The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944

I'm about halfway through THE DAY OF BATTLE: THE WAR IN SICILY AND ITALY, 1943-44, the second volume of Rick Atkinson's masterpiece, THE LIBERATION TRILOGY, about the American army and air force in Europe in World War II. (I've already read the other two excellent volumes of his trilogy, AN ARMY AT DAWN, which is about the North African campaign -- a fiasco generally -- for which Atkinson won a well-deserved Pulitzer, and GUNS AT LAST LIGHT, which describes the final year of the war, post D-Day, when my Dad served over there in a rifle company.)I am utterly in awe of Atkinson's writing, but I am infinitely more in awe and in admiration of the gallant men he writes about, men of my Dad's generation.Italy in 1943-44 was hell on earth. The combat there was as bad or worse than any fighting in the American Civil War or in either World War.Here is a shocking and particularly moving passage from this book, pp. 343-345:"Off they went, trudging like men sent to the scaffold. A soldier stumping down a sunken road toward the Rapido [River] observed, 'There was a dead man every ten yards, just like they were in formation.' Close to the river, the formation thickened. Another soldier, carrying a rubber boat, later wrote, 'It didn't seem what were walking on was dirt and rock. We soon found out it was dead GIs'"On the division left, the 143rd Infantry [Regiment] crossed more adroitly on Friday afternoon than it had on Thursday evening. [A full-strength regiment had about 2000 men; none of those in Italy by this time were full strength after months of combat.] Confusion delayed the attack for two hours, but at four PM, beneath a vast, choking smoke bank, the 3rd Battalion [800 men, give or take] began to paddle west. By 6:30 all rifle companies had found the far shore, and Colonel Martin ordered his 2nd Battalion to follow in train late that night. A quarter mile upstream, the 1st Battalion also crossed at dusk, although the laconic battalion commander, Major Frazior, radioed, 'I had a couple of fingers shot off.' Three battalions crowded a bridgehead only five hundred yards deep and six hundred yards wide. 'When twilight turned to darkness,' one soldier later wrote, 'I was thinking this is my last old day on earth.'"On the division right, delay begat delay in the 141st Infantry. Not least, engineers neglected to bring an air compressor to inflate fifty rubber boats, and Colonel Wyatt, the regimental commander, postponed the attack until nine PM, without telling Walker. By two AM on Saturday, a pair of footbridges had been laid, and six rifle companies [about 200 men each] from two battalions soon crossed. They found no survivors from the previous night's combat. Engineers wondered whether the Germans had left the catwalks intact 'to draw more of our troops over.' Some soldiers balked at crossing the river, or deliberately tumbled into the water. Others displayed uncommon valor. Company E of the 2nd Battalion -- the unit roster boasted mostly Spanish surnames, Trevino and Gonzales, Rivera and Hernandez -- advanced with bayonets fixed through sleeting fire from three sides. 'Fire wholeheartedly, men, fire wholeheartedly!' cried their commander, Captain John L. Chapin, before a bullet killed him. Corraled by minefields and barbed wire, the 141st held twenty-five acres of bottomland that grew bloodier by the hour. 'Well, I guess this is it,' a major told a fellow officer. 'May I shake your hand?' Moments later a shard from a panzer shell tore open his chest. He dragged himself to safety across a submerged bridge, and medics saved him. 'It was the only time,' one witness said, 'I ever say a man's heart flopping in his chest.'"[German] Artillery and Nebelwerfer drumfire methodically searched both bridgeheads, while machine guns opened on every sound, human and inhuman. GIs inched forward, feeling for trip wires and listening to German gun crews reload. 'Get out of your holes, you yellow bellies!' an angry voice cried above the din, but to stand or even to kneel was to die. A sergeant in the 143rd Infantry described 'one kid being hit by a machine gun -- the bullets hitting pushed his body along like a tin can.' Another sergeant wounded in the same battalion later wrote, 'I could hear my bones cracking every time I moved. My right leg was so mangled I couldn't get my boot off, on account of it was pointed to the rear.' German surgeons would remove the boot for him, along with both legs."A private sobbed as wounded comrades were dragged on shelter halves up the mud-slick east bank. Ambulances hauled them to a dressing station in a dank ravine behind Trocchio. Crowded tents 'smelled like a slaughter-house,' wrote the reporter Frank Gervasi. Outside a small cave in the hillside, a crudely printed sign read: PIECES. Inside, stacked burlap bags held the limbs of dismembered boys. On average, soldiers wounded on the Rapido received 'definitive treatment' nine hours and forty-one minutes after they were hit, a medical study later found: nearly six hours to reach an aid station, followed by another three hours to a clearing station, and another hour to an evacuation hospital. The dead were easier: they were buried fully clothed without further examination."Certainly the doctors were busy enough with the living. Only five physicians manned the clearing station of the 111th Medical Battalion. They treated more than three hundred battle casualties on Friday, often struggling to mend the unmendable, and they would handle nearly as many on Saturday. A wounded sergeant undergoing surgery with only local anesthesia later reported, 'The doctor stopped in the middle of the operation to smoke a cigarette and he gave me one too.' Another sergeant from the same company told a medic, 'Patch up these holes and give me a gun. I'm going to kill every son of a bitch in Germany.'"Well, what can one say after reading that?

So many mistakes, such huge egos, bickering between Americans and British, and we still won. Each bad decision cost thousands of casualties, and we still won. This is an amazing catalog of stories and history.

From an American's perspective, an eloquent diatribe of the Allied WWII efforts in Sicily and Italy. Disturbing of the countless deaths, casualties, destruction, caused by the U.S. Army's higher command's failure to incorporate essential battle elements into simple detailed tactical plans for achieving victory, including: (1) terrain, (2) foliage, (3) temperature, (4) weather, (5) elevation, particularly favorable heights, (6) appropriate fighting apparel. Moreover, negative consequences resulted from uncooperation and rivalry between air, navy, army, especially concerning casualties from "friendly fire." For instance, "five confused P-40 Warhawks heeled over in a bombing and strafing run .... More than one hundred men were killed or wounded" (p. 551). Further, extreme inepitude caused ""[m]ore American artillery fell on American soldiers" (p. 545). Such extreme errors cannot be compensated. "The meshing of infantry, armor, artillery, air, and combat arms into an integrated battle force -- the essence of modern combat -- remained ragged; at times it was unclear whether Allied air and ground forces were even fighting the same campaign" (p. 173). Patton was not alone in the slapping incidents. "'Never will I forget that nightmare of a march,' a Gurkha officer wrote. 'At times we had no alternative but to strike soldiers who just gave up interest in anything, including a desire to live''" (p. 471). Immense publicity regarding Patton ballooned. "By mid-December, the White House and War Department had received fifteen hundred letters, pro and con, though a Gallup poll indicated that by a four-to-one margin Americans opposed sacking Patton" (p.296). Clearly, imperfect, Patton proved aggressive, astute, victorious, especially in his subsequent European campaign. The author's subjective attitude towards Eisenhower's relationship with his driver, Kay Summersby, negatively reflects upon the material's overall neutral objectivity. "Lately he [Eisenhower] had taken special pains to reassure her [wife Mamie] of his constancy, because lately she had asked pointedly about Kay Summersby" (p. 57). "No convincing evidence would ever prove a carnal relationship between the two ..." (p.57). Upon Army Chief of Staff George Marshall's order for a brief visit in Washington, "[t]wice he [Eisenhower] absently called his wife Kay ..." (p. 318). Interestingly, British Field Marshal Lord Alan Brooke, Chief of CIGS, noted in his singular "War Diaries 1939-1945:" "When we lunched with Ike I was interested to see that Kay [Summersby], his chauffeur, had been promoted to hostess, and sat at the head of the table with Winston on her right. At Versailles she had been promoted to personal secretary ran the lobby next to his office. Now she had moved one step up the ladder. In doing so Ike produced a lot of undesirable gossip that did him no good" (War Diaries, p. 625). Notwithstanding innocence, hypothetically, if a spouse complains of possible inappropriateness, then the offending spouse would transfer her/him to a lateral position in a different location, in respect of the complaining spouse's feelings. But, in the case of Eisenhower, Kay remained by his side, wherever -- England, North Africa, France -- throughout his entire command, until finally returning to the USA. The stagnant attrition defining the Italian War actually fulfilled its goal which was to distract Germany and push its soldiers to Italy as a diversion for the upcoming Allied Normandy D-Day invasion, as well as, appeasing Stalin. "Twenty-three German divisions were mired in Italy, with nearly 300,000 troops. Joseph Goebbels lamented that if the Wehrmacht had another fifteen or twenty divisions to throw into the Eastern Front 'we would undoubtedly be in a position to repulse the Russians. Unfortunately, we must put these fifteen or twenty divisions into combat in the Italian theater'" ( p. 315). A challenging work distilling overwhelming information.

Book was gorgeous upon arrival, exactly as expected. Will look good on the book shelf.

I read in some else's review of a military history that while the book was well written it cdn't hold a candle to the prose and research of Rick Atkinson. So I ordered this book and read it at once: Atkinson is without doubt the finest writer of history that I have read in decades. He is such a pleasure, such a joy to read that I immediately ordered the next two volumes in the Liberation Trilogy. I have now read all three books and I'm pleased to report that he is a spell-binding author. I was once a professor in the humanities and asked to teach writing. If I were doing that today I wd say to students: Read any (any!) two or three pages and note the various instances where Atkinson's prose sparkles and makes reading not only informative but fun and enlightening not only about his subject but how good prose works. Take any two-three pages in any one of his books and study them in your hope to be a writer, a better writer. Thank you Rick Atkinson!!

Having read the first in the author’s trilogy I was really looking forward to this second book.I was certainly not disappointed. The reader is presented with a detailed account covering all aspects of the campaigns in Sicily and Italy, from the experiences of the front line participants to the political and nationalist machinations of the senior commanders and their political masters.The detailed accounts of combat operations are both riveting and at the same time harrowing. We are introduced to participants and come to know them as they cope with the hell that was thrust upon them and for my part there was genuine shock and sadness when individuals made the ultimate sacrifice.This is a well written and engrossing story highly recommended for the general reader and those with an interest in the Second World War. It stands as a fitting tribute to all those who fought for the cause of freedom.

Todavía no lo he comenzado a leer pero tiene buena pinta!

Very nicely packed book with no pages bending! impressive.

An excellent read of the lesser known theatre in WW2. Rick Atkinson brings to life the hardships suffered by both sides in the Sicilian and Italian campaigns. His skill is to provide wonderful narrative which encapsulates both the strategic essence of the campaigns as well as the humanity found in the individual soldier from general to private. Highly recommended!

Finally, we have a history of a largely forgotten theatre of World War 2 which correctly apportions coverage between the 6 week Sicilian campaign and the incredibly hard grind on the mainland which came afterwards. Most historians cover the Sicilian campaign in depth but lose interest in what happened after the junction of the armies in Messina. In this book, Mr. Atkinson reveals the shoe-string nature of the campaign in mainland Italy, the tenacity and often brilliance of the German defense, the appalling weather conditions and above-all the miserable lot of the infantryman. The section on Monte Cassino is a tour de force of profound research and captures the sheer brutality of the fighting. Anzio receives similarly perceptive and profound treatment. Mr. Atkinson emphasizes that the US battalions that fought these campaigns were still essentially amateurs who often suffered and died because of the inexperience of their officers. The book is a fitting tribute to those who fought.