The Day of Battle

  Each successive raid: AAFinWWII, 445; HKH, “The Sicilian Campaign,” 17–18 (“almost complete lack”); “Notes on the Planning and Assault Phases of the Sicilian Campaign,” UK Combined Operations HQ, Bulletin No. Y/1, Oct. 1943, CARL, 2–7.

  Air Force commanders: AAFinWWII, 445 (“parceling out”); Coles, “Participation of the Ninth and Twelfth Air Forces,” 177–78 (“personal control”); Garland, 106–7.

  Considering that the Navy had been prepared to lose: “The Army Air Forces in Amphibious Landings in World War II,” July 1953, CARL, N-16372.34, 32–46; corr, HKH to SEM, Feb. 9, 1953, SEM, NHC, box 51 (“we can’t get the goddamn Air Force”); Ralph G. Martin, “Invasion of Sicily,” Aug. 13, 1943, in Steve Kluger, Yank, 101+ (“Only the good people”).

  Back at the Gela roads: action report, John McFadzean, gunnery officer, S.S. Rowan, Dec. 22, 1943, NHC, 17–18; Karig, 244–45 (“a flat sheet of crimson fire”); OH, Charles William Harwood, U.S.S. Dickman, Nov. 19, 1943, NHC; The Sicilian Campaign, 94.

  “hard as flint”: George C. Mitchell, Matthew B. Ridgway: Soldier, Statesman, Scholar, Citizen, 27, 35 (“Even with his penis”); Soffer, 22, 36 (“cultivate the art”); Blair, 111.

  “Tonight wear white pajamas”: “Report of Allied Force Airborne Board” Garland, 175n; Warren, 22; Mason, “Reminiscences and Anecdotes,” 171–73; AAR, 7th Army, G-3, n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7 CC2, box 250 (“It is essential”); Joseph M. Whitaker, “Report of Investigation Concerning Shooting Down of Airborne Troops, 11–12 July 1943,” Sept. 21, 1943, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 49, folder 11 (Monrovia’s signal room); memo, MBR, “Reported Loss of Transport Planes and Personnel,” Aug. 2, 1943, CJB, box 48, 4–6 (asking whether the gunners knew).

  “There’s always some son-of-a-bitch”: McLean, “Adventures in Occupied Areas,” 36; Whitaker, “Report of Investigation” Thomas B. Gage, 45th ID, in William O. Perry, “Report of Investigation,” Aug. 14, 1943, 45th ID IG, NARA RG 338, AG 1943, 333.5, box 111 (signal officers struggled).

  Ridgway for six weeks had warned: Garland, 175–77; Charles R. Shrader, “Amicicide: The Problem of Friendly Fire in Modern War,” Dec. 1982, CSI, 70 (“Every plane that came over”); Warren, 40.

  “Am terribly worried”: PP, 280.

  The contagion spread: Garland, 177; Willard E. Harrison, Co. A, 504th PIR, in Alvin B. Welsch, “Report of Investigation: Alleged Shooting Down of Friendly Troop Carrying Transport Planes,” n.d., NARA RG 338, AG 1943, 333.5, box 111 (“I looked back”); Lee D. Carr, in Robert Miley, “But Never a Soldier,” ts, 1987 (Pilots dove); Breuer, 143 (rosary beads); corr, John P. O’Malley to W. P. Yarborough, Jan. 20, 1980, CJB, “Chrono. File: Sicily,” MHI, box 48 (“read a newspaper”).

  Formations disintegrated: Whitaker, “Report of Investigation,” 11; Welsch, “Report of Investigation” (belly lights); Garland, 178n; Ross S. Carter, Those Devils in Baggy Pants, 23 (“bird shot in flight”); Coles, “Participation of the Ninth and Twelfth Air Forces,” 88 (tantamount to murder); OH, William P. Yarborough, 1975, J. R. Meese and H. P. Houser, SOOHP, MHI, 31–32; corr, W. P. Yarborough to Adam A. Komosa, Sept. 25, 1962, CMH, Geog Files, Sicily, 370.2; Adam Bernstein, “Lt. Gen. William Yarborough Dies,” WP, Dec. 8, 2005, B5; “Report on Operation Husky,” Army Observers, Amphibious Forces, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, 1943, MHI (“at least four were shot”); “Synopsis of Operations in Sicilian Campaign,” n.d., 82nd Abn Div, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7 CC2 Sicily, box 246; Adam A. Komosa, “Airborne Operation, 504th Parachute Infantry, Sicily,” 1946, IS; “A Study of Operation Husky,” June 28, 1947, Ground General School, DTL, Ft. B, 25 (passwords); Soffer, 48.

  “Stop, you bastards”: Romeiser, ed., 168; Samuel Hynes, The Soldiers’ Tale, 153 (“large pumpkins”); Martin, 68–70 (candlesticked); Garland, 179; Breuer, 145.

  Colonel Reuben H. Tucker: Welsch, “Report of Investigation” Garland, 179, 181n; AAR, 52nd Troop Carrier Wing, July 12, 1943, JPL, MHI, box 11 (half shot down); John Mason Brown, 164 (escape in a rubber raft).

  At last the shooting ebbed: “Tactical Employment in the U.S. Army of Transport Aircraft and Gliders,” 39; “Airborne Operations Conference,” St. Georges Hotel, Algiers, July 24, 1943, “Material on Operation HUSKY, 1943, Allied Forces,” MHI, D763.S5 A5; memo, MBR, “Casualties, Sicilian Campaign, CT 504,” May 19, 1944, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7 CC2 Sicily, box 246; Garland, 182; Blair, 102 (only 3,900).

  “I was glad to see”: Maxwell D. Taylor, Swords and Plowshares, 50.

  “By golly”: John Gunther, D Day, 61; Three Years, 357; John Gunther, Eisenhower: The Man and the Symbol, 154 (“gilded cage”).

  “More like a huge regatta”: corr, J.F.M. Whiteley to J. N. Kennedy, July 14, 1943, UK NA, WO 204/307; Gunther, D Day, 67 (“when they pipe me on”).

  Patton led the way: “Allied Commander-in-Chief’s Report on Sicilian Campaign 1943,” 92; Aris, 119 (little extra food); Richard Doherty, A Noble Crusade, 142 (anticipated ten thousand); Neillands, 223 (Montgomery confidently predicted).

  As for his own Seventh Army: Garland, 189; ONB, “Operation of II Corps, U.S. Army in Sicily,” n.d., CMH, Geog Files, Sicily, 370.2, 7; Howe, “American Signal Intelligence,” 52 (“Send more pigeons”); Philip Vian, Action This Day, 105 (“pigeon English”).

  “Ike had stepped on him hard”: Three Years, 360; JPL, 58.

  “Patton stood at the edge”: Gunther, D Day, 70–71; HKH, “The Sicilian Campaign,” timeline, 2–15 (Monrovia radio room); Gunther, Eisenhower, 156–57 (“welcome Canada”).

  “Provided everything goes”: Three Years, 361, 363; diary, HCB, July 13, 1943, DDE Lib, A-578 (“calm and matter-of-fact”).

  “You particularly requested me”: Chandler, vol. 2, 1255; DDE to GSP, July 12, 1943, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 49, folder 11 (“inexcusable carelessness”).

  Investigations would go forth: memo, J. E. Hull to GCM, Aug. 2, 1943, “Report of Allied Force Airborne Board (Invasion of Sicily),” NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 250; OH, HKH, 1961, John T. Mason, Col U OHRO, 356; memo, Paul L. Williams to DDE, July 13, with notes by A. Tedder, Carl Spaatz papers, diary, LOC MS Div, box 13 (“not operationally sound”); F.A.M. Browning, NATOUSA conference, July 24, 1943, 82nd Airborne Div, “Synopsis of Operations in Sicilian Campaign,” NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7 CC2 Sicily, box 246 (“well-pleased”).

  “unavoidable incident of combat”: diary, July 13, 1943, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 2, folder 15; JPL, 58 (bedbugs).

  “The Dark World Is Not Far from Us”

  They pressed inland: Smith, 28; Robert Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 71 (too many stripes); Dancocks, 47 (scuffing through flour); Walter J. Eldredge, “First Shot in Anger,” www.4point2.org (“After the first mile”); Farley Mowat, The Regiment, 64 (“brain furnaces”); Anders Kjar Arnbal, The Barrel-Land Dance Hall Rangers, 119 (Benzedrine); Gunther, D Day, 142; Alan Moorehead, Eclipse, 3; Charles R. Codman, Drive, 113; Walter Bernstein, Keep Your Head Down, 105 (“face in the dirt”).

  “Right of way!”: Robert E. Coffin and Joan N. Coffin, “The Robert Edmonston Coffin–Joan Nelson Coffin Family Book,” 84; John Steinbeck, Once There Was a War, 196–98.

  the dust of St. Rita’s bones: Norman Lewis, In Sicily, 157; Fred Howard, Whistle While You Wait, 71, 86 (“life and death of a saint”).

  “few words, many deeds”: David Hunt, A Don at War, 201; Moorehead, 4; McCallum, 155; Howard, 86 (“frayed trousers”); Lewis, 33, 67 (“bee-eaters”); corr, anonymous U.S. Army civil affairs officer, Aug. 1, 1943, Malcolm S. McLean papers, MHI (“carton of cigarettes”).

  Dead enemy soldiers: Mowat, And No Birds Sang, 66; annex, Administrative Order No. 1, June 14, 1943, Seventh Army, Walter J. Muller papers, HIA, box 2 (“E.D.”); C.R.S. Harris, Allied Administration of Italy, 1943–1945, 37 (grave-diggers’ strike); Harry L. Coles and Albert K. Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors, 188, 483; “Report on the First Phase of AMGOT Occupation, Sicily and Region II,” 8 (“the mob lay down”); Jackson, “Signal Communication in the Sicilian Campaign,” 82 (“seven alleged saboteu
rs”).

  “La donna è mobile”: John M. Mecklin, “Former Actor Sings Aria,” United Press, New York World-Telegram, Aug. 9, 1943; “statement made by Francis Carpenter,” July 14, 1943, SEM, NHC, box 50, folder 22.

  No one was more eager: Allan R. Milett, “Overrated and Underrated,” American Heritage, vol. 51, no. 3 (May–June 2000); Omar N. Bradley and Clay Blair, A General’s Life, 179 (“Feeling worse”); Paul L. Skogsberg, “A Slice of World War II,” ts, n.d., 1st Recon Troop, 1st ID, ASEQ, MHI, 48 (“cavalry tonsils”); Hansen diary, July 10–11, 1943, Hansen, MHI (seasick); Bradley Commentaries, Hansen, MHI, box 1, 13-A, S-24 (life preserver); “Operations of II Corps in Sicily,” Sept. 1, 1943, 6–7.

  “elderly rifleman”: Robert H. Adelman and George Walton, Rome Fell Today, 55; Martin Blumenson, The Battle of the Generals, 31; Charles Christian Wertenbaker, “Omar Nelson Bradley,” Life, June 5, 1944, 101+ (“Ozark lake”); OH, ONB, Aug. 14, 1969, George S. Pappas, ONB, MHI (“big, green frogs”); OH, ONB, n.d., Kitty Buhler, ONB, MHI, 170 (“number 8 post”); Bradley and Blair, 690n (“so damn normal”).

  “Underneath the mask”: Blumenson, The Battle of the Generals, 31; OH, ONB, Buhler, 159–60; Bradley Commentaries, Hansen, 16-A, S-27 and S-29 (“He’s impetuous”).

  Among the most pressing problems: Just under fifty thousand enemy POWs were captured in World War I. Figure provided by MG William A. Stofft, USA (ret.), Meuse-Argonne staff ride, USAREUR, Sept. 2004; Steinhof, 74 (“asbestos”); Mowat, And No Birds Sang, 124; OH, Samuel A. D. Hunter, March 7, 1944, NHC, 22 (“No prisoners taken here”); Bill Mauldin, Up Front, 64.

  “When are you going to start?”: P/W Interrogation Report, Aug. 15, 1943, in daily report, Psychological Warfare Branch, 7th Army HQ, Sept. 9, 1943, NARA RG 226, OSS History, E 99, 190/6/7/6, box 40; Peter Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 120 (“queer race”).

  Operation HUSKY had exacted: Martin Blumenson, Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1885–1945, 195 (“kill devastatingly”); Homer W. Jones, 7th Army JAG, Feb. 17, 1944, testimony, board of review, NATOUSA JAG, NARA RG 159, IG, 333.9, box 67; Albert C. Wedemeyer, Wedemeyer Reports!, 226; Paul A. Cundiff, 45th Infantry CP, 91; George E. Martin, Blow, Bugle, Blow, 96; testimony, John T. Compton, Oct. 22, 1943, court-martial records, J. T. Compton, obtained under FOIA, JAG, Arlington, Va. (“killers are immortal”).

  Despite these admonitions: “Report on Operation Husky,” Army Observers, Amphibious Forces, MHI; Raymond S. McLain, “Account Written by Brig. Gen. McLain,” ts, 1943, NARA RG 319, OCMH, “45th Div Landings,” 2-3.7 cc2 Sicily, box 247, 7, 11 (“Not good”); Garland, 189–90; Troy H. Middleton, testimony, Feb. 19, 1944, board of review, NA TOUSA JAG; Whitlock, 44 (“ugliest looking man”); Frank James Price, Troy H. Middleton: A Biography, 148; Martin, 93 (“captive can’t fight”); AAR, 180th Inf Regt, July 10–Aug. 16, 1943, 45th ID Mus; Fisher, “The Story of the 180th Infantry Regiment,” 70–71; D’Este, Bitter Victory, 286 (“Dear General”).

  By early Wednesday morning: “History of the Aviation Engineers in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations,” June 1946, AAF Engineer Command, MTO, CEOH, X-39 (two hundred bomb craters); “Operations of II Corps in Sicily,” Sept. 1, 1943 (“hidden in the cockpit”); George A. Fisher, “The Story of the 180th Infantry Regiment,” ts, 1945, 98–101 (Flames crackled in the grain).

  Sniper fire still winked: Wallace Wing, Co. A, 1/180th Inf, July 16, 1943, statement, court-martial record, Horace T. West, obtained under FOIA, JAG, Arlington, Va. (“killing spirit”); corr, Richard Pisciotta to father, May 18, 1944, 3/157th Inf, ASEQ, MHI (“soldiers get old”).

  West proved a poor choice: “Chronology of Case,” Horace T. West, 7th Army JAG, NA TOUSA JAG, NARA RG 159, IG, 333.9, box 67 (“most thorough non-com”); testimony, H. T. West, Oct. 1943, court-martial records, obtained under FOIA; H. T. West, cited in board of review, NATOUSA JAG, NARA RG 159, IG, 333.9, box 67 (“watch them bleed”).

  In two shuffling columns: testimony, Haskell Brown, Oct. 1943, court-martial records, H. T. West; memo, 45th Div IG to CG, “Report of Investigation of Shooting of Prisoners of War by Sgt. Horace T. West,” Aug. 5, 1943 (“Turn around”).

  They fell: board of review, NATOUSA JAG.

  Five hours later, it happened again: “Operations of II Corps in Sicily,” Sept. 1, 1943, 8.

  In command of Company C: testimony, John Gazetti, Jim Hair, Raymond C. Marlow, Richard P. Blanks, court-martial records, J. T. Compton; James J. Weingartner, “Massacre at Biscari,” Historian, vol. 52, no. 1, Nov. 1989, 24+.

  brevity of his sermons: Cundiff, 49–50.

  “Most were lying face down”: William King, testimony, n.d., board of review, West court-martial, NATOUSA JAG, NARA RG 159, IG, 333.9, box 67; William King, statement to investigators, July 16, 1943, West court-martial (“They felt ashamed”); Martin, 96.

  “I told Bradley”: PP, 288.

  Two war correspondents: “Talk with Alexander Clifford,” Apr. 4, 1944, LH, 11/1944/29; letters, LH to Alexander Clifford, Nov. 8, 1948, and A. Clifford to LH, Nov. 17, 1948, LH, 1/175/28-29; corr, GSP to GCM, July 18, 1943, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7 CC2 Sicily, box 250.

  “we should try the two men”: PP, 316; IG report, Aug. 5, 1943, cited in West court-martial records; D’Este, Patton, 509 (“Try the bastards”).

  “an order to annihilate”: Compton, testimony, court-martial records; Weingartner, “Massacre at Biscari,” 24 (“took him at his word”).

  “Good riddance”: Martin, 97.

  “The whole tendency in the thing”: Forrest E. Cookson, testimony, Feb. 16, 1944, NA TOUSA JAG, NARA RG 159, IG, 333.9, box 67; diary, HCB, July 13, 1943, DDE Lib, A-863 (“feared reprisal”).

  “the savagery that is war”: “Memorandum for Gen. Brannon, ‘Records of Trial,’” from “Lt. Col. W. H. Johnson, Jr., JAGC,” May 26, 1950, and “Memorandum for Judge Patterson,” from “Col. Stanley Grogan, GSC, acting director,” Feb. 1, 1944, West court-martial records.

  “evil spirits seemed to come out”: Roy P. Stewart, “Raymond S. McLain, America’s Greatest Citizen Soldier,” Chronicles of Oklahoma, vol. 59, no. 1 (spring 1981), 4+; Robert H. Patton, The Pattons, 265 (“fair-haired boys”); Cundiff, 92 (“thoughtless killers”).

  CHAPTER 3: AN ISLAND REDOUBT

  “Into Battle with Stout Hearts”

  The command car purred: John Gunther, D Day, 111; Carlo D’Este, Bitter Victory, 93; L.S.B. Shapiro, They Left the Back Door Open, 42 (dry-goods shopkeeper), 68; Dick Malone, Missing from the Record, 45 (“which one is me”); Alan Moorehead, Montgomery, 36 (“mousetrap”); Farley Mowat, And No Birds Sang, 74 (“Deadly stuff”); Daniel G. Dancocks, The D-Day Dodgers: The Canadians in Italy, 1943–1945, 48 (“good plans”); J. K. Windeatt, “Very Ordinary Soldier,” ts, 1989, IWM 90/20/1, 64 (handing lighters).

  If the campaign: Garland, 206–7; Molony V, 93, 106.

  Montgomery presented this: Stanley P. Hirshson, General Patton: A Soldier’s Life, 372; Omar N. Bradley and Clay Blair, A General’s Story, 188; AAR, Seventh Army G-3, n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7 CC2 Sicily, box 250 (“on two axes”); Alexander S. Cochran, “Constructing a Military Coalition from Materials at Hand,” paper, SMH, Apr. 16, 1999, 12 (Eisenhower declined); JPL, 78.

  Baleful consequences followed: Garland, 207; Molony V, 110–11; Benjamin A. Dickson, “G-2 Journal: Algiers to the Elbe,” MHI, 84 (Bradley scrambled); Nigel Hamilton, Master of the Battlefield, 317 (divergent axes).

  “you can’t allow him”: Bradley and Blair, 188–89; PP, 285 (“What fools”); Robert E. Coffin and Joan N. Coffin, “The Robert Edmonston Coffin–Joan Nelson Coffin Family Book,” 80–81 (“right up his ass”); GK, July 13, 1943.

  “The feeling of discord”: Three Years, 321; PP, 243 (“straw man”); diary, Apr. 28, 1943, GSP, LOC MS Div, 166; JPL, 107; diary, Everett Hughes, June 22, 1943, David Irving Collection, micro 97276/5, MHI (“our only defeat”).

  “What a headache”: Hamilton, 481; OH, Alan Moorehead, Jan. 21, 1947, FCP, MHI; Molony V, 512; OH, W. B.
Smith, May 8, 1947, FCP, MHI; Brian Horrocks, A Full Life, 159; W.G.F. Jackson, Alexander of Tunis as Military Commander, 211 (“dance to the tune”); Brian Holden Reid, “The Italian Campaign, 1943–1945: A Reappraisal of Allied Generalship,” Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 13, no. 1 (March 1990), 128+ (the general’s name); PP, 239 (“not quite a gentleman”).

  Son of a meek Anglican: T. A. Heatchcote, The British Field Marshals, 1763–1997, 213; John Keegan, ed., Churchill’s Generals, 150 (“bad boy”); Moorhead, Montgomery, 29, 34 (“I do not want to portray him”); Michael Howard, “Leadership in the British Army in the Second World War,” in G. D. Sheffield, Leadership and Command, 106 (“not as warriors itching”); Peter Roach, The 8.15 to War, 59 (cricket metaphors); Hamilton, 300 (antipathy to cats); T.E.B. Howarth, ed., Monty at Close Quarters, 36, 42 (“always being right”); Fred Majdalany, Cassino: Portrait of a Battle, 42 (“no coughing”); Richard S. Malone, A Portrait of War, 1939–1943, 175.

  In Africa: Stephen Brooks, ed., Montgomery and the Eighth Army, 292, 381n (white heather); Moorehead, Montgomery, 157 (odes); Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty, 306 (“backing into the limelight”); John Kennedy, The Business of War, 291 (“Colonel Lennox”); Shapiro, 44 (clapped and clapped); Piers Brendon, Ike: His Life and Times, 117 (“love of publicity”).

  “I do not think Alex”: Nigel Nicolson, Alex: The Life of Field Marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis, 197; Danchev, 417–18; Lt. Gen. Sir Frederick E. Morgan, “OVERLORD by the Under-Dog-in-Chief,” ts, n.d., FCP, MHI; OH, Arthur Coningham, Feb. 14, 1947, FCP, MHI (ever more cautious); Gunther, 97; Michael Carver, ed., The War Lords: Military Commanders of the Twentieth Century, 501 (“to believe in their task”); Malone, Missing from the Record, 17–18 (“Do you know why”).

  “Into battle with stout hearts”: “Personal Message from the Army Commander,” July 1943, George F. Hall Papers, HIA, box 1; Brooks, ed., 255 (“We have won”).

  Thousands of Axis troops in western Sicily: Walter Fries, “Der Kampf Um Sizilien,” FMS, #T-2, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 245, 23; Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin, “Die Abwehr der Achsenmächte auf Sizilien,” Allgemeine schweizerische Militär Zeitschrift, 116 Jahrang, Nr. 12, Dec. 1950, 861; Wilhelm Schmalz, “Der Kampf um Sizilien im Abschnitt der Brigade Schmalz,” n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 245 (“to win time”); Martin Pöppel, Heaven and Hell, 126; Senger, “Liaison Activities with Italian 6th Army,” 1951, FMS, #C-095, 56 (internecine gunplay); war diary, Comando Supremo, “Operazioni in Sicilia dal 9 al 19 luglo,” NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 246 (three-hour firefight); Franz Kurowski, The History of the Fallschirmpanzerkorps Hermann Göring, 201 (“Holy Virgin medals”).