Preface
“Wars should be fought,” an American corps commander noted in his diary during the campaign in Italy, “in better country than this.”1 It was indeed an incredibly difficult place to fight a war. The Italian peninsula is only some 150 miles wide, much of it dominated by some of the world’s most precipitous mountains. Nor was the weather much help. It seemed to those involved that it was always either unendurably hot or bone-chilling cold.
Yet American troops fought with remarkable courage and tenacity, and in company with a veritable mélange of Allied troops: Belgians, Brazilians, British, Canadians, Cypriots, French (including superb mountain troops from Algeria and Morocco), Palestinian Jews, Indians, Italians, Nepalese, New Zealanders, Poles, South Africans, Syro-Lebanese, and Yugoslavians. The combatants also included the United States Army’s only specialized mountain division, one of its last two segregated all-Negro divisions, and a regimental combat team composed of Americans of Japanese descent.
Despite the forbidding terrain, Allied commanders several times turned it to their advantage, achieving penetrations or breakthroughs over some of the most rugged mountains in the peninsula. To bypass mountainous terrain, the Allies at times resorted to amphibious landings, notably at Anzio. Thereafter German commanders, forced to reckon with the possibility of other such operations, had to hold back forces to protect their long coastal flanks.
The campaign involved one ponderous attack after another against fortified positions: the Winter Line, the Gustav Line, the Gothic Line. It called for ingenuity in employing tanks and tank destroyers over terrain that to the armored soldier seemed to be one vast antitank ditch. It took another kind of ingenuity in devising methods to get at the enemy in flooded lowlands along the Adriatic coast.
It was also a campaign replete with controversy, as might have been expected in a theater where the presence of various nationalities and two fairly equal partners imposed considerable strain on the process of coalition command. Most troublesome of the questions that caused controversy were: Did the American commander, Mark Clark, err in focusing on the capture of Rome rather than conforming with the wishes of his British superior to try to trap retreating German forces? Did Allied
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commanders conduct the pursuit north of Rome with sufficient vigor? Indeed, should the campaign have been pursued all the way to the Alps when the Allies might have halted at some readily defensible line and awaited the outcome of the decisive campaign in northwestern Europe?
Just as the campaign began on a note of covert politico-military maneuvering to achieve surrender of Italian forces, so it ended with intrigue and secret negotiations for a separate surrender of the Germans in Italy.
This volume is chronologically the final work in the Mediterranean theater subseries of the UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II series. It follows Salerno to Cassino, previously published.
The present work was originally projected as two volumes in the series. The first, entitled The Drive on Rome, was to cover the period from the fall of Cassino and the Anzio breakout to the Arno River north of Rome, a campaign that lasted from early May to late July 1944. The second, entitled The Arno to the Alps, was to carry the story through to the end of the war.
Dr. Sidney T. Mathews, first to be designated to write The Drive on Rome, left the Center of Military History after preparing several chapters that proved valuable guides to research. Ultimately, the present author received the assignment and worked for many months on that volume under the original concept. Thereafter, the decision was made to combine what was to have been two separate narratives into a single volume.
An entirely new approach thus had to be devised, one that involved considerable further research. The result is the present publication, which covers one of the lengthiest and most agonizing periods of combat in World War II.
As with other volumes in this series, many able individuals have helped bring this work to completion. Foremost among these has been the former head of the European and Mediterranean Sections of the Center of Military History, Charles B. MacDonald. His superlative skill in developing a lucid narrative of military operations and his patience with my efforts to acquire a modicum of that skill have been pillars of strength during the preparation of this volume. To Mr. Robert Ross Smith, Chief of the General Histories Branch, goes a generous share of the credit for refining and clarifying many aspects of the combat narrative. A very special thanks is also due Dr. Stetson Conn, former Chief Historian, who designated me for this task and encouraged me along the way. The arduous assignment of typing and retyping many versions of the manuscript with skill and patience fell largely to Mrs. Edna Salsbury. The final version was typed by Mrs. Robert L. Dean.
The excellent maps accompanying the volume are the work of several able cartographers and draftsmen: Mr. Arthur S. Hardyman and Mr. Wayne Hefner performed the difficult and tedious task of devising the layouts, and Mr. Grant Pierson, Mr. Howell Brewer, and Mr. Roger Clinton demonstrated professional skill in the drafting. Mrs. Lois Aldridge,
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formerly of the World War II Records Division of the National Archives and Records Service, helped me find my way through the wealth of source material. Equally valuable was the assistance rendered by Mr. Detmar Finke and Miss Hannah Zeidlik of the General Reference Branch of the Center of Military History. The author is also grateful for the comments of the distinguished panel that read and reviewed the manuscript. The panel included General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, former Deputy Chief of Staff to the Allied commander in Italy; Dr. Robert Coakley, Deputy Chief Historian; Col. John E. Jessup, Jr., Chief, Histories Division; and Martin Blumenson and Dr. Jeffrey Clarke, fellow historians. To General Mark Wayne Clark I owe a special debt of gratitude for generously allowing me to use his diary in the preparation of this volume and for making helpful comments on the finished manuscript. The final editing and preparation of the volume for publication was the work of Mr. David Jaffe, assisted by Mr. Duncan Miller. Finally, a very special note of thanks to my wife, Else, who throughout has been a close, steadfast, and patient source of encouragement.
The author’s debt to all those without whose guidance and support this volume would never have come to completion does not diminish in the least his sole responsibility for all errors of fact and interpretation.