Harry Turtledove (Editor) - Alternate Generals II

If I do fall, I want to be buried beside the men I led. There my mortal remains can crumble away without bothering anybody. My immortal part will wait somewhere else, for you to join me so that we can take morning rides together once again.

From The New York Times, September 11, 1943:

Americans Land in Sardinia

Naval Guns, Paratroopers Support Amphibians at Cagliari

Heavy Air Raids Strike Northern Italy

Aboard U.S.S. Augusta : It looks like the gamble on using paratroops again so soon has paid off. This time we were careful to have the transports approach and leave well clear of the landing beaches, and we borrowed lead navigators from the bomber boys, one for each flight of transports. The only gamble was on the paratroops' morale and the possibility of the Germans having moved in some extra AA.

But Jim Gavin is the kind of general most men really will follow to Hell. I think the jump boys might have followed Ambrose P. Burnside if the alternative was sitting out the war or going back to what they call «straight-leg» infantry. Rather like cavalry being dismounted, I suppose.

Anyway, the 82 ndboys are keeping the engineers secure while they work on the airfields. We should have two ready for fighters tomorrow, or at least ready to stage through on the way north. After that we need at least one strip good for C-47s and B-25s. Then we start on the roads and bridges out to the edge of our planned peremeter.

We could never have risked Operation MINETAUR if we'd needed to take the whole island from the Germans. But we only have to take enough of Sardinia for the air bases, and that mostly from the Italians who are ready to hand over just about anything and gift-wrap it too!

So far, anyway. The Italians are certainly surrendering rather than retreating, which smells to me as if they want to stay away from the Germans. So far the Germans and the Italians haven't come to open shooting yet. I wouldn't mind if they wait a few days. By then, any German south of Rome will have his goddamned head in a meat grinder, and the Allies will have hold of the handle!

From The New York Times, September 13, 1943:

Italy Surrenders

Italian Fleet Sails to Malta; U-Boats Sink One Cruiser

Allied Fighters from Sardinia Strike Rome

Moved ashore into the old Bishop's Palace in Cagliari. Parts of it go back to the seventeenth century and look as if they haven't been cleaned or painted since then. At least the Italian staff is willing and trying to look eager. I got them all together and talked to them through a translator who I told to not soften anything I said, or he would be the first one shot!

I told them that no doubt some of them were Fascists. I didn't care. Fascism was dead, whatever they thought. The Germans had always treated Italians like dirt, and were now too busy to reward anyone who tried something stupid, like shooting me.

Besides, I added, anybody who tries to shoot me probably won't even live to be hanged. These pistols aren't for show. I think the translator got everything through the way I wanted it.

The first A-20 landed today. Emergency landing-pilot got off course after the flak shot him up and holed a fuel tank, didn't have enough gas to make it back south, so flew out our way and landed safely with no brakes and damned little fuel. I think that proves our runways work. I won't really be happy until we can land a B-17-or even better, launch a raid of B-24s all the way to southern Germany.

I still keep hearing people fuss about the Foggia Plain around Naples. Fogg the Foggia plain! We can run a nice little air force out of Sardinia, another one out of Corsica (if we can keep the Corsicans from stealing everything that isn't nailed down), and then wait for the rest of Italy to get ripe and be ours.

I hope, for their sakes, that all the Germans in southern Italy who want to see the Fatherland again are on their best behavior. For our sakes, they can run wild with the vino and the signorinas so that they end up with their balls decorating the gates of all the local houses.

I think the Italians really wouldn't mind fighting the Germans, if they could do so without much danger. But there's no way you can fight the Germans without danger. The next best thing for them would be some modern equipment, which I understand, seeing what they were fighting with (or without). But all their factories are still in German hands, and we're still going for the Mediterranean knockout on a tight budget.

Note from Ike says that Marshall is beginning to worry about the expindeture of landing craft that we'll need in the Channel. Have to do up a very careful reply, not telling Marshall or Ike their business, but God knows somebody has to! We're going for a knockout in the Med not to put off the Channel crossing, but because we've got a good grip on a whole lot of Germans and can kill them more conveniently now rather than later.

Every German we kill here in Italy is one less we have to worry about facing somewhere else in Europe. Territory doesn't matter. Burying Germans in it does.

Evening -Beedle [Lt. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower's Chief of Staff] flew in aboard a B-25. Runway turned out to be just about long enough for a safe landing, if you don't mind having a heart attack. Beedle looked rather shaken when he climbed down. Maybe his ulcer as well as the flight? I wish he would either get better and not snarl at everybody, or get worse and have to go home.

Showed me a MOST SECRET (it was British) map about where everybody is.

The Germans are definitely moving south. But they don't have more than six divisions south of Rome. The air forces are keeping those fairly busy, so they haven't occupied too many key points. Italian units being disarmed where it's safe, but some are supposed to be just hiding their weapons and going home. Germans don't have enough strength to hunt runaways through every village.

Situation north of Rome turning nasty. The Germans are definitely holding on to industrial northern Italy, and being pretty rough about disarming Italians and arresting resistance. The SS has been in action. Total up there is about ten divisions, three of them panzers.

Beedle said he favors a landing at Salerno, in fighter range of Sicily. I said we'd have fighter cover over Civitavecchia all the way south to Naples by the time we needed it. He said we'd damned well better, or we'd lose three divisions and half the Navy.

The Salerno/Civitavecchia landing force is at sea out of Bizerte. The British are ready to cross the Straits of Messina and also land near Taranto tomorrow. I hope they move out fast again, because they'll need Italian support . The Italians obviously won't support anything or anybody who doesn't stand between them and the Germans, and I told Beedle as much.

He accused me of "defeatism." I did not say what he was doing, when he moaned about needing to land at Salerno. Going ashore north of Rome might put us up against strong German forces, but the Navy can hold the ring until we get air cover from Sardinia over them. The Luftwaffe has had it and anybody who thinks otherwise hasn't looked up lately.

North of Rome, we are squarely in the rear of more than twice as many more Germans as we bagged in Sicily. We are also north of several mountain ranges where the Germans could hold until winter just by rolling rocks downhill. Then nobody would go anywhere.

Salerno is south of all these places you don't want to visit and enough Germans to hold on to them until hell froze over.