Chapter XIV
The Shape of Things to Come

Allied Reappraisal

The month-long battle fought by the Fifth Army between the Volturno River and the Mignano gap, which drove the XIV Panzer Corps to the Bernhard Line, and the advance of the Eighth Army, which sent the LXXVI Panzer Corps to the Gustav defenses along the Sangro River, had succeeded in containing considerable German forces. Yet the Germans at the same time were denying the Allies their geographic objective--Rome.

Whether the two aims of pinning down the Germans and gaining Rome were mutually compatible or not, there seemed to be little alternative for the Allied forces except to continue the offensive. The Allies needed to retain the initiative to keep the Germans off balance, to prevent them from constructing fortifications that would allow them to hold indefinitely in southern Italy with fewer troops than the number already committed. Otherwise, the German command might transfer forces to bolster hard-pressed units on the active Russian front or to reinforce defenses in France against the forthcoming cross-Channel attack.

The Allied command therefore insisted, despite worsening winter weather, on trying to breach the strong fortifications on the naturally defensive terrain of the Winter Line, which promised the Germans the prospect of successful, long-term defense. In this context, Rome was incidental. But if the Allies could reach Rome, the Germans would be forced to withdraw to northern Italy. The Germans would then have to commit additional troops to halt further Allied advances.

Whether the Allied forces could drive the Germans out of southern Italy was still a moot point. Adding to the difficulties of the terrain and weather was the condition of Allied units, which had been seriously depleted and fatigued by the grueling warfare. Four of the seven separate American tank battalions, for example, had suffered heavy casualties. The 45th, 3d, and 34th Divisions were close to exhaustion, as were the 46th and 56th. "That division is tired," an observer noted of the 34th, "but higher headquarters is pushing them on regardless."¹ Higher headquarters had no choice. Not enough divisions were on hand to permit rotation of battle-worn units to give them regular periods of rest and reorganization. Even the 36th Division, which had been in army reserve since the end of the battle of Salerno, was still judged, after six weeks of rest and retraining, to be only about 75 percent combat effective. Conditions were much the same in the Eighth Army.

More units were on the way to Italy, in addition to individual replacement troops, but their arrival promised little improvement. The 1st Armored Division, entering Italy in late October and early November, would have to await commitment until a suitable area became available. "Harmon [the division commander]," General Lucas noted in his diary, "is around hoping to find a place for the division. Not so sanguine . . . now that he has seen the ground."² The 1st Italian Motorized Group, a unit of about regimental strength coming under 15th Army Group's control on 31 October, was below Allied standards in training, weapons, and equipment. French units due to arrive from North Africa were late because of transportation problems--shipping, as always, was in short supply. The 1st Special Service Force, composed of mixed American and Canadian troops, was expected with particular relish, for the men had been specially trained for mountain warfare, but the unit was relatively small.

Despite incoming forces, the theater was losing strength, for the divisions previously designated for transfer to the United Kingdom for OVERLORD were leaving. Of these seven divisions, Allied Force Headquarters was able to retain only one parachute regiment, the 504th--and this only because the troops were essential for a special operation then under consideration. With merely this regiment and a separate parachute battalion remaining in the theater, major airborne operations to aid the ground advance were out of the question. Was it possible to launch amphibious operations to assist the ground troops? The idea had received much thought. Speaking for the Combined Chiefs of Staff soon after the Salerno landings, General Marshall and Field Marshal Sir John Dill, the British representative in Washington to the CCS, expressed the hope that the Italian campaign would be imaginative and show bold initiative in the use of amphibious techniques. Replying, General Eisenhower explained why amphibious ventures, though constantly under consideration, were considered impractical. "If we landed a small force," he wrote, "it would be quickly eliminated, while a force large enough to sustain itself cannot possibly be mounted for a very considerable period." A small Commando force, Eisenhower added, "would not last twenty-four hours because there is no place on the west coast where a full enemy division cannot be concentrated against us in twelve hours."³

Still, an amphibious attack was attractive as the only feasible method to break away from the slow and costly frontal battle in southern Italy that was bound to have an adverse effect on morale and, furthermore, "a damping effect," as intelligence agents put it, "on the hard core of Italian [Partisan] resistance in the north." Only by amphibious landings behind the German front could the Allied forces hope to loosen quickly the coastal anchors of successive lines of defense.⁴

Early in October General Clark established as part of his Fifth Army staff a special Amphibious Operations Section

under General O'Daniel to study and plan waterborne landings. Meeting on 21 October with O'Daniel, General Gruenther, his chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Donald W. Brann, his G-3, and Colonel Howard, his G-2, General Clark declared that he had given "the most serious thought to the best means of hastening victory in the next phase of Fifth Army operations" and had concluded that an amphibious landing, despite the many difficulties involved, was necessary. When General Eisenhower arrived later that day for a visit, Clark discussed the matter with him.⁵

On the following day, Eisenhower and Clark found themselves in agreement on the desirability of executing an amphibious operation early in November. Since naval authorities would need a week to assemble the required landing ships and craft and would request another five to seven days to prepare them, a quick decision was urgent.⁶

Accompanied by Gruenther, Brann, and O'Daniel, Clark met with and informed naval planners on 23 October that a major amphibious operation had been tentatively scheduled for execution in nine days. A regimental combat team, plus a battalion or two of Rangers, was to be landed on the west coast, possibly assisted by an airborne drop of a battalion of paratroopers; a second regiment was to go ashore twenty-four hours later to reinforce the beachhead. Very quickly the naval planners estimated that an operation of this size would require 7 LST's, 2 LSI's, 20 LCT's, and 2 rocket vessels, a reasonable requirement in terms of theater resources. The target area, Clark revealed, was the Gulf of Gaeta. He preferred to land on the beaches below the town of Gaeta, near Formia, about thirty miles beyond the mouth of the Volturno and about twelve miles beyond the Garigliano; if landings there were impractical, he would accept the beaches north of Gaeta.⁷

General Alexander was in general agreement with the concept, and when General Eisenhower brought up the subject at a commanders' conference in Carthage on 24 October, there was no objection to the idea of amphibious landings on the west and east coasts to help propel both Fifth and Eighth Armies forward. Yet the practical obstacles seemed insuperable--among others, the existence of mine fields offshore, the strength of coastal defenses, and, most important, the distance of the land forces from the projected landing areas, which would make their quick linkup with a beachhead impossible.⁸

Reporting to General Clark on 25 October, the naval planners had bad news: they considered the beaches near Formia, the target area of first priority, impractical for landings. The beaches north of Gaeta were suitable. But General Clark was quick to realize that these beaches were at the moment completely beyond supporting distance. He told the planners to hold off until the Fifth Army moved farther up the Italian peninsula.⁹ When General Walker learned that his 36th Division, which was in reserve, might be used in "an amphibious operation planned to envelop the German

west flank by sea," he was disturbed. "The lack of proper shipping, difficult terrain, poor road net together with possible isolation of the force by German demolitions," he wrote in his diary, "make the project most difficult and I hope he [Clark] does not order it to be done until more favorable conditions exist."¹⁰

At the end of the month, talk revived of landing a small force at the mouth of the Garigliano in a limited end run, but the advance of 10 Corps to Monte Massico and beyond made the operation unnecessary.¹¹

Study and planning for amphibious operations continued. Gradually the feeling grew that the best place to make a landing was the area around Anzio, some thirty miles below Rome. But Anzio was seventy-five miles beyond the mouth of the Garigliano, too far from the Fifth Army line to afford much hope for a reasonably quick linkup between the forces on the front and the forces in a beachhead.¹² There was a faint possibility of increasing the beachhead forces to 2-division strength by juggling the shipping requirements and accepting a low ratio of LCT's to LST's. But this would mean employing every LST in the theater for the landing, including those engaged in the vital task of ferrying additional resources to Italy. Even an assault force of two divisions would be too weak unless the troops were within very close supporting range of the main front. If a nearby port could be captured intact to avoid reliance on over-the-beach maintenance--a doubtful means of supply in winter weather--and if a third division could be landed immediately through that port to reinforce the 2-division assault landing, an amphibious operation might be feasible. But experience indicated that the Germans were likely to demolish any harbor facilities before giving them up. Thus, about all that seemed possible was to launch small forces in an end run relatively close to the front, and a shallow envelopment promised no quick or decisive victory.¹³

Affecting the prospect of amphibious assault was the shipping problem, which would probably get progressively worse rather than better. The theater had a low priority in the developing global strategy and along with some of its veteran divisions was losing most of its amphibious equipment. Eventually, more than three-quarters of the LST's and LSI's and two-thirds of the assault craft were to be released to other theaters. Of a minimum of 58 LST's deemed essential for the Mediterranean theater, only 9 would eventually remain.

There were many competing demands on this dwindling supply of shipping. The destruction of road and rail facilities and quays and other port installations had created a need for a large fleet of small vessels for coastal shipping, for use in overside discharge of ships, and for unloading over beaches. Vessels were needed for the continuing build-up--to complete the shipment of units already in Italy, to transport support and service units, to bring personnel and equipment replacements. They were required to move air force squadrons and

airfield construction and service units into Italy. And they were also, of course, counted on for an amphibious assault behind enemy lines.¹⁴

The movement of air force units to the Italian mainland was particularly troublesome and complicated. Originally, theater planners had intended to move the Northwest African Strategic Air Force directly to bases in the Rome area. When the Germans opposed the Salerno invasion instead of withdrawing as the Allied planners had hoped, the decision was made to bring the heavy bombers to the Foggia airfields as soon as possible; the remaining air forces were scheduled to be in Italy no later than the end of 1943--the entire strategic air force and the tactical air force, certain elements of the North African Coastal Air Force, a photographic reconnaissance wing, a troop carrier command, and most of the service and supporting units. But this program of movements conflicted with the requirements of the ground build-up.

Although the ground forces were anxious to have tactical, coastal, reconnaissance, and troop carrier units, the general European strategy, viewed within a framework larger than the Italian campaign, dictated priority to the heavy bombers. They were needed to further the bombardment of strategic targets deep in Germany and already under attack by planes based in the United Kingdom. The Combined Bomber Offensive, the long-range bombardments preliminary to OVERLORD, had underscored the importance of capturing the Foggia airfields. Yet bringing the heavy bombers to Foggia involved the same amount of shipping needed to move two divisions to the Italian mainland; once established, the heavy bombers would require an amount of shipping for maintenance equal to that needed by the entire Eighth Army.

The requirements for additional ground force strength and for large shipments of steel plank and special equipment to construct all-weather airfields later prompted the theater commanders to slow down the air force movements. They would shift only six heavy bombardment groups--totaling about 950 four-engine planes--to Italy by the end of 1943 and spread out the transfer of the remainder of the heavy bombers until March 1944. Since medium bombers working out of Tunisia against targets in Italy were already operating at extreme ranges, three groups of B-26's and a group of P-38's were shifted to airfields on Sardinia.

The establishment of a new strategic air force, the Fifteenth, under General Eisenhower's command on 1 November added to the complications. This force was to be used primarily against targets of the Combined Bomber Offensive, and its initial components were 6 heavy bomber groups and 2 long-range fighter groups taken from the Twelfth Air Force, already in the theater. By the end of March 1944, the strength of the Fifteenth was to amount to 21 heavy bomber groups, 7 long-range fighter groups, and a reconnaissance group.

If landing ships and craft were released from the theater and returned to the United Kingdom as programmed, the build-up in Italy of ground units could be completed by 15 December, with sufficient lift remaining for an amphibious operation in the strength of

one regiment; but no air force units could be moved. If the theater could keep until 15 December all the British LCT's, which numbered around 50, and 12 American LCT's, the build-up could be completed and an amphibious assault mounted in division strength; in this case, only about one-third of the strategic air forces scheduled for Italian bases could be brought into the country. If these vessels could be held for three more weeks, until 5 January 1944, the entire program could be completed--the ground build-up, the transfer of strategic bombers to Italy, and an amphibious assault in at least division strength.¹⁵

Unless the release of shipping from the theater could be postponed, theater planners estimated that 9 December was the latest date on which an amphibious operation could be launched. Setting a target date of 1 December, which would give about a month for planning, mounting, and executing an assault, AFHQ concluded that the most likely operation to achieve success was one on the west coast. As AFHQ pictured the operation, the 15th Army Group would be the responsible headquarters, the Fifth Army would carry out the actual preparations, a corps headquarters would be in immediate control of the combat units, and the 36th and 1st British Divisions, the latter currently in North Africa, would make the landings. To mount the two divisions, all thirty-six LST's now transporting troops and supplies to Italy and almost all the LCT's working the ports in Italy would have to be diverted. Removing the ships and craft from their build-up and maintenance functions would mean writing off for the Italian build-up as a whole 10,000 vehicles, or the equivalent amount of tonnage, for each division in the assault. To continue to use shipping to supply and reinforce the amphibious assault would mean further losses in the general build-up. Since beach operations, according to past experience, could be carried out at best only two days out of every three because of weather conditions, and since winter weather made any beach maintenance after the assault uncertain, the amphibious forces would have to capture a port or some sheltered anchorage at the very beginning of the operation. Even the seizure of a port would not guarantee the release of enough ships from the operation to satisfy the build-up requirements. Yet the slow advance of the Allied forces in southern Italy made a seaborne envelopment of the defenses imperative.¹⁶

With these thoughts in mind, General Eisenhower and his principal subordinates met at Carthage on 3 November and confirmed plans to which they had tentatively agreed several days earlier.¹⁷ Hoping that the Fifth Army had attracted the bulk of the German forces to its front by early November, General Eisenhower wanted the Eighth Army to mount an offensive to the city of Pescara

and the Pescara River, about 25 miles beyond the Sangro. General Montgomery was then to swing his army to a lateral axis, Highway 5, and thrust up the Pescara valley to Avezzano, 50 miles east of Rome. This movement would threaten Rome from the east. The Fifth Army, meanwhile, was to press its frontal attack toward the city, driving up Highway 6 through Cassino and the Liri valley to the Frosinone area, about 30 miles beyond Cassino. There, with Fifth Army in reasonably close supporting distance, an amphibious assault was to be launched in the Rome area. To strengthen Fifth Army for its overland drive through the Bernhard and Gustav Lines and beyond, General Eisenhower would accelerate the movement from North Africa of two French divisions, plus necessary service and other nondivisional units to support them, as well as 2,500 vehicles still in Bizerte awaiting transportation across the Mediterranean to Naples.

At the conclusion of the conference, General Eisenhower asked the Combined Chiefs of Staff for permission to retain in the theater until 15 December all 56 British and 12 of the American LST's scheduled to be transferred to the United Kingdom before that date. If he could keep them, he explained, he could launch an amphibious operation to speed the ground advance, facilitate the capture of Rome and its neighboring airfields, and help seize the port of Ancona on the east coast. Without the landing craft and ships, he would have but one method of driving the Germans into northern Italy--a series of costly and time-consuming frontal attacks in territory greatly favoring the defense; with the assault shipping, he could fully employ to advantage his sea and air superiority, continue the build-up in Italy and bring ground units to full strength, move the scheduled components of the strategic air force to bases on the Italian mainland, and at the same time launch an amphibious assault in one- or two-division strength.

Replying three days later, the CCS gave General Eisenhower the permission he sought. General Alexander was somewhat concerned by the shortage of trucks and other vehicles in southern Italy and the impossibility of remedying the deficiency if the assault shipping was diverted to a landing, but the postponement on releasing the landing ships and craft until 15 December brought an amphibious operation into the realm of possibility.

General Eisenhower acted on 8 November by reaffirming the objectives he had set on 25 September: the Allied armies were to maintain maximum pressure on the enemy and capture Rome. Implicit in this instruction was the prospect of an amphibious operation. In recognition of the enemy intention to resist in southern Italy to a degree greater than formerly expected, he gave priority to the build-up of land forces and such air forces as were needed to support ground operations. In addition to the six heavy bombardment groups scheduled to be in Italy and operational by the end of the year, tactical air force units were to be established on the Italian mainland as quickly as the available shipping permitted. In contrast with the Germans, who were basing their air units far to the rear to avoid losing planes on the ground to air attack, and whose principal consideration was to conserve planes and crews for protecting

German industrial areas, the Allied command was hoping to make maximum use of tactical air despite the worsening weather that would limit close ground support.¹⁸

General Alexander issued a directive on the same day, 8 November. He instructed General Montgomery to use Highway 5 to attack laterally toward Avezzano to threaten Rome from the east. Fifth Army was to attack up the valley of the Liri and Sacco Rivers to threaten Rome from the south. Since Alexander judged the coastal route to Rome, Highway 7, the Appian Way, too difficult for a sustained advance because of the Aurunci Mountains and the Pontine Marshes, he saw Highway 6 through the Liri valley as offering the best gateway to Rome. When the Fifth Army reached Frosinone, about fifty miles below Rome, General Clark was to execute a seaborne landing south of Rome aimed at the Alban Hills, about twenty miles short of the Eternal City.¹⁹

This was the basic directive for what was later to be the Anzio landing, the amphibious assault designed to facilitate the capture of Rome. But first the Fifth Army had to advance about fifty miles from the Mignano area to Frosinone, and it was clear by November that progress would not be easy.

In response to a request from the CCS, General Eisenhower gave an opinion on the feasibility of invading southern France and indicated that the invasion would be General Clark's responsibility. Meeting in the QUADRANT Conference at Quebec during September, the Combined Chiefs had looked upon an invasion of southern France as a means of diverting the German forces from OVERLORD, and they had then asked Eisenhower to submit an outline plan for the operation.²⁰ Replying in the latter part of October, Eisenhower expressed doubts on the advisability of carrying out the operation. Shortages of assault shipping would probably restrict an amphibious assault to a one-division force; subsequent build-up would be very slow until a port could be seized and put into operation; amphibious landings now contemplated in Italy would conflict with a landing in southern France; and perhaps the Allied armies would be far from northern Italy by the spring of 1944 and in no position to invade the Mediterranean coast of France.

A landing in southern France, Eisenhower continued, was but one part and, because of its size, a very small part of the entire scheme of operations being developed in the Mediterranean theater to produce by May 1944 the conditions desired for assisting the OVERLORD cross-Channel attack. The OVERLORD planners wanted German air effectiveness reduced and sufficient pressure exerted in Italy to prevent the Germans from moving divisions to France against the invasion in Normandy. Because of these requirements, Eisenhower considered it "strategically unsound to decide now that this projected diversionary amphibious assault [against southern France] is certain to be the best contribution this [Mediterranean] theater can make at, or near, the time of OVERLORD."

Other alternatives were, in his opinion, worth considering. More valuable than a small and isolated landing in southern France might be an amphibious turning movement in conjunction with a frontal assault in northern Italy to defeat the Germans at the Pisa-Rimini line; or, if the Allied armies in Italy were at the Alps by the spring of 1944, a major thrust to the east, including an amphibious attack to tie down German forces in the Balkans; or perhaps a westward strike from the Po Valley by both amphibious and overland routes. Or it might be best to make no invasion of southern France lest an amphibious assault draw additional Germans into France instead of pulling them away from the OVERLORD assault area.

In the final analysis, the Allied commander estimated, an operation against southern France would depend to a large extent on progress in Italy. If the Allied armies were south of or at the Pisa-Rimini line in northern Italy when the Combined Chiefs of Staff decided to invade southern France, the operation would have to be entirely amphibious. And the limited shipping in the Mediterranean would seriously curtail the size of such a landing.²¹

Progress up the Italian peninsula thus remained the principal concern. "A stabilized front south of Rome cannot be accepted," the AFHQ G-3, General Rooks, declared, "for the capital has a significance far greater than its strategic location." If the Allied armies could be far enough north of Rome by February 1944 to cover the ports of Civitavecchia and possibly Ancona, the winter campaign would be a success. The next step would be to complete the build-up of the strategic air forces in Italy and to base them on airfields around Rome in order to enable the theater to contribute most effectively to the Combined Bomber Offensive. The best way to achieve these goals was to launch an amphibious operation to loosen the German defenses in southern Italy and facilitate the capture of Rome.²²

The prerequisite for an amphibious operation was an overland advance to Frosinone. To make this advance speedily became General Clark's overriding concern. On the slim chance that the ground advance would suddenly, inexplicably, pick up and make possible an amphibious effort in the next few weeks, he continued to hold the 36th Division in reserve through the first two weeks of November and to keep the II Corps headquarters, which had arrived from Sicily in October, ready for the landing.²³ Perhaps sheer determination would move the army forward.

Hitler's Decision

Hitler was still far from being convinced that a strong defense in southern Italy was his best strategy. Persuaded by Kesselring on 4 October to reverse his earlier decisions and order a stand south of Rome, Hitler continued to think of withdrawing unequivocally to the north. Ten days later, when the operations group of OKW, in compliance with his

instructions, sent him a draft order naming Rommel supreme commander in Italy at a date to be determined later, Hitler decided first to confer with Rommel.²⁴ Summoned to Hitler's command post on 17 October and asked for his opinion on the feasibility of holding south of Rome, Rommel, according to those who were present, "expressed himself negatively." He had no wish, he said, to assume that responsibility.²⁵

Despite Rommel's candor, or perhaps because of it, Hitler was apparently still willing to appoint him supreme commander. Later that day, the Army Group B intelligence officer who had accompanied Rommel to Hitler's Wolfschanze telephoned Rommel's chief of staff in northern Italy and informed him of the new mission the Army Group B headquarters would soon undertake--command of all the forces in Italy. Since Hitler wished to have from the headquarters some suggestions on future operations, Rommel wanted his chief of staff to write a memo of recommendations. Still later that day the OKW operations group drafted another order appointing Rommel to the over-all command in Italy.²⁶

Rommel apparently learned of the draft order because on his way back to Italy the following day he phoned his chief of staff to inquire whether the order had reached the army group headquarters. The answer was no.²⁷ In fact, the paper had just reached Hitler's desk for signature.

On the following day, 19 October, the army group headquarters received informal word from the OKW operations group that Hitler had approved Rommel's appointment; an order announcing the fact would soon be dispatched. But a later phone call from Jodl, the head of the operations group, advised the headquarters that the Fuehrer was still delaying his decision. As an afterthought, Jodl added, "It is possible that the Fuehrer's view with regard to the assumption of the supreme command in Italy has undergone a fundamental change."²⁸

Several days later, when Rommel's chief of staff telephoned OKW to ask whether the army group headquarters could expect to receive the order in the near future, he received a negative reply.²⁹

Before signing the order Hitler had decided to call Kesselring for consultation on the conduct of the Italian campaign and on the question of the supreme command. When Kesselring appeared, he was, as always, optimistic, and he impressed Hitler favorably with his vigor. He was sure he could maintain a long-term defense south of Rome. He estimated he could keep the Allied armies from reaching the Northern Apennines for at least six to nine months, and to support his contention, he pointed to the military situation in southern Italy, which contrasted markedly with pessimistic OKW forecasts.³⁰

A few days after Hitler's conversation with Kesselring, the Fuehrer instructed the OKW operations group to submit to him an order appointing Kesselring to

the supreme command in Italy.³¹ Hitler thus had before him the drafts of two orders. The commander he chose would determine his strategy. The decision would determine the course of the campaign.

Once more Hitler summoned Rommel for an interview, seeing him on 5 November. That evening a telephone call to Rommel's army group headquarters disclosed the result of the meeting. Rommel, the headquarters learned, had been assigned to a special mission in France. "It is definite," the officer stated, "that he will give up command of the northern Italian theater, and probably the Commander in Chief, South [Kesselring] will receive the supreme command over all of Italy."³² Rommel and his Army Group B headquarters would go to Normandy to inspect the Atlantic Wall and prepare to repel the Allied cross-Channel invasion that was anticipated for the spring of 1944.

On 6 November, the day following his meeting with Rommel, Hitler named Kesselring supreme commander in Italy. The appointment was to become effective at the Bernhard Line, which was, in Hitler's words, to "mark the end of withdrawals." Along with the appointment went Hitler's detailed and somewhat superfluous instructions on how best to hold that line.³³

As Commander in Chief, Southwest, a joint command, and as commander of Army Group C, a ground command, Kesselring assumed control of all the German forces in Italy on 21 November. The strategy of holding indefinitely in southern Italy had become firm. Secure in his position, enjoying full backing from the highest command echelon, Kesselring was ready to do his utmost to be worthy of his Fuehrer's confidence.

Some observers believed that Hitler's consideration for Mussolini had played a major role in his final decision to defend south of Rome. Others thought that Rommel, who had been certain of receiving the command, had incurred Hitler's displeasure by interfering prematurely with Kesselring on matters pertaining to Kesselring's jurisdiction.³⁴

A more plausible explanation is Hitler's changing personal regard for the two commanders.³⁵ Because Rommel's predictions of Italian "treachery" had been accurate, Hitler originally tended to accept his concept of strategy. But when the German military situation in Italy improved beyond Hitler's expectations, he came to admire Kesselring's ability as a commander, as well as his strategic concept. "I had always blamed Kesselring," Hitler said nine months later, "for looking at things too optimistically." Rommel, in contrast, Hitler continued, was more realistic. Yet Rommel's forecast of German collapse in southern Italy turned out to be inaccurate. Thus, Hitler concluded,

. . . the events have proven him [Rommel] totally wrong, and I have been justified in my decision to leave Field Marshal Kesselring there, whom I had seen as an incredible political idealist, but also as a military

optimist, and it is my opinion that military leadership without optimism is not possible.³⁶

Hitler's decision had some elements of a gamble. Holding in southern Italy meant long lines of communication vulnerable to air attack and a front vulnerable to amphibious attack. Hitler's primary motive seems to have been the hope of preventing an Allied invasion of the Balkans. The Allies had no real intention of invading the Balkans, "although," as one historian has pointed out, "rapid conquest of southern and central Italy might have tempted them into such a venture."³⁷

The decision that Hitler reached two months after the Salerno landings made inevitable the battles of the Rapido River, Cassino, and Anzio on the long, hard road to Rome--places that might otherwise have fallen to the Fifth Army after light skirmishes or perhaps with no opposition at all.

The Cairo and Tehran Conferences

Toward the end of the last two weeks of November, when the Fifth Army offensive was at a temporary halt, General Roosevelt, former assistant commander of the 1st Division and now liaison officer to the French command that would soon take part in the Italian campaign, whispered some news to General Lucas at lunch. A big Allied conference, he said, was in session in Cairo. A corporal in the Military Police, he added, had told him so.³⁸

American and British leaders were indeed meeting at Cairo to discuss, among other matters, the problem of how to retain OVERLORD "in all its integrity" and at the same time keep the Mediterranean theater "ablaze" with activity. They had informed Marshal Joseph Stalin of the Anglo-American decisions reached at Quebec during the QUADRANT Conference in September, and they knew that Stalin favored an invasion of southern France to complement the forthcoming cross-Channel attack. They suspected that Stalin would demand continued action in Italy.³⁹

There was already evidence of Soviet dissatisfaction with what the Russians considered to be insufficient Allied pressure against the Germans in the Mediterranean theater. According to Soviet intelligence, the Germans were transferring divisions out of Italy and the Balkans for action on the Eastern Front.⁴⁰ If this were true, the Allied forces were failing to comply with the Combined Chiefs of Staff directive to pin down maximum German strength in Italy.

To determine the truth of the Soviet assertion, the CCS made a full-scale survey and estimate of the enemy situation in mid-November. Intelligence sources indicated that the Germans had committed about 185,000 men, including

17,000 antiaircraft and 30,000 miscellaneous and service troops, in southern Italy; a total of 11 divisions were in contact with the Allied armies or in immediate reserve. In northern Italy were perhaps 235,000 men, including 38,000 antiaircraft and 30,000 miscellaneous troops--a force of about 12 divisions. Of these 12 divisions, only half were fully effective combat organizations; the other half were in various stages of formation and training. All participated in occupation duties and in guarding the coasts. Although the Germans had probably moved two divisions from northern Italy to the Russian front since the beginning of the Italian campaign, they had brought 2 divisions from France to Italy; they had also transferred 3 and were moving a fourth from northern Italy to the south. As they perfected their occupation and coastal defenses, as they developed Mussolini's militia units for internal police duties, and as they brought additional units to combat effectiveness, the Germans might eventually release between 3 and 6 divisions for employment elsewhere. Since the terrain between Cassino and the Pisa-Rimini line was well suited for delaying action, the German command would probably hold successive positions as long as possible, employing a minimum strength consistent with that purpose. Yet because the German flanks were open to amphibious attack on both coasts, the Allied command hoped to force the commitment of additional enemy units.⁴¹

To oppose the Germans, the Allied command expected to have in southern Italy by early December the equivalent of fourteen divisions, by the end of 1943 perhaps two more.⁴²

The prospect was hardly encouraging. To Mr. Churchill in particular, the Italian campaign was disappointing. Lamenting the loss of the Dodecanese Islands, still wanting Rhodes, and hoping to bring Turkey into the war on the Allied side, he believed that the Allied forces might have taken better advantage of the open Adriatic coast to render more assistance to the Yugoslav Partisans in the interest of promoting chaos in the German-held Balkans. More positively, Churchill renounced a wish earlier expressed for an Allied march into the Po Valley. Instead, he concentrated on Rome. To him, Rome now became the main and immediate objective of the Italian campaign. With Rome in Allied hands, he saw the Allied armies moving only as far as the Pisa-Rimini line. There, he felt, the Allied leadership would have to decide whether to go eastward into the Balkans or westward to southern France. OVERLORD, he maintained, should not rule out every activity in the Mediterranean theater. Until the decision at the Pisa-Rimini line became necessary, he favored increasing General Eisenhower's resources to facilitate an advance to that area. The most important action in this regard, he believed, was to defer for at least two weeks beyond the already postponed date of 15 December the transfer from the Mediterranean theater of landing ships and craft needed for OVERLORD. With this shipping retained in the theater until the end of 1943, the Allied forces could launch an amphibious operation designed

to capture Rome and send the German troops reeling back to the Pisa-Rimini line.⁴³

When the Anglo-American leaders traveled from Cairo to Tehran to meet with their Soviet allies, they learned that Stalin preferred a campaign in western Europe, with OVERLORD as the main effort and an invasion of southern France as a subsidiary and complementary operation, over a continued offensive in Italy. If Allied resources were insufficient to sustain offensive operations in all three areas, he believed that the troops in Italy should go over to the defense.

Churchill objected. Failure to take Rome he would consider a crushing defeat. Arguing for the retention in the Mediterranean of enough assault shipping to enable at least two divisions to move up the Italian peninsula by amphibious turning movements, he was prepared to accept an invasion of southern France in conjunction with OVERLORD. Yet he recognized that maintaining the tempo of attack in Italy and launching amphibious operations would require either a postponement of OVERLORD for several weeks or a withdrawal of landing ships and craft from the Indian Ocean. Neither alternative was attractive.

The American position was close to Churchill's, although somewhat less intense. Because an invasion of southern France presupposed the establishment of Allied forces in Italy somewhere north of Rome, the American military advisers favored concentrating the limited resources of the Mediterranean theater in Italy to gain the Pisa-Rimini line.

Satisfying Mr. Churchill on Rome and Marshal Stalin on southern France, the Combined Chiefs of Staff agreed to let General Eisenhower retain until 15 January 1944 a total of sixty-eight LST's scheduled for transfer to England.

After leaving Tehran, the British and American leaders met again in Cairo. They gave the projected invasion of southern France the code name ANVIL and instructed General Eisenhower to prepare a plan for the operation. For planning purposes, they assumed that at the time of the invasion of southern France, the Allied armies in Italy would be at the Pisa-Rimini line and maintaining constant pressure there against the Germans; ANVIL would probably be nearly simultaneous with OVERLORD; and no other offensive operations would be taking place in the Mediterranean theater.

In order to reach the Pisa-Rimini line by the spring of 1944, Fifth Army would have to make an amphibious landing in the Rome area. But first, the army would have to secure a line within supporting distance of a beachhead near Rome. To batter through the Bernhard and Gustav Lines and reach an area within reasonably close supporting range of a beachhead motivated the desperate combat in southern Italy during the months of December 1943 and January 1944.

The Lull

General Clark's halt of offensive operations in mid-November, as it turned out, was fortunate. A heavy rainstorm swept over the bleak Italian countryside on 15 November to begin fourteen days

of miserably wet weather. All VI Corps bridges across the Volturno except the one at Dragoni were washed out. Travel by road became virtually impossible. Along the shoulders of the roads, the mud was usually a foot deep, sometimes more. Off the roads everything was "a particularly sticky kind of mud."⁴⁴

"It has rained for two days and is due to rain for two more, so say the meteorologists," General Lucas wrote in his diary. "In addition, it is cold as hell. I think too often of my men out in the mountains. I am far too tender-hearted ever to be a success at my chosen profession." A day later it was still "rain, rain, and more rain . . . . I don't see how our men stand what they do."

They are the finest soldiers in the world and none but an humble man should command them. My constant prayer to Almighty God is that I may have the wisdom to bring them through this ordeal with the maximum of success and the minimum loss of life. Hence my use of artillery ammunition. If the lives of American boys are of value, the ravenous appetite of the guns of the VI Corps is not in vain in spite of the tremendous cost in money and vital transport.⁴⁵

A week later, after more rain and nights that were freezing cold, the sick rate soared. At the 15th Evacuation Hospital, doctors and nurses were working in six inches of mud "the consistency of good, thick bean soup and about the same color."⁴⁶ Attempting to make the troops more comfortable, Fifth Army authorized each man in the field an additional shelter half as a ground cloth for individual tents. When the army headquarters requested 15,000 individual cook stoves, SOS NATOUSA approved the issue of 50,000.⁴⁷

Thanksgiving Day came, and every man had a pound of turkey allotted to him--if "we can get it to them," General Lucas wrote. The difficulty of getting supplies to men in the mountains was but one indication, Lucas believed, of how the campaign was being fought "on a shoestring." The command needed troops trained for mountain warfare, more bridging equipment, and pack trains. Certainly, Lucas felt, mule trains should have been organized before the campaign started instead of having to be improvised by the divisions. Lucas called General Truscott, who had pioneered in the development, the man most responsible for the eventual success of pack train organization.⁴⁸

Fifth Army headquarters had begun in October to make intensive efforts to obtain pack mules, horses, and forage, and to negotiate local contracts for harnesses and packsaddle equipment. Early in November the army headquarters established a remount installation for procuring and training animals, opening a second facility later that month and a third in December. The headquarters made its first purchase of animals on 20 November--43 horses and 3 mules. About the same time a group of staff officers, accompanied by several Italian Army officers, started off on a 15-day reconnaissance to locate available animals. By December the army was procuring from local sources an average of 20 mules a day. About 150 mules purchased by British officers were shipped from Sardinia. Even though French units arriving

VEHICLES STRANDED IN THE RISING WATERS OF THE VOLTURNO, above. War against mud, below.

in Italy brought animals with them from North Africa, they soon needed replacements. Early in 1944 Fifth Army would receive 300 mules from Sicily, the beginning of irregular shipments from that island. By that time, the army would be buying an average of 900 mules per week. It was then that the headquarters would unite all remount functions at a single installation and open a hospital for wounded animals.

Despite these measures, pack animals remained a chronic shortage. Because no other solution was apparent, increasing numbers of troops served regularly as supply carriers, using packboards to advantage. The army ordered 500 packboards in November through regular supply channels and 1,500 from local manufacturers. By January the army would be procuring a total of 5,000 from local sources.⁴⁹

The lull in operations permitted the troops in the field a well-earned rest. Of the seven divisions in the Fifth Army, five had been in the line almost constantly since the battle of Salerno--the 46th and 56th of 10 Corps and the 3d, 34th, and 45th of VI Corps. The 36th Division, in army reserve immediately behind the front, was ready for recommitment, and the 1st Armored Division, arriving through the port of Naples and assembling, came under Fifth Army control on 15 November, replacing the 7th Armoured Division, which was withdrawn from the army troop list.⁵⁰

The plan to shift 10 Corps and its British divisions to the Eighth Army to

GENERAL KEYES

simplify supply and administration, though long under consideration, was still not feasible because of the lack of strength available to Fifth Army to replace the corps in the line and the shortage of vehicles to move the corps to the east coast zone. Only two divisions remained under 10 Corps control but two more British infantry divisions, the 1st and the 5th, would soon become available.

The 36th Division began to relieve the 3d on 16 November, and at noon of the following day assumed responsibility for the Mignano area. On 18 November the II Corps headquarters, commanded by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey T. Keyes, came into the same area and took control of the 36th and 3d Divisions, the latter in bivouac to rest and receive personnel and equipment replacements.

"Keyes just called to express his joy at being on the team," General Lucas recorded in his diary. "I predicted he would hit a home run the first time up,

but he said he would be satisfied with a base on balls."⁵¹ A graduate of the Military Academy who had participated in the Punitive Expedition into Mexico in 1916, General Keyes was originally a cavalry officer. During the 1941 maneuvers he served as 2d Armored Division chief of staff under General Patton. After commanding a combat command of the 3d Armored Division, he activated and commanded the 9th Armored Division. Appointed Patton's deputy commander for the invasion of North Africa, Keyes later became the I Armored Corps commander. Responsible for the preliminary planning of that part of the invasion of Sicily to be executed by American troops, he was deputy commander of the Seventh Army during the Sicily Campaign and also commander of the Provisional Corps that swept the western half of the island and captured Palermo. In September 1943, he had assumed command of the II Corps headquarters.

With a fresh corps headquarters and a rested division inserted into the line between 10 and VI Corps, thus narrowing General Lucas' zone and span of control, VI Corps retained control of the 34th and 45th Divisions. For some time the 45th Division commander, General Middleton, had suffered from an old, painful knee injury. Now he underwent medical treatment and was eventually hospitalized and returned to the United States. He would return to active operations the following year as a corps commander in northwest Europe, where his leadership would have broader scope.

Middleton's replacement as 45th Division commander was a quiet, determined soldier, with broad tactical experience, Maj. Gen. William W. Eagles, a West Point graduate who had been the assistant division commander of the 3d through the campaigns of North Africa and Sicily, and in southern Italy. He was to become, according to General Lucas, "one of our most accomplished division commanders."⁵²

Retaining the 1st Armored Division in army reserve until a moment favorable for employing tanks presented itself, General Clark urgently requested at least one more American infantry division for use in Italy. General Eisenhower concurred and relayed the request to Washington. The 88th Division was selected for movement to the theater. It would arrive in Italy in February and March 1944.⁵³

Assured of one additional division, General Eisenhower pressed for another in order to provide regular periods of relief and rest for the divisions in the line and to increase the feasibility of an invasion of southern France. Even if the division were not used in Italy or southern France, General Eisenhower believed that an American division stationed in North Africa would be politically advantageous.⁵⁴ To meet this request, the 85th Infantry Division was chosen for transfer to the theater. It would arrive in Italy soon after the 88th.

The Italian Army was providing service companies and pack train units for use in the mountains, but since the King

and Premier Badoglio had "offered to help the Allies drive the Germans out of Italy," the theater command believed it desirable for "reasons of policy" to have Italian troops participate in the entry into Rome. It would thus be fitting that they take part in the battles leading to the city. General Alexander, after conferring with Badoglio, accepted the 1. Raggruppamento Italiano Motorizzato (1st Motorized Group), commanded by Comandante di Brigata Vincenzo Dapino, and placed it under General Clark's control. After intensive training, this regiment of about 5,500 men moved to bivouac near Capua on 22 November. Early in December, the regiment was attached to II Corps and committed in the Mignano area.⁵⁵

A greater source of troop strength existed in the French units being re-equipped and trained in North Africa, where four divisions had been preparing for combat since January. The United States had agreed to rearm a maximum of 10, later 11 divisions in North Africa, and the Allied leaders understood that they were to play an active role in the war. Although the French commanders were primarily interested in liberating France, they were also eager to have French units in combat. Just before the invasion of Salerno, General Giraud had concurred in employing French divisions in Italy, and General Eisenhower made two available to General Clark--the 2d Moroccan and 3d Algerian, plus the necessary supporting troops. General Clark wanted to use the divisions as quickly as possible, but the scarcity of shipping made their arrival in Italy unlikely

GENERAL EAGLES

before 1 November. Clark was confident that the French combat units would perform well but was somewhat concerned by the shortage of French service units. He hoped the deficiency would be corrected before the French contingents departed North Africa, since hardly enough service units were on hand to support the troops already in Italy, and no additional ones were expected.⁵⁶

Continuing shortages of shipping compelled General Alexander to postpone the arrival of the first French units until the latter part of December. Yet General

GENERAL JUIN

Clark's need for more troops prompted him to confer on 1 October with General Alphonse Juin, who was visiting Italy, on the possibility of getting at least one division to provide relief for the battle-weary units in the line. Since the French troops were said to be particularly skillful in mountain warfare, their employment would be exceptionally welcome. With Juin agreeable to an earlier commitment and with his assurance that both divisions were in an excellent state of battle readiness, Clark persuaded Alexander to schedule the 2d Moroccan Division for arrival in Naples on 1 December, the 3d Algerian Division for the end of the month.

General Juin, who would lead the French troops in Italy, commanded a headquarters named Detachment of Army A, the forerunner of what the French hoped would eventually become an army headquarters. But since Juin was to serve under Fifth Army as a corps commander, and since he was older than Clark and of higher grade, he tried to ease what he considered would be a natural embarrassment on Clark's part by calling his headquarters the French Expeditionary Corps--"to show his desire," his chief of staff later wrote, "to serve in the Fifth U.S. Army and under the orders of its chief, General Clark."⁵⁷

Designed to operate as a general staff section at the Fifth Army level, a group known as the French Increment reached Naples on 18 November. A logistical headquarters, Base 901, instructed to function in close co-ordination with the Peninsular Base Section as the supply and reception unit for the French troops, began to arrive the following day. On 18 November, the 2d Moroccan Division, under Maj. Gen. Andre W. Dody, started to debark in Naples, ten days ahead of schedule. Five days later the French Expeditionary Corps headquarters arrived by air.

Until the second French division reached Italy, the 2d Moroccan Division was scheduled to go into the VI Corps. When General Lucas invited General Dody to lunch late in November to size up the commander, he was surprised to find Generals Juin and Roosevelt accompanying Dody. "I am afraid I have a problem on my hands," he wrote in his diary, unaware of Juin's eventual place in the command structure. "Juin aspires to command a corps and will certainly be in my hair, but diplomacy must be used." It was not long before Lucas admitted he had been wrong about Juin, "who turned out to be not only a splendid soldier but a fine and courteous

gentleman as well." Dody, too, impressed Lucas after he came to know him--"a most capable officer, and in every way highly loyal and cooperative."⁵⁸

The 2d Moroccan Division consisted for the most part of native North Africans led by French officers. According to American standards, the training of the division was somewhat deficient, particularly at the lower echelons. The tactical handling of battalions, for example, left something to be desired. The division, Lucas remarked, would have to learn many lessons from the enemy, "and he is a tough drillmaster."⁵⁹

The ambulance drivers were women. Because the roads were in poor condition and under fire in many places, Lucas suggested that Dody use the ambulance units in rear areas and replace them with corps units at the front.

Dody exploded at the suggestion. "The women of France, like the men," he exclaimed, "are proud to die for their country!"

"Surely," Lucas commented in his diary, "France still lives."⁶⁰

The 1st Special Service Force, commanded by Col. Robert T. Frederick, also arrived in Italy in November. Composed of specially selected Americans and Canadians in about equal proportions, the unit had initially been trained for long-range sabotage operations in snow-covered country. When air bombardment and Office of Strategic Services saboteurs proved to be effective against targets deep in the enemy rear, the mission of the 1st Special Service Force was changed. Already trained to fight on skis, the members now received intensive training in demolitions and became parachutists.⁶¹

The 1st Special Service Force had been first employed in the unopposed landings at Kiska in the Aleutians during the late summer of 1943. Because the troops were versatile and had extraordinarily high morale, the Combined Chiefs of Staff thought they might be useful in the mountain warfare of Italy. Alerted to their availability, General Eisenhower requested their shipment for special reconnaissance and raiding operations during the methodical winter advance up the Italian peninsula.⁶²

Reaching Naples in the latter half of November, the 1st Special Service Force was attached on 23 November to II Corps and further attached to the 36th Division. The unit consisted of a headquarters, air and communications detachments, a base echelon service battalion of about 600 men, and three "regiments," each authorized 417 men but containing closer to 600. Each regiment had two battalions, each battalion three companies, each company three platoons. Armed like infantrymen, with rifles, carbines, rocket launchers, light machine guns, and 60-mm. mortars, but lacking organic artillery, the troops had parachutes, winter equipment, and flame throwers. They had 1,190 trucks and cars and were authorized 600 T-24 carriers, tracked amphibious vehicles capable

COLONEL FREDERICK. (Photograph taken after his promotion to brigadier general.)

of moderate speeds over hilly and snow-covered terrain. To give the unit support firepower, the Fifth Army headquarters attached to it a battalion of airborne artillery.⁶³

While the newly arrived units were getting oriented and the old ones were resting during the last two weeks of November, Allied artillery fired almost incessantly. The 36th Division Artillery, for example, reinforced by seven battalions of corps artillery, fired nearly 95,000 shells during the period. Two battalions equipped with the 8-inch howitzer, a recently developed weapon shipped to Italy for its first combat employment, fired a total of fifty-eight rounds.

As bad as the weather was during the month of November, it was to be even worse in December. The final month of 1943 was the most unfavorable time of the year for military operations since it was the culmination of the rainy autumnal season in Italy, the climax of three months of humidity. The combination of precipitation, cloudiness, and cold would produce a surface soil unsuitable for maneuvering mechanical equipment, flood conditions for rivers and marshes, and the kind of temperatures requiring bulky clothing that restricted the men's mobility.⁶⁴ Under these conditions and in mountainous terrain, Fifth Army was going to try to reach and penetrate into the Liri valley, a prerequisite for capturing Rome.

Footnotes

1. Walker Diary, 4 Nov 43.

2. Lucas Diary, 2 Nov 43.

3. Howard McGaw Smyth, Notes on Eisenhower Diary filed with supporting documents for Garland and Smyth, Sicily, and the Surrender of Italy, entry of 24 Sep 43, OCMH.

4. Appendix A to Fifth Army Intel Summary 53, 29 Oct 43.

5. Clark Diary, 21 Oct 43.

6. Ibid., 22 Oct 43.

7. Ibid., 23 Oct 43.

8. Alexander Despatch, p. 2881; Report by the Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean to the Combined Chiefs of Staff on the Italian Campaign, 8 January 1944 to 10 May 1944 (Washington, 1946) (hereafter referred to as Wilson Despatch), p. 1.

9. Clark Diary, 25 Oct 43.

10. Walker Diary, 28 Oct 43.

11. Clark Diary, 28, 30, 31 Oct 43; Fifth Army Memo, Gen Brann to Rear Adm John A. V. Morse, RN, 26 Oct 43, Fifth Army G-3 Jnl.

12. AFHQ G-3 Paper, Amphibious Opns on the Coast of Italy, 1 Nov 43.

13. AFHQ G-3 Memo, 2 Nov 43.

14. See Coakley and Leighton, Global Logistics and Strategy, 1943-1945, ch. IX.

15. Eisenhower Dispatch, p. 149. Instructed by the CCS on 26 October to bomb military objectives in Bulgaria to help divert Bulgarian divisions from Yugoslavia and Greece, thereby adding to German difficulties and indirectly helping the Italian campaign, General Eisenhower ordered the Northwest African Strategic Air Force to prepare plans for the operation. The first attack was made on 14 November, when ninety-one medium bombers took off from Italian bases. Two similar attacks were made in December.

16. AFHQ Paper, Limiting Factors on Mounting an Amphibious Opn of More Than One Division on East or West Coast of Italy, 2 Nov 43.

17. Alexander Despatch, pp. 2881ff.; Eisenhower Dispatch, pp. 149ff.

18. See AFHQ G-3 Paper and Appendixes, Pescara-Rome Line, 28 Oct 43.

19. 15th AGp OI 31, 8 Nov 43.

20. See Robert Ross Smith and Charles F. Romanus, The Riviera to the Rhine, a forthcoming volume in the series UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II, ch. II.

21. AFHQ Rpt by CinC to CCS, Opns To Assist OVERLORD, 27 Oct 43.

22. AFHQ G-3 Paper, Future Opns in Mediterranean Area, 20 Nov 43.

23. See Teleconv, Capt Tomasik with Col Wood, 1150, 22 Oct 43, Fifth Army G-3 Jnl. See also Walker Diary, 4 Nov 43.

24. OKW/WFSt KTB, 4, 14 Oct 43. See also KTB, 6 Nov 43.

25. MS # T-1a (Westphal et al.), OCMH.

26. AGp B KTB, 17 Oct 43; OKW/WFSt KTB, 6 Nov 43.

27. AGp B KTB, 18 Oct 43.

28. AGp B KTB, 19 Oct 43.

29. AGp B KTB, 23 Oct 43.

30. OKW/WFSt KTB, 25 Oct 43; MS # T-1a (Westphal et al.), OCMH.

31. OKW/WFSt KTB, 25 Oct, 6 Nov 43.

32. AGp B KTB, 5 Nov 43.

33. OKW/WFSt KTB, 6 Nov 43.

34. MS # 069d (Zimmermann), OCMH; MS # C-069e (Warlimont), OCMH; The Goebbels Diaries, 1942-1943, edited, translated, and with an introduction by Louis P. Lochner (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, 1948), pp. 469-81.

35. See Lucian Heichler, Kesselring's Appointment as Commander in Chief, Southwest, MS # R-3, OCMH.

36. Min of Hitler Conferences, Fragment No. 46, Aug 44, pp. 3-5, OCMH. This statement may have been influenced by the fact that Rommel had been implicated in the attempted assassination of Hitler on 20 July 1944. See also Siegfried Westphal, The German Army in the West (London: Cassell and Company, Ltd., 1951), p. 237.

37. Mavrogordato, "Hitler's Decision on the Defense of Italy," Command Decisions, p. 322.

38. Lucas Diary, 26 Nov 43.

39. Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943-1944, ch. XVI; Richard M. Leighton, "OVERLORD Versus the Mediterranean at the Cairo-Tehran Conferences," Command Decisions, edited by Kent Roberts Greenfield (Washington, 1960), pp. 255-85.

40. Paraphrased Msg from Maj Gen John R. Deane (in Moscow) to Marshall, about 9 Nov 43, ABC, Sec 2.

41. Combined Intel Committee Rpt on Enemy Situation and Strength in Italy, 17 Nov 43, ABC 384, Sec 2.

42. AFHQ G-3 Paper, Pescara-Rome Line, 28 Oct 43, Appendix II; Eisenhower to War Dept, 4, 5 Nov 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 3.

43. Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943-1944, ch. XIII. See also Leighton, "OVERLORD Versus the Mediterranean at the Cairo-Tehran Conferences," Command Decisions, pp. 255-85.

44. Rpt 90 , AGF Bd Rpts, NATO.

45. Lucas Diary, 13, 14, 15, 16 Nov 43.

46. Ibid., 18, 23 Nov 43.

47. History of Peninsular Base Sec, vol. II.

48. Lucas Diary, 22, 25 Nov 43.

49. History of Peninsular Base Sec, vol. II.

50. On the requirements to re-equip and retrain the 1st Armored Division after the North African campaign, see 1st Armd Div Ltr, 23 Jul 43, AG 400.

51. Lucas Diary, 18 Nov 43.

52. Ibid., 24 Nov 43.

53. Eisenhower to Marshall, 4 Dec 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 3.

54. Eisenhower to War Dept, 5 Dec 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 3.

55. Fifth Army History, Part III, p. 9; Alexander Despatch, p. 2881.

56. Ltr, Gen Clark to Gen Alphonse Juin, Employment of French Units, Opn AVALANCHE, 1 Sep 43, SHINGLE Corresp. French units in Italy were to be maintained on the same scale as American troops, with the five classes of supply, plus Moslem rations, but not cigarettes and other free-issue items normally part of the rations in combat areas; French troops were to receive post exchange and Special Service items from French sources. Fifth Army Ltr, Supplies for French, 4 Sep 43, AG 400.

57. Général Marcel Carpentier, Les Forces Alliees en Italie; la Campagne d'Italie (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1949), p. 55.

58. Lucas Diary, 29 Nov 43.

59. Ibid., 1 Dec 43.

60. Ibid.

61. A good account of the activation and early training of what was at first called the Force appears in Lt. Col. Robert D. Burhans, The First Special Service Force (Washington: Infantry Journal Press, 1947).

62. CCS to Eisenhower, 24 Aug 43. OPD Exec 3, Item 5; Ltr, Whiteley to Eisenhower, 27 Aug 43, Salmon Files, OCMH; Eisenhower to CCS, 8 Sep 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 5; CCS to Eisenhower, 17 Sep 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 4; Eisenhower to Alexander, 4 Sep 43, 15th AGp Master Cable File, VI.

63. FSSF Narrative Rpt, 17 Nov 43-1 Feb 44; Alexander to Clark, 11 Oct 43, 15th AGp Master Cable File, VI; Eisenhower to War Dept, 1 Nov 43, OPD Exec 3, Item 3; FSSF Organization, 21 Oct 43, and Memo, Wood for Brann, 2 Nov 43, both in Fifth Army G-3 Jnl.

64. Summary of the Meteorological Conditions in the Area South of Rome for the Month of December, n.d., Fifth Army G-3 Jnl, Nov 43.