The Liberation Trilogy Box Set

by Rick Atkinson

  the 18th Infantry surged: AAR, “Operations of 18th Inf in Mateur Sector,” n.d., includes 1st, 2nd, 3rd Bn reports, NARA RG 407, E 427, box 5937; Vining, ed., 72–73 (“Bullets were singing”); Mason, “Reminiscences and Anecdotes of WWII,” MRC FDM; “18th Infantry, Draft Regimental Wartime History,” Stanhope Mason Collection, MRC FDM; Allen, “A Factual Summary of the Combat Operations of the 1st ID,” TdA papers, MHI; “G-3 Report, Tunis Operation,” 1st ID, May 5–6, 1943, NARA RG 407, E 427, box 5759; Knickerbocker et al., 80; John T. Corley, OH, n.d., possession of Paul Gorman, 39–40 (“bloody foolish”).

  Early on Friday afternoon: Three Years, 289 (“hen”); DDE to CCS et al., Chandler, 1100, 1108, 1113, 1118; Butcher diary, DDE Lib, A-349 (“good and drunk”).

  he was sleeping badly: Three Years, 310; DDE to GCM et al., Chandler, 1104, 1114, 1115, 1148.

  Now the fifty-five-year-old: Three Years, 298; Butcher diary, DDE Lib, A-365 (“How much better”).

  Eisenhower shrugged off: DDE to GCM, May 6, 1943, Chandler, 1118; Hansen, 5/46 (“most difficult), 5/134 (“Holy First”); Middleton, “The Saga of a Tough Outfit,” New York Times Magazine, Apr. 8, 1945, 8 (“the finest division commander”); Bradley, 93–94; D’Este, Bitter Victory, 271 (“phony Abraham Lincoln”); Bradley and Blair, 158 (“marked man”).

  As Eisenhower and Bradley: letter, C. P. Eastburn to OCMH, June 6, 1947, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 103.

  a dead city: interrogation report, Anatole Cordonier, chief naval engineer, Bizerte, by 9th ID, May 7, 1943, NARA RG 407, E 427, box 7334; Pyle, Here Is Your War, 281 (“Bizerte was”); letter, Donald Peel, May 16, 1943, ASEQ, 9th ID, MHI (“You walked through”); “Statement by BG Laurence S. Kuter,” Pentagon, May 22, 1943, NARA RG 319, 2-3.7 BA, box 103; Clifford, 439; letter, Thomas Riggs to parents, June 25, 1943, PMR, LOC, box 4.

  As Colonel Eastburn: letter, Eastburn to OCMH, June 6, 1947; Stannard, ed., 173; Curtiss, ed., 63; Austin, 152 (“Quite ridiculous”); Martin, 59 (“Everybody was standing”).

  By dawn, the last Germans: Phillips, Sedjenane, 133; Abbott, 90; Berens, 70; Howe, The Battle History of the 1st Armored Division, 247 (“hundreds of vehicles”); Gardiner, ts, USMA Arch, 150.

  Tunis fell at 3:30 P.M.: Clarke, The Eleventh at War, 299–300; AAR, 1st Derbyshire Yeomanry, PRO, WO 175/293; Destruction, 452; J.R.T. Hopper, “Figures in a Fading Landscape,” ts, 1995, IWM, 97/3/1.

  “The streets were full”: F. Stephens, “Collapse in Tunis,” Military Review, Apr. 1945, 69 (“Astonished Germans” and “complete with Buick”); Blaxland, 256; MacVane, On the Air in World War II, 185–86 (“Stop that shooting”); Jordan, 254 (“Get out your weapons”); Powell, In Barbary, 17; D’Arcy-Dawson, 235; Noel F. Busch, “The Fall of Tunis,” Life, May 1943, 35 (a windsock).

  Into the city: Marshall, Over to Tunis, 149 (“Men were singing”); Blumenson, Kasserine Pass, 317–18; Hastings, 232; Anderson to DDE, May 10, 1943, PP-pres, DDE Lib, box 5 (“pernicious rivalry”); Hughes diary, May 7, 1943, “Allied High Command,” MHI, micro, R-5 (“our egos”); “S Force Operation Instruction No. 1,” Apr. 1943, “Special Preparation Capture of Tunis 1943,” NARA RG 331, AFHQ micro, R-81I; “Intelligence at HQ First Army, Nov. 1942–May 1943,” May 23, 1943, ts, National Archives of Canada, RG 24, vol. 01, Intelligence 10719.

  For months, Eisenhower had worried: Harmon, Combat Command, 138; Parris and Russell, 346 (“we will kill”); Jensen, 73–74; Pyle, Here Is Your War, 277 (“Winning in battle”).

  II Corps casualties: To Bizerte with the II Corps, 51–52; “Operation of II Corps, Northern Tunisia, 23 Apr.–9 May 1943,” NARA RG 407, E 427, box 3113; Bradley and Blair, 159.

  For the British: Richard Feige, “Relationship Between Operations and Supply in Africa,” 1947, FMS #D-125, MHI, 11; Webster Anderson, “Organization and Functioning of the Petroleum Section, AFHQ,” Aug. 10, 1943, NARA RG 334, NWC Lib, box 162; Destruction, 423; Hunt, 181–82 (“We are waiting”); Kriegstagebuch V, Fifth Panzer Army, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 226; Nicholson and Forbes, 343 (wristwatches).

  At Hammam Lif: Clifford, 443; Ellis, Welsh Guards at War, 123; Parris and Russell, 354 (“like a steamboat”); Howard and Sparrow, 142; Nicholson and Forbes, 339; Blaxland, 257; Quilter, ed., 54.

  Like Terry Allen on the Tine: Messenger, 117–18; Blaxland, 259; ffrench Blake, 148; Lindsay, 91; P. Royle, ts, n.d., IWM, 66/305/1 (“Looking back”); Nicholson and Forbes, 343–44 (“dotted with points”); Horrocks, 172 (“I have waited”).

  The prisoners came: John Mayo, OH, ASEQ, 1987, 1st AR, MHI; film, “At the Front in North Africa with the U.S. Army,” Dec. 1942, NARA RG 111, Office of the Chief Signal Officer, #1001; AAR, 16th/5th Lancers, May 12, 1943, PRO, WO 175/291; Martin, 59–60 (“going to a wedding”).

  “Germans were everywhere”: Pyle, Here Is Your War, 273; Robert M. Marsh, ASEQ, 1989, ts, 81st Reconnaissance Bn, 1st AD; Nicholson and Forbes, 341 (“Champagne rather dry”), 285 (“British Tommy!”); Howard and Sparrow, 141 (dental instruments); Jensen, 75; Linderman, 331.

  A few escaped: Luck, Panzer Commander, 122; Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War, abridged edition, 292; “Commander-in-Chief’s Dispatch,” 48; Nicholson and Forbes, 342 (“they sat astride”); Clarke, The Eleventh at War, 303; Rame, 291–94; “Personal Diary of Lt. Gen. C. W. Allfrey, the Tunisian Campaign,” May 12, 1943, LHC (“The anguished of yesterday”); McCorquodale et al., 235; Austin, 153; letter, Raymond Dreyer, Fenton (Iowa) Reporter, Nov. 4, 1943, MCC, YU.

  As recently as May 5: DDE to GCM, May 5, 1943, Chandler, 1114 (“the Axis cannot”), 1146n; memos, MTOUSA, May 1943, NARA RG 492, Records of the Office of the Commanding General, box 56.

  Carefully calibrated: memo, B. M. Sawbridge to W. B. Smith, July 1943, MTOUSA, NARA RG 492, Office of the Commanding General, box 332; Schrijvers, 51 (“like sardines”); Kurowski, 121.

  For some: “Records Relating to Prisoners,” MTOUSA, NARA RG 492, Provost Marshal General, box 2245; “Observation of Provost Marshal Activities in Oran Area,” “memo for Gen. Dillon,” Nov. 25, 1943, MTOUSA, NARA RG 492, box 2209; Penney, ts, LHC (“using their prisoners”).

  Neither starvation: Destruction, 445–46; NWAf, 662; Hansen, 5/104; Parris and Russell, 348 (“fought like sportsmen”).

  The biggest fish: Destruction, 458–59; Hunt, 181; Parris and Russell, 357 (“He had tried”).

  With fuel scavanged: Arnim, “Recollections of Tunisia,” 113–15; Carell, 353; Destruction, 457–58.

  He soon returned: Stevens, Fourth Indian Division, 255; Tuker, 374–78; D’Arcy-Dawson, 245–46 (“a Potsdam parade”); Allfrey diary, May 12, 1943, LHC (“He took this badly”); Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 157 (snubbed Arnim); J.B.A. Glennie, ts, 1988, in papers of R. de L. King, IWM, 96/29/1 (a Steyer Daimler); Martin, 51 (“an iron-plated monocle”); Destruction, 459.

  EPILOGUE

  Roses perfumed: Signal Corps footage, NARA film, ADC-1113 and ADC-2407; Bailey, 119; letter, Joe Farley, n.d., MCC, YU (“too damn hot”); Macmillan, War Diaries, 88–91 (“football crowd”).

  Shortly before noon: Gardiner, ts, USMA Arch, 151–52 (“same precision”); Nicholson and Forbes, 349; diary, May 20, 1943, GSP, LOC, box 2, folder 13 (“French ecclesiastic”).

  At noon, the crowd’s mood: Three Years, 312; Moorehead, 65; Hougen, The Story of the Famous 34th Infantry Division; Bailey, Through Hell and High Water, 119.

  After the French: Bailey, 119 (“Arkansas backwoods men”); diary, May 20, 1943, GSP, LOC, box 2, folder 13 (“lack pride”); Harmon, Combat Commander, 141; Davies, 110–11.

  Then pipers: memo, 24th Guards to 1st Irish Guards, May 17, 1943, PRO, WO 175/488 (“Brasses will”); Macmillan, War Diaries, 90–91; Gardiner, ts, USMA Arch, 151–52 (“much the better show”).

  The parade straggled: Nicholson, Alex, 193 (“Hundreds of Italians”); Nicholson and Forbes, 349; Macmillan, War Diaries, 91–92; Three Years, 313; Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 109 (“waste of time”).

  Even after two and a half: McMillan, Mediterr
anean Assignment, 319 (“lean, bronzed”); Three Years, 310, 312; DDE to GCM, May 13, 1943, Chandler, 1129; DDE to Fox Conner, Aug. 21, 1942, Chandler, vol. I, 485 (“too simple-minded); D.K.R. Crosswell, The Chief of Staff: The Military Career of General Walter Bedell Smith, 151; F. E. Morgan, OH, FCP, MHI (“One of the fascinations” and “a well-trained”); Larrabee, 427 (“Before he left”).

  The tiny Mediterranean island: Roskill, 444 (“salvage firstly”); memo, B. M. Archibald, AFHQ G-3, to G-4, July 15, 1943, NARA RG 331, micro, R-141-C (“not a great deal”); Register of Graduates and Former Cadets, USMA, 1998 (Arnold); lecture, Col. Mohamed Ali El Bekri, May 14, 2001, Army-Navy Club, Washington, D.C. (Sixty years later).

  The French high command: “French Policy Toward Arabs, Jews, and Italians in Tunisia,” Dec. 1943, OSS, Research and Analysis Branch, NARA RG 334, E 315, NWC Lib, box 895.

  Preoccupied with the imminent invasion: Miller, Some Things You Never Forget, 126; “History of the 168th Infantry,” Iowa GSM; Davies, 111; Carver, ed., The War Lords, 572; Fussell, Wartime, 264 (“I am Jesus’ little lamb”), 139 (“When you figure how many”); letter, Joe Spring, PM, n.d., in MCC, YU (“Dame Rumor”); Harold B. Simpson, Audie Murphy, American Soldier, 18, 47, 66–67; Kennett, 136–37; “Dennis Frederick Neal, Soldier,” ts, n.d., Iowa GSM, 72–73 (“There are many rumors” and “Ol’ General Ryder’s”).

  Most of their leaders: Anderson to DDE, May 12, 1943, Anderson file, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 5; Boatner, 9; “World War II War Hero Fights Final Battle,” Apr. 1991 newspaper clipping, no citation, Iowa GSM; “An American Story: The Life and Times of a Midlands Family,” Nov. 9, 1997, Omaha World-Herald, 1; letter, Robert R. Moore to family, May 12, 1943; author interview, Robert R. Moore, Jr., June 2000.

  Young ones do: Destruction, 460; NWAf, 675; D’Arcy-Dawson, 24 (“Mort!”); letter, Joseph T. Dawson to family, June 1, 1943, J. T. Dawson Collection, MRC FDM; Doubler, 240; Blaxland, 253 (six battalion commanders), 265.

  Axis casualties: Blaxland, 265; Messenger, 120; Destruction, 460; Arnim, “Recollections of Tunisia,” MHI, 115; Westphal, 124; Kühn, German Paratroops in World War II, 179; Parkinson, 104.

  “one continent”: Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, 780; Doubler, 13; Gelb, 320; “The Administrative and Logistical History of the ETO,” vol. 4, March 1946, CMH, 124 (“high-grade stock”).

  Truscott worried: Truscott, Command Missions, 192; Larrabee, 436 (“a place to be lousy”).

  It was the discovery: Richard Wilson, “The Gallant Fight of the 34th Division in the North African Campaign,” 1943, Des Moines Register and Tribune, Iowa GSM (“three things”); Middleton, “We’ll Take ’Em Apart and Then Get Home,” New York Times Magazine, July 18, 1943, 8 (“grudge fight”); letter, Stephen Dinning, Des Moines Register and Tribune, March 21, 1943, MCC, YU (“There’s nothing over here”); letter, Bernard Kessel, n.d., MCC, YU (“In years to come”); letter, n.d., submitted by James D. Buckley, MCC, YU (“We didn’t know”); Essame, 55 (“unlike anyone else”).

  “I am not willing”: letter, Ray Salibury to sister, July 6, 1943, in Tapert, ed., Lines of Battle; letter, anonymous, Apr. 1943, Minneapolis Tribune, MCC, YU (“We all feel”).

  Africa was the first step: Gelb, 319; Bryant, 419; Warlimont, 277–78; Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, 779.

  Hitler had lost: “An Interview with General Field Marshal Albert Kesselring,” May 1946, World War II German Military Studies, vol. 3, ETHIN 72, MHI (“It was in Tunisia”); Kesselring, Memoirs, 157; Gelb, 320 (“walking around”); “Estimate of the Present Combat Value of the Italian Armed Forces,” May 6, 1943, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 226 (“only one Italian”); Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. 4, 338 (milk and rice).

  Yet Tunis—like Stalingrad: Goodwin, 437; Warlimont, 314 (“postponing the invasion”); Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. 4, 337, 355.

  The protracted campaign: Fraser, Alanbrooke, 336; Roger Barry Fosdick, “A Call to Arms: The American Enlisted Soldier in World War II,” Ph.D. diss, 1985, Claremont Graduate School, 22 (“War is a burden”); Bennett, Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy, 371; Mansoor, The GI Offensive in Europe, 85; AAFinWWII, 50 (“the purest gamble”); Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, 778.

  “Together we had all faced death”: P. Royle, ts, IWM, 66/305/1, 77; Caleb Milne, n.d., in Tapert, ed., Lines of Battle (“a vivid, wonderful world”).

  SOURCES

  BOOKS

  The AAF in Northwest Africa. Washington, D.C.: Center for Air Force History, 1992.

  Abbott, Harry P. The Nazi “88” Made Believers. Dayton, Oh.: Otterbein Press, 1946.

  Adams, Henry H. 1942: The Year That Doomed the Axis. New York: Warner, 1973.

  Altieri, James J. Darby’s Rangers: An Illustrated Portrayal of the Original Rangers. Durham, N.C.: Ranger Book Committee, 1945.

  ———. The Spearheaders. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960.

  Alvarez, David. Secret Messages: Codebreaking and American Diplomacy, 1930–1945. Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas, 2000.

  Ambrose, Stephen E. Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President Elect, 1890–1952. Volume 1. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983.

  ———. The Supreme Commander: The War Years of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. New York: Doubleday, 1970.

  Ambrose, Stephen E., and Richard H. Immerman. Ike’s Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981.

  Ankrum, Homer. Dogfaces Who Smiled Through Tears. Lake Mills, Ia.: Graphic Publishing, 1987.

  Armstrong, Anne. Unconditional Surrender. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1961.

  Arnbal, Anders Kjar. The Barrel-Land Dance Hall Rangers. New York: Vantage Press, 1993.

  Ashcraft, Howard D. As You Were: Cannon Company, 34th Infantry Division, 168th Infantry Regiment. Richmond, Va.: Ashcraft Enterprises, 1990.

  Astor, Gerald. The Greatest War: Americans in Combat, 1941–1945. Novato, Calif.: Presidio, 1999.

  Auphan, Paul, and Jacques Mordal. The French Navy in World War II. Trans. A.C.J. Sabalot. Annapolis: United States Naval Institute, 1959.

  Austin, A. B. Birth of an Army. London: Victor Gollancz, 1943.

  Ayer, Fred, Jr. Before the Colors Fade. Dunwoody, Ga.: Norman S. Berg, 1971.

  Baedeker, Karl. The Mediterranean. New York: Scribners, 1911.

  Bailey, Leslie W. Through Hell and High Water. New York: Vantage, 1994.

  Baily, Charles M. Faint Praise: American Tanks and Tank Destroyers During World War II. Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1983.

  Barber, Laurie, and John Tonkin-Covell. Freyberg: Churchill’s Salamander. London: Hutchinson, 1990.

  Barclay, C. N. History of the 16th/5th The Queen’s Royal Lancers. Aldershot: Gale & Polden, 1963.

  Barnett, Correlli. The Desert Generals. New York: Viking, 1961.

  ———, ed. Hitler’s Generals. New York: Quill/William Morrow, 1989.

  Baumer, Robert W. Before Taps Sounded. S.P., 2000.

  Baumgartner, John W., ed. The 16th Infantry Regiment. De Quoin, Ill.: Cricket Press, 1999.

  Beaufre, André. 1940: The Fall of France. New York: Knopf, 1968.

  Beck, Alfred M., et al. The Corps of Engineers: The War Against Germany. U.S. Army in World War II. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1985.

  Beck, Emily Morison, ed. Sailor Historian: The Best of Samuel Eliot Morison. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977.

  Beckett, Frank. “Prepare to Move”: With the 6th Armoured Division in Africa and Italy. Grimsby, U.K.: S.P., 1994.

  Beebe, Gilbert W., and Michael E. DeBakey. Battle Casualties: Incidence, Mortality, and Logistic Considerations. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1952. Beesly, Patrick. Very Special Intelligence. New York: Ballantine, 1977.

  Behrendt, Hans-Otto. Rommel’s Intelligence in the Desert Campaign. London: William Kimber, 1985.

  Behrens, C.B.A. Merchant Shipping and the Demands of War. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1955.

  Belden, Jack. Still Time to Die. New York: Harper, 1944. />
  Bellafaire, Judith L., ed. The U.S. Army and World War II: Selected Papers from the Army’s Commemorative Conferences. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1998.

  Bennett, Lowell. Assignment to Nowhere: The Battle for Tunisia. New York: Vanguard Press, 1943.

  Bennett, Ralph. Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy. New York: William Morrow, 1989. Berens, Robert J. Citizen Soldier. Ames, Ia.: Sigler, 1995.

  Berlin, Robert H. U.S. Army World War II Corps Commanders. Fort Leavenworth, Kan.: Combat Studies Institute, 1989.

  Bidwell, Shelford. Artillery Tactics, 1939–1945. London: Almark, 1976.

  ———. The Royal Horse Artillery. London: Leo Cooper, 1973.

  Binder, L. James. Lemnitzer: A Soldier for His Time. Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1997.

  Bingham, J.K.W., and Werner Haupt. North African Campaign, 1940–1943. London: Macdonald, 1968.

  Blair, Clay. Hitler’s U-Boat War: The Hunted, 1942–1945. New York: Modern Library, 1998.

  ———. Hitler’s U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939–1942. New York: Random House, 1996.

  Blaker, Gordon A. Iron Knights: The United States 66th Armored Regiment. Shippensburg, Pa.: Burd Street Press, 1999.

  Blaxland, Gregory. The Plain Cook and the Great Showman. London: William Kimber, 1977.

  Blumenson, Martin. Kasserine Pass. New York: Jove Books, 1983.

  ———. Mark Clark. New York: Congdon & Weed, 1984.

  ———. Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1985–1945. New York: William Morrow, 1985.

  ———. The Patton Papers, 1940–1945. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996.

  Boatner, Mark M., III. The Biographical Dictionary of World War II. Novato, Calif.: Presidio, 1999.

  Bolstad, Owen C. Dear Folks: A Dog-Faced Infantryman in World War II. S.P.: 1993.

  Boog, Horst, et al. Germany and the Second World War. Vol. VI: The Global War. Trans. Ewald Osers et al. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

  Bradley, Omar N. A Soldier’s Story. New York: Henry Holt, 1951.

  Bradley, Omar N., and Clay Blair. A General’s Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983.