The Day of Battle (126 page)

Seventh Army was reduced to a shell: PP
, 371; msg, W. B. Smith to GSP, Nov. 25, 1943, Walter Bedell Smith papers, DDE Lib, box 27 (
signal battalion
); diary, Dec. 2, 1943, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 3, folder 4 (“
strip the body
”); JPL, 147–48; Stanley P. Hirshson,
General Patton: A Soldier’s Life,
416 (“
dessicated
”); OH, Garrison H. Davidson, Nov. 1980, John T. Greenwood, CEOH, 231 (“
paper dolls
”); corr, GSP to Beatrice, Nov. 7, 1943, Beatrice to GSP, Nov. 1943, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 17, folder 20.

issued wicker baskets:
Ivan Dmitri,
Flight to Everywhere,
191; “Italy,” Kenyon Joyce papers, 355 (“
middle of my forehead
”); James H. Doolittle,
I Could Never Be So Lucky Again,
363; Clift Andrus, notes on
A Soldier’s Story,
ts, n.d., MRC-FDM, 1988.32, box 215.

“
You need have no fear
”: Martin Blumenson,
Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1885
–
1945
, 213, 215 (“
pink medecin
”); Kenneth S. Davis,
Soldier of Democracy,
439 (“
at least sixty reporters
”);
PP,
359, 361.

He took little interest:
Carl J. Friedrich, ed.,
American Experiences in Military Government in World War II,
120; Robert W. Komer, “Civil Affairs and Military Government in the Mediterranean Theater,” 1954, CMH, 2-3.7 AX, VI, 3–6 (“
subsistence level
”);
PP,
371; Dmitri, 192 (
feigned pregnancy
); Malcolm S. McLean, “Adventures in Occupied Areas,” ts, 1975, MHI, 56 (
Black marketeering
).

Shortages plagued the island:
“History of the Island Base Section, Sicily,” n.d., CMH, 8-4 FA, 14, 18 (“
every possible ruse
”); “Monthly Report for August 1943 on the Administration of Sicily,” n.d., AMGOT, 15th Army Group, to H. Alexander, Frank J. McSherry papers, MHI (“
Mafia activities
”); “Reports of AMGOT Divisions, up to Nov. 1, 1943,” part 3, n.d., Frank J. McSherry papers, MHI (
jailed sixteen hundred
); Norman Lewis,
In Sicily,
56 (
revenge killings
); diary, Carleton Washburne, Oct. 22, 1943, Mina Curtiss collection, YU (
scissored Fascist cant
); John Hersey in
Reporting World War II,
vol. 1, 621; report, W. A. Eddy to W. L. Langer, Aug. 29, 1943, NARA RG 226, E 99, OSS history office, box 39.

The Quaker muckraker:
Dennis Showalter,
Patton and Rommel,
321; Donald Coe, “Army Releases Patton Story After Denial,” Nov. 23, 1943,
Boston Traveler,
1; Richard Collier,
Fighting Words,
147; msg, DDE to AGWAR, NARA RG 165, E 422, OPD executive files, Nov. 27, 1943, box 14; Chandler, vol. 3, 1606 (
Smith in Algiers made matters worse
).

Army regulations:
reprinted,
Army and Navy Journal,
Dec. 4, 1973, 394, Orlando Ward papers, MHI;
PP
, 377 (
fifteen hundred letters
); Hirshson, 427 (
Gallup poll
).

“
I am not so sure
”: corr, GSP to Beatrice, Dec. 4 & 9, 1943, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 17;
Calculated,
257; Hirshson, 433 (“
family of the deceased
”); diary, Dec. 25, 1943, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 3, folder 4 (“
live to see him die
”); Kay Summersby,
Eisenhower Was My Boss,
81 (“
always get in trouble
”); corr, L. J. McNair to GSP, Nov. 27, 1943, and GSP to L. J. McNair, Dec. 29, 1943, NARA RG 165, E 418, director of plans and operations, box 1229; corr, GSP to D. S. Miller, Sr., Dec. 27, 1943, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 44, folder 1 (“
Very few of us
”).

“
I doubt that I would ever
”: msg, DDE to GCM, Sept. 20, 1943, NARA RG 165, E 422, OPD exec files, box 13;
PP,
393; D. Clayton James and Anne Sharp Wells,
A Time for Giants,
230 (“
should always serve
”).

Deliverance came:
“Log of the President’s Trip to Africa and the Middle East,” Stephen T. Early Papers, FDR Lib, box 37.

“
General Patton, you will have an army
”: Mark W. Clark, “General Patton,” ts, n.d., subject file, MWC, Citadel, biography folder, box 70, 3; Michael F. Reilly,
Reilly of the White House,
188.

burst into sobs:
Reilly, 188; William D. Leahy,
I Was There,
215–16.

“
My destiny is sure
”:
PP,
391.

A Gangster’s Battle

Eighth Army since invading Calabria:
Molony V, 481, 482n, 483n;
Battle,
146; Richard Doherty,
A Noble Crusade,
173; msg, DDE to CCS, Nov. 4, 1943, SM, MHI, box 2;
Fifth Army at the Winter Line,
7; Field Marshal the Viscount Alexander of Tunis, “The Allied Armies in Italy,” n.d., CMH, II-21 (“
sufficiently stretched
”).

That strategy still seemed plausible:
Molony V, 493, 496;
StoC,
258–59; B. H. Liddell Hart,
The Other Side of the Hill,
343 (“
We will now hit them
”); Richard Lamb,
Montgomery in Europe 1943–45
, 56 (“
The road to Rome
”).

The Bernhardt Line defenses:
Doherty, 171; Thomas R. Brooks,
The War North of Rome, June 1944
–
May 1945
, 4 (“
ridge and furrow country
”); “Current Reports from Overseas,” March 11, 1944, War Office, CARL, N-148495 (“
average range of vision
”); Field Marshal Lord Carver,
The Imperial War Museum Book of the War in Italy, 1943–1945
, 98–99 (
avenue of poplars
).

Drenching winter rains:
Doherty, 174;
Battle,
148; Molony V, 488; Dharm Pal,
The Campaign in Italy, 1943–1945,
35 (“
malignant river
”); Richard S. Malone,
A Portrait of War 1939–1943
, 201 (“
could hear the wounded men
”);
StoC,
259 (
losses in the 78th Division
).

“
an unprofitable sector
”: OH, Howard Kippenberger, Feb. 4 and 12, 1947, SM, MHI; weekly intelligence summary, no. 67, Dec. 4, 1943, AFHQ, G-2, NARA RG 407, E 427, 95-AL1-2.6 (“
lost the initiative
”); Michael Pearson Cessford, “Hard in the Attack: The Canadian Army in Sicily and Italy, July 1943–June 1944,” Sept. 1996, Ph.D. diss, Carleton University, Ottawa, 215 (
strategy of attrition
); Molony V, 495–97.

“
almost lunar in its desolation
”: Farley Mowat,
The Regiment,
137, 146; Doherty, 191 (“
lay rigid
”).

“
To preserve sanity
”: diary, O. Carpenter, Nov. 11, 1943, IWM, 79/38/1; John Gunther,
D Day,
134 (“
murder
”); Gilbert Allnutt, “A Fusilier Remembers Italy,” ts, 1979, IWM, 80/46/1, 18, 23 (“
Move forward
”).

Montgomery kept his swank:
Gunther, 129; Malone, 193–95.

“
The army commander wants to see you
”: L.S.B. Shapiro,
They Left the Back Door Open,
44; OH, Francis de Guingand, March 31, 1947, G. A. Harrison, “OCMH WWII Europe
Interviews,” MHI (“
Sit down
”); Stephen Brooks, ed.,
Montgomery and the Eighth Army,
313 (“
go-as-you-please
”); J. B. Tomlinson, “Under the Banner of the Battleaxe,” ts, n.d., IWM, 90/29/1, 108 (“
And after the war
”).

“
I
must
have fine weather
”: Nigel Hamilton,
Master of the Battlefield,
449; Dick Malone,
Missing from the Record,
53 (“
You are useless
”); Andrew Brookes,
Air War over Italy, 1943–1945,
38 (“‘S
top frigging
’”); Molony V, 511 (“
the unusual gift
”).

“
a very good First World War general
”: Richard H. Kohn, ed., “The Scholarship on World War II,”
Journal of Military History,
vol. 55, no. 3 (July 1991), 365+.

“
untidy and ad hoc
”: B. L. Montgomery, “Reflections on the Campaign in Italy, 1943,” Nov. 24, 1943, ts, IWM, micro, reel 4, BLM 48, 1–4.

Canada’s hour had finally come round:
Mark Zuehlke,
Ortona,
3; Martin Gilbert,
The Second World War,
353–54;
From Pachino to Ortona,
CARL, N-14352; Arthur Bryant,
The Turn of the Tide,
596 (
feared that the war would end
).

a decrepit sandstone castle:
Combat Report No. 1, “Liberation of Rome,” 1944, Signal Corps film, NARA RG 111, CR001; Zuehlke,
Ortona,
31–32, 37–39; Karl Baedeker,
Southern Italy and Sicily,
190 (
local landmarks
); Daniel G. Dancocks,
The D-Day Dodgers: The Canadians in Italy, 1943–1945,
173–76 (
ten thousand souls
); Steiger, “The Campaign in Southern Italy,” 30 (
holes in the harbor mole
); “Canadian Street Fighting in Ortona,” June 15, 1944, Military Reports from the United Nations, No. 19, NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, box 184 (
easily severed
).

The Canadian division commander:
http://www.junobeach.org/e/3/can-pep-can-vokesep.htm; Zuehlke,
Ortona,
14 (“
pompous bully
”), 18; Dancocks, 69 (“
roughneck
”), 191 (
the Butcher
); Mark Zuehlke,
The Liri Valley,
166 (“
a man’s fate is written
”); Molony V, 504.

A lunge on the left flank:
Dancocks, 156, 159 (“
raving madhouse
”); Mowat, 151 (“
stupid bastard
”); Zuehlke,
Ortona,
124 (“
translucent red
”), 156, 160;
From Pachino to Ortona
, 133–34 (“
confusing to the enemy
”); war diary, Loyal Edmonton Regiment, Dec. 9, 1943, http://www.lermuseum.org/ler/cof/sacrifice/wwii/textwindow/wardiary1.html; “Victoria Cross Is Awarded Major Paul Triquet, Montreal, for Heroic Action in Italy,” March 6, 1944, Hamilton (Canada)
Spectator
, www.warmuseum.ca.

Beyond the Moro lay a ravine:
Cessford, “Hard in the Attack,” 264; Zuehlke,
Ortona,
48; Molony V, 504 (“
Of eight assaults
”); Dancocks, 171 (“
You tell Monty
”).

“
filthy limbo
”: Mowat, 161–65.

replaced by the 1st Parachute Division: From Pachino to Ortona,
139; Alexander, “The Allied Armies in Italy,” II-29 (“
best German troops
”); Zuehlke,
Ortona
, 161, 201.

Heavy losses and exhaustion:
Christopher Buckley,
Road to Rome,
256; Cessford, “Hard in the Attack,” 233 (“
You feel nothing
”); G.W.L. Nicholson,
The Canadians in Italy, 1943–1945,
vol. 2, 317 (
Errant maps
); Dancocks, 171 (“
He frittered away everything
”), 173; Zuehlke,
Ortona,
212–14, 219 (“
porridge pot
”); Molony V, 503–5.

MORNING GLORY
:
Cessford, “Hard in the Attack,” 233, 241; Dancocks, 240; Buckley, 256.

“
I wish I could see you
”: Cessford, “Hard in the Attack,” 233.

first large, pitched urban battle:
Molony V, 507.

Ortona had been spared razing:
ibid., 509; “Canadian Street Fighting in Ortona” Nicholson, 323; Zuehlke,
Ortona,
247; Dancocks, 186 (“
butchered deer
”); Steiger, “The Campaign in Southern Italy,” 63 (“
Everybody was very sad
”).

Side streets proved too narrow: Battle
, 151–53; “Canadian Street Fighting in Ortona” (
shot the tanks in the belly
); Molony V, 507; Doherty, 184–85;
The Tiger Triumphs,
28–29 (“
gangster’s battle
”); Zuehlke,
Ortona,
278, 289; Nicholson, 328 (“
miniature Stalingrad
”); Dancocks, 181 (“
three more shooting days
”).

Rather than clear buildings conventionally:
“Street Fighting,” intelligence report, 5778-44, May 29, 1944, British GHQ, Cairo, CMH, Geog Files, Italy, 370.2, 6–7; “Beehives,” appendix B, “Ortona,” HQ, 1st Canadian Div, Feb. 16, 1944, C. W. Allfrey papers, LHC, 4/8; Mowat, 163.

“
The stench here
”: Dancocks, 1, 179 (“
We could beat you
”); Buckley, 260.

Two dozen Edmontons were buried:
war diary, Loyal Edmonton Regiment, Dec. 27, 1943, http://www.lermuseum.org/ler/cof/sacrifice/wwii/textwindow/wardiary1.html.

“
We do not want to defend
”: Steiger, “The Campaign in Southern Italy,” 65.

“
There is no town left
”: Zuehlke,
Ortona,
348.

“
This is Ortona
”: Dancocks, 186, 189;
From Pachino to Ortona
(“
a fairy tale
”).

Alexander’s plan had miscarried:
Molony V, 509; Dancocks, 186 (“
The familiar world
”).

Too Many Gone West

Removing his hat:
Lord Moran,
Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran,
159; W. H. Thompson,
I Was Churchill’s Shadow,
124, 126 (
for his sixty-ninth birthday
).