing coincide: Charles C. Bates and John F. Fuller, America’s Weather Warriors, 78–80, 283n.

  Sickness or battle wounds claimed another Indian soldier: Phillips, 252–53, 254–57, 261; Howard Kippenberger, Infantry Brigadier, 360 (
“undetected S-mine”); Fred Majdalany, Cassino: Portrait of a Battle, 170.

  Never in his legendary career: Phillips, 252–53.

  Unknown to Freyberg: General Sir Sidney Chevalier Kirkman, article on 3rd and 4th Cassino, Proceedings, Royal Artillery Historical Society, Jan. 1969, 94+.

  The ground grew boggier: Rudolf Böhmler, Monte Cassino, 208; Robert Geake, “Mule Pack Trains in Italy,” Cavalry Journal, March–Apr. 1944, 74+; “Lessons from the Italian Campaign,” March 10, 1944, NARA RG 407, E 427, NATOUSA, 95-USF1-04, box 250; Lewis A. Riggins, “Report on Italian Campaign,” Dec. 31, 1943, DTL, Ft. B, 5 (“mules are tranquil”); “History of the Peninsular Base Section” (packboards).

  “engaged by a holocaust of fire”: Phillips, 258–59.

  At seven A.M. on Wednesday, March 15: diary, MWC, March 15, 1944, Citadel, box 65; Bates and Fuller, 257 (“frontal system over France”); Prasad, ed., 127 (“Bradman will be batting”).

  Operation LUDLUM had attracted an eager crowd: Parton, 373; Harold Macmillan, War Diaries, 374 (“calm, detached and attractive”); Rupert Clarke, With Alex at War, photocopied letter (“there are witches”).

  Before reaching Monte Trocchio: Calculated, 330; diary, MWC, March 15, 1944, Citadel, box 65.

  Fifth Army comprised 438,782 soldiers: memo, “JDB” to MWC, March 14, 1944, MWC, corr, Citadel, box 3; “Small World,” CBS, 1959 (“very depressed”); diary, MWC, Feb. 27, 1944, Citadel, box 65 (“whom the Lord loveth”); MWC to Renie, March 5, 1944, MWC, personal corr, Citadel.

  If broad-gauged and resolute: “Small World,” CBS, 1959 (“keen and abiding interest”); GK, March 13, 1944; diary, MWC, March 1 (“greatly annoyed”), March 8 (“difficult subordinate”), March 11, 1944 (“all dispatches sent personally”), Citadel, box 65.

  A few days earlier, he had mailed Renie: MWC to Renie, Feb. 10, 1944, in note from Renie Clark to GCM, Feb. 23, 1944, GCM papers, GCM Lib, corr, box 61; MWC to Renie, March 8, 1944, MWC, personal corr, Citadel.

  “Into the silence obtruded a drone”: J. B. Tomlinson, “Under the Banner of the Battleaxe,” ts, n.d., IWM, 90/29/1, 126.

  “The object of the attack”: James Parton, “The Bombardment of Cassino, March 15, 1944, MAAF,” Oct. 1944, CARL, N-6058; Brookes, 78; StoC, 410.

  “Sprout after sprout of black smoke”: Parton, 373; Matthew Parker, Monte Cassino, 182 (“Target cabbaged”).

  “After a few minutes”: Smith, 103; “The Bombardment of Cassino,” Oct. 1, 1944, AFHRA, 622.310-4, 6–7, 24 (LENTIL, TROTSKY).

  “Stop those damn maniacs!”: B. Smith, “Waltonia,” ts, 1981, IWM 67/254/1; Paul Freyberg, Bernard Freyberg, V.C., 466 (“terrible one-sidedness”); Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty, 326–30 (“evidence of my own eyes”).

  At 12:12 P.M.: Parton, “The Bombardment of Cassino, March 15, 1944,” CARL, N-6058; “The Bombardment of Cassino,” AFHRA, 8 (“flat as a stone city”).

  Clark left his rooftop: diary, MWC, March 15, 1944, Citadel, box 65; OH, H. Alexander, Jan. 10–15, 1949, SM, CMH, II-4 (“could still be alive”); speech, Ira C. Eaker, March 15, 1944, “Blue Network,” transcript in MWC, corr, Citadel, box 3.

  He should have known better: memo, office of the AA officer to chief of staff, HQ, Fifth Army, March 15, 1944, in “The Bombardment of Cassino,” Oct. 1944, CARL, N-6058; msg, A.P. Juin to MWC, March 16, 1944, MWC, Citadel, box 3 (killing fifteen French); Clarke, photo caption (Eighth Army command post); Rowland Ryder, Oliver Leese, 160 (“our American friends”).

  Other bombs fell on the 4th Indian Division: memo, “Summary of Reports of Bombing Behind Our Lines,” HQ, MAAF, March 17, 1944, in “The Bombardment of Cassino,” Oct. 1944, CARL, N-6058; “Draft Report on FEC,” n.d., CMH, SM, box I; Brookes, 74. The tally given Clark on March 17 included 75 Allied dead and 250 wounded, but that number appears incomplete. StoC, 441n; Molony V, 785; “Report on Effect of Bombing and Shelling of Cassino, 15 March 1944,” HQ, Fifth Army, Apr. 7, 1944, MHI, Robert J. Woods papers; Brookes, 74; “The Bombardment of Cassino,” AFHRA, 29.

  In Venafro alone as many as 75 civilians: “Report on Effect of Bombing and Shelling of Cassino, 15 March 1944” bomb plot, HQ, MAAF, operations analysis section, Apr. 5, 1944, in Parton, “The Bombardment of Cassino” (Of 2,366 bombs dropped); “The Bombardment of Cassino,” AFHRA, 7.

  Investigators found that flight leaders: “Report of Investigation, Cassino Operation,” HQ, USAAF, MTO, Apr. 12, 1944, in “The Bombardment of Cassino” “The Bombardment of Cassino,” AFHRA; Parton, 375; Molony V, 785.

  Freyberg’s intelligence had assumed: Parton, 373; interrogation report, Richard Heidrich, Nov. 13, 1946, Canadian Military HQ, MHI, SM, box 2; The Tiger Triumphs, 52 (“ruthless and not overnice”).

  Roughly half the paratroopers caught in Cassino: Phillips, 345; StoC, 442 (“scraps of paper”), 443 (eighty-nine of ninety-four tubes); Böhmler, 210–11 (“We could no longer see”); Trevelyan, 199 (“weep and rage”); “The Bombardment of Cassino,” AFHRA, 32 (“Speak about women”).

  The town was “blown asunder”: Molony V, 785; “The Bombardment of Cassino,” 1944, MAAF, UK NA, AIR 8/1358, 11–12 (“rendered comatose”); memo, I. H. Crowne to L. Norstad, “Preliminary Memorandum on Cassino,” May 23, 1944, HQ, MAAF, Lauris Norstad papers, DDE Lib, box 1 (“two rows of houses remain intact”); “Operations of N.Z. Corps on the Fifth Army Front,” May 1944, HQ, AAI, part I, UK NA, CAB 106/366, 25; James Parton, “The Bombardment of Cassino” (“Bombs falling three to four yards”).

  “Cassino was so ideally situated”: interrogation report, Richard Heidrich; memo, Crowne to Norstad, “Preliminary Memorandum on Cassino.”

  “The Germans would do well”: Böhmler, 213.

  Three hundred and fifty Allied tanks: Phillips, 269–71, 298, 305, 336.

  The planned pace of one hundred yards’ advance: Molony V, 787; Phillips, 272 (“like a flotilla”); “Operations of N.Z. Corps,” 28; Parton, “The Bombardment of Cassino.”

  Teeming rain fell at dusk: StoC, 443; “Operations of N.Z. Corps,” 26; Majdalany, Cassino, 179.

  In the dying light, a single intrepid company: John H. Green, “The Battles for Cassino,” AB, No. 13, 1976, 1+; Phillips, 289, 347; “Report on Cassino Operations,” June 5, 1944, HQ, Fifth Army, Robert J. Wood papers, MHI, 16; Smith, 116; “Operations of N.Z. Corps,” 28 (ruined radios and cut phone lines).

  Several hundred feet above the town: Dharm Pal, The Campaign in Italy, 1943–1945, 129; “Operations of N.Z. Corps,” 27.

  This isolated, eight-acre lodgment: Majdalany, Cassino, 201; Phillips, 349 (“moral lien”).

  “The fire was so heavy”: Parker, 254; The Tiger Triumphs, 61–63 (amputated limbs); Majdalany, Cassino, 201 (dead mule at the bottom); Molony V, 794 (mutinied rather than cross); C. M. Emeis, “Report on Italian Campaign,” June 15, 1944, NARA RG 337, AGF, observer reports, #111, box 55, 12; Prasad, ed., 131; Böhmler, 235 (bags of blood).

  Enough food and ammo fell: Smith, 7, 126–27 (“God help us all”).

  “Freyberg’s handling”: diary, MWC, March 17, 1944, Citadel, box 65; Phillips, 299–301; Molony V, 793; Smith, 122.

  “I told Freyberg”: diary, MWC, March 17, 18, 23, 1944, Citadel, box 65; Phillips, 352 (he intended to abandon the attack).

  “Push on, you must go hard”: Majdalany, Cassino, 186; Smith, 125; Prasad, ed., 132.

  “Almost every building”: “Operations of N.Z. Corps,” 31–32, 41–42; Molony V, 800 (“unexpected encounters”); Phillips, 323; The Tiger Triumphs, 59; Robert S. Rush, The U.S. Infantryman in World War II, 131 (“Little Stalingrad”).

  Just before dawn, three hundred paratroopers: Smith, 127; Majdalany, Cassino, 190–91; Stevens, 303 (“smother of enemies”); Parker, 237 (through arrow loopholes).

  An arcing signal flare: The Tiger Triumphs, 56–57; Parker, 241 (“We talked a bit”); Prasad, ed., 135; Green, “The Battles for Cassino,” 1+; Molony V, 797; Stevens, 305 (fur-lined gloves).

  Two thousand yards across the crest: Green, “The
Battles for Cassino,” 1; AAR, “The Attack on Albenette House,” n.d., Co. D, 760th Tank Bn, in “Report No. 140, Army Ground Forces Board, AFHQ-NATO,” Apr. 3, 1944, CARL, N-7245-G (“cause chaos”); Prasad, ed., 137; Phillips, 311.

  Then the noose cinched: Green, “The Battles for Cassino,” 1+; “The Attack on Albenette House” (“I hated to shoot the mules”); Pal, 137.

  General von Senger on several occasions: Frido von Senger und Etterlin, “War Diary of the Italian Campaign,” 1953, FMS, #C-095b, MHI, 102–3; Frido von Senger und Etterlin, Neither Fear nor Hope, 226.

  Little reliable information: Senger, Neither Fear nor Hope, 214–15; Smith, 119 (“Things are not too splendid”); Molony V, 791, 802; Böhmler, 233.

  Yet the failed Allied tank foray: Böhmler, 233–35; Phillips, 304–5 (22,000 smoke rounds); Majdalany, Cassino, 188 (“unpleasant wounds”); Prasad, ed., 136 (“screened nothing from nobody”).

  As for the town, Senger thought: Senger, “War Diary of the Italian Campaign,” 101; Senger, Neither Fear nor Hope, 216; Molony V, 793–94, 802–3.

  General Freyberg also prowled: Stevens, 96; Phillips, 316 (“Another lovely day”); Freyberg, 467 (his arithmetical scribbles); Smith, 132 (“both groggy”); http://www.catholicforum.com/saintS/saintb02.htm (date St. Benedict died); diary, MWC, March 21–22, 1944, Citadel, box 65 (he rallied Alexander); Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring, 509.

  “Unfortunately we are fighting”: Arthur Bryant, Triumph in the West, 127; “Report on Cassino Operations,” 21; Majdalany, Cassino, 193 (“Passchendaele”).

  Alexander concurred, as did Clark: memo, A. Gruenther to I. Eaker, Apr. 5, 1944, in “The Bombardment of Cassino,” CARL, N-6058; diary, MWC, March 23, 1944, Citadel, box 65.