August 6, 2024 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Even before the U.S. and British victory in the North African campaign in May 1943, there was disagreement among the Allies on the best strategy to defeat the Axis. Eventually, the U.S. and British political leadership reached a compromise in which both would commit most of their forces to an invasion of France in early 1944, but also launch a relatively small-scale Italian campaign. Here’s Stephen Ambrose with the story.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American Stories. Stephen Ambrose was
one of America's leading biographers and historians, and one of
my favorites. At the core of Ambrose's phenomenal success is
a simple but straightforward belief that history is biography. History
is about people. You would tell anybody who cared to listen.
Ambrose passed in two thousand and two, but his epic
(00:32):
storytelling accounts can now be heard here at Our American Stories,
thanks to those who run his estate. Even before the
US British victory in the North African Campaign in May
of nineteen forty three, there was disagreement among the allies
on the best strategy to defeat the Axis Powers. Eventually,
the US and British political leadership reached a compromise in
(00:54):
which both would commit most of their forces to an
invasion of France and early nineteen forty four, but also
launched a relatively small scale Italian campaign. Here Stephen Ambrose
with the story.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
The next operation was Sicily in July of nineteen forty three.
This was a logical extension of the original commitment to
North Africa that it needs to be playing out. This
was an awful long way away from the heart of Germany.
(01:31):
Germany's power, and this was the big operation for the
United States Army and the British Army and air forces
in the European theater in nineteen forty three was the
taking of Sicily, which was hardly going to be a
decisive action, but it did provide a stepping stone to
get to Italy and then on into Italy and a
(01:56):
campaign that was to follow in the fall that was
being planned already a campaign for the U invasion of Italy.
New equipment was now becoming available. One was the British Horse,
a glider which was a product of the British wood
making industry in nineteen forty when Britain had her back
(02:16):
against the wall and they wanted everybody to be doing
something for the war effort. People said, what about our
cabinet makers. What can we put them to work on
that will contribute to the war effort. And they came
up with a design for this glider, the horse a glider,
and it's all made out of plywood. And they put
the carpenters and the master craftsmen, the cabinet makers in
(02:37):
Britain to work on building these gliders and they built
thousands of them. It's a wonderful little piece of equipment.
It's obvious simplicity, very light, it can carry eighteen men,
or it can carry a jeep. It very cheap to
(02:59):
make keep his plywood imaginable those into these things. It
cracks up on contact with almost anything. Can be towed
behind a Sea forty seven. That's the military version of
the DC three, the DC three being the greatest airplane
ever built period. Anyway, they could tow these horse of gliders.
(03:20):
In fact, Sea forty seven could tow two of them
on separate lines. And you come down silently so that
you are able to put eighteen men carrying automatic weapons
onto one spot at one time without the enemy knowing
they're coming, and tell they're actually there. On top of
(03:41):
it's a flimsy little thing. When Darryl Zannik made the
Longest Day in the late nineteen fifties, he got the
blueprints for one of these. There weren't any of them
left anywhere in the world. They'd all broken up. Most
of them broke up on their first landing. They were
one shot deals. Only Zani got the blueprints for one
of these and build it, and then the air Ministry
(04:04):
in the United Kingdom said that craft is inherently unairworthy.
You will not have a permit to fly it over
to France. So Xanik had to taken apart, moved piece
by piece over France and put it back together again.
Every man that rode in a horse of glider in
the Second World War, and there were tens of thousands
of them, would agree with the Air Ministry's decisions that
these things are not airworthy. But they did a job
(04:25):
in Sicily where they were used for the first time,
and they would be used much more extensively in the
Normandy invasion in nineteen forty four. These are two LCVPs
landing craft vehicle personnel. They were built in New Orleans,
Louisiana by the Andrew Higgins in five different locations in
(04:46):
his boatyards. The design evolved out of boats that Higgins
had been building for the exploration of Louisiana's swamps in
the late nineteen thirties. Higgins had entered a competition that
the Marines had held for landing craft. The Marines in
the late thirties r that there's going to be a
war in the Pacific and we're going to be landing
on an awful lot of islands, and we don't have
anything to do with it, which is to say, when
(05:08):
World War two began, the United States not only didn't
have any landing craft, didn't you have any plans for one,
didn't have a design for one. Higgins converted his oil
exploration Eureka boat into what became the LCVP, or, as
it was known to the GI's the Higgins Boat. The
Higgins Boat was thirty two feet long. It was made
of cheap plywood except for a steel front ramp. It
(05:32):
could carry a platuna men thirty two fighting men. Dropped
the ramp and you would have thirty two men pouring
out of this landing craft, ready to fire, ready to
go to work. Carried fifty cow machine guns in the back.
It had a protected rudder. There was a extension that
(05:56):
put the rudder up into the V shape in the
stern of the boat, so that the rudder was completely protected.
Flat bottom boat, so they could go right on into
the shore and then drop the ramp. Everybody rushes out,
and then you wait for the tide to come and
lift it and take it off again again. Simplicity of
(06:19):
design necessity is the mother of invention. These were used
for the first time in large numbers in the invasion
of Sicily, which began on the eighth of July of
nineteen forty three. This campaign was a success in the
end for the Americans in the British, but boy it
was a long time coming and it left a lot
(06:40):
of bad feelings. The Germans had only two divisions in Sicily.
We were attacking with three American and five British divisions,
the Americans coming in on the south shore of Sicily
under General Patten, the British coming in on the eastern
shore of Sicily, just short of the city of Messina.
(07:02):
The strategic aim was for the British to drive right
on up into Messina and close off the escape route
over to the toe of Italy for the Germans in Sicily,
while Patent provided flank protection. The initial attack on a
July didn't go very well. A lot of these gliders
(07:24):
were cut loose, too far out to see by pilots
who were inexperienced in this sort of thing, and the
gliders came down in the water. The eighty second airborne
This was the first big air drop of the war
for these new American airborne divisions. The eighty second Airborne
Division flew over the invasion fleet and trigger happy sailors
(07:46):
on their anti aircraft guns shot them down. It took
very bad losses, as much as thirty percent with the
eighty second Airborne to our own fire. Once ashore, though,
things started going better. Uh. For one thing, most of
the garrison on Sicily was Italian. There were two German
(08:07):
divisions and five Italian divisions. But the Italians, to say
the least of it, didn't have their heart in this thing.
Mussolini had dragged him into a war that clearly was
in Hitler's interest. Only the Italians were very badly officered,
very shodily equipped, and had no morale at all. Uh
(08:33):
Ramo was once in situation with you, one of whose
generals said, some insider to 'em to the effective God,
it's terrible having to had Italians as allies. Kerchill had said, Uh,
it was only fair that the Germans got the Italians
for allies in the Second World War. We were stuck
with him in the First World War. And you all
(08:55):
know all kinds of jokes about the Italians as warriors.
The shortest book in the world's Italian War heroes and etc.
Ramo's reconment on this sort of thing was, but isn't
it well that there are some people left in Europe
that don't like to fight. The real truth is Italian's
(09:16):
fight this MRK as anybody else, but not in the
Italian Army led by Mussolini, because it was just such
a rotten outfit. And plus wig there wasn't a platoon.
There probably wasn't a squad in the American Army that
didn't have a native speaking Italian in it. So when
the Americans started coming ashore in Sicily, it was a
(09:36):
family reunion time.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And you're listening to Stephen Ambrose tell stories the way
only Stephen Ambrose. And when we come back more of
Stephen Ambrose's story of the Italian campaign in World War
Two here on our American stories, and we continue with
(10:10):
our American stories. We last heard Stephen Ambrose discuss how
the Italian Army was not very invested in Mussolini's war.
He also shared how most American squads landing in Italy
had at least one native speaking Italian in its ranks.
Let's return to Stephen Ambrose.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
So when the Americans started coming ashore in Sicily. It
was a family reunion time. Everybody, as far as I
ever been able to make out, has related to everybody
else in Sicily. And they just and the Italian army
in Sicily just they were gone in the first half hour.
They took off their uniform, strew away their weapons and
(10:52):
embraced the American Italians coming ashore. The Germans fought, They
had some they had a paratroop division, and they had
the Herman Garring division on Sisley Crack troops, and they
fought and many stalled. As always, his attack towards Messina
was on again, off again. It didn't get started, and
(11:15):
he promised the next day I'll get going, And the
next day there was another excuse not to get going,
and so many sat while Patten decided to take off
on his own and to go for the headlines instead
of the German army. So Patten drove in the exactly
(11:35):
wrong direction. Instead of driving toward Messina, Patten went up
to Palermo. There were any German troops up here, just
surrendering Italians. Germans were all defending Messina. In their escape route.
Patten took Palermo and got the headlines this was the
first big city in Europe to be liberated, but he
(11:59):
hadn't contributed to the winning of the war. He then
began a series of attacks straight east. It was summer,
it's hot. Things weren't going well. The Germans were experts.
This is a mountainous country. The Germans were the world's experts,
and laying mines and digging ani tank ditches and setting
(12:23):
up their artillery just around the corner where the road
jams could be created by blowing the boogie wheels off
of the tank. And the Germans were just better than
anybody else at this And the progress was excruciatingly slow,
and it was hot as hell, and Patten was starting
to get criticism, not so much in the press but
(12:44):
from his fellow generals about this dash to Palermo. So
he was in a foul mood when one day in
the Inn toward the end of July, he walked into
a field hospital. A pattern was that old Blood and
Guts was his neck name. He is the young American
males who testosterone runs a little bit stronger than it
(13:08):
ought to just regard George Patten as practically a god,
mister tough of World War Two. In fact, Patton was
a man who couldn't stand the sight of blood, very squeamy,
but he would force himself to go into the field hospitals,
(13:29):
and you certainly have to admire him for that, and
he would go and talk to the men in their bads.
It's hard to do, you know, you're talking to a
kid who has just lost his arm, you're talking to
a farmer who's just lost his leg above the knee.
You're talking to young men who know that they're never
going to see again, and lots worse than that, and
(13:49):
it's awful hard to do. But Patten would make himself
do it. Well. He went through a ward of amputees
and he came out and there was a young man
sitting on a stool, shaking and kind of crying. And
Patten went up to me and said, son, wasn't that
with you? And the private said, it's my nerves, serves
my nerves. I can't take that shelling anymore, Why you
(14:13):
yellow little son of a patent said, and he waggened
him right across the face and sent the kid's helmet
rolling down the aisle of the in the ward, and
then came back and hit him again on the other
side and kicked at him and turned to the dart
and said, you get this yellow libered little son of
about here. I don't want him contaminating these brave men. Well,
(14:37):
it was a big mistake on Patten's part. General's ought
not to go around hitting privates. For one thing, the
private's not allowed to hit back. But it was a
even a bigger mistake than that, because it turned out
that this young man had a very bad case in Malarry.
He was running a capture of one hundred and five.
(15:00):
The doctors were appalled at patents outburst. They sent a
report to Eisenhower. He jerked Patent up pretty strong, sent
him a letter of reprimand told pat you got to
go back to that hospital and apologize to those doctors
and those nurses, which was kind of humiliating for Patent,
(15:23):
but he did it. But in the end I covered
it up. He said, this report, my letter of reprimand
to you, is not going into your official file. Well
that was a mistake on Ike's part because when a
general slaps of private, expecting a general as famous as
Patent already was the word's going to get out, And
(15:45):
it did. Three reporters found out what had happened, and
they came to Ike and Algiers. And this is a
nice example of the difference between the relationship between the
press and the government and the military in World War
Two and later wars. They came to Ike with this story.
(16:07):
It was gonna win any one of them. Demrie Bess
of the Saturday Evening Post was one of them, of
the reporters, gonna win any one of them a Pulitzer prize.
And they said, General, we've got this story, and we've
talked to people that were there, and we want to
release it like except boys, please don't don't let it out.
(16:31):
He said to them. Yeah, if you ever let this out,
he said, they'll be howling for Georgie's scalp and that'll
be the end of Georgie's service in this war. And
I simply can't let that happen. Patten is indispensable to
the war effort. He's one of the guaranteurs of our victory. Well,
(16:53):
the reporters, what could they do with that? I mean,
Patten's gonna guarantee victory for us, and it's all on
their shoulders. And they said, all right, we'll shut up,
we won't tell the story. Nevertheless, it did get out
some three months later. Drew Pearson, a gossip columnist in
the States, got a hold of it, and Pearson made
a big thing out of the story, and Paton had
to be put on the shelf for the next six
(17:13):
months and was almost called back to join Fredendahl in
disgrace back in the States as a result of this
slapping incident. Now by the end of August, Sicily had
finally been cleared of German troops. Taken a long time.
It had taken a four to one manpower advantage to
(17:35):
do it, eight divisions versus two divisions, and an overwhelming
air superiority, but the Germans had finally been not captured,
but driven off of Sicily. The Germans made good their
escape over the Straits of Messina back into Italy. Montgomery
followed them and began to pursue up the toe of
Italy while the Americans prepared for the next invasion in
(17:58):
Italy to take place and the part of Salerno just
south of Naples. So while Montgomery is coming up the
Italian toe of the Americans are preparing to invade at
Salerno and then proceed on to the drive to Rome.
Let's talk a little bit about the critique of the
strategy of the year nineteen forty three and concentrating so
(18:22):
much of the resources on the Mediterranean, and that critique
is very simply put. The problem with the campaign and
the Mediterranean is that it didn't lead anywhere.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
And you're listening to Steven Ambrose tell the story of
the Italian campaign in World War two, the Allied campaign,
and you have the story of Montgomery and Penton. Montgomery
more heant, patent more aggressive, and we get the full
picture of that slapping incident. If you've ever seen Paton
the movie, they get it right. And George she Scott,
(18:54):
my goodness, he gets it right. And by the way,
that screenplay Penton was written by a very young friends
Ford Coppola, the one an oscar for that and had
never served in the army. A remarkable achievement by Francis
Ford Coppola. When we come back more of this remarkable story,
Stephen Ambrose telling the story of the Italian campaign in
World War two. Here on our American stories, and we
(19:38):
continue with our American stories and with Stephen Ambrose, who
you are hearing thanks to the estate of Stephen Ambrose,
and if you are interested in sharing his great stories
with your family, search for Stephen Ambrose's great books and
read them to your family. That the kind of books
you can read aloud to your kids have that quality.
(20:01):
Let's return to the story into Stephen Ambrose.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
No matter how successful you are in Italy, when you
get done, you got the Alps between you and the objective.
Italy was not critical to Germany's ability to make war.
The Germans were not relying on the Italians for food stuffs,
or for raw materials, or for finished products, or for
their army. They were willing enough to put an investment
(20:27):
into Italy to hold up the Allied advance. But there
was no way that Germany was going to lose the
war in Italy, and there was no way the Allies
were going to get out of Italy into the parts
of Germany that had to be overrun before Germany could
be forced to accept those unconditional surrender terms. The attack
at Sealerno came on the eighth day of September of
(20:53):
nineteen forty three. It had been preceded by a major
diplomatic and political event for a long time. The Allies
that wanted to bomb Rome because it's the great railway
center of Italy, and the Germans were beginning to rush
troops into Italy for the defense of Rome and for
(21:15):
wherever the Allies were going to come after the Sicilian landings.
Always eisenhowerd refused to get permission to any bombing in
Rome because of fear that a stray bomb might hit
the Vatican. But the marshaling yards are a long way
away from the Vatican, and I finally made it agreed
in July that if they would make a circle of
(21:38):
radius twelve miles around the Vatican and agree that no
planes would fly over that area, they could go ahead
and bomb. And they hit the marshaling yards and other
parts of Rome, and the immediate reaction on the part
of the Italians was for their factions of Grand Council
to have a unarthriized meeting and depose Mussolini. Mussolini out
(22:01):
of power. He eventually was able to escape and get
to the Germans and in the northern part of Italy,
his successor as head of government. Remember Italy was a monarchy.
King Victor Emmanuel was the sovereign. The Mussolini's successor as
the head of the Italian government was a General Marshall Badaglio,
(22:25):
an old man from the First World War, and eyes
now immediately saw an opportunity to cut a deal. Despite
Roosevelt's implied promise to Stalin with the unconditional surrender formula,
that we're gonna gonna have any more deal with fascists,
Ike was immediately willing and ready, and eventually did cut
(22:46):
a deal with Badaglio, who was to Italy rather like
what Darlan had been to France, and as he was
a leading collaborator. He was a fascist, but he was
in power the army. He obeyed him, and ike knew
the Italian army didn't want to fight. Ike knew the
Italian government was desperate to surrender. I knew that the
(23:06):
Italian sent secret emissaries out and they got and they
met in Spain with Badagio's emissaries, and it was immediately
obvious that Italy didn't just want out of this war.
Italy wanted to double cross the Germans and come into
the war, as it called belligeran on the Allied side.
Ike was happy enough to do that, in fact eager,
and he did make a deal with Badaglio that said
(23:27):
that the Italians would take control of the airport at Rome,
and when the invasion came, the eighty second Airborne would
land at Rome's airport and take control of the city
as the Fifth Army under Mark Clark went into Salerno
at the very last minute. On the in fact, while
eighty second Airborne planes were already in the air and
(23:49):
beginning to circle to form up for the flight to
the Rome's airfield, Bidaglio lost his nerve. Told Eisenhower had
ordered the Italian Army to lay down its arms. The
Germans were pouring divisions into Rome, but Aglio was fleeing
Rome along with Victor Emmanuel, and the whole deal fell through.
(24:10):
Perhaps luckily on the political front, Stalin would have been
most upset to see another Darlon deal going down. On
the other hand, it wasn't until nine months later that
we got in a lot of lives later that we
got into Rome, when maybe we could have gotten Rome
on the first day. It would have changed the whole
course of the war and the Italian peninsula had that happen,
(24:34):
But it didn't, and the attack on Sealerno it took place.
It was awfully close it was the closest that the
Allies came in the European theater, and indeed this include
the landings of the Pacific Theater to an unsuccessful amphibious
attack that German tanks got in between the two American
(24:55):
divisions coming ashore. At one point there was a duel
between American destroyers and the bay at Salerno and German
tanks on the shore. Mark Clark came very close to
ordering his troops to withdraw. They just did hold on
(25:16):
because Eisenhower was able to find it was able to
actually persuade the combined piece of staff to quickly rush
some B twenty fours from London down to Sicily where
they were gassed up and loaded up with bombs and
went in on low level missions to hit those German tanks.
And just barely we managed to hold on at Salerno.
(25:37):
And that became almost the story of the Italian campaign
to follow. It was a case of just barely all
the time. A link up was made between Mani's forces
coming up from the Toe and Mark Clark's forces at Salerno.
A line was extended across the Italian peninsula. The troops
did begin to move north, but very slowly. The Germans
(25:59):
used the terrain in their usual exemplary fashion, imposing very
high losses in the Allies for very small gains at
a very small cost to the Germans. It was frustrating
and expensive, and was to continue that way right on
(26:23):
through to the end in Italy, right on through into
May of nineteen forty five. Now meanwhile, coming to the
end now of nineteen forty three, this second front business
couldn't be put off anymore. There was going to have
to be a second front in nineteen forty four for
one reason. If there wasn't one, it was going to
be the Red Army. It was going to liberate all
(26:44):
of Europe. And this was a very important consideration, especially
in Eisenwer's mind. If there was a temptation to say,
let the Red Army do it, let them take the casualties,
let them fight the war. We'll fight the air war
and the sea war, let them fight the ground war.
On the it made a lot of sense. The problem
is that it would have meant that at the end
(27:05):
of the war the Allies would have Italy and Sicily,
while the Red Army would overrun Central Europe and then
Germany and then France right up to the only channel.
So this would all be a part of what became
the Soviet satellite system if we stayed out of the
ground war. There is a sense in which the invasion
(27:26):
Normandy in nineteen forty four was directed not only against
the Germans, it was also directed against their Red Army
occupation of Western Europe. The Allies, all three of them,
the Big three is they were called Stalin, Kurkil and
Roosevelt met at Tehran in Iran in December of nineteen
(27:49):
forty three to plan operations for nineteen forty four. The
first thing Stalin want to know was is there going
to be a second front? Yes, said Roosevelt. Where absolutely
agreed on it. We are building forces in Britain. Now
there is going to be a second front of nineteen
forty four in northern France. Great, said Stalin. Who's going
to command it? Well, that hadn't been decided yet. Roosevelt responded, well,
said son, I don't believe you. If you haven't planted
(28:09):
a commander for this, you're not serious about You're just
stringing me along. Again. Roosevelt left Tehran and went back
to Cairo, Egypt, where the conference with Churchill continued, and
there he made his most important military decision of the war,
the selection of the commander for Operation Overlord. The man
that Roosevelt wanted to put in command was George Marshall.
He felt that Marshall deserved the opportunity to lead the
(28:33):
army that he Marshall had created, to put into action
the strategy of the strategy that he Marshall had developed.
On the other hand, Roosevelt was torn. He wanted to
give Marshall this opportunity, but he didn't want to lose
marshall services in Washington. As he was to put it later,
(28:53):
I just couldn't sleep at night with George Marshall out
of Washington. He asked Marshall, what do you prefer, and
Marshall quite rightly said, it's not my decision to make.
You're the commander in chief. You've got to make that decision.
I'll serve wherever you think I can serve you best.
So Roosevelt wasn't able. We'd all out of making the decision.
He had to make it himself, and he finally decided
that he just couldn't afford to lose Marshall's service as
(29:15):
a Chief of staff, and so he selected Eisenhower in
a way that Eisenhower's selected into this most coveted command
in the history of warfare came about by default. But
I had a lot of positive attricutes going for him,
of which the most important was his ability to get
British and American officers to work together as a team.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
And a terrific job is always by Greg Hangler on
the storytelling and what a piece of American history we're
listening to, and by nobody better at telling the story
of World War Two, all of it, the strategies, the tactics,
the point of view from the generals to the grunts.
And by the way, if you'd get a chance, go
to New Orleans visit the National World War Two Museum.
(29:56):
It may be the greatest museum in this country. I've
been there a dozen times. You will not regret it.
You can also visit the National World War Two Museum online.
Go to their website. There's so much great material to
teach your families about this war and bring it into
the schools. Steven Ambrose here on our American Stories
And we continue with our American Stories. Stephen Ambrose was
one of America's leading biographers and historians, and one of
my favorites. At the core of Ambrose's phenomenal success is
a simple but straightforward belief that history is biography. History
is about people. You would tell anybody who cared to listen.
Ambrose passed in two thousand and two, but his epic
(00:32):
storytelling accounts can now be heard here at Our American Stories,
thanks to those who run his estate. Even before the
US British victory in the North African Campaign in May
of nineteen forty three, there was disagreement among the allies
on the best strategy to defeat the Axis Powers. Eventually,
the US and British political leadership reached a compromise in
(00:54):
which both would commit most of their forces to an
invasion of France and early nineteen forty four, but also
launched a relatively small scale Italian campaign. Here Stephen Ambrose
with the story.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
The next operation was Sicily in July of nineteen forty three.
This was a logical extension of the original commitment to
North Africa that it needs to be playing out. This
was an awful long way away from the heart of Germany.
(01:31):
Germany's power, and this was the big operation for the
United States Army and the British Army and air forces
in the European theater in nineteen forty three was the
taking of Sicily, which was hardly going to be a
decisive action, but it did provide a stepping stone to
get to Italy and then on into Italy and a
(01:56):
campaign that was to follow in the fall that was
being planned already a campaign for the U invasion of Italy.
New equipment was now becoming available. One was the British Horse,
a glider which was a product of the British wood
making industry in nineteen forty when Britain had her back
(02:16):
against the wall and they wanted everybody to be doing
something for the war effort. People said, what about our
cabinet makers. What can we put them to work on
that will contribute to the war effort. And they came
up with a design for this glider, the horse a glider,
and it's all made out of plywood. And they put
the carpenters and the master craftsmen, the cabinet makers in
(02:37):
Britain to work on building these gliders and they built
thousands of them. It's a wonderful little piece of equipment.
It's obvious simplicity, very light, it can carry eighteen men,
or it can carry a jeep. It very cheap to
(02:59):
make keep his plywood imaginable those into these things. It
cracks up on contact with almost anything. Can be towed
behind a Sea forty seven. That's the military version of
the DC three, the DC three being the greatest airplane
ever built period. Anyway, they could tow these horse of gliders.
(03:20):
In fact, Sea forty seven could tow two of them
on separate lines. And you come down silently so that
you are able to put eighteen men carrying automatic weapons
onto one spot at one time without the enemy knowing
they're coming, and tell they're actually there. On top of
(03:41):
it's a flimsy little thing. When Darryl Zannik made the
Longest Day in the late nineteen fifties, he got the
blueprints for one of these. There weren't any of them
left anywhere in the world. They'd all broken up. Most
of them broke up on their first landing. They were
one shot deals. Only Zani got the blueprints for one
of these and build it, and then the air Ministry
(04:04):
in the United Kingdom said that craft is inherently unairworthy.
You will not have a permit to fly it over
to France. So Xanik had to taken apart, moved piece
by piece over France and put it back together again.
Every man that rode in a horse of glider in
the Second World War, and there were tens of thousands
of them, would agree with the Air Ministry's decisions that
these things are not airworthy. But they did a job
(04:25):
in Sicily where they were used for the first time,
and they would be used much more extensively in the
Normandy invasion in nineteen forty four. These are two LCVPs
landing craft vehicle personnel. They were built in New Orleans,
Louisiana by the Andrew Higgins in five different locations in
(04:46):
his boatyards. The design evolved out of boats that Higgins
had been building for the exploration of Louisiana's swamps in
the late nineteen thirties. Higgins had entered a competition that
the Marines had held for landing craft. The Marines in
the late thirties r that there's going to be a
war in the Pacific and we're going to be landing
on an awful lot of islands, and we don't have
anything to do with it, which is to say, when
(05:08):
World War two began, the United States not only didn't
have any landing craft, didn't you have any plans for one,
didn't have a design for one. Higgins converted his oil
exploration Eureka boat into what became the LCVP, or, as
it was known to the GI's the Higgins Boat. The
Higgins Boat was thirty two feet long. It was made
of cheap plywood except for a steel front ramp. It
(05:32):
could carry a platuna men thirty two fighting men. Dropped
the ramp and you would have thirty two men pouring
out of this landing craft, ready to fire, ready to
go to work. Carried fifty cow machine guns in the back.
It had a protected rudder. There was a extension that
(05:56):
put the rudder up into the V shape in the
stern of the boat, so that the rudder was completely protected.
Flat bottom boat, so they could go right on into
the shore and then drop the ramp. Everybody rushes out,
and then you wait for the tide to come and
lift it and take it off again again. Simplicity of
(06:19):
design necessity is the mother of invention. These were used
for the first time in large numbers in the invasion
of Sicily, which began on the eighth of July of
nineteen forty three. This campaign was a success in the
end for the Americans in the British, but boy it
was a long time coming and it left a lot
(06:40):
of bad feelings. The Germans had only two divisions in Sicily.
We were attacking with three American and five British divisions,
the Americans coming in on the south shore of Sicily
under General Patten, the British coming in on the eastern
shore of Sicily, just short of the city of Messina.
(07:02):
The strategic aim was for the British to drive right
on up into Messina and close off the escape route
over to the toe of Italy for the Germans in Sicily,
while Patent provided flank protection. The initial attack on a
July didn't go very well. A lot of these gliders
(07:24):
were cut loose, too far out to see by pilots
who were inexperienced in this sort of thing, and the
gliders came down in the water. The eighty second airborne
This was the first big air drop of the war
for these new American airborne divisions. The eighty second Airborne
Division flew over the invasion fleet and trigger happy sailors
(07:46):
on their anti aircraft guns shot them down. It took
very bad losses, as much as thirty percent with the
eighty second Airborne to our own fire. Once ashore, though,
things started going better. Uh. For one thing, most of
the garrison on Sicily was Italian. There were two German
(08:07):
divisions and five Italian divisions. But the Italians, to say
the least of it, didn't have their heart in this thing.
Mussolini had dragged him into a war that clearly was
in Hitler's interest. Only the Italians were very badly officered,
very shodily equipped, and had no morale at all. Uh
(08:33):
Ramo was once in situation with you, one of whose
generals said, some insider to 'em to the effective God,
it's terrible having to had Italians as allies. Kerchill had said, Uh,
it was only fair that the Germans got the Italians
for allies in the Second World War. We were stuck
with him in the First World War. And you all
(08:55):
know all kinds of jokes about the Italians as warriors.
The shortest book in the world's Italian War heroes and etc.
Ramo's reconment on this sort of thing was, but isn't
it well that there are some people left in Europe
that don't like to fight. The real truth is Italian's
(09:16):
fight this MRK as anybody else, but not in the
Italian Army led by Mussolini, because it was just such
a rotten outfit. And plus wig there wasn't a platoon.
There probably wasn't a squad in the American Army that
didn't have a native speaking Italian in it. So when
the Americans started coming ashore in Sicily, it was a
(09:36):
family reunion time.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And you're listening to Stephen Ambrose tell stories the way
only Stephen Ambrose. And when we come back more of
Stephen Ambrose's story of the Italian campaign in World War
Two here on our American stories, and we continue with
(10:10):
our American stories. We last heard Stephen Ambrose discuss how
the Italian Army was not very invested in Mussolini's war.
He also shared how most American squads landing in Italy
had at least one native speaking Italian in its ranks.
Let's return to Stephen Ambrose.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
So when the Americans started coming ashore in Sicily. It
was a family reunion time. Everybody, as far as I
ever been able to make out, has related to everybody
else in Sicily. And they just and the Italian army
in Sicily just they were gone in the first half hour.
They took off their uniform, strew away their weapons and
(10:52):
embraced the American Italians coming ashore. The Germans fought, They
had some they had a paratroop division, and they had
the Herman Garring division on Sisley Crack troops, and they
fought and many stalled. As always, his attack towards Messina
was on again, off again. It didn't get started, and
(11:15):
he promised the next day I'll get going, And the
next day there was another excuse not to get going,
and so many sat while Patten decided to take off
on his own and to go for the headlines instead
of the German army. So Patten drove in the exactly
(11:35):
wrong direction. Instead of driving toward Messina, Patten went up
to Palermo. There were any German troops up here, just
surrendering Italians. Germans were all defending Messina. In their escape route.
Patten took Palermo and got the headlines this was the
first big city in Europe to be liberated, but he
(11:59):
hadn't contributed to the winning of the war. He then
began a series of attacks straight east. It was summer,
it's hot. Things weren't going well. The Germans were experts.
This is a mountainous country. The Germans were the world's experts,
and laying mines and digging ani tank ditches and setting
(12:23):
up their artillery just around the corner where the road
jams could be created by blowing the boogie wheels off
of the tank. And the Germans were just better than
anybody else at this And the progress was excruciatingly slow,
and it was hot as hell, and Patten was starting
to get criticism, not so much in the press but
(12:44):
from his fellow generals about this dash to Palermo. So
he was in a foul mood when one day in
the Inn toward the end of July, he walked into
a field hospital. A pattern was that old Blood and
Guts was his neck name. He is the young American
males who testosterone runs a little bit stronger than it
(13:08):
ought to just regard George Patten as practically a god,
mister tough of World War Two. In fact, Patton was
a man who couldn't stand the sight of blood, very squeamy,
but he would force himself to go into the field hospitals,
(13:29):
and you certainly have to admire him for that, and
he would go and talk to the men in their bads.
It's hard to do, you know, you're talking to a
kid who has just lost his arm, you're talking to
a farmer who's just lost his leg above the knee.
You're talking to young men who know that they're never
going to see again, and lots worse than that, and
(13:49):
it's awful hard to do. But Patten would make himself
do it. Well. He went through a ward of amputees
and he came out and there was a young man
sitting on a stool, shaking and kind of crying. And
Patten went up to me and said, son, wasn't that
with you? And the private said, it's my nerves, serves
my nerves. I can't take that shelling anymore, Why you
(14:13):
yellow little son of a patent said, and he waggened
him right across the face and sent the kid's helmet
rolling down the aisle of the in the ward, and
then came back and hit him again on the other
side and kicked at him and turned to the dart
and said, you get this yellow libered little son of
about here. I don't want him contaminating these brave men. Well,
(14:37):
it was a big mistake on Patten's part. General's ought
not to go around hitting privates. For one thing, the
private's not allowed to hit back. But it was a
even a bigger mistake than that, because it turned out
that this young man had a very bad case in Malarry.
He was running a capture of one hundred and five.
(15:00):
The doctors were appalled at patents outburst. They sent a
report to Eisenhower. He jerked Patent up pretty strong, sent
him a letter of reprimand told pat you got to
go back to that hospital and apologize to those doctors
and those nurses, which was kind of humiliating for Patent,
(15:23):
but he did it. But in the end I covered
it up. He said, this report, my letter of reprimand
to you, is not going into your official file. Well
that was a mistake on Ike's part because when a
general slaps of private, expecting a general as famous as
Patent already was the word's going to get out, And
(15:45):
it did. Three reporters found out what had happened, and
they came to Ike and Algiers. And this is a
nice example of the difference between the relationship between the
press and the government and the military in World War
Two and later wars. They came to Ike with this story.
(16:07):
It was gonna win any one of them. Demrie Bess
of the Saturday Evening Post was one of them, of
the reporters, gonna win any one of them a Pulitzer prize.
And they said, General, we've got this story, and we've
talked to people that were there, and we want to
release it like except boys, please don't don't let it out.
(16:31):
He said to them. Yeah, if you ever let this out,
he said, they'll be howling for Georgie's scalp and that'll
be the end of Georgie's service in this war. And
I simply can't let that happen. Patten is indispensable to
the war effort. He's one of the guaranteurs of our victory. Well,
(16:53):
the reporters, what could they do with that? I mean,
Patten's gonna guarantee victory for us, and it's all on
their shoulders. And they said, all right, we'll shut up,
we won't tell the story. Nevertheless, it did get out
some three months later. Drew Pearson, a gossip columnist in
the States, got a hold of it, and Pearson made
a big thing out of the story, and Paton had
to be put on the shelf for the next six
(17:13):
months and was almost called back to join Fredendahl in
disgrace back in the States as a result of this
slapping incident. Now by the end of August, Sicily had
finally been cleared of German troops. Taken a long time.
It had taken a four to one manpower advantage to
(17:35):
do it, eight divisions versus two divisions, and an overwhelming
air superiority, but the Germans had finally been not captured,
but driven off of Sicily. The Germans made good their
escape over the Straits of Messina back into Italy. Montgomery
followed them and began to pursue up the toe of
Italy while the Americans prepared for the next invasion in
(17:58):
Italy to take place and the part of Salerno just
south of Naples. So while Montgomery is coming up the
Italian toe of the Americans are preparing to invade at
Salerno and then proceed on to the drive to Rome.
Let's talk a little bit about the critique of the
strategy of the year nineteen forty three and concentrating so
(18:22):
much of the resources on the Mediterranean, and that critique
is very simply put. The problem with the campaign and
the Mediterranean is that it didn't lead anywhere.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
And you're listening to Steven Ambrose tell the story of
the Italian campaign in World War two, the Allied campaign,
and you have the story of Montgomery and Penton. Montgomery
more heant, patent more aggressive, and we get the full
picture of that slapping incident. If you've ever seen Paton
the movie, they get it right. And George she Scott,
(18:54):
my goodness, he gets it right. And by the way,
that screenplay Penton was written by a very young friends
Ford Coppola, the one an oscar for that and had
never served in the army. A remarkable achievement by Francis
Ford Coppola. When we come back more of this remarkable story,
Stephen Ambrose telling the story of the Italian campaign in
World War two. Here on our American stories, and we
(19:38):
continue with our American stories and with Stephen Ambrose, who
you are hearing thanks to the estate of Stephen Ambrose,
and if you are interested in sharing his great stories
with your family, search for Stephen Ambrose's great books and
read them to your family. That the kind of books
you can read aloud to your kids have that quality.
(20:01):
Let's return to the story into Stephen Ambrose.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
No matter how successful you are in Italy, when you
get done, you got the Alps between you and the objective.
Italy was not critical to Germany's ability to make war.
The Germans were not relying on the Italians for food stuffs,
or for raw materials, or for finished products, or for
their army. They were willing enough to put an investment
(20:27):
into Italy to hold up the Allied advance. But there
was no way that Germany was going to lose the
war in Italy, and there was no way the Allies
were going to get out of Italy into the parts
of Germany that had to be overrun before Germany could
be forced to accept those unconditional surrender terms. The attack
at Sealerno came on the eighth day of September of
(20:53):
nineteen forty three. It had been preceded by a major
diplomatic and political event for a long time. The Allies
that wanted to bomb Rome because it's the great railway
center of Italy, and the Germans were beginning to rush
troops into Italy for the defense of Rome and for
(21:15):
wherever the Allies were going to come after the Sicilian landings.
Always eisenhowerd refused to get permission to any bombing in
Rome because of fear that a stray bomb might hit
the Vatican. But the marshaling yards are a long way
away from the Vatican, and I finally made it agreed
in July that if they would make a circle of
(21:38):
radius twelve miles around the Vatican and agree that no
planes would fly over that area, they could go ahead
and bomb. And they hit the marshaling yards and other
parts of Rome, and the immediate reaction on the part
of the Italians was for their factions of Grand Council
to have a unarthriized meeting and depose Mussolini. Mussolini out
(22:01):
of power. He eventually was able to escape and get
to the Germans and in the northern part of Italy,
his successor as head of government. Remember Italy was a monarchy.
King Victor Emmanuel was the sovereign. The Mussolini's successor as
the head of the Italian government was a General Marshall Badaglio,
(22:25):
an old man from the First World War, and eyes
now immediately saw an opportunity to cut a deal. Despite
Roosevelt's implied promise to Stalin with the unconditional surrender formula,
that we're gonna gonna have any more deal with fascists,
Ike was immediately willing and ready, and eventually did cut
(22:46):
a deal with Badaglio, who was to Italy rather like
what Darlan had been to France, and as he was
a leading collaborator. He was a fascist, but he was
in power the army. He obeyed him, and ike knew
the Italian army didn't want to fight. Ike knew the
Italian government was desperate to surrender. I knew that the
(23:06):
Italian sent secret emissaries out and they got and they
met in Spain with Badagio's emissaries, and it was immediately
obvious that Italy didn't just want out of this war.
Italy wanted to double cross the Germans and come into
the war, as it called belligeran on the Allied side.
Ike was happy enough to do that, in fact eager,
and he did make a deal with Badaglio that said
(23:27):
that the Italians would take control of the airport at Rome,
and when the invasion came, the eighty second Airborne would
land at Rome's airport and take control of the city
as the Fifth Army under Mark Clark went into Salerno
at the very last minute. On the in fact, while
eighty second Airborne planes were already in the air and
(23:49):
beginning to circle to form up for the flight to
the Rome's airfield, Bidaglio lost his nerve. Told Eisenhower had
ordered the Italian Army to lay down its arms. The
Germans were pouring divisions into Rome, but Aglio was fleeing
Rome along with Victor Emmanuel, and the whole deal fell through.
(24:10):
Perhaps luckily on the political front, Stalin would have been
most upset to see another Darlon deal going down. On
the other hand, it wasn't until nine months later that
we got in a lot of lives later that we
got into Rome, when maybe we could have gotten Rome
on the first day. It would have changed the whole
course of the war and the Italian peninsula had that happen,
(24:34):
But it didn't, and the attack on Sealerno it took place.
It was awfully close it was the closest that the
Allies came in the European theater, and indeed this include
the landings of the Pacific Theater to an unsuccessful amphibious
attack that German tanks got in between the two American
(24:55):
divisions coming ashore. At one point there was a duel
between American destroyers and the bay at Salerno and German
tanks on the shore. Mark Clark came very close to
ordering his troops to withdraw. They just did hold on
(25:16):
because Eisenhower was able to find it was able to
actually persuade the combined piece of staff to quickly rush
some B twenty fours from London down to Sicily where
they were gassed up and loaded up with bombs and
went in on low level missions to hit those German tanks.
And just barely we managed to hold on at Salerno.
(25:37):
And that became almost the story of the Italian campaign
to follow. It was a case of just barely all
the time. A link up was made between Mani's forces
coming up from the Toe and Mark Clark's forces at Salerno.
A line was extended across the Italian peninsula. The troops
did begin to move north, but very slowly. The Germans
(25:59):
used the terrain in their usual exemplary fashion, imposing very
high losses in the Allies for very small gains at
a very small cost to the Germans. It was frustrating
and expensive, and was to continue that way right on
(26:23):
through to the end in Italy, right on through into
May of nineteen forty five. Now meanwhile, coming to the
end now of nineteen forty three, this second front business
couldn't be put off anymore. There was going to have
to be a second front in nineteen forty four for
one reason. If there wasn't one, it was going to
be the Red Army. It was going to liberate all
(26:44):
of Europe. And this was a very important consideration, especially
in Eisenwer's mind. If there was a temptation to say,
let the Red Army do it, let them take the casualties,
let them fight the war. We'll fight the air war
and the sea war, let them fight the ground war.
On the it made a lot of sense. The problem
is that it would have meant that at the end
(27:05):
of the war the Allies would have Italy and Sicily,
while the Red Army would overrun Central Europe and then
Germany and then France right up to the only channel.
So this would all be a part of what became
the Soviet satellite system if we stayed out of the
ground war. There is a sense in which the invasion
(27:26):
Normandy in nineteen forty four was directed not only against
the Germans, it was also directed against their Red Army
occupation of Western Europe. The Allies, all three of them,
the Big three is they were called Stalin, Kurkil and
Roosevelt met at Tehran in Iran in December of nineteen
(27:49):
forty three to plan operations for nineteen forty four. The
first thing Stalin want to know was is there going
to be a second front? Yes, said Roosevelt. Where absolutely
agreed on it. We are building forces in Britain. Now
there is going to be a second front of nineteen
forty four in northern France. Great, said Stalin. Who's going
to command it? Well, that hadn't been decided yet. Roosevelt responded, well,
said son, I don't believe you. If you haven't planted
(28:09):
a commander for this, you're not serious about You're just
stringing me along. Again. Roosevelt left Tehran and went back
to Cairo, Egypt, where the conference with Churchill continued, and
there he made his most important military decision of the war,
the selection of the commander for Operation Overlord. The man
that Roosevelt wanted to put in command was George Marshall.
He felt that Marshall deserved the opportunity to lead the
(28:33):
army that he Marshall had created, to put into action
the strategy of the strategy that he Marshall had developed.
On the other hand, Roosevelt was torn. He wanted to
give Marshall this opportunity, but he didn't want to lose
marshall services in Washington. As he was to put it later,
(28:53):
I just couldn't sleep at night with George Marshall out
of Washington. He asked Marshall, what do you prefer, and
Marshall quite rightly said, it's not my decision to make.
You're the commander in chief. You've got to make that decision.
I'll serve wherever you think I can serve you best.
So Roosevelt wasn't able. We'd all out of making the decision.
He had to make it himself, and he finally decided
that he just couldn't afford to lose Marshall's service as
(29:15):
a Chief of staff, and so he selected Eisenhower in
a way that Eisenhower's selected into this most coveted command
in the history of warfare came about by default. But
I had a lot of positive attricutes going for him,
of which the most important was his ability to get
British and American officers to work together as a team.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
And a terrific job is always by Greg Hangler on
the storytelling and what a piece of American history we're
listening to, and by nobody better at telling the story
of World War Two, all of it, the strategies, the tactics,
the point of view from the generals to the grunts.
And by the way, if you'd get a chance, go
to New Orleans visit the National World War Two Museum.
(29:56):
It may be the greatest museum in this country. I've
been there a dozen times. You will not regret it.
You can also visit the National World War Two Museum online.
Go to their website. There's so much great material to
teach your families about this war and bring it into
the schools. Steven Ambrose here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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