Volume IV: Up the Bloody Boot/The War in Italy—The Things Our Fathers Saw [2018]
From the deserts of North Africa to the mountains of Italy, fifteen men and women veterans of the Italian campaign open up about a war that was so brutal, news of it was downplayed at home. Here are the stories from a vanishing generation speaking to America today.
296 PAGES.
Volume 4 in this series will take you from the deserts of North Africa to the mountains of Italy with the men and women veterans of the Italian campaign who open up about a war that was so brutal, news of it was downplayed at home. The war in the Mediterranean, and particularly the Italian Campaign, is one that for many Americans is shrouded in mystery and murkiness. Yet it was here that the United States launched its first offensive in the west on enemy soil, and it was here that Allied forces would be slogging it out with a tenacious enemy fighting for its life in the longest single American Campaign of World War II. [It also includes the Aleutians campaign.]
—"There was an old French fort there, and we could look down on it during the day. We gauged the way we would hit that place so that the moon would set right between two mountain peaks; we timed it so when we got there, that moon would silhouette them, but not us... We carried out the first and only bayonet charge [of the war] by our Rangers; we didn’t fire; very few people knew that we carried out an overnight bayonet attack. I'll tell you, that's something. You see that, it'll shake you up real good." —U.S. Army Ranger, WWII
— “We attacked another hill, and I shot a German soldier. And then the Germans counterattacked on the hill, and I could not escape, so I decided to just lay down on top of that soldier and make believe I’m dead. They passed me by, I got up and [this German I shot] starts talking to me in English, he says he’s from Coney Island, in Brooklyn; he went to visit his mother in Germany and they put him in the army. And he was dying, and he says to me, ‘You can take my cigarettes; you can take my schnapps.’ Then he died right underneath me. And I imagine he knew I had shot him...."
—U.S. Army scout, WWII
— “So there was a terrific fight going on in a place called Santa Maria, south of Rome. While we were going through, in transit, we stopped at a big Italian barn; they had a kitchen set up, and we had our own mess kits. As we were going through the line, we saw this huge rack of shelves with American Army duffel bags packed on there. And Hendrickson said to me, ‘Hey, Tony, you know what? My brother must be in the area someplace. There’s his duffel bag.’ The name was stenciled on. So I said, ‘That’s nice.’ [But] I was thinking, why is his duffel bag there? Well, there was a military policeman guarding these bags. I went back to the MP. I said to him, ‘What are these bags doing here?’ And I told him about Hendrickson. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t know if you want to tell him, but these guys are all dead. They were all killed at Santa Maria.’” —U.S. Army map maker, WWII
— TABLE OF CONTENTS —
AUTHOR’S NOTE 9
‘THE MUDDY, BLOODY BOOT’ 17
THE CONTEXT OF THE MEDITERRANEAN CAMPAIGN 20
PERSPECTIVE 21
NORTH AFRICA 23
OPERATION TORCH 24
SICILY 25
SALERNO 26
THE GUSTAV LINE AND ANZIO 27
ON TO ROME 28
TO THE GOTHIC LINE AND THE ALPS 28
THE RANGER 33
TRAINING 37
‘RANGERS LEAD THE WAY’ 39
‘BLACK DEATH’ 41
‘NO TIME TO REST’ 44
SICILY 47
THE INVASION OF ITALY 53
CISTERNA 56
WOUNDED 58
‘DARBY'S THERE’ 60
THE SCOUT 63
INVASION 64
THE GERMAN SOLDIER 67
D-DAY 69
RESPONSIBILITY 70
THE ARTILLERY MAN 73
ON THE LINE 75
THE GUNS 76
SURRENDER 81
HOME 82
THOUGHTS 83
THE CAPTAIN AND THE NURSE 85
THE RAPIDO RIVER 87
MONTE CASSINO 89
THE HOSPITAL 91
THE FIGHT 93
THE MORTAR MAN 97
MONTE CASSINO 103
FRANCE AND GERMANY 104
DACHAU 104
THE CLOTHING STORE 107
THE DOG MAN 109
THE MESSENGER DOGS 115
A SUNDAY EVENING IN THE PO VALLEY 117
THE END OF THE WAR 118
THE ESCAPEE 125
REPLACEMENT 127
TAKEN PRISONER 129
CINECITTÀ 131
ESCAPE 132
ROME 135
HARASSING THE GERMANS 141
LIBERATION 143
HOME 145
THE BATTERY COMMANDER 149
‘YOU’RE ALL GODDAMN YANKEES’ 150
‘I DON’T WANT TO BE AN OFFICER’ 152
OVERSEAS 155
THREE STRIKES 157
STRAFED 159
SHELLED 160
MONEY 163
PEACH PIE 165
ON THE ROAD 167
NEW OFFICERS 170
‘A COLUMN OF GERMAN INFANTRY’ 172
NO FLAGS 173
RANK 174
THE MAP MAKER 177
BREAKOUT 182
ROME 182
THE PO VALLEY 187
THE DUFFEL BAG 187
SENATOR LODGE 190
MOUNTAIN MEN 195
THE MEDIC 201
MOUNTAIN EQUIPMENT 203
A RED CROSS 207
OFFICERS 208
THE CLIMB ON RIVA RIDGE 208
MOUNT DELLA TORRACCIA 210
THE BAR MAN 217
TRAINING 219
FIRST ACTION ON RIVA RIDGE 223
COUNTERATTACKED 224
THE ARTILLERY OBSERVER 226
‘THE LITTLE THINGS’ 228
THE SQUAD LEADER 231
RIVA RIDGE AND MOUNT BELVEDERE 235
THE PO VALLEY 236
WAR’S END 238
THE PLATOON LEADER 243
MULES 246
ATTU AND KISKA 248
SHIPPING OUT 251
RIVA RIDGE AND MOUNT BELVEDERE 253
‘WE ARE GOING TO BE SLAUGHTERED’ 255
THE MINEFIELD 257
SHOES 260
THE CANNONEER 261
PACK MULES 265
THE TUNNELS 266
LAGO DEL PREDIL 267
CIVILIANS 268
EPILOGUE: A FARAWAY VOICE FROM A DIFFERENT TIME 271