Adams worked the shovel, the foxhole deepening, tried to form the image. “Pretty impressive. Took some guts. How’d he even know what a parachute would do, if it would work at all?”
“He tested it. Frenchman named Blanchard, back in 1785. Being the good Frenchman, though, he didn’t do the test on himself. Decided to try it first with a dog. He actually tossed the poor little bastard out of a hot-air balloon. It worked too. The dog hit the ground and apparently made it okay. Then he took off running and nobody ever saw him again. Can’t say I blame him.”
Adams stopped digging, looked at Gorham, tried to see the man’s face, thought, is he full of crap or just a good storyteller?
“Excuse me, sir, but how did the French fellow know how to build a parachute? Just guess at the design?”
“You’re a skeptic, Sergeant. But it’s all true. The design came from Leonardo da Vinci, and somewhere, those drawings can still be seen. He sketched a triangular-shaped cone, wrote all about how it would actually work, given his careful calculations. Of course, da Vinci could claim anything he wanted. He didn’t have a hot-air balloon or anything else to make a real test. If somebody had showed up with an airplane, da Vinci might have decided to recheck his numbers.”
“If he was so damned smart, he would have come up with the dog idea. Could have tossed it right off a church steeple.”
“You’re right. Good idea. Guess that’s why you made a sergeant.”
Adams dug again, Gorham eating something from his ration tins, and Adams stopped, stepped one foot down in the hole, measured the depth to a second hole beside it.
“There you go, sir.”
“What do you mean? You dug a hole for me?”
“You were eating, and I had the shovel in my hands. Was no trouble at all, sir. I figured you’d probably expect an enlisted man to do it anyway.”
Gorham laughed again. “That’s why they made me a lieutenant colonel.”
HILL 41—JULY 11, 1943
The armor rolled toward them at first light, heavy steel on rough roads, spreading out in open country, tank commanders seeking their own avenues into the vulnerability of the American positions. The infantry had done as the paratroopers beside them, dug in to shallow protection, but the German tanks had continued to use the darkness to spread out in wide formations, ready to drive hard into and around the flanks of the Americans, with little the men in their cover could do to stop them.
Adams heard the first blast, hard thunder on the hill behind him, a direct hit on a narrow trench. The cries came quickly, wounded men, and then, new sounds, rolling over them, artillery, the shells cutting the air from behind, from the south, his mind wrapping around the thought, friendly fire.
The shelling grew louder, dropping close to the men, and Adams hugged the ground beneath him, hands gripping dirt, the impacts bouncing him. Men were calling out all around him, their voices extinguished by the roar of shellfire. His brain screamed at him, curses at men far behind him, what the hell are you doing? You’re hitting your own people! He knew there were radiomen with the infantry, thought, damn them! Someone call back there, surely some idiot observer can see where the shells are falling! All they’re shooting at is tanks, and we’re right in the middle of them!
The artillery fire began to move away, blanketing the ground to one side, gunners seeking targets from the formations of moving tanks. He let out a breath, the artillery fire slowing, yes, some officer just reamed out a spotter. I find you, I’ll thank you. The sounds of tanks were all around him now, punches of fire down the hill in front of him, the roar from heavy engines, clanking steel growing louder. He rose up, a quick look, saw the tanks moving in all directions, no formations at all, single machines, turrets spinning, guns firing, targets close, point-blank impact. Their machine guns were firing as well, each tank an arsenal of its own, men in the trenches helpless, the artillery still bouncing dirt and rock close to the tanks, but not close enough. Gorham peered up beside him now, shouted something, and Adams saw a man scrambling low, rolling toward them, a captain, young, too young. The man said something to Gorham, and Adams saw the shoulder patch, infantry, the man pointing back along the ridge.
Gorham nodded, waved the man away, shouted to Adams, “Gather up anyone you can! Head to the highest ground, or any good cover! The tanks are moving around behind us! We’re about to be surrounded!”
Gorham was up and gone now, and Adams crawled from his cover, a quick glance at the Thompson, dirt in the magazine, a sharp breath, jerked the bolt, clearing a fresh shell. He scanned the shallow foxholes, a pattern of pockmarks in the low brush, saw men firing weapons, useless exercise, one man heaving a grenade, more futility, the impact only adding to the smoke. He kept low, ran down the ridge, shouted, anyone, men looking at him, some understanding, pulling out, moving away quickly. Men were emerging from the cover in small waves now, no orders, just leaving, the infantry, green men, too much fire, too close to an enemy none of them had faced before. He dropped into a foxhole, shouted to anyone who might be close by, “Pull out! Retreat to the hilltop!”
No one responded, the ground in front of him empty, the men gone already. The sound of steel was close, the roar of a single engine, black smoke, and one tank rolled up from the low ground, suddenly in front of him, fifty yards, easing along the hill, the turret turning slowly, searching, scattered fire from the machine guns. He raised the Thompson, reflex, pulled it back down, stared at the tank, much larger than what he had seen the day before, thought, good God, that’s a Tiger. Has to be.
The tank’s big gun fired, a long tongue of flame, thick smoke, the shell streaking right over him, a quick blast farther up the hill. He felt for the grenades, one bulging pocket, all he had left, thought, what the hell do I do? Climb up on the damned thing? The tank turned toward him, the treads ripping the ground, rolling up the hill, a surge of power, a thick cloud of smoke. The machine guns were firing again, and he ducked low, the ground shaking. He raised his head, the tank only yards away, no place to go, and he dropped, flattened himself in the shallow hole, the sounds of the tank deafening, darkness, a great steel monster, rolling over him, loud-screaming terror in his brain. The tank kept moving, slow seconds, the ground flattening around him, more smoke.
And then it was past.
He sat up, stared at the tank, sweat and mud in his clothes, dirt in his eyes, his heart racing. The tank continued up the hill, the big gun firing again, the shell ripping a flaming hole in a cluster of brush. He reached for the grenades, his hands shaking, no, don’t be a jackass! It’s too damned big! More tanks were in the distance, one turning his way, following its companion into the fight, the first tank rolling right toward the men Gorham had pulled away, the cover worthless, nothing to hold back the Tiger. Adams shouted aloud, wordless fury, crawled up out of the hole, moved low along the deep scars in the earth, the path of the huge tank. He saw men running again, emerging from cover, a mad scramble back over the ridge, machine-gun fire on the far side, tanks there as well, Gorham’s word punching him: surrounded. Can’t just sit here! We need bazookas! Where? He was frantic now, pulled himself up the hill, the machine-gun fire everywhere, pops of rifle fire, the infantry’s futile defense. The Tiger was gone, over the crest of the hill, and he ran up that way, his hands on the grenades. Dammit! Get close to him! You had your best chance!
The hilltop was bathed in gray smoke, a putrid fog, chaos below him, fire and tanks and running men. The men were moving off in one direction, deep-cut ground, another hill, difficult for tanks. Yes! That way! There were men around him now, shattered and bloody, some movement, the wounded, no sounds but the awful roar of the tanks, the thunder and rattle of the guns. He moved down the hill, saw men scrambling up the ragged ground, one man with a bazooka, emerging from the brush, moving into open ground, the man dropping to one knee, the bazooka on his shoulder. It was Gorham.
The tank’s gun erupted, punching the air, a blast of fire, smoke, the barrel aimed directly at Gorham. Adams felt his gut
turn, ice in his legs, dropped to his knees, the smoke clearing. Gorham was lying flat, the bazooka twisted and bent, the tank moving on, more targets. Adams fired the Thompson, sparks on the tank, was running now, slid down beside Gorham, ripped, smoking earth, a deep gash in the man’s forehead, a thick flow of blood. Other men were there now, an officer, a medical bag, and the ground erupted again, a blast close behind them, another shell, the man tossed aside, rolling over on him, Adams pushed flat on his back. He tried to move, the man on his chest, crushing, the sounds a hollow bell in his ears. There were more men, and he felt hands, wiped at blood on his face, the body above him pulled away, the sounds coming again, words, medic. They were working on Gorham, but Adams knew the look, the stare, lifeless, the bazooka still hooked in the man’s hand, and Adams would not see it now, could not watch Gorham’s death, closed his eyes, pulled the Thompson in close to his chest, lay back on the ground. He blinked hard, wiped the dirt from his eyes, began the old ritual, searching for pains, for anything broken. Then he rolled over, pushed himself to his feet, and followed the men back into the cover.
T he fight lasted most of the rest of the day, German armor pressing hard toward the beachheads, the paratroopers and infantry powerless to hold them back. But Gorham’s efforts, and the success of the first day’s actions, had delayed the advance of the German armor by a full twenty-four hours. With the luxury of that much time, the landings along the center of the American zone had proceeded virtually unmolested. Despite the powerful advance of the panzers, the landing zones on the southern beaches were now firmly under American control. As the landings progressed, the tanks and artillery were finally brought to the sand dunes, radiomen, observers, aided by spotter airplanes, directing communication with the gunners on board the warships. By the time German armor came within range of the beachheads, the fight had become a duel, not between German tanks and American infantry, but between the panzers and American tanks and artillery. Confronted by the additional power of the British navy’s big guns, the Germans could not sustain their attack, and by nightfall, the German commanders had no choice but to pull away, salvaging what armor they could save, and to accept that their efforts to prevent the American landings had failed.
To the east, Colonel Gavin had found himself far beyond where he was supposed to be, had come down closer to the Forty-fifth Division’s landing zone. But Gavin had done as Gorham had done, gathered what few men he could find, making the best fight he could make. Gavin accomplished his own unplanned objectives, a difficult series of fights that gave the Americans there precious time to secure their position. Along every beach, in every zone from the British landings on Sicily’s eastern coast, to the Third Infantry Division’s landing in the westernmost zone near Licata, progress was being made, the enemy resistance wilting, unable to stand up to the strength of the invasion.
By all measures, the paratroop drops had been a dismal failure, the thirty-four hundred men scattered well beyond the primary drop zones, some of the C-47s and their human cargo blown as far as the British positions to the east. But at Piano Lupo, the goals had been met, the objectives captured, an enormously powerful force of the enemy held away. The death of Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Gorham could not overshadow his accomplishments. Though his orders had specified that he attack his objectives with a full combat battalion, he had accomplished extraordinary success with less than a hundred men.
35. PATTON
D uring the original planning sessions for Operation Husky, Eisenhower had approved Patton’s authority to call in more manpower at certain points along the beachheads, as Patton saw fit. With the hold on the beaches close to Gela still fragile, Patton believed he should add strength to the troops that were struggling to drive the panzers away, and so, early on July 11, Patton had made a call to Matthew Ridgway, commanding the Eighty-second Airborne. Ridgway had been prepared for Patton’s order, that the Eighty-second send a second wave of paratroopers to make a drop around the Ferella Airfield, west of Gela, adding considerably to the strength of the ground troops who might still be under a serious threat from German armor.
On July 9, only one section of the 504th Regiment had made the first jump with the 505th, but most, some two thousand men, had stayed behind. As the desperate fighting rolled over the hills of southern Sicily, the men of the 504th milled about at the airfields around Kairouan, wondering if they were destined to remain behind in Tunisia, sitting idly while the rest of the Eighty-second Airborne earned a glorious reputation in Sicily. But by late morning on July 11, Ridgway had passed along Patton’s instructions to his officers, and once those orders reached the paratroopers, their mood changed from gloom to raucous enthusiasm. By dusk, the equipment had been loaded, the men strapped into the chutes. Near eight o’clock, with darkness drifting over the fields, 144 C-47 transports took to the sky. The pilots had been instructed to fly the same circuitous routes that many of them had flown two nights earlier, but the winds had calmed, and despite the darkness navigation was thought to be far less complicated for this second jump. But there was one adjustment to the routes the pilots had flown through the horrific gale of July 9. With so many navy ships anchored just offshore from the Sicilian beaches, it was thought to be far safer for the lumbering C-47s to fly the last thirty-five-mile leg of the mission more to the north, just over the land itself, avoiding nervous antiaircraft gunners on board the ships, who had already endured numerous assaults from enemy planes.
During the first jump on July 9, the C-47s had drawn ground fire from the beaches themselves, scattered gun emplacements, manned mostly by Italian troops who had no real idea what was happening around them, who had no reason to expect that the drone of airplane motors above them heralded the start of an enormous invasion. But this time, those same beaches were held by weary American and British troops, with antiaircraft guns of their own, who knew exactly what the enemy could do, who had been bombed and strafed by German planes both night and day since the landings began.
Patton knew there was a potential for serious mistakes, and orders had gone out to every one of his primary subordinates, to Bradley and the division commanders, passed down to the officers who held tight rein on the discipline of their gunners. The orders were plain and direct, details of the 504th’s mission, when and where the C-47s were coming. The final caution was given to gunners on both land and on sea, that antiaircraft batteries had to be certain of their targets before firing.
Throughout the day and the early evening on July 11, well before the men of the 504th took to the air, German planes had continued to attack, the Allied antiaircraft gunners responding with weary intensity. By ten thirty that night, those gunners were anticipating another long night of assaults, itching for another chance to knock the enemy planes out of the sky. As the drone from the C-47s drew louder, the orders from the ground commanders became meaningless, the officers unable to control the nervous intensity of the men at the guns. When the planes began to pass, it began with one man, his discipline giving way, sweating hands on a steel trigger. No officer could control what the man saw in his mind, glimmers of moonlight from planes flying closely overhead, his mind replaying the image of so many dive-bombers, the black crosses, too many near misses, the ground quaking beneath him too many times. When the man pulled his trigger, the reaction was predictable and tragic. From the batteries along the sand dunes, to the gunnery stations on the nearby ships, the single streak of fire ripped the taut nerves of every man at every gun. Within seconds, the sky was alive with a storm of red tracers.
In the planes, the helpless paratroopers knew it was friendly fire, lessons from training. The enemy’s tracers were white, Allied fire was red. With only sluggish maneuverability, the C-47s couldn’t avoid the devastating effects of the fire. Some simply came apart, exploding in midair, a victory for the gunners, which only stoked their manic enthusiasm. Some of the planes were disabled, the pilots steering helplessly toward the shallow waters, a desperate attempt to save their men and themselves. Survivors stru
ggled from the wreckage, only to be machine-gunned by soldiers on the beach, the men who watched the show proud of the deadly accuracy of their gunners. Some of the pilots simply panicked, illuminating the green jump light prematurely, the paratroopers obeying, anxious to escape, some not reaching land at all, men drowned by the weight of their gear. The lucky ones made it through, and those pilots at the tail end of the caravan, who recognized what was happening, turned away, either moving inland quickly or turning back altogether, to find their way once more to the safety of Tunisia.
Though a good many aircraft completed their run to the target, most were damaged, some barely able to stay in the air. Twenty-three aircraft were destroyed altogether, some still occupied by the helpless men of the 504th. Many more paratroopers died as a result of their jumps, some never to be found.
THE HMS MONROVIA, PATTON’S HEADQUARTERS,
NEAR GELA, SICILY—JULY 12, 1943
From the first minutes of Eisenhower’s arrival, Patton knew that the visit was to be a dressing down. But Eisenhower’s fury wasn’t reserved just for Patton, and Patton understood that no matter how much blame was assigned to anyone below him, the responsibility for any disaster lay firmly on the shoulders of the commanding officer. For now, Patton could do nothing but listen, absorbing Eisenhower’s wrath, building wrath of his own, shaping and harnessing his temper, hoping that he would find out himself what had gone so terribly wrong. Despite the good work of the troops along the beaches, the efforts of so many good men who had done so much, the entire operation now had a bitter taste, a pall cast over it by an outrageous act of stupidity. The word was repeated by Eisenhower, tragedy, and Patton could only nod, allow Ike to complete the tirade, the man red-faced, pacing the cabin. But Patton was growing more annoyed, did not care to be dressed down by anyone, not even Eisenhower.