The two-day “battle of guts” Wiltse, The Medical Department, p. 244.
“My fine division” Fred L. Walker, From Texas to Rome, Dallas, TX: Taylor Publishing, 1969, p. 311. See also Bruce Braeger, The Texas 36th Division: A History, Austin, TX: Eakin Press, 2002, pp. 158–77, and Eric Morris, Circles of Hell: The War in Italy, 1943–1945, London: Hutchinson, 1993, pp. 251–52.
“The 36th had” Raleigh Trevelyan, Rome ’44: The Battle for the Eternal City, New York: Viking Press, 1982, p. 310.
“flat and barren” Mark Clark, Calculated Risk: The War Memoirs of a Great American General, London: Harrap, 1951, p. 7.
“Under armed military” WD/Second Draft, p. 6.
“I turned a corner” Trevelyan, Rome ’44, p. 239.
“Fuck it,” the GI Packard, Rome Was My Beat, p. 133.
Weiss was unaware Albert J. Glass et al., eds., Overseas Theaters: Neuropsychiatry in World War II, Vol. 2, Medical Department, U.S. Army in World War II: Clinical Studies, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1973, pp. 997–98.
“It is my opinion” Raymond Sobel, “Anxiety-Depressive Reactions After Prolonged Combat Experience—the ‘Old Sergeant Syndrome,’” Frederick R. Hanson, ed., Combat Psychiatry, Special Supplement, The Bulletin of the U.S. Army Medical Department, Vol. 9, November 1949, p. 141. See also, “The Psychiatric Toll of Warfare,” Fortune, December 1943, pp. 141–43, 268–70 and 27–83. Fortune wrote, “We know for example that about one third of all casualties now being returned to the U.S. from overseas are neuropsychiatric . . . around 10,000 men a month are being discharged from the Army for psychiatric reasons” (p. 143).
“I thought Hal” WD/Second Draft, p. 7.
A study of “Who’s Afraid?,” Time, 22 November 1943. John Dollard of the Yale Institute of Human Relations conducted the survey.
“In past wars” General George C. Marshall, “Biennial Report of the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, July 1, 1943, to June 30, 1945, to the Secretary of War,” Yank magazine, 19 October 1945, p. 7.
EIGHT
“a drench of pure horror” Scannell, Kings, p. 58.
“The NCO advancing” Ibid., p. 60.
“the bitter, clenched” Ibid., pp. 64–65.
“Three years penal” Ibid., p. 66.
“All day long” Ray Rigby, The Hill, London: W. H. Allen, 1965, p. 8. (Sidney Lumet directed the film version of the story in 1965 with Sean Connery.)
A staff sergeant Ibid., p. 211.
“Each time he” Joseph Heller, Catch-22, London: Jonathan Cape, 1962, p. 130.
Bain wanted to Scannell, Kings, p. 72.
Every night in Ibid., pp. 74–76.
“When I lie” Algernon Methuen, Anthology of Modern Verse, London: Methuen, 1921, p. 62.
“embarrassed, even a” Scannell, Kings, p. 81.
“I’d use one” Ibid., p. 83.
“All right, he thought” Ibid., p. 87.
“You’ll be confined” Vernon Scannell, “Mourning the Dead,” Epithets of War, London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1969, p. 27.
“It was outrageous” Scannell, Kings, p. 92.
“Where do you come” Ibid., pp. 98–99.
“But I’ll get” Vernon Scannell, “Compulsory Mourning,” Epithets of War, p. 31.
“I’d have promised” Parkinson interview.
“satisfied with the living” Hansard Debates, 10 October 1944, vol. CDIII, cc 1589-90W, http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1944/oct/10/mustapha-detention-barracks-alexandria.
NINE
From Northern Ireland Second Battalion Staff, “The Second Battalion, 38th Infantry, in World War II,” p. 4.
“As rough as” Whitehead Diary, p. 45.
“I never knew” Ibid., p. 44.
“wound up joining” Ibid., p. 46.
The 116th Regimental Captain James R. Darden, “Operations of the 1st Division in the Landing and Establishment of the Beachhead on Omaha Beach, 6–10 June 1944,” Staff Department, Advanced Infantry Officers Course, the Infantry School, Fort Benning, GA, 1949–50, p. 8.
The Big Red One Antony Beevor, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy, London: Penguin, 2009, p. 7.
“a raincoat, gas” “They were issued three K type and three D type rations. Riflemen were issued 96 rounds each and BAR teams 900 rounds; 60 mm crews 20 rounds of mortar ammunition. Every man carried five grenades and in addition each rifleman carried four smoke grenades. Every man wore special assault jackets with large pockets and built-in packs in the back.” Darden, Staff Department, Advanced Infantry Officers Course, p. 13.
“We were instructed” Whitehead Diary, p. 48.
“Bodies and pieces” Ibid., p. 50.
“Big naval barrage” Ibid., p. 53.
“The following afternoon” Edward O. Ethell and Paul Caldwell, The Thirty-eighth United States Infantry, Pilzen: Planografia, Novy Vsetisk and Grafika, June 1945, p. 8.
“I was waiting” Whitehead Diary, p. 56.
Four of 2nd Division’s Edwin P. Hoyt, The GI’s War: American Soldiers in Europe During World War II, New York: Da Capo Press, 1991, p. 407.
“Only a limited” Second Battalion Staff, “The Second Battalion, 38th Infantry, in World War II,” p. 5.
“They doggedly defended” Whitehead Diary, p. 57.
The contest for Trévières Second Battalion Staff, “The Second Battalion, 38th Infantry, in World War II,” p. 10.
“Then,” Whitehead wrote Whitehead Diary, pp. 59–60.
TEN
“The machinery had” Scannell, Tiger, p. 92.
At 8:00 the next Scannell, Kings, p. 144. In an account of this event he wrote in 1997, Scannell recalled that Captain Forbes came below (rather than call the men on deck). See Vernon Scannell, “Why I Hate the Celebration of D-Day . . . and What It Was Like to Be There,” New Reporter, May 1997, p. 8. See also Wilfrid Miles, The Life of a Regiment, Vol. V: The Gordon Highlanders, 1919–1945, Aberdeen: University Press, 1961, p. 25.
“the world’s pet uncle” Vernon Scannell, “Robbie,” Of Love and War, p. 42.
“Jesus Christ, no” Scannell, Kings, p. 119.
In March, the Highland Salmond, The History of the 51st Highland Division, 1939–1945, p. 137.
The Highland Division conducted Delaforce, Monty’s Highlanders, p. 123.
“there were thousands” David Reynolds, Rich Relations: The American Occupation of Britain, 1942–1945, London: HarperCollins, 1995, p. 353.
“The war was” Frankie Fraser, interview in Bad Boys of the Blitz, documentary film first broadcast on British Channel 5, Tuesday, 3 May 2005 at 8:00 p.m. See also http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/tv_and_showbiz/s/156716_must_see_tv_bad_boys_of_the_blitz. According to Fraser, he killed two people in a raid on Wandsworth Prison in 1943 to free another deserter. http://www.madfrankiefraser.co.uk/frankiefraser.htm?story/book1.htm~mainFrame.
In April 1944 “GIs Major Crime in London is AWOL,” New York Times, 20 April 1944, p. 6.
“The Provost Marshal’s” “Army & Navy—Malefactors Abroad,” Time, 1 May 1944.
“They also trapped” “London AWOL Roundup Traps a One-Star General,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 18 May 1944, p. 6.
Five nights later Thomas, An Underworld at War, pp. 215–16.
“An awful lot” Timothy Sharland (4266), Interview, Second World War Experience Centre, Leeds.
“For crying out” Scannell, Kings, p. 126.
On the perimeter Patrick Delaforce, Monty’s Highlanders, p. 124.
“The men we get” Major General Harold Freeman-Attwood to General Headquarters, 3rd Army, 30 May 1943, British National Archives, WO 231/10 (War Office, Directorate of Military Training), “Lessons Learned from Operations in Tunisia,” 1943, May–July.
“The resistance to” Reynolds, Rich Relations, p. 356.
&nbs
p; That meant not sending Delaforce, Monty’s Highlanders, p. 123.
“We can do very” David French, “‘Tommy Is No Soldier’: The Morale of the Second British Army in Normandy, June–August 1944,” in Brian Holden Reid, ed., Military Power: Land Warfare in Theory and Practice, London: Frank Cass, 1997, p. 162.
“But the truth” Vernon Scannell, “Why I Hate the Celebration of D-Day,” p. 8.
“We have got” David French, Raising Churchill’s Army, p. 245. See also French, “‘Tommy Is No Soldier,’ in Reid, ed., Military Power, p. 162, for a psychiatric survey of six hundred British troops between October 1943 and April 1944.
Believing the war French, Raising Churchill’s Army, p. 244.
When the flotilla passed Miles, The Life of a Regiment, Vol. V, p. 252.
“the LCI circled” Scannell, “Why I Hate the Celebration of D-Day,” p. 8.
“What I with” Vernon Scannell, “War Wounds,” original transcript, Alan Benson Collection of Vernon Scannell, 1948–2007, 2008-10-07P, Box 4, Folder 5.1, Scannell—Correspondence—2007, January–March, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas.
The LCI had trouble Scannell, “Why I Hate the Celebration of D-Day,” p. 9.
“There was only” Miles, The Life of a Regiment, Vol. V, p. 253.
“We seized the” Scannell, “Mercenaries,” Epithets of War, p. 32.
During the night Salmond, The History of the 51st Highland Division, 1939–1945, p. 145.
“He had managed” Scannell, Tiger, p. 96.
“It seemed impossible” Scannell, “Robbie,” Of Love and War, pp. 42–43.
Their first week Delaforce, Monty’s Highlanders, p. 128.
At first, the wounds French, “‘Tommy Is No Soldier,’” in Reid, ed., Military Power, p. 163.
The percentage of Beevor, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy, p. 111.
ELEVEN
“Maybe the war” WD/Second Draft, p. 7.
Troops in Italy The phrase was first coined by a disgruntled British soldier, who wrote a letter to British member of parliament Nancy Astor complaining of official neglect of soldiers in Italy and signed it, “D-Day Dodger.” When Lady Astor innocently repeated the term, she received widespread condemnation. There had been four D-Day amphibious landings in Sicily and Italy before Normandy. British Eighth Army squaddies composed “The Ballad of the D-Day Dodgers” to the music of “Lily Marlene.” One verse went:
We’re the D-Day Dodgers out in Italy,
Always on the vino, always on the spree.
Eighth Army scroungers and their tanks
We live in Rome—among the Yanks.
We are the D-Day Dodgers, over here in Italy.
A sergeant about The 36th Division was composed of three regiments (the 141st, the 142nd and 143rd) of about five thousand men. Each regiment was divided into three battalions.
“locked within himself” WD/Second Draft, p. 9.
“The two of us” Ibid.
a blatant violation Article Two of the Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva, 27 July 1929, states: “Prisoners of war are in the power of the hostile Government, but not of the individuals or formation which captured them. They shall at all times be humanely treated and protected, particularly against acts of violence, from insults and from public curiosity. Measures of reprisal against them are forbidden.”
“We never found” WD/Second Draft, p. 10.
“I discover that” Ibid., p. 11.
Weiss did not Military psychiatrists reported that it was common for soldiers under stress to call out for their mothers, wives or girlfriends. Psychology for the Fighting Man, the book printed in England for Allied soldiers who would land in France, explained, “They may not realize it, but often the truth is they have become homesick. They are longing for those upon whose presence and affection they have long depended. They want their wives or mothers.” Psychology for the Fighting Man, Prepared for the Fighting Man Himself, op. cit., p. 334.
“most divisions took” WD/Second Draft, p. 12.
“The stench of” Ibid., p. 13.
“I was nothing” Ibid.
“Lying in a fold” Ibid., p. 14.
“Of all the lousy” Ibid., p. 15.
“All advanced” Alan Moorehead, Eclipse, New York: Harper & Row, 1968, p. 18 (originally published London: Hamish Hamilton, 1945). The British soldier Alex Bowlby, who fought throughout the Italian campaign, had the same impression: “The view from the mountain was—mountains. There seemed no end to them.” Alex Bowlby, The Recollections of Rifleman Bowlby, London: Cassell, 1999 (reprinted 2002) (originally published London: Leo Cooper, 1969).
“If they keep” WD/Second Draft, p. 15.
“He was in every” Steve Weiss, interview with the author, Paris, 17 July 2010.
The Italian campaign Russell J. Darkes, “Twenty-five Years in the Military,” typescript, Lebanon, PA: A. Archery & Printing Place, 1991, p. 33. (As Lieutenant Darkes, he was executive officer of Company C, Weiss’s unit. His typescript is lodged at the Russell Darkes Collection, AFC/2001/001/48329, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
“so despised by” Lewis, Naples ’44, p. 119. K rations were “Field Rations, Type K,” issued to U.S. troops from 1942 to carry on the battlefield. Lightweight if not nutritious, they were packages of dried goods for breakfast, lunch and dinner that included small cans of meat, crackers and cigarettes. These were distinguished from the slightly more substantial C rations, combat rations. When the army was able to set up kitchens close to the front, which was rare in Italy, the men had hot food.
TWELVE
“The smell of war” Scannell, Kings, pp. 149–50.
After their landing Salmond, The History of the 51st Highland Division, 1939–1945, p. 141.
A green flare shot up Scannell, Kings, pp. 153–54.
“In the middle” Scannell, Tiger, p. 97.
Captain Urquhart commandeered Delaforce, Monty’s Highlanders, p. 129.
“B and C Companies” Miles, The Life of a Regiment, Vol. V, p. 256.
By the time Delaforce, Monty’s Highlanders, p. 129.
They also took prisoners J. B. Salmond, The History of the 51st Highland Division, 1939–1945, p. 143; Delaforce, Monty’s Highlanders, p. 129; and Wilfrid Miles, The Life of a Regiment, Vol. V, p. 256.
The company bagpiper Scannell, Kings, p. 156.
“I told you” Ibid., p. 136.
“They would live” Norman Craig, The Broken Plume: A Platoon Commander’s Story, 1940–1945, London: Imperial War Museum, 1982, p. 146.
“a great dark cave” Scannell, Kings, p. 158.
“The lucky bastards” Ibid., p. 160.
“They were confident” Miles, The Life of a Regiment, Vol. V, p. 257.
“The fact must” Salmond, The History of the 51st Highland Division, 1939–1945, pp. 144–45.
“during the whole” Russell and Burrows, quoted in Delaforce, Monty’s Highlanders, p. 143.
“People get lost” Lieutenant Hugh Temple Bone, Imperial War Museum, Catalog number: Documents 1464, Second World War, private papers. Quoted in French, Raising Churchill’s Army, p. 139.
“The fury of” Scannell, Kings, p. 165.
At first light Ibid., pp. 170–71.
THIRTEEN
They pitched Steve Weiss, interview with the author, London, 28 June 2010.
Combat troops turned WD/Second Draft, p. 22.
“Dear God!” Bowlby, The Recollections of Rifleman Bowlby, p. 118.
“Whoever dreamed this” Norman Lewis, op. cit., p. 101.
“freedom of speech” President Roosevelt enumerated the Four Freedoms in a speech to Congress on 6 January 1941, before American entry into the war. They subsequently became the war goals. See the Congressional Record,
1941, Vol. LXXXV, Part 1, 1941.
“The sheer irony” Vincent Sheean, This House Against This House, New York: Random House, 1945, p. 297.
“His face was” Steve Weiss, e-mail to the author, 29 July 2011.
The new divisional Jeffrey J. Clarke and Robert Ross Smith, Riviera to the Rhine, United States Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations, Washington, DC: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1993, p. 38.
“Desertions became wholesale” Packard, Rome Was My Beat, p. 110. Packard wrote that censors blocked his stories on the black market and deserters.
“twenty-five mile hikes” WD/Second Draft, p. 40.
The 36th Division Jacques Robichon, The Second D-Day, London: Arthur Barker, 1969 (originally published in French as Le Débarquement de Provence: 15 Août 1944), p. 191.
A Royal Navy crew WD/Second Draft, p. 39.
“I immediately sensed” Ibid., p. 40.
“One soldier came” Ernie Pyle, “The Death of Captain Waskow,” Scripps Howard News Service, 10 January 1944. Reynolds Packard wrote that Pyle told him in Italy that he managed to persuade Scripps Howard to publish the piece, which unusually for him was about an officer rather than an enlisted man, by emphasizing that the GIs shook the dead man’s hand. Packard quoted Pyle on the GIs, “They are really dull. Sometimes they are tough and mean. But my editors won’t let me write about anybody except these goddamn GIs. I’m tired of being called the letter writer for the doughfoot.” Packard, Rome Was My Beat, p. 113.
FOURTEEN
Near the Forêt de Cerisy S/Sgt Charles R. Robb, Jr. (Army Serial Number 37529161) of Company F, 9th Regiment, wrote on the Yahoogroup “Friends of U.S. 2nd Division” site (Message 8401), “Now I have to give him (Whitehead) credit for the story of the two American soldiers that lost their heads, over two girls. Well, true or untrue, this same story was passed along to us and we again were warned not to fraternize with the French, especially the women.”
“One was a group of strange” Whitehead Diary, p. 62.
“Snipers were seldom” Cleve C. Barkley, In Death’s Dark Shadow: A Soldier’s Story, published by the author, 2006, p. 124.
“I sat right down” Whitehead Diary, p. 65.
The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II Page 37