The Day of Battle (148 page)

“
How do you like that?
”: Walters, 97.

“
Boys, we’re on the back page
”: Collier, 157; Sevareid, 418.

On June 6, Alexander:
Molony VI, 281; Blaxland, 139 (“
If only the country
”).

Howitzers barked wheel to wheel:
Medding, “The Road to Rome,” 65; memoir, Edward R. Feagins, 143rd Inf Regt, ts, n.d., Texas MFM, 45 (“
I often wondered
”).

“
C’mon, man, c’mon
”:
Stars and Stripes,
June 5, Italy edition, 1; DeFelice, “Carmene’s Wartime Chronicle” (“
Drove through Rome
”); G-3 journal, II Corps, June 5, 1944, 2015 hrs, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 8 (“
Beyond Rome
”).

Olive-drab columns streamed:
Bond, 191; Medding, “The Road to Rome,” 65; corr, FKW to H. L. Bond, Sept. 30, 1965;
Texas,
387.

Then up they climbed:
Morton, 79, 115, 352; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gianicolo; Bond, 199; Samuel Ball Platner,
A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome,
274, in http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/_Texts/PLATOP*/Janiculum.html.

E
PILOGUE

More than three weeks passed:
JJT, XV-3;
Columbus
[Ohio]
Evening Dispatch,
June 26, 1944, 1, A8;
Columbus Dispatch,
June 3 and 8, 1944.

The news from Rome: Columbus Sunday Dispatch,
June 4, 1944, 1, A5, B1, and June 11, B1;
Columbus Dispatch,
June 6, 1944, 1, A10, B1;
Columbus Evening Dispatch,
June 7, 1944, 1.

The fatal telegram:
JJT, XV-6, 14; author visit, May 7, 2004; “Sicily-Rome American Cemetery and Memorial,” American Battle Monuments Commission booklet, n.d., 3–18.

Here, on Memorial Day in 1945:
Bob Fleisher, “Truscott Leads Memorial Day Rites,”
Stars and Stripes
2, no. 174, May 31, 1945, 1; Leda M. Silver, “Cartoonist for All Wars,”
Retired Officer,
Oct. 1992, 42+; Bill Mauldin,
The Brass Ring,
272.

The fall of Rome proved:
Brooks, 29.

“
Morale is irresistibly high
”: W.G.F. Jackson,
Alexander of Tunis as Military Commander,
295; Thomas R. Brooks,
The War North of Rome,
13 (“
advance is splendid
”).

Kesselring had tried to persuade:
Albrecht Kesselring,
The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring,
205; J. Duncan Love, “Artillery Usage in World War II,” Apr. 1959, vol. II, Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, 125 (
eight miles a day
); directive, A. Kesselring, June 13, 1944, NARA RG 492, MTO G-2, 319, box 354 (“
sadistic imaginativeness
”); Robert Wagner,
The Texas Army,
202 (“
Damned shame
”).

Alexander’s blithe dismissal: Battle,
255–57; OH, Charles de Gaulle, Jan. 14, 1947, FCP, MHI.

“
an overriding priority
”:
CtoA,
270;
Battle,
247, 258; Chester G. Starr, ed.,
From Salerno to the Alps,
268 (
shrunk by more than half
); “Beachheads and Mountains,” pamphlet, June 1945, MTO, Theodore J. Conway papers, MHI, box 2 (
peaked at 880,000
); Viscount Alexander of Tunis, “The Allied Armies in Italy,” n.d., CMH, III-25 (“
disastrous
”); John North, ed.,
The Alexander Memoirs, 1940–1945
, 41 (“
triumphant advance
”);
Calculated,
369 (“
political mistakes
”).

If their disappointment was understandable:
Molony VI, 274;
Battle,
259; George F. Howe, “American Signal Intelligence in Northwest Africa and Western Europe,” U.S. Cryptologic History, Series IV, vol. 1, NARA RG 57, SRH-391, 78 (“
neither strong nor quick
”); Eduard Mark,
Aerial Interdiction in Three Wars,
208–9 (“
cloak of darkness
”); OH, Willis D. Crittenberger, July 19, 1947, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 5.

The stress in Fifth Army:
OH, GK, Feb. 14, 1950, and Edward J. O’Neill, June 22, 1948, both in NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 5; Robert H. Adleman and George Walton,
The Devil’s Brigade,
219 (“
infested with lice
”);
CtoA,
236–37; memos, 1st AD G-4 to ENH, and 1st AD G-1 to ENH, both July 4, 1944, ENH papers, MHI, corr, box 1.

If the past year had been:
Iris Origo,
War in Val D’Orcia,
xiii; Richard Lamb,
War in Italy, 1943–1945
, 64–66 (
ten Italian deaths
); “AFHQ History of Special Operations,” July 1945, MTO, NARA RG 407, E 427, 95-Al1-3.0, box 173, 3 (
85,000 armed partisans
); obit, “Friedrich Engel: Nazi Officer Known as ‘Butcher of Genoa,’” Associated Press,
Washington Post,
Feb. 14, 2006, B6.

Alexander in late August: Battle,
269, 287; B. H. Liddell Hart,
The Other Side of the Hill,
344; Paul A. Cundiff,
45th Infantry CP,
162 (“
wished that I were dead
”).

“
a vast holding operation
”:
CtoA,
235; H. Essame, “A Controversial Campaign—Italy, 1943–45,”
Army Quarterly and Defence Journal,
Jan. 1968, 219+ (
twenty-nine nations
); Andrew Brookes,
Air War over Italy, 1943–1945
, 155 (
thousand cigarettes
).

“
Many men will never know
”: Annette Tapert, ed.,
Lines of Battle,
135; John Muirhead,
Those Who Fall
, 20.

The 608-day campaign: Battle,
317; Eugenio Corti,
The Last Soldiers of the King,
ix;
CtoA,
545 (
equivalent to 40 percent
); “Beachheads and Mountains” (
three-quarters of a million
); “Tools of War,” Dec. 1946, Peninsular Base Section, MHI; Starr, ed., 451–52;
Operations in Sicily and Italy,
USMA Dept. of Military Art and Engineering, 1947, 97. Another statistical summary lists as many as 29,560 American dead and missing in Italy. John Ellis,
World War II: A Statistical Survey,
255. See also “U.S. Army Battle Casualties in Italy,” n.d., CMH, Geog files, Italy, 704, which lists 30,050 U.S. dead, but without giving methodological detail.

German casualties in Italy:
G. A. Shepperd,
The Italian Campaign, 1943–45
, 391;
CtoA,
545; Corti, ix; Starr, ed., 451-52 (
212,000 prisoners
); “Age Distribution of Dead in the German Ground Forces,” OSS, Research and Analysis Branch, Apr. 3, 1945, NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, box 888.

The Pontine Marshes:
“Richiesta di soccorsi per la popolazione di Anzio e Nettuno,” Nov. 18, 1944, provided by Silvano Casaldi, curator, Museum of the Allied Landings, via Andrew Carroll; Donna Martha Budani, “Women, War, and Text: Orsognese Women’s Experience in a Sector of the Italian Front in World War II,” 1997, Ph.D. diss, American University, 24, 28 (
half million mines
); “The Battle for San Pietro,”
AB,
no. 18 (1977), 1+; Maurizio Zambardi,
War Memories,
trans. Monia Cozzolino, 72 (
disarm live shells
).

Sant’Angelo refugees:
Donato D’Epiro,
S. Angelo in Theodice,
181–83.

“
The men that war does not kill
”: Vernon A. Walters,
Silent Missions,
114; Lem Vannatta, “Summer of ’43,” 1988, Texas MFM (“
scared for 23 months
”); J. Glenn Gray,
The Warriors,
175 (“
sooted
”); OH, Louis Bednar, Sept. 17, 2002, VHP (“
smell of anything dead
”).

“
Any estimate of the value
”:
Battle,
317; Jackson, 291 (“
severely mauled
”); Walter Warlimont,
Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 1939–1945,
416 (“
sucked into the vortex
”); WSC,
Triumph and Tragedy,
531 (“
The principal task
”).

“
There is little doubt that Alexander
”: Douglas Porch,
The Path to Victory,
xii; Trumbull Higgins, “The Anglo-American Historians’ War in the Mediterranean, 1942–1945,”
Military Affairs,
Oct. 1970, 84+ (“
never really knew
”).

Others would be even harsher:
Porch, xi (“
cul-de-sac
”); John Ellis,
Brute Force,
table 35 (
22 German divisions
); Liddell Hart, 373; Higgins, “The Anglo-American Historians’ War,” 84; David M. Kennedy,
Freedom from Fear,
596 (“
war of attrition
”).

“
bound to their fixed plans
”: OH, Albert Kesselring, Sept. 18, 1945, R.H. Brock and O.J. Hale, SEM, NHC, box 47; A. Kesselring, “Concluding Remarks on the Mediterranean Campaign,” 1948, FMS, #C-014, MHI, 25 (“
tied down in Italy
”); Kesselring,
Memoirs,
206 (“
utterly failed
”).

“
to advance is to conquer
”: S.L.A. Marshall,
Men Against Fire,
194; S. W. Roskill,
The War at Sea, 1939–1945
, 327 (
eleven German U-boats
); Russell F. Weigley,
The American Way of War,
356–57; Kent Roberts Greenfield,
American Strategy in World War II,
114; “Air Power in the Mediterranean,” Feb. 1945, MAAF, historical section, MHI, 11–12; Bernard C. Nalty et al.,
With Courage,
234; Porch, 668–69.

“
Events generate their own momentum
”: Martin Blumenson, “Sicily and Italy: Why and What For?,”
MR,
Feb. 1966, 61; Richard M. Leighton, “Overlord Revisited: An Interpretation of the American Strategy in the European War, 1942–1944,”
American Historical Review,
919+ (
overwhelmed by the American hordes
);
SSA,
382.

“
Our war of attrition
”: William D. Hassett,
Off the Record with F.D.R.,
192.

Certainly lessons learned in Sicily:
A. Kesselring, “German Strategy During the Italian Campaign,” FMS, #B-270, MHI, 37; Lida Mayo,
The Ordnance Department: On Beachhead and Battlefront,
216–17.

American soldiers could slug it out:
Peter R. Mansoor,
The GI Offensive in Europe,
255; censorship morale reports, Nov. 1943–June 1944, MTO AG, NARA RG 492, 311.7, box 931 (“
I really belong
”).

On the day Rome fell:
“Strength of the Army,” May 31, 1944, CMH; Eric Larrabee,
Commander in Chief,
638.

Of those eight million American soldiers:
“Summary of Activities,” June 1, 1944, NA TOUSA, analysis and control div., CMH; Edmund F. Ball,
Staff Officer with the Fifth Army,
262 (“glad that I came”).

Kesselring continued to command:
Mark M. Boatner III,
The Biographical Dictionary of World War II,
272–73.

Some blew to other fronts:
201 file, Charles W. Ryder papers, DDE Lib, box 2; “Notice of Award of Decoration,” Oct. 23, 1944, FLW papers, HIA, box 3;
Texas,
393 (“
will not be sorry
”).

Others were fated to remain:
“Small World,” CBS, 1959 (“
never quite get over it
”); Peter Neville,
Mussolini,
185–86; Benito Mussolini,
My Rise and Fall,
322; Sergio Luzzatto,
The Body of Il Duce,
46, 100–102, 117, 208–10.

Alexander received:
Nigel Nicholson,
Alex: The Life of Field Marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis,
238.

“
The limitations of his ability
”: Jackson, 295; Boatner, 6; http://www.gg.ca/gg/fgg/bios/01/alexander_e.asp.

Geoffrey Keyes continued
: U.S. Third Army Web site, http://www.arcent.army.mil/history/com_bios/cg_gkeyes.asp.

Bill Darby’s life:
Michael J. King, “Rangers,” June 1985, CSI, 41; Boatner, 117.

“
I tried to tell you
”: corr, LKT Jr. to Sarah, June 11 and 15, 1944, LKT Jr. papers, GCM Lib, box 1, folder 6; Boatner, 574.

Clark also felt on edge:
MWC to Renie, June 8 and 11, July 4, 1944, MWC, personal corr, Citadel; Boatner, 98–99.

“
It is the most cruel and unfair
”: corr, MWC to Renie, March 13, 1946, “Rapido River Controversy, 1946,” MWC, Citadel, box 39, folder 1; Sidney T. Matthews, “Writing Small Unit Actions with the Fifth Army in Italy,” n.d., SM, MHI, box 2 (
commissioned an immense history
).

“
clairvoyant and energetic
”: Martin Blumenson,
Mark Clark,
288; William L. Allen,
Anzio: Edge of Disaster,
49 (“
had his limitations
”).

“
tough old gut
”: Pyle, 201.

“
the dreamt land
”: Richard Wilbur, “A Baroque Wall-Fountain in the Villa Sciarra,” in Alice Leccese Powers,
Italy in Mind,
342.

“
the surge of a marching world
”: Pyle, 201–2.

“
misery, destruction, frustration
”: George Biddle,
Artist at War,
240; Silver, “Cartoonist for All Wars,” 42 (“
I stopped regarding the war
”); Glenn G. Clift,
A Letter from Salerno,
10 (“
born deep inside us
”); Virgil,
The Aeneid,
trans. Robert Fagles, 145 (
circling stars
).