August 21, 2025 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1943, the Allied victory in North Africa opened the door to the next move against the Axis. American and British leaders debated their best path forward. Some wanted a direct invasion of France, while others argued for a southern push through Italy to weaken German defenses and knock Italy out of the war. The result was a compromise: prepare for a massive assault on France while launching a smaller but still fierce campaign up the Italian peninsula. Here’s the late, great historian 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 in 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, but it needs to be played 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
(01:51):
get to Italy and then on into Italy and a
campaign that was to follow in the fall that was
being planned already a campaign.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
For the invasion of Italy. New equipment was now becoming available.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
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 against the wall and they
wanted everybody to be doing something for the war effort.
People said, what about our cabinet makers, Well, can we
(02:25):
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 Britain to work on
building these gliders and they built thousands of them.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
It's a wonderful little piece of equipment.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
It's obvious simplicity, very light, it can carry eighteen men,
or it can carry a jeep. It very cheap to
make keep his plywood imaginable goes into these things. It
cracks up on contact with almost anything. Can be towed
(03:07):
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.
In fact, Sea forty seven could tow two of them
on separate lines. And you come down silently so that
(03:30):
you are able to put eighteen men carrying automatic weapons
onto one spot at one time without the enemy knowing they're.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Coming, and tell they're actually there. On top of.
Speaker 2 (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 zanni got the blueprints for one
of these and build it, and then the air Ministry
(04:03):
in the United Kingdom said that craft is inherently unairworthy.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
You will not have a permit to fly it over
to France.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
So Zanik had to taken apart, move a 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.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
But they did a job.
Speaker 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
These are two.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
LCVPs landing craft vehicle personnel. They were built in New Orleans,
Louisiana by the Andrew Higgins in five different locations in
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
(04:58):
the late thirties recogniz 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
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
(05:21):
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
could carry a platoon of 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
(05:43):
to go to work. Carried fifty cow machine guns in
the back. It had a protected rudder. There was a
extension that put the rudder up into this V shape
in the stern of the boat, so that the.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Rudder was completely protected.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Flat bottom boats, 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.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Again.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Simplicity of design necessity is the mother of invention.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
These were used for.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
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 of bad feelings.
The Germans had only two divisions in Sicily. We were
(06:47):
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,
gets short of the Messina. 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
(07:10):
Italy for the Germans in Sicily, while Patent provided flank protection.
The initial attack on a July didn't go very well.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
A lot of.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
These gliders were cut looos 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 airdrop of the
war for these new American airborne divisions. The eighty second
Airborne Division flew over the invasion fleet and trigger happy
(07:45):
sailors 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.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
For one thing, most of the garrison on Sicily was Italian.
There were two German divisions and five Italian divisions. But
the Italians, to say the least of it, didn't have
their heart in this thing. Now, 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
(08:27):
had no morale at all. Uh Ramo was once in
a situation what you want of goose generals said something
in considered to 'em to the effective God, it's terrible
having had Italians as allies. Kerchil had said, Uh, it
(08:48):
was only fair that the Germans got the Italians for
allies in the Second World War.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
We were stuck with him in the First World War.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
And you all know all kind of jokes about the
Italians as warriors. To short this book in the world
as 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.
(09:15):
The real truth is Italian's like this much 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.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Speaking Italian in it.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
So when the Americans started coming ashore in Sicily, it
was a 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 our
(10:10):
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, is 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.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
The Germans fought, and.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
They had they had a paratroop division, and they had
the Hermann Garring Division on Sisily crack troops, and they fought,
and many stalled. As always, his attack toward Messina was
on again, off again. It didn't get started, and he
promised the next day I'll get going. And the next
day there was another excuse not to get going, and
(11:19):
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 wrong direction.
Instead of driving toward Messina, Patten went up to Palermo.
(11:42):
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, and you're upe to be liberated. But he
hadn't tribute to the winning of the war. He then
(12:02):
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 in laying mines and digging anti tank ditches and
setting up their artillery just around the corner where the
(12:28):
road jams could be created by blowing the boogie wheels
off of the tank. And the Germans were just better
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
from his fellow generals about this dash to Palermo. So
(12:48):
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 nick. He is the young American males
who testosterone runs a little bit stronger than it ought
to just regard George Patten as practically a god.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Mister tough of World War Two. In fact, Patten was.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
A man who couldn't stand the sight of blood, very squeamy,
but he would force himself to go into the field hospitals,
and you certainly have to admire him for that. And
he would go and talk to the men in their beds.
And 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.
(13:41):
You're talking to young men who know that they're never
going to see again, and lots worse than that, and
it's awful hard to do.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
But Patten would make himself do it. Well.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
He went through a ward of amputees and he came
out and there was a young man sitting on a stool,
kind of shaking and kind of crying. And Patton went
up to me and said, son, wasn't matter with you?
And the private said, it's my nerves, serves my nerves.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
I can't take that shelling.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Anymore, Why you yellow little son of a patent said,
and he wagged him right across the face and sent
the kid's helmet rolling down.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
The aisle of the in the ward, and then came
back and hit.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
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, 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
(14:46):
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 of malarry. He was running
a tempture of one hundred and five. The doctors were
appalled at patents outburst. They sent a report to Eisenhower.
(15:09):
He jerked Patent up pretty strong, sent him a letter
of reprimand told Patten, you got to go back to
that hospital and apologize to those doctors and those nurses,
which was kind of humiliating for Patent, 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
(15:37):
on Ike's part because when a general slaps of private,
expecting a general was famous as Patent already was the
word's gonna get out. And it did three reporters found
out what had happened, and they came to Ike in Algiers.
And this is a nice example of the difference between
the relationship between the press and the government and the
(15:58):
military in World War Two and later wars. They came
to Ike with this story. 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
(16:19):
were there, and.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
We want to release it.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Like I said, boys, please don't don't let it out.
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
(16:48):
the war effort. He's one of the guaranteurs of our victory. Well,
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 countist in
the States, got a hold of it, and Pearson made
(17:09):
a big thing out of the story, and Pat had
to be put on the shelf for the next six
months and was almost called back to join Fredendahl and
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.
(17:32):
It had taken a four to one manpower advantage to
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 pursuit up the toe of
(17:54):
Italy while the Americans prepared for the next invasion in
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.
(18:14):
Let's talk a little bit about the critique of the
strategy of the year nineteen forty three and concentrating so
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 had the story of Montgomery and Penton. Montgomery
more hesitant, 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 Francis
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 of that quality.
(20:01):
Let's return to the story and to 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.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
For their army.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
They were willing enough to put an investment 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
(20:48):
on the eighth day of September of nineteen forty three.
It had been preceded by a major diplomatic political event
for a long time. The Allies had wanted to bomb
Rome because it's the great railway center of Italy, and
(21:10):
the Germans were beginning to rush troops into Italy for
the defense of Rome and for wherever the Allies were
going to come after.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
The Sicilian landings.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Always Eisenhard 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 an agreed
in July that if they would make a circle of
radius twelve miles around the Vatican and agree that no
planes would fly over that area, they could go ahead
(21:45):
and bomb.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
And they hit the.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Marshaling yards and other parts of Rome, and the immediate
reaction on the part of the Italians was for their
factions Grand Council to have a unarthriized meeting and depose Mussolini.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Mussolini out of power.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
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,
(22:24):
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 have any more deal with fascists, ike
was immediately willing and ready, and eventually did cut a
(22:46):
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 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 Italian sent secret
(23:08):
emissaries out and they got and they met in Spain
with Badagiel'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.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
The Allied side.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Ike was happy enough to do that, in fact eager,
and he did make a deal with Badaglio that said
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
(23:43):
at the very last minute. On the In fact, while
eighty second Airborne planes were already in the air and
beginning to circle to form up for the flight to
the Rome's airfield, Badaglio 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.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
The whole deal fell through.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Perhaps luckily on the political front, Stalin would have been
most upset to see.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Another Darlon deal going down.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
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, but it didn't, And to the attack on
Salerno it took place, it was awfully close. It was
(24:41):
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 divisions coming ashore. At one point
there was a duel between American destroyers and the bay
(25:02):
at Salerno and German tanks on the shore.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Mark Clark.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Came very close to ordering his troops to withdraw. They
just did hold on because Eisenhower was able to find
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
(25:30):
with bombs and went in on low level missions to
hit those German tanks. And just barely we managed to
hold on at Salerno. 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 Sealerno. A line was extended across
(25:53):
the Italian peninsula. The troops did begin to move north,
but very slowly. The Germans used 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.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
It was frustrating.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
And expensive, and was to continue that way right on
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
(26:39):
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
of Europe. And this was a very important consideration, especially
in Eisner's mind.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
If there was a.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
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 surface, it made a
lot of sense. The problem is that it would have
meant that at the end of the war the Allies
would have Italy and Sicily, while the Red Army would
(27:11):
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 Normandy in nineteen forty four
was directed not only against the Germans, it was also
(27:33):
directed against their Red Army occupation of Western Europe. The Allies,
all three of them, the Big three is they were
called Stalin, Curkil and Roosevelt met at Tehran in Iran
in December of nineteen 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,
(27:54):
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 fronts. Great,
said Stalin. Who's going to command it? Well, that hadn't
been decided yet. Roosevelt responded, Well, said son, I.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Don't believe you.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
If you haven't planted a commander for this, you're not
serious about You're just stringing me along.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Again.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
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 army that he
Marshall had created, to put into action the strategy of
(28:39):
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, 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,
(29:01):
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
to 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 service as a kief
of staff, and so he selected Eisenhower in a way
that Eisenhower's selected into this most coveted command in the
(29:22):
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. Stephen 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 in 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, but it needs to be played 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
(01:51):
get to Italy and then on into Italy and a
campaign that was to follow in the fall that was
being planned already a campaign.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
For the invasion of Italy. New equipment was now becoming available.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
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 against the wall and they
wanted everybody to be doing something for the war effort.
People said, what about our cabinet makers, Well, can we
(02:25):
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 Britain to work on
building these gliders and they built thousands of them.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
It's a wonderful little piece of equipment.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
It's obvious simplicity, very light, it can carry eighteen men,
or it can carry a jeep. It very cheap to
make keep his plywood imaginable goes into these things. It
cracks up on contact with almost anything. Can be towed
(03:07):
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.
In fact, Sea forty seven could tow two of them
on separate lines. And you come down silently so that
(03:30):
you are able to put eighteen men carrying automatic weapons
onto one spot at one time without the enemy knowing they're.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Coming, and tell they're actually there. On top of.
Speaker 2 (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 zanni got the blueprints for one
of these and build it, and then the air Ministry
(04:03):
in the United Kingdom said that craft is inherently unairworthy.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
You will not have a permit to fly it over
to France.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
So Zanik had to taken apart, move a 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.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
But they did a job.
Speaker 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
These are two.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
LCVPs landing craft vehicle personnel. They were built in New Orleans,
Louisiana by the Andrew Higgins in five different locations in
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
(04:58):
the late thirties recogniz 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
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
(05:21):
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
could carry a platoon of 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
(05:43):
to go to work. Carried fifty cow machine guns in
the back. It had a protected rudder. There was a
extension that put the rudder up into this V shape
in the stern of the boat, so that the.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Rudder was completely protected.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Flat bottom boats, 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.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Again.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Simplicity of design necessity is the mother of invention.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
These were used for.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
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 of bad feelings.
The Germans had only two divisions in Sicily. We were
(06:47):
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,
gets short of the Messina. 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
(07:10):
Italy for the Germans in Sicily, while Patent provided flank protection.
The initial attack on a July didn't go very well.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
A lot of.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
These gliders were cut looos 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 airdrop of the
war for these new American airborne divisions. The eighty second
Airborne Division flew over the invasion fleet and trigger happy
(07:45):
sailors 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.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
For one thing, most of the garrison on Sicily was Italian.
There were two German divisions and five Italian divisions. But
the Italians, to say the least of it, didn't have
their heart in this thing. Now, 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
(08:27):
had no morale at all. Uh Ramo was once in
a situation what you want of goose generals said something
in considered to 'em to the effective God, it's terrible
having had Italians as allies. Kerchil had said, Uh, it
(08:48):
was only fair that the Germans got the Italians for
allies in the Second World War.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
We were stuck with him in the First World War.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
And you all know all kind of jokes about the
Italians as warriors. To short this book in the world
as 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.
(09:15):
The real truth is Italian's like this much 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.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Speaking Italian in it.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
So when the Americans started coming ashore in Sicily, it
was a 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 our
(10:10):
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, is 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.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
The Germans fought, and.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
They had they had a paratroop division, and they had
the Hermann Garring Division on Sisily crack troops, and they fought,
and many stalled. As always, his attack toward Messina was
on again, off again. It didn't get started, and he
promised the next day I'll get going. And the next
day there was another excuse not to get going, and
(11:19):
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 wrong direction.
Instead of driving toward Messina, Patten went up to Palermo.
(11:42):
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, and you're upe to be liberated. But he
hadn't tribute to the winning of the war. He then
(12:02):
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 in laying mines and digging anti tank ditches and
setting up their artillery just around the corner where the
(12:28):
road jams could be created by blowing the boogie wheels
off of the tank. And the Germans were just better
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
from his fellow generals about this dash to Palermo. So
(12:48):
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 nick. He is the young American males
who testosterone runs a little bit stronger than it ought
to just regard George Patten as practically a god.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Mister tough of World War Two. In fact, Patten was.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
A man who couldn't stand the sight of blood, very squeamy,
but he would force himself to go into the field hospitals,
and you certainly have to admire him for that. And
he would go and talk to the men in their beds.
And 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.
(13:41):
You're talking to young men who know that they're never
going to see again, and lots worse than that, and
it's awful hard to do.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
But Patten would make himself do it. Well.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
He went through a ward of amputees and he came
out and there was a young man sitting on a stool,
kind of shaking and kind of crying. And Patton went
up to me and said, son, wasn't matter with you?
And the private said, it's my nerves, serves my nerves.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
I can't take that shelling.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Anymore, Why you yellow little son of a patent said,
and he wagged him right across the face and sent
the kid's helmet rolling down.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
The aisle of the in the ward, and then came
back and hit.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
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, 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
(14:46):
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 of malarry. He was running
a tempture of one hundred and five. The doctors were
appalled at patents outburst. They sent a report to Eisenhower.
(15:09):
He jerked Patent up pretty strong, sent him a letter
of reprimand told Patten, you got to go back to
that hospital and apologize to those doctors and those nurses,
which was kind of humiliating for Patent, 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
(15:37):
on Ike's part because when a general slaps of private,
expecting a general was famous as Patent already was the
word's gonna get out. And it did three reporters found
out what had happened, and they came to Ike in Algiers.
And this is a nice example of the difference between
the relationship between the press and the government and the
(15:58):
military in World War Two and later wars. They came
to Ike with this story. 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
(16:19):
were there, and.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
We want to release it.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Like I said, boys, please don't don't let it out.
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
(16:48):
the war effort. He's one of the guaranteurs of our victory. Well,
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 countist in
the States, got a hold of it, and Pearson made
(17:09):
a big thing out of the story, and Pat had
to be put on the shelf for the next six
months and was almost called back to join Fredendahl and
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.
(17:32):
It had taken a four to one manpower advantage to
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 pursuit up the toe of
(17:54):
Italy while the Americans prepared for the next invasion in
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.
(18:14):
Let's talk a little bit about the critique of the
strategy of the year nineteen forty three and concentrating so
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 had the story of Montgomery and Penton. Montgomery
more hesitant, 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 Francis
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 of that quality.
(20:01):
Let's return to the story and to 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.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
For their army.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
They were willing enough to put an investment 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
(20:48):
on the eighth day of September of nineteen forty three.
It had been preceded by a major diplomatic political event
for a long time. The Allies had wanted to bomb
Rome because it's the great railway center of Italy, and
(21:10):
the Germans were beginning to rush troops into Italy for
the defense of Rome and for wherever the Allies were
going to come after.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
The Sicilian landings.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Always Eisenhard 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 an agreed
in July that if they would make a circle of
radius twelve miles around the Vatican and agree that no
planes would fly over that area, they could go ahead
(21:45):
and bomb.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
And they hit the.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Marshaling yards and other parts of Rome, and the immediate
reaction on the part of the Italians was for their
factions Grand Council to have a unarthriized meeting and depose Mussolini.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Mussolini out of power.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
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,
(22:24):
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 have any more deal with fascists, ike
was immediately willing and ready, and eventually did cut a
(22:46):
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 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 Italian sent secret
(23:08):
emissaries out and they got and they met in Spain
with Badagiel'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.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
The Allied side.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Ike was happy enough to do that, in fact eager,
and he did make a deal with Badaglio that said
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
(23:43):
at the very last minute. On the In fact, while
eighty second Airborne planes were already in the air and
beginning to circle to form up for the flight to
the Rome's airfield, Badaglio 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.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
The whole deal fell through.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Perhaps luckily on the political front, Stalin would have been
most upset to see.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Another Darlon deal going down.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
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, but it didn't, And to the attack on
Salerno it took place, it was awfully close. It was
(24:41):
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 divisions coming ashore. At one point
there was a duel between American destroyers and the bay
(25:02):
at Salerno and German tanks on the shore.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Mark Clark.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Came very close to ordering his troops to withdraw. They
just did hold on because Eisenhower was able to find
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
(25:30):
with bombs and went in on low level missions to
hit those German tanks. And just barely we managed to
hold on at Salerno. 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 Sealerno. A line was extended across
(25:53):
the Italian peninsula. The troops did begin to move north,
but very slowly. The Germans used 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.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
It was frustrating.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
And expensive, and was to continue that way right on
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
(26:39):
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
of Europe. And this was a very important consideration, especially
in Eisner's mind.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
If there was a.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
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 surface, it made a
lot of sense. The problem is that it would have
meant that at the end of the war the Allies
would have Italy and Sicily, while the Red Army would
(27:11):
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 Normandy in nineteen forty four
was directed not only against the Germans, it was also
(27:33):
directed against their Red Army occupation of Western Europe. The Allies,
all three of them, the Big three is they were
called Stalin, Curkil and Roosevelt met at Tehran in Iran
in December of nineteen 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,
(27:54):
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 fronts. Great,
said Stalin. Who's going to command it? Well, that hadn't
been decided yet. Roosevelt responded, Well, said son, I.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Don't believe you.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
If you haven't planted a commander for this, you're not
serious about You're just stringing me along.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Again.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
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 army that he
Marshall had created, to put into action the strategy of
(28:39):
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, 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,
(29:01):
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
to 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 service as a kief
of staff, and so he selected Eisenhower in a way
that Eisenhower's selected into this most coveted command in the
(29:22):
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. Stephen Ambrose here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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