The Day of Battle (141 page)

“
Yesterday made 60 days
”: censorship morale reports, Nov. 1943–June 1944, NARA RG 492, MTO AG, 311.7, box 931 (“
All the boys who never prayed
”); “Lessons from the Italian Campaign,” March 15, 1945, HQ, MTO, CMH, Ital. 353, 72 (“
foxhole-itis
”); Collins, 190 (
S.I.W.
); OH, John A. Heintges, 1974, Jack A. Pellicci, SOOHP, MHI, 231 (
bottle of tranquilizers
); Albert E. Cowdrey,
Fighting for Life,
150 (
Anzio Beachhead Psychiatric Society
); MacDonald, 43 (“
stumbling figure
”).

“
This war has become a very personal affair
”: censorship morale reports, Nov. 1943–June 1944; Michael Gonzalez, curator, 45th ID Mus, to author, March 25, 2005 (
German scalps
); letter, “Bob” to family in New Haven, Conn., Apr. 20, 1944, MCC, YU (“
Henry would shoot him again
”); Woodruff, 144 (“
struggle so hard
”); Liebschner, “Iron Cross Roads,” 82 (“
simply refused to die
”); Martin, 127 (“
What’s your name now
”).

The days warmed, the seasons advanced:
memoir, Gardiner, 231; memoir, Pritchard, 35 (
camouflaging craters
); “Fifth Army Medical History,” ts, n.d., NARA RG 112, MTO surgeon general, 390/17/8/2-3, box 6, 91–98; Meyer, “Stratgy and Logistical History: MTO,” XXII-30.

“
We seem to be having phenomenal success
”: Collins, 167–69, 179; Edward D. Churchil,
Surgeon to Soldiers,
279.

The new season stirred the dull roots:
“Report of William Russell Criss,” ts, n.d., 45th ID Mus, 317 (“
getting us fat
”); Marshall, 30 (
Axis Sally
).

“
Next to missing you all terribly
”: JJT, XIII-13; D’Este, 418 (“
where many of us ceased to be young
”).

“Put the Fear of God into Them”

High above the mud and the misery:
“Air Power in the Mediterranean,” Feb. 1945, MAAF, historical section, MHI, 7, 10, 33 (“
non-operational
”); F. M. Sallagar, “Operation STRANGLE: A Case Study of Tactical Air Interdiction,” Feb. 1972, RAND, R-851, 11 (
Barely five hundred German planes
); Edward B. Westermann,
Flak,
234 (
4,300 German flak batteries
).

a crewman flying from Italy listed in his
diary: Mina Curtiss, ed.,
Letters Home,
318; Albert F. Simpson, “Air Phase of the Italian Campaign to 1 January 1944,” June 1946, AAFRH-115, CMH, 239, 255, 265, 365n;
AAFinWWII,
vol. 3, 55, 66 (
growing pains
); Kenn C. Rust,
Fifteenth Air Force Story,
19 (“
disorganized mob
”).

Losses in the fall of 1943:
Tami Davis Biddle,
Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare,
224; Geoffrey Perret,
Winged Victory,
265–69; “Target Priorities of the Eighth Air Force,” May 15, 1945, HQ, Eighth AF, director of intel, Office of AF History, Bolling AFB, Md., 520.317A, 13; corr, Arthur T. Harris to Ira C. Eaker, Nov. 4, 1943, Eaker papers, Eighth AF corr, LOC, box 19 (“
small coal and steel towns
”); memo, H.H. Arnold, “Progress Made by the RAF and U.S. Eighth Air Force in the Combined Bomber Offensive,” Nov. 7, 1943, NARA RG 243, section 3, envelope 194 (
bomb damage at Coventry
); Martin Gilbert,
Winston Churchill’s War Leadership,
44, 89 (“
ever learned to fly
”).

As the war’s fifth winter ended:
Westermann, 1 (
over a million civilians
); Biddle, 174, 205–7 (
long-range fighters
);
AAFinWWII,
vol. 3, 49; Richard G. Davis,
Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe,
66; Leroy W. Newby,
Target Ploesti,
38 (“
barroom brawlers
”); “Eighth Air Force Tactical Development,” July 1945, Eighth AF, MHI (“
fear of God
”).

offensive code-named
ARGUMENT
:
Glenn Infield,
Big Week,
4, 44;
AAFinWWII,
vol. 3, 43 (
Allied losses were bitter
); James H. Doolittle,
I Could Never Be So Lucky Again,
396 (
more Luftwaffe planes
); Davis, 322–26; John Ellis,
Brute Force,
195, 204; Bernard C. Nalty et al.,
With Courage,
225, 228 (
less than a month
); e-mail, Conred C. Crane to author, March 2, 2007.

“
un-gear the German war economy
”: “The Effect of Allied Strategic Bombing on the Present Status of the War,” Feb. 2, 1945, in “Air Power in the Mediterranean,” 7, 10, 33; H. H. Arnold,
Global Mission,
328; “An Analysis of the Weather Factor in This War,” Apr. 1944, NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, AAF WIB A 4-44, box 27 (
average two tons of high explosives
); “Target Priorities of the Eighth Air Force,” 21–23 (
German synthetic oil facilities
).

Even so, the hard winter for airmen:
Davis, 358, 379; Charles R. Shrader, “Amicicide: The Problem of Friendly Fire in Modern War,” Dec. 1982, CSI, 36 (
bombing Switzerland
).

Losses remained dreadful:
Davis, 288; Ellis,
Brute Force
220–21; Biddle, 204; Marvin A. Kreidberg and Merton G. Henry,
History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army, 1775–1945,
647; Harry H. Crosby,
A Wing and a Prayer,
95 (“
When a plane blew up
”).

“
When I fly a mission
”: John Muirhead,
Those Who Fall,
98; Stephen E. Ambrose,
The Wild Blue,
169 (“
You must remember this
”); Nalty, 184 (
13,000 U.S. airmen
); Michael Burleigh,
The Third Reich,
746 (
140,000 Allied crewmen
); censorship morale reports, Nov. 1943–June 1944, NARA RG 492, MTO AG, 311.7, box 931 (“
On my last four raids
”); Newby, 46 (
aluminum patches
); Howard, 51, 85 (“
the enlarged pupil
”).

Propeller turbulence:
James S. Nanney, “Army Air Forces Medical Service in World War II,” 1998, 9, 20–23; memo, “German Fighter Tactics Against Flying Fortresses,” Dec. 8, 1943, HQ, Eighth AF, CARL, N-13354 (“
Sisters’ Act
”); “Combat Informational Intelligence Series: Interview with Brig. Gen. H. S. Hansell,” Aug. 9, 1943, RG 334, NWC Lib, box 14; Conrad C. Crane,
Bombs, Cities, and Civilians,
54 (“
I didn’t pray for myself
”).

“
variable one subject to local conditions
”: “Air Power in the Mediterranean,” 62. Air Force statistics indicated that casualty rates among airmen in the Mediterranean remained proportionally higher than those of the ground forces through the end of 1944. Simpson, “Air Phase of the Italian Campaign to 1 January 1944,” 369. Many flying casualties in the Italy-based Twelfth Air Force were classified as “nervous disorders.” James S. Nanney, “Army Air Forces Medical Service in World War II,” 1998, 17.

“
Fly ’til I die
”: Howard, 165.

Among those affected by the ever spiraling quotas:
Michael C. Scoggins, “Joseph Heller’s Combat Experiences in
Catch-22,
”
War, Literature & the Arts,
vol. 15, nos. 1 & 2 (2003), 213+; Joseph Heller,
Now and Then,
181.

Command of the Italian skies
: Sallagar, “Operation
STRANGLE,
” 19 (“
German withdrawal
”).

Extravagant claims for airpower’s efficacy:
OH, Ira C. Eaker, Feb. 1975, Hugh N. Ahmann, AFHRA, K239.0512-829, 375–76;
Battle,
14.

Much of the thinking about how best:
Mark M. Boatner III,
The Biographical Dictionary of World War II,
641; Vincent Orange,
Tedder,
223; Solly Zuckerman,
From Apes to Warlords,
185–95, 203, 209–10; Eduard Mark,
Aerial Interdiction in Three Wars,
94; Molony VI, 35.

“
without critically weakening the enemy
”: Andrew Brookes,
Air War over Italy, 1943–1945,
80;
AAFinWWII,
vol. 3, 372–73 (
hard to cut
); Sallagar, “Operation
STRANGLE,
” 26, 29; “Isolation of the Battlefield as Effected in the Italian Campaign,” July 1944, HQ, AAF, CARL, N-9818, 7, 10–11; “Report on Operation
STRANGLE
, 19 March–11 May 1944,” July 24, 1944, HQ, MATAF, AFHRA, 626.430, 3 (“
could have afforded to discard
”).

Eaker and his apostles:
OH, Lauris Norstad, 1979, Hugh N. Ahmann, AFHRA, K239.0512-1116, 532; James Parton, “
Air Force Spoken Here,
” 381; H. M. Wilson, “Report by the Supreme Allied Commander,” 1948, part II, 7.

STRANGLE
began badly:
Anthony Cave Brown,
The Last Hero,
475–77; Patrick K. O’Donnell,
Operatives, Spies and Saboteurs,
59–60; index, OSS operations, Italy, 1944, “Ginny,” NARA RG 226, E 99, OSS history office, 190/6/7/6, box 40, 33; report, OSS activities, March 1944, NATOUSA, NARA RG 226, OSS history office, box 122 (“
Mission assumed lost
”).

An Italian fisherman who spotted a dinghy:
Max Corvo,
The O.S.S. in Italy,
155–62; affidavit, Capt. Clifford M. Bassett, M.D., and Capt. Robert J. Willoughby, M.D., May 24, 1945, forensic examination of “15 men dressed in American military uniforms on Punto Bianca,” author’s possession (
hands lashed with wire
); http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/WCC/dostler.htm; Brown, 480–81. General Dostler was tried at Caserta after the war and executed by firing squad.

The bombing campaign proved more potent: AAFinWWWII,
vol. 3, 378–79 (
twenty-seven bridges
); 384; Sallagar, “Operation
STRANGLE,
” 41n; memo, “How
STRANGLE
Worked on Four Targets,” ts, n.d., Lauris Norstad papers, DDE Lib, box 18 (
hit at twenty-two points
).

Stations, bridges, engine repair shops:
Sallagar, “Operation
STRANGLE,
” 34, 38 (
tripled to seventy-five
), 46; “Analysis of Tactical Attacks on Bridges and Viaducts,” n.d., HQ MAAF, CMH, Geog Italy, 370.2, 2; Klaus Stange, “Railroad Situation from January 1944,” Apr. 1947, FMS, D-049, 8 (
shot up rail electrical conduits
); “Interdiction of Italian Railways,” Apr. 15, 1944, HQ, MAAF, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 8 (
trains often halted in Florence
); Ernst Eggert, “Supply During Allied Offensive, May 1944,” 1947, FMS, #D-128, MHI, 3–4 (
drums ran short
).

Kesselring in early April:
Mark, 168; Albert Kesselring et al., “German Version of the History of the Italian Campaign,” CARL, N-16671.1-3, 110 (
took nearly a week
);
AAFinWWII,
vol. 3, 383; Walter von Unruh, “Inspection of Italian Theater of War,” 1947, FMS, D-016, 18; Eggert, “Supply During Allied Offensive, May 1944,” 8; Stange, “Railroad Situation from January 1944,” 8–9 (“
difficulties seemed to pile up
”).

With that maddening blend of dexterity:
Walter Warlimont, “OKW Activities—The Italian Theater, 1 Apr.–31 Dec. 1944,” n.d., FMS, C-099b, 17–18; “Report on Operation
STRANGLE
, 19 March–11 May 1944,” 3 (
For every boxcar destroyed
); Karl Theodor Koerner, “Rail Transportation Problems in Italy,” Apr. 1947, FMS, D-010, MHI, 11 (
bridge spans across the Po
); Sallagar, “Operation
STRANGLE
,” 54; Britt Bailey, “The German Situation in Italy,” July 1951, NARA RG 319, E 145, OCMH, R-series mss, #R-50, 34; Mark, 178.

“
achieved nothing more than nuisance value
”:
StoC,
451; Kesselring et al., “German Version,” 107–15; Molony VI, 42 (
grew sclerotic
); Parton, 384 (“
virtually without air support
”); “Air Power in the Mediterranean,” 50 (“not
forced to withdraw
”).

“You Are All Brave. You Are All Gentlemen”

Spring crept up the Italian boot:
Harold L. Bond,
Return to Cassino,
133; Farley Mowat,
The Regiment,
184; Cyril Ray,
Algiers to Austria,
122 (
flowers enameled the fields
); Walter Robson,
Letters from a Soldier,
91; Klaus H. Huebner,
A Combat Doctor’s Diary,
59 (
whiff of charred villages
).

Herders tended their white, sloe-eyed cattle:
Robson, 91; John Guest,
Broken Images,
163, 172, 175; Medding, “The Road to Rome,” 59 (
Children with big mallets
); “Report of William Russell Criss,” ts, May 5, 1944, 45th ID Mus (“
I feel like a Dago
”); Margaret Bourke-White, “Over the Lines,” in
Reporting World War II,
vol. 2, 753 (
like scattered coins
); corr, Russell Bodeen to Maxin Kohn, May 14, 1944, 141st Inf, 36th Div, ASEQ, MHI (“
field of blood red poppies
”).

Only at Cassino did spring seem hesitant:
F. Majdalany,
The Monastery,
48–49 (“
Golgotha
”); diary, John G. Wright, May 18, 1944, American Field Service, author’s possession, 23–24 (“
down to bedrock
”); Jack Kros,
War in Italy,
chapter 6, 12 (“
Ghost Village
”); Diana F. Butler, ed., “Human Interest,” UK NA, CAB 101/346, 1 (
crimped to a goat path
); Alex Bowlby,
The Recollections of Rifleman Bowlby,
20.