Harry Turtledove (Editor) - Alternate Generals II

Not as worried about squashing the Palermo Communists. Right now, anybody who wants to fight Germans is doing more good than harm. We can sort them out after the Germans are down for the count.

Don't know what the politicians are doing. At least the Palermo Communists have the guts to come out shooting. But if the politicians won't give us orders, Ike and Alex [Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander] and Monty and I are all going to have to sit down and make up our own.

Decorated several Air Force pilots today. One of them had been with Eagle Squadron during the Battle of Britain. Said that he felt he'd earned this Distinguished Flying Cross even more than the first one. The air fighting was just as heavy and you couldn't be sure of landing in friendly territory!

Mass surrenders of the Italians. Surviving Germans are going to be lucky if they escape with their clothes and personal weapons. The British aren't ready to send heavy ships into range of the big shore batteries at the Straits of Messina. But they are bombing the ports on both sides every night, and have sunk quite a bunch of the lighters and coastal freighters the Germans will need to evacuate artillery and vehicles.

Already beginning to capture German supply dumps before the rearguards can destroy them. Not so many Italian supplies, but the Italians may not have much left to capture!

Note from Monty-we should meet to suggest modifications in the existing plan for knocking Italy out of the war on August 20. I have asked the engineers if we can mount anything out of Palermo before the middle of September. It would be a good deal easier if the Italians would surrender now. Then we could enlist all the POWs into the Royal Italian Army Engineers and watch the dust fly.

From The New York Times, August 19, 1943:

Sicily Falls to Allies

25,000 German, 150,000 Italian POWs

Rumors of Crisis in Rome

From Field Marshal the Viscount Montgomery's Mediterranean Campaigns:

— triumphal entrance into Messina was simply not on, because there was hardly any Messina left to enter, triumphantly or in any other manner. It is more than a little difficult to maintain a conqueror's pose when one stumbles over rubble at every step and coughs on the smoke of burning buildings at every third breath, if one wishes to do so at all.

None of the Allied commanders wished it. It seemed a vulgar display worthy of the former Duce , and not of liberators. Had we known at the time the debates among Italian and German leaders (each keeping their debates secret from the other), we might have taken even further measures to adopt a conciliatory position toward the Italians.

If I had known at the time how little diplomatic intelligence Eisenhower was receiving, I would have been less hostile to his apparent obliviousness to political considerations. I now think better of him, and rather less well of those parties responsible for his ignorance. One would almost think they were prepared to sabotage any American support for a joint Mediterranean strategy, lest it threaten the primary emphasis on the cross-channel attack.

Fortunately Eisenhower also seemed willing to find excuses to continue the pressure on Italy, at least until the country surrendered and remaining Germans were expelled or neutralized. Possibly this was the beginning of an awakening sense of field strategy, or perhaps he was as lacking in initiative as ever, but even more willing to listen to Generals Patton, Bradley, and Clark.

I was least surprised at Patton's commitment to forcing Italy out of the war. Since Operation Torch, he had exhibited a singular instinct for seeking and severing the opponent's jugular vein, even if he also wished to adopt methods for doing so that enlarged his own role. We had fewer objections to a larger role for Patton now than a year ago, when Alan Brooke [Chief of the British Imperial General Staff] said that the American could only be useful in a situation requiring boldness, even rashness. From appearing to be fit for no larger command than a regiment of cavalry, he had developed higher military qualities in abundance. He was also noticeably more agreeable in person than he had been previously. The burdens of command over the previous month seemed to sit lightly, even gracefully, on his shoulders, and he was firm and fair in his praises of the British share in the greatest Anglo-American victory of the war to date. I began to see him as one who would return in full measure all the respect shown to him-and to his officers and men, toward whom his loyalty was, then and ever afterward, utterly unswerving.

To be brief about General Clark, on the principle of nihil nisi bonum: since his recently activated Fifth Army would include all the American and some of the British ground forces assigned to the invasion of the Italian mainland, it was clearly in his interests to execute that invasion. The bitter fighting in Sicily had also put us somewhat behind schedule for the next operation, and used a number of transports, landing craft, and warships intended for that operation, so both suitable weather and suitable sea transport might be lacking. Finally, one can only conjecture at this date, but Clark might well have possessed more information than the rest of us about the political circumstances in Italy.

Last, Omar Bradley, a man who might fail in genius but never in diligence and seldom in diplomacy. Loyalty to his superiors was written on his heart, and he also had no reason to wish to be translated to the remote northern mists of the British Isles to plan a cross-Channel invasion when he could continue fighting in a sunnier Mediterranean clime. Furthermore, sooner or later Patton or Clark would be elevated to the command of an Army Group, and at that point Bradley would sure

Letter from Beatrice Patton, September 2, 1943:

I hope you are too busy planning the invasion of Italy to read the papers. It might not be good for you, to learn just how highly everybody else thinks of you. But of course you are the outstanding American field commander of the war so far, and I think that the same will be said when the war is over.

I also hope that you will continue to let enemy fire seek but fail to find you, rather than "chasing the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth." These days, I think your reputation is made of cast iron, and as firmly fixed in place as Grant's Tomb. I have also received a letter from General Eisenhower, warning that he will have to pull rank if you do become a casualty, and does not guarantee that he will leave enough of you for me to do anything with or to.

Please do not try to walk across any of the bodies of water that you have to pass over to reach your objectives. There are sharks and minefields in the Mediterranean, and meeting either one would at the very least ruin your boots. Sergeant Meeks has been faithful at repairing your boots all these years, and now that you are no longer putting your foot in your mouth quite so often he deserves a rest.

I hope you feel wonderful, being at last (or again) the happy warrior. I know it feels slightly wonderful to be married to him.

Letter to Beatrice Patton, September 7, 1943:

If you read this letter, it will be the last one you read from me, for the usual reasons that cause the writing of "last letters." However, I don't think this time being "a conqueror or a corpse" are mutaually exclusive. We are conducting parts of this operation on a shoestring, but even if I fall, before I do we should have the shoestring pulled tight around the throats of the Germans in Italy, as well as any Italians stupid enough to get in the way.

I could never embrace the better angels of my nature, because they weren't very damned good. So I embraced you instead. That has worked. Without you, I think I would be known only through the footnotes in biographies of other men.