by Tim Brady
If they could not push the Fifth Army back into the sea at Salerno, it hardly meant the Germans were giving up the fight. In fact, they had other ideas on where and how to make the Allies pay a dear price for this invasion of Italy.
8
The Sorrento Peninsula
HENRY WASKOW HAD NO IDEA that about thirty kilometers away, on another Italian hillside, his brother was not only badly injured, but a prisoner of the Third Reich. As August lay critically wounded above Altavilla, Captain Henry Waskow and his Company B were in a sector about as far from Henry’s old Belton Company I as any American unit in the battle. On September 13, they were ensconced on the Sorrento peninsula, far from the action near Hill 424, having arrived at this destination in circuitous fashion.
AFTER THE ex-boxing champ Lou Jenkins set him, Riley Tidwell, and the rest of the company ashore on Red Beach on D-Day, Waskow and Company B raced inland through mortar and artillery fire to the regimental reorganization line. Company B was the last of the three companies of the 1st Battalion to arrive at the assembly area, along the railroad tracks northeast of Paestum.
Among others waiting there was Lieutenant Richard Burrage, the graduate of San Marcos college back in Texas, and now the 1st Battalion’s intelligence officer. He had left the U.S.S. Chase in the first wave, at 1 a.m., with other elements of the battalion’s G-2 staff. He landed in about six feet of surf amid hostile mortar fire. The .88’s were also screaming overhead, which helped speed Burrage and his comrades inland.
Commander of the battalion was Lieutenant Colonel Fred Walker, Jr.—son of the general—who had joined the 36th at Camp Edwards the fall before. A graduate of West Point and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Lieutenant Colonel Walker, Jr. was summoned to the division command post with the other battalion commanders about an hour after the 1st had settled into its position. When Walker, Jr. returned to the 1st, he ordered his battalion closer to his father near the tobacco farm in order to provide security for the general’s post.
Like everyone else near the beaches, the 143rd’s 1st Battalion remained subject to artillery and mortar fire through all of D-Day. On September 10, the battalion was moved to a position two and half miles northwest of Capaccio near Monte Soprano, where they continued to be held in reserve.
Early the next day, the battalion received new marching orders directly from General Mark Clark.1 The 1st was to boat to the village of Maiori, near Amalfi on the Sorrento Peninsula to the northwest of their position near Salerno Bay. There they would provide reinforcement to the command of Colonel William O. Darby, leader of the 6615th Ranger Force, which was already gaining fame as Darby’s Rangers.
Darby, along with elements of the British X Corps, had been given the assignment of securing the peninsula for the Allied advance to Naples. He and his troops had landed on the northernmost part of the Salerno beaches on D-Day and quickly started to work their way west, out onto the peninsula; but he and his three Ranger battalions were now stuck in Maiori, precariously perched on the coastline beneath the interior mountains above them. They needed more men for a push up to the heights, and 1st Battalion was available.
Lieutenant Burrage was able to get a ride with Brigadier General Wilbur’s command team on a PT Boat that zipped over the bay toward the high cliffs of the peninsula. “Being from Waco,” he later noted, “I had never had an opportunity to ship out on such an impressive boat.” The view of the Sorrento landscape impressed him, too. Its beauty was stunning even with the prospect of looming battle.2
At Maoiri, Colonel Darby greeted the early arriving parties from the 36th, including Lieutenant Colonel Walker, General Wilbur, and Lieutenant Burrage. He then sat everyone down for a description of the circumstances at his base, at the foot of the peninsula hills. The road into the mountains above Maiori ran on a pretty straight line, south to north, across the peninsula through the Chiunzi Pass, currently held by the Germans. The pass was near the mainland, while the bulk of the peninsula ran toward the Isle of Capri out to the west. Darby proposed sending his forces to secure the territory toward the west end of the peninsula, while the 1st Battalion captured and held both sides of the Chiunzi Pass, right above Maiori.3
As the joint forces organized command posts, assembly areas, and a medical evacuation plan, the rest of the 1st Battalion was loading back at Red Beach in landing craft. They arrived at Maoiri by midnight and next morning—while Company I was moving into position to scale Hill 424—Lieutenant Colonel Walker assembled his company commanders. Company A, headed by Captain Joseph Peterman of Beaumont, Texas, was to take his unit up the ridge and head for the west side of the road leading to and through the Chiunzi Pass. Captain Henry Waskow and Company B were to take the east side of the road and secure it. Company C was to follow in reserve. Two machine gun platoons from a weapons company, Company D, firing .30 caliber, water-cooled guns, were sent out, one each with Companies A and B for support; and D’s commander, 1st Lieutenant Roy Goad, the second of the twin brother, all-regional football guards from Temple, was ordered to send out observers to set up a mortar defense for the front of the column as well. Like Henry Waskow with his brother August, Roy Goad had no idea his twin brother Ray was at that moment trapped on Hill 424.
By 8 a.m. on September 12, the company commanders had briefed their soldiers and headed out of Maiori, up the road toward the mountaintops in a six-mile, calf-burning climb. Just two hours into the hike, they had their first casualty: a burst of small arms fire accompanied by mortar rounds hit the column, and First Lieutenant Orlando Greely was struck and killed. It was the first small arms fire 1st Battalion had faced and it was quickly snuffed out by platoons from Company C and A. Shaken but undeterred, the unit subsequently reached the crest of the mountains without further fire. It set up positions, made range cards, ran telephone lines through the afternoon and evening, and basically established itself on the east side of the road, just as it had set out to do.
Riley Tidwell was for the first time in a live combat field with his unit, and he soon established a routine with Waskow. As company runner, Tidwell was not assigned to a particular platoon and didn’t have to go through the ranks—platoon sergeant to First Sergeant to captain—to stay in touch with Waskow. Instead he stayed close to the CO until told otherwise, at which time he would set out with his big, long strides back and forth between command and the various units, delivering orders and returning with whatever information needed to get back to the CO.4
There were four platoons in the company. Waskow would typically take the lead if the platoon he was accompanying was on the move. Tidwell would follow quickly on Waskow’s heels, then came the First Sergeant, trailed by the rest of the troops. If Waskow wanted the remaining platoons to know anything, Tidwell would be sent back to tell them; if he wanted to send information to battalion headquarters, Tidwell would go on this mission, too; if he wanted to send a message to battalion via radio, Tidwell sometimes operated that as well.
It was Waskow’s style to lead more by example than command.5 Not a rah-rah guy, he was as unassuming in style as he was in appearance,6 which might have been why Tidwell was afraid of losing him on the trail or in combat. To keep a visual connection to the captain, Riley tied a white rag to the back of Waskow’s pack, the signal was in part to ensure that Tidwell was always in touch with his CO, and in part an assurance that he wouldn’t suddenly find himself leading the platoon. If Waskow went over a cliff at night, Tidwell would take the plunge, too, he guessed.
Though they had already gotten close in the months of training, beginning with those quiet dark nights serving guard duty back at Camp Bowie, Waskow and Tidwell quickly became combat-close on the Sorrento Peninsula. They would swap stories of back home and what they’d like to do when they got there. Waskow was a coffee man and Tidwell was not, so the company runner would give the captain his ration of “Joe” and even brew it for him. He’d also make the CO toast by taking a slice of bread and holding it over the same can of Sterno that he used to make
Waskow’s coffee. Out climbing the rocks, the ravines, the terraces of the Sorrento Peninsula around the Chiunzi Pass, a good cup of coffee and a warm slice of toast was genuine comfort food. And when Waskow dreamed of better days to come, he dreamed of toasters. He told Tidwell he wanted to get one of those new modern ones with the pop-up trigger and electrical coils. That seemed like good living up in the Sorrento hills.7
FROM HIS BASE at the San Francisco Hotel in Maiori, Colonel Darby oversaw the operation of his Rangers and the 1st Battalion of the 143rd above. To keep in touch with his units in the field, he would occasionally hop in a jeep, which had a .50 caliber machine gun attached to a swivel above its seat, and take quick trips up to the Chiunzi Pass. Burrage, who as battalion intelligence officer roamed from unit to unit gathering information, saw much of what was happening on the peninsula. He was there once when Darby was informed that one of his Rangers was wounded just beyond the Pass and in dire need of evacuation. The soldier couldn’t get out because his unit was pinned by enemy fire. Darby grabbed a driver and hopped in the back of the jeep behind the .50 caliber gun as it raced up to the Chiunzi. He arrived at the scene, spraying bullets toward both sides of the road, grabbed his wounded Ranger, and continued to fire as his driver backed up to the Pass, where a stone blockhouse guarded the position. Still going backward, Darby had his driver head back down the hill toward Maiori to deliver the wounded man to the British medical unit.8
The fight on the peninsula had its oddities. There were two British navy cruisers in the bay providing loud and persistent support to the infantry on shore, aided by spotters on the hillsides, pinpointing German positions. Likewise, artillery kept pounding at the enemy and Lieutenant Roy Goad’s mortar platoon was “firing missions around the clock,” according to Burrage. Yet, in the midst of this near constant shelling, just down the road from Maiori in Amalfi, at least one seaside resort continued to serve its patrons “exotic meals on fine china [with] table settings of sterling silver.” One Ranger unit, returning from several hard days in the field, came upon this restaurant and decided to take advantage of its menu. “They were so overcome with the style of living [encountered at the resort] that they sent one course back to the kitchen, explaining that it was not suitable,” wrote Burrage. “The hotel chef came out and apologized profusely and made everything right . . .” They got a free night at the resort and sumptuous breakfast, as well, before heading back to Darby in Maiori.9
That stone house up at Chiunzi Pass was also an interesting location. It served both the Rangers and the 1st Battalion as a forward command post and an aid station headed by a Ranger medical officer, Emil Schuster. It quickly acquired the nickname, Fort Schuster, and become a focal point of the action around the Pass and on the peninsula. It was constantly being shelled by the Germans, but remained a depot of Allied activity.
From Mt. Pendolo, the highest height of the peninsula, it was easy to see the Bay of Naples and the entire city beyond it. To the northwest and nearer to the Sorrento was Mount Vesuvius and its surrounding valley, including the city of Pompeii. The Germans occupied the north side of the peninsula highlands and the lowlands in between. Their artillery kept up a steady shelling of the heights above, where British troops, as well as the Rangers and the 143rd’s 1st Battalion parried with the German infantry.
A tactic nicknamed “shoot and scoot” developed on the American side. One day, a platoon of Rangers would occupy a hill on the peninsula and leave after a firefight with the Germans. The next day a platoon from Company A or B would move in and continue the encounter. 10 Alternating the units made it hard for the Germans to know if they were facing a patrol, a company, or a larger force.11 The Germans, meanwhile, effectively confused their unit identifications and strengths by mixing troops from a variety of commands into assault teams.
On September 18, Waskow’s Company B was sent on one of these raids down into the valley on the north side of the peninsula, near the village of Nocera. They took off at 9 p.m. accompanied by Lieutenant Roy Goad’s mortar squad, always a welcome addition on these forays. His Company D laid down a carpet of shells, just ahead of Waskow and his soldiers.
At the valley floor, Waskow sent a platoon, led by Staff Sergeant Jack Berry, the old Mexia high football halfback, up a hillside to investigate a farmhouse set in the midst of a vineyard. When they were within a hundred yards of the house, the Germans suddenly let loose with scalding small arms fire. Berry asked his old teammate, Willie Slaughter, if he could get close enough to lob a couple of grenades at the German machine gun nest. The two of them, along with a third Mexia soldier, Arthur Wadle, proceeded to crawl on elbows and knees as close as they safely could. Slaughter, who was on the eve of his twenty-first birthday, sprang up waist high and accurately delivered a grenade.
Another German nest quickly opened fire. The trio repeated the exercise and knocked that one out, too. For good measure, Slaughter killed two snipers with his machine gun. All in all their heroics lasted a little more than half an hour before the platoon scrambled back to Waskow.12 Company B killed a handful of the enemy and ultimately overran the position, but Waskow lost three men in the process. The action allowed the company to provide detailed diagrams of enemy positions around Nocera, which were soon to be of great value to Allied forces.
Company B headed back to battalion headquarters for a day in reserve. On September 20, they were back in the field, heading to the assistance of a battalion from the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment. The airborne unit was in danger of being overrun near Mount San Angelo, the highest point on the eastern side of the peninsula, and one that was bare of cover, except for numerous rock crevasses. Company B left headquarters at 3 p.m. and Waskow was able to report back, less than two hours later, that they’d made a remarkably quick climb up the hill and had arrived to aid the 325th.
In writing a note on the action to command, Waskow gave tribute to his men: “I think the men of Company B deserve a lot of credit for this successful counterattack. Previously, we had never scaled that mountain in less than three hours. This time we did it less than one and a half hours and not a single man fell out. I was more proud of my company that day than ever before or after.” Once again, Company D had supplied mortar support and Waskow gave them credit, too. He wrote that, “fire support turned the tide,” and the men of Company D despite being burdened with heavy mortar gear, “kept up with the riflemen.”13 By the time they’d reached the summit, the German’s assault team had started back down the hill, thinking they were facing a much larger group. The next day, the shoot and scoot strategy was once again employed and Company B was replaced by the 504th Battalion from the 82nd Airborne.
That same day, General Mark Clark arrived to check on the progress of the battle at Maiori with Colonel Darby. He was accompanied by the young, 26-year-old journalist Richard Tregaskis, whose book Guadalcanal Diary, an in-the-trenches account of the Marine invasion of Guadalcanal in the south Pacific, was a bestseller and the source for a soon-to-be-released Hollywood film. General Walker would no doubt have noted how often Clark seemed to be accompanied by best-selling authors. At any rate, Clark congratulated Darby and Lieutenant Colonel Walker on their work, keeping the Germans from occupying the tops of the Sorrento hills. He also discussed next moves for the Rangers and 1st Battalion—an action that would have the Americans descend from the hills down to the Vesuvian plain and on into Naples. By the end of the day, Clark and Tregaskis were on their way back to the fighting on the east side of the peninsula.
Their visit was quickly followed by the arrival of another well-known journalist, photographer Robert Capa. Dark-haired, dark-browed, dark-eyed, with a wry smile that seem to suggest some ironic thought passing behind the grin, Capa had seen as much, or more, war as any of the soldiers he would soon be photographing on the peninsula. A Hungarian-born Jew whose given name was Andre Friedmann, Capa grew up in Budapest, the son of a tailor. From childhood, he had a daring and restless spirit, and as a teenager, started to get involved in leftist a
ctivism. He was more of a romancer than a political soul, however, and as a young man, he left the discord of Hungary for the excitement of Berlin. Though at first he studied politics, he soon became interested in journalism and found work at a large photographer’s agency. Here he started to take images on his own using the famed Leica camera, which was revolutionizing photojournalism by means of its high-speed lens and focal plane shutters that brought exposures down to 1/1000 of a second.
Capa’s first big break came when his agency gave him the opportunity to take shots of Leon Trotsky addressing a large audience in Copenhagen stadium. These turned out to be the last shots of Trotsky speaking before an audience, prior to the Russian’s assassination, and they were published in Der Spiegel.
The rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis drove Capa from Berlin. After the burning of the Reichstag, he moved to Paris, where he had little success finding work. According to his friend, the American writer John Hersey, Capa’s chief source of income during this time was achieved by carrying his Leica “to and from the pawnshop.”14
His lover, Gerda Taro, helped steer him toward a more stable life when the two of them established a photography business in Paris. He took on the name and persona of Robert “Bob” Capa, an American photographer working out of Paris—he thought it would make his work more salable in U.S. markets—and began to sell his photos on a regular basis.15