The Day of Battle (135 page)

Shit Corner:
memoir, P. Royle, ts, 1972, IWM, 99/72/1, 108; Thomas Drake Durrance, “Battle for the Abbey,” ts, n.d., author’s possession (“
Halt!
”); Paul Fussell,
Wartime,
274–75 (“
Don’t be scared
”).

The lucky ones found shelter:
Nigel Nicolson,
Alex: The Life of Field Marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis,
248; C. L. Sulzberger,
A Long Row of Candles,
236 (“
steam
”); Martha Gellhorn,
The Face of War,
131 (“
perfume and gasoline
”); Howard H. Peckham and Shirley A. Snyder,
Letters from Fighting Hoosiers,
vol. 2, 76 (“
We sit around quibbling
”); Warren P. Munsell, Jr.,
The Story of a Regiment,
40 (
Berlin Bitch
); Klaus H. Huebner,
A Combat Doctor’s Diary,
51 (
daily passwords
).

The unlucky crouched in damp sangars:
memoir, Anthony “Butch” Buccieri, 133rd Inf Regt, written by John F. Sackheim, 2001, VHP;
StoC,
380; C. Richard Eke, “A Game of Soldiers,” IWM, 92/1/1, 91-92 (
wooden plows
); Blaxland, 55; Parker, 152 (
urinate, if necessary
); memoir, Henry E. Gardiner, ts, n.d., USMA Arch, 208; memo, N.P. Morrow to L. J. McNair, Jan. 28, 1944, AGF Board, NARA RG 407, E 427, NATOUSA (
99,000 sets
); “Operations in Italy, January 1944,” 142nd Inf Regt, MHI, 603-142, 9 (
too thick for most GI boots
); Samuel David Spivey,
A Doughboy’s Narrative,
84 (“
a life of extremes
”).

“
the quartermaster must be running
”: memoir, Gardiner, 214; June Wandrey,
Bedpan Commando,
85 (“
Our meat is dead
”); Ivan Dmitri,
Flight to Everywhere,
145 (“
no fresh milk
”); Maurice R. P. Bechard, “This Is an Account of What Was to Be,” ts, n.d., 16th Armored Engineer Bn, 1st AD, ASEQ, MHI, 2 (“
fighting the whole fucking war
”); Neil McCallum,
Journey with a Pistol,
142 (“
cold as a corpse
”).

“
disheveled, unshaven, unkempt
”: J. B. Tomlinson, “Under the Banner of the Battleaxe,” ts, n.d., IWM, 80/29/1, 105, 139,144; Parker, 207; C. T. Fram, “The Littlest Victory,” ts, n.d., IWM 85/19/1, 72.

“
regular as a scythe-stroke
”: Lawrence Durrell, from
Sicilian Carousel,
in Alcie Leccese Powers,
Italy in Mind,
82; Walter Bernstein,
Keep Your Head Down,
149 (“
finger of God
”);
StoC,
380 (
200,000 shells
); AAR, II Corps, Jan. 1944, NARA RG 407, E 427, 202-0.3, 15 (
240mm howitzer
); Peckham and Snyder, 68 (“
a lot of war bonds
”); Cyril Ray,
Algiers to Austria,
119 (“
most heavily shelled pinpoint
”); Durrance, “Battle for the Abbey,” 16 (“
pounding the soles of my feet
”); N. P. Morrow, “Field Artillery Technique and Procedure,” Jan. 7, 1944, AGF observer report, file #56, NARA RG 337, box 52; N.P. Morrow, “Employment of Artillery in Italy,”
FAJ,
Aug. 1944, 499+; “Lessons in Combat,” 34th ID, Sept. 1944, Iowa GSM, 47 (“
murder space
”); “AFHQ Intelligence Notes No. 63,” June 13, 1944, NARA RG 407, E 47, 95-AL1-2.18 (“
Wet earth
”).

learned to relieve the overpressure:
Carl Rollyson,
Nothing Ever Happens to the Brave,
193; Ray, 118; Spike Milligan,
Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall,
255 (“
Digging and swearing
”); Alex Bowlby,
The Recollections of Rifleman Bowlby,
26 (“
Keep your nut down
”).

“
Enlisted men expect everything
”: Douglas Allanbrook,
See Naples,
180; Ben Shephard,
War of Nerves,
237 (“
gutful men
”); “Lessons from the Italian Campaign,” Apr. 14, 1944, 1st SSF, Robert D. Burhans papers, HIA, box 7 (“
Use good judgment
”).

“
Came across three dead G.I.s
”: Maurice R. P. Bechard, “This Is an Account of What Was to Be,” ts, n.d., 16th Armored Engineer Bn, 1st AD, ASEQ, MHI, 2.

Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony
”: Fussell, 183; John Muirhead,
Those Who Fall,
101 (“
bright beads
”)

“The initial crack
”: B. Smith, “Waltonia,” ts, 1981, IWM, 67/254/1.

“
You could never lose it
”: memoir, P. Royle, t.s, 1972, IWM, 99/72/1, 106; Harpur, 65 (“
That brooding monastery
”).

A new warlord arrived:
Paul Freyberg,
Bernard Freyberg, V.C.,
458 (
“torch is now thrown
”).

“
I’m Freyberg
”: W. G. Stevens,
Freyberg, the Man,
103, 35 (“
large all over
”); H. Essame, “A Controversial Campaign—Italy, 1943–45,”
Army Quarterly and Defence Journal,
Jan. 1968, 219+ (“
shelling did everyone good
”); Stevens,
Freyberg, the Man,
96 (“
lack of imagination
”); Freyberg, 112–13 (“
St. Sebastian
”), 186–87 (“
diastolic murmur
”); Peter Singleton-Gates,
General Lord Freyberg VC,
8; obit, “Gen. Lord Freyberg, British Leader at Monte Cassino,”
Washington Star,
July 5, 1963 (“
two wounds for every bullet
”); Michael Carver, ed.,
The War Lords,
583 (
india-rubber
); Lisa Chaney,
Hide-and-Seek With Angels: A Life of J. M. Barrie
, 316 (“
his lack of humour
”).

lined it with flowering sage:
Freyberg, 51; Stevens,
Freyberg, the Man,
56–57 (“
fine gloves
”), 60, 76 (“
your turn tomorrow
”).

Even his admirers acknowledged:
Freyberg, 62–63 (“
wouldn’t try to think
”), 118; “Operations of N.Z. Corps on the Fifth Army Front,” part I, May 1944, HQ, AAI, UK NA, CAB 106/366, 4 (
a new creation
).

“
clean and spritely
”: E. D. Smith,
The Battles for Cassino,
65; Phillips, 178–79; Majdalany, 102–3; B. Smith, “Waltonia,” ts, 1981, IWM, 67/254/1 (“
crates of live chickens
”).

At first Freyberg considered:
Molony V, 706–7;
Battle,
193; Phillips, 222; Hapgood and Richardson, 151 (“
no brains
”); Howard Kippenberger,
Infantry Brigadier,
356 (“
soviet of division commanders
”). Tuker considered Freyberg “brave as a lion” but “no planner of battles and a niggler in action.” Raleigh Trevelyan,
Rome ’44,
133.

“
helpless lunacy
”: Bishenwar Prasad, ed.,
Official History of the Indian Armed Forces in the Second World War, 1939
–
1945: The Campaign in Italy, 1943
–
1945,
98 (
deemed Monte Cassino impregnable
), 105; F. Jones, “The Bombing of Monte Cassino, 23–25; “The Bombing of Cassino Abbey,” 1965, monograph for official history, UK NA, CAB 101/229, 7.

“
No practicable means available
”: Singleton-Gates, 277.

“Spadger still wants
”: GK, Feb. 11, 1944; diary, MWC, Feb. 4, 1944, Citadel, box 65 (“
bull in a china closet
”).

“
I would level the Vatican itself
”: censorship morale reports, Nov. 1943–June 1944, NARA RG 492, MTO AG, 311.7.

The Bitchhead

Sixty miles away:
beachhead census, D+10, JPL papers, MHI, box 12; Pyle, 173; Francesco Rossi and Silvano Casaldi,
Those Days at Nettuno,
frontispiece; Fred Sheehan,
Anzio: Epic of Bravery,
102;
Anzio Beachhead,
113 (
empty wine barrels
); Edmund F. Ball,
Staff Officer with the Fifth Army,
294 (
sandstone seemed to telegraph
); “Engineer History, Fifth Army, Mediterranean Theater,” n.d., MHI, 81 (
tunnel rumored to have been built by Nero
); Trevelyan, 152 (“
So back we go to World War I
”).

“
My cost of living
”: Flint Whitlock,
The Rock of Anzio,
179.

“
We have found our religion
”: diary, William Russell Hinckley, Feb. 1944, author’s possession; “Background Material, Historical Branch G-2,” n.d., ASF, QM General, technical information branch, CMH, 000.75, 3 (
punctured all fifteen ovens
); Pyle, 168, 188; F.J. Lowry, “The Naval Side of the Anzio Invasion,”
Proceedings,
Jan. 1954, 22+ (
skippers weighed anchor
); Justin F. Gleichauf,
Unsung Sailors: The Naval Armed Guard in World War II,
293 (“
brighter than Yankee Stadium
”); Roberta Love Tayloe,
Combat Nurse,
80 (“
Anzio, my Anzio
”).

Hell’s Half-Acre:
“Fifth Army Medical Service History,” Feb. 1945, CMH, 19–20, 23 (
killed the VI Corps surgeon
); Charles M. Wiltse,
The Medical Department: Medical Service in the Mediterranean and Minor Theaters,
275 (
a Luftwaffe bomber
); testimony, Paul Sauer, n.d., Fifth Army JAG, war crimes office, NARA RG 153, box 530 (“
I’m dying
”); Sheehan, 166 (
treated in the same hospital
).

“
God, help us
”: “Fifth Army Medical Service History,” 24; Carlo D’Este,
Fatal Decision,
2; journal, Fourteenth Army, Feb. 5, 1944, in “The German Operation at Anzio,” German military document section, Military Intelligence Div, WD, MHI, JPL papers, box 9; corr, George H. Revelle, Jr., to wife, Feb. 5, 1944, author’s possession (“
dog on an iceberg
”); George C. Harper, “The World War II Years,” ts, 1999, 16th Armored Engineer Bn, 1st AD, MHI, ASEQ, 27 (“
outhouse
”); Pyle, 160; Malcolm Munthe,
Sweet Is War,
182 (“
dining room table
”); David Cole,
Rough Road to Rome,
199 (“
Morphine
”); Charles F. Marshall,
A Ramble Through My War,
64 (“
too much iron
”).

Deep holes grew deeper:
diary, Robert M. Marsh, Feb. 11, 1944, 81st Armored Reconnaissance Bn, 1st AD, MHI, ASEQ; Paul Dickson,
War Slang,
113+; Ball, 295; William J. Sweet, Jr., “Operations of the 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, on the Anzio Beachhead,” 1947, IS (
eliminate tree bursts
); Munthe, 182 (“
sons of the prophet
”); George Forty,
M4 Sherman,
67 (“
can’t get used to bein’ scared
”); Paul W. Brown,
The Whorehouse of the World,
392–93; T. Moffatt Burriss,
Strike and Hold,
87 (
firing at the helmets
); Cole, 205 (“
shooting gallery
”).

“
Get moving
”: Tom Roe,
Anzio Beachhead,
43, 53; John Lardner, “Anzio, February 10th,” in
The New Yorker Book of War Pieces,
262 (“
like sunburned skin
”); John Lardner, “The Show at Anzio,” in John Stenbuck, ed.,
Typewriter Battalion,
117 (“
small, wet world
”); GK, March 25, 1944 (
Bitchhead
); Donald G. Taggart, ed.,
History of the Third Infantry Division in World War II,
125 (“
squirt of white tracer
”); Lloyd Clark,
Anzio,
144 (“
I was alone
”); George Aris,
The Fifth British Division, 1939 to 1945,
210–11, 239; Cole, 198 (
recalled his Virgil
).

Yanks veered to the right:
Sweet, “Operations of the 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment” Trevelyan, 222 (“
Otto, Otto
”); Lloyd M. Wells,
From Anzio to the Alps,
83 (“
Nerves became frayed
”); Pyle, 194.

Grave diggers halted their poker game:
Allan Jaynes, “Mud, Misery and Messerschmitts,” ts, 1990, 45th ID Mus; “The 30 Years of Army Experience of Thomas E. Hannum,” ts, n.d., 91st Armored FA Bn, 1st AD, MHI, ASEQ, 74; Pyle, 194; Peter Verney,
Anzio 1944,
86 (“
can never be as bad
”).

disrupted Mackensen’s timetable:
journal, Fourteenth Army, Feb. 3, 5, 12, 1944; AAR, 3 Inf Bde, Jan. 30–Feb 14, 1944, UK NA, CAB 106/850 (
exposed salient
).

The attack fell heaviest:
Sheehan, 94; Wynford Vaughan-Thomas,
Anzio,
96 (“
dirty, ragged wave
”), 101; Verney, 98 (“
Germans are at the door
”); D.J.L. Fitzgerald,
History of the Irish Guards in the Second World War,
268, 275 (“
never saw so many people killed
”); Robley D. Evans et al., “American Armor at Anzio,” 1949, AS, Ft. K, table; AAR, “Report on Action at Campoleone,” 3 Inf Bde, Feb. 21, 1944, Philip L. E. Wood papers, LH, Wood 2/1 (
438 tubes
).

“All the shells in hell
”: Vaughan-Thomas, 106;
StoC,
396; journal, Fourteenth Army, Feb. 4, 1944;
Anzio Beachhead,
46.

The attack resumed on Monday evening: Anzio Beachhead,
55; Nigel Nicolson,
The Grenadier Guards in the War of 1939
–
1945,
vol. 2, 408 (“
Nothing heard of Number 1 company
”), 39 (
looking for breath plumes
); Verney, 137, 142 (“
hit in the arse
”); D’Este, 222 (“
eaten by pigs
”).