A Death in San Pietro

by Tim Brady

  Pyle was no friend of George Patton. In fact, according to press colleague A.P. correspondent Don Whitehead, he hated Patton for just this sort of reason: “Patton’s bluster, show, and complete disregard for the dignity of the individual was the direct antithesis of Ernie’s gentle character.”5 And yet like every reporter in Sicily, he refrained from reporting on the slaps.

  Instead a group of correspondents went to General Eisenhower with details of the incidents. He asked that they repress the story. They in turn asked Eisenhower to fire Patton, which he did not do. Instead, Patton was made to apologize to both soldiers and to each of the divisions of his army. More fallout would come when the story ultimately broke in the press, but that was not until late in November, by which time Patton was already in limbo as far as the Allied command was concerned.

  BACK ON his feet and out of the hospital, Pyle spent his last weeks in Sicily primarily in the company of engineers attached to the 3rd Division, as it was making its drive to Messina, at the very tip of northern Sicily. The infantry had hit a bottleneck along the coastal highway. The road followed tight against a coastal cliff until it came to a massive rock, which jutted out into the ocean. A tunnel had long ago been blasted through the obstacle, which would have been an obvious place for the German forces to seal in their retreat to Messina. Instead, they blasted the road shelf on the other side of the tunnel, making a crater that ran 150 feet deep, all the way to the sea down below.

  Thousands of vehicles were backed up on the highway as the engineers went to work. “Bulldozers came to clear off the stone-blocked highway at the crater edge. Trucks, with long trailers bearing railroad irons and huge timbers, came and unloaded. Steel cable was brought up, and kegs of spikes, and all kinds of crowbars and sledges,” Pyle reported.6

  Through the night they worked, calling in 3rd Infantry help and a pair of Sicilian fishing boats to help nail planking down at sea level. The U.S. Navy came forward with supplies and landing craft. Dynamite charges were blasted to clear rock out of the hole. Truscott himself came forward to watch progress, smoking cigarettes as he waited.

  By dawn, about a third of the crater had been leveled out enough to carry traffic.

  Though it sagged and swayed, by 11 a.m. the new road was ready to be tested, and it was Truscott and his jeep driver who bravely made the inaugural voyage, with a two hundred foot drop to the sea a distinctly possible outcome. “The engineers had insisted they send a test jeep across first,” Pyle wrote. “But when [Truscott] saw it was ready, the general just got in and went. It wasn’t done dramatically but it was a dramatic thing. It showed that the Old Man had complete faith in his engineers. I heard soldiers speak of it appreciatively for an hour.”7

  WHEN MESSINA was taken and Sicily conquered, Pyle had had enough of war. He was exhausted and he felt like his work was growing exhausted, too. He backtracked his way off the island and theater: to Palermo, for a brief stay, then on to Algiers for a flight home.

  He had been away from the States for well over a year and was eager to get home to his remarried-by-proxy wife and settle down for a time in Albuquerque. True R & R.

  Of course much had changed in his absence: he had a sense of it in the theater; he knew that his writing had brought him some measure of fame, and his new book on the North African campaign, Here Is Your War, was on the precipice of bringing him even more. He also knew that the GIs with whom he’d been hanging out for this last year were not simply getting to know and recognize him, but to think of him, with deep fondness, as their letter-writer, the guy who with the simplest, clearest style could say what they might say about the war to their folks back home if they had his ability.

  Pyle felt the responsibility but it was not a burden that he asked for or wanted. Still he felt obliged to explain to his readers why he was coming back. He knew that the Italian invasion was in the works, but just couldn’t do it.

  “I made that decision because I realized, in the middle of Sicily, that I had been too close to the war for too long.” He was exhausted, he said fearful of “writing unconscious distortions and unwarranted pessimisms” about the war.

  “When we fought through Sicily,” he wrote, “it was to many of us like seeing the same movie for the fourth time. Battles differ from one another only in their physical environment – the emotions of fear and exhaustion and exaltation and hatred are about the same in all of them. Through repetition, I had worn clear down to the nub my ability to weight and describe. You can’t do a painting when your oils have turned to water.”

  There would be more war to come for Ernie Pyle, but for now “you who read and I who write would both benefit in the long run if I came home to refreshen my sagging brain and drooping frame.”8

  He would go home to see Jerry in New Mexico and take care of some writing business.

  6

  Salerno

  ON THE MORNING of September 8, 1943, General Fred Walker looked out of his porthole on the U.S.S. Chase and saw more than a hundred ships carrying troops from the British X Corps passing the U.S. convoy of which he, the 36th Division, and the Chase were a part. Both groups, British and American, were sailing on a placid sea from North Africa around Sicily, on their way to the Italian coast. There, the Brits would head to the north end of Salerno Bay, and point toward the city of Salerno and the beach that extended below it; the 36th would head at the ancient Greek settlement of Paestum on the south side of the Bay. If all went well, both forces would soon wind up northbound on the road to Naples, about fifty kilometers from Salerno.

  After all the months of preparation and anticipation, Walker felt good to be, at last, a part of operations in Europe. There was finally a certainty about what would be happening the next morning. He and the 36th were committed to an invasion of Italy by the Allied command. All preparations were over; the months of training were about to be put to use.

  On board the Chase, General Walker discussed with her commander, Admiral Hall, whether or not to put down a naval bombardment in advance of the 36th’s landing the next morning. The British X Corps, landing to the north, had planned to unleash heavy fire against shore defenses, but in the last recon photos Walker saw that day, he could detect no organized defense of the beaches where his command was about to land. So he decided to forgo the bombardment: “I could see no point to killing a lot of peaceful Italians and destroying their homes,” Walker confided to his diary. That didn’t mean he wanted the 36th to go in uncovered by U.S. Navy fire; spotters were moving in on the third or fourth wave of landings, and Walker fully expected them to direct Navy fire once they arrived.1

  Walker made one last adjustment in the landings that night: the craft that he and his party were to debark in the next morning was supposed to be lowered from the deck all the way into the water, as were the troop crafts. The rope ladder that Walker and others in his party would have to climb down was about four stories high. Many of his senior commanders were of an age near to his fifty-six years. Most were not in the sort of shape required to make that sort of rapel. He asked for and received different accommodations. A vessel that could be loaded on deck and lowered to the water was found and drafted into the general’s service.

  THE DECISIONS that brought Walker and the 36th to this moment had come after weeks, even months of debate, and were arrived at with little certitude. Until August, in fact, there had been no consensus among the Allies about where Mark Clark’s Fifth Army should land, or if it should be on the Italian peninsula at all.

  The strategic importance of taking Italy had long been debated among British and American war planners. While it seemed to make geographical sense to follow the successful campaigns in North Africa and Sicily with an invasion of Europe that began on the boot of Italy, strategically the situation was more complex.

  By taking North Africa and Sicily, the Allies had essentially assumed power in the Mediterranean. That had been the first goal of their joint efforts, beginning with Operation Torch. But always, the main focus of Allied war efforts ha
d been pointed toward the direct invasion of Europe, from the U.K., through France.

  The meeting of FDR and Churchill in Casablanca in January 1943, had cemented the invasion of Sicily as the succeeding step to victory in North Africa. But any further activity in the Mediterranean would drain resources from the buildup of forces in Great Britain. Simply to pull up stakes in the Mediterranean and focus on the cross-channel invasion was problematic as well. It would lessen pressures against Hitler’s Germany, and allow the Reich to focus stretched resources on their Eastern front—a prospect that did not please Stalin and the Soviet Union.

  Always aware that it was fighting wars in two oceans against two world powers, the U.S. wanted to build up resources for the coming direct invasion of Europe. Great Britain, on the other hand, argued for maintaining a constant pressure on Germany. An attack on Italy would force the Germans to spread themselves thin and thus hamper their ability to conduct a two-front war.

  The tick of the clock ultimately prompted the decision. As it became apparent through the spring of 1943 that the cross-channel invasion of Europe would not be a possibility until 1944 (shortages in shipping made prospects too risky to rush the assault), the British argument for some continued action in the Mediterranean became dominant. The question remained, where should that action be?

  Again, the Allies split: the British favored an attack in the Adriatic and Aegean areas east of Italy. Their assumption was that an Allied assault in the eastern Mediterranean would aid guerilla efforts already in existence there, and might lure Turkey into the war on the Allied side. Counter-arguments quickly arose, however, pointing out that to focus attention on the Balkans would require a base in the boot of Italy, and would ultimately move Allied forces further away from the U.K. buildup, adding to expenses and tactical difficulties.2

  The U.S. leaned, at least initially, toward an island-hopping campaign in the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west of Italy. The idea was to follow the victory in Sicily with a jump to Sardinia and then Corsica, in preparation for an invasion of Europe through the south of France. It was obvious, however, that Sardinia and Corsica had no strategic value to Germany and would not be vigorously defended. Which meant one of the prime reasons for the assaults—an effort to drain resources from Germany’s war efforts elsewhere—would not be achieved. Plus the idea of a major invasion of Europe through the south of France was not practical for a number of reasons, beginning, once again with a lack of shipping resources available to Mediterranean operations.

  In May, as fighting was coming to an end in North Africa, Allied leaders met in Washington to set a schedule for the July invasion of Sicily with a further goal of knocking Italy out of the war, and finalizing next steps. They still could not agree, however, on precisely what those were, so at the end of the month, George Marshall flew to Algiers for further discussions with Winston Churchill, British Chief of Staff Alan Brooke, General Eisenhower, and British and American officers of the Anglo-American Allied Force Headquarters. There, Eisenhower and his American staff continued to argue for the island-hopping option, and British commanders kept pushing for an assault on their original destination: the boot of Italy.

  Eisenhower’s considerations were dictated to a large extent by what was happening in the field. He was watching Sicily with an eye toward Italian resolve to continue fighting, and German strength in the region. He fully expected a hard battle in Sicily; one that might drag into October. The longer the fight, the less apt was Eisenhower to commit serious forces to the Italian campaign as that would draw troops and supplies away from the cross-channel invasion in ’44. A tough fight, thought Eisenhower, would mitigate for the island-hopping movement—Sardinia followed by Corsica—and away from the mainland of Italy.

  The unexpected ease with which Allied forces landed in Sicily on July 10, and the lack of determination of Italian forces fighting thereafter, quickly changed his thinking. Just five days after the invasion, Eisenhower’s chief of intelligence, Major General George Strong, was arguing for a quick decisive move toward the mainland of Italy. Strong’s information suggested that Italy could be knocked out of the war with a bold move toward the port of Naples. There were good beaches for landing troops nearby and the port of Naples itself was large and modern, and could serve the Allies well during the coming months of the war. Intelligence further suggested that Germany was not particularly interested in a fierce defense of southern Italy. 3

  Strong found an ally in General George Marshall, who quickly brought the idea to the Combined Chiefs. There it received support contingent on Eisenhower’s view of matters in Sicily. The British generally liked the idea (more than the Sardinian invasion), but continued to lobby for a combined assault: at Naples with largely an American force; and at the foot of Italy with largely British troops.

  The assumption that Italy was near the end of its fight was further enhanced when King Victor Emmanuel forced Mussolini from power late in July. An assault on the mainland would surely force Germany’s lone major partner in the war out of action. Now the question of what size force would be needed for the job became of paramount consideration. Eisenhower decided that sending British forces across the narrow strait between Messina in Sicily and the toe of Italy remained a good idea, and one that would alleviate the need to send a vast force of Americans into Italy at Salerno. Always thinking of maintaining his forces for next year’s cross-channel invasion of France, the invasion of Italy was to be undertaken with no flab in its budget.

  When it was pointed out that Naples lay just beyond the range of Allied fighters flying from airbases in Sicily, Strong’s initial location for invasion was revised slightly southward. Now the attack of Italy would be focused at Salerno, about fifty kilometers below Naples, on the other side of the rugged Sorrento Peninsula that held some of the most magnificent coastal views in all of Italy. Here a rough and rocky landscape plummeted dramatically from interior mountains down toward quaint fishing villages and tourist towns on the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The famed city of Pompeii, buried in the ash of nearby erupting Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D., was just down the coastline from Naples, between that city and the Sorrento Peninsula. The famed tourist haven, Capri, rested off the tip of the Sorrento, which separated the Gulf of Naples and the Gulf of Salerno. The towns of Amalfi, Sorrento, and Positano were among the best known of a dozen villages in the area; and just to the southwest of Salerno, sat the ruins of a Greek settlement, Paestum; here the Doric columns of a trio of fifth century B.C. temples graced this twentieth century landscape in ancient and otherworldly splendor.

  This was the landmark for Walker’s 36th Division; this was where they were aimed as their ships cruised just off the shores at Salerno Bay.

  THE EVENING before D-Day, at 6:30 p.m., an announcement was heard from high command at Radio Rome. The Italian government had surrendered. Beaten to a pulp in Sicily, and with no heart for a further fight, no love for its Axis ally, Germany, and a growing hatred of its former leader, Mussolini, the Italians no longer wished to wage war against the Allies. General Eisenhower soon followed with his own radio message, confirming the news. On ships’ loudspeakers throughout the convoy, the announcement caused cheers and backslapping. Many of the infantry on deck thought this meant that their landing would be a cakewalk. There was even some consternation among more than a few members of the 36th about missing action that they had long awaited.

  Don Whitehead, Ernie Pyle’s Associated Press reporter friend, was with the convoy, and heard the news about the Italians with a group of Army officers. They immediately began speculating on whether or not the capitulation would force the German army to retreat from the south of Italy to take up defensive positions in the north. In the middle of the conversation, they saw flashes come from shore and then heard shells whining over their heads. It didn’t look like a retreat after all. After laying down a smokescreen, both the U.S. Navy destroyers and the British fleet to the north opened fired on coastal batteries. No one would need to worry about missing out on
the combat. The German army remained in Italy to greet them.

  At 1:00 a.m. the first landing ships were ordered over the side and the infantry soon followed down the rope ladders. Each soldier was geared with a pack of toiletries, mess kit, full canteen, one boxed K ration, and two chocolate bars. They wore wool uniforms and left fatigues and a blanket with company supply sergeants. Each rifleman carried two extra bandoleers of ammunition.4

  Though there would be no Italians defending their nation’s shores, estimates of the number of German troops facing the invasion that morning suggested a growing strength. Numbers varied widely, but the best guess put the figure at about 20,000 soldiers, with another 100,000 German soldiers within a day or two of travel from Salerno (coming from both the boot of Italy and the area around Rome). By comparison, Mark Clark’s Fifth Army had about 30,000 British troops, and 25,000 Americans—hardly an overwhelming force, but one that was considered sufficient for the operation (and one that would not take too many resources from the buildup in England).5

  Walker’s 36th Division was scheduled to land in four waves on beaches operationally named Red, Green, Yellow and Blue. Two reinforced regiments, the 141st and the 142nd, were leading the way to shore in the first two waves. The 143rd was coming in an hour later in the third wave, and as planned earlier, would stand in reserve, waiting to see where it was needed as the battle progressed.

  Centered on Paestum and the long stretch of beach that ran down all the way from near Sele River, the attack posted the 141st and supporting anti-tank, engineering and artillery battalions on the far right at Blue and Yellow beaches; the 142nd was aimed at Green and Red beaches to the north, accompanied by assault rifle companies, special beach-clearing units and more engineer companies and artillery units.