In the Italian Campaign, trench foot (as well as frozen feet, which has much the same results but can occur far more quickly under fierce weather conditions) proved a real danger and affected many troops. This was due to the weather conditions exacerbated by the sort of war being fought there: a kind of trench warfare reminiscent of the First World War. Eventually, so many men were lost to the trench foot–and–frozen foot epidemic that the army enforced shoepac discipline. Officers and NCOs either enforced it with their troops or were removed from their leadership positions.
Kafak’s illness is another example of a serious fact of this battle. On Anzio, the Allies lost about four times as many men to illness and accident as to enemy fire. This was not an unusual ratio for troops on the front line in harsh conditions such as those suffered by the men on the Anzio-Nettuno beachhead in February and March 1944.
When Kafak returns to Anzio, he begins preparing for the Breakout. On the first day of this Allied attack, the Breakout from the Anzio-Nettuno beachhead, estimates of killed and wounded for the Third Division range from just under a thousand to around fifteen hundred. The official history of the Third Division, while warning that casualty estimates in battle can be notoriously untrustworthy, states that the division suffered 995 killed and wounded on May 23, 1944. Whatever the exact amount, it stands as the greatest number of casualties suffered by any single division in one day during all of World War II, including the invasion of Normandy.
Kafak’s next major bout in combat is as a foot soldier during Operation Dragoon. This was the designation for the invasion of southern France, the area of the Riviera, by American, British, and French troops. The idea of the invasion was that Allied troops would fight northward and link up with the troops from the invasion of northern France. Once linked up, the Allied forces would turn eastward, toward Berlin. General Eisenhower himself would say that nothing so aided the troops in northern France in their breakout from the beaches as the Allied troops advancing on the Germans from the south.
The major actions of the novel end with the battle of the Cleurie Quarry. According to The History of the Third Infantry Division in World War II, Cleurie Quarry is a battle that will always be remembered as a tribute to the men who fought there:
“The importance of the battle for the CLEURIE QUARRY cannot be overemphasized. For us, it was an obstacle controlling our main route of advance—the LE THOLLY-GERARDMER Road—which had to be cleared before we could continue on the overall mission of penetrating the VOSGES Mountains. From the quarry positions, the Germans could, and did, pour a murderous fire on this avenue of approach, limiting and even stopping all traffic and movement . . .
“There were several reasons which made the quarry position particularly impregnable. First, it was situated on the slopes of the large, thickly wooded hill mass northeast of ST AME. The only approaches to it were up the steep almost cliff-like sides of this mountain and the heavy woods offered excellent concealment to the defenses. On the north and south sides of the quarry were steep cliffs covered by machine guns and in order to gain entrance to the interior, our men would have to charge up the sides in the face of furious fire. Both the east and west ends were blocked by huge, stone wall roadblocks which the enemy constructed. The steep cliffs on either side made it impossible to by-pass these, and thus the only way left open was to go over the top of them which again was covered by terrific concentrations of small arms fire, and snipers in almost undetectable positions.”
A few definitions that might assist the reader:
BAR: Browning Automatic Rifle, the most powerful nonstationary small arm carried by a US Army Rifle Company.
FFI: Forces Francaises de l’Interieur, the name given the French resistance fighters during the latter stages of World War II. The designation was made by Charles de Gaulle, self-proclaimed leader of the Free French. In the early stages of the war, the French resistance had no formal organization or name. Once France had been invaded by the Allies, however, de Gaulle no longer considered the country occupied, but a free nation fighting against the Axis armies. At that point, he designated the resistance fighters as a part of the French army, using the name Forces Francaises de l’Interieur, or French Forces of the Interior.
G-2: The designation for a combat unit’s intelligence section.
LCI: Landing Craft, Infantry
LCT: Landing Craft, Tank
Rifleman’s badge: What Kafak calls the rifleman’s badge is actually known as the Combat Infantryman Badge. It was established during World War II by Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, who said that a relatively small handful of men in the armed forces, perhaps one out of ten, were actually the frontline infantrymen who went through a living hell, enduring every conceivable hardship, including maiming, disfigurement, and death, and massive deprivation of life’s conveniences and ordinary comforts. He wanted a special designation for those men who had borne the brunt of combat, who had served in the worst and most dangerous conditions—the one out of every ten men who actually saw frontline combat during the war. Though all soldiers played essential roles in a military at war, these frontline grunts were the men who suffered the most casualties and the most deprivation.
Any reader who wishes to know more about this part of World War II might consult the following works:
Clark, Lloyd. Anzio: Italy and the Battle for Rome—1944. New York: Grove Press, 2006.
Department of the Army, Historical Division. The Anzio Beachhead: 22 January–25 May 1944. Nashville: Battery Press, 1986.
O’Rourke, R. J. Anzio Annie: She Was No Lady. Fort Washington, MD: O’Rourke Services, 1995.
Pratt, Lt. Col. Sherman (Ret.). Autobahn to Berchtesgaden. Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1992.
Rathbun, Glenn E., and Robert C. MacFarland, eds. The History of the 15th Regiment in World War II. Society of the Third Infantry Division, 1990.
Salter, Fred H. Recon Scout: Story of World War II. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994.
Shirley, John B. I Remember: Stories of a Combat Infantryman in World War II. Livermore, CA: Camino Press, 1993.
Taggart, Donald G., ed. History of the Third Infantry Division in World War II. Nashville: Battery Press, 1987.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For you, Louise, always. Special thanks to Jordan and Anita Miller and Cynthia Sherry, whose vision made this happen, and thanks to all the great people at Chicago Review Press, especially my wonderful editor, Ellen Hornor, and Andrew Brozyna for his superb cover. Thanks to Clarence Fioke, Wendy Hill, Christopher Escareño-Clark, and Angelica Michelle Lopez, whose belief sustained me. Thanks to Marinda Kippert, whose love strengthened me. And thanks to my father, Robert J. Kippert Sr., my true hero, whose life inspired me. This book is for him and all those who fought that war, so that their stories, their sacrifices, and their lives will not be forgotten.
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