Whicker’s War and Journey of a Lifetime. Alan Whicker
for Italy during the war had been trickier than surrendering. A secret armistice negotiated by the captured British General Carton de Wiart had been signed, but the Italian Field Command was not informed. It did not know what to do so ended up, in the Italian way, by doing nothing.
Unfortunately at that moment Allied command was also indecisive and at Salerno, almost overwhelmed. Instead of ordering the Italian Army to turn and fight the Germans as planned and dropping a division of paratroops on Rome Airport, the Allies threw up their hands, ignored the new situation, cancelled the airdrop – and continued slogging up Italy as though nothing had happened.
For weeks the Germans had been expecting their ally to defect, so with their usual fast reaction seized Rome and rounded up the 600,000 obedient Italian soldiers who had remained in their camps and not gone home and changed into civvies. Instead, they went into cattle trucks and off to German labour camps.
Curiously, Whitehall now reacted in an Italianate way. When their prison camp guards packed up and went home most British POWs had planned to scatter and take to the mountains, but a War Office Brigadier, a Deputy Director of Military Intelligence, ordered them not to break-out of their camps. So within 48 hours half the British POWs in Italy also found themselves under German guard and on their way to prison camps in Germany.
The only decisive action in the whole theatre was taken by Vesuvius, which erupted for the first time in 38 years and then grumbled on for weeks under giant incandescent candles and angry plumes of fire and rock. The naval Commander-in-Chief issued an admiring statement: ‘The Naples group of ports is now discharging at a rate of 12 million tons a year. Vesuvius is estimated to be doing 30 million tons a day. We cannot but admire this gesture of the Gods.’
Suddenly I received a gesture from a military god: I was ordered to drive urgently through the mountains to the west coast and go to a small beach south of Salerno. Purpose and location: top secret. There I boarded a waiting torpedo boat, rakish and sinister. It was there to carry General Montgomery to his first meeting with the beleaguered General Mark Clark, behind enemy lines and on the other side of the Salerno beachhead. It was just the two of us, at sea with a Royal Navy crew from Malta.
We set off flat-out, engines roaring, in a big arc around the enemy-held coast, watching for German E-boats which I was told we could probably out-run. I was comforted by my belief that nobody was going to risk the life of Britain’s only victorious General, without a very good reason.
After four hours pounding through a calm sea without sighting another craft we came in to shore, transferred to a waiting DUKW – and there on the beach was Mark Clark, tall and gaunt, with Major General Gruenther and his staff. ‘Mighty pleased to see you, General,’ he told Monty – and as Fifth Army seemed about to be thrown back into the sea, we could believe he meant it.
His headquarter tents were alongside a rough airstrip hacked out of the scrub where fighters continually took-off and landed. Signs by the road said: ‘Aircraft Have Right Of Way.’
After his discussion with General Clark for a couple of hours, General Montgomery and I returned to our torpedo boat to race south for another four hours, hoping the E-boats had not yet been alerted.
Helping the Fifth Army to get established on shore and out of trouble, was to be General Montgomery’s Italian swansong before he left to prepare for the Second Front in Normandy.
I sat with him as we bounced through the Tyrrhenian Sea, hoping we were unheard and invisible. In fact this ultimate torpedo boat had a resonant roar that filled the dark sky, and a churning wash that fell back, pounding, towards the horizon. It seemed determined to advertise its presence.
As we ate ‘the unexpired portion of the day’s ration’ I began to appreciate how American senior officers with little or no battle experience found Monty impossible. He always knew he was right – and indeed he usually was, though diplomacy and tact were virtues with which he was unfamiliar. He did not work with people, he told them what to do. He was fond of his boss Field Marshal Alexander, but found him a limited and weak Commander: ‘The higher art of war is beyond him. I’m under no delusions whatsoever as to his ability to conduct large-scale operations in the field. He knows nothing about it. He’s not a strong Commander and is incapable of giving firm and clear decisions as to what he wants. In fact no one ever knows what he does want, least of all his staff. He doesn’t know himself. The whole truth of the matter is that Alexander has got a definitely limited brain, and doesn’t understand the business.’
A less straightforward observer would not have been as honest about his ‘very great friend’ and Commanding Officer.
I remembered that in Sicily General Patton’s Seventh Army was fighting alongside our Eighth as we landed, but during the campaign the Generals never met – which might explain why each ran his own private war. This Alexander accepted. The Eighth was struggling up the east coast against newly-arrived German divisions while Patton’s army ushered the Germans into a happy escape around Etna. Both Commanders were prima donnas – though after that it was hard to detect any similarity in thought or action.
In the Mediterranean and later in France, even the affable Supreme Commander General Eisenhower – who had never commanded men in battle – usually found Monty’s infallibility hard to take.
As shipmates running the E-boat gauntlet for eight hours, Monty and I got along happily. This I believe was mainly because I told him what he wanted to hear. My thoughtful contribution was usually ‘Yes, Sir.’ That always went down well.
Although he was not chatty, and too correct to go into details, it was apparent Monty, like Alexander, was not much impressed by his new allies. The confusion on the Salerno beaches, the near-shambles when plans began to go wrong, the lack of aggressive spirit shown by Headquarters staff … few recent experiences had escaped the cold eye of the British perfectionist.
After sandwich, bun and apple, he went aft to stare at the waves whipping by – and doubtless to plan future battles; I went for’ard to watch out for the black silhouettes of hungry E-boats intent upon the war’s biggest prize.
We arrived at the quiet beach we had left twelve hours earlier; the whole hazardous operation had been completed by the RN without a shot or a torpedo being fired, and Monty + 1 were both safe. After that adventure, our careers diverged. He went on to liberate western Europe, to be created a Viscount and a Field Marshal with a chestful of honours. I went on to capture the HQ of the German SS and get Mentioned in Despatches; small beer – but at least we both lived through it all…
Stimulated by the concern of Generals, the advance guard of the Eighth Army fought its way some 200 miles north in 13 days to relieve the hard-pressed Fifth, allowing them to push-on towards Naples – which General Clark was anxious to be seen liberating. Against weakening German resistance, commandos and paratroops stormed the mountains to the northwest of Vietri which commanded the defile through to Naples. The enemy withdrew, the beaches were saved, the bridgehead secure – so far.
The fact that some of our best Generals were being taken away from the theatre and returned to England in preparation for Overlord, the invasion of Normandy, may have had something to do with our apparent lack of direction. Generals Eisenhower, Montgomery, Bradley and Air Chief Marshal Tedder left for London, along with several veteran British and American formations.
Remaining in Italy, General Alexander then had seven Eighth Army divisions and thirteen Fifth Army divisions: five American, five British, two French and one Polish. Kesselring had 18 divisions.
The Italian surrender brought total confusion to Government offices from Rome to Brindisi – the temporary capital. Calls to the Italian War Office from military headquarters all over the country asked whether they should fight the Germans or not? They were answered by junior staff: ‘Sorry – there’s no one here.’
Very soon there was someone there: the German army. Within a week it had disarmed 56 Italian divisions, partially disarmed 29 others, and captured those 600,000 soldiers.
A supporting army fighting behind the lines would have made an enormous difference to the balance of the war but the Italians, never