Like industry in the 1930s, the American system was heartless and bore heavily on newly arrived replacements, who were thrust into combat without time to settle in. As a result they suffered heavy casualties. The best human material was consigned to, the technical arms and services so that the US Infantry was starved of good NCOs, who had a key part to play in conditioning new arrivals, and junior officers, often inexperienced, had to do their work. The pressure on them was great, as the US commanders were taught to drive their infantry hard, but the result was the junior leaders resorted to deception to cover up the fact that the system was not working. By contrast the British private soldiers were far less amenable, contrary to the received idea, and if they were to submit to authority required careful handling by their company officers and NCOs, who were taught that their first duties were not so much tactical as leadership and man-management.
This brings us back to the earlier reference to the cutting edge of units and our comment that American commanders were tougher-minded than their British colleagues. Alexander believed that Clark was too tough on his divisions and ran them into the ground. In the forthcoming battles of Cassino he told him so, in connection with the 34th Division. Clark disagreed; he thought British commanders were soft. He often criticised his 10th Corps commander, Richard McCreery, for not pushing his divisions harder. McCreery thought that Clark was unrealistic about what could be achieved – indeed about what Clark’s American units were actually achieving. The observation of the New Zealander, Howard Kippenberger, who commanded a brigade in this and earlier campaigns, a much-respected and very experienced soldier, although not a professional, puts this matter in a sensible light:
All through the Italian campaign we find elaborate planning and preparation, tremendous bombardments and then attacks succeeding or failing with sometimes only some scores of casualties. The cutting edge, though, was thin.11
In contrast, Mark Clark, in his diary and amongst his staff, held the view that an attack that failed with few casualties was a poor performance. The British had discarded such a view after their experience on the Western Front. In their book a big butcher’s bill indicated bad tactics, not steely resolve. What was more, in the modern battalion, the number of specialists had increased and the strength of the rifle companies decreased, so the cutting edge – the infantry strength – wore out faster, as it had in the Fifth Army after it had driven in the Bernhard Line. The Fifth Army was exhausted.
The cancellation of Anzio (SHINGLE) would have been a blessing for the Fifth Army, which needed a breathing space sorely; its restoration found it jaded. Although his own divisions were fresh, Lucas well understood how tired were the troops on the main front on whose performance his personal survival as a commander, let alone his success, was going to depend. He could not comprehend the almost insanely optimistic belief prevailing at Clark’s and Alexander’s headquarters that the Fifth Army could break through the Gustav Line barely a week after it had reached it when the Bernhard Line battle had been so tough.
Army has gone nuts again … Their general idea that the enemy is fleeing in disorder. The only reason is that we have been able to advance against them with comparative ease and to advance a few miles [to the Gustav defences] … We are not (repeat not) in Rome yet.12
Admiral Cunningham also seemed to be infected. He assured Lucas that the Germans would fold up and that there would be little to oppose him. “The chances are seventy to thirty that by the time you reach Anzio the Germans will be north of Rome.” “Apparently,” Lucas noted in his diary, “everyone was in on the secret of the Germans’ intentions except me.”
Lucas’ mission was to land with the 1st British and 3rd US Divisions, reinforced by an armoured regiment (battalion) with each division. In support he had an armoured infantry and a tank battalion from the 1st (US) Armoured Division (Combat Command A), a Royal Marine Commando and an Army Commando, the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment and the 509th (Independent) Parachute Infantry Battalion and the 1st, 3rd and 4th (US) Ranger Battalions. D-day was January 22. Naturally Lucas’ first concern was to ensure that he had enough shipping to get to Anzio and to maintain his corps there. He found that that was not the case at the beginning of January.
An answer to Churchill’s telegram to Roosevelt from Tunis had reached Marrakech on December 22. Roosevelt had agreed subject to certain conditions of which the meat was that OVERLORD and ANVIL should not be prejudiced. When Clark’s and Lucas’ staff examined the shipping capacity allotted to them and compared it to the force that it was intended to send to Anzio they saw that the operation was not possible. Lucas’ G4 (chief supply staff officer) told him that the navy intended to dump them on shore with seven days’ supplies and leave them to their fate:
No build-up, no maintenance, Fifth Army would catch up in that time. Lucas launched a protest which was the origin of Clark’s demand for more shipping and for its retention. The Navy was depressed because only two days in the week were suitable for beach landings so that they could guarantee only 450 tons of supplies per day, whereas the requirement was for 1,500.13
In consequence Churchill had to be asked to obtain extra landing craft and he sent another telegram to Roosevelt on which the President again replied affirmatively. On January 8 a conference was held at Marrakech at which this news was announced and orders were given for SHINGLE to go ahead.
Next day Lucas attended a conference at Alexander’s headquarters.
Sir Harold started the conference by stating that the operation would take place on January 22 with the troops as scheduled and that there would be no more discussion of these points. He quoted Mr Churchill as saying: “It will astonish the world” and added, “it will certainly frighten Kesselring”. I felt like a lamb led to the slaughter but felt entitled to one bleat so I registered a protest against the target date as it gave me too little time for rehearsal … I was ruled down … many reasons being advanced as to the necessity for this speed. The real reasons cannot be military. [His staff reported upon their return from Marrakech that the high command obviously had information that had not been imparted to him or to them. There must have been very definite indication that the enemy intended to pull out and move his forces north of Rome. If so all the more reason for making this end-run strong and well-equipped so that the withdrawing forces could be intercepted and destroyed.] This whole affair had a strong odour of Gallipoli and apparently the same amateur was still on the coach’s bench … General Alexander, in addition to his remark as to inspiring fear in Kesselring, said in great glee that Overlord would be unnecessary.14
The logistics of SHINGLE having been settled Lucas considered his operational plan on the 12th, 13th and 14th. On the main front Clark intended to attack across the Garigliano with the 10th Corps on the 17th so as to draw in the German reserve divisions 29th and 90th Panzer Grenadiers, both of which were within easy reach of Anzio. The 2nd Corps, with the 36th Division and the 1st Armored Division’s Combat Command “B” would attack across the Rapido at S. Angelo and thrust up the Liri valley on the 21st towards Frosinone. Then Lucas would land at Anzio at dawn on the 22nd. He was to undertake three tasks in succession, namely, to seize and secure a beach-head in the vicinity of Anzio, to advance and secure Colli Laziali – the Alban Hills – and to be prepared to advance on Rome. Colonel Brann, Clark’s G3 (chief operations staff officer), gave him a slightly different version of his mission on the 12th, which indicated a difference of opinion between Alexander and Clark, and that Clark intended that Lucas follow his instructions, not Alexander’s. His primary mission, as Lucas now understood it, was to secure the beach-head. “Much thought had been put into the wording of this order so as not to force me to push on at the risk of sacrificing my corps. Should conditions warrant, however, I was free to move and to seize Colli Laziali,” he noted in his diary. The Rome mission was dropped.
Historians have made much of the precise wording of Lucas’ orders, but whether Lucas was ordered to advance at once “to” the Alban
Hills, as Alexander intended, or “on” them, as Clark intended, and whether he was to make himself secure first before advancing, is beside the point. Commanders are not intended to follow the letter of their orders but the spirit of them. What matters is whether, when the time came, Lucas conducted the battle sensibly in the light of circumstances, whatever he was told to do before those circumstances could have been known, and whether he pursued the spirit of his orders. And that poses the question whether Lucas had been clearly told what was the general operational idea of the Fifth Army?
There was a difference of opinion between Alexander and Clark that had already surfaced in Brann’s visit to Lucas to change the 6th Corps mission. It concerned which of the two fronts, Fifth Army’s or 6th Corps, was to assume the initiative in persuading von Vietinghoff’s Tenth Army to withdraw. Alexander wanted the 6th Corps to act boldly and to seize the Alban Hills. He believed that only then would the Germans relax their grip on the main front and be caught in an envelopment between the 6th Corps’ blocking position astride the Alban Hills and the advancing Fifth Army. A supine 6th Corps would not have any effect on the main front where the Germans were very strong.
Obviously the Germans would hold on to the strong Gustav Line for they could turn and deal with the 6th Corps in their own time when they had gathered units from the north of Italy and the Gustav fighting had died down. In view of the tough and effective resistance that they had offered in the Bernhard Line it was unlikely that they would be easily dislodged. Nevertheless Clark’s idea was to break the main front, as we have seen. That required Lucas to play a waiting game at Anzio, timing his break-out to coincide with the advance of the Fifth Army up the Liri valley.
Lucas was sceptical of the 2nd Corps’ ability to break the Gustav Line and so he was convinced that Clark must have some special information up his sleeve about German intentions or capabilities that encouraged him to think it could. The comments of Cunningham and the optimism of Alexander pointed to that as well. Later, Clark railed against “British Intelligence” – a cover-word for Ultra – for giving him “all the wrong gen” on this and earlier occasions. Certainly the situation at the front before the operation began cannot have given him much encouragement. The operation was at best a “calculated risk”, the title that he gave his book about the Italian campaign, and he was doubtful, for good reasons, whether within the constraints of time and resources, it had a reasonable chance of success. In the end it was the overoptimistic intelligence reports that tipped the balance of his opinion and led him to accept the risk.
Later Clark said that had he known the truth he would not have proceeded. That was surely hindsight. He had weighed the risk against the fact that success would further his natural and legitimate ambitions to attain and prove himself equal to the highest levels of command. He had considered his relations with Churchill. To reveal his doubts about SHINGLE might damage an excellent rapport. Churchill, he knew, disliked ANVIL, and it was a point in Clark’s favour when he asked to be relieved of his appointment as commander designate of that operation. He was refused, but by making the gesture Clark had shown that he was at one with Churchill. Churchill’s eye was fixed on Rome and Clark, too, had irrevocably chosen that as his goal. For a different reason, therefore, he too felt that ANVIL ranked second to its liberation. He could, however, cherish the hope that if Rome fell quickly he might have the command of ANVIL as well.
Lucas had none of these compensations to comfort him. He was not ambitious and did not relish what he called “these battles of the Little Big Horn”. “They aren’t much fun,” he mused, “and a failure now would ruin Clark, probably kill me and certainly prolong the war. Disagreeable contingencies, particularly the second which has no appeal for me at all.”15 Lucas retained his sardonic humour through the period of the landing rehearsals which had gone badly. The final one, on January 19, resulted in the loss of forty DUKWs (2½-ton amphibious trucks) and nineteen 105-mm howitzers. “All because the Navy did not close on the beach; which they admit”, and that had been because they had not swept the mines in the area and had changed the venue at the last moment.
I stood on the beach in an evil frame of mind and waited. Not a single unit landed on the proper beach; not a single unit landed in the proper order; not a single unit was less than 1½ hours late. A discouraging beginning … I figured that at least the [actual landing] could not be any worse.16
Lucas’ worried state of mind was, to say the least, inappropriate in the commander of a great and dangerous enterprise, although his doubts about its success were well founded and ultimately justified. For a brief moment, though, the omens were auspicious. On 17 January the British 10th Corps successfully crossed the lower Garigliano and established a large bridgehead. On the 22nd the Royal Navy put the 6th Corps ashore at Anzio and nearby Nettuno without a hitch. It was one of the most complete surprises in military history. But though Lucas may not have heard the bad news, operations on the main front had gone badly wrong by then. The British 46th Division and the US 36th Division had both been brutally repulsed in their attempts to cross the river higher up.
Clark and Alexander visited Lucas at Anzio on the day that he landed. Neither referred to the disaster on the main front, nor did they suggest that he should retrieve the situation by aggressive action: on the contrary. Clark’s warning, that Lucas was “not to stick his neck out” – as he, Clark, had at Salerno – were his last words as he re-embarked for Naples. They reinforced Lucas’ mood of caution and ensured that the great enterprise was to become a great siege.
* “Ultra”: code-name for the British intelligence source based on radio-intercept provided by the station at Bletchley, England.
9
THE SOLDIER’S ART
Think first, fight afterwards, the soldier’s art.
Robert Browning. “Childe Roland to the Dark Tomer Came”
stanza 15
In January 1944 Kesselring pondered the options open to the Allies. He concluded that their best course would be to attack in the Cassino sector with the aim of opening the Via Casilina where it ran through the Liri valley, in combination with an amphibious operation to turn the western end of the Gustav Line. Here his military judgment was sound, for that was the plan eventually approved by Alexander. However, what are hypothetically the best options are not necessarily the ones adopted by an opponent. Kesselring’s own staff assured him that there was no evidence of a build-up in front of Cassino, and Admiral Canaris (head of the Abwehr, the Wehrmacht intelligence service) that he had detected none of the signs of an impending landing – naval reconnaissance, concentrations of landing craft or rehearsals. Kesselring accepted the assurance that an offensive was not imminent. He was soon disillusioned, on both counts. On January 17 McCreery opened the Fifth Army offensive with an attack across the lower Garigliano, and on the 22nd Major-General John P. Lucas and his US 6th Corps disembarked unopposed at Anzio. Both achieved complete surprise.
The first attack of the Fifth Army was made by the 10th Corps on the lower Garigliano. McCreery took the greatest care to conceal his concentration in an area dominated by observers on the commanding heights north of the river. (The guns were brought up battery by battery as near to the eastern bank as possible and left unmanned.) On the night of the 17th the 5th Division attacked in complete silence near the mouth, sending one battalion embarked in DUKW amphibians to capture a beach to the north of it, while the 56th Division, supported by one of the massed artillery bombardments favoured by the British, successfully crossed the river higher up. By the 19th Minturno was in McCreery’s hands and he had a bridgehead two miles deep.
Clark had made an outline plan early in December 1943. The magnet that attracted him was Rome, and he hoped fervently that the honour of liberating it would fall to the soldiers of the United States. Accordingly he chose as the axis of his main thrust the Via Casilina (Highway No. 6), through the Liri valley, as it was the most direct route between his objective and the northern sector of his fron
t, where his US 2nd Corps was deployed. His general idea was to use the British 10th Corps on his left next the sea to draw in the German reserves, and the 2nd to drive through to Frosinone. When, and only when Frosinone had fallen would SHINGLE be launched, but Churchill’s intervention had forced a change of timing, SHINGLE was now to take place on January 22, by which date Clark had to break open the Gustav Line.
Tug of War Page 16