The Liberation Trilogy Box Set

by Rick Atkinson

  Truscott pinned a Bill Mauldin cartoon: Vaughan-Thomas, 182.

  bloodiest month in the Mediterranean: “Summary of Activities,” June 1, 1944, NA TOUSA, analysis and control division, CMH; Molony V, 750; memo, H. Alexander to MWC, Feb. 26, 1944, Robert T. Frederick papers, HIA, box 1 (“He is quicker”).

  “Without air support”: Fritz Wentzell, “The Italian Campaign from August 1943 to February 1945,” 20–23; Parton, 356 (“flat on his back”); Molony V, 747n; J. W. Totten, “Anzio Artillery,” 10; Walter Kühn, “The Artillery at Anzio-Nettuno,” March 1947, FMS, #D-158, CARL, N-17500.838.2, 11–15; memo, H. Alexander to MWC, Feb. 26, 1944, Robert T. Frederick papers, HIA, box 1; OH, Edward J. O’Neill, June 22, 1948, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 005 (counterbattery fire in four minutes); Arthur R. Harris, “The Bigger They Are the Harder They Fall,” FAJ, May–June 1938, 229; Joseph M. Kolisch, POW interrogation report, Feb. 29, 1944, no. 405, HQ, Fifth Army, NARA RG 337, E 15A, AGF observer report no. 93, box 53; Andrew Brookes, Air War over Italy, 1943–1945, 60 (three-quarters of all German battle casualties).

  “the last year of the war”: Walter von Unruh, “Inspection of the Italian Theater of War,” 1947, FMS, #D-016, MHI, 34–35; Siegfried Westphal, “The Italian Campaign,” chap. 13, NARA RG 319, OCMH, CA, box 9 (“progressive exhaustion”).

  “A turning point had been reached”: Westphal, “The Italian Campaign” A. G. Steiger, “The Italian Campaign, 4 Jan–4 June 1944,” July 1948, report no. 20, Historical Section, Canadian Army HQ, MHI Lib, 17 (“bowed down”).

  German engineers trucked in: Rossi and Casaldi, 192; Daniel Lang, “Letter from Rome,” New Yorker, June 24, 1944, 52+; Roe, 73 (“successor would soon”); Fitzgerald, 321 (“an old man now”).

  “Man Is Distinguished from the Beasts”

  had gone missing at Anzio: Captured on Feb. 7, 1944, Paul Freyberg escaped and eventually took refuge in Vatican City. Freyberg, 465, 470–71; Trevelyan, 146; Mountain Inferno, 743 (“holding up all our lives”).

  “consistent with military necessity”: StoC, 397; “The Bombing of Cassino Abbey,” CAB 101/229, 16 (Eisenhower in turn warned); memo, 15th Army Group to MWC, Jan 10, 1944, Fifth Army, AG file no. 105-32.7, SM, MHI (“ecclesiastical centres”); “Preservation of Works of Art in Italy,” May 8, 1944, Henry C. Newton papers, MHI, box 4 (“man is distinguished”); Solly Zuckerman, From Apes to Warlords, 211 (crew briefing packets); Robert Wallace, The Italian Campaign, 120 (“Venus Fixers”).

  Bombs had damaged forty churches: “The Damaged Neapolitan Churches,” ts, n.d., and corr, Herbert L. Matthews, NYT, to DDE, Nov. 17, 1943, in monthly report, Allied Control Commission, subcommission for monuments, fine arts and archives, July 9, 1944, both in Henry C. Newton papers, MHI, box 4; “The Bombing of Cassino Abbey,” CAB 101/229, 18 (hit Castel Gandolfo); Wallace, 120 (“war in a museum”).

  The unit ordered to capture: Field Marshal Lord Carver, The Imperial War Museum Book of the War in Italy, 1943–1945, 144–45; “The Bombing of Cassino Abbey,” CAB 101/229, 20 (“Violation of Geneva Convention”); “Monte Cassino Bombing,” Dec. 1944, HQ, Fifth Army, CMH, Geog L Italy, 373.11 (thirty machine guns); StoC, 408 (flash of field glasses); John Ezard, “Error Led to Bombing of Monte Cassino,” Guardian (U.K.), Apr. 4, 2000, 5 (“Nazis Turn Monastery”).

  flew in an observation plane: OH, Ira Eaker, Feb. 1975, Hugh N. Ahmann, AFHRA, K239.0512-829, 444–47; Hapgood and Richardson, 185, 164 (“I have Catholic gunners”); North, ed., 120 (“dead tooth”); intel annex, HQ, Fifth Wing, Feb. 14, 1944, in Evans, The Bombing of Monte Cassino.

  Others passionately disagreed: diary, MWC, Feb. 14, 1944, Citadel, box 65; GK, Feb. 2-5, 10, 12, 14, 1944; StoC, 405 (two thousand refugees); corr, MWC to GK, Feb. 4, 1944, NARA RG 200, “Personal-Official File,” 130/76/1/4, box 3 (“belligerent attitude”).

  no better than “fifty–fifty”: Freyberg, 458; memo, A. Gruenther, “Monte Cassino Abbey Bombing,” Feb. 12, 1944, MWC, Citadel, box 3, folder 5.

  “I now have five corps”: diary, MWC, Feb. 4, 1944, Citadel, box 65; memo, MWC, Feb. 13, 1944, Citadel, box 3, folder 5; StoC, 407; Calculated, 318 (“If the Germans are not”).

  “Bricks and mortar”: North, ed., 121, 130 (“What are you doing”); Hapgood and Richardson, 172 (“‘they wouldn’t let me use air’”).

  “due to the political daintiness”: memo, MWC, Feb. 13, 1944, Citadel, box 3, folder 5 (“unduly interfering”).

  The attack would be launched quickly: Molony V, 713; Phillips, 207 (single token bomb); Hapgood and Richardson, 191 (lobbed two dozen shells); Bloch, “The Bombardment of Monte Cassino,” 403 (“Amici italiani”); StoC, 409.

  A pleasant morning sun: Frido von Senger und Etterlin, Neither Fear nor Hope, 198–99, 208.

  For five months: Corelli Barnett, ed., Hitler’s Generals, 375–78; “Small World,” CBS television segment, 1959, moderated by Edward R. Murrow; Hapgood and Richardson, 39 (“more French than Prussian”), 204; http://www.islandfarm.fsnet.co.uk/index.html (killed at Cambrai).

  In this war he had helped capture Cherbourg: Senger, 5–6, 130, 163–67, 202; Boatner, 497–97; Frido von Senger und Etterlin, “War Diary of the Italian Campaign,” 1953, FMS, #C-095b, MHI, 40–41, 78; StoC, 407.

  “The rotten thing is to keep fighting”: Hapgood and Richardson, 174.

  “annihilation was only a matter of time”: Senger, “War Diary of the Italian Campaign,” 69. The British official history later accused Senger of exaggerating for effect. Molony V, 629n.

  “optimism is the elixir”: Senger, Neither Fear nor Hope, 227, 198–99 (listening to evening concerts); Hapgood and Richardson, 175; http://www.movies-and-more.ch/movies/1943/103327.php (Der Weisse Traum); Barnett, ed., 381 (“Oh the loneliness”).

  An officer in the 4th Indian Division: Molony V, 713; Evans, 22 (“gust upward”); Homer R. Ankrum, Dogfaces Who Smiled Through Tears, 430 (“smoke coming out of a man’s ears”).

  They were the first of 250 bombers: AAFinWWII, vol. 3, 363; StoC, 411 (hundreds of artillery rounds); Durrance, “Battle for the Abbey,” 10 (“poplar trees”).

  Soldiers on both sides of the hill: Bloch, “The Bombardment of Monte Cassino,” 407; Durrance, “Battle for the Abbey,” 12–13 (“Shovel it on”); Mountain Inferno, 743 (“hugging each other”); Hapgood and Richardson, 213 (“like all the other fools”); Frank Gervasi, The Violent Decade, 560 (“Beautiful precision”).

  The leaflet barrage the previous evening: StoC, 414; Böhmler, 166 (confused attempts to contact).

  Abbot Diamare planned to evacuate: Majdalany, 128, 131–32 (“beseech Christ”); Leccisotti, 119–21; Hapgood and Richardson, 205, 209 (stuffed their ears).

  Thirteen hundred bombs: Molony V, 713; Majdalany, 133–35; Böhmler, 169–70 (“Parents abandoned”); Leccisotti, 125 (monks forced a passage); Bloch, “The Bombardment of Monte Cassino,” 406–7 (“crazy with terror”).

  No mortal would ever know how many died: Hapgood and Richardson, 211; author visit, Monte Cassino abbey museum, Oct. 1, 1995; Molony V, 713.

  Alexander’s headquarters asserted: StoC, 411; “Monte Cassino Bombing,” Dec. 1944, HQ, Fifth Army, CMH, Geog L Italy, 373.11 (grenadiers searched the grounds); Phillips, 218–19; Katriel Ben Arie, Die Schlacht Bei Monte Cassino, 1944, 201 (field kitchen opened).

  Not until dawn on Thursday: Majdalany, 150, 152; Hapgood and Richardson, 218.

  The 4th Indian Division had expected: “Operations of N.Z. Corps on the Fifth Army Front,” 8–9; “The Bombing of Cassino Abbey,” CAB 101/229, 14; Smith, 78; Stevens, Fourth Indian Division, 285 (two dozen Indian troops were injured); Majdalany, 142 (“They told the monks”).

  Freyberg’s tactical incompetence: “The Bombing of Cassino Abbey,” 28; Carver, 143; Hapgood and Richardson, 153; corr, D.R.E.R. Bateman to F. Tuker, Feb. 18, 1959, IWM 72/117/1 (“far out of his depth”).

  Not until Tuesday night did the attack begin: Majdalany, 144; Prasad, ed., 106–7; “Operations of N.Z. Corps on the Fifth Army Front,” 9; Molony V,
714; Stevens, 287–90; The Tiger Triumphs, 47–48 (trussed in tripwires).

  But nine thousand Kiwi smoke shells: OH, Kippenberger, Feb. 4 and 12, 1947; Phillips, 237; “Operations of N.Z. Corps on the Fifth Army Front,” 15–16; Carver, 146–48 (“A star shell went up”); Prasad, ed., 111 (Of two hundred mules).

  AVENGER petered out: Carver, 151; Senger, Neither Fear nor Hope, 206; Molony V, 713 (“no military advantage”); StoC, 417 (“nothing beyond destruction”).

  Military authorities pressured the OSS: Jones, “The Bombing of Monte Cassino, 15 February 1944,” 25–38; msg, Wilson to British chiefs of staff, in “Monte Cassino Bombing,” Dec. 1944, HQ, Fifth Army, CMH, Geog L Italy, 373.11 (“irrefutable evidence”); John G. Norris, “Cassino Abbey Attack Order Laid to Briton,” WP, Sept. 4, 1949, 1 (no civilian bodies); memo, psychological warfare, n.d. Wallace Carroll papers, LOC, box 1, folder 2, 12–15 (campaign to blame Germany).

  A German staff car picked him up: Senger, “War Diary of the Italian Campaign,”, 83–84; “Monte Cassino Bombing,” Dec. 1944, HQ, Fifth Army, CMH, Geog L Italy, 373.11 (“Everything was done”).

  Berlin overplayed its hand: Hapgood and Richardson, 172, 224; Phillips, 220; Bloch, “The Bombardment of Monte Cassino,” 386 (“everlasting shame”); J.F.C. Fuller, The Second World War, 1939–1945, 272; Brian Holden Reid, “The Italian Campaign, 1943–1945:A Reappraisal of Allied Generalship,” Journal of Strategic Studies, March 1990, 128+ (“imagination was petrified”).

  “tomb of miscalculation”: Allanbrook, 175; Reid, “The Italian Campaign,” 128 (exhausted eight divisions); Phillips, 241 (“vistas of deadlock”); msg, GCM to J. L. Devers, Feb. 18, 1944, “Eyes Only, General Devers, Incoming,” NARA RG 492, MTOUSA, SGS, box 135.

  Public opinion in the United States: George Gallup, “Public Would Bomb Religious Buildings,” NYT, Apr. 19, 1944, 3.

  “Whenever I am offered a liqueur”: Texas, 330.

  CHAPTER 10: FOUR HORSEMEN

  A Fairyland of Silver and Gold

  “The bay was as blue”: Donald Downes, The Scarlet Thread, 166; Frank Gervasi, The Violent Decade, 562–63; Karl Baedeker, Southern Italy and Sicily, 27; Roger A. Freeman, The American Airman in Europe, 36 (“Chicken-a-shit”); Norman Lewis, Naples ’44, 93, 152, 187; obit, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F07%2F23%2Fdb2301.xml.

  “the most loathsome nest”: H. V. Morton, A Traveller in Southern Italy, 234, 273; Betsy Wade, ed., Forward Positions: The War Correspondence of Homer Bigart, 230; F. Majdalany, The Monastery, 52.

  Each afternoon, a hospital train: Alton D. Brashear, From Lee to Bari, 175; Alan Moorehead, Eclipse, 69; Paul W. Pritchard, “Smoke Generator Operations in the Mediterranean and European Theaters of Operation,” n.d., CMH, 4-7.1 FA 1, 49; Brooks E. Kleber and Dale Birdsell, The Chemical Warfare Service: Chemicals in Combat, 331; OH, Robert J. Wood, 1973–74, William E. Narus, SOOHP, MHI, 3–25 (shine flashlights at the curb); Margaret Bourke-White, Purple Heart Valley, 35; Lewis, 100 (“thrust into their arms”).

  “I&I”: Paul W. Brown, The Whorehouse of the World, 6; C. Richard Eke, “A Game of Soldiers,” IWM, 92/1/1, 102 (“passion wagons”), 99 (“Everywhere were G.I.s”); Lloyd M. Wells, From Anzio to the Alps, 31; Masayo Umezawa Duus, Unlikely Liberators, 115; “History of the Peninsular Base Section,” 1944, CMH, 8-4 HA 1 (city jail); Gervasi, 562; Joseph Edgar Martin, “Memoir of World War II,” ts, 2003, author’s possession, II-19; Brashear, 172 (Red Cross auditorium); memo, Office of the Special Service Office, Apr. 29, 1944, MWC, Citadel, box 3; Eugenia M. Kielar, Thank You, Uncle Sam, 80; Ralph G. Martin, The G.I. War, 1941–1945, 119 (Bogart in the Hotel Parca).

  So, too, was Pompeii: Fred Howard, Whistle While You Wait, 120–21 (House of the Two Bachelors); corr, Jon Clayton to family, Feb. 14, 1944, ASEQ, 7th Inf Regt, 3rd ID, MHI (“old Romans certainly knew”); Lawrence D. Collins, The 56th Evac Hospital, 105 (“evil-minded people”).

  Soldiers also jammed the reopened San Carlo: Walter L. Medding, “The Road to Rome,” ts, n.d., CEOH, box X-38, 56; Richard S. Malone, A Portrait of War, 1939–1943, 204; Martin, 118 (“That’s good”); John Guest, Broken Images, 164.

  New Neapolitan cabarets: “Settled Front,” Time, May 1, 1944, 27; Bourke-White, 101; Harold L. Bond, Return to Cassino, 135–36; Brashear, 171; memoir, Aidan Mark Sprot, ts, 1947, LH 109–10 and 117 (aimed champagne corks); Moorehead, 69 (“nodule of lotus-eating”); Eric Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream, 419 (straw hats); Robert Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 110; Collins, 131, 140; Paul A. Cundiff, 45th Infantry CP, 164; diary, William Russell Hinckley, AAF, March 1944, author’s possession.

  list the shades of the sea: Guest, 166–67; Bourke-White, 102.

  “The people are terribly poor”: Kielar, 73; Robert W. Komer, “Civil Affairs and Military Government in the Mediterranean Theater,” 1954, CMH, 2-3.7 AX, vi–26; “British Administrative History of the Italian Campaign,” appendix, “distribution of civil supplies,” 1946, NARA RG 94, E 427, 95-USF2-5.0; Bill Mauldin, The Brass Ring, 211 (“wizened bundle”); Reporting World War II, vol. 2, 39; Raleigh Trevelyan, Rome ’44, 159 (“snatched the bones”).

  typhus raged unchecked: “History of the Peninsular Base Section” Brashear, 171; Edward D. Churchill, Surgeon to Soldiers, 295; Moorehead, 70 (Carts hauled away the dead); Albert E. Cowdrey, Fighting for Life, 122 (killed three million); A Military Encyclopedia: Based on Operations in the Italian Campaign, 1943–1945, HQ, 15th Army Group, n.d., CARL, N-11069-1, 518 (90 percent of the civilian population); Harry L. Coles and Albert K. Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors, 325–26 (“disordered throng”); monthly report, AMG, public health and welfare dept, region 3, Dec. 1943, NARA RG 226, E 99, OSS history office, box 3.

  Army physicians had quarantined Naples: minutes, “typhus committee,” Jan. 7, 1944, Naples, NARA RG 331, AFHQ micro, R-235-D, job 78; Robert M. Hill and Elizabeth Craig Hill, In the Wake of War, 22; “Fifth Army Medical History,” ts, n.d., NARA RG 112, 390/17/8/2-3, box 6, 100; “History of the Peninsular Base Section” James Phinney Baxter III, Scientists Against Time, 368; “The ASF in World War II,” ts, n.d., CMH, 3-1.1A AA, IV-3; Coles and Weinberg, 325–26; Malcolm S. McLean, “Adventures in Occupied Areas,” ts, 1975, MHI, 71 (“People queued up”); James Stevens Simmons, “How Magic Is DDT?” Saturday Evening Post, Jan. 6, 1945, 18+. Later found to have grave environmental consequences, DDT was effectively banned in the United States in the early 1970s.

  “A victorious army found in Italy”: “Operations of British, Indian and Dominion Forces in Italy,” part V, n.d., UK NA, CAB 106/453, II-1; corr, Graham Erdwurm, former OSS officer, to author, Jan. 5, 2004 (“army is all clapped-up”); Peter Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 181 (world’s largest bordello); Spike Milligan, Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall, 157 (“pox galore”).

  With the average worker earning only sixty lire: “Fifth Army Medical History,” 71, 75 (“60 percent of all women in Italy”); Hill and Craig, 56; “History of the Peninsular Base Section” “Observations at P.B.S.,” ts, n.d., NARA RG 492, MTO, pm, gen’l corr, 290/54/26/2, box 2209 (“finest pimp system”); Brashear, 168–69 (“DDT hairdos”); Bill Harr, Combat Boots, 52 (hung a sign around his neck); Charles M. Wiltse, The Medical Department: Medical Service in the Mediterranean and Minor Theaters, 258; Lewis, 112 (“Madame Four-Dollars”).

  The “perfunctory jogging”: Don Graham, No Name on the Bullet, 74; “Logistical History of NATOUSA/MTOUSA,” Nov. 1945, NARA RG 407, E, 427, 95-AL1-4, box 203, 299–300; “Fifth Army Medical History,” 81–86; “Operations of British, Indian and Dominion Forces in Italy,” part V, n.d., UK NA, CAB 106/453, II-1 (“Italian strain of gonococci”); Wiltse, 258; OH, Albert Kenner, May 27, 1948, FCP, MHI (same black market price as morphine); Eric Lax, The Mold in Dr. Florey’s Coat, 227–28 (“best military advantage”).

  “Girls Who Take Boarders”: Gervasi, 563; corr, G. Erdwurm to author, Jan. 5, 2004 (“ablution centers”); Brown, The Whorehouse of the World, 253, 290; “History of
the Peninsular Base Section” (15 percent); “Fifth Army Medical Service History,” 78 (“whorespitals”); Trevelyan, 295; “Observations at P.B.S.” Wiltse, 336; memo, N. P. Morrow, Feb. 26, 1944, VI Personnel Center, NARA RG 407, E 427, 95-USF1-2.0, AGF board reports (tear gas grenades).

  “The chaplains thought the whores”: memoir, Edward R. Feagins, ts, n.d., 143rd Inf, Texas MFM, 30.

  “that huge and gassy thing”: Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty, 320; “Beachheads and Mountains,” MTO pamphlet, June 1945, Theodore J. Conway papers, MHI (keep a single GI fighting).

  “prodigy of organization”: Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief, 120; Bernard C. Nalty et al, With Courage, 137 (86,000 planes); Alan Gropman, ed., The Big L, 89–93; Henry F. Pringle, “Weapons Win Wars,” ts, n.d., WD, CMH, 2-3.7 AB.B, 159; James A. Huston, The Sinews of War, 477 (71 million rounds).

  The nation’s conversion from a commercial: Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won, 195; Logistics in World War II, 95.

  In February 1944, the U.S. Army shipped: Harold Larson, “Handling Army Cargo in the Second World War,” ts, 1945, CMH, 4-13.1 AA 19, 5; OH, LeRoy Lutes, Nov. 12, 1974, Maclyn Burg, DDE Lib, OH-408, II-108 (six million separate supply items); Brehon B. Somervell, “Army Service Forces,” Aug. 9, 1943, NARA RG 334, “Records of Interservice Agencies,” NWC Library, ANSCOL, L-1-43, box 167; Lee B. Kennett, G.I.: The American Soldier in World War II, 96–97 (three sheets per soldier); Marvin A. Kreidberg and Merton G. Henry, History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army, 1775–1945, 674–75 (Lend Lease program); Overy, 254 (“Second Fronts”); OH, Frederick E. Morgan, n.d., FCP, MHI (“American bounty”).

  “one ship out of every five is stolen”: corr, B. B. Somervell to DDE et al, March 23, 1945, and E. S. Hughes to B. B. Somervell, Apr. 26, 1943, NARA RG 336, ASF, historical program files, chief of transportation, 190/22/30/00, box 58; Lewis, 119 (“derives from transactions”); “Logistical History of NATOUSA/MTOUSA,” 159, 176; memo, unsigned, to Walter A. Hardie, Dec. 28, 1944, NARA RG 492, MTO, pm, gen’l corr, 333, 290/54/26/2, box 2209 (tapped fuel pipelines); Gervasi, 566; Charles F. Marshall, A Ramble Through My War, 119 (funeral hearses); Hill and Hill, 17, 38 (“Pork. Beef”).