Chapter XVII
The Decision for Anzio

The decision for Anzio gestated for two months, a period of time marked by false labor. General Eisenhower learned on 8 November that the Combined Chiefs of Staff had approved his request to retain in the Mediterranean theater until 15 December sixty-eight LST's scheduled for immediate release to England. The same day he authorized General Alexander to set in motion plans for landing in the Rome area. Because an amphibious operation--assuming continued German opposition--could hardly be prepared, executed, and brought to triumphant conclusion in five weeks, Eisenhower at the same time asked the CCS for permission to retain the LST's for another month, until 15 January 1944.

General Alexander issued his instructions to the Fifth Army on the same day, 8 November. He specified the place for the amphibious landing: Anzio, thirty-five miles below Rome. The beaches were suitable for an assault, the port of Anzio offered sheltered anchorage, the open terrain of the low coastal plain favored maneuver, and good roads led to the Alban Hills, about twenty miles inland. Lying between Highways 6 and 7, at that time the two major roads to Rome, the Alban Hills dominate the southern approaches to the city. They were the last natural barrier the Germans could use to bar an Allied entry into Rome. General Clark's army, after breaking through the Gustav Line and penetrating into the Liri valley to Frosinone, was to launch the seaborne operation, land troops at Anzio, and direct them on the Alban Hills. The advance through Cassino to Frosinone, followed by a thrust from Anzio to the Alban Hills, General Alexander believed, would so disrupt the German defenses that the Fifth Army could move quickly into Rome.¹

The Fifth Army staff drew a detailed plan for the operation and code-named it SHINGLE. A relatively small amphibious force going ashore at Anzio was expected to dislocate the German defenses and enable the army to move quickly beyond Frosinone and make contact with the beachhead no later than seven days after the landing. But the Fifth Army plan made a fundamental change in Alexander's concept. Whereas General Alexander saw the amphibious forces driving to the Alban Hills, General Clark envisaged the beachhead forces as contributing to an advance by the units on the main army front, moving from Frosinone to capture the Alban Hills.²

Reconciling the different concepts had little importance in late November and

early December, for the Anzio operation appeared doomed to indefinite postponement. Enemy resistance in the mountainous terrain forward of the Gustav Line so slowed the Fifth Army that there seemed no immediate hope of its getting to Frosinone and within supporting distance of Anzio.

Although the Fifth Army was still battling to get to Cassino, and although Cassino was twenty-five miles short of Frosinone, General Clark on 10 December suggested that the amphibious assault nevertheless be executed. The Combined Chiefs had just approved General Eisenhower's request to retain the LST's until 15 January 1944 and an amphibious operation was therefore in order. In view of the release date, it had to be launched quickly or not at all. If the Anzio force could be strengthened to the extent that the troops could gain and hold a beachhead for more than a week, the mere presence of Allied units deep behind the German lines might be enough to dislocate the defenses in the Cassino area. In other words, the threat to the German lines of communication at Anzio might compel the Germans to weaken their main front in order to deal with the danger in the rear. And this, of course, would facilitate the advance of the main Fifth Army forces to the Alban Hills and Rome.

The thought was interesting but impractical. The Fifth Army front was much too far from Anzio for a landing to succeed. By the time the Fifth Army reached Frosinone General Eisenhower would probably have to release the landing ships. In addition, the heavy fighting along the approaches to Cassino made it questionable whether the troops would be strong enough, after getting to Cassino and through the German defenses along the Rapido and Garigliano Rivers, to go on to Frosinone, much less to Anzio.

Alerted on 12 December by Generals Smith and Rooks, the chief of staff and G-3 of AFHQ, that the release date of 15 January for the assault shipping required a decision on SHINGLE within a week, General Clark on 18 December reluctantly recommended canceling the Anzio operation.³ Alexander agreed. With the landing at Anzio ruled out, the prospect of quickly capturing Rome vanished.

Two events led to the restoration of the operation. The first was a series of Allied command changes that came about as a result of the resolve, confirmed at the Cairo and Tehran Conferences, to execute OVERLORD in the spring of 1944. For the invasion of northwest Europe, General Eisenhower was appointed the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force. Although the CCS were willing for him to remain in the Mediterranean theater until the capture of Rome, General Eisenhower saw no hope for an immediate realization of this aim--the static battle, the winter weather, the firm enemy defenses, the dearth of Allied troops and other resources, and the lack of assault shipping argued against it.⁴ On 8 January 1944, he would pass his responsibilities to General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, commander of the British Middle East theater, who would become the Supreme Allied Commander of the Mediterranean theater. Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers

would relinquish his post as commanding general of the European Theater of Operations, U.S. Army (ETOUSA), and leave England to serve as General Wilson's deputy and also as commander of the North African Theater of Operations, U.S. Army (NATOUSA), heading the American forces in the Mediterranean.

General Montgomery would go to England to command the 21 Army Group after transferring command of the Eighth Army to Lt. Gen. Sir Oliver Leese, who headed the 3 Corps. Air Chief Marshal Tedder would also go to England to become General Eisenhower's deputy, and upon his departure the Mediterranean Air Command would be renamed the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces, with the subordinate "North-West African" commands--strategic, tactical, and coastal--becoming "Mediterranean Allied" commands. Lt. Gen. Carl Spaatz would be transferred to England to command the U.S. Strategic Air Force in Europe. Maj. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton's Ninth U.S. Air Force, a tactical air force, would go to England also. Maj. Gen. James Doolittle would leave the Mediterranean to take command in England of the Eighth U.S. Air Force, a strategic air force, replacing Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker, who would become the Allied air commander in the Mediterranean in place of Tedder. The American units under General Eaker were the Twelfth Air Force, a tactical force commanded by Maj. Gen. John K. Cannon, and the Fifteenth Air Force, a strategic air command headed by Maj. Gen. Nathan F. Twining. Air Marshal Sir John Slessor was named Eaker's deputy and commander of the British air forces. The Allied Mediterranean and British Levant

GENERAL WILSON

naval commands would be merged under Admiral Sir John Cunningham, Commander in Chief, Mediterranean.⁵

Neither General Alexander nor General Clark was affected by the command changes. President Roosevelt, returning home in early December from the Cairo and Tehran Conferences, encouraged General Clark to get to Rome, and General Marshall, who accompanied the President, told Clark it would be desirable to have Rome before the cross-Channel attack began. General Clark learned that he would leave Fifth Army after securing Rome and replace General Patton in command of the Seventh Army, which had its headquarters in Sicily. Patton would be transferred to England to take command of the Third Army for the invasion of northwest

GENERAL LEESE

GENERAL DEVERS

Europe, and Clark would assume command of the Seventh Army to prepare an invasion of southern France. The preparations for southern France required that planning be started on 1 February. By that time, it was assumed, Rome would be in Allied hands and Clark would leave Italy.

With General Wilson the Allied commander in chief in the Mediterranean, the Combined Chiefs would pass the executive direction of the theater to the British Chiefs of Staff. The primacy that President Roosevelt and General Marshall had exercised in the Combined Chiefs for determining Mediterranean strategy when General Eisenhower had commanded the theater would now pass to Prime Minister Churchill and General Brooke, who would, as a result, play a more direct role in the conduct of the Italian campaign.⁶

The shift from American to British leadership in Mediterranean affairs was the first occurrence leading to a restored Anzio operation. The second was the illness of Mr. Churchill. Tired by the conferences at Cairo and Tehran, the Prime Minister had left Egypt by plane on 11 December, planning to spend a night at Eisenhower's headquarters in Tunis, then several days with Alexander and Montgomery in Italy. He arrived in Tunis, feeling, he said, "at the end of my tether." He went to bed, and the doctors discovered that he had pneumonia.⁷

The Prime Minister recovered sufficiently after a week to begin placing his personal imprint on the Italian campaign. Interested as always in capturing Rome, he sent a telegram from Tunis to his Chiefs of Staff on 19 December, complaining that "the stagnation of the whole campaign on the Italian Front is

becoming scandalous" and that the theater command had failed to make combat use of the assault shipping for at least three months, ever since the invasion of Salerno. The British Chiefs of Staff understood his point, and three days later they agreed that the amphibious equipment in the Mediterranean ought to be employed to promote a rapid advance on Rome. The major difficulty, as they saw it, was the small number of vessels in the theater. Only one division could be transported amphibiously, but at least two were needed for a proper descent on Anzio.⁸

On 23 December the Prime Minister came to a decision. Resigning himself to the impossibility of luring Turkey into an active war role on the Allied side, admitting his inability to persuade the Americans to extend operations into the eastern Mediterranean, and seeing the improbability of forestalling an invasion of southern France, Mr. Churchill became all the more determined to have Rome. "We must have the big Rome amphibious operation," he wrote. "In no case can we sacrifice Rome for the Riviera."⁹ To get to Rome, the theater command would have to retain for an additional month the LST's now permitted by the CCS to remain in the Mediterranean until 15 January.¹⁰

Mr. Churchill spent much of Christmas Eve talking with the leading British officers in the theater--Generals Wilson, Alexander, and Tedder, among others--about the possibility of launching an Anzio operation. All were convinced that at least two divisions would be needed for the initial landing in order to give the operation a good chance of success. All favored a target date around 20 January. These conditions would require the theater to hold the fifty-six LST's scheduled for release on 15 January for at least three more weeks. "On this," Churchill telegraphed the British Chiefs of Staff, "depends the success or ruin of our Italian campaign."¹¹

The discussion continued on Christmas morning, this time with several additional officers--Admiral Cunningham, Generals Eisenhower and Smith, and others. Again, all agreed on the desirability of executing a 2-division amphibious landing about 20 January.¹² Actually, General Eisenhower and his chief of staff, General Smith, who would also leave the theater to continue the same function in Eisenhower's new OVERLORD assignment, refrained from active participation in the conversation. They had no wish to influence an operation with which they would have no association. They were already looking toward the invasion of northwest Europe, and their practical interest in the Mediterranean was limited to their desire for an invasion of southern France in order to assist the landings in Normandy. General Wilson too had little effect on the talks. He felt keenly his lack of intimate knowledge of the campaign in southern Italy, and he said merely "that it sounded like a good idea to go around them [the Germans] rather than be bogged down in the mountains."¹³ In contrast, General Alexander actively supported the idea of an amphibious landing.

The result of the conference on Christmas

Day was a telegram from Mr. Churchill to President Roosevelt. He asked the President's approval to retain in the Mediterranean theater the required LST's until 5 February. Otherwise, Mr. Churchill said, "the Italian battle [will] stagnate and fester on for another three months." He had already, he confessed to the President, instructed General Alexander to prepare the Anzio operation. He felt very strongly that "If this opportunity is not grasped, we must expect the ruin of the Mediterranean campaign of 1944."¹⁴

On the same day, 25 December, General Alexander informed General Clark that a high-level conference had decided to launch a strong Anzio operation some time during the last week in January.¹⁵ It was essentially Churchill's decision. He believed sincerely in the Mediterranean theater as an area for active campaigning. He wished the troops engaged to have a strong sense of purpose and the opportunity to attain the single objective of any consequence, Rome. And he hoped to deal the Germans a damaging blow in order to soften them for the cross-Channel attack.

Yet the problems involved in an amphibious operation at Anzio were grave. Continuing shortages of shipping, the weakened forces that would remain on the main front in southern Italy after the Anzio force was withdrawn for the landing, the distance separating Anzio from the main Fifth Army front, and the considerable German strength in Italy made the venture hazardous.

Mr. Churchill was sufficiently recovered from his illness shortly after Christmas to fly from Tunis to Marrakech, Morocco, for convalescence. There on 28 December, he received Mr. Roosevelt's reply to his telegram. After having consulted his Joint Chiefs of Staff, the President was agreeable to delaying the departure of the 56 LST's scheduled for the OVERLORD operation if the postponement would have no effect on the date for executing OVERLORD. He further insisted that 12 other LST's designated for OVERLORD depart as scheduled and that 15 LST's due to arrive in the Mediterranean in mid-January from the Indian Ocean area proceed directly to the United Kingdom.¹⁶

The Americans were warning Churchill of a promise made at Cairo-Tehran: nothing was to interfere with the invasions of Normandy and southern France. But if Anzio turned out to be, as expected, a short operation promoting a quick Allied entrance into Rome, it would have no adverse effect on the cross-Channel and southern France invasions. Anzio was thus feasible.

General Clark was so delighted with the possibility of gaining Rome quickly that he asked to be absolved of the responsibility for planning the invasion of southern France. His request was disapproved.¹⁷ On 1 January 1944, while retaining command of the Fifth Army, he replaced General Patton as commander of the Seventh. General Clark formed a special planning staff headed by Maj. Gen. Garrison Davidson and gave him the task of starting to plan the invasion of southern France, the operation

CHRISTMAS DINNER ON A HAYSTACK, SOMEWHERE IN ITALY

known first as ANVIL and later as DRAGOON.¹⁸

Not only the timing of OVERLORD, but also the interrelationship of the ANVIL and Anzio operations and the conflict between them--both were to be mounted from resources in the Mediterranean theater--now threatened to eliminate one or the other.

When General Gruenther, the Fifth Army chief of staff, went to Algiers at the end of the year to participate in discussions because General Clark had a severe cold, he found much doubt at the AFHQ headquarters that Anzio was practicable. "Consensus here," he reported "is that SHINGLE will be cancelled unless Alexander and Clark can show that there will be no interference with ANVIL." Since Admiral Cunningham indicated that nearly all the LST's would have to be released on 3 February at the latest to conform with the revised release date, the Anzio force would have to land with supplies for eight days and with no prospect of resupply by water. Because no craft could be furnished beyond that date, there could be no subsequent buildup of the beachhead forces. The initial landing force would therefore be left to its own resources unless the forces of the main Fifth Army front could make a swift advance to link up. Thus, the risks involved in an Anzio operation were so

great that some operational planners and logisticians seriously questioned its feasibility. Upon learning that General Rooks and General J. F. M. Whiteley of AFHQ had informed Gruenther that they felt Alexander was "badly off base in this instance," General Clark began to doubt the practicability of the operation. "My guess," he wrote in his diary, "is that SHINGLE will be cancelled."¹⁹

General Clark's feeling was reinforced on 2 January, when General Gruenther returned from Algiers and met with him and General Brann, the Fifth Army G-3, to relay the information he had gathered at AFHQ. The central factor around which much of their discussion turned was a cable from General Eisenhower to General Alexander, the contents of which was sent to the Fifth Army that morning for information. According to the army commander's aide who entered the notation in the diary, this message, "completely to General Clark's surprise, radically altered the number of craft available for SHINGLE and so limited the time when they were available as to render resupply and reinforcement of the SHINGLE force impossible."²⁰

General Eisenhower's cable to General Alexander specified and detailed the agreement that had been reached during the conference in Tunis on 25 December. According to that agreement, SHINGLE could be undertaken only if (1) it interfered in no way with the target dates tentatively set for OVERLORD and ANVIL; (2) it hampered in no manner the buildup in process, largely of air forces, in Corsica; (3) it could be sustained without over-the-beach maintenance; and (4) it was feasible without a subsequent build-up of the initial landing force. According to estimates made at the conference, a total of 88 LST's was the maximum number that could be provided for the operation. Since then, doubt had arisen as to whether 8 of these would be available--they might have to be sent to the United Kingdom at once--but 3 fast LST's ordered to move from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean might arrive in time for the Anzio operation. Thus, either 91 at maximum or 80 LST's would be available for Anzio, and of these the planners could count on no more than 95 percent as being serviceable. To the LST's could be added 60 available LCT's and about 9 LCI(L)'s. Regardless of the D-day for SHINGLE, the LST's promised for OVERLORD had to be released to the United Kingdom no later than 3 February, and 16 additional ships would have to be released for the buildup in Corsica two days later. More would have to be withdrawn for repair and overhaul. Thus, the greatest number of ships and craft that could be reckoned on with any certainty to maintain the beachhead force after the initial landings was a total of 6 serviceable LST's and about 24 serviceable LCT's, hardly enough to make the operation even a reasonable gamble.²¹

Learning on 2 January that General Eisenhower was holding a conference in Tunis that day and that General Alexander would be in attendance, General Clark sent a cable to the army group commander. He wished, he said, to help Alexander convince the skeptics who questioned the feasibility of executing the Anzio landing that the operation was

worth doing. "As I stated to you when you were here several days ago," he wrote, "I am enthusiastic over outline for Operation SHINGLE provided that necessary means are made available." Since the necessity to release all but 6 LST's by 3 February would make the operation extremely hazardous, "I urgently request that you make every effort to hold adequate number of craft for SHINGLE until such time as success of the operation is assured." Even with the optimum number of LST's, the 2 divisions placed ashore would lack vehicular strength--each would have 1,200 vehicles less than the assault scales normally specified. Furthermore, the small number of assault craft provided would permit only 5 infantry battalions and 1 Ranger battalion to be assault loaded for the landing. Not even the reserve battalions would be able to go ashore in assault craft.

In spite of the difficulties, General Clark was willing to go ahead and plan to land a corps at reduced strength on the assumption that a reasonable number of LST's could be retained for resupply purposes and subsequently for transporting the vehicles needed by the assault forces. Since the location and the current rate of progress of the main Fifth Army front made junction with the beachhead forces highly improbable before fifteen days, it was necessary to count on being able to supply the Anzio force at least for that period of time. To keep the length of time between the landing and the junction of forces to a minimum, Clark wrote:

I intend to attack in greatest possible strength in Liri valley several days in advance of SHINGLE with the object of drawing maximum number of enemy reserves to that front and fixing them there. In that way and in that way only can the SHINGLE force exercise a decisive influence in the operation to capture Rome.²²

The note dictated for General Clark's diary that day summarized his position. He was

genuinely eager to engage in SHINGLE, to the point of committing in it units which he would subsequently have to utilize in ANVIL, but that, in effect, a pistol was being held at his head because he was told, totally to his surprise, that if he was to engage in SHINGLE it must be done with inadequate landing craft, that the craft would be available for only two days after the landing, and that no resupply or reinforcement thereafter would be available. In effect, therefore, he was asked to land two divisions at a point where a juncture with the balance of Fifth Army was impossible for a long period, thereby leaving the two divisions in question out on a very long limb.²³

Whether General Clark's cable to General Alexander was efficacious or not, the army group commander issued a new instruction as a result of the commanders' conference held in Tunis on 2 January, even though a firm decision on Anzio had still to be made. General Lemnitzer brought the directive to General Clark's headquarters on the following day. The Fifth Army, Alexander had said, was "to carry out an assault landing . . . vicinity of Rome with the object of cutting the enemy lines of communication and threatening the rear of the German 14 Corps."²⁴ With Generals Gruenther, Keyes, Brann, Lemnitzer, and Lucas, General Clark discussed plans for executing the operation.²⁵ By this time, it was

generally understood that one American division--probably General Truscott's 3d Division--and one British division, plus the 504th Parachute Infantry and Commandos, all under General Lucas' VI Corps headquarters, would make the initial landing, tentatively on 22 January. General Clark intended to launch a large and co-ordinated attack ten days before the landing in order to pin down the German forces along the Cassino front, perhaps even to divert others from the Rome area, thereby helping to assure the success of the landing.

Discussion at the Fifth Army headquarters continued on 4 January, Clark, Lucas, Gruenther, Truscott, and Brann, along with various staff members and naval officers, participating. A major topic of conversation was how to overcome the limitations on the craft available for SHINGLE, which made it impossible to guarantee adequate resupply and reinforcement of the beachhead force. Clark summarized,

We are supposed to go up there, dump two divisions ashore with what corps troops we can get in, and wait for the rest of the Army to join up. I am trying to find ways to do it, not ways in which we can not do it. I am convinced that we are going to do it, and that it is going to be a success.²⁶

General Alexander arrived around noon with his chief of staff and operations officer to discuss the operation with Clark, Gruenther, and Brann. Clark was most emphatic in detailing the shipping requirements. According to an aide who was present,

General Clark stated to General Alexander's surprise that he, General Clark, had known for three weeks that he had been selected to command ANVIL, and nevertheless, despite his natural interest in conserving force for that blow, he had enthusiastically entered into SHINGLE planning and had proposed to put his VI Corps staff and his 3d Infantry Division, two of his finest and most useful organizations, into the SHINGLE operation which was one of considerable hazard in which their usefulness for ANVIL might be considerably impaired.

Although General Clark was putting forth every effort to make SHINGLE a success, he told General Alexander, he could not do it without more assault shipping. Unfortunately, Clark said, "none of those who thus [in Tunis on Christmas Day] lightheartedly decided on the SHINGLE operation understood the details of shipping and of loading necessary to put ashore the requisite force and maintain it when once ashore."²⁷

That afternoon General Alexander cabled Mr. Churchill for "help and assistance" in securing additional LST's. According to General Clark's calculations, Alexander told the Prime Minister, 14 more LST's were required to keep the Anzio beachhead supplied until the forces on the main front could join with those at Anzio. In addition, another 10 LST's, even if retained for only fifteen days beyond 5 February, would make it possible to strengthen the two assault divisions with artillery, tanks, and other weapons that would otherwise have to be left behind. Both he and Clark, Alexander explained, were "willing to accept any risks to achieve our object," but they needed the additional resources. Realizing that using these vessels in the operation would interfere "to some extent" with the other amphibious

expeditions being contemplated, Alexander concluded, "surely, the prize is worth it."²⁸

The prize, in Mr. Churchill's estimation, was well worth it, and he agreed to try to secure the necessary compliance from President Roosevelt and General Marshall. With this assurance, Alexander radioed Clark at once that the additional ships would probably be obtained. Would Clark therefore send a small planning staff to Algiers for a preliminary conference on 7 January and a main conference to be held at Marrakech with Mr. Churchill on the following day? Clark selected two Army officers, both from the VI Corps staff, and one Navy officer to attend the meetings.²⁹

On the morning of 6 January, General Clark called together the three officers who were about to depart for North Africa for the conference on Anzio: Rear Adm. Spencer S. Lewis, the naval planner; Col. William H. Hill, the VI Corps G-3; and Col. Edward J. O'Neill, the VI Corps G-4. General Gruenther, Rear Adm. Frank J. Lowry, who would command the naval elements in the invasion, and Col. Ralph H. Tate, the army G-4, were also present. Clark impressed upon the conferees the need of securing for the post-assault functions of nourishing and increasing the beachhead forces a minimum of 24 LST's, 14 to be available for an indefinite period of time, and 10 to be provided for at least fifteen days. The officers due to meet with Mr. Churchill, he said, must "not be cajoled into retreating" from those figures. The trouble was, he went on, "The President and the Combined Chiefs of Staff were hesitant to take any step which might imperil ANVIL and OVERLORD, while the Prime Minister felt that it was desirable to take Rome at almost any cost." Finally, he repeated, without 24 LST's the operation was not feasible. If the Anzio operation was indeed impractical, he would try to execute a landing just north of Gaeta, a shallower envelopment, with one division.³⁰

A preliminary conference took place that evening in the office of the AFHQ G-3 in Algiers. Afterward, Colonel Hill sent a message to Gruenther and Lucas. According to General Rooks, the AFHQ G-3, and Colonel Hill's own "best estimate, SHINGLE is off as additional LST's are not available."³¹

Despite the apparent impracticality of the Anzio operation, a conference was held at Marrakech on 7 January, with Churchill, Cunningham, Wilson, Alexander, Smith, Devers, and others in attendance. To General Devers, who had recently arrived from England to take up his duties as General Wilson's deputy, the meeting was a "unique experience." He wondered why the conference was necessary, for what to him seemed to be a simple military decision could have been reached, he believed, without the eloquent and lengthy discussion that went on. Nevertheless, General Devers noted in his diary: "the answers that came out of [the conference] were correct." The individuals present all favored an amphibious operation at Anzio.³²

Another conference was held on the following day, 8 January. This one made final the decision to undertake an

amphibious operation at Anzio. But now, instead of being conceived as merely supplementary to the advance of the main forces on the Fifth Army front, the landing was regarded as a major project.³³ At the conclusion of the meeting, Churchill telegraphed Roosevelt that "unanimous agreement for action as proposed was reached by the responsible officers of both countries and of all services."³⁴ All the problems were far from solved and the risks remained great, but Churchill had obtained at least 25 LST's for the Anzio follow-up, he wanted the operation to be executed on 20 January, and there was high hope that the landing would get the Fifth Army to Rome in a hurry. When word from Marrakech reached the Fifth Army headquarters, the atmosphere became jubilant: "Operation SHINGLE is on!"³⁵

Footnotes

1. 15th AGp OI 31, 8 Nov 43.

2. Fifth Army OI, Opn SHINGLE, 25 Nov 43.

3. Clark Diary, 12, 18 Dec 43; Fifth Army History, Part IV, pp. 10ff.

4. Smyth, Notes on Eisenhower Diary, 23 Jan 44.

5. Eisenhower Dispatch, pp. 153-55. See also Biennial Report of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, July 1, 1943, to June 30, 1945, to the Secretary of War (Washington, 1945), p. 20.

6. Interv, Mathews, Lamson, Hamilton, and Smyth with Marshall, 25 Jul 49, OCMH.

7. Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 421.

8. Ibid., p. 429.

9. Ibid., p. 431.

10. See Wilson Despatch, pp. 7-8.

11. Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 434.

12. Wilson Despatch, p. 6.

13. Interv, Smyth with Field Marshal Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, 3 Apr 47, OCMH.

14. Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 437.

15. Clark Diary, 25 Dec 43.

16. See Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943-1944, ch. XIV; Coakley and Leighton, Global Logistics and Strategy, 1943-1945, ch. VII.

17. Clark Diary, 31 Dec 43.

18. Seventh Army Report of Operations, I, 1-3.

19. Clark Diary, 1 Jan 44.

20. Clark Diary, 2 Jan 44.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid.; Clark to Alexander, 2 Jan 44, quoted in Fifth Army History, Part IV, p. 17.

23. Clark Diary, 2 Jan 44.

24. 15th AGp OI 32, 2 Jan 44.

25. Clark Diary, 3 Jan 44.

26. Ibid., 4 Jan 44.

27. Ibid.

28. Churchill, Closing the Ring, pp. 446ff.

29. Ibid.; Clark Diary, 4 Jan 44.

30. Clark Diary, 6 Jan 44.

31. Ibid.; Rpt by Hill and O'Neill on Conference Held in Marrakech, French Morocco on 7-8 Jan 44, dated 10 Mar 44, Lucas Diary, Part III, Appendix 4.

32. Devers Diary, 7 Jan 44, OCMH.

33. Wilson Despatch, p. 10.

34. Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 447.

35. Clark Diary, 8 Jan 44; Rpt by Hill and O'Neill, Lucas Diary, Part III, Appendix 4.