Whicker’s War and Journey of a Lifetime. Alan Whicker
your bloody time, Sergeant,’ he shouted. ‘Where the hell are your men?’ Huggett admitted that he had come alone, to get pictures. ‘What?’ cried the officer, after an emotional silence, ‘I called for reinforcements, not a fucking photographer.’
One understands exactly how he felt; there are times when you just don’t want your picture taken – even though it may well be your last…
The Luftwaffe flew in close-support for Kesselring’s 15 divisions; for the first time we were outnumbered and clinging-on desperately. After two days the landing was going so badly that the Allied Commander, the American General Mark Clark, prepared plans for re-embarkation. He seemed ready to pack up and go home. His Army had only one escape route – by sea. It was unnerving to learn that our own Commander had even considered running back to the ships and sailing away.
He was eventually discouraged by tougher minds among senior American and British officers like Rear Admiral Tom Troubridge who could see that an attempted re-embarkation on beaches dominated by German artillery in the overlooking hills would be a massacre. They bullied and finally persuaded him against the possibility of retreat, but for indecisive days the Allies faced their first major defeat.
The crisis on the beaches followed a flawed invasion plan drawn up by inexperienced officers in which two of our three assault divisions had been given defensive missions. The third, the 46th Division, carried the lone offensive role – but was landed too far from Salerno for its execution. The result was a desperate battle to establish the beachhead by three separate and un-cooperating forces. There was also a seven-mile gap between our X Corps and the US VI Corps. No wonder General Clark despaired.
Back at AFHQ Eisenhower had heard that his friend was planning re-embarkation, and worried that he might have lost his nerve. He told his USN ADC that Clark should show the spirit of a naval Captain and if necessary, go down with his ship. This seemed unlikely.
One echo of the desperation on the beaches survives in Salerno today: in a tidy but little-visited monumental garden in town stands a very small memorial. You need to crouch down to read its inscription. Few passers-by would notice its anguished cry – the thoughts and reactions of the men of the American 45th Infantry Division which put ashore two regimental combat teams under Major General Troy Middleton. Their scorn and bitterness is conveyed by two quotations inscribed on this stone, this memory of desperation.
General Mark Clark US Fifth Army Commander: ‘Prepare to evacuate the beach.’ Underneath, the words of his subordinate, Major General Middleton: ‘Leave the water and the ammo on the beach. The 45th Division is here to stay.’
It is rare indeed for a division to castigate publicly its Army Commander for considering sailing away from the battle. Rarer still, President Roosevelt later awarded Clark the Distinguished Service Cross for gallantry at Salerno.
Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark – Wayne to his friends – graduated from West Point in 1917, 109th in a class of 135, and was afterwards a Captain for 16 years. His career took-off with the war and the friendship of General Eisenhower, with whom he shared an apartment in London. At 46 he became the youngest Lieutenant General the US Army had ever known, with a passion for publicity already well established. As Fifth Army Commander in Italy he refused to stay in the Royal Palace in Naples, explaining humbly to the Press that he felt lost in a big city. He had been raised in Chicago.
Caserta, 30 miles to the north, was the Allied forces headquarters during the war. This enormous mid-18th century palace had been built by the Bourbon King Charles IV to outdo Versailles, but General Clark still found no suitable accommodation within its 1200 rooms, so set up a trailer, a converted truck, in the formal gardens behind the Palace – which as he explained in resultant publicity, was no place for an American cowboy.
The fate of the Salerno landing hung in the balance for some two weeks. A major factor in the outcome was the supporting firepower of the big naval cruisers offshore, and the dropping into the Beachhead on two successive nights of two regimental combat teams from the tough US 82nd Airborne Division. This operation, though sadly delayed, was probably the most successful airborne operation of the war, and swung the battle.
At a time when most things were going wrong, the British army faced that most unusual and wretched event: a mutiny, in which British NCOs were sentenced to death.
Some 700 reinforcement troops had arrived by LST from Naples. They sat down on the beach and refused to report to their new units. All were desert veterans of the 50th Northumbrian and 51st Highland Division who had learned they were going straight back into the line to fight – and not with old comrades and officers they respected, but with new divisions. Worse, some Scots were going to non-Scottish regiments. They all believed they had been promised home rotation with their original units.
It was not until the Commander of X Corps, the popular Lieutenant General Richard McCreery, went to the beach that the majority were persuaded to obey orders, though 192 still refused and were later court-martialled. The NCOs who led the rebellion were sentenced to death, but were soon given the chance to redeem themselves by returning to duty in Italy, with suspended sentences. They did not suffer the ultimate penalty. However, the Salerno mutiny remained a permanent stain on the honour of the Army, and is not mentioned in the Official War History.
All this time I was with the Eighth Army as it moved up the Calabrian toe of Italy. There were two coastal roads, both so narrow there was little room for the two divisions in action – the 5th up the west coast, the 1st Canadian to the east. Only one brigade at a time – sometimes one battalion – could get into the front line of the toe, to fight. It was a geographical gift for German demolition experts; one blown bridge could hold up an army for as long as its ruins could be defended.
After facing the 16th Panzer Division north of Termoli, the Eighth captured the vital Foggia airfield complex, which opened-up southern Europe to Allied bombers and allowed close air support within minutes. At the River Sangro, General Montgomery issued another of his calls to action which always sounded to me like an invitation to cricket: ‘We will now deal the enemy a colossal whack…’ It was his last battle before he returned to England to prepare for the Second Front.
Some Russian officers under General Vasiliev were visiting the Front and, surprisingly, were familiar with Monty’s terminology, but old Eighth Army hands were unprepared for Major General Solodovnic. He had last been seen in Africa in the more casual uniform of a War Correspondent reporting for the TASS news agency. He was not bemused by Monty’s sporting appeals – indeed had a habit of putting haughty Brigade Majors on the defensive: ‘I suppose you’re one of the Upper Classes?’
On September 8 ’43, the day before the Salerno landing, Italy had capitulated and become a co-belligerent, ostensibly on our side. The conquest of Sicily had knocked Mussolini off his perch, and Italy out of the war. Having as a neutral enjoyed the flattering attentions of both sides, the Duce had delayed his declaration of war too long to claim any significant share of Hitler’s blitzkrieg spoils. The Germans overran France so quickly, the Italians contributed so little – and Mussolini had waited 280 days, until June 10 ’40, before declaring war. He could make few appeals at the armistice table. His demand for Nice, Tunis and Corsica received little sympathy from Hitler, who had once complained bitterly: ‘The Italians never lose a war. No matter what happens, they always end up on the winning side.’ He was right again – but the chastened Mussolini saw it another way: ‘Nobody likes a neutral.’
After the surrender of Sicily the Italian King and Government had been anxious to get rid of their Duce. He was eager to show it was not his fault that Fascism and much of Sicily were in ruins, with more to come. In an attempt to avoid the war spreading north through Italy, the diminutive King Victor Emmanuel III – who had brought Mussolini to power in 1922 – belatedly demanded his resignation and replaced him by Marshal Badoglio. After that bloodless coup the Duce, more confused than angry, accepted his dismissal, and they parted amicably.
A few months later he was rescued from house arrest at Gran Sasso on the highest peak of the Apennines by glider-borne paratroops led by Hitler’s personal commando, Colonel Otto Skorzeny. Mussolini was then reinstated by the Führer for a brief spell in the twilight zone of