Rome 44, The Battle for the Eternal City - PDF Free Download (2025)

The 1944

Allied drive for the liberation of

Rome,

from the January landings at Anzio to the entrance into the Holy City on June 5, is one of the great epics of World War II. Yet it has only been told in bits and pieces. Now, in a masterwork of narrative history, the full story is set down by that rarest of

all

authorities, a distinguished historian

who

was also a participant in the events. Month by month the action is seen from three main vantage points, Rome, Anzio, and Monte Cassino. In the long-occupied city we see the struggle among Wehrmacht and Gestapo, the con-

tending resistance groups, the Vatican, and Romans of all sorts and conditions, from contessas and schoolchildren to collaborators and random victims of the Ardeatine Caves executions. At the Anzio beachhead we know combat and stalemate as hideous as any in the war, while at Monte Cassino, the world-treasured mountaintop abbey whose aerial bombing by the Allies is still a sore controversy, we see a savage push upward that will always stand as a deadly landmark in the annals of attack and siege. Raleigh Trevelyan was a 21-year-old British officer at Anzio and was wounded twice in Italy. In 1956 he published his trench diaries as a short book. The Fortress, and this in turn led to contacts and friendships with Germans who had been only

away twelve years earlier. Their own diaries and memories join the myriad original sources of this remarkable book. Interviews with Americans, British, and Italians, high and low, are part of the mosaic. Indeed, every available authority on both sides of the Atlantic, published and unpublished, has been skillfully utilized to construct the definitive answer to the question the author was asked by so many Romans in 1944: "What took you so long?" yards

Jacket design by George Sanders Photograph on front of jacket by Raleigh Trevelyan

#T\%

ROME

'44

Also by Raleigh Trevelyan

The

Fortress

A Hermit

Disclosed

The Big Tomato Princes under the Volcano

The Shadow of Vesuvius

Pre-Raphaelite Circle

Rome ^4 The

Battle for the Eternal City

Raleigh Trevelyan

The Viking Press

New York

Trevclyati

Published

1982 by The Viking Press

625 Madison Avenue,

New

York. N.Y. 10022

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Trevelyan, Raleigh.

Rome

'44, the battle for the Eternal City.

Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1.

World War, 1939-1945-Italy-Rome. I. Title. (Italy) -History-1870-1945.

Rome

II.

Title:

D763.I82R68

Rome

fortyfour.

940.53'45

ISBN 0-670-60604-9

Grateful

acknowledgment

made

81-51884

AACR2

to the following for permission to reprint

copyrighted material:

Newspaper Syndicate: Three "Willie and Joe" cartoons, appearing on page 174, Bill Mauldin. Used by permission of Bill Mauldin and Wil-Jo Associates, Inc. Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc.: A selection from Calculated Risk by Mark W. Clark, copyright 1950 by Mark W. Clark. Col. John P. Lucas, Jr Selections from the unpublished Diary of General John P. Lucas, copyright 1981 by Col. John P. Lucas, Jr. Used by permission. All rights Field

reserved.

Printed in the United States of America Set in

Bembo

ONCE AGAIN

MEMORY

OF THE

FOUR

were 20,000

The

feet

over

Rome.

voice of the bombardier in the nacelle sounded calm.

'Bomb doors

open!'

'OK,' said the captain.

'Bombs away!' came That was I

bombs

could not see the

clusters

the bombardier's answer.

all.

from the other

drop. But

Forts ahead

As we switched towards the

sea,

saw them tumble

could see the white ribbon of

whose spirals rose in the clear from the inferno of smoke and bomb-bursts. From 'Twenty Angels over Rome' by Richard McMillan,

the Tiber, flowing past the Vatican,

sunlight far

London, ig44

Look back across the Tiber at the city spread beneath our feet in mellow tints of white, and red, and brown, broken here and there by masses of dark green pine and cypress, and by shining all Its

cupolas raised to the sun. There

Europe and the tion: for there,

their ancient

it all lies

beneath

living chronicle of man's long

we know,

columns and

us, the heart

march

to civiliza-

are the well-proportioned piazzas with their fountains splashing in shade

and

shine around the sculptured water-gods of the Renaissance; the

Forum won back by

first monuments of the naked hulks of giant ruins stripped long ago by hungry generations of Papal architects; and there, on the outskirts of the town, is the Pyramid that keeps watch

the spade; and the

Christian Conquest. There

rise

the

over the graves.

From

'Garibaldi's Defence of the

by G.

Roman

Republic'

Trevelyan, London, igoy

do not want Germans or Americans. Let us weep in peace. Written on a wall in Trastevere, Rome, fanuary ig44

'Otto, Otto! Ich sterbe. Otto!'

cry

from no-man's

land,

Anzio Beachhead, February 1944

CONTENTS List

Illustrations,

Maps and Cartoons

Dramatis Personae -January-June 1944 Allied Forces at Anzio Prologue

xi xiii

xvii I

JANUARY Rome

Algiers

Carthage - Marrakech - Caserta

Brindisi

Anzio

Monte

40 Soratte

- Albano

Rome

Algiers

Anzio

Algiers

FEBRUARY Ardea - Albano

Rome

Paolisi

121

Cassino

122

Minturno Anzio - Carroceto

143

Pozzuoli

159 160

Anzio - Fischfang

144

CONTENTS

MARCH 175

Rome

186

Cassino - Anzio

198

Cassino

Rome APRIL-JUNE

233

Anzio

246 266

Rome Cassino - Anzio 'Stalingrad'

- Valmontone

281

295

Sorrento

Rome

296

Campidoglio - St Peter's Sorrento - Castiglione Fiorentino

316

'Stalmgrad'

327 329

Events in 1943

January-July Acknowledgements, Sources and Notes

332

Appendix: 'Panorama

349

Events

Index

in 1944:

ot Italy'

335

353

List of Illustrations

Maps and

Cartoons

Photographs between pp. 210 and 211 1

Peter Beach

X-Ray Beach

The author

Attack across the Moletta

6 7 8

9 10

American bazooka

attack

Jews digging sand out of the Tiber Captured Americans and British marching up Via Tritone General Maeltzer and Maria Canigha Mother Mary St Luke Captain Schutz

Monsignor O'Flaherty Alpini encamped at Monte Marrone ItaHan women escaping from San Vittore The bombing of Cassino town Germans bringing in wounded, Cassino

General Pfeifer

17 18

American and British prisoners carrying Near the Lobster Claw Wadis

12 13

20 21

Fosso di Carroceto

way to the Fortress Wounded GIs German propaganda leaflet the

A A

Private Sutton carried by

stretchers

fair at

Sulmona

GI shares

his rations

German prisoners German guards at St Peter's The Americans enter Rome The German retreat The Pope meets Allied war correspondents The lynching of Carretta

Kesselring arrives for his

26 27 28

trial

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS,

xii

MAPS AND CARTOONS

Maps hetweeti pp. xviii and xxv by David The Anzio-Ncttuno Landings The Battlefields The Struggle for Monte Cassino

Charles,

The Kirkham Studios

Rome Cartoons 1

The

Two

Types by

page

'Jon'

Willie and Joe series by

Wounded Germans

Bill

in the

by Wilhelm Wessel

Mauldin

Roman Campagna

page 174 page 232

Dramatis Personae — January—June 1944

The following city's destiny,

a list

and

of some central figures affecting or affected by the

in relation to this

book.

THE VATICAN Pope Pius XII (Eugenio

Pacelli)

Cardinal Luigi Maglione: Secretary of State

Monsignor Domenico Tardini: Secretary

oi'

the

Congregation of

Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs

Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini: Sostitiito or Substitute Secretary of State, later Pope Paul VI Monsignor Amleto Cicognani: Apostolic Delegate in Washington Padre Pancrazio liaison

with

Pfeiffer:

German

Superior-General ot the Salvatorian Order;

authorities

D'Arcy Osborne: British Minister to the Holy See Harold H. Tittmann Jr: United States Charge d'Affaires Sir

to the

Holy

See

Baron Ernst von Weizsaecker: German Ambassador

to the

Holy See

THE 'NAZIFASCISTI' Lieutenant-General Kurt Maeltzer; German Commandant in Rome Colonel Eugen Dollmann: Waffen SS liaison officer for General Wolff, head of SS in Italy

Lieutenant-Colonel Herbert Kappler: head of Gestapo Pietro Caruso: Fascist Chief of Police

Pietro Koch: head of Fascist political police squad

XIV

DRAMATIS PERSONAE -JANUARY -JUNE

THE

944

ROMAN UNDERGROUND

MILITARY FRONT ('bADOGLIANi') Colonel Giuseppe Cordero Lanza January General Quirino Armellini:

Montezemolo: Commander

Commander

to 5

January to 24 March

General Roberto Bencivegna: Commander 24 March onwards General Filippo Caruso:

Commander

of Carabinieri

Ettore Basevi (Centro X, Intelligence)

COMMITTEE OF NATIONAL LIBERATION (cln) Ivanoe Bonomi: head of CLN, Labour Democrat Conte Alessandro Casati: Liberal Alcide De Gasperi: Christian Democrat

Ugo

La Malfa: Action Party

Pietro Nenni: Socialist

Meuccio Ruim: Labour Democrat (Democrazia

Lavoro)

Mauro Scoccimarro: Communist Giorgio Amendola: Communist, Military Junta,

throughout central

Commander

of 'Gaps'

Italy

Riccardo Bauer: Action Party, Military Junta Sandro Pertini: Socialist, Military Junta

THE ROMAN

'gAPS' (gRUPPI DI

AZIONE PATRIOTTICA)

Commander to 2 February Commander from 2 February

Antonello Trombadori:

Carlo

Salinari:

JEWISH ASSISTANCE Padre Benedetto (Benoit-Marie de Bourg): Capuchin monk, head of Dclasem, organization tor assistance to foreign Jews

THE ROME ESCAPE ORGANIZATION Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty:

Irish, at

the Congregation oi the

Holy

Office, Vatican; initiator of organization 'Council of Three'

John May: butler to D'Arcy Osborne; one of original 'Council' Conte Sarsfield Salazar: at Swiss Legation, one of original 'Council' Major Sam Derry: senior military officer in charge from December 1943 Mrs Fkmrietta Chevalier: Maltese, first to supply accommodation for escaped

POWs

DRAMATIS PERSONAE - JANUARY-JUNE I944

OSS (OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES) SPY NETWORK Peter Tompkins: Fifth

Army

intelligence

Maurizio Giglio ('Cervo'): operator of clandestine radio

Major Barone Franco 'Coniglio':

Malfatti: Socialist

member of SIM,

underground

Italian

Army

military intelligence

POLITICIANS IN THE SOUTH Marshal Pietro Badoglio: Prime Minister Benedetto Croce: Liberal, philosopher and historian Conte Carlo Sforza: Independent, pre-Fascist Foreign Secretary and diplomat Palmiro TogUatti ('Ercole

Ercoli'): head of Communist party in Italy; March arrived from USSR Harold Macmillan: British High Commissioner, member Allied in

Advisory Council Robert D. Murphy:

to April

US member

of Advisory Council, ambassadorial

rank Massigli: French member of Advisory Council Andrei Vyshinsky: Soviet member of Advisory Council to March Alexander Bogomolov: Soviet member of Advisory Council from

Rene

March Sir

Noel Charles:

British

member Advisory Council from

April 1944,

member Advisory Council from

April 1944,

ambassadorial rank

Alexander C. Kirk: US ambassadorial rank

Major-General Sir Noel Mason-MacFarlane: Chief Commissioner, Allied Control Commission Harold Caccia: British Vice-President, political section Control

Commission Samuel Reber: US Vice-President,

ALLIED

political section

Control Commission

COMMANDERS AT ANZIO

General the Hon. Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander: Allied Armies in Lieutenant-General Mark W. Clark: Fifth Army

Italy

Major-General John P. Lucas: US VI Corps to 23 February Major-General Lucian K. Truscott Jr: 3rd US Infantry Division to 17 February, VI Corps from 23 February

XVI

DRAMATIS PERSONAE - JANUARY-JUNE 944 1

Major-General V. Evelegh: British Deputy 17 February Brigadier-General John

O'Daniel: 3rd

Commander

VI Corps from

Infantry Division

from

17 February

Major-General Ernest W. Harmon; ist US Armored Division Major-Gencral W. R. C. Penney: ist British infantry Division

REINFORCEMENTS TO APRIL Major-General William W. Eagles: 45th US Infantry Division Major-General G. W. R. Templer: 56th Infantry Division Brigadier-General Robert T. Frederick: ist US-Canadian Special Service Force Major-General P. G.

Gregson-EUis: 5th British Infantry Division

REINFORCEMENTS IN MAY Major-General Charles W. Ryder: 34th US Infantry Division Major-General Fred. L. Walker: 36th US Infantry Division

GERMAN COMMANDERS AT ANZIO Field-Marshal Albert Kesselring: Commander-in-Chief South-West and

Army Group C Lieutenant-General Ernst Schlemmer:

commander

Commander Rome

January Colonel-General Eberhard von Mackensen: Fourteenth ponsible local

General Alfred Schlemm:

Area, res-

until 23

Army

Parachute Corps

LXXVI Panzer Corps Major-General Paul Conrath: Hermann Goering Panzer Division Major-General Helmuth Pfeifer: 65th Division Major-General Heinz Trettner: 4th Parachute Division (promoted during

General Traugott Herr:

campaign from Colonel) Major-General Wilhelm Raapke: 71st Infantry Division

Major-General Hans-Georg Hildebrandt: 715th Infantry Division Lieutenant-General Smilo von Luettwitz: 26th Panzer Division Lieutenant-General Walther

Fries:

29th Panzer Grenadier Division

Lieutenant-General Fritz-Hubert Graeser: 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division Lieutenant-General Karl Eglseer: 114th Jaeger Division Lieutenant-General Heinz Gremer: 362nd Infantry Division

Allied Forces at Anzio: January VI Corps, US Fifth Army BRITISH I

loth Battalion

Infantry Division

169th Infantry Brigade

Sth Battalion Grenadier

Guards

1st

Battalion Irish Ciuards

1st

Battalion Scots Cuiards

2nd/5th, 2nd/6th, 2nd/7th Battalions

The Queen

Battalion

Royal Regiment

13th Infantry Brigade

The Ciordon

2nd Battalion The Cameronians 2nd Battalion The Royal Inmskiiling

Highlanders St

5th Infantry Division

2nd Infantry Brigade

The Royal Berkshire

Regiment

24th CJuards Brigade

6th Battalion

The Loyal Regiment

Fusiliers

2nd Battalion The North Staffordshire

2nd Battalion The Wiltshire

Regiment

3rd Infantry Brigade

15th Infantry Brigade

Battalion

1st

The Duke

oi'

Wellington's Regiment Battalion

1st

Battalion

1st

Battalion

1st

Yorkshire Light Infantry Battalion The York and Lancaster

2nd Battalion The Sherwood Foresters 2nd, 19th, 67th, 24th Field Regiments

The Green Howards The King's Own

1st

The King's Shropshire

Light Infantry

Regiment 17th Infantry Brigade

RA 80th

April

2nd Battalion The Northamptonshire

Medium Regiment

(The

Regiment

Scottish Horse)

90th Light

Regiment RA Companies

23rd, 238th, 248th Field

2nd Battalion The Royal Scots Fusiliers

6th Battalion

Reconnaissance Regim.ent 2nd/7th Battalion The Middlesex 1st

Regiment (MG) Tank Regiment 3rd Beach Group (54th The Durham Light Infantry, 70th The Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment)

7th Battalion

46th Royal

Battalion

1st

6th

1st,

The Sherwood

3rd, 4th

751st

45th

Tank

Ranger Infantry

Infantry Division

Regiments

158th, i6oth, 171st, 189th Field Artillery

The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry 8th and 9th Battalions The Royal

Battalions

645th 1st

Tank Destroyer

Battalion

Special Service Force (Canadian-

American)

Fusiliers

i68th Infantry Brigade

The London The London

Battalions

Battalion

157th, 179th, i8oth Infantry

7th Battalion

Battalion

Regiments

509th Parachute Infantry Battahon

Own

167th Infantry Brigade

1st

Infantry Division

504th Parachute Infantry Regiment

Foresters

Battalion

(less

end April)

7th, 15th, 30th Infantry

Yorkshire Light Infantry

1st

Combat

Division 'B' until

Armored Regiment Armored Infantry Regiment

3rd

The Buffs The King's

14th Battalion

US Armored Command

1st

18th Infantry Brigade 1st

The Cheshire Regiment

AMERICAN

56th Infantry Division

9th Battahon

Seaforth

(MG)

2nd Special Service Brigade 9th, 43rd Royal Marine Commandos (40th in April)

The

Highlanders 5th Reconnaissance Regiment

36th, 540th Engineer Irish Rifles

Scottish

Combat

Regiments 1st Naval Beach Battalion

PETER

BEACH

ANZIO

YELLOW BEACH

Miles

r 2

Kilometres

THE ANZIO - NETTUNO LANDINGS

XRAY 3EACH Astura

Tower

Mo Cir(

THE BATTLEFIELDS

'^^

STRUGGLE FOR MONTE CASSINO .•^,r.-

^:?^' ^'"WK'i:

.:;^'

~,;^*5"55^-

CASTELLONI

lit-

THE MONASTERY (MONTE CASSINO)

Kilometres

ANGELO

V7I

^i^

^% n

00/

3i>;

^5^

Prologue

went

first

Rome in

October 1944, and stayed there on and off for the

next couple of years. Having spent, earher on, nearly three months in the

and dugouts of Anzio, was glad to have a base job with a Anglo-American organization called MMIA, the Military Mission to the Italian Army, known to the Italians as Mamma .Mia. 'Why did you Allies stay so long at Anzio?' Romans sometimes asked in a semi-teasing way. only began to learn some of the answers a long slit-trenches

peculiar

while afterwards

been

when

read books about the campaign. At Anzio

platoon commander, aged twenty, and like others around

had had

and the deaths had a point, and that those in charge of our destinies knew what they were doing and never made mistakes, and that they were never affected by fatigue, vanity, jealousy or to believe that the discomforts

megalomania. wrote a book about some of my experiences at Anzio, and as a result of that met a German who had fought opposite me. We became friends, a I

favourite joke being that

think

used to throw grenades

both had the same sort of feelings

tighting, killing, simply because in battle,

but

one has

one another. One goes on strange compulsion at

in the front line.

to; there

usually a matter of self-preservation.

would want to return to Anzio, or to Cassino, but fate drawn me back there several times. Anzio is now a large cheerful holiday resort, with some of the best fish restaurants I have known. The monastery of Monte Cassino, on the other hand, is still to me a sombre I

never thought

has

the Polish cemetery beneath

place;

beautiful, but haunting

and

painful.

Coming

Rome was the realization

of a dream. In the trenches it had was soon to learn something about but on the whole they preferred not to

always seemed the great inaccessible.

my Roman discuss

Time

them,

triends' ordeals, just as

has changed

all

preferred to forget

that,

and

my own

recent experiences.

even helps to remember. Several of the

PROLOGUE

2 people

mention here

of mine -

are friends

American,

Italian, British,

German. Several more have told me their stories, which were indispensable as background for the period but, unfortunately, had to be left out for reasons of length.

This book covers controversial episodes which can

Within reason

have

tried to

be objective

when

arouse passions.

still

describing them, though

I cannot help having a bias occasionally. In writing about have avoided meticulous details of military operations. I have

being English battles

aimed

first

show what

was

from both

half of 1944

command, and

in this

have lived through those months in the of the fence, within the context of higher

like to

sides

way have I

tried to

have had to be recorded here, but

from the beginning

Why

that they

be subjective.

think

do not

Some

evil

deeds

important to emphasize

indict a race or nation.

did the Allies stay on so long at the Anzio Beachhead?

Why

indeed?

The

landings took place on 22 January 1944, so this date

point for

book. At the end

1943, followed first

half of 1944, mostly to

By January

have given

for reference if need be

do with

a list

the starting

of some main events

- by another

Rome

and the

list

of events

Italian

in the

campaign.

1944, although stalemate had been reached in Italy, the tide

in the Allies' favour. It was known that were about to launch a crucial offensive in the Arakan in Burma; however the Americans, with great boldness, were preparing to

of the war was beginning to turn the Japanese

land forty thousand troops in the heart of the Marshall Islands in the

The Russians were sweeping forward. On 20 January the ancient of Novgorod was recaptured. The blockade of Leningrad was about to be lifted, the Ukraine had been entered and the Crimea cut off.

Pacific.

city

The

campaign in Sicily had led to the fall of Mussolini on September the British Eighth Army had crossed the Straits of Messina unopposed, and on 9 September the US Fifth Army had landed at Salerno with very different results, though ultimately successful. In the meantime there had been secret negotiations for an armistice between the Allies and the Italian government headed by Marshal Badoglio. The announcement of the armistice on 8 September by General Eisenhower came prematurely from the Italian point of view, and resulted in the flight of Badoglio and the royal family from Rome to Brindisi, soon to be safely occupied by the Allies, who also entered Naples on I October after four days' popular uprising. On 3 October the Germans success of the

25 July 1943.

finally

The

evacuated Sardinia and Corsica. armistice resulted in fierce

German

reprisals against Italian troops

in Yugoslavia; the Itahan fleet sailed to Malta. In

Rome an

anti-Badoglio

PROLOGUE

of left and right patriots, known as the CLN, was set up, but all was soon crushed by the Germans, and on 9 September the occupation of the city began. The CLN went underground. A rival procoalition

resistance

Bad oglio organization, the Military Front, under Colonel Montezemolo, was in due course also secretly formed. The Badoglio government remained under Allied control in Brindisi. On 12 September there was the famous rescue of Mussolini by Skorzeny from the Gran Sasso in the Abruzzi mountains. Mussolini was flown to Munich, and soon afterwards set up a puppet republican

government

The

Salo on Lake Garda.

what Churchill had called the 'soft underbelly' of Europe was slowing down. This was partly due to mountainous country, the exceptionally bad weather and swollen rivers. Hitler had also determined that no more ground in Italy should be lost. The other important factors were the Americans' insistence that preparations for Overlord in 1944 must be given overriding priority and their anxiety to bring the war in the Pacific to a quick end; Washington was not therefore anxious to be committed to an expensive and exhausting campaign in southern Europe. On 13 November the British were forced to evacuate islands in the eastern Aegean, partly through lack of American support. This was a Allied advance northwards to

great disappointment to Churchill,

who had

thought that their successful

occupation might encourage Turkey to join the turn might ensure British-American, or

dominance

in the

Allies,

any

and that

this in

rate British,

pre-

Balkans before the arrival of the Russians.

November

the

first

Cairo Conference, between Churchill and

Roosevelt, opened, followed by the Teheran Conference with Stalin on 28

November. Churchill

about stronger efforts

did not succeed in gaining support for his ideas

in the

it was agreed was re-emphasized

Mediterranean, though

winter offensive in Italy would continue.

that the

that

all

must be given to Overlord, with its ancillary operation Anvil - a landing in the South of France - about which Churchill was unenthusiastic. At the second Cairo Conference, beginning on 4 December, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed that Eisenhower should return to Britain to take charge of Overlord, and that there now should be a British Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean. In the event Turkey did not come into the war. Churchill, left on his own and on a sick-bed, continued to brood on more dramatic ventures in Italy, 'to finish off the Rome job' as he put it. Hence Anzio priority

Since this book is mainly concerned with the experiences of individuals whose destinies were largely governed by other people's decisions, I have

PROLOGUE

on notes and tape-recordings of interviews, as well as and unpublished reminiscences. have also used regimental accounts and books of memoirs, many published soon after the war; fitting them together was somethmg of a jigsaw, as balanced one against the other, correcting facts on occasions, adding bits from conversations with the authors themselves, or with people who knew the authors and took part in the events described, and from my own knowledge. My first book, The Fortress, much shorter and entirely personal, was based on the have therefore avoided using the same diary kept at Anzio, and material, when appear in this story, and instead have quoted from letters I wrote at the time or other extracts from my diary. A list of people whom have interviewed or who have helped me is at the end of the book. have been particularly fortunate in having access to the diaries of Nick Mansell, Sir D'Arcy Osborne and Harold H. Tittmann 3rd. As the diary of Tina Whitaker was also in part the basis of another book of mine, though again quite different, have concentrated on unpublished extracts. The diary of Mother Mary St Luke was published in 1954 under the pseudonym ofJane Scrivener; her nephew, Robert L. Hoguet, has kindly provided me with additional material. Major-General Walther Gencke generously made his Anzio war diary and maps available to me. Wilhelm Velten, who himself is the author of a book on the 65th Division, has — also generously - supplied me with a quantity of diaries and reminiscences, all unpublished, by his comrades, as well as a transcription of the Fourteenth Army War Diary and the account by Schmitz of the bombing of Cassino. Much of this German material has been put on to relied a great deal

diaries, letters

tapes in English for

than

me by Joachim

have been able to

use;

Liebschner, often

count myself lucky

fear in

having such

detail

a friend.

Graham SJ and Monsignor Elio Venier have guided many important documents and people concerned with Church matters in Rome; the official Vatican documents for the period, in a volume partly edited by Father Graham, were made public just before Father Robert A.

showing of his excellent television documentary Testimoni Oculari (1979), which included interviews with Dollmann, Kappler and Amendola. Marisa Musu was instrumental in my being able to interview several key figures in the Gaps. am also grateful to Emanuele Pacifici for providing me with much material on the Jews of Rome, including the 'Black Panther'. The two official volumes on the US Army in World War II by Martin Blumenson and Ernest F. Fisher are of course prime sources for the campaign, as is the British equivalent edited by Brigadier C. J. C. Molony and others. Blumenson and Fisher have included in their books some extracts from General Mark Clark's diary, now at the Citadel, Charleston, South Carolina; some of these have used, supplemented by completed

this

book. Gianni Bisiac arranged

a special

PROLOGUE

Cicneral Clark's own autobiography, Calculated Risk, and his interviews with Sidney T. Mathews (1948) and Colonel Forest S. Rittgers (1972), transcripts of which are at the US Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. I was able to study not only the whole of General

Lucas' Anzio diary but several interviews with the Beachhead, assistance

all

sent

from

Carlisle Barracks.

from various departments

many

at the

have

who were at had much

also

Center of Military History, the

DC, and am

National Archives, Washington,

officers

in particular grateful for

of recorded comments on the conduct and strategy of the war in Italy by Kesselring and German generals. The sad death of Brigadier Molony has meant that the official British history of the campaign after 31 March 1944 has yet to be completed. transcripts

Nevertheless, the release of documents at the Public Record Office, Kew, under the thirty-year rule has to some small extent compensated for this. Of particular importance have been Churchill's memoranda and cables, the trials of Kesselring, Maeltzer and Mackensen, and the files containing cables to and from D'Arcy Osborne. Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, author of the first major British book on Anzio (1961), has provided me with

personal anecdotes and directed

to transcripts

of original

by himself and Denis Johnston. am also indebted to Lady Tuker, who has deposited her

BBC

broadcasts I

papers

at the

Imperial

War Museum

Indeed the library

has been indispensable in

way of books and such

War Museum.

magazines, but in giving

the diary of Lieutenant Peter

Royle

late

husband's

at the

Imperial

researches, not only in the

me at

access to original

MSS,

Cassino.

must thank Mrs Joan L. Haybittle for her great help in the various of typing this book, and Marianna Traub for advice and assistance

stages

with some Italian tape-recordings. Nina Taylor translated Polish documents given me by Colonel M. Mlotek, who has my sincere thanks -

have not been able to use everything provided. Miriam Benkovitz kindly sifted through papers at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde again

Park, and Lieutenant-Colonel G. A. Shepperd, author of a standard work on the Italian campaign, has also given me much useful advice. Ranger James J. Altieri has supplied me with essential details about his brave comrades. Ennio Silvestri's hospitality at Anzio has been not only

Lucullan but has enabled me to lay many ghosts. Finally, my special thanks go to Janet Venn-Brown for research in Rome, to Donald E. Spencer in Washington, to Laszlo M. Alfoldi at Carlisle Barracks, and as

always to Raul Balin, to

who

mention encouragement In a

fought etc.)

book at

like this

Anzio, or

which took part

has helped at

with research and advice, not

every stage.

not possible to mention every regiment that

Cassino.

in the first

p. xvii

have

months of

the

listed units (less

Beachhead

medical

fighting.

JANUARY

Rome

'Your aunt

is ill

and about to

die.'

This curt sentence was received with delight by scores of people in

Rome

during the small hours of 22 January 1944. For it was a message and meant that the Allies had, at last, landed somewhere, near

in code,

the city.

'The news

electrifies.

Our

Minister of Italy in his diary.

liberation approaches!'

wrote

The Germans were showing

and packing up ready to leave. Would there now be the Four Days in Naples at the end of September? 22 January 1944. For

a start,

future

Prime

signs of alarm

mass uprismg

take thirteen people living in the city of cities.

First, an American nun, born Jessie Lynch in Brooklyn, now known as Mother Mary St Luke and working for the Vatican information bureau. Her convent was off Via Veneto, near the fashionable hotels requisitioned by the Germans. Nobody was as yet certain where exactly the landings had been — somewhere to the south, evidently. The BBC was deliberately vague, and Rome Radio mentioned them not at all. But the news was like a cloud lifting, she wrote. And indeed it was a perfect Rome morning, with the sun on the cupolas and the fountains, and the sky a bird's egg

blue.

That night she found

difficult to sleep,

passing continually along the streets.

Germans are leaving.' Mother Mary was a woman of

'Bliss,'

because of the swish of cars she wrote the next day, 'to

think the

spirit,

humorous, once a champion Holy Child Jesus. The

squash-player. She belonged to the Society of the

convent was

a large

building of the turn of the century, with

garden

full

of wistaria, plumbago and bougainvillea. In the seventeenth century this area of Rome had belonged to Cardinal Ludovisi, nephew of Pope

Gregory XV, and the great wall of Marcus Aurelius was a few hundred yards away. The Byzantine General Belisarius had entered through the gate, now known as Porta Pinciana. Belisarius was often referred to in the

JANUARY

A warning had been sent to Churchill by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, after some sinister threats by the BBC about the possibility of yet more bombings: 'Rome belongs to all mankind, not to Italy alone. In AD 544 Belisarius dissuaded Totila from destroying it with the plea that Rome was the property o( the whole world, and that whoever destroyed it would be destroying not the city of another country, but his own city.' Now, of course, there was worse danger than from mere bombings. If the Germans eventually decided not papers nowadays.

Rome,

to evacuate

could well turn into another Stalingrad.

The Germans had pretended to acknowledge Rome as an 'open city', but that was hokum. They had a Transport Command, for instance, in which was so full of troops that the American nuns called it Brighter Berlin. The main German headquarters was just over the wall, in Corso d'ltalia. This as a result had become a magnet for partisan activity, and at night-time one often heard rifle shots and grenade explosions. Barbed-wire barricades and machine-gun posts had appeared after the Flora Hotel bomb on i o December - apparently Kesselring had been there Via

Sistina,

the very morning of the incident, when some Germans had been killed. In Mother Mary's street there were also notices forbidding the use of bicycles, because of what she called 'cycle murders'; anyone who disobeyed would be shot on sight. It was typical of the resourceful

Romans

that they should use tricycles instead.

Fascist police kept an

eye on the convent, just

of war or Jews might take refuge there. Not,

do anything about territorial

such

in case

escaped prisoners

in theory, that

thing did happen,

as the

they ought to

convent was extra-

property and therefore supposed to be inviolate. However, just

before Christmas there had been the alarming raid on the Collegio

Lombardo, Vatican property, with the consequent arrest of various leftwing refugees concealed there. Officially there was a death penalty for hiding or helping prisoners of war, just as there was for owning a radio transmitter. Hiding Jews would mean being sent to labour camps. It was a law now that a list of the names of all inhabitants of a building had to be posted downstairs in the entrance

The only

hall.

Mother Mary's convent were four Sicilian refugees. Another convent of the Holy Child, up on Monte Mario, had been sheltering thirteen Jews ever since the October deportations. As for 'guests'

escaped prisoners of war, there were supposed to be scores of them, chiefly British,

hidden

all

over

Rome. There was

also a handful in the Vatican

itself.

'Surely,'

wonder

Mother Mary wrote, 'the Allies must take know how, for us, every minute makes

they

Peppino Zamboni, aged eleven, an orphan, was

quick

Rome

soon.

a difference.'

as a weasel.

ROME lived

on the other

with

his aunt,

side

normal times

to wail, saying that die.

delighted by the

at all

news of the landing and

started

Rome was going to be bombed again and they would

sister, Peppino's mother, had been among the several during the terrible Allied air-raid on 19 July 1943; she had flower-seller at the Verano cemetery. During that raid the basilica

For her

hundred been

Roman

in a

dealer in olive oil and wine.

Zia Luisa was not

all

crumbhng Trastevere tenement, of the Romans, enormous and voluble,

of the Tiber,

Zia Luisa,

killed

of San Lorenzo had been badly damaged, and the Holy Father, Pius XII, had gone there at once, alone with Monsignor Montini, and had moved

among

the

crowd of the bereaved and homeless, blessing them. He had hand on Peppino's head and this was one of the main

actually laid a

reasons

why

Zia had taken

in the

boy. Peppino's younger

been so lucky. They had been sent to

Frascati, to

sisters

another relative

had not

who sold

wine, and had not been heard of since the big raid on 8 September, the day before Marshal Badoglio and the royal family had fled from Rome

and the Germans had moved

Peppino was an typhoid

Kenya

orfatio di guerra,

whilst

more.

above

He and some

because his father had also died, from

prisoner of war, and was thus entitled to wear a

mourning band with two landings. Perhaps

in.

stars

it.

He was

very excited about the

he looked forward to not being hungry any

all

other boys had formed themselves into

group that

they called the 'Aviatori', specializing in the dangerous and not always successful task

of letting out

air

from the

tyres

of German vehicles. Their

great dream was that one day they could plant a bomb somewhere. Yet Peppino had a good friend who was a German sergeant called Leo, and who gave him lifts to Civitavecchia, forty-five miles north of Rome; he went in search of food, but the trips were often nightmarish as Civitavecchia was bombed almost every day. Zia Luisa was quite fond of Leo too and invited him upstairs sometimes; she seemed not to worry about sending Peppino on these dangerousjourneys. Once, after a heavy raid, he and some women and girls had had to stay the night in a barn. A German officer and his platoon wanted to shelter there too. The farmer had offered to turn the Italians out, but the officer insisted that they should remain; the Italians could sleep at one end, the Germans at another. The Germans never made any attempt to interfere with the women: something that Peppino was to remember many months later when he became accustomed to the behaviour of American troops.

The Duchess of Sermoneta had heard at a

the

news from

German diplomat

smart luncheon party, and had tried not to look too pleased about

After

telephone

call

packing', as she said.

the

Soon

man had there

rushed

was every

it.

oti,

'presumably to

sort

of rumour: the Germans

see to his

JANUARY

were fleeing; no, they would defend Communists were preparing to take over

Rome

house by house; the

the Capitol; political prisoners

were to be shot; an American armoured car had been seen on the old Appian Way. During the night she clearly heard artillery fire to the south, like 'roars

Once

of angry

tigers'.

Vittona Sermoneta was a leading figure Having been born a Colonna, she was a member of the 'black' or Papal aristocracy. She was also partly English. Her critics said that she was arrogant and worldly, and that she liked collecting famous people. As Colonel Dollmann of the SS said: 'All the best known film stars of the day, particularly those of the masculine gender, had drunk very dry Martinis among her centuries' old art treasures.' She was a ladybeautiful,

still

striking,

in international society.

in-waiting to the queen,

who

crown prince and

Prime Minister Badoglio on 9 September,

the

had

fled

ignominiously with the king, the

following the declaration of the Armistice with the

Allies.

Vittoria lived in Palazzo Orsini, built within the Theatre of Marcellus

(nephew of Augustus)^ between the Tarpeian Rock and the Tiber: a more than almost anything gives reality to the

fantastic construction that

hackneyed phrase 'Eternal City'. She and her friends indulged in reckless anti-German propaganda. As a result some of the great ladies, like Virginia Agnelli, half American and daughter-in-law of the Fiat boss, had ended up in a temporary prison in the convent of San Gregorio. These ladies' princeling sons, who had been in hiding, for greater safety now applied for posts in the Palatine Guard at the Vatican. Vittoria was becoming nervous, especially as she had two men, one an Army deserter, concealed in her apartment. Her greatest worry, in view of the rumours about Nazis being ready to shoot prisoners, was for the inmates of San Gregorio.

She was to write

later: 'In

and the

Allies

said: "It will

few days." Within had not arrived.

the Allies will be here in a arrested,

our ignorance '

week

not be long,

she herself

was

Eugen Dollmann was a colonel in the Waffen SS, a liaison officer between Himmler's chief of staff in Italy, General Wolff, and Field-Marshal Kesselring, and between Kesselring and the Vatican. The SS had 'honorary' members and Waffen (fighting) members. The former were non-combatant and regarded as the elite of the Nazi party, a 'moral bulwark' and not concerned with arrests and deportations. The Watfen SS were crack assault or shock troops. The honorary SS were often confused with yet another branch of the SS, comprising the SD {Sicherheitsdienst) or intelligence service, and the Gestapo, or political police,

which

after a

while were more or

less

merged.

of the Gestapo-SD was Colonel Herbert Kappler.

Rome

the head

ROME Lean, good-looking, Bavarian, 'with every fibre of

bachelor,

Rome Roman high

Dollmann loved

also had a weakness for was generally but probably wrongly assumed by Romans that he passed on information to Kappler which resulted in arrests. Vittoria Sermoneta ignored him, and for this reason he hated her more than she realized. By a coincidence, the wife of one of the men she was hiding in Palazzo Orsini lived in the same pension as Dollmann, above the

society,

and

being'.

Spanish Steps.

Dollmann had been roused from sleep within an hour of the landings and summoned to Kesselring's headquarters. There he learnt that the Allies were at the seaside towns of Anzio and Nettuno, only thirty-five miles from Rome. Exactly how big a force had landed was not as yet known, but it could have been three divisions. The Field-Marshal had been caught unawares and had only just sent his two spare divisions to the Cassino front, sixty miles further south; there were no reserves left in

Central Italy. He was afraid of an uprising in the city, but Dollmann, always cynical, told him he need not worry - he knew the Romans too

Dollmann remembered the pathetic sight of soldiers' abandoned weapons and even uniforms littering the streets and fields on 8-9 well.

poor old Badoglio had announced the Armistice and war was now over. A few civilian fools had fired shots and got killed in the area of the Pyramid of Cestius, but the Romans had learnt well enough how to get their own way without resorting to revolt and insurrection, 'first under the Caesars, and then under the Popes'. Vittoria Sermoneta's informant at the pension, September,

after

then bolted,

as if

the Italians had thought the

on the other hand, maintained

that

and preparing to leave. Dollmann's knowledge of the

made him

an ideal interpreter

Dollmann was 'nervous and Italian

language and

at top-level

agitated',

way of

life

had

conferences, including those

between Hitler and Mussolini. He saw himself in the role of a subtle worker for the saving of his beloved city, and had been responsible for the closing down of a torture-house run by Italian Fascists at Palazzo Braschi. He must have known of the equally dreadful things that happened in the Gestapo interrogation centre at Via Tasso, run by Kappler, the real terror of Rome. Kappler disliked Dollmann, whom he regarded as a drawingroom soldier, with nebulous duties that were 'clear neither to himself nor to anybody else'. Sunday 23 January was as calm as Dollmann predicted. Somebody had scrawled VVj^li '

in^lesi Uberatori' in

dog down

Via Condotti.

decided to be brave

He was surprised no doubt) any Allied columns racing across that ancient landscape of the Campagna, dotted with its umbrella pines, ruined towers and crumbled aqueducts. All he noticed was a hastily and drive with

his

not to encounter (just

as well,

the road towards Anzio.

JANUARY

improvised contingent of German

soldiers,

hauled out before time from

Rome

and being formed up to march south. There was nothing to prevent the Allies from driving straight to St

the

hospital in

Peter's.

Celeste Di Porto was aged eighteen, a Jewish prostitute. She was blackhaired, black-eyed, with high cheekbones. as 'Stella',

star,

a child

she had been

known now

because of her vivacity and beauty. Her nickname

was the 'Black Panther'. Being of limited intelligence, she perhaps - on

that morning of 22 January — looked forward to fresh conquests when the Anglo-Americans arrived. All the same, she could scarcely expect much mercy at the

Liberation. For she

Gestapo,

made

at five to fifty

betraying her

own

living out of

thousand

lire

denouncing fellow-Jews to the head, and was not averse to

relatives.

The Ghetto began just behind Palazzo Orsini, near the remaining columns of the Temple of Apollo. Some of its inhabitants claimed direct descent from the Jews brought by the Emperor Titus to help in the building of the Colosseum, and many more from those expelled from Spain in 1492. Not all Jews lived in the Ghetto, however. Kappler had list of addresses, so the great round-up of 16 October had spread to Trastcvere and even to hotels. Pregnant women, children and invalids had been included among the thousand-odd people trundled into cattle trucks on that day and sent north to the gas chambers. It was said that the Black Panther would accompany male suspects to the Gestapo headquarters and delight in pulling down their trousers to prove that they were circumcised. Not that she was alone in this game of betrayal. The Roman police were accustomed to receiving letters from anonymous Aryans about Jews in hiding. Mother Mary had written: 'It is nameless horror. People you know and esteem, brave, kind, upright .' people, just because they have Jewish blood

captured the Chief Rabbi's

Bonomi was an elder statesman from pre-Mussolini days; he had once been a Socialist deputy and was now head of the small right-wing Labour Democratic party. After the Armistice, when Rome had been left without government, the clandestine Committee of National Liberation, or CLN, had been formed under his leadership. Bonomi, with his whiteIvanoe

a well-known figure in Rome, so he and his wife happened, non-believers) were in hiding in the huge Seminario building at the rear of the basilica of St John Lateran. Yet on occasions he managed to slip out to meetings in other parts of Rome. The CLN consisted of six parties. The most powerful and best organized was the Communist. Its head was the almost legendary figure

pointed beard, was (both, as

ROME of

'Ercoli', alias

Palmiro Togliatti,

still in exile in Moscow, and it was by the Vatican. The small Party of Action was primarily an intellectuals' party, taking its origin from an old anti-Fascist movement, 'Justice and Liberty'. Its leaders had suffered persecution and imprisonment, and saw the Resistance in terms of a new Risorgimento, a recreation of Italy, spiritually and economically; it had a well defined

distrusted and feared

programme of redistribution of wealth, agrarian reforms etc., but was non-Marxist and did not want any allegiance to Moscow. The Socialist party, led by the considerable figure of Pietro Nenni, harked back to original Socialist principles before Mussolini's march on Rome. Bonomi's Labour Democrats were right of centre, not so violently antimonarchist as the three leftist parties, but opposed to King Victor

Emmanuel and the Badoglio government, now established in Brindisi. The Christian Democrat party, led by Alcide De Gasperi, representing Conservative and Cathohc opinion, was the most powerful in terms of popular support throughout Italy, while the Liberals, further to the right,

owed their inspiration to the ideals of the Neapolitan philosopher Benedetto Croce. The Christian Democrats and Liberals also opposed Victor Emmanuel and Badoglio. On the whole they supported Croce's view that the king should abdicate in favour of his grandson. Other CLNs had been formed in industrial cities of the North, where as the year proceeded partisan resistance tended to become fiercer and unrelenting, more than in Rome perhaps because to a great extent it was a bourgeois city. But in Rome the CLN had its rival, the Military Front, founded by Colonel Giuseppe Montezemolo, supporting the monarchy and Badoglio, and

in this lay deep danger of quite another sort. eight hundred people were sheltering in the Seminario, including Nenni, De Gasperi, some ex-Army officers and Jews. In effect, because of Bonomi's presence, the Seminario was the headquarters

About

CLN, which had its own

of the radio contacts with the South (though not in the

building). The Germans could not fail to know that it was such a hotbed. Indeed they had machine-guns posted a few hundred yards away near the Scala Santa, the Holy Staircase, in theory to protect the Porta San Giovanni, one of the main entrances to Rome, but also able to be trained on the great facade of the basilica, dominated by its fifteen colossal statues. As St John Lateran was the Cathedral of Rome, its refugee residents felt safer there than in

there

most other Papal extra-territorial buildings, though were plenty of alarms about possible 'invasions'.

The Military Front considered itself the true representative of Italy's government and opponent to Mussolini's puppet organization at Salo in northern

Italy. Because Montezemolo had only the rank of colonel, Badoglio had recently nominated General Armellini (who had a Canadian-born wife) as head o{ his armed forces in the city, with

JANUARY

instructions to be ready to take over key points in

Rome on the departure

offices. He had peremptory message, demanding that the CLN should abstain from any pohtical activity on the AHies' arrival. Bonomi, on i8 January, had called a meeting of the leaders of the six parties at a house off Piazza di Spagna: a very dangerous undertaking, as it meant passing through crowded main streets in daylight. Needless to say Badoglio's proposal was rejected, and in any case Armellini was considered 'tainted'. Then came 22 January. To Bonomi's alarm it soon was apparent that the left-wing parties of the CLN were determined to prevent the Military Front from gaining supremacy in Rome and that elements were preparing to occupy crucial buildings. Bonomi now feared armed conflitti, clashes, within the city and sent out a message saying that he would not accept any responsibility for such disorders. 'Let us give the Allies the spectacle of national strength, rising above these inevitable

of the Germans, such sent

Bonomi

as bridges, ministries

and newspaper

political disagreements.'

Major Sam Derry of the Royal

Artillery was 'incarcerated' in the Vatican of the British Minister to the Holy See, Sir D'Arcy Osborne, a descendant of the first Duke of Marlborough and himself later to be Duke of Leeds. Derry was a central figure in the organization for helping Allied escaped prisoners of war, of whom there were over two thousand at large in Italy and some eighty in Rome. Over six feet, athletic and unmistakably a military man, he had fought bravely in the Western Desert, where he had been captured. In October 1943 he had himself escaped from a German prison train and had made his way to Rome. January had been a black month for the organization. The Gestapo had flat

intensified

its

house-to-house searches, looking for Jews, Communists

and young men for sending to labour camps in central Europe, and as a result had caught several escaped prisoners, including an American Air Force sergeant and one of Derry's main assistants. Most of them had been sent to the dreaded Regina Coeli gaol, on the west bank of the Tiber. The originator of the Rome organization was an Irish monsignor from Killarney, Father

keen on

golf,

Hugh

tall, a

O'Flaherty,

behind round steel-rimmed spectacles -

no Baroness Orczy hero

rimmed

magnetic character, fanatically

considerable joker, with a thick brogue and blue eyes

a Scarlet

Pimpernel maybe, but

appearance, in spite of cloak, sash and wide-

black hat. O'Flaherty lived in - of

all

places

the Collegio

Teutonicum, or German College, between the old palace of the Inquisition and the Vatican. It was from here that for the past months, since the Armistice, he false identity cards,

had plotted and planned, arranging disguises and accommodation for prisoners in Rome and

finding

supplying them with cash.

also

arranged for prisoners' messages to

ROME

be sent by the Vatican radio, and through

their families to

transmitter had for a while connections with

branch

Italy

of British

intelligence,

SOE,

a secret

Special Force, the

Special

Operations

Executive.

Sam Derry had been one of the first British officers to

reach

Rome.

His

were obvious, and soon he too was invited to live at the Collegio Teutonicum under a pseudonym. It was a weird experience for him to be waited on at meals by German nuns saying Bitte and Dankeschoen. Through No i Special Force, Derry was able to arrange for supplies to be dropped to escaped prisoners in remoter parts of Italy, sometimes arms as well if they were working with partisans, and he also was in touch about escape routes through the front line or by sea. Various Irish and Maltese priests, not to mention theological students, were now helping the organization. Derry, however, tried not to involve them in intelligence work. The operator of the secret transmitter was arrested (and eventually shot), so now a subdivision of Montezemolo's Military Front, known as Centro X, came to be of particular use. This Centro X was mainly run by civilians and dealt not only with the abilities

circulation of newssheets and the sending out of radio messages to the Allies

and

on German troop movements, minefields and ammunition dumps,

of arrest, but with the fabrication of false identity and ration radio messages were supplementary to those sent by agents specially trained by No i Special Force or the American OSS, Office of Strategic Services, who worked separately in complete secrecy and anonymity. For a while the Centro X transmitter was in Palazzo Rospigliosi-Pallavicini, one of the great houses of Rome, but the Gestapo had traced it there; the young Princess Pallavicini jumped from a window just in time, hurting her leg, and also made her way to the Collegio Teutonicum. Derry was, in effect, the organization's chief of staff. After the arrests of his colleagues he was told by OTlaherty that the German Rector had said he must leave the College, even though it was Papal extra-territorial property. Indeed O'Flaherty himself would now be in danger of arrest if seen in the streets of Rome. As one of O'Flaherty's original helpers, before Derry 's arrival, was Sir D'Arcy Osborne's manservant, John May, details

cards.

The

was quickly arranged

own

that

Derry should be moved into the Minister's

apartment within the Vatican.

The

French and Polish diplomatic 'guests' of the Vatican - an one hundred acres, half being gardens - lived in the Hospice

British,

area of about

of Santa Marta,

accommodate

a five-storeyed stucco

building used before the war to

Americans and Yugoslavs were in a palazzina opposite. South American and Chinese diplomats were accommodated in the mustard-coloured Palazzo del Tribunale. Visitors pilgrims, and the

JANUARY

any of these had to cross St Peter's Square, marked by a white hne over the German sentries were not allowed to pass; they then mounted the steps and entered the Vatican precincts at the end of the Bernini colonnade to the left of St Peter's. Although they would be watched by to

which

the

Germans through

field-glasses,

they usually had no difficulties with

the Swiss CJuards, in traditional blue and yellow uniforms

- unless they

were Allied prisoners inadequately disguised. One passed through the graceful archways of the baroque Sacristy, and the diplomats' buildings were in a large square, where there was also the convent of the Sisters of St Vincent de Paul who, in their wide-winged coifs, prepared meals for various ecclesiastics and diplomats. Derry had been smuggled in dressed in one of O'Flaherty's soutanes. For the next months this square and the Vatican gardens, dominated by the magnificent architecture of St Peter's, would be the limit of liis world: an embalmed kingdom, with its feeling of ageless peace and non-violence, disturbed only by the clangour of the great bells.

D'Arcy Osborne in theory knew nothing about the organization, though in practice he kept it supplied with cash, as did - to a lesser extent the American Charge d'Attaires, Harold Tittmann, who at first seemed to regard the organization simply as a British intelligence operation. Other money came to O'Flaherty frc^m the eminent anti-Fascist, Prince Filippo Doria, who was in hiding in Trastevere. The number of escaped American prisoners in Italy was at first few, as the United States had entered the war only some months before the fighting had ended in North Africa - most of the British prisoners having been originally captured in the Western Desert. In general, most of the Americans were pilots who had bailed out. A handful of British prisoners had managed to take refuge in the Papal Gendarmerie barracks within the Vatican, but the Secretariat had vetoed the admission of any more. Thus the remainder had to be hidden either in extra-territorial buildings or in well-wishers' houses in Rome, to their hosts' considerable danger. There were also similar organizations, though necessarily smaller, run by French, Greeks and Yugoslavs; these also had to be assisted financially by Derry, as were some escaped Russians and Arabs. Derry heard of the landings within the first hour or two, and he was able to see some flashes of gunfire from the roof of the Hospice. The problem was whether to advise the prisoners 'to sit tight or crack off'. First he decided to get Blon Kiernan, the pretty daughter of the Irish Minister, to call

on her friend the

first

secretary at the

German

Embassy. She came back with the news that the Germans did expect to withdraw from Rome. So Derry decided that it would be best to advise everybody to remain in their billets until the Allies arrived.

ROME Marisa

Musu was aged seventeen. She was a small, ardent, dark-skinned member of the Communist combat group in the GAP

Sardinian, a

{Gruppi

The

di A::iotie Patriottica)

military head of the

Amendola,

Communist

Rome was Giorgio had been assassinated by

party in

the son of a great Liberal leader

who

formmg these GAPs on model of the French maquis. The Gapists were, in effect, terrorists. Their job was to 'eliminate' the invaders, spies from Mussolini's puppet government at Salo in the North and anything connected with them. Nearly every day there were attacks with grenades or machine-guns, the Fascists.

He had been

in part responsible for

the

causing casualties.

The

Gapists had been responsible for the

the Hotel Flora and a big explosion with

bomb

many dead and wounded

where German soldiers had been to a film honour before leaving for the front. On 18 December a grenade was thrown as the Germans were changing guard outside the Regina Coeli prison; eight Germans were killed and others wounded. At present, however, the Germans had not yet been goaded into drastic at

the Barberini cinema,

show

their

111

reprisals.

Marisa lived

in the Prati district,

behind Castel Sant' Angelo:

newish

quarter of apartment buildings which in that period was mostly inhabited

She was the daughter of Bastianina Musu, one of the founders of the Party of Action. In spite of Badoglio's order to Bonomi, immediately after the Allied landings there had been radio messages from the South telling Resistance workers to be prepared for a general rising. Marisa was now tensely waiting for that signal. She and

by the professional

classes.

Communist groups German lines of Then there were the

other Gapists had their weapons ready, while other

would retreat,

cut telephone wires, put

down

spikes along

and carry out other forms of sabotage.

strongpoints to be occupied.

was through her boyfriend, Valentino Gerratana, one of the main that Marisa had got to know of the Gaps. One day, in a cafe in the Piazza del Popolo, she had dared to approach Amendola about joining. At first he had just laughed and had told her to concentrate on darning Valentino's socks. But she had persisted, and he had soon recognized that an extraordinary flame of idealism burned inside the girl. Most of the Gapists were very young, and several women were among them. Their political and moral training was intense, and there were meetings to discuss the theory and practice of Communism. They were selfless people, full of fervour; they were not even told each other's real names - Marisa was known as Rosa, and she had the rank of captain. There were other Gapist groups throughout occupied Italy, including the province of Lazio surrounding Rome and the Alban Hills to the south. It

Communist leaders,

Occasionally Party of Action

men joined

in a particular 'incident',

such

JANUARY

on 20 December when a German railway convoy taking petrol to Cassino was blown up, damaging two locomotives, destroying several trucks and killing and wounding soldiers. As it happened, this particular incident was thanks to Colonel Montezemolo of the Military Front; he had given the information to Amendola about the precise time of the

never would have believed that

Communist,' he had

said.

Other

train's passing.

would have collaborated with

political parties controlled partisan

bands; in the case of the Christian Democrats, sabotage was confined to outside the city for fear of reprisals.

One occasion must have convinced Amendola of Marisa's courage. She was returning by bicycle with Valentino from the outskirts of Rome, where she had been to collect some mortar-bombs, to be converted into hand-grenades. Valentino carried

Marisa had her bicycle.

bombs in They came to a

all

the

turned to Marisa. 'Che cosa hai that there

despatch case with papers in

road-block, and Valentino was the

checked and questioned by the

knew

it,

but

cloth shopping bag attached to the front of

soldiers, Italian Fascists.

dentro?

What have you

to shoot

anybody on

was an order

Then

first

to be

the soldiers

in there?'

Marisa

the spot if caught

carrying arms. 'Ha ha,' she said. 'Be careful.

It's full of bombs.' 'Fai la You're the funny one,' said a soldier contemptuously, and waved her on. For once Marisa was not carrying a gun, for which she was grateful. If she had had a gun, her first instinct would have been to shoot

spiritosa.

her

way

out.

a result

of the landings, some Resistance workers became careless

about security. The Gaps in lagging

also

obtained

new

recruits.

There was no point

with the work of sabotage and elimination. In particular, road-

blocks were created, forming bottlenecks of German vehicles which were

machine-gunned by Allied aircraft. The Communists had their newspaper L'Unita ready, with 'Roma insorge, Rome rises up.'

its

headline

General Simone Simoni was aged sixty-four. Born near Frosinone,

between Anzio and Cassino, he began

his military career as a sergeant.

true hero, upright, loyal, devoutly religious, he had been

awarded seven

in the Great War, in which he had been badly wounded. Simoni in the past had spoken out against Italy's alliance with Germany. He was one of the officers who had rallied round Montezemolo and the Military Front, and like Montezemolo was careless about personal security. Both were tall, conspicuous figures, and people said that some day they would be recognized in the streets and arrested. It was also said that Simoni's particular hatred of the Fascists was due to the circumstances surrounding the death of his only son. He was distressed by

medals for bravery

ROME

between the Mihtary Front and the CLN, and held several meetings between representatives of the two in his house off Via the feud

Nomentana - on

a spot, as

happened, where there were catacombs

associated with another persecution, that of Domitian. If

many Germans were preparing

to evacuate

Rome on 22 January, the

minions of Colonel Herbert Kappler, the Gestapo chief, were not relaxing in their work of rounding up suspects and tracing Resistance workers. On that very

day they broke into Simoni's house and took him

to 155 Via

Tasso, the Gestapo interrogation centre, prison and barracks. It

was

ironic that the

name of one of Italy's

Tasso, the author of La Gerusalemme

with

mean

building in

liberata,

dreary street that had become

the horror and misery associated with the occupation. that the house

a typically

gimcrack

John Lateran, where Tasso were in hiding. As always close to St

interest; at the

Torquato

greatest poets,

should become associated a It

Fascist construction

many

Rome no street

byword was

for

all

ironic too

- should be

potential detainees for 155 Via is

devoid of historical

top of Via Tasso are the remains of Nero's walls, and

the

back of No 155 is Villa Massimo, also then requisitioned by the Germans, with some important pictures of the nineteenth-century Nazarene School. Across the

way was

a castellated

of the Frati di Sant'Antonio, patron Kappler, suave, booted, with

building which was

saint

monastery

lost things.

great scar across his face,

came

to see

Simoni immediately after his arrest. He was well pleased. 'At last we have the honour to welcome you here,' he said. That entire night Simoni was tortured, for Kappler particularly wanted to fmd Montezemolo. He was whipped and beaten with spiked mallets. The soles of his feet were burnt with gas jets. He fainted three times, but never spoke until it was all over when he said, 'I am sorry not to be younger or I would have been able to have done more.' In another room a colleague, the Carabiniere Colonel Giovanni Frignani, was being beaten up under the eyes of his wife, who was pretending that they were strangers. They too managed to keep silent, although Frignani's face, hands and feet were swollen into black bleeding lumps. Simoni was taken to a windowless cell, some twelve feet by six. Here he was to remain indefinitely. Scratches, still visible on the wall,

show

'5882820

that he shared

SSM

two Army' and 'M.

for a while with

Lloyd, British

Worthing, Sussex'. The general himself drew

below

British soldiers

a cross

on the wall and

wrote: 'Jesus Christus parce nobis'. Another inmate of the

was

PhiUips, 318889,

cell,

'He used to prepare us mentally for our interrogation, and when we were brought back from torture, he was able so to inspire us with his words that the pain seemed lessened.' Italian,

to say:

Peter Tompkins, of the American

OSS, had been educated

partly in

JANUARY

England, and for some years before the war had Hved

Rome

as a

New

York Herald Tribune. He had been landed on 21 January by torpedo-boat from Corsica point some hundred miles north of the city. By early morning on

correspondent for the

at a

the

22nd he found himself disguised as a Fascist auxiliary policeman and, moreover, roaring up the Corso on the back of a motorcycle. 'Naturally my heart was in my mouth, though it amused me to think that the people we passed had no idea an American agent — however frightened — was riding up the main street of their capital.' As yet he did not know whether the Allied landings had taken place. His mission was to make contact with OSS agents, especially the operator of the clandestine Radio Vittoria, and to act as intelligence officer for the Fifth

Army

Rome; he would

arrange for sabotage measures to be taken to coincide with the landings.

mad

by one of Tompkins' Italian American colleague has said. He had been at the Salerno landings, and then with Malcolm Munthe, the British son of the author of The Story of San Michele, had been among the first Allies to set foot on Capri. In Naples he had been 'A

little

but very nice' was

verdict

colleagues; an 'intellectual and literary roughneck' an

responsible for training Italian agents to send behind the lines. Italians

sometimes

SOE,

since

OSS

chief.

said that they preferred to

work with

the

OSS

rather than the

Americans of Italian extraction tended to be used in the former while many British in key positions at SOE and No i Special Force could not even speak Italian - 'a kind o{ coquetterie\ insisting on being so very very British. However there were also Italians who despised the ItaloAmericans, especially those originating from Sicily; and with reason, for a number of these ex-Sicilians turned out to be connected with the Mafia. A point much in No i Special Force's favour at this time was that it was a good deal more experienced, and therefore professional, than OSS, which had become Washington's dumping ground, so they said, for 'bourbon whiskey colonels' and playboys — which was why the unconventional General Donovan, welcomed eccentrics instead, such

Peter

Tompkins. Relations between the higher ranks of

OSS

and

SOE

were good,

though less so lower down where they have been described as a 'snakepit'. There was friction over the British support of the Italian monarchy, and some Americans considered that they were being used as a means of perpetuating the British Empire. Thus OSS and No i SF acted almost entirely separately, with different sets of agents, not only in Rome but throughout northern Italy; and sometimes these agents would send out conflicting radio reports. The OSS operated from Caserta and Naples, SF was based at Monopoli near Bari, with an advance unit while No I

under Malcolm Munthe on the island of Ischia. General Mark Clark of the American Fifth Army was interested in the possibilities of the OSS, which

ROME why

was no doubt

the British were 'squeezed out' of

representative of their

own

into

Rome

smuggHng

the time of the landings.

However, both No i SF and OSS were to send contact men - includmg Munthe - to Anzio and Nettuno soon after the landings. Tompkins had volunteered for the job. He had boldly brought false documents that purported to identify him as a prmce in the Cactani family. He was understandably nervous on arriving in Rome. A very

many Roman friends and could easily have been meeting was to have been in Via Sistina, but he discovered that the house was opposite the Hotel de la Ville, where German troops were billeted. So he made his way to an old palazzo near social person,

spotted.

His

he had

first

the Tiber in Via Giulia, a long street full of ancient houses and artisans'

welcomed by the porter and his wife, who had The unfortunate people were desperate about who had been in hiding for months - the boy did not dare go

shops. There he had been

been

his family's servants.

their son,

out of doors for fear of being caught labour in Germany. 'You can't stay

in a retata

or round-up for forced

in this building.

Too many

could recognize you. Are you sure you weren't seen coming

people

in?' Finally

Tompkins had been able to spend the night in the house of an OSS agent codenamed Cervo, or Stag, the very man who was operating Vittoria. And this Cervo, otherwise Maurizio Giglio, worked as an auxiliary Fascist policeman, hence Tompkins' early morning ride on the motorcycle.

The other main OSS agent was ConigHo, or Rabbit, also originating from the Neapolitan Resistance. Tompkins on meeting them was appalled to discover the extent of the rift between the CLN and the Military Front. The whole city was tense, waiting for developments but remembering only too well the bitter and crushing experience of the Germans' entry into Rome in September. If some hotheads came out too soon, they could be wiped out by the tedeschi. To delay, on the other hand, might mean being too late, and that would be a disaster. Some catalyst, Tompkins felt, was needed, some major and spectacular event which would cause an instantaneous flare-up in the city, so that every man and woman, irrespective of party, would be compelled to act at once, without choosing their own moment. The only catalyst Tompkins could think of was a landing of Allied paratroopers in the heart of Rome itself- and where better than in the Borghese Gardens? Anti-tank weapons would be essential

too

prepared to relay

this

Army

message to Fifth

Headquarters.

Monsignor Giovanni

Battista

Montini was

Sostituto or

Substitute

Secretary of State at the Vatican, under Cardinal Luigi Maglione.

Born

near Brescia in 1897, he was a dark, slim, quiet and self-effacing man, the

JANUARY

24 son of a lawyer.

the British Minister

with vision, courage and

D'Arcy Osborne he was 'a man 'how he can work as hard and

nice dry wit';

cannot imagine.' He lived in apartments that had originally belonged to Clement VII, the Pope who had refused to sanction Henry unceasingly

VIII's divorce

Pope Paul

from Catherine of Aragon.

In 1963

Montini was to become

VI.

By and large Vatican foreign policy was in the hands of Maglione. Montini dealt more with the running of domestic and specifically Italian affairs. In the earlier part of the war, for instance, he had been concerned with the fate and treatment of Italians who were prisoners in Allied hands, and in due course with Allied prisoners in camps in Italy. When in September 1943 two British naval officers took refuge in St Peter's, it was to him that Osborne naturally appealed for assistance; and it was he who agreed that the men could be housed in the Papal Gendarmerie barracks. The German ambassador to the Vatican, Baron Ernst von Weizsaecker, admired Montini greatly and thought him the 'busiest of bees'. 'I was often embarrassed,' he wrote, 'to have to trouble this overworked priest with

my trivial affairs.'

Pius XII,

who

Montini was indeed well suited

to be

under Pope

hardly ever allowed himself to relax and would not even

a holiday at the Papal villa at the town of Castel Gandolfo in the Alban Hills. It was the director of the Papal villa, Bonomelli, who brought a firsthand account of the Allies' landings to Montini and others assembled for a meeting at the Apostolic Nunciature on 22 January. The bare details had been announced on the Allied radio, but now Bonomelli was able to describe the Allied fleet, literally hundreds of vessels, easily visible through binoculars from Castel Gandolfo, with aeroplanes circling overhead like protective birds, sometimes darting inland to blast or machine-gun German vehicles and troops arriving from all directions. There had been little artillery fire so far. It would seem inevitable that the Allies would aim to occupy Castel Gandolfo and other towns in the Alban Hills as soon as possible. With the memory of the destruction at Frascati, the situation was without doubt extremely serious. On the other hand there were clear signs that the Germans were preparing to flee from Rome, which presumably meant that the Allies were expected to push northwards - hopefully bypassing the Alban Hills. Montini had reason enough to be alarmed by the bombing policy of

spend

the Allies, seeing that they had not even recognized

Rome's 'open

city'

had never forgotten Mussolini's request to Hitler to participate in the raids on London. On 20 January 1943 Anthony Eden had said in the House of Commons that the British had 'as much right to bomb Rome as the Italians had to bomb London We should not hesitate to do so with the best of our ability and status.

was generally

felt

that the British

ROME as

heavily as possible

the course of the

convenient and helpful.'

worthy of consideration Earher

still

Were

war should render such bombing

Christian sanctuaries,

if situated in

was asked,

Great Britain rather than

the British had threatened to retaliate against

dared to

bomb

appeals to spare

Rome

less

in Italy?

Rome

the

Athens or Cairo - as a result of which Mussolini denounced the British as a race of brigands who had 'brutalized a quarter of the human race'. The saturation bombing of northern Italian towns, with tremendous civilian casualties, was another grisly warning. Frequent Italians

were

sent directly

Roosevelt, with the usual ambiguous

by the Pope

replies.

Not long

to Churchill

and

after the President

and around Rome 'could not be ignored' there had been the bombing of the San Lorenzo district - the attack on the nearby railway marshalling yards having gone awry. As the Pope had himself pointed out, it was in any case virtually

had

said military objectives in

Rome's 'sacred soil', to avoid 'devastation of revered whatever precautionary measures were taken. It was realized at the Vatican that the United States, because of its large Catholic population, was likely to be more lenient in its policy than Britain, even if Montini found Osborne 'very accommodating on the subject'. A plain fact was that the Germans, in spite of having indicated that they recognized the 'open city', had by no means withdrawn their military installations. Indeed if only for geographical reasons and because of the railway system, it was difficult for them to do so. There was also the question of the safety of the great Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, which was now right in the front line. The Germans, realizing that it could be endangered, had already persuaded its Abbot to let them remove some of the treasures to safety. Weizsaecker became irritated by Montini's repeated requests for an assurance that the Monastery was not being used by the German military, and Kesselring had taken it upon himself to assure the Vatican that German troops would refrain from entering the building. On 8 January the American Charge d'Affaires Harold Tittmann cabled to Washington that Montini had been told that 'insofar as the German military authority are concerned everything possible is being done to preserve the Monastery of Monte Cassino from war damage at the present and in the future'. Unfortunately the Allies seemed unconvinced. On the 13th a shell landed in the famous Bramante impossible, on buildings',

cloisters.

Duringjanuary there had been further Allied air-raids in the vicinity of Vatican food convoy had also been machine-gunned, in spite of the distinctive yellow and white markings on the vehicles. The fact that the Pope was also Bishop of Rome was reason enough for him to feel a responsibility to save the city - with a population now swollen by the rush of refugees to nearly three million - from almost certain starvation, and it

Rome. A

JANUARY

had been decided by Montini and the Secretariat to risk sending out a fleet of trucks in search of flour and other foodstuffs in Umbria, Tuscany and the Marche.

So much now would depend on the Romans themselves. The Germans had often indicated that they would defend Rome street by street. Even the appearance of an Allied patrol on the outskirts might be spark enough for a general rising, as in Naples.

would be

And

the inevitable retaliation

then, again as in Naples, there

real name was Benoit-Marie de Bourg, and he came The Germans by now were beginning to realize that this

Padre Benedetto's

from

Marseilles.

brown-robed Capuchin monk with the round spectacles and long black beard was as dangerous as Monsignor OTlaherty. For Padre Benedetto was the head of Delasem, the organization in Rome for assistance to foreign Jews; indeed few individuals in Rome were to do more by way of helping and hiding Jews during the period of the Occupation. It was reckoned in the end that four thousand people received aid from the Capuchin monastery in Via Boncompagni - very small

close to Mother Mary St Luke's house and, as it happened, from February onwards to an infamous Fascist interrogation centre and torture-house, where many partisans died or were crippled for life. Refugees, especially French and including some Jewish escaped prisoners of war, would come to the monastery asking for the 'Pere des Juifs'. One of Padre Benedetto's brother monks became alarmed about this and spoke to the Superior. 'Do not worry,' was the reply, 'if anyone

goes to prison with Padre Benedetto

will

not you.' After the

fall

France Padre Benedetto had worked with Jewish relief organizations

of in

Cannes and Nice. He had come to Rome in 1943 and had an audience with the Pope on 16 July, on behalf of fifty thousand French Jews who had been deported to Germany. He also had a plan for transferring some of the remaining Jews to Italy and thence to North Africa. The Pope, on hearing of the behaviour of the French Vichy police, is said to have exclaimed: 'I could never have believed that of France!' Four ships were even found, but the whole, probably forlorn, plan Marseilles,

collapsed at the Armistice.

The mysterious 'silences' of Pius XII concerning the massacre of European Jewry will remain one of the great and bitter controversies of World War II, and indeed a crucial point in the matter of whether or not he should be canonized. Montini, on the very day he became Pope Paul VI, had a letter published on the subject in the British Roman Catholic paper The Tablet, in which he said: 'To take up an attitude of protest or condemnation would not only have been futile but harmful; and this is the whole truth of the matter.' In other words, Pius XII and his Curia

ROME believed that to speak out

of persecution

situation

dealing with Hitler,

'in fury' would only have made the whole Europe very much worse. After all, one was

quasi-psychopath

who only

too easily could

fly

into

an uncontrolled rage. Other Vatican spokesmen have since insisted that the Pope's

main concern was

wished to boost

own

his

for victims

prestige or

of the war, and that he never

power through human

suffering,

preferring to proceed silently and secretly at the risk of appearing inactive

or indifferent.

There

no doubt whatsoever

that

substantial truth about the horrors that

The Pope's

Nazis.

they

felt

general policy was to

when

advisable, but

Tittmann had

this

by 1943 the Vatican knew the were being committed by the

let

individual bishops speak out

happened

had always resulted

been specifically told by the Pope that by name unless he also condemned the atrocities perpetuated by the Bolsheviks, and this no doubt - the Pope said - 'would not please' Russia's Western allies. On 30 April 1943, for example, the Pope had written to Bishop von Preysing in Berlin about the savage

reprisals.

condemn

he could not

also

the Nazis

Jewish question: 'Unhappily,

in the present state

of affairs.

We can

bring

them no help other^han Our prayers.' The Pope had been Papal Nuncio in Munich during World War and had an affection for the German people, with 'a very accurate knowledge of German affairs' as the ambassador Weizsaecker said, but this did not mean that he had to condone Nazism. It was believed that he felt that if he spoke out against concentration camp practices there would be a reaction against German Catholics. In any case, he would be acting against the Concordat of 1933 with Germany. Even after the deportation of Roman Jews in October the Pope decided against a public protest, again presumably for fear of even more I

vicious reprisals against the remainder; he simply allowed the publication

a rather

tortuous

communique

his 'fatherly care for all people, regardless

[underlined]

- on

time,

it is

of nationality, religion

though he did not Jews were being gassed

the very day,

these unfortunate Italian true, there

was

Romano, emphasizing

in L'Osseruatore

strong (and justified)

know it, at

that

that Hitler

was

Auschwitz.

rumour

or race

that several

preparing to abduct the Pope, the Curia, and the 'whole swinish pack',

of the diplomatic corps which had taken refuge in the Vatican, not to mention its art treasures, to Lichtcnstein. If provoked. Hitler would he called

it,

certainly have accelerated these plans.

make a personal October,

From and

The Cardinal

as a result

on 16

of which some of the non-Italian Jews were released.

then onwards the Jewish population of

at least

Secretary of State did

protest to Weizsaecker immediately after the arrests

Rome

went

into hiding,

four thousand were taken into monasteries, convents and

other extra-territorial sanctuaries - the Pope having sent letters by hand to

JANUARY

28 the bishops instructing

them

to allow this to

Israel Zolli, 'disappeared' into the

disguised as a bricklayer left

without

- but

Vatican

the Jewish

be done. The Chief Rabbi,

itself,

having been smuggled

community thereby had been

a leader.

Jewish refugees continued to reach Rome from abroad. Padre Benedetto informed Monsignor Montini on 5 November that 499 had arrived from France, mostly Poles and Yugoslavs, and the Vatican supplied them with money and food. There was alarm when it was discovered that Padre Benedetto was also forging identity documents, but that the blind eye was the best policy. Some money for was provided by Osborne; Tittmann also received the equivalent of $120,000 from a private fund in a New York bank for the relief of Jews; these sums would be passed to Monsignor Herisse, who like the diplomats lived in the Hospice of Santa Marta, and he would give them to Padre Benedetto. At the time of the Anzio landings Padre Benedetto had a near escape. Forty of his Jews had been lodged in a pension in Piazza Independenza, a somewhat nondescript area of Rome developed in the 1890s, near what had been Sejanus' camp of the Pretorian Guard. He was with them when suddenly the pension was surrounded by German police. Fortunately there was a courtyard at the back, and all the Jews managed to escape over a wall. The Padre stayed behind with the pension's staff, and was only

Montini decided

the Padre

released after three hours' questioning.

Finally, there

was

Tina Whitaker,

the strange predicament of a wealthy

widow, aged

eighty-five,

who

middle-aged daughters, Delia and Norina, the Parioli quarter to the north

Englishwoman,

lived with her

latter

two

an invalid, in the

of the Borghese Gardens.

The Whitaker family had made

fortune in the

last

century out of

Marsala wine and was accustomed to living in an aristocratic

style.

they were near the so-called Croatian Embassy, the household was never

Every night Mrs Whitaker and her daughters listened would stand to attention when 'God Save the King' was played. Yet Norina's nurse was a German, a simple and loyal woman though frequently meeting and talking to German soldiers in the without

to the

electricity.

BBC, and

Delia

city.

Mrs Whitaker was too frail to leave the villa much. In her diary she wrote about the cacce aU'uomo, the man-hunts, and how there had nearly been a riot in the Post Office square when the Germans had confiscated bicycles. Police dogs were being used in searches for Jews. Princess Mafalda, the king of Italy's daughter, had been sent to the Buchenwald concentration

dynamited

camp

in case

Germany. The big

Roman

of a German withdrawal.

hotels

were

said to be

By Christmas butter had cost

ROME 250

lire a

200.

kilo

and sugar 90

Hunger was

There were

'staring

stories

lire;

three

Rome

weeks

29 later butter

was 350 and sugar

in the face'.

of German deserters asking to be taken into

convents where Jews were hiding. The Whitaker gardener had been terrified when a German otficer had forced him into a dark corner and told

him

to strip.

The German had then taken

off his

own

the gardener's and disappeared. Schwester Weisskopf, the

had gone

nurse,

by a compatriot that an was expected there - the beaches had been mined and all

to Ostia for the day, only to be told

Allied landing Italians

clothes, put

German

evacuated. After the

being mounted

bomb

the Hotel Flora resulting in guns

Via Veneto, very near the Whitakers' dentist, Delia was

make a joke: she was now afraid of having her teeth machine-gunned, she said. Any day Mrs Whitaker expected a knock on the door, and she, Delia and Norina would be bundled off in a cattle truck in the wake of Princess Mafalda. at least able to

on the BBC, when the news about the landings.

Delia was listening to Swiss Family Robinson

programme was

interrupted with the thrilling

She climbed the villa's tower. Nothing in the direction of Ostia, but of smoke kept rising from the Alban Hills. By the next day everyone knew that the Allies were at Anzio and Nettuno. There were sirens 'every other minute', and German tanks and lorries full of troops spirals

were 'grinding' been

down the Corso. Schwester Weisskopf had German command to take a turn of duty at the

incessantly

summoned by

the

railway station, to be ready to receive the gravely wounded. She had been

crying because she thought she was going to be shot by partisans.

men were

Young

'openly proclaiming' themselves to be Communists;

'after

twenty-two years of silence people are now discussing their political views freely on the streets.' Meanwhile it seemed, as Tina Whitaker's friend Admiral Frank Maugeri sarcastically was to say, as if the 'proud warriors of the Master Race' had overnight turned into Flying Dutchmen. The scenes in the foyers of hotels looked like 'poorly directed operas'.

mob

scenes in provincial

Algiers

heard about the landings in Italy

camp on

the

Bay of Algiers. From

an Army restmy tent, over a hedge of prickly pears,

when was at La Perouse, I

away a woman. was

could see the tiled roofs and minarets of the village, and then far blue range of hills above Algiers in the shape of a sleeping

awoken by someone ripping open tremendous news. After

all

the tent-flaps and telling

the stories of stalemate in

the

the Italian

down in the mud of an seemed like the greatest moment in the war — a splendid and spectacular act of bravado. Rome would surely soon be ours, the first Axis capital to fall, the first European capital to be liberated from the Nazis: Rome, which all my life I had longed to see. We learnt shortly afterwards that the landings had been at Anzio and Nettuno, but within a week everyone was referring to the Anzio Beachhead, and Nettuno was hardly mentioned except in American bulletins. was a lieutenant, recovering from jaundice, and having a lazy time in this ideal spot, much warmer than in Italy. Some weeks before, several members of my regiment had left for the front and was beginning to feel restless. The news about Anzio made me all the more impatient to be off. felt was missing fun, especially when heard that my great friend Nick Mansell had been sent there.

campaign, and of our troops being bogged exceptionally bad winter,

Carthage

thank

God

— Marrakech -

for this fine decision,

wholehearted unity

Caserta

which engages us once more in Thus Churchill had cabled

in a great enterprise.'

Roosevelt from Carthage on 28 December 1943.

word is "Full steam ahead".' The decision had been to retain Mediterranean, which -

added: 'Here the

fifty-six landing-craft for tanks in the

was estimated - would enable Operation Shingle to proceed within a month. 'Shingle' was to be what Churchill termed a 'cat-claw' near Rome, a two-divisioned amphibious lift at a spot not yet decided on. It had been suggested before, on a much smaller scale, though abandoned when the Allies' advance began to slow down and then virtually halt before the Germans' Gustav Line, at Italy's 'waist' about half-way between Rome and Naples. In actual fact further far-reaching decisions had to be made by Roosevelt and his chiefs of staff in Washington before the steam could really be released. Behind those decisions were the divergences in AngloAmerican policy about the whole strategy of the war and the overriding priority, agreed at Teheran with Stalin, that the cross-Channel attack, Overlord, and the landings in the South of France, Anvil, should take place in May. As Churchill lay on his bed recovering from pneumonia, he had time to reflect on the Italian campaign. In spite of the Teheran Conference it was a scandal that after so much effort the Allied Fifth and Eighth Armies should 'stagnate and fester'. Shingle would also draw away essential German forces from northern Europe and the Russian fronts; the vital airfields at Naples and Foggia must be protected from counterit

attacks.

With the

the departure of Eisenhower to England to prepare for Overlord,

primacy

Mediterranean operations was

in British

hands. As

was

considered that General Sir Harold Alexander had mastered 'the difficult art

of managing Americans', he remained Commander-in-Chief of the

JANUARY

32 land forces in

Italy,

while the senior administrative and politico-military

job of Supreme Allied Commander went to General Sir Henry 'Jumbo' Maitland Wilson. General Mark Clark was in command of the American Fifth Army, on the western side ot Italy, and General Sir Oliver Leese in due course took over the Eighth Army on the cast. Shingle would thus be

Army

a Fifth

responsibility.

While Churchill convalesced at his 'beloved' Marrakech, the plans proceeded. As Clark said, Churchill was 'hell bent' to get his way, blasting through all objections about supplies and reinforcements and whether strength had been under-estimated. He even suggested that Overlord might be delayed until early June, so that there would not be so much of a rush to send the landing-craft from Italy to England. 'I do not

German

think,' he said, referring to promises at Stalin]

Not

until 8

Shingle

have last

the kind of

felt

on!'

man

Teheran, 'U.J. [Uncle Joe,

January could Clark safely write in his diary: 'Operation On the nth he wrote to Churchill: 'I am delighted ... I

for a long time

was the decisive way

he had sufficient means to do the job.

approach Rome.' At

Clark's

of the and have set

fully conscious

necessity for launching the attack at the earliest possible date

22 January

i.e.

be unreasonable over forty-eight hours.'

as the target date.'

command post was in the enormous Bourbon palace at Caserta,

north of Naples,

(AFHQ). His

later to

become

the seat of Allied Forces Headquarters

from the Cassino area up the valley - the obvious approach - a few days before Shingle. Anzio and Nettuno were chosen because of the suitable beaches nearby and because of Anzio's port. Twelve miles inland lay the Alban Hills, which dominated not only the approaches to Rome but the two main highways to Cassino. The Beachhead forces would consist of VI Corps, under General John P. Lucas, 'the best American corps commander', as Alexander reassured the War Office in London, with experience of amphibious operations. VI Corps would contain initially the ist British and 3rd US Infantry Divisions, with some Commando and armoured elements, the crack US Ranger force of three battalions and the 504th of the

intention was to attack

Liri

Parachute Regiment with

a battalion

of the 509th.

In other

words,

the strength of the Shingle venture, envisaged once as comprising

men only, had now risen to over 110,000. 'We have every confidence in you,' Alexander told Lucas. 'That is why you were picked.' But Lucas was full of forebodings. He felt like a 'lamb being led to the slaughter'. Manpower was insufficient, the expedition twenty-four thousand

was 'diminutive' and hopes were set far too high. As for the attitudes of Alexander and Churchill, he was amazed by the 'ignorance of war displayed by leaders of people who have been at war for so many years'. Shingle to him had the 'strong odour' of Gallipoli, and 'apparently the

CARTHAGE - MARRAKECH - CASERTA

same amateur is on the coach's bench'. He dishked the 'hermaphroditic' British and American - nature of Shingle, compHcating the logistics so much more, and would have preferred it to have been wholly American. Finally time was 'pitifully short'. 'Another week might save dozens of lives. But the order comes from a civilian minister of another nation who is impatient of such details and brushes them aside The real reasons i.e.

cannot be military.'

The US

official

naval historian, Morison, has said that either Shingle

'a job for a full army, or no job at all'. It was so was like a boy on a man's errand. Nevertheless, the whole story of the subsequent battle for Rome was to depend almost as much on personalities, not only Churchill's but the commanders'. Lucas was a stolid, methodical Southerner, old before his time but more sensitive than has often been credited, variously nicknamed Sugardaddy, Foxy Grandpa or Corncob Charlie because of his pipe. Clark, loving personal publicity, looked like a Red Indian chief and was described as 'rangy' - Churchill called him the American Eagle. 'Nobody could control Mark Clark, he controlled himself,' they said, and that was important when it was a question of being given orders with which he did not agree by the British. All the same, he got on well with Alexander. 'Alex was a gentleman in every meaning of the word. He was firm, fair and I liked him very much.' Yet to many Alexander was a remote character, an enigma: handsome, immaculate, looking as if he were missing an eye-glass, but difficult to get to know properly and not enough of a pusher. Then there was old Wilson, whose nickname Jumbo suited him so well and who could not have been more of a contrast to his predecessor Eisenhower; he too was reserved and it was as if 'champagne and oysters [i.e. Eisenhower] had given way to cheese and beer'. On 12 January a large offensive began on the Gustav Line defences, with the Fifth Army and the French Corps taking Monte Trocchio, and the British capturing the town of Minturno, but the advances were slow and costly. Clark decided on a 'culminating' blow by the 36th US Infantry Division across the River Rapido at Cassino two days before the Shingle landings. For by now it was apparent that Cassino was the pivot of the Gustav Line. But first there had to be a rehearsal for Shingle. This turned out to be a muddle and a disaster, putting Lucas into an 'evil frame of mind'. Forty Ducks or DUKWS, small amphibious transport vehicles, and much else were lost, due, according to Clark, to the 'appalling mismanagement of the Navy'. Those lost Ducks were to have been used for the Rapido crossing, which was a far worse disaster, indeed a shameful catalogue of confusion and terror, with a loss of 1,681 men, including many who had gone into action for the first time. The whole show was blamed by the

should have been inadequate that

JANUARY

36th Division's General Fred Walker on Clark's exaggerated personal

ambition and

his

determination to be the

own

first

into

Rome

before the

comment on the Rapido debacle was that it was better to spill blood 'where we were securely established than at the waterfront', in other words that a major German attack on Anzio and British or French. Clark's

later

Nettuno, with only the sea behind, would have been far worse. At least he had succeeded in keeping German attention concentrated on the Gustav Line defences.

Clark often complained that the British tried to take the limelight

when

things

Wilson on Americans

went

in closest

Shingle should be

Now

was the turn of Churchill, who cabled is keener than in working with the comradeship. am however anxious that Operation

well.

18 January:

at least

concern and not,

a joint

purely American victory.

which

'No one

notice that in Clark's

may

be represented,

American

Fifth

Army,

one-half British, Clark conducts the operation; under him

John K.] Cannon [American]; was home most inopportunely by [Air Chief

Lucas; the Tactical Air under [General

[Air-Marshal Sir Arthur] Coningham, on whose experiences specially counting, has been sent

Marshal

Sir

Arthur] Tedder - [General

Ira

Eaker [American] will be

commanding strategical Air; and an American Admiral [Admiral FrankJ.

command the Naval Squadron. Finally see that MajorGeneral Crane US Army has been designated as Military Commander o{ Rome.' He pointed out that Alexander and his staff had been responsible Lowry]

for the 'whole planning

and control' of the operation.

bitterness in Great Britain

when

the claim

'It

will lead to

stridently put forward, as

Americans have taken Rome".' Wilson, of make changes m command, but to see that credit was

surely will be, that "the

course,

was not

fairly shared.

Alexander told Lucas. It would make Overlord unnecessary, he even said, no doubt echoing Churchill's hope. This did not help Lucas' gloom. Heavy opposition was expected, Shingle

would

'astonish the world',

and the troops were equipped for this eventuality. Churchill wrote in his memoirs: 'It was with tense, but trust suppressed, excitement that I awaited the outcome of this considerable strike.' Lucas' brief from Clark I

and the planners was firstly to 'seize and secure a beachhead in the vicinity of Anzio', and secondly to advance on the Alban Hills - but whether 'on' meant 'to' or simply 'towards' had been left vague, no doubt deliberately. Rome was not mentioned in his orders. On the other hand Wilson, on 20 January, told the British and American Chiefs of Staff that after the beachhead had been established VI Corps had a 'final objective of cutting

two main roads about twelve miles south-east of Rome', which clearly showed that the Supreme Allied Commander at least thought Lucas would advance to the Alban Hills. Indeed, Alexander's Operation

CARTHAGE- MARRAKECH

- CASERTA

were to main communications' in the Alban Hills and to 'threaten the rear of the German XIV Corps at Cassino'. At the last minute the idea ot a further diversionary landing at Civitavecchia was given up. Also the 504th US Parachutes were not to make a parachute drop inland from Anzio but to be used instead as ordinary infantry: a decision it would seem that was concealed from Churchill. Whatever the British had hoped for from Shingle, Clark and Lucas had determined that the first necessity was to consolidate the port and the beaches, and to leave any offensive operation to a second phase which would have to be decided upon according to the success of the landing. On the 2 St the weather forecast was good: 'Fair to cloudy, wind slight to moderate. Sea slight, no swell. Visibility mainly seven-fifteen miles.' So that at any rate was encouraging. After the armada of 374 ships had set sail from Naples and elsewhere, Alexander cabled 'Colonel Warden', Churchill's code name: 'Just back with Admiral [Sir John] Cunningham from visits to convoys at sea about seventy miles from Naples. All well by 4 p.m. No sign ot enemy air. Attacks by 11 US Corps (at the Rapido] Instructions had specifically said that the objects of the operation 'cut

the enemy's

disappointing.

Too

early to judge.

leaving Naples

first

light

tomorrow in a fast motor boat to visit the landings and see General Lucas Hope to be back tomorrow evening.' Soon after H-Hour, 2 a.m., the next morning came the message: 'Personal and Most Secret tor Prime Minister. From General Alexander. Zip repeat Zip.' The landings had begun. .

Brindisi

The

early capture

political crisis that

in the heel

'The

fact

ment and

of is

Rome

hung over

would,

was hoped, help to solve the government in Brindisi, down

the Badoglio

Italy.

that the Italians are

going through

the full tragedy of their plight

only

period of disillusion-

now becoming apparent,'

wrote Harold Caccia, a Vice-President of the Control Commission, to Harold Macmillan, who was British High Commissioner on the Advisory Council. The Italians had believed or at least hoped that with Mussolini thrown out the war in Italy would

now

be regarded

as a joint

enterprise for the liberation of their country, and that the resources of the Allies

The still

would

'turn shortage into plenty'.

brutal truth

was not only

being looked on

as a

that the Italians, as co-belligerents,

were

defeated enemy, but that most ordinary people in

worse off materially than before. The treated with distrust, apart from one unit of brigade strength which had been sent to the Gustav Line. Little wonder that the government was lacking in drive and inspiration. Not that the Allies could altogether be blamed for the miseries that total war left in its train, especially during such a hard winter - though it was the opinion of Robert Murphy, Macmillan's American opposite on the Advisory Council, that the tragedy of the long battle up the length ot the country could have been avoided if the Allies had acted at once and decisively after the fall of Mussolini in July 1943, and Operation Shingle might never have been necessary. Beautiful Palermo was half in ruins, many picturesque and architecturally important smaller towns were devastated. As for Naples, the glorious Parthenope of the Greeks was not only a shambles but morally degraded, an ironic sequel to the gallantry and idealism of the Four Days uprising in September. The Allied bombing of the port had been intensive, and wrecks of some hundred and thirty ships clogged the the liberated South

remnant of the

were

far

Army was being

BRINDISI The Germans had blown up booby traps and delayed-action

the sewage and water systems, and

harbour.

mines. There was typhus in the and black marketing was rampant. It was reckoned that forty per cent of the women had taken to prostitution As you drove into the city there were placards warning Allied troops that this was a particularly dangerous area for venereal disease. What would be the fate of Rome? Intelligence contacts had reported that the bridges, public services and mam hotels were already mined. left

overcrowded back

streets,

Rome as an open city, there were by the Vatican, that this could have sinister implications. However, as long ago as on 29 June 1943, Allied policy had been summed up in a letter from Roosevelt to Archbishop Cicognani, the Apostolic Delegate in Washington, who had sent him a communication from the Pope: 'I trust His Holiness will understand that should the conduct of the war require it, recognized military objectives in and around Rome cannot be ignored. There is no intention to attack or damage non-military objectives or the historic and art treasures of Rome.' There was a simple reason for the Allies not wanting to recognize Rome as an open city: they hoped soon to capture it and use it themselves as a centre of operations. There was also the possibility that the Germans might turn such a declaration to their own advantage and simply move in their forces. For these reasons the Foreign Office persuaded Washington to maintain a 'sphinx-like attitude' on the subject to the world at large. As Harold Caccia said, the alarming food shortage in Rome would be eased by the time the Allies reached Rome as more agricultural land would have been freed. He had added that he had heard his American Since the Allies had never recognized

naturally fears, voiced particularly

colleagues say roundly that the British had 'better be Italian

mess because they will have to

live

left to sort out the with the aftermath' - implying

United States would regard the Mediterranean as a British sphere after the war. The fact that there had been a change in the supreme command from American to British, from Eisenhower to that the

of influence

Wilson, Caccia

said, 'assisted the process'.

The Pope had

also

long ago, before the Armistice, expressed

his

and the President's reply had been: 'It is my intention, and in that I am joined by the people of the United States, that Italy will be restored to nationhood after the defeat of Fascism and will take her place as a respected member of concern to Roosevelt over the plight of the

the

European family of

Italy

could

now

nations.'

The

Italian people,

question was whether Fascism in

be considered to be defeated. In the opinion of Churchill,

had yet to 'work her passage'. There were those in the State Department

Italy

British support

Washington who saw the

of King Victor Emmanuel and Marshal Badoglio - the

JANUARY

38 victor

ot"

war -

the Abyssinian

Communist

strengthening the

outraged by the

trom

flight

party.

Rome

'blind

Most

and stubborn"; Italians,

was

also

they believed, were

and considered the king,

his

son

Umberto and Badoglio to be mere symbols of Fascism. In actual fact on 6 November Churchill had written to Roosevelt: "Victor Emmanuel is combination with Badoglio did in fact deliver the should we add to the burdens of British and US march soldiers on their to Rome by weakening their aids?' To which Roosevelt had replied that at present he was too far removed from firstnothing to us but Italian fleet

hand conditions king]

his

Why

in Italy to

comment, but

that 'the old

gentleman

[the

told clicks only before lunch'.

Earher Churchill had said to Macmillan: 'Our policy

is to broaden and government. am clear that any reconstruction of the Italian government had better wait until we are in Rome. In Rome lie the title-deeds of Italy and the Roman Catholic

increase the leftward emphasis of the Italian

When Macmillan had visited Marrakech, he had been treated with another Churchillian catch-phrase (to be repeated later in Parliament

church.'

'When want to lift a pot of hot coffee, by which Churchill meant that he wanted to keep the status quo. Military victory had to come betore politics. But Washington's attitude had toughened, as Robert Murphy found when he was summoned there. He was told that he must hasten the king's abdication, an important factor being that Roosevelt had before long to face an election, and the support of Italo- American voters was important to him — nearly all of them being opposed to the monarchy, or at least to Victor Emmanuel and Badoglio. The American candidate to lead a new Italian government was Count Carlo Sforza, an ex-Foreign Secretary and ambassador to Paris in preFascist times, and for many years an exile in the United States. Sforza's opinion of the king was that he was a 'frightened and non-existent' character and that Churchill had the 'most wrong information' about him. His plan was that the king should abdicate, not in favour of Umberto but ot his grandson, and that he, Sforza, should become Prime Minister in and not

much

liked

Italians):

prefer to keep the handle,'

place ot Badoglio,

was scathing: believe,' kill

who

a 'useless,

could be Regent. Churchill's opinion ot Storza gaga, conceited old man' and

snob.

do not

he told Roosevelt, 'he counts tor anything that will make

men

die.'

Apart trom Storza and Benedetto Croce, the world-renowned Liberal historian figures

and philosopher, both

of any weight

were no political Both Macmillan and Murphy

in their seventies, there

southern

Italy.

found Sforza garrulous and over-theatrical, a contrast to Badoglio, who was of peasant stock. When Macmillan visited the 'gnome-like' Croce he found plenty of reasons to distrust his views. Communism, tor instance.

BRINDISI was more of clerical,

Hishion than

force, he said.

Croce was extremely

point of fact

Rome

Montezemolo's Military Front, which

supported Badoglio, was well organized. However, politicians ot stature,

many of them

were militant and

particular If,

a hiatus

even

therefore, the

before the Allies arrived,

a situation like

the Paris

the national against

CLN. The Communists

well organized as the Military

at least as

Germans were

all

Rome, were ranged

also in

these 'Badogliani' and belonged to the

Front.

anti-

but supported Storza's plan to replace the king with his grandson.

withdraw from the city, leaving there was real danger of civil war, or to

Commune

ot 1871.

Whatever detractors of British policy in Italy might feel, in Bari there was the British-run radio station which did its best to broadcast impartially all points of view to German-occupied Italy. A congress of the southern representatives of the CLN was also 'authorized' for the end of Ban;

January

speech.

The

Military another;

great milestone after twenty years of suppression of tree

Intelligence), all

OSS, SOE, and MI6

Allied secret services, the

had

their links in

received information from

contact with the Military Front

- they

Rome, independent

CLN

also

(British

sources,

ot one and the British had

had the stronger connection

the time with partisans in northern Italy and the Balkans.

The French representative on the Allied Advisory Council in Italy was Rene Massigli, and Macmillan had a great regard for him, though the relationship

was not always

to be easy.

well as a sign of the importance that

was something of a

Moscow

when Andrei Vyshinsky was appointed

sensation, as

attached to the Council t'

Russians. Macmillan

image of every Conservative mayor or conwas difficult to visualize in him the cruel persecutor of the Russian terror.' Needless to say, on arrival, Vyshinsky wanted to know how many Fascists had been tried and how many shot. The best that Caccia could do was to 'murmur something' about nearly fifteen hundred in prison — 'but Vyshinsky obviously thought this a very poor result after three months' work.' On 14 January, as plans for Shingle were being finalized, Macmillan's office sent a radio message to London: ''Nobody here holds any particular brief for the present Italian administration, but there is no doubt that the decision to carry on with it up to Rome is the right one. This implies that it must be allowed the minimum amount of oxygen necessary to life There is no adequate material available in South Italy from which a Government with real authority could be formed with or without the abdication of the king.' What nobody bargained for was that it was going to be a very long found Vyshinsky

stituency chairman;

'the it

time indeed before the Allies entered

Rome.

Anzio

was no moon. There were stars and a sHght breeze, which waves slap - too loudly? - against the flat bottoms of the landing-craft. It was one of those miraculous, clear, still nights that sometimes occur in an Italian winter by the sea. 0100 hours, 22 January. The Anglo-American invasion force was less than a mile out from Anzio and Nettuno. The first assault would be in an hour's time, the British to the north, the Americans to the south of the towns, while the American Rangers would make a landing on the main beach of Anzio itself- suicide, most people thought. Many of the men had only learnt of their eventual destination after embarking. Some had also taken part in the Salerno landings, four months earlier. Nearly everyone expected the same kind of bloodbath. The huge convoy, escorted by cruisers, destroyers, minesweepers and submarines, on leaving Naples the previous day, had headed straight out into the Mediterranean. 'As we sailed past Capri, wondered if it would be my first and last time to see it,' a Sherwood Foresters officer wrote home. The Germans presumably were too preoccupied with the Allied attacks on the Gustav Line near Cassino, for not a single enemy aircraft was seen. Some men were even able to sunbathe on the decks. When dusk came, the convoy had veered back towards Italy. For those who felt like it, there was time for some four hours' sleep. The British ist Division's landing area, known as Peter Beach, was to be on a narrow sandy stretch behind which were dunes, umbrella pines and scrub. X-Ray Beach, where the US 3rd Division and ist Armored Division would land, led to flatter ground — arable and grazing country — At

first

made

there

the

that

had been the mosquito-ridden Pontine Marshes

Mussolini in the 1930s. Whereas, in the

would be bounded by deep bramble-filled

first

until reclaimed

instance, the British sector

small river, the Moletta, that was fed upstream by

gullies, the

Americans would have as their southup to sixty yards wide and with banks

eastern limit the Mussolini Canal,

ANZIO

on cither side, a natural barrier against tanks. The men were not told of any special objective, but they knew that the idea was to strike inland towards the Alban Hills rather than straight towards Rome. Now the ships facing Peter Beach were in their battle positions. The silence was eerie. An armada of thousands of waiting men, jam-packed together, weapons at the ready. Any moment they could be discovered by the Germans, and hell would burst from that hidden shore: a hell of screaming shells, withering rods of tracer and stark, merciless flares that would turn the landing-craft into easy targets. What hope would there be for anyone after a direct hit? Yet there was comfort in the feeling that there were so many others waiting in the darkness outside. When faced with the prospect of hand-to-hand battle and the possibility of heavy casualties, one can only be sustained by the thought, it can't happen to me. Guardsman Dick Bates of a Scots Guards anti-tank platoon was in the second 'flight', half an hour after H-hour, an even longer period of tension therefore. The American crew of his landing-craft had spent the journey drinking and playing cards; it was clear that they didn't like their job one bit, which was hardly encouraging. There were several six-pounders on board, too. People thought highly of Bates, who had been a corporal but had lost his stripes for nicking oranges in Tunis on his birthday. Now, in full

equipment, he waited, longing for

a cigarette.

in the blackness, tried to ease his limbs,

A neighbour, unseen

then dropped his

rifle,

with

terrifying racket.

Captain Nick Mansell of the Signals was probably one of the very few

who knew Anzio from

peacetime.

He remembered

the bathing huts and

the yachts, with the white casino and pier, the purple

themum over

mesembryan-

the orange rocks, the marvellous fish restaurants. In ancient

town had been Antium, where Coriolanus had died and where Nero and Caligula had been born. He remembered the ruins of Imperial

times the

villas,

crags of

polished by the

narrow sea.

bricks,

and collecting

bits

of coloured marble

Further up the coast the Emperors had bred elephants.

Mansell the Alban Hills were no menace, or vague rampart that had to

be scaled.

To him

Gandolfo, where

his

they meant the Pope's

summer

grandfather had seen Pius IX riding

palace at Castel

among cypresses

white mule, followed by cardinals in scarlet, and Lake Nemi, the mirror of Diana, and the famous chestnut woods, haunt of dryads and

where there were hoopoes. The trunk road to Cassino below, the socalled Route Seven, was none other than the Appian Way. He thought of friends in Rome. Old Tina Whitaker, who would burst into grand opera. Mario, who produced such delicious fettuccine near the Ripetta. Vittoria Sermoneta, snobbish but fun. Vera Cacciatore,

who

looked

house by the Spanish Steps. Were any of them alive?

after Keats'

said

nothing

JANUARY

42 about any of

this

wouldn't care

on board. He knew

his

companions too

well.

button about dryads, and had probably never read

They word

of Keats. Further back out to sea was

a hundred and fifty whose job was to 'maintain public order' among the civilians of Anzio and Nettuno after they had been captured. Sergeant Andrea Villari came from Genzano, near Lake Nemi,

somewhat apprehensive

contingent of

Carabinieri,

and looked forward to seeing relations again after a year in Naples. He also had an aunt running a shop in Aprilia, a model village started by Mussolini on the main road from Anzio to Rome. She always had a good supply of wine from the Castelli,

as the

towns

Alban

in the

Hills

were

called.

Although

in the

Brigade of Guards, Major Lord John

Hope was due

land in the American sector, since he was with the British increment to

General Lucas' VI Corps headquarters. Several higher ranking British

were worried about Lucas, whose so-called caution appeared to them to be merely a pathological slowness, and who at fifty-four acted as if he were 'ten years older than Father Christmas'. Hope thought him a funny old Southerner, with that corncob pipe, and rather liked him. In many ways the two could not have been more different, Hope an Old Etonian and the son of a marquess. 'Lookee, Hope Lucas would officers

generally begin his sentences.

Lucas was on board the Biscayne, Admiral Lowry's flagship, originally an aircraft tender, on whose deck an armour-plated 'house' had been

General Patton had said to him encouragingly: 'John, there

one in the army I'd hate to see killed as much as you, but you can't get out of this alive.' Lucas had tried to joke: 'I'm just a poor working-class girl trying to get ahead.' Now he wrote in his diary: '1 think we have a good chance of making a killing... 1 have many misgivings but am also optimistic. struggle to be calm and collected and, fortunately, am associating intimately with naval officers whom don't know very well which takes my mind off things.' He found Lowry 'one of the world's gallant gentlemen and certainly one of America's most distinguished seadogs'; and since Lowry was not much more than five feet tall he was just the right size for the Biscayne. Major-General Lucian K. Truscott, commander of the 3rd Division, slept on a sofa in the same cabin. There were those like one of the less important on board who thought that it was crazy to have two such important 'turkey's eggs' in one built.

nc^

basket.

Now

of a moon. Suddenly the quiet ot the night was pounding each ot the landing beaches. The noise was fantastic, monstrous, horrifying. Each rocket contained thirty pounds of TNT, and 780 of them were discharged in two minutes. there

was

a slip

shattered by British rocket ships

ANZIO

The aim was to blast away wire and land-mines. Any defenders who were not killed would be totally stunned. Then at last the barrage ended. Lucas waited, ears singing.

One

after the other the assault-craft slipped ahead,

towards the unknown. Still

no answering

be ashore

The

fire.

According to the timetable the

first

men would

radio signalled to the Bi.^cayne that reconnaissance

troops were pushing well inland, beyond the dunes.

ordinary truth became clear to Lucas:

And

so the extra-

from being another Salerno, Shingle had 'caught the Germans off base' and there was virtually no opposition. 'We achieved what is certainly one of the most complete far

surprises in history.'

The

Beach had been the 6th Gordons, din of the rocket ship had been unexpected and truly terrifying. A snag was found almost at once. The assault-craft ran on to a sand bar, and on stepping from the ramp men found themselves in water up to their necks - the cold was a shock even in the crisp night air. They struggled ashore, dripping, fully laden. It was discovered that all the mines had by no means been exploded - they were ot the wooden variety. A corporal lost a foot; another man was literally blown in half At last a path was cleared. The sappers quickly laid pontoons from the sand bar, and submarines acted as markers for incoming landing-cratt. By the time Bates came on shore, tiny hooded lights were there to guide you through the mines. Again, incredibly, no opposition. Even the concrete pillboxes were not manned. Prisoners were, however, taken: three drunken German officers returning trom a night in Rome. A motorcyclist was flushed out and hi-s pillion passenger shot. Some other Germans were found hiding in a barn. They said that they had only come to Anzio to shoot cattle for food. On being searched one was found to have a packet of nude girlie photographs, evidently trom a Roman brothel. The blurred horizon sharpened into daylight. The dunes were tangerine colour, streaked with grey and sulphur yellow. Then came a kind of esparto grass, beyond which were brambles, myrtles and umbrella pines. Later you could even see the Alban Hills, like arms outstretched, though hardly in welcome. Now loudspeakers guided men ashore. Vehicles of the Assault Brigade were being unloaded over wire net runways, under the supervision of the landing officer. Major Denis Healey, politician to be. The landing-craft looked like enormous openmouthed whales, as lorries, jeeps, ducks and guns came tumbling out of the holds. Officers began to recognize features from air photographs: an ancient w^atch-tower built once against the Saracens, silos and farm buildings - though all deserted. It was like landing in a ghost country, where ghosts could turn lethal. first

British unit to reach Peter

followed by the 2nd North

Staffs.

The

JANUARY

44 In point

of fact the unloading took unexpectedly long, because ot the

sand bar. This could have meant disaster, even massacre, opposition. Platoons fanned out into the

Suddenly,

at last,

from up the

coast

woke up and began lobbing over crowded

the

with

ships,

some

which

pitieta,

there had been

half expecting ambushes.

somewhere, a German 88 gun making white fountains among

shells,

A destroyer darted off to deal

scattered.

it.

The sky now w^s comfortingly

full

Some

of Spitfires and Kittyhawks.

hours passed before Nick Mansell could get ashore. His great fear had

been that he would disgrace himself by panicking under fire, but the quiet and the strangeness exhilarated him. He was not even shocked by the sight of the

entrails

of that North

Staffs fellow.

mine. Beyond the pineta there was

saw: 'Via Severiana -

Roma

Any moment he

a coastal

road. At

too might step a

crossroads he

52 km.'

The American landing on X-Ray beach

near Nettuno was easier - the

approach shallower and the dunes less precipitous. Frogmen had gone ahead to clear mines. For those watching during the first tense minutes it

was

a sight

waded

impossible ever to dismiss from

into the black with

rifles

horror Ted

memory,

as the files

of Gls

held above their heads. There were

Wyman

US Navy

some

saw the cable part on No. 3 boat. 'Forty men fully equipped were thrown in a struggling mass in the water. The boat hung straight down No one knows how we got those men aboard, many of them with broken arms and legs' - one of the men was never found. After a while some shore batteries opened up teebly, but they were soon silenced. Again there were mines, and some unpleasant casualties. By midday the Americans were three miles inland, halfway to the vital town of Cisterna, on the road to Naples. Much of the 3rd Division's artillery and tanks were already ashore. It was ironic that a tower to the right of X-Ray beach, Torre Astura, built on the site of Cicero's villa, should be full of romantic associations for Germans - for it was here that the fifteen-year-old Conradin of Hohenstaufen fled in 1268 after the battle of Tagliacozzo, later to be publicly executed in Naples. The canal ran inland from the tower, towards a number of modern two-storeyed farmhouses, or poderi, which Mussolini had given to indigent peasants, mostly from the North. The Americans found that families living nearest to the beach had been evacuated, and that the farms were empty. The first four bridges over the canal were blown. Near one of them a woman and child, apparently living in a cave, leapt out and ran in terror towards the woods, leaving behind them a large white cow with curved horns. There was some trouble with a pugnacious herd of buffaloes, which had to be countered with tommy-guns. 'Steaks tonight, folks,' yelled Privatejim Weinberg of the 504th Parachutes as his jeep raced eastwards. But the hope was a accidents.

his

of the

ANZIO forlorn one, for the buffaloes' carcasses

45 were

to find their

way

to the

kitchens of VI Corps headquarters.

The Rangers' the

task

- to

most daring o(

Rangers,

after their

all.

land on Anzio beach and clear the harbour - was

Handpicked volunteers known

as Darby's Darby, they had had a Salerno, and their endurance and

commander Colonel

magnificent record in Tunisia and

Bill

self-confidence were due to Darby's inspired leadership. natural spearheads in any big action.

They were

the

Now their objective was the casino, a

white-washed building of the Art Nouveau period with statues along the run out of the landing-craft,' Darby had told the balustrade. 'When planners at Caserta, 'I don't want to have to look right or left. I'll be moving .' Which was what he did; and again there was no opposition. A so fast few German bodies, horribly gashed by shrapnel, lay on the esplanade. By 0645 all three Ranger battalions were ashore. Some dazed, ashy-faced 'Krauts' emerged from rubble and were found to be engineers sent from Rome purposely to destroy the mole - they were to have begun work that morning. Booby traps and mined buildings were also quickly dealt with by the Rangers. The casino was discovered to be built on large cellars hollowed out of the tufo - much appreciated when the time came I

German bombardments. Out to sea a mine-sweeper struck a mine and went down in three minutes. Soon after dawn six Messerschmitts broke through and set fire to some vehicles. Other, more serious raids followed, and some bombs were far too close. The sky was filled with drifting black puffs of smoke.

for

Wyman was to write: 'I still don't like the dirty taste in from a near miss.' Then a landing-craft, carrying some of the 504th Infantry, was hit. 'It wasn't long before some small boats began to bring the casualties out to us and we hauled them up over the side. Poor sodden lumps of flesh some of them were, with their faces and hands black from Lieutenant

the air

flash burns.'

Alexander and Clark had had one encouraging report from Lucas, at 3 made and progress

a.m., to the effect that the landings had been

more by 5 a.m. when they set o({ Beachhead by speed boats from Naples. However, on the journey Lucas' bizarre code message reached them: 'No angels yet Cutie Claudette,' which being interpreted meant that no tanks had been encountered and that American and British troops were advancing. Before daybreak Truscott's 3rd Division had rounded up some two hundred Germans. Truscott was very different from Lucas: wiry, no nonsense, a soldier through and through, with deep-set grey eyes - 'Old Gravelmouth' to the British. It had been he who had conceived the idea of the Rangers. By 10 a.m. he felt free to return from the front to his command post on the shore. His Chinese orderly. Private Hong, knew continued, but there had been nothing for the

JANUARY

46 that he had

had nothing to eat and therefore prepared bacon, eggs and open fire as only Hong could make it'. Somehow he had

toast 'over an

managed

dozen eggs with him from Naples. As Truscott Anzio breakfast, on the hood of his jeep, up came General Clark to congratulate him, along with General 'Wild Bill' Donovan of the OSS, a small OSS contingent having landed with the Rangers. 'Yes, they would love to have some breakfast.' More visitors arrived. At 12.30, as Truscott was preparing to leave, he heard Hong remarking to the sergeant: 'Goddam, General's fresh eggs all gone to hell.' Lucas had not landed, and indeed did not come permanently ashore until the next day. He had also insisted that General Penney, commanding the British ist Division, should stay afloat with that part of his forces which were to be a 'floating reserve'. As the British were having difficulty with the sand bar, he took a small boat and visited Penney, who was on board the Bulolo. Mines were a problem so he had to go far out to sea, the journey thus taking him an hour. It was frustrating, not to say confusing, for the unfortunate Penney to be told: Alert your boys. They will be attacked at four. Lucas was not sure that the British 'had put forth the maximum effort to overcome their handicaps'. 'The Royal Navy doesn't seem to be as versatile in the substitute ot methods as our old sailors are.' If Penney in Clark's estimation was 'not too formidable a general', Penney had the same feeling towards Lucas. Penney had an attitude that was slightly intimidating to his juniors, although fundamentally he was kind and generous: 'a very good telephone operator', he was described by Clark, a reference to the fact that he had been in Signals. He was also a meticulous man who 'did everything according to the book', and had to bring three

was eating

his first

been somewhat alarmed ment.

He had

when Alexander had

given him

this

appoint-

not even been allowed ashore by the time 'Alex' came to

inspect progress.

Guardsman Bates was busy digging

a slit

trench -

somewhat

resent-

was not for his benefit but for the Irish Guards - when there was sudden commotion. And there was the mighty Alex, instantly recognizable because of his red headband. Everything was so calm, just like an exercise, and - as the Scots Guards official chronicler was to say later — Alexander, in his fur-lined jacket and riding breeches, for all the fully, since

world was

like a 'chief umpire visiting the

forward position and finding

to his satisfaction'. Later Alexander congratulated Lucas. certainly given the folks at

home something

to talk about,'

'You have he

said.

Meanwhile the ist Recce Troop - under the command of Lieutenant j. S. Baker and therefore known as 'Bakcrforce' - had gone up the coast road and encountered some enemy. They blew up the bridge over the Moletta, much to the annoyance of higher command, and an armoured car turned turtle in the mud. The Nc^rth Staffs pushed up through the

ANZIO Padiglionc

woods along

track eventually christened

Regent

Street.

forward patrol reached a viaduct bridge in the Canipo di Carne, Field of Flesh. No one realized how grimly appropriate this name was to be. The

known as the Flyover, eventually the most crucial point Beachhead struggle. The Americans had also seen some Germans around Cisterna. But a rumour raced round the Beachhead that an American jeep had reached the outskirts of Rome unchallenged. By nightfall Lucas had landed some 36,000 men and about 3,200 vehicles. The Beachhead had about eighteen bridge came to be

in the entire

miles of coastline and a depth of five to seven miles.

learned that the

Germans had

already amassed

Only

10,000

later

was

men on

the

The Allied airforce had made about twelve hundred sorties. Pcnney's boys waited but were not attacked at four or at any other hour perimeter.

that day.

Most people assumed that by first light on the 23rd the Allied advance guard would be sweeping on to the Alban Hills, and thence to Rome. As people were fast realizing, however, Lucas was by no means a 'galloping Napoleon'. What was more, Clark had said to him in Naples: 'Don't stick your neck out, Johnny. did at Salerno and got into trouble.' He had also said: 'You can forget this goddam Rome business.' That night officers of the Grenadier Guards played bridge and slept in I

And Wynford Vaughan-Thomas,

the BBC correspondent, Denis Johnston, in the South: 'it is just normal military fuck-up with an American accent. We are commanded by a dear

pyjamas.

wrote

to his colleague,

old pussy-cat and, in

few

the

who purrs away, we are.'

that

are

all

happy on the Beachhead,

sense,

emerged from

though they were soon driven back to increase. The Germans had evacuated nearly all the inhabitants of Anzio and Nettuno, only leaving men to run essential services. Nettuno was the larger, a fortified medieval area with a castle, while Anzio had more of the air of a tourist resort. Both towns were dominated by the large Renaissance villa that stood on a hill covered with pines and evergreen oaks and belonged to the bachelor Prince Stefano Borghese, who had been put in charge of the local workers as 'mayor' by the Germans. Borghese was in point of fact owner of most of the land around Anzio and Nettuno, and had been allowed to keep his fifteen servants. Naturally he had heard the uproar of the rocket ships. When dawn came he dared to walk out on his balcony, and there, beyond the formal garden and the pines, he saw the harbour packed with landing vessels and Ducks. Almost at once two American soldiers with walkie-talkies came up the drive. He went to meet them and just in time managed to prevent them from Italians

cellars,

German bombardment began

JANUARY

his dog. They treated him with little respect, not believing, so he found later - after having seen the palace at Caserta, the second largest in Europe after Versailles - that a prince could live in such a modest building ot only a hundred rooms, and made him and his servants line up agamst a wall. Then he was removed to the Paradiso, Colonel Darby's casino, and

shooting

kept there for questioning for twenty-four hours.

The very

150 Carabinieri brought from Naples were finding that they had

little

Some of the

Anzio.

gone

ejected families had

while others lived

in caves in the

to the

towns

in the

household treasures with them. The children loved the

mud

outside and

smoke

the legends behind the

indoors.

Alban

Hills,

Padiglione woods, having brought their life,

Old huntsmen and shepherds

name of

various

localities:

in spite

told

them

Buonriposo (good

Acqua del Turco (water of the Turk) and Femminamorta (dead woman). At Cavallo Morto you were supposed to hear a dog howling for its friend, a dead horse. The menfolk used to take vegetables to Rome, at first by train, but when the bombings got worse by foot, which usually meant spending some nights away. Once the Germans had come demanding women, but old Zio Peppe had managed to thwart repose) ridge,

them. 'Not when

it is

raining,' he

with some friends and

had

said.

Signora Silvestri lived

in a

cave

had been joined by her son Ennio, who had been in the submarines. They had heard the rocket ships and seen flashes. Obviously the Allies had landed. The older men were in Rome, so at daybreak Ennio and the boys climbed trees to try to get some sort of view. It was a terrible anti-climax when at last they met a platoon of soldiers, in camouflage jackets — from the shape of their helmets, familiar from newspapers, evidently British - emerging from the relations. After the Armistice she

rifles and bayonets pointed menacingly at them. The officer was suspicious and made them put up their hands. The boys were then forced to lead the way to the caves and then, as roughly as before, ordered to tell their families to come out. The encounter, however, ended happily, with glasses of wine and pecorino cheese in exchange for cigarettes and a tin of 'M. and V.' (meat and vegetables). Signora Silvestri thought the officer looked so young. 'When will you be in Rome?' he was asked. 'Presto, niolto presto,' he replied, and the platoon moved on to Campo di Carne. Not all children were so fortunate. During that afternoon Fusilier Christopher Hayes was digging a trench near the dunes at Peter Beach when he heard sobbing. Then he saw grass move and a girl of about five or six appeared, with black curly hair and in a filthy torn frock. He realized that she was heading straight for a minefield. Cirabbing his bren he rushed towards her. She began to scream: 'Mamma, Mamma.' But he picked her up and carried her to the safety of his unit.

bushes with

ANZIO Hayes and

his

mates could not speak

Italian.

For some reason they

was on holiday, and it seemed possible that the parents had been killed or had run away during the bombardment. At last they found some blankets and Italian uniforms in a wrecked vehicle. They managed to get the dress off and wrap her in the clothes, and then Hayes suddenly saw a name on a label. He shouted 'Angelita!', and the girl came running to him. So perhaps she was Spanish, for the name in Italian would have been Angelina - a child of refugees from the Civil War? Now dark was falling. Tomorrow they would find Italians to look understood the girl

after her.

In the

whole story of the 'fuck-up' there

satisfactorily

answered, and

still

remains one question not

concerns the use of the British decoding

this

machine Ultra, which by then was capable of picking up most German messages about troop movements and displacements. Ultra had made it clear that Shingle would be unopposed, so why was Lucas so surprised? One imagines Clark at the time must have had httle faith in Ultra's capacity, or have felt that it was outweighed by other anxieties. Indeed he has said since, in explanation: 'We had broken the German code and could ." read messages from Hitler to "drive us into the sea and drown us Knowing of the impending onslaught it was necessary to dig in.' But this .

confusing the

facts, for Hitler's

messages came long after the landings

had happened, and Ultra recorded that

many

reinforcements, including

armour, had to come from outside Italy. Clark has also said: 'Our big mission in getting to Anzio was to keep And the reinforcements came slow reconnaissances out in front .

because of the turn around by boat and the fact that

reinforcements because front.

was fighting

so hard

didn't have

down

in the

many

Southern

who have said: "You could have gotten into your Rome" To do that would have been fatal, 'the end of

There were those

jeep and driven to

you were concerned'. There was no possibility of going ahead and capturing the Alban Hills 'in the face of the concentrated troops that were ordered to meet us and did meet us'. This is also a shght confusion of the facts. Eugen Dollmann of the SS in Rome has made a typically cynical comment on those days: 'The Americans put up their tents, said their prayers, had a good meal, and then lost an unique occasion for finishing the war within the year.' the

war

as far as

Monte

Soratte

- Albano

The Germans, said Alexander, were panic. The Alhes, said Kesselring and

easy to deceive but not so easy to his chief

of staff Westphal, showed

an amazing lack of imagination; they

worked

strictly

according to plan,

was the all-important factor. They were not daring enough. If, for instance, there had been a secondary landing in Calabria at the time of the Sicilian landings, they would have had an 'annihilating victory'. A landing near Rome in September 1943 instead of at Salerno might have had the same effect. Similarly, a landing at La Spezia instead of at AnzioNettuno could have given the war a decisive turn. As far as Shingle was concerned, these opinions of each other's weaknesses appeared to bejustified. Kesselring was taken badly off guard, and the result could have been a disaster. The tension those first days was tremendous, but he certainly did not panic. The news reached him by about 3 a.m. By 5 a.m. German units were already heading towards the Beachhead. By 7. 10 a.m. orders had been given for reserves in the North of Italy to march south. Other units were also withdrawn from the Gustav Line, and the High Command or {Oherkommando der Wehrmacht), which was under Hitler's direct control, agreed to send divisions from the South of France and the Balkans. Kesselring's headquarters were at Monte Soratte, a strange mountain outcrop - like a huge wave about to break, Byron had said - to the northwest of Rome near the Sabine Hills. He had moved there after the Allies security

OKW

had bombed Frascati. The devastation of this delightful little town in just one hour, with the resulting civilian casualties and ruin of its famous sixteenth-century villas, had appalled him. Not for nothing had Hitler called him an Italophile. Soratte was a less inhabited spot, though beautiful in itself and admittedly of archaeological importance, associated with Hannibal and Constantine the Great, Pliny and Virgil. Usually Kesselring would fly from Soratte to the front at dawn, returning at dusk, to avoid interference from Allied aircraft.

MONTE SORATTE-ALBANO

As he had been commissioned into the Air Force, he wore the Luftwaffe uniform. Because of these Air Force associations Hitler was inchned to be more lenient towards him than he was to some Army Goering disliked him. Hitler's support was important, since it was he who was ultimately head of all armed forces. Hitler tried to keep control of strategy on every front, to the extent of pestering local commanders with niggling details. As far as Italy was concerned, the orders were that every yard should be fought for. There were those who considered Kesselring's fondness for the Italians a weakness. All the same he had been shocked by the 'base treachery' of the Italian government at leaders, but

the Armistice.

appearance Field-Marshal Albert Kesselring had a round, rather jolly face (he was nicknamed Smiling Albert), somewhat in contrast to the In

von Vietinghoff-Schcel, who commanded von Mackensen, in Fourteenth Army in North Italy. There were those who

autocratic features of General

the Tenth

Army on

command

the Gustav Line, and General

of the thought him over-optimistic, and Vietinghoff considered that he tended to drive

men

too hard.

Admiral Canaris, chief of military intelligence in Berlin, had visited the Italian front earlier in January. He had been questioned about Allied shipping activity in Naples, but had announced that there was 'not the slightest sign' that a landing

would

take place in the near future.

He had

Marshal Graziani, Mussolini's Minister of Defence, had asked Kesselring on that same day where his next line of resistance would be if Rome fell, and Kesselring had answered that he was actually left Italy

on the

21st.

not even considering the possibility o{ the enemy reaching added that while the Anglo-Americans obviously wanted political

and propaganda

switched to the Atlantic.

Rome. He

Rome

tor

of gravity had now was of secondary importance to

reasons, their strategic centre Italy,

said,

them. For

when on 12 January the French and British began their on the Gustav Line, there was considerable concern at Soratte.

all this,

attacks

Vietinghoff demanded that the two Panzer Grenadier divisions resting near Rome should be sent to reinforce him at once. Westphal records that a

'bitter tussle'

'laid

bare',

To agree would mean that Rome would be minimum of troops to guard the coastline from

ensued.

with

Civitavecchia southwards. Finally on the i8th Kesselring sent Vietinghoff the

two

divisions, as well as the headquarters

of Parachute Corps which I

had recently reached Rome. One of the unknown quantities, in the event of an Allied advance near the denuded Rome area, would of course be the reaction ot the Romans themselves. The events of 9-10 September, following the Armistice, had

shown

that there

were possibly dangerous elements,

especially

supplied

JANUARY

with enough weapons and ammunition.

December

Kesselring's

comprehensive alarm system,

in case of were an Allied landing near Rome, the code-word would be 'Richard' and immediately all the machinery would go mto motion. The Germans' advantage lay in easier communications. It was true that the Allies had air superiority and could attack convoys and railway lines. However their tactics were usually predictable, and it was the opinion of both Kesselring and his chief of staff Westphal that Allied bombing would have been far more effective if they had simply concentrated on certain key areas. On 1 8 January Kesselring felt it advisable to form a Kampfgruppe or Battle Group out of the 4th Parachute Division, stationed at Perugia. This Battle Group would consist of two battalions, each of about 650 men, and had to be ready for immediate action anywhere. Because of the lack of training time all its members would have to be veterans, fully experienced. The commander was Major Walther Gericke, a fine soldier who had

headquarters had prepared landings

any part of Italy.

If there

greatly distinguished himself in Crete.

The two

battalion

commanders

- Captain Hauber and

were also chosen for their outstanding qualities Major Kleye - and the assembly point was Isola Farnese,.on the site of the Etruscan city of Veii, near Lake Bracciano, a few miles north of Rome. Kesselring, worried about

emergency general

manpower

throughout

shortages, had also ordered an

He had been

uneasy about the Americans might consider an attack nearer Cassino itself. However his staff kept warning him that this continuous stand-to was tiring his troops, and so he decided to countermand it on the very night of 21 January. As he said in his memoirs: 'I had only myself to blame.' Two days before, Gericke had reported to the Corps Commander alert

Allied advances, and there

General Schlemmer

He had been

at his

were

Italy.

signs that the

headquarters

Grottaferrata in the Alban Hills.

told that he could not expect fuel or

ammunition

sufficient

for his requirements until the 22nd.

At 5.30 a.m. on the 22nd the signal reached Gericke from Schlemmer: 'Alarm! Feind heiderseits Nettuno gelandet!' - 'Alarm! Enemy landed each

He was ordered to despatch one battalion immediately Alban Hills. In point of fact the first alarm had been raised thanks to a corporal of the railway engineers. He had sped off into the night from Anzio on his motorcycle and by chance had encountered a Lieutenant Heuritsch ot the

side

of Nettuno!'

in lorries to the

200th Grenadier Regiment, and the

news

to the

commandant

had been the

latter

v/ho had passed on

who in turn had alerted HQ. now with Schlemmer, receive

Albano,

Not until 10.30 a.m. could Gericke, some reinforcements, from an assortment o{ sources including

the

MONTE SORATTE

ALBANO

platoon that had been guarding Kesselring's headquarters especially his

welcome,

own command

company of Tiger

post at

tanks.

Soratte and,

He thereupon

established

Albano. Shortly afterwards he was given

his

must secure the railway station at Campoleone on the main Rome— Naples line, and make a reconnaissance towards the newly built agricultural settlement of Aprilia some three miles further along the main orders: he

road to Anzio.

Kesselrmg was convinced that the Allies intended to seize the Alban The whole German strategy would thereby be in danger, and it

Hills.

might not be either said,

possible to retain the

why Rome

'The road to

would

Gustav Line. There was no reason

should not be the real Allied target. As Westphal has

Rome

was open, and an audacious

flying

column

have penetrated the city.' In effect, there were three main routes out of the new Beachhead: the central road along which Gericke was now making a reconnaissance, the coast road to Ardea and Ostia, and the road towards Cisterna on Route 7, the Appian Way. Vietinghoff was certainly

dismayed at having to part with some of his troops, especially as the Americans were now on the attack in the South, that he telephoned Kesselring advocating withdrawal from the Gustav Line. He was ordered so

to stand

fast.

of the Hermann Goering Division were from the Beachhead, so these were ready at once. Mackensen in North Italy was also ordered to make forces available from his Fourteenth Army; they were on the move by evening. The whole coastline could clearly be seen from Albano. To Gericke the scene was like a peacetime exercise, with ships unloading and aircraft cruising overhead. Battalion Hauber was sent to occupy Campoleone. It

happened

that elements

resting not far

Because of the shortage of vehicles Battalion Kleye did not arrive until 5.30 p.m. At 7.05 p.m. Gericke received a radio message that the village of Ardea near the coast was still free of enemy, though some weak patrols had been encountered nearby and driven back (presumably 'Bakerforce'). So a company from Battalion Hauber was sent to Ardea, destined to

become an important command

centre over the next weeks. Battalion

difficult country - full of gullies and deep fissures, filled with scrub between Ardea and Campoleone. The area was so large that Kleye was told that each platoon must prepare for circular

Kleye was spread along the

defence.

The

between Campoleone and Anzio seemed the most It was almost straight and ran through undulating countryside scattered with farms, with a single-line central road

obvious route for an Allied advance. railway track alongside

it.

The Germans

called the road

Die Allee; to the

it was Via Anziate. Lance-Corporal Joachim Liebschner found himself with that part of

Italians

JANUARY

was holding the road near Aprilia. Aged eighteen, he came from Silesia, and this was his first time in the front line; when only sixteen he had volunteered for the Waffen SS - the elite of the army - but had been turned down because of his age. Now he was acting as runner-batman to Lieutenant Weiss. His unit was full of confidence, but as the day wore on spirits became dampened because of the heavy loads that had to be carried and because of the muddy countryside, which affected Liebschner particularly since he was supposed to take messages by the Battle

Group

that

bicycle.

Enemy

shells

began

feeling of frustration

to drop,

and some

men were

killed.

There was

now, of not being able to hit back, or to attack. A heavy machine-gun groups and who had

sergeant, in charge of one of the

given Liebschner hell during training, complained about stomach trouble fell further and further behind until he sat down under cover of a

and

He was whimpering and had been wounded on the Russian front and that his past experiences had probably made him lose his nerve, but fellow-paratroopers were less charitable and muttered about 'court-martial'. They left the sergeant sitting in the mud and never small bridge saying that he could not go on.

knew

crying like an infant; Liebschner

saw him

that he

again.

Hermann commanded an anti-tank unit belonging to the Hermann Goering Division. His men were well rested and had been expecting to be thrown into the Cassino battle at any moment. The alarm Lieutenant

only reached him

1 1

a.m., but within forty-five minutes the guns

were

hitched up and ready to move. During the march there were constant attacks

from

'Jabos', as Allied

dive-bombers were known. 'They had

acquired the art of hedge-hopping and

made

life hell

for us.

Open

roads

Speed and manoeuvrability were our only weapons.' All Hermann's men could do was to fire back with rifles. 'They must have laughed at us, apart from the one who didn't get away. He had been very cheeky and even waved to us.' On one always resulted

his return

in a race

with

life

and death for

us.

fire of the entire unit 'got him 'He pulled up his aircraft too late; some of the tracer engine and it caught fire. He dipped his left wing and hit

journeys the concentrated

straight in the face'. bullets

had

hit his

the ground.'

When

at last his unit

cHmbed on

reached the slopes of the Alban

to the roof of a villa.

last pastel flickers

Hills,

Hermann

The landscape looked so peaceful in the left Monte Circeo, the fabled

of the setting sun: to the

abode of the enchantress Circe, and then the neat farmsteads in the drained marshland, and the low shoreline and the wine-dark sea. Peaceful until you turned your eyes towards Anzio and Nettuno, and there saw the flotilla of enemy ships unloading arms and ammunition. Even more chilling than the landing-craft was the sight of a cruiser and its escort of

MONTE SORATTE-ALBANO destroyers.

Hermann knew

well

could be, and the massacre

"When

darkness

came we had

large assemblies of

German

enough how deadly could cause

produce

the fire of these ships

directed on land targets.

of noise

a lot

order to fake

units.'

were moved into position along the Appian Way, as yet Hermann had no infantry protection. General Vietinghott was sending up other units of the Hermann Goering Du^ision from Cassino, and they would probably arrive in the morning. Some contact, mercitully slight, was made with American tanks after nightfall. Hermann wanted to give the impression that his torce was much larger than it really was, so all through the night he moved his guns up and down the road, firing them at intervals. The 65th Division, stationed at Genoa, had also been ordered south. Wilhelm Velten was in a cavalry platoon; the horses were used for reconnaissance and despatch work. In point of fact there were virtually no vehicles in the Division. 'We are the poorest devils in the whole Wehrmacht,' people in his company used to say. When the order to move came, the horses had to be left behind and the men were put into civilian

The

anti-tank guns

towards Cisterna, but

lorries,

furniture vans, luxury coaches, anything that could be

mandeered

in a

journey south, particularly about the quality the sausage.

'If a

Tommy

said to Velten, 'he will

The fmal

com-

hurry. There were complaints about food during the long

dared to eat

know

that he has

stage of the journey

ot that staple

German

piece of this sausage,'

won

had to be on

food,

corporal

the war."

foot, but

by the time the

Division was able, belatedly, to reach the Beachhead perimeter the

dramas and doubts of that first day were over. Velten's platoon found that it also was to take up positions at Campoleone station. Parachute Corps Headquarters, having arrived trom the Gustav Line, was now put temporarily in charge of the German defences. By 20.30 a message came that Aprilia was free of the enemy, but civilians reported that the viaduct bridge at Campo di Carne was occupied by British troops. New units kept arriving at Albano, sometimes without warning and usually without ammunition. This invcrlved constant reshuffling and improvisation. All would depend on how quickly the Allies acted the I

next day.

Rome Screams in the night. The spatter of machine-guns. People running, the sound of nailed boots. Then a single cry, a shriek of agony, and silence again. Not a shutter was opened; nobody dared to look.

A motor bicycle roared past. Silence again. A typical Roman night. But it was 24 January, had not left. This happened

Two

hours

and the Germans

still

m Via Lisbona, in a smart suburb to the north of the city.

later yet

more screams awoke

Luisa Arpini in Via Paraguay,

were coming from the flat next or the Gestapo must be taking

the adjoining street. She realized that they

door. She also realized that the Fascists

away thejewish family hiding there. She heard a woman's voice: 'No, no, no.' And then a man's name was called: 'Dino, oh Dino, Dino, Dino.' The horror of it would haunt Luisa all her life. She was sure the Jews had been betrayed for money by the portiere, a peculiar man. Then the door of a vehicle slammed. The vehicle drove off. Silence. On the other side of Rome the British Minister to the Holy See, D'Arcy Osborne, had also woken. '1 heard some shots, so went and looked out of the salone window over a dead, moonwashcd Rome; it was disconcerting but romantic to hear the silver silence shattered by a mysterious machine-gun, very close indeed, spitting death anonymously at nothing but silence and moonshine. Grim and beastly and sinister and evil

and symptomatic'

'Sabotage goes steadily forward,' wrote the American nun Mother Mary St Luke in her diary. The next morning an explosion in old Rome

Germans were using for storage. A lorry had been parked in the courtyard, but someone had just managed in time to remove a suspicious looking parcel on the running board. It would have been tragic if those wonderful loggias and barely missed

damaging Palazzo Borghese, which

the

colonnades had been destroyed.

The bomb would have been

planted there by the Gapists. Elsewhere

ROME

were more effective. On Via Appia and Via Casilina several were ambushed and blown up, thereby blocking German convoys which were then dive-bombed by the Allies. Telephone wires were cut, road-blocks blown up, sentries sniped or gunned down. A very powerful bomb had been set off in the buffet room at the main railway station; at least thirty German officers and men were killed or wounded. As a punishment for this General Maeltzer, the military commander of Rome, had the curfew put back to 5 p.m. Anyone seen on the streets after that hour would be shot at sight. This meant that people had to start for home at 4 p.m., and shops were shut at 3 p.m. Everybody seemed to be on edge, as if soon a supreme choice would be expected of you, a choice involving rejection or sacrifice, cowardice or glory: a test of conscience greater than on 9—10 September. Only the signal was needed - but that signal was slow in arriving. By day Allied planes flew high in the clear wintry sky, making white scrolls and streaks; and now distant artillery (or bombs?) could be heard from the direction of the Beachhead. Was Rome's apocalypse, at last, to hand? The end of the city of the Caesars, and of St Peter? The little market town of Velletri, in the Alban Hills, was said to have been crushed by bombardments. The Whitakers were told that scores of women had been killed while queueing for food, and among them was 'our poor gentle Signora Bartoli, whom we loved so much and who looked after our podere\ Major Sam Derry's escaped prisoners were impatient, wanting to make their contribution - to act, to fight. Some of them were getting too cocky, and Derry had to be severe. He sent a warning to Trooper Basil Thorpe: 'I have received a full report of your atrocious behaviour After the liberation you will have to answer the charges, which are already serious.' And to Private Parcheso, who from his name presumably had Italian blood: 'It has come to my notice that you are taking unnecessary risks, which may not only lead to your recapture, but to the recapture of your comrades You are to remain in hiding and only go out when absolutely necessary.' One of Derry's charges was a particular problem, namely a British general, Gambier-Parry, who would have been a prize indeed if recaptured by the Germans. Just before the landing Derry had arranged for the general to have a billet in a walled-up room that could only be reached by a plank forty feet above the ground. However, Gambier-Parry had seemed happy enough there, especially since — as he said — he had, at long last, access to a bath. their efforts

vehicles

Derry was Anzio.

confused

anyone

else

about the AlHes' intentions

Now there was the bad news that Centro X of the Military Front

had suffered another

arrest:

Ettore Basevi, partly Jewish,

who

produced

forged identity cards (having with incredible boldness stolen water-

JANUARY

marked paper from the Government prmting office) and the occasional underground newssheet. Fortunately Basevi was not sent to the GestapoSD headquarters at Via Tasso but to the Regina Coeli prison and only briefly.

The arrested Centro X radio operator, whom Derry had used, was Umberto Lusena; he was in Via Tasso, and this inevitably meant that he would be tortured. He too was a brave man, a major from the Parachutes who had made several trips north to contact escaped prisoners working with the partisans.

When

Princess Nini Pallavicini escaped

from her

Centro X transmitter had been in her bedroom. The palazzo rambling but magnificent series of salons and panelled rooms, and it was here that Military Front leaders often met. Since Nini was the widow of a war hero and by birth associated with another hero of Garibaldi's time, it was assumed that her house was unlikely to be molested. She had walled up the best of her famous collection of pictures, including Botticelli's La Derelitta, in the cellars which were once part of the tomb of Constantine. She also had harboured a number of Army officers who had to be fed by means of lowering baskets from upper windows. palace, the

contained

Two

flats, at

Via Firenze and Via Chelini, had been

made

available to

the O'Flaherty-Derry organization for hiding escaped prisoners.

however, the Nazis knew about them, and

was

Now,

question of finding

more private individuals who would take the risk of helping. Derry was some difficulties since two of his 'billeting officers'. Lieutenant John Furman and Private Joe Pollak, had been caught - the former was in Regina Coeli, the latter was thought to have been shot. The two main providers of accommodation hitherto had been a half-Danish film producer, Renzo Lucidi, and a jolly, warm-hearted Maltese, Mrs Chevalier, known to her British guests as 'Mummy'. On one occasion Lucidi had taken John Furman (very unltalian-looking) to hear The Barber of Seville at the Opera. A high-ranking German officer in the audience admired Lucidi's attractive wife, so Furman had suggested that she should ask him to sign her programme. The German was delighted to do so. When the programme was returned he was found to be none other than that lover of good food and wine, that rubicondo pagliaccio, rubicund clown. General Maeltzer - who, to his credit, at Christmas had brought a in

hundred and dinner

at a

Church

fifty British

luxury

Roman

and American prisoners out of camps for hotel, followed

service at the

American

Via Nazionale, which he attended.

Derry was worried that 'Mummy' might still be in danger, since the Gestapo had already once visited her flat. Nevertheless, she insisted that it should always be available for escapers, to the delight of her five

ROME daughters. As

Much more owned

happened, Renzo Lucidi was eventually to be arrested. was the position of another helper, Nebolante, who

serious

the Via Firenze

beaten up

flat.

Not only was he

arrested but he

was badly

Regina Coeli.

Unlike its counterpart in London, Wormwood Scrubs, the more euphonious Regina Coeli (Queen of Heaven) prison - sunk as it is between the Janiculum and the river embankment - seems very much within Rome. In times of peace women even go up on the slope behind and shriek out messages and family news to their men inside. It consists primarily of five

hracci

or arms leading out of

communal

hall

where

Each branch, containing the cells, has two upper storeys, with more cells, in front of which are platforms from which warders can keep a watch on goings-on below. Injanuary 1944 the terzo braccio, or third arm, was the most dreaded, for it had been allocated to the Gestapo for political offenders. Furman's particular worry was about the American Air Force sergeant religious services can be held.

same time. The sergeant had been badly concussed after now suffered from hallucinations, sometimes imagining be Goering or Hitler. It was believed that the warders were

arrested at the

baihng out and himself to

baiting him.

25 January there was a surprise.

Furman and

the other Allied

were told

that they were to be camps in the North. Derry, when he read the news in a note smuggled out by a prison barber, prayed that they were not to be shot. Furman and his friends, however, were happy and 'dreaming of daring

prisoners, including the sergeant, transferred to

escapes'.

was

escaped prisoners lucky enough to be in Gendarmerie barracks. Life might be boring, but at least whisky and cigarettes were in relative profusion. The Pope, with his usual 'incomparable charm', as Osborne said, had sent them his 'affectionate benediction', adding that he supposed that even though they were not Catholics they would not object to a blessing. Officially, at any rate, he did not know about another group of prisoners hidden in an old granary attached to the American College, near the Propaganda Fide on the Janiculum. The College was a training centre for missionaries, including some Germans and Japanese. Lieutenant Colin Lesslie of the Irish Guards, a future film producer, was in charge there. He had had a rousing welcome on arrival from O'Flaherty: 'Well, well, me boy, our first Irishman!' Lesslie had been captured in Tunisia and had escaped in September. On reaching Rome he had made his way to the British Embassy, which for some peculiar reason was not then under German surveillance; the Swiss caretaker, Costantini, had whipped the dust-sheets It

a different story for those

the Vatican's

JANUARY

off the ambassador's bed and here Lesshe had spent several comfortable

removed by O'Flaherty first to Via Chelini and then to the American College. Lesslie's charges were an assorted bunch, including several American student doctors of Italian extraction, GIs and British soldiers, a South African padre and several political refugees. Monsignor Montini had sent a corporal from the Pope's bodyguard, Antonio Call, to keep a watch on them. Call's job was also to keep contact with diplomats interned in the nights until

Vatican, and every evening he had to report back to Montini. instance, a

diplomat wanted to have

a haircut,

permit from Montini, and then to the

Italian

If,

for

he had to apply to Call for a

ambassador to the Holy See,

and then to the appropriate Ministry. He would be allowed out for two hours and accompanied by Italian police, and later handed back to Call.

Call also did cooking up at the a

cow would

beef became

American College. Every

now and then

be sent up from the Vatican for slaughtering. Well stewed a

familiar diet.

reached the CLN that an American secret agent was in Rome. meeting was therefore arranged for representatives to meet Tompkins on the 24th at his contact Cervo's house. Tompkins was ready with his dramatic proposal that he should arrange with the Fifth Army for a

News had

parachute drop in the Borghese Gardens. According to his information

no more than

fifteen hundred Germans in the city at the had clearly been told by his boss in the South, General Donovan, that on no account did the Allies want an armed clash between the Italian right and left, whether between the Badoglian Military Front and the CLN, or the opposing wings of the CLN itself. As a lone American major he now had the task of persuading the CLN

there could be

utmost.

also

main duty was simply to channel their efforts into getting rid o{ the Germans. The meeting was headed by Riccardo Bauer, who ran the military junta and was one of the heads of the Party of Action. Bauer, a Milanese representatives that their

aged forty-eight, imprisoned twice during Fascism, modest, with gentle blue eyes, came to be regarded after the war as an almost saintly character. Giorgio Amendola, the Communist leader, was also present meeting.

Tompkins was

a little

amused by

the

the precautions. 'Partisans

were posted for blocks around Cervo's house with submachine-guns, hand grenades and automatics wrapped in paper to look like parcels.' It appeared that potentially there were about eight thousand partisans in Rome, and about half that number again outside, as well as escaped Allied prisoners and, of course, Montezemolo's men. Some of the provincial partisans were, however, escaped criminals, often pursuing

ROME

highwaymen. Tompkins was told about January after Badogho had demanded by radio from Brindisi that the CLN should submit to his command, and how, not surprisingly, it had been rejected. He was more than ever aware of the private vendettas and acting as the

CLN

meeting on

sinister implications

of this

rift

between the

CLN

and the Military Front.

Tompkins too peremptory and remembers him saying: 'Now is the time to show the stuff you're made of.' In the middle of the meeting Cervo placed a radio message from the Fifth Army Amendola,

seems, found

was a warning not to move on any account, that was temporarily postponed.' Tompkins could scarcely conceal his reaction to this news. There could of course be no question now of parachutists being dropped within Rome. The same message contained a top priority demand for information on all German troop movements towards the Beachhead; this was at least something that could be passed on to the Italians. The meeting broke up lamely. No wonder Amendola was not impressed. As far as he was concerned, the evidence was still clear that the Germans intended to withdraw from Rome. Preparations for the general insurrection would continue. 'Make life impossible for the occupying forces' was in effect the slogan for the whole European Resistance. It was decided that efforts of the three parties of the left in Rome should be intensified, and particular help would be given to the Gap di Zona, the Gapist groups in the Alban Hills. The Communists in any case were already organized on military lines. They had divided Rome up into areas, each under separate commands, and allied to them was an organization of students and professors at the University. There were several secret arms deposits, known as Santa Barbaras, after the patron saint of the artillery; one of the most important was in Via Giulia. Some women, such as Captain Marisa Musu, were enrolled in the Gaps as fighters. Others were in charge of vital subdivisions dealing with hospital work, supplies of food and money, contacts with families of those who had been arrested or deported - among in front

of Tompkins:

the liberation of

'It

Rome

main organizers being a school teacher, Laura Lombardo Radice, also marry a major in an 'Assault'Brigade', Pietro Ingrao (many years later Speaker of the Italian House of Commons). The work of sabotage and collecting of arms was in fact under the Saps (Squadrons of Patriotic Action), whereas the Gaps were in charge of the 'elimination of fascist spies, enemy personnel and enemy war material'. The Socialist Party and the Party of Action were too small to be so highly organized: 'all head and no tails', like tadpoles. Anyway at this crucial moment solidarity between left-wing leaders seemed vital. Meanwhile Tompkins, against his republican instincts, felt constrained to get in touch with the Military Front. He was not impressed by their the a

captain and later to

JANUARY

rose-coloured, tissue-thin Bulletin, produced by the unfortunate Basevi's

and realized how inaccurate was some of the radio information on German troop movements that Centro X was relaying back to the South. He did not meet Montezemolo or General Armellini, the new commander of the Military Front, and indeed was not then aware of the qualities of Montezemolo, whose name lives now as one of the great symbols of heroism during the Occupation. Montezemolo was aged forty-four, an aristocrat, selfless and very successors,

religious.

disapproved of Gapist-type

avoid such actions within the

activities

city, for fear

and asked the Front to

of Nazi

reprisals.

After the

of his friend, General Simoni, he knew his turn could not be far off. Gold-rimmed spectacles and a moustache were hardly enough of a

arrest

disguise for such a distinctive figure. Indeed he

doomed

On stop

unless

Rome

was

23 January a message arrived

The hour

has

come

felt

the

whole Front was

liberated soon.

from

Rome and

for

all

Bari:

'From Allied

Italians to fight

Command

with

all

means

Refuse to work for enemy on .' On that very railways or elsewhere stop Sabotage wherever possible day Frignani, the Carabimeri chief, had been arrested and taken to possible and with

all

their strength stop

And on

Via Tasso.

the 25th

Montezemolo was

arrested

and joined him

there.

by the news. What if Montezemolo talked under torture? But Montezemolo's followers and family had more

Tompkins was

confidence

horrified

him.

The treatment Montezemolo Simoni's.

was

said that

received was possibly worse than old

he returned from the torture

room with

were black and swollen, a bloody froth on his lips. He was tortured so regularly, and the pain was so intense, that his captors provided him with a deck-chair to sit on in his cell. Stories of what was being done to him spread quickly. Since Simoni was a friend of the Pope, the family had been to ask the Holy Father to intercede with Kappler. 'There is little can do, alas,' he had said, and it was obvious that he knew precisely what sort of atrocities were being committed at Via Tasso, under the direction of that cool, blue-eyed head of the GestapoSD, whose only sign of annoyance would be when the duelling scar flared red on his cheek. The Simonis knew well enough, however, that the Pope himself was in danger, and that there were rumours that he might be deported to Germany. Nevertheless he did manage to arrange permission for special food and clean laundry to be sent, and there were hopes that the family might be allowed to visit Simoni. It was different for the Montezemolos, who would have been arrested if they had shown themselves publicly. The Pope arranged for Monsignor Montini to be in dislocated jaw, eyes that

charge of Montezemolo's

case.

ROME Like Simoni, Montczcniolo never spoke. his arrest at

He had

spent the night before

Palazzo Rospighosi. Nini Pallavicini, whose turn was to

soon, had begged

him not

meeting with Armellini

come

he had insisted on going to a the house of Filippo De Grenet, a diplomat. to leave, but

After lunch Armellini had left, accompanied by Montezemolo's secretary, Michele (Chicco) Multedo. As they came out Multedo realized that they were being watched. 'Don't look up, keep walking,' he muttered. As they rounded a corner, Montezemolo and De Grenet

emerged; they were arrested at once. Armellim's wife Aileen now found herself rushed from one hiding place to another. She was nursing a baby, so terrified of losing her milk. First she hid in the Blue Sisters' clinic, then went to the empty and icy flat of the well-known Roman tailor Giro, with only a few sticks of pasta to eat. Finally, to her utmost alarm, she was taken to the TB sanatorium on

Monte Mario, where there was a German road-block right at the entrance, and 'this made me tremble every time my husband came to see was nothing between us and the Anzio all day and night from the gunfire, and at night the Very lights and explosions were very clear. The place was tull was very depressed and so cried a lot, but this of phony sick like me. helped really as people took pity and brought milk for my baby Meanwhile, some of the grand prisoners at San Gregorio were actually released. Not only that, but the remaining six - one an Englishwoman me.' 'As the

crow

there

flies

Beachhead, the windows rattled

under the wire fence, thanks to a young Sicilian, an exThe Gestapo regarded Roman high society as being in the special domain of Dollmann, who not unnaturally was furious at the news. 'Enough of this Roman aristocracy!' he cried, adding: '1 have given orders for the Duchess of Sermoneta to be sent north tomorrow.'

managed

to escape

Carabiniere officer.

doubt the duchess was now the most important blatantly pro-Allied aristocrat who had not yet been taught a lesson - Princess Pallavicini and, earlier. Prince Dona and Princess Isabelle Colonna having escaped the net

and gone into hiding. On 28 January, therefore, her butler entered her drawing-room, 'to announce not dinner but the police'. She was put under house arrest. 'You must consider yourself in prison,' she was told, 'as though you were at Regina Coeli.'' Vittoria Sermoneta was an accomplished flirt, even with policemen half her age, and she too managed to slip away, down the passages and back staircases of the

honeycomb-like Palazzo Orsini. She took refuge at the Spanish Embassy, where she heard that her house was 'forfeit to the nation' and all her furniture was to be sold at auction. The incredible Monsignor O'Flaherty had actually been warned by the German ambassador, Weizsaecker, that he would be arrested it found outside Vatican property. For Kappler regarded

him now

an arch spy.

JANUARY

64 O'Flahcrty did take

tew precautions but not very many, and

miraculous that he did not fmd himself

was

Via Tasso.

O'Flaherty had originally been outraged by Fascism when in the summer of 942 he sa wjews being made to dig sand out of the Tiber. Earlier 1

in the

war he had

also visited prisoner

of war camps

in Italy,

and had started

then to arrange for messages to be sent back secretly to their families on Vatican Radio. Naturally, therefore, after September 1943 many of his prisoner friends came to fmd him in Rc:)me. He helped them simply 'because they were

human beings'. As he said to Derry:

'I've no reason to be you know. Have you never heard of the Irish Troubles? was there.' At an earlier stage he himself had escaped arrest by disguising himself as a coal-man. In actual fact Derry was careful not to let O'Flaherty become involved with passing of military information to the Allies. O'Flaherty was aware of this, but did on occasions drop the odd sly hint about troop movements. In the organization he was known as 'Golf because of his addiction to the game - he had even given lessons to Ciano in the palmy days when the Golf Club was a fashionable meeting place. Other Irish priests also had code-names: Father Claffey was 'Eyerish', old Father Lenan 'Uncle Tom', Father Buckley 'Spike', and Father Flanagan 'Fanny'. Then there was Father Owen Snedden, a New Zealander known as 'Horace'; he was on Vatican Radio. The cheerful and energetic little Brother Robert Pace, a Maltese, was 'Whitebows', because he belonged to the De La Salle order and wore white bows on his black cassock. Father Spike Buckley had a reputation for being 'game for anything' and after a few 'beakers of the warm South' was accustomed to break into

fond of the

British,

'Mother Macree'. The Irish Minister, Dr Thomas Kiernan, remained and preferred to be unaware of his compatriots' activities, let alone those of his daughter Blon or indeed of his wife. Mrs Kiernan, a large and outspoken woman, was a well-known soprano, Delia Murphy, whose most famous - and favourite - song was 'The Old Spinning Wheel'. She was allowed by the Fascist authorities to visit her farm outside Rome without escort, in order to fetch vegetables, and on several occasions took priests with her. On her return the Swiss Guards did not seem to notice that there were Army boots under the cassocks. For some the Allied landings had been the cue to throw away caution. Neighbours became suddenly aware of Resistance workers living next door. Jews dared to appear on the streets, such as Piero Delia Seta, aged twenty-one, who with three friends had taken refuge after the terrible October retata in the church of the Oratorians, the so-called Chiesa Nuova or New Church (although built in the sixteenth century) in the Corso Vittorio Emanuele. The monastery attached to the church was already sheltering several ex-Army and Carabiniere officers, but the four young men were walled up in a small room, receiving food and clothing through stolidly neutral,

ROME a

Now,

trapdoor.

65 of blankness, lasting three

after this strange period

months, they had surfaced into the open. Another young Jew had been sleeping inside an altar. He too took courage and emerged - but only temporarily. Unfortunately Celeste Di

Many Jews were to regret and some were even to pay with their lives. Disaster also lay ahead for the young Communists who looked after the 'Santa Barbara' in Via Giulia. Either they behaved too rashly, or they were betrayed by an informer. In the Lateran Seminario there was a sudden panic one night. The CLN Porto, the Black Panther, was on the prowl. their foolhardiness,

leader

Bonomi

heard

German

patrol 'squawking' outside the entrance.

hour we were in an was impossible even to sit in the pitch darkness. What a splendid haul if the Germans had gone down there! Practically the whole Committee of Liberation, from me ... to De Gasperi [Christian Democrat] ... to Nenni [Socialist].' Indeed some of the most famous of the post-war politicians, including Prime Ministers, were hiding in the Seminario. Nenni had told Bonomi that the three parties of the left resented his stern letter calling for solidarity. Bonomi had replied that he did not want to be dragged into 'adventures' or conflitti which would be disastrous for the cause. Meanwhile there was the CLN Congress at Bari, due to be held on 28 January. The Roman CLN could only watch impotently and wait

'We thought

there

would be an

underground passage where

would be the first democratic congress

for news, but at least this in liberated

invasion. For over an

Europe, and

could only lead to

to be held

resolution attacking the

king and Badoglio. Another development, somewhat surprising, was that

Badoglio - presumably encouraged by Vyshinsky - had invited the

Communist

leader Togliatti to return to Italy from Moscow. few escaped Russian prisoners of war were in hiding in Rome, and these also came under Derry's wing. There were others at large in Italy, and a group of twenty operated in the Alban Hills, under the command of one Vassily. Rough, huge creatures they were, living almost wild and terrifying the peasants who had to cope with their enormous appetites. They took absurd risks, and as the days passed, and the Germans became more established, they were harried from one hilltop to another. They seemed relieved to be able to join up with the Gapist forces, headed by Pino Levi Cavaglione — a man who had spent six years in prison under the

Fascists.

first

things had

gone well

they had even run into

'Domani

noi kaputt

for Levi Cavaglione's

German

soldiers

- Tomorrow we

who had

are finished,' offering thousand

notes for civilian clothes. Levi Cavaglione sent a patrol

head.

men. Near Albano

cheerfully told them,

British officer acted coolly, but an

lire

down to the Beach-

American major was very

JANUARY

and food, with a warning that men from a Hermann Goering armoured division were on their way north from Cassino. The Alhed bombing was appalhngly indiscrimmate. Immense damage was done to the town of Genzano and in the process Levi friendly, giving cigarettes

Cavaghone

arms deposits. were laid across the roads. Military telephone wires were sabotaged, motorcycles ambushed. Then, porca miseria, tanks and armoured cars moved into the area. Germans were mounting heavy machine-guns. They burst into peasants' houses, shouting Via tutti Large

lost several

nails

There could be no argument, no time to collect belongings. On one such occasion Levi Cavaglione, who was caring for a wounded comrade, found himself confronted by a young German officer, slim and elegant. 'Why do you hate us?' the German asked, not knowing Levi Cavaglione was a partisan. 'You hate us and we are shedding our blood for you.' Three young British prisoners at that moment passed in a truck, their faces fresh and well shaved. They made the V sign and peasants gave them fruit, and then they were off again, to

everybody

out.'

prison, alive.

Soon came nightmare. A huge dust cloud hung over poor, ruined Bombs and more bombs. Germans everywhere. Their mighty machine was truly getting into gear. Lorries full of parachutists in war camouflage uniform. Tanks groaning, rumbling; Panzer Grenadiers in grey, the spread eagle on their lapels. Scores of civilians were killed during an air-raid. There were bodies everywhere, but the tanks went forward, crushing them. Genzano was evacuated at two hours' notice, and the people had to take refuge in the woods on the slopes hanging over Lake Nemi. Many of the inhabitants of Albano had rushed up to Castel Albano.

Gandolfo, hoping for sanctuary Levi Cavaglione and

in the

Papal

villa.

representative of the Party of Action hid in

of Ariccia, with various families and two smiling, bronzed South Africans. Artillery rumbled and thudded below. Myriads of lights, green, red and yellow sprayed into the dark sky. 'Will the Allies be here tomorrow?' Levi Cavaglione asked the South Africans. 'Yes, cellar at the village

they'll

be here tomorrow.'

On the same day, 28 January, old Mrs Whitaker in the Parioli district of Rome was writing: 'The battle raging - how can it end? So near, and is

yet so far our liberators.'

The

Allied

bombs had

cut off the water supply,

and pails and bottles of water had to be filled from a local pump. Schwester Weisskopf, her German nurse, was distressed by the manhunts. She had been told that old men, waiters in aprons, workers in overalls were being rounded up to repair bombed roads, and of course they were machine-gunned by Allied planes in the process. Mother Mary St Luke

ROME

in thirteen peasants from Lanuvio, near Velletri, where they said hundreds of Americans had been captured. They also said that their houses had been destroyed by the heavy guns of battleships off the coast.

had taken

'We do not want Germans or Meanwhile there were more arrests, and more grenades were thrown in the streets. And then came the news that the Fascist Secretary in Bologna had been shot by partisans, and that In

Trastevere there were

Americans. Let us weep

as a result

arrested in

nine

graffiti:

in peace.'

men had

been executed. General Gariboldi had been

Rome and was expected to be shot because of complicity in the

overthrow of Mussolini. 'Life seems to be turning into a series of plots, counter-plots, murders and reprisals,' wrote Mother Mary. The real agony of Rome was about to begin.

Algiers

had celebrated the Anzio landings with

bathe in

a place

we knew

as the

Sea-witch Cauldron. Soon the weather changed dramatically, and snow

on Algiers. wrote in my diary that casualties in Italy were 'frightful'. One friend had been blinded, another had lost a foot. was anxious about Nick Mansell at Anzio. was also getting desperate now to leave, not for any heroic reason, and certainly not for fun. simply thought was losing face by staying on at La Perouse. tell

Anzio

now came

'But

disaster, and the ruin in its prime purpose of the So Churchill summed up the days following the Shingle

enterprise.'

landings.

On 24 January he had telegraphed Alexander: 'Am very glad you are pegging in claims rather than digging in beachheads.' On the next day 'fairly good progress' by both British and American The build-up of stores was proceedmg well, and the capacity of

Alexander reported Divisions.

mud and snow, and and dense wire, the US Corps on the Cassino front was making another attempt to cross the Rapido; at the same time General Juin and his French Expeditionary Corps prepared for a stroke of daring Anzio's port expanding. Meanwhile, in freezing

across minefields

through the mountains that could outflank the Gustav Line. If both efforts succeeded, then the way would be opened up for an advance along the

— throughout the centuries an invader's gateway and a link up with VI Corps at Anzio. Churchill cabled on the 26th: 'I am thinking of your great Liri valley

Rome

—

battle night

and day.'

The

severe weather had also reached Anzio. 'Rain, hail,

words

a hell

come

still

of a storm,' wrote Lucas. 'No

air raids last

towards Anzio. This waiting

terrible.

sleet. In

other

but

shells

night I

want an

all-out

come yet and this weather won't help Bad for tanks.' But more raids were to come: '8.45 p.m. The biggest yet. The Hun's determined to ruin me and knows that if lose Anzio harbour am in a hell of a fix. went to look at the mess. Trucks are burning and the town is in a shambles, but ships are being unloaded.

Corps

effort but the time hasn't

matters.

Casualties have been heavy

days

afraid.

think

can attack

in a

tew

By now he had telt

.' .

he needed

He had

nearly fifty thousand

combat troops

in the line. Still

broader base.

taken over the

villa

of the

German commander, who had

JANUARY

70 apparently left

left in a

on the desk

of rows of

hurry, for

in his office.

a half-glass

barrels, unfortunately

depressing', with bones laid out

Borghese's house

as his

of brandy and

The main Corps

sausage had been

HQ was in a wine cellar, full

empty, and in an ossuary, 'damned on shelves. Clark had chosen Prince

own headquarters when

he visited the Beachhead.

Lucas found the British sometimes difficult to understand. The British

were getting restless and resentful about his inertia. Since Corps HQ were becoming 'frazzled' as result of the shelling, Anglo-American relations were not helped by these complaints. But there were Americans who were also worried. 'Shit, we ought to be getting on,' a Signal Corps captain said to Nick Mansell as yet another glider bomb landed a hundred yards away from a communication cable they were laying. John Hope watched red-faced old Corncob Charlie puffing away over sure am going to attack. But his maps and air photos. 'Lookee, Hope, what am to attack? What would you attack?' 'Sir,' replied Hope, 'why don't you send a patrol up the Albano road and see what's happening?' might as well do that. Hell, want to attack.' 'Well, for their part

tempers

That had been on the 24th. The Grenadier Guards had at last been a reconnaissance patrol under Lieutenant Hargreaves beyond the Flyover. The road was straight, over apparently flat ground, and was lined with leafless trees, as in a Dutch painting. Italian peasants waved from small neat farmsteads, spaced evenly along the road, and some were even ploughing with oxen. 'Niente tedeschi! No Germans!' Hargreaves was in high spirits and his men were proud to be the first to move towards Rome. Their objective was the diminutive railway station of Carroceto, beyond which was the cluster of modern brick buildings called Aprilia on the map and which came to be knovvn as the Factory because of three tall towers. And it was from the Factory that the first serious German fire came. It was therefore decided that the Guards Brigade, led by the Grenadiers, should clean up the Carroceto-Factory area the next day. Far from niente tedeschi the enemy was in much greater strength than had been imagined, and soon there was little cause left for high spirits. Indeed, within the next sixteen days the Grenadiers were to lose twenty-nine officers out of their normal establishment of thirty-five, and five hundred and seventy-nine other ranks out of eight hundred. Lieutenant Hargreaves, a 'model officer' his colonel said, was one of the first to die, killed outright by machine-gun fire. There now developed a hand-to-hand battle, with bayonets and grenades, while the Italian inhabitants of Aprilia hid in the cellars, and allowed to send up

their

horned white cattle were left to career madly among the shell-bursts. the place was cleared, but it had been at great cost, even though

last

ANZIC)

more than

hundred prisoners were taken. So

far this

was the only

'peg'

that could tairly be claimed.

Alexander, immaculate as ever, with his fur collar like an apparition from Czarist Russia, seemed pleased enough. 'What a splendid piece of work,' he told Lucas, watching the unloading ot Liberty ships at Anzio. 'I am doing my best,' jotted down Lucas, 'but it seems terribly slow. must will not be keep my feet on the ground and do nothing foolish ... stampeded.' Clark had also visited the Beachhead, flying in a Cub only a few feet above the sea. 'He should have known better,' said Lucas, who found him gloomy about the Cassino front, 'where the bloodiest fight ot the war is going on' - the men there were exhausted. In his own diary Clark wrote that he felt there would be sufficient strength at Anzio to break out within a week. 'I will then strike out and cut the German lines of Then will turn my attention to Rome.' communication The code-breaking machine Ultra now picked up a chilling message from Hitler to Kesselnng: 'The Gustav Line must be held at all costs The Fuehrer expects the most bitter struggle.' General Lucian Truscott, of the US 3rd Division, had not been especially gladdened to find that his sector was being opposed by the Hermann Goering Division, 'old customers'. He had been sending out small patrols in the direction of Cisterna and had come to realize that they had turned every barn or farmhouse into a machine-gun nest. Further south the marshland had been flooded. The digging oi foxholes was nearly impossible; after two feet you came across water. He himself had been hit by a shell exploding near his foot. The wound would have been far worse had he not been wearing boots. Still, his leg had to go into a plaster cast. Nick Mansell saw him arrive in a jeep outside Corps HQ and hobble along the street, taking no notice of a dog-fight overhead and the shrapnel pattering down. Did Truscott realize that Horace had written an ode to the goddess of Fortune, who was the patroness of Anzio? Probably not, but the old girl certainly kept an eye on him. The British destroyer J^nwy and two hospital ships were sunk. There were grisly stories of trying to rescue legless men from the oily water. Mansell also saw a minesweeper go up. 'It was hellish. A great ugly sheet of flame, with seventeen men inside. A noise like an avalanche of cannon I

The ship disappeared in seconds.' The shells kept screaming down from

balls.

couple of days, blue, rising

—

the Alban Hills. For the first sundown, you could see the Hills clearly, a wall of soft it was said - to three thousand feet, with white blocks of

houses like dice and what seemed to be

time the huge sky,

full

viaduct near Genzano. At that

of gathering cumulus, had

beauty that was not

connected with dive bombers, ack-ack or the railway gun Anzio Annie.

But

now

that

was

past.

The

rain

and wind meant misery, and the sky was

JANUARY On the beaches

Ugly, the Hills were invisible. pontoons had been swept away, and supply ships from Naples were being delayed by gales. It was as if Jupiter had woken up and was not pleased. From the heights of Monte

Cavo he was

flinging the thunderbolts of old, pelting the

hailstones that

bounced off

Beachhead with

helmets, and sending out jagged

down the barrage balloons. The Nemi must have been terrified.

lightning that even struck

groves around Lake

steel

dryads

in the

was now to press on along the Albano road. Via up from Carroceto station to the village of Campoleone, already in the foothills of the Alban Hills and on the main Rome-Naples railway line. Campoleone and Cisterna, opposite the American sector, were the two places that most people considered should have been occupied within twenty-four hours of an unopposed landing. It was becoming evident that the plain on the left of the road was not a plain at all, but fissured with deep valleys, impossible for tanks. So the road was a long thin salient, nicknamed the Cigar, or the French Letter, take your choice. Nobody was particularly surprised to find that Campoleone was strongly held by the enemy: a discovery which, however, cost many dead and wounded. A group of wooden huts to the north of the Factory was taken in the chill of the early morning by Captain Hohler of the Grenadiers, but after a while he was driven out. Later the hardly lissom Hohler returned and retook the huts, where he found that a guardsman who had previously been blinded by shell-blast had had both his legs blown off as he lay on a stretcher; there were several other wounded men in there, including the company sergeant-major. Hohler then advanced into open ground. His men dropped all round him. It was like a Wild West movie, a watcher said later, only there were no arrows. Hohler's arm was broken by mortar shrapnel, and eventually he was left with one man, also wounded. Feeling faint, he returned to the hut and sat down on some sacks, where he was joined by a guardsman from another platoon whose bren-gun had

The

task for the British

Anziate,

four

miles

jammed. He heard shouts: 'Seconds later the turret of a tank appeared a few feet away with its gun trained on the hut. Almost at the same time there was a gurgling noise, and the company commander [Hohler] saw the bren gunner being led away with a schmeisser jammed into his ribs, having been caught unawares with his gun in pieces. Captain Hohler carefully lay down, put his helmet on his face, turned up his toes, and lay as one dead. The wounded guardsman was led off as well, but the ruse worked, and Captain Hohler was not disturbed again.' Hohler eventually reached safety and found that the colonel had been wounded too. So many had been killed and wounded in the Battalion that it was a relief when some American Rangers moved up on the right flank. Eventually the Grenadiers were relieved by the Sherwood Foresters, who

ANZIO

wh.eh they had been l.vmg - brewing were appalled to see the squalor m exereta and, °f ™""<^- '™"^„ up among dead bodies, old tins, Guards further north that the Scots house the was squalid more Even known as Smelly Farm No one could were forced to occupy it became you live there; when shells dropped, understand how human beings could narrow a had had muck. Dick Bates were plastered all over with stinking lobbing over mortar shells one were Krauts The shave on the way up. was sweeping the road. It was no joke thirty seconds, and an 88 .

every

box of

suddenly, knockmg over a the carrier in front stopped the box, and the carrier went up over grenades. The driver reversed right mate Ber officer. As Bates and his with a huge explosion, killing an tanks Tiger German three spotted Huggins unloaded their gun, they h tren slit their left They huts. shooLg up the Grenadier company in the this. for had Pay they immediately knocked out one tank. But

Then

and and blasted away a. them^ Huggins Another Tiger just swivelled round - his leg was ripped off Bates fired flew for cover, but he was unlucky attack, Later in the day, during another again, damaging the second tank. imout a third. He was awarded an Bates single-handedly knocked and promoted to Lance-Corporal. mediate Distinguished Conduct Medal was when he thought he was One of the rottenest experiences for Bates trench the way to C carrier to ask people in a slit lost He got out of his not only dead but turned to Company. Everyone in that trench was German he had noticed was that the raspberry mush. Another thing ones m the ragged and filthy, not like prisoner; you took in this area were

North

Africa.

When

General Ernie

Lucas got up,

Harmon of the US ist Armored arrived 'Glad to see you. You laid down his pipe and said:

pockets. There

Anzio needed

some British commanders were revolvers in his tough-guy pose, with two pearl-handled on the 27th meeting of divisional commanders

^'hc was needed mdeed, even suspicious of his

was

stood uprigh reckon you got to go places.' Harmon and he stalked out of the breeches. 'Jesus, I'll go places,'

Ernie,' said Lucas,

and hoisted his went straight to where his men were room. The story goes that he once Advance. And they advanced encamped and said: 'Boys, get mto line. Ernie No wonder people kept on askmg: Where s to hell or victory.

Churchill that he was not satisfied ^°On'that same day Alexander cabled Clark, discussed the situation with with the speed of progress and had small tactical headquarters on who agreed with him and was settmg up a which would be for the next few days. To the Beachhead where he ott sealed were troops your unpleasant if Churchill replied: 'It would be

JANUARY

main army could not advance from the South.' Clark arrived on the 28th, as usual with a collection of photographers. On the way he had been nearly killed by a trigger-happy minesweeper, which mistook his motor-launch for enemy. One of the shells hit the very stool on which Clark was sitting. He was untouched, though the deck was there and the

'littered

with casualties and running with blood'. Clark

now

decided not

to sleep in Prince Borghese's villa, but in a caravan in the grounds.

An be

attack had at long last been planned,

and not surprisingly

simultaneous assault on Campoleone and Cisterna.

was

tragedy,

however, caused a delay of twenty-four hours. The Guards Brigade was to have led the attack on Campoleone, but the day before jeeps carrying all the Grenadier company commanders, with the plans, took the wrong turn and ran straight into the German lines. The jeeps were destroyed and the officers shot.

tomorrow

makings of a bloody day,' was Corps meeting of commanders. And indeed there followed one of the worst calamities in the whole Beachhead campaign. The 1st and 3rd Battalions of the US Rangers had been given the task of taking Cisterna. It was a daredevil assignment - mad, if one did not know the Rangers, who had already been spending a tough week in the neighbourhood of the Factory. The Battalions, with a total strength of 767 all ranks, were to creep along the six miles of flat reclaimed marshland 'Well, gentlemen,

has

the

all

the hardly encouraging opening at a VI

along the Fossa di Pantano, an offshoot of the Mussolini Canal, silently knifing and bayoneting Battalion

way

German

would follow an hour

sentries

on the way. The 4th Ranger

along the main road, to clear the

later

for reinforcements.

commanding his men was like driving a team of highspirited horses. They were modelled on the British Commandos and he knew each one by name. As for Darby himself, his second name was Darby

said that

Orlando but

could well have been Achilles.

He was handsome,

muscular, slim-waisted, with clear blue eyes, always smartly turned out

even for

battle.

He was outraged at

first

when he was

what

Rangers had to do. without reconnaissance. But he agreed that told

For seven days and nights they had been

the

in the line, practically

and there was now no time for his men were right for such a tough mission. Mansell saw the Rangers marching off so jauntily to the start line. Poor buggers, they were singing 'Pistol Packin' Mamma'. And they were off to Cisterna, The Three Taverns ot the New Testament, where St Paul met the brethren from Rome 'He thanked God, and took courage;

sleep,

Acts, 28:15,'

The

Mansell jotted down.

night was black, the

mud was

freezing.

Each Ranger had been

ANZIO issued with a

woollen scarf and gloves. Lieutenant James Fowler of the

Battalion killed three

German

ist

muffling their

sentries single-handed,

screams with one hand while he slashed their throats with

Commando

deep irrigation ditch three Germans joined the Ranger column thinking it was part of their own patrol; they soon met the same knife. In the

fate as the others.

Some now

think that the

Germans

actually heard the

Rangers and let them crawl on, straight into a trap. Suddenly there was a screeching inferno of criss-cross tracer, ripping along the lines of men. The Rangers were only lightly equipped, and fought back with grenades and bayonets. When dawn came the situation was desperate. They were surrounded, crouching in shallow ditches in open treeless country. Cisterna was only eight hundred yards away. The 4th Battalion was making little progress. Darby was in despair. His staff officer and runner were killed in mortar barrages. Machine-gun fire swept the fields. Every building was a strongpoint. As grim reports drifted back over the radio, he began to realize that he would not be able to save his men. German tanks advanced on the ist and 3rd. The Rangers hit back with bazookas and sticky grenades, even jumping on top of the tanks, lifting the hatches to spray the interiors with

tommy-gun

fire.

Lieutenant

George Nunnelly, the smiling Georgian, had been shot clean through the head. Darby's classmate at West Point, Major Jack Dobson, had been badly wounded twice. Darby made contact with Sergeant-Major Bob Ehalt, a 'tough original' from Brooklyn. He was told that ammo was running out and the Germans had captured several men. 'Keep them together. Sergeant - you must hold out - help is on the way.' 'Colonel, we're doin' the best

we can.

They're

closin' in

us,

but they

won't get us cheap.'

Then Darby heard

loud explosion, and the radio went dead. Eyes red-

rimmed, he telephoned to headquarters: 'We can't let my boys down we've got to get through — send us more tanks!' But still the Rangers hung on, although vastly outnumbered. Seventeen German tanks and flak wagons had been knocked out. The fighting was savage on both sides. Dobson has said that he saw American prisoners being machine-gunned and bayoneted. In an attempt to stop a German column Rangers found themselves killing and wounding some of their own men being used as cover. Mark VI tanks would run up to the edge of ditches, lower their guns and just slaughter the men inside. Darby heard from Master Sergeant Scotty Monroe, famed as a 'specialist' in killing Germans, that the Ranger battalions were hopelessly surrounded. 'God bless you. Sergeant. God bless you!' Darby went into a farmhouse and wept.

JANUARY

Only

men

returned from the

and 3rd, and the 4th lost fifty per cent of Its men, havmg taken several hundred prisoners. To be told by someone that 'Hollywood would have paid five million bucks to have that on film' was not in particularly good taste; nor was it even much ot a compensation that 'we knocked off a hell of a lot of Kraut - in the orchard SIX

ist

they were piled one on top of each other'. Darby was shattered, but later put in

command

of the 179th Infantry Regiment.

He was

to be killed

mm shell more than a year later - two days indeed before the German

an 88

Army

in Italy surrendered.

and Scots Guards met ferocious opposition they led the advance towards Campoleone. The Sherwood Foresters at In the British sector the Irish

the Factory had already reported hearing

many

tracked vehicles, so the

Guards knew well what to expect, as their boots crunched on the cinders of the railway track. Frogs croaked, a dog barked, telephone wires twanged, a haystack was smouldering. Then in bright moonshine hell erupted Mansell heard later of the courage of a boy in the Signals, Lance-Corporal Holwcll, who was with two torward companies ot the Irish

Irish

Guards. Whilst under

fire

Holwell repaired the only remaining radio

set and thus received the order for the companies to withdraw. Seconds later he was killed by a machine-gun burst and his set was smashed.

Tank support away trom Via Anziate was almost of mud and soggy ground. The scrub-filled valleys as

wadis.

Two ridges dominated

impossible, because

to the left

were known

them, Vallelata and Buonriposo, soon to

become names only too familiar to Allied and German troops alike. Both Guards Battalions were badly cut up. There were many stories of bravery. Major Bull ot the Scots Guards, tor instance, had a reputation among some of his men tor being a hard old devil out ot the line but 'you'd follow him anywhere'. He fought otf a tank attack trom an exposed slope, but soon aftcrwarcis his voice came over the wireless to the effect that he was surrounded. It was said that a German officer was about to shoot a guardsman who had run out ot ammunition, when Bull shouted: 'Leave that man alone!' The German turned and with his revolver shot Bull dead.

Now

came

the turn of the 3rd Infantry

Brigade - the

Duke of

Wellington's Regiment, the KSLI (King's Shropshire Light Infantry) and

Sherwood

The

on 30 January, to be met from tanks and Moaning Minnies (Nebelwerfers) sited in railway-trucks. The confusion was 'hideous', a survivor remembered. 'Such a lack of information, and no cover in those vines. Shells screaming and wliirring like mad, vicious witches. Sprays of fire all over the place. Shrapnel like hail. Bullets whizzing from nowhere. And on top of that the bloody rain. We were so cold. Half the soldiers disappeared - mown down, captured, or just fucked off, everything you the

Foresters.

with deadly and ferocious

attack began

fire

ANZ o

When

can imagine'

company was in the leg

left

and

The KSLI

propelled gun.

Foresters at last withdrew,

wounded

tace.

colonel strayed into

Round

meal.

Sherwood

the

with more than forty men. The colonel was a

barn which was

all

laid

out

as if for a

corner he suddenly saw some Germans behind

He lay low until

a self-

dusk, and then started to creep back to his

battalion. All at once a voice from a bush said, 'Don't shoot, Tommy,' and out came three Germans with their hands up. General Harmon's ist Armored had driven up in support, using a new unmetallcd road that came to be known as the Bowling Alley (usually described as a 'disused railway bed' m accounts of the Anzio fighting), in

order to avoid the wadis.

Dukes, shovelling earth into

The American

tank drew up near a

lone corporal of the

whipped overhead.

trench whilst tracer

sergeant called out: 'What's going on,

feller?'

'My

friend's

grave,' the other said, without looking up.

Then Harmon himself went Foresters.

dead

men

care.

He found dead in

one

They lay so close commanding officer. From

alive.

The answer was

at the

had never seen so many together that I had to step with

mud-covered sergeant with still

'what the hold up was'

bodies everywhere.

place.

shouted for the

ranking officer

to see

foxhole there arose

handle-bar moustache.

He was

the highest

He stood stiffly to attention. "How's it going?"

around me. "Well, sir," the sergeant said, "there were a hundred and sixteen of us when we first came up, and there are sixteen of us left. We're ordered to hold out till sundown, and think, with a little good fortune, we can manage to do so." Of any British regiment at Anzio the Sherwood Foresters were to suffer the worst casualties, for more were to come. Several recruits from asked.

all

the Black

Watch

arrived that night.

Henry Marking, who had been made

Adjutant, had to receive them: 'The officers arrived in the dark,

we had to

them on patrol that night, because we had no one else to go out, and they were killed in the night, and none of us saw them in daylight. It was tragic. Can you imagine? Probably they had never had battle experience. send

was awful, awful. heard the spandaus hitting them. Spandaus had such of fire, very fierce and harsh - crack, crack, crack.' I

a fast rate

Rome Mrs Whitaker wrote: 'Hardly know what to say. Two thousand

prisoners,

hear,

American and

British,

marched from the Colosseum

along the Corso and up Via Tritone. Schwester Weisskopf saw them.

They were making tre

settimane

cigarette.'

tutti

the

noi a

sign,

Roma."

and one

A man

said in

was

broken

Italian, "

Tra due o

arrested for giving

him

JANUARY

78 Churchill

felt

very out of touch. 'You have not told me,' he cabled

Alexander, 'why the airborne troops were used

now

as infantry.

The operation

from the lightning dash of two or three divisions which we contemplated at Marrakech.' He also added that as the operation had become four-fifths American he quite realized 'the hmitations to your personal action'. A month later he wrote with some bitterness to Field-Marshal Smuts in South Africa how the 'essence of the battle as contemplated by Alexander in all his talks with me was the seizing of the Alban Hills with the utmost rapidity'. It was for this very purpose that he had obtained the US 504th Parachute Regiment, previously under orders to return to England in preparation for Overlord - but their use had been cancelled by Clark. The 'logistic calculations', moreover, had proved to be over-generous. 'If I had been well enough to be at his [Alexander's] side as had hoped at the critical moment could have given him the necessary stimulus. Alas for has

changed

its

character completely

time, distance, illness and advancing years.'

The

many

Regiment was one of the 'Monday quarterbacking', as in connection with Operation Shingle. The reasons given

use or misuse of the 504th Parachute

questions brought up in the post-war

Clark termed

it,

for the cancellation of the air-drop

General Penney,

were many, including one blamed on

who thought that as the drop would be near the Flyover,

would be a risk of mistaking American helmets and uniforms for the German equivalent. Other reasons included the possibility of the paratroopers being in danger from long-range naval gunfire, the absence of moonlight on the 22nd and the lack of any rehearsal. Lucas admitted that the presence of these paratroopers half-way to Campoleone might have given him an incentive to join up with them on the first day. Alas, too, for Churchill's dream of 'hard-hitting mobile in the British sector, there

forces'

One

turns to Lucas' diary for those crucial days: ^ojan. 'Another big

raid last night but so far

another damaged, and

none

this

morning.

Liberty ship with

One 5

British cruiser

sunk

days' supply including

ammunition destroyed. When she went she certainly shook things up situation, from where sit, is crowded with doubt and uncertainty. expect to be counter-attacked in some force, maybe considerable force We have taken between six and seven hundred prisoners since we landed Most of them are down in spirits and obviously glad to be captured but .

The

Hermann

Goerings. These people are very young, very cocky and believe they are winning the war 4.30 p.m Clark is up here and am afraid intends to stay for several days. His gloomy attitude is certainly bad for me. He thinks I should have been more aggressive on D-Day and should have gotten tanks and things out to the front There has been no chance, with available shipping, to build

not so the

very

full

fight,

ANZ o

Shingle up to decisive strength and anyone with any knowledge of logistics

could have seen that from the

ordered to do, desperate though

Clark

...

'^i Jati.

disappointed.

He and

here.

still

those above

the Cassino line loose

The

start.

was.

have done what

can win

him

don't blame

him thought

this

disasters to the

was

alone.

let

for being terribly

landing would shake

Rangers he apparently

Neither blames on Lucian [Truscott]. He says they were used tbolishly nor Truscott knew of the organized defensive position they would run into. told Clark the fault was mine as had seen the plan of the attack and .

had

OK'd

it.'

'Seen the plan.'

Hope was longing

front and see for yourself?' Lucas hardly

Maginot Line mentality seemed to have forgotten of journalists. After

all

the

over again. At one VI Corps meeting he

name of the Alban

long pause he

'Why don't you go up to the moved from his cellar. It was the

to say,

said:

Hills.

He called a meeting

you what, gentlemen, mighty tough fighter.' No

'I'll tell

mighty tough fighter, yes a see the morale of some of Lucas' aides deteriorating. Clark himself had written in his diary: 'I have been harsh with Lucas

that

German's

wonder you could today,

much

him

regret, but in an effort to energize

to greater

effort.'

When Alexander arrived, Clark and Lucas had already decided that the Beachhead must go on the defensive. Penney was beginning to 'itch at poor old Johnny Lucas', Clark said. 'Lucas knew he was being sniped at. He knew the British were going to get him, and they did. They ganged up on him.' Lucas himself found Alexander 'kind'. 'But am afraid he is not pleased. My head will probably fall into the basket, but have done my best. There were just too many Germans here for me to lick and they could build up faster than could.' Alexander was 'not easy to talk to'; 'he really knows very little of tactics as Americans understand it.' But Lucas was not the only one to find Alex inscrutable. The same applied to some British underlings, and there were those who did not think he was even intelligent. Others, however, 'worshipped' him. There I

was something Olympian about courtesy.

And everyone knew

that reserve, that aloofness,

that he

had been the

last

man

that

to leave

Dunkirk.

The twelve-hour trip by sea from Naples was known as the milk run. By now Anzio also had the reputation of being the hell-hole of the Mediterranean. The landing-craft would bring back the

casualties, up to For shell-shock. the first time to few of them due 350 Ted Wyman, the US naval lieutenant, saw the wonders of blood plasma. He was often down below helping with the bottles. One man from a bombed Liberty ship was completely bandaged except for his eyes and mouth. The only way he could get a smoke was for Wyman to hold the a ship,

and quite

JANUARY

there was a doctor whom crew of the landing-craft particularly admired, he toiled so hard for the wounded. Wyman missed him on one of the trips and asked where he was. A shell had taken off his head on the dock at Anzio. It was almost impossible for a shell or bomb not to do some damage in the rear areas of the Beachhead. On top of that were the 'hors d'oeuvres', namely anti-personnel bombs, showers of deadly little splinters. Edmund Ball at VI Corps HQ became adept at the Anzio Shuffle, which meant hugging the wall with your head thrust down between the shoulders. He watched the British cruiser Spartan blow up, like a tremendous Fourth of July celebration. Most evenings, towards dark, you could see heavy artillery shells floating over, deceptively slowly and red hot from the friction of their passage through the air. Or there might be sneak hit-andrun raids by dive-bombers. And all the while the poor son-of-a-guns at the port would have to be sweating out yet another unloading. Blast was perhaps the main danger. We come now to Sergeant Jake Walkmeister of the ist Special Service Force. As the driver of an ambulance known as Walkmeister's Portable Whorehouse, he has been immortalized in a book by Robert Adleman and Colonel George Walton. The sergeant had long, sweeping moustaches which he constantly twisted with two fingers. Somehow he managed to get his ambulance aboard a landing-craft bound for Anzio. In due course, after casting off, the officer who had been in charge of loading went aft to the tiny wardroom. In there was Sergeant Walkmeister, with two quarts of alcohol plainly labelled 'for use of the US Army medical detachments only' and two open cans of pineapple juice. 'A Navy lieutenant was sitting on the edge of a bunk holding the hand of a pretty young lady, and on other bunks lay more pretty young ladies. The officer wasted no time in inquiring how it happened that three or four such peaches were aboard .' one oi^ the ugliest ships in the US Navy It transpired that the girls spoke no English, only Italian, and had no idea where they were going. They landed at Anzio on February. 'Disembarkation was quick and cigarette

and

let

him

take puffs

from

it.

Then

the

surprisingly efficient.

What it

colonel appeared to ask

these girls thought of their

new home

appears that they were installed in

awkward

questions.'

not recorded.

However

cottage on an estate that had

evidently belonged to a rich Italian, and here Walkmeister arranged that

would be ready, for a small fee, 'for parties, festivals or anything needed to take the minds of the Big Brass off their duties for a few hours'. Needless to say he also had secret access to a wine cellar, and lesser Brass had their fun too. the girls

Perhaps the cottage belonged to Prince Borghese. to

have been interested

He was not However

Walkmeister's peaches.

occasionally arrange lunch parties for Big Brass.

the sort

he did

was impressive

to be

ANZIO waited upon by footmen

with

rations

and

white gloves, and

8l his

cook could do wonders

garlic.

Meanwhile in the caves of the Padiglione woods the Silvestri family ate its meals round smoky paraffin lamps made out of old cigarette tins. Gep the donkey did not much appreciate the whistling of the shells overhead in this duel of the giants. On the 27th or 28th three young soldiers appeared, obviously British, and after some indecision approached the table where Ennio Silvestri and his mother were sitting. 'Good evening,' said one. 'Buona sera,' the others replied. 'I am Max, and you?' lo Ennio.' 'Mamma?' 'Si, Mamma.' Max and his friends could not speak Italian. They sat down and were offered cheese and wine. Max, who was small and dark-skinned, carefully took some letters out of his jacket, unfolded them and began to read aloud. They were obviously letters from his mother. 'You can see he is an only child,' said Signora Silvestri to her son in Italian. And then: 'He looks like one of us', by which she meant that he looked like a Central Italian. Max seemed happy. He glanced at his watch and got up, shaking hands with Ennio and then - murmuring 'Mamma' — '

with Signora

saw him

Silvestri.

disappeared into the cold night and they never

would

again. For years afterwards Signora Silvestri

remember

that nice

speaking about

his

young

mother?

soldier I

who came one

wonder where he

say:

'Do you

evening and kept

now.'

The tower of San Lorenzo stood guard on the coast to the north of the Beachhead, where the road ran over the mouth of the Moletta towards Ostia.

Unlike the Astura tower to the south, it wasnot medieval but built in and restored by the Roman banking family of

the sixteenth century

Torlonia in i860. This was the quietest area of the Beachhead

at present,

and was thus known as Stonk Corner. The tower was extraordinarily well built and able to stand up to innumerable direct hits. It was a natural observation post for artillery

though

attracted plenty of shelling

spotters.

The No

Special Force contingent,

whose job

would be

to contact

Rome, was also based on the tower of San among others. Max Salvadori, a young British

Resistance workers in

Lorenzo. It included, academic of Italian extraction; Alberto Tarchiani, aged fifty-nine, one of the founders of the Party of Action and once chief editor of the Corriere della Sera - both men with distinguished futures; also Michael Gubbins, son of General Gubbins, the head of SOE. The contingent's commander was Malcolm Munthe, Axel Munthe's son, who had been involved in a Prisoner of Zenda type rescue of the philosopher Benedetto Croce from It was a relief to doss down in the tower after sleeping in slit trenches lined with groundsheets. When the weather lifted a little you could see that the Alban Hills were dusted with

Sorrento just after the Salerno landings.

JANUARY

snow. Each day there were perilousjeep journeys to command posts, and more pitted by shells, and there were more graves, the crosses often made of bayonets, with helmets laid on the fresh earth.Thenightsshuddered with explosions -deep, brutal -and there were frequent exchanges of machine-gun fire across the scrubland at the mouth of the Moletta, the sinister ripple of spandaus and crackle-crackle of brens. Towards Campolcone the sky was perpetually aflame. Gaudy Very lights flared up, and up again; they could almost be beautiful, if it were possible to forget the horrors under them. The Italo-British contingent swapped rations with the American spotter, who said he was half Scottish and half Austrian by origin and came from Pennsylvania. He was very taken by Michael Gubbins. 'That must be the son of a real English gentleman,' he said. Then alarming news came from the radio contact in Rome. There had been mass arrests of SOE workers. It was decided that Munthe and Gubbins, Salvadori having developed jaundice, must find an Italian to cross the lines by a secret route. As time was to show, this was a

each day the tracks became

disastrous

and tragic

idea.

A shepherd arrived, thin and prematurely aged. He said he was Princess T or\onia''s fattore or steward and was full of moans about German looting. The

tedeschi

had used the

sacristy

of the

little

Tarchiani searched out the shepherd's family,

church nearby

who were

as a latrine.

living in a cave.

desperate because they were unable to get to some of their which were starving in sheds in no man's land. It was to be the job of Sergeant Villari and his Carabinieri to evacuate civilians from the front line. He was worrying about his aunt at Aprilia, which was said to be now totally ruined. A camp was being prepared in the Padiglione woods, and later all civilians would be taken to Naples.

They were cattle,

Villari

had

first

to collect a

number of hysterical women and

children

was here that Fusilier Hayes had brought the little girl Angelita, whom he had found on Peter Beach the first day. His unit had had a bad setback after a patrol had been shot up, and there was also danger from British long-range naval guns which too often fired short of their targets. To his astonishment, however, on his return to the barn he found that Villari's truck had gone leaving Angelita behind - the

from

barn near Carroceto.

women, too intent on 'We had no option

their

own

woes, had just ignored her.

but to get her out of the barn which was

now

under shellfire. She stopped crying as soon as picked her up and one of my comrades put a greatcoat over her.' So Angelita joined in the advance towards Campoleone. She passed the time playing with empty bren-gun cartridge cases. On jojanuary Hayes' company was ordered to pull back a few hundred yards. It was then that a jeep appeared. 'It's the Yanks,' someone shouted. 'Without thinking picked up Angelita from directly

ANZ

the bottom of our trench and ran with her to the jeep, pushing her inside on the back between two terrified American nurses. then ran to help the driver clear a path so he could pass the burning carriers.' There was a whine of a shell - which could have come from the Allied lines - and an explosion. Hayes dived flat. Then he looked up and saw the bodies of the two nurses half out of the jeep. The driver and the steering wheel were blown across the road, but half the driver's body was still in the vehicle. Angclita was quite still. Hayes picked her up and as she rolled over he saw the blood oozing from a large gash in her temple. 'I realized then that Angelita was dead. So were twenty-eight of my comrades who had I

helped

care for her.'

was never tound. A long while afterwards, when the war was nearly over, a cellar containing some skeletons was discovered at Aprilia; the entrance had been blocked by a shellburst and the flesh of the bodies inside eaten by rats or perhaps dogs which had somehow burrowed through the rubble. Villari thought that certain rags looked as if they were part of a dress he recognized. Villan's aunt

the Cassino front the fighting

was

savage

General luin was able to

tell

Clark with great pride

unbelievable efforts and great

losses',

Far from

as ever.

withdrawing, the Germans had sent up reinforcements.

29 January

that, 'at the cost ot

the 3rd Algerian Division had

'accomplished the mission you gave them', which was to capture Belvedere.

The French Algerian troops and

the

- were

Moroccans-

Mount

the 'Cjoums',

mountain warriors; their Germans and Italian civilians alike. After three nights and days of fighting, the US 34th Division had made a small bridgehead across the Rapido and by the 3 ist had captured the village of Cairo, which was eventually to lead to the almost unbelievable feat of scaling the mountain heights to the north-east of the town, in blizzards and ice, without any possibility of digging toxholes on the rocky slopes. Nevertheless Clark felt his 34th was near breaking. Alexander decided their distinctive striped clothing

real

uninhibited and cruel methods of warfare terrified

to give

that

him some troops from

Kesselnng had

the Eighth

moved

Leese's Eighth

Army.

had been realized

various units from the Adriatic front, and

Army was now

make any

too weak to

significant break-

through Alexander had decided to leave it as a holding force only. 'Hell, don't want any troops from the Eighth Army,' Clark said to him. 'No use giving me, an American, British troops. Let the Eighth Army take over in that sector [Cassino town and the Monastery] and let me concentrate on I

my two

fronts,

and

let

pull loose,

and

let

Anzio.' Alex said no, he was going to give

Corps?'

was

to be a

New

the 34th Division

him

go up

Corps. 'What kind of

Zealand Corps, comprising the 2nd

New

JANUARY

Zealand Division and the 4th Indian, just arrived from the Middle East, and 'Tiny' Freyberg would be the commander. 'Well that scared me,' Clark said later, 'because Freyberg was a prima donna, and he had to be handled with kid gloves, very adroitly, very carefully big fellow and had won the Victoria Cross in World War .

He was

and had

great

swum

Channel [not quite true] It was indeed hard for a would-be prima donna of an already established prima donna. the English

to be put in

command

Algiers

prison compound, which seemed to be mostly for British deserters from the Itahan front, had been put up at La Perouse, and was shocked by the tough treatment the men got. Most nights hitchhiked into Algiers and got tight on ntousseux gazeijie, m spite of just having had jaundice. Assuming that Nick needed cheering up wrote him a letter full of chatter about his favourite haunts: the Aletti bar, the Bosphore club, the Echo I

d' Alger

journalists' bar for late-night anisettes.

told him about a trip had ridden camels and

Little Atlas to Bou-Saada. where I watched pre-pubescent girls dancing in the nude, thought by the locals be the height of sexiness. doubt though whether he was ever able to read that letter.

through the

FEBRUARY

Gad,

sir, this

"Any

never happened in the desert!'

complaints, old

man?"

Ardea — Albano

Hitler, in particular

need of a dramatic

success,

had sent out an order of the

day iike the call of a revolutionary fanatic', said General Warlimont, General Staff. The Anzio Beachhead was an Deputy Chief of the abscess that must be lanced at once. Every soldier must be aware of the importance of this battle, which was to be fought with 'holy hatred against an enemy who wages a ruthless war of annihilation against the German people and who, without any higher ethical aims, strives for the destruction of German and European culture'. Anzio was of special significance, and must be considered as the start of the invasion of Europe

OKW

'the invasion

of the year 1944

an undertaking which will be crushed in

the blood of British soldiers.'

Kesselring had ordered the Fourteenth

Army

headquarters to

south from Verona. General Eberhard von Mackensen

now

move

therefore

tactical command of the whole Rome area. General Schlemm, from the South, replaced General Schlemmer at I Parachute Corps headquarters, in overall charge of the Beachhead operation. Mackensen, son of a famous general in the First War and the prototype of most people's idea of a Prussian general — strong-jawed, crop-haired, with a monocle - was also the brother of the last German ambassador to the Quirinal in Rome and had had gruelling experiences on the Russian front. General Heinrich von Vietinghoff-Scheel, commander of the Tenth Army along the Gustav Line, was also Prussian - self-assured, stern,

took the recalled

with

small scrub moustache, not particularly popular with the ordinary

January the key positions around Cassino were still strongly held in spite of a new Allied offensive. Conditions in the mountains were far worse than in the plains and foothills near Anzio, but the Germans had soldier.

and build concrete bunkers and gun wrote that he and Vietinghoff were like two boxers in a ring. 'I have committed my last reserve,' he said, 'and I am sure the Boche has done the same.' In fact this was not quite the case; the had time to

blast into the rocks

emplacements. Clark

in his diary

FEBRUARY

on the Gustav Line had increased - almost miramen and materiel from four divisions to the equivalent of six, and more units were to come from the Adriatic, including the veteran ist Parachute Division, which had fought outstandingly in Crete. For the time being it was essential that the Gustav Line should be contained while the main effort went into

German

divisions

culously, in view of the chronic weakness both in

ehminating the Beachhead. Mackensen's obvious line of attack against the Allied Beachhead forces was along Via Anziate. This had always been Hitler's plan, although Kesselring had once thought of an attack along the coast from west to

The

east.

was an important feature of most German campaigns, and the Fuehrer's meddling in precise details could be a drawback. It just was not possible to keep him fully informed about enemy strengths and conditions of terrain. He did not seem to realize, for instance, how difficult the country was to the west of Via Anziate, on account of the gullies. He had given orders for all counterattacks to be made during bad weather, when enemy aircraft could not intervene, but this of course hampered the movements of ground troops. He also favoured the First War technique of heavy bombardments before attack, whereas surprise could more often be effective. Now the British salient towards Campoleone was 'positively demanding' to be attacked. Originally an offensive had been planned for i February, but it was delayed partly because of the British attack on 31 January, and partly because of a last-minute false alarm about yet another imminent Allied landing at Civitavecchia. The front had been divided into four sectors, which in turn became known as Battle Groups: on the west from the mouth of the Moletta and Ardea to Vallelata ridge. General Pfeifer's 65th Division, incorporating the original Gericke Battle Group, and the 4th Parachute Division; along Via Anziate and incorporating Campoleone and the men facing Smelly Farm, Graeser's 3rd Panzer Grenadiers, with headquarters at Albano. These two, roughly speaking, were opposite the British. Raapke's 71st Infantry Division and Conrath's Hermann Goering Division were opposite the Americans; the former east of Via Anziate, including the soon to be notorious Spaccasassi creek and the hamlet of Carano; the latter division in the Cisterna-Mussolini Canal area as far as the sea. The components of each of the Battle Groups were necessarily fluid, a 'witch's brew' of fragments streaming in from all directions, sometimes containing men who were barely trained or below the normal age for combat. Actual records are vague, but the hurried reorganization and regrouping was brilliant staff-work. Often at nights guns would be moved from one spot to another to give the illusion of centralization of strategy under Hitler

greater strength.

February the Germans had

lost

some 5,500 men

in the

Beachhead

ARDEA - ALBANO

fighting, about the same number as the AlHes. Battahon Kleye of the Gerickc Battle Group had borne the brunt of some of the bloodiest

and it had been Kleye who had shot up the Grenadier Guards and captured the maps and plans with the enemy's intentions. Battalion Hauber, which was around Ardea, had had the worst battering fighting,

officers

from the four Allied

destroyers, stationed six miles out to sea.

ofJanuary Kleye

only had two anti-tank guns, though he had several

which could be

Faustpatronen

Kleye was

still

now

from

fired

At the end

the hip.

facing the Scots Guards, the Irish Guards and the

Duke

of Welhngton's Regiment. The 65th Division headquarters at Ardea provided him with a 3.7 cm anti-aircraft gun, which was used with nice effect against

Sherman tanks advancing along

many

'disused railway bed'. In spite

of so

from

whereas

their battle experience,

losses,

the Schotterstrasse, or

Kleye's

men had

was considered

gained

that the Allies

them were low in morale. On 2 February Kleye's battalion numbered six officers, ninety-six non-commissioned officers and three hundred and ninety-six men; by this time it was mostly concentrated on opposite

depended on Kleye's leadership. As a comrade has since said of him: 'He was a man of decency and faultless character.' Mackensen was able to launch the first of his 'local attacks', on i February, under the direction of Schlemm. This was against the Americans to the south-west of Cisterna; though a 'noisy affair' according to Truscott, it was unsuccessful. An immense Allied air onslaught on Albano had wrecked the 3rd Panzers' artillery communications, and this was another reason for a delay in what was to have been a simultaneous the Vallelata ridge.

great deal of the morale in the battalion

of the Campoleone salient. The battle, which began on 3 February, was confused and desperate. The British had been well aware of a build-up; the noise of many tracked vehicles had been heard at night, and a long convoy had also been spotted effort to eliminate the tip

along the

Schotterstrasse.

But the

first

phase had been unexpected, namely

by Battle Group Graeser over a at Smelly Farm. Shades, almost, of Cannae. Then came a crazy, brutal nightmare — Nebelwerfers, tracer bren answering spandau, haystacks on fire. At Vallelata ridge, in sleet and rain, Kleye's men went in on the Irish Guards, cheering and shouting; they fell like puppets, as in an old film of World War I. Next it was hand-to-hand, bayonets and grenades, and shell after shell rained down on the Gordons; two of their companies were overrun. It could only be a matter of time before the Germans converged on the Anziate road. The news that the British were landing part of a new division, the 56th, known as the Black Cats, was in some ways depressing to the Germans, but victory became all the more important and urgent. For a while the a

flock of about a thousand sheep driven

minefield opposite the Gordons

FEBRUARY

Dukes and the ist King's Shropshire Light Infantry were completely Then the British broke through again - thanks to reinforcements from the 56th Division which had been rushed up to the front straight from Anzio port. On the 4th it was suddenly realized that the British were pulling back down the Anziate road from Campoleone towards Aprilia, the 'Factory'. A radio message to the Dukes' forward company was picked up: 'Every isolateti.

man had

for himself!'

sergeant of the

spandau mounted on

down some poor

German

these

was obvious

objectives

wounded, through the was claimed - had taken nine lost eight hundred men, three

Mackensen and Schlemm

now were

Carroceto. These

two itself.

tiiat

Aprilia and the neighbouring

points tor the all-out attack on Anzio

railway station

Group

mowing

fellows staggering, evidently

two days the Germans - so hundred prisoners. They themselves had hundred of whc)m were captured. rain.

29th Reconnaissance

ruined house but could not face

taking Aprilia, while Pteiter of the 65th

places

the most important group of houses and

would be

the starting

Gracscr would have the job o{

would have

to seize

Buonriposo

ridge and then wheel round north-west to Carroceto.

The

British, to draw attention from their retreat on Via Anziate on the were once more strongly attacking Kleye in the Vallelata direction and around Buonriposo. The Schafstall, or Sheepfold, was a German key position, and it was near here that Private Heinz Hackenbcck, aged nineteen, of the 165th Artillery Regiment had his howitzer. The enemy was hring AA shells only a few metres overhead - the noise was terrific. When an American plane was shot down close by and the pilot questioned, it was realized that the enemy threat was more serious than expected. Hackenbeck was ordered to move his gun at once, no joke in that mud, as it had to be manhandled - on other fronts he had been able to

4th,

use donkeys.

Previously one had not been allowed to

away

the positions.

night in case flashes gave

February the guns had to be moved twice. The situation was confusion, and it was not clear whether the Tommies were about to

firing. all

fire at

Now headquarters at Ardea gave permission for night

Two of Hackenbeck's comrades were killed by enemy bombing. Preparations were being made for an artillery concentration on Apnlia. It was a great happiness for him to learn that this major effort was to be made to wipe out the Tommies there. The attack was to start at 9 p.m. on the 7th. Hackenbeck and his crew rested all day in order to be m good condition that night. When the infantry went in, it was 'Russian fashion', without any preliminary softening up by artillery, in order to take the enemy by surprise. counter-attack.

ARDEA - ALBANO Untbrtunatcly the night was clear and

starry,

and the advance was

stopped by some hefty fire - mortars being particularly annoying. Red, green and white Very lights soon gave warning of the plight of the

Hackenbeck was now ordered to fire as much as he could. It seemed that casualties were so great that the last reserves were being thrown in. A few Tommy prisoners were herded past. Then at midnight news came that all goals had been reached. Hackenbeck was especially proud to hear that Aprilia was in German hands. He saw a blaze, and realized that the Schafstall was alight. But hisjoy was brief. The British returned to Aprilia. The next day the enemy attacked with tanks, but were driven back. The sky, at last, was full of German planes, and there were scores of dogfights, until the rain came. More prisoners passed by. So many comrades had been wounded. It was reported that enemy pressure was very strong now, and a counter-attack infantry.

must be expected. Hackenbeck's gun was in the middle of a field and very exposed. The ground was so soggy that the gun had to be shored up with bits ot wood. By midnight all the batteries were firing. How wonderful it was to partake in a battle without bothering about saving ammunition! And you could see that enemy batteries were being knocked out. Morale was certainly very high. Hackenbeck and his three comrades worked feverishly.

Suddenly two enemy shells exploded very near the gun. Hackenbeck was thrown to the ground, but did not lose consciousness. With a pocket torch he saw that his left leg had been completely torn to pieces below the knee, but thanks to his breeches and riding boot the blood was not coming out very fast, though it was thick. He noticed that his right leg was in good order. He had no other injuries. Because more enemy fire was expected he was pulled into a trench. This was extremely painful because his left leg was only hanging on by a few sinews. He almost fainted. Then he was put on a stretcher and carried to the Red Cross station three hundred metres behind his gun position. He was given two injections and his boot was cut away. A label was put round his neck: 'Urgent transport'. An ambulance took him off, and he passed out. When he woke up he was at Pomezia on the Ardea— Rome road, and his leg had been amputated, within two hours of his being

wounded. At

least

was

still

now

had

his knee.

and 6 February had been mostly spent in patrolling. An outrageous rumour had been reported of the enemy: the members of one patrol had worn German uniforms and spoke German. The 145th Grenadier Regiment was facing Buonriposo, where the North Staffs were known to be Battalion Kleye

concentrated

in the Vallelata area.

FEBRUARY

The valleys - really the upper reaches of the Moletta - were more troublesome here, filled with scrub and thorn, ideal for infiltration by either side; indeed some German soldiers had lost their lives plunging down ravines in the darkness. The Dreijiti^erschlucht, Three Fingers

ensconced.

Ravine, was

a particularly

unpleasant spot, and one of the most dreaded

was Die Wanze, the Bug, an oblong knoll near Carroceto south of the Schotterstrasse. Beyond Buonriposo ridge were a number of artificial caves, made for excavating what the Italians called pozzolatia, which was used for cement. The enemy was known to be holding some of these caves.

was always by night. You had to be on the alert by fighting patrols, straining for any tell-tale movement. Then suddenly, from some unexpected direction, there would be an inferno of grenades and machine-gun fire. Time meant so little. A short encounter seemed like an eternity. You even forgot to be tired. When the great moment for attack came on 7 February Kleye's objective was Carroceto railway station. Only the Scots Guards stood in the way. The German 145th Grenadiers were ordered to eliminate the North Staffs, and by the next morning it looked as if they had almost succeeded, for the southern end of the ridge was overrun. Battle Group Graeser was now poised to attack the prize: Aprilia.

Movement,

as usual,

for small attacks

was not particularly convenient for Mackensen to be summoned to on the 6th. Approval was given by the Fuehrer for the final, supreme offensive against the Beachhead on 15 February. Mackensen It

Hitler

asked for

troops, but Hitler refused this, the

being so acute operation

staff,

Germany.

manpower

shortage

Finally General Jodl, chief of the

OKW

persuaded Hitler to release the Infantry Lehr Regiment,

some repute - as it happened, one of the worst possible Mackensen was also promised a few Tiger tanks and four

training unit of solutions.

weapons, the most significant being one known as GoHath, a miniature tank worked by a remote control that also detonated a charge: guaranteed to demoralize the Tommies. different types of 'secret'

Rome Was

Luisa Arpini thinking of

somewhere between

Nick Manscll on

February?

that day,

was writing in his diary: 'Last night an extraordinary escape. was dreaming was in Rome, and it was very hot, July perhaps. was sitting with darling Luisa by the Trevi fountain, nearly blinded by the glare trom the mad rushing water. Then suddenly it was evening, and we were on a terrace, tull ot creepers and geraniums, overlooking rooftops and a palm tree. We could see St Peter's and that ugly spire of the English church, and the observatory on Monte Mario. The air was full of the swish of swallows. We were watching the the Flyover and ApriHa, he I

and

laughing

sunset,

"Tomorrow

drinking

we'll have scirocco

Luigi

Orvieto.

Bigi

Luisa

said,

how would like moment - literally,

think." Then, "This

to spend my last evening on Earth." And at that swear - there was a tremendous explosion, and woke up to find myself I

buried in Luisa,

now

that

mud. A

who it

shell

had landed not

of course did not

was on

know

dozen yards from my dugout.' Nick was at Anzio, believes

that

February that she went to

visit a sick friend in

Via

Navona she noticed a young German soldier bandage over one eye. He stopped at the Bernini fountain and

dell'Anima. Crossing Piazza

with

seemed fascinated by the figure of the River Ganges with the serpent below. She thought how handsome he was, so fresh and innocent, too young to have been wounded. Some minutes later, looking from her friend's window, she noticed him again. He was going into the German church of Santa Maria dell'Anima. She saw him admiring the theatrical portico of the neighbouring church, Santa Maria della Pace. Then from the house opposite, she caught sight of two youths with a rifle. She realized that they were going to kill the German when he emerged af"ter saying his prayers.

She thought of him in that building full of polished brass and shining woodwork. Probably he was looking at the tomb of Hadrian VI - who had died just before the sack of

Rome

in 1527, the last non-Italian

Pope.

FEBRUARY

9(^

German must not die! Her friend called window. The youths were still waiting.

This

German appeared

just as the

ran

round

the hospice door, a child of about three

corner, and tripped at his

feet.

German picked him up and carried him in come. The German's lite had been saved.

Rome

Radio announced on

the day before

executions.

her. Later she returned to the

wailed loudly, so the

the direction that the

boy had

February that ten 'hostages' had been shot

Forte Bravctta, which was to

become

familiar place for

reason except sabotage was given.

This coincided with the arrival of Pietro Caruso,

Neapolitan, to take

was rumoured that he had with him a list of nine thousand people to be arrested. As Mother Mary St Luke wrote, he was 'one ot the original Fascists, dyed in the wool - burning to show what he could do'. Early in January he had gone to Verona, to be present up the post

ot chief ot police.

the execution of Ciano.

The very day of

his

misfortune to be caught

arrival

in a

Rome, however,

he had had the

mass round-up of men for forced labour. The

Gestapo had sealed off the Via Nazionalc area and had arrested every adult male,

from seventy

to eighteen,

on the

streets or in trams.

Some two

thousand had been taken, half for road-making and construction work on

Germany. It took Caruso nearly Germans of his identity. That same afternoon he organized a little man-hunt of his own and managed to bag nearly two hundred more men. Within a week it was reckoned that at least two hundred Italians working on roads round Albano and Grottaterrata had been machine-gunned by Allied planes. The brutal Via Nazionale round-up was a major psychological mistake, as the German consul-general Moellhausen realized. The shops closed. Rome looked as if it had caught the plague, and from then onwards people would flee if they saw a group in German uniforms. One could teel the hate and the fear. All young men were virtually in hiding. It the

Anzio and Cassino

two hours

tronts, half for

to convince the

was a kind ofjoke that half the city's population was hiding in the houses of the other half. Moellhausen even went to Monte Soratte to ask Kesselring to intercede, and indeed the Field-Marshal did give orders for

man-hunts

to cease,

even though

meant countermanding orders from

Germans put up posters, appealing tor volunteers to help in saving Europe from the Anglo-Saxon barbarians. But Kesselring's order did not necessarily apply to the Italian authorities. The zealous Berlin. Instead the

Caruso sent out

circulars to police stations

with

a target ot titty arrests

each per day.

Another fanatic who collaborated with Caruso was Pietro Koch, a dark and dapper, somewhat corvine, thirty-nine-year-old ex-wine merchant

ROME

from Bencvcnto. He had a squad ot mcti who speciahzed in tracking anti-Fascists and then torturing them. It was surprising how many informers could be found, ready to betray fellow-Romans either for money or through personal grudges. At first Koch operated from the Pensione Oltremare in Via Principe Amedeo, but as neighbours were disturbed by screams he moved to another pensione, the Jaccarino, tar more conveniently built, with high walls and deep cellars. Scorching showers alternating with cold water, bright lights and pins through the penis were at first his speciality, but his devices soon became more rarefied. There were stories of walls being splashed with blood, never washed off. The Jaccarino was in Via Romagna, not far from Mother Mary's convent. Among Koch's helpers were his two mistresses, Tamara Sangalli and Desy Totolli, a variety artiste; both would laugh and jeer at the victims of torturings. Interrogations were conducted by a lawyer, Avvocato Trinca. There were other bande too, specializing in finding Jews who could be sold to the Nazis for anything up to six thousand lire apiece. Needless to say Celeste Di Porto's help was invaluable in this work. She obviously enjoyed women coming to her to implore help and mercy for husbands

down

or sons.

The Black Panther would

and then

say:

'Don't worry.

I'll

accept presents, a bracelet or

see that he will

have

a silk scarf,

a blanket.' Finally

her

own father decided to go to the German headquarters in the Corso d'ltalia to try to reason with her. He was arrested, sent north and never seen again. Caruso and Koch now planned a major exploit. On the night of 3 a priest, one of Koch's admirers, battered on the door of the of San Paolo Fuori le Mura, St Paul's Outside the Walls, shrieking

February basilica

The door was opened, and immediately Caruso's men, who had in the shadows, swarmed into the building and overpowered the guards. The Abbot, a Benedictine, was summoned and insulted. The men said that they had come to arrest the traitors masquerading as pilgrims that he was hiding. As Mother Mary put in her diary, the monks were made to 'wait the pleasure of the gangsters for ten long hours'. for help.

been hiding

Doors were forced, furniture smashed, frosty moonlight,

mounted

the monastery as completely as if it silence, sixty-six

pictures slashed. 'Outside, in the

Fascist police sat in their saddles,

dark figures of the

slowly out and entered the waiting

were

men who had lorries,

surrounding

beleaguered fortress, while, in taken refuge there filed

with their guards.' The Abbot

who was said to have been men and some Jews. Vehicles,

had been arrested, along with General Monti, dressed as

monk, various other

military

arms, fuel, stores and blankets were also commandeered.

This outrage,

a blatant

Papal property, was

when

at last

disregard of the sanctity of extra-territorial

matter for Monsignor Montini. Unfortunately,

the Vatican could be telephoned, he

was

mass. So others

FEBRUARY

had hurriedly to be found,

to rush

round

exceedingly awkward, in view of the

house

Rome

was sheltering

Nevertheless the deed was

been carried out authorities

made

maximum

the

was

all

every religious

military, political or Jewish 'refugees'.

contravention of the Lateran Treaty and had

manner both

in a

to the basihca.

fact that nearly

and sacrilegious. The Vatican and the Germans disclaimed any

loutish

protest,

connection with the incident. The Abbot was released, but not General

Monti. But according to the consul-general Moellhausen, Mussolini's message from the North simply was Benissimo continuate. Very good, '

continue.'

Everyone in the Vatican pretended not to know who was where and what was happening, but everyone did know. Altogether fifty-five monasteries and a hundred convents were hiding Jews. The Franciscans at San Bartolomeo all'lsola had four hundred, the Brothers of the Scuole Cristiane ninety-six, the Stimmatini Fathers

hundred, the Salesian

Society of San Giovanni Bosco eighty-three; the Sisters of

Our Lady of

Sion one hundred and eighty-seven, the Sisters Adoratrici del Preziossimo

Sangue one hundred and

thirty-six, the

Maestre Pie Filippini one hundred

were forty Jews (fifteen of whom were baptized). After the first extra-territorial raid, on the Lombardo seminary, there had naturally been much alarm, but 'refugees' soon returned. Many of these religious houses also of course housed sfollati, peasants or poor people who had been bombed out by the Allies or evicted from their houses by the German military. Take the case of Antonio Bartolini. Being half-Jewish only and baptized, he was not affected by Mussolini's racial laws of 1938-39, signed by the king; these laid down that Jews did not belong to the Italian race, and they were thereby debarred from certain careers, but that half-Jews were allowed to be Italian provided that they belonged to a non-Jewish religion. Bartolini naturally was aware that one day things might get worse for people of his sort, and that day seemed to have come after 8 and fourteen. In the Vatican

September, 1943. suffered his

from

itself there

decided to have an appendix operation; not that he

appendicitis, but

some day he might -

family had had to have their appendixes out.

the hospital of the Fate

Bene

Fratelli

after

He had

all,

several

the operation at

monks' hospital on the

island

on the

Tiber, near the Franciscans of San Bartolomeo. Since the island was close

on it were obvious places of refuge for were forty-four Jews in the care of the Fate Bene

to the Ghetto, the religious houses

the Jews, and there Fratelli.

The operation was not successful, in that Bartolini developed phlebitis and other complications. He had to remain on the island for some months — in a way no hardship, since it is one of the most delightful spots in all Rome (in ancient times it was turned into the shape of a ship). Mostly he

ROME was cared not stay

for

monk. By March

Polish

in the hospital, so a girl-friend

he was better and thus could

took him by carrozzella to the

Collegio Teutonicum, where Monsignor O'Flaherty issued him with

fake identity card.

The

writer Alberto Moravia was half Jewish and also baptized. In the

had met

autumn he had been walking through the Piazza di Spagna and foreign journalist, who had warned him that he was on a list for

Moravia had returned home at once, and whilst he and his wife, Morante, were packing a suitcase the telephone rang. He lifted the

arrest.

Elsa

'Am speaking to the now he had become a traitor ... As he was to

receiver and a not exactly friendly voice asked: traitor

Moravia?' Traitor, so

later, he suddenly realized the meaning of terror: 'I was a beast in a no longer a person, an individual, a man.' His sense of identity had been replaced by an 'anonymous' instinct of preservation. The Moravias escaped from Rome and spent the whole grim winter in a peasant's

write

trap,

cottage at Fondi near the Gustav Line.

There was Rabbi,

bitterness

Israel Zolli,

among some of the Jews of Rome

was apparently making no

efforts to

that their

keep

Chief touch

with the Community. In point of fact some days before the

retata,

October deportation, when Kappler was demanding

kilograms of

gold in place of two hundred Jews

who would

fifty

the big

otherwise have been

deported to Germany, Zolli had not only obtained

promise of

loan

from the Vatican but had offered himself as a hostage. Of course he would have been high on the Gestapo's list for liquidation, and other Chief Rabbis in the North of Italy had been deported and put to death. Nevertheless Zolli was to be strongly criticized after the liberation of

Rome. Why, for instance, had the Nazis been able to obtain the vital list of addresses of Jewish households when they raided the Synagogue and libraries and had removed sacred and precious books, just two days before blaming Ugo Foa, the president question of why that list was never But the whole of the Community. destroyed beforehand has remained unsolved. Perhaps Zolli's counsels and presence in the Vatican had some influence there. At any rate, after the liberation, to the outrage of many Roman and other Jews, he announced that he had become a Catholic and was changing his name from Israel to Eugenio, the baptismal name of Pius the

retata?.

Zolli

was

to retaliate strongly,

XII.

Among

the

many

priests

regarded

He had

heroes of the Resistance was Padre

in 1888, and since 1938 had Maggiore on the Esquiline hill. His apartment nearby, in Via Urbana, had been a place of asylum not so much for Jews as for Italian soldiers on the run, to whom he supphed fake

Pietro Pappagallo.

been

been born near Bari

the basilica of Santa Maria

FEBRUARY

lOO identity cards. In this

work he was helped by

anti-Nazi, and after a while he allowed in

He was

Via Urbana.

Contessa Martini,

who

German

artist,

an ardent

clandestine radio to be installed

betrayed, apparently, by a

woman

calling herself

had come to him pretending that she desperately

needed money, and on 29 January he was arrested by the Gestapo. The Nazis remained in his apartment, waiting for telephone calls and inviting the unsuspecting callers to

come round immediately. On

6 February he

was taken to Via Tasso, where he underwent 'sacrilegious humiliation'. He was one of the 335 Italians to die in the Ardeatine Caves on 24 March. Then there was the learned Monsignor Pietro Barbieri, who like O'Flaherty has since also been called a Scarlet Pimpernel, and indeed there was some similarity in appearance between the two priests. Barbieri was at the monastery ot the Padri Maristi in Via Cernaia, behind the Finance Ministry. His house was a favourite meeting place for members of the CLN, and many of these would spend the night there. Jews and journalists also took refuge with him, sometimes for a matter of hours, sometimes for days on end. He had eleven beds in his library, and you might well find yourself next to Nenni, De Gasperi, Bonomi or General Cadorna, who after 8 September had fought so gallantly against the Wehrmacht. It was incredible that all this should be happening in such a potentially dangerous

area.

much to help refugees from the Cassino and Valmontone areas. He personally bought large quantities of material for making into clothes. On one occasion he also bought a whole lorry-load ot rice and flour from some Germans (who had requisitioned it from an Italian barracks). The bread ration had been reduced to 1 50 grams a day, if available, and food cards were only issued to those who were registered as living permanently in Rome. There was a soup kitchen near the monastery, and Barbieri would often help the Sisters in the work of distributing up to six thousand portions a day. He would realize that some middle-class families felt ashamed to be there, and would discreetly arrange for them to be fed apart. On occasions refugee peasants brought their pigs and cows with them. The animals too had to be guests of In addition, Barbieri did

Barbieri for

while.

'We had some dangerous moments,' said one of his Maristi colleagues, 'and we expected to be shot it we were caught. Luckily, though, we didn't hide weapons, only human beings.' It

was

both

said that after the

men

uproar that there

war when Caruso and Koch were

sent for trial

apologized to the Pope for the violation of San Paolo. first

week

February obviously did have some

effect,

The and

were no other major excursions into extra-territorial property in Individual priests however were not immune, an outstanding

Rome.

ROME case being that

were

Don Giuseppe

Morosini, whose arrest and execution

the inspiration for the part played

authentic film Rome,

The eminent

Open

lOI

by Aldo Fabrizi

in that great

and

City.

guests in the Lateran Seminario could not but be alarmed

by the San Paolo affair, especially as one of them, General Bencivegna, was now in radio contact with the South. Indeed they were warned that it would be better if they moved to private houses. So on 9 February others left, and a restless period of almost daily moves began, from one unheated house to another. The use of marble in Roman rooms never made February particularly agreeable, but this was also an especially cold winter and the feeble gas and electricity supplies were constantly being cut off by Allied bombing. Several leading Communists had been caught by the Gestapo, and were tortured or put to death. Their 'Santa Barbara', or arms cache, in Via Giulia had been seized on i February, and with it some four or five key partisans. The next day Antonello Trombadori, the head of the Roman Gaps, had - in a sense - a near escape. Knowing nothing of what had happened to his friends he made his way to Via Giulia. As usual he whistled in the street outside. There was absolute silence. He became suspicious when a shutter was half opened. This moment of hesitation was fatal and he suddenly found himself arrested. He was taken to Via Tasso, but

Bonomi and

managed

to persuade the Nazis that

he had never been involved with

or common criminal and sent to Regina Coeli. Meanwhile his father, Francesco Trombadori, a wellknown artist, went to the Vatican and asked if the Pope would intervene to obtain his release. A number of applications were indeed made on Antonello's behalf by the Vatican, though without any success. Another leading Communist to be arrested was Professor Gioacchino Gesmundo. In his house the Gestapo found a large quantity of fourpointed nails, such as were used by partisans to puncture tyres. He was politics; so

he was treated

as a suspect

to die at the Ardeatine Caves; to visit

embraced he whispered Action suffered

whom

soon

after his arrest his sister

him and had found him covered with wounds and

they

had not spoken. The Party of they lost some fifty men, forty-five of

to her that he

many more arrests;

also died at the

had been able sores

Ardeatine Caves.

By now everyone knew of the atrocities at the Pensione Oltremare (Koch moved to thejaccarino in April) and at Via Tasso. Then in Regina CoeH there was the shocking death of another patriot, Leone Ginzburg, a Jew. The Allies appeared to be as far away from Rome as ever. But it did not reduce the ardour of the partisans. They became more determined, more desperate, more daring. This was the new Risorgimento. 'In the

known of the women Gapists become a Communist deputy in

Resistance,' said Carla Capponi, the best

(and hke Antonello

Trombadori

FEBRUARY

102

Parliament), 'each of us found our mother country. era

patria del Risorgimento

felt la

mia patria

country was the country of the

Risorgimento; of democracy and repression

liberty.' After twenty years of Fascist was the moment of rebirth and hope and idealism, of faith in

Italy

and the

And

this inspiration

Italians,

not simply

a fight to

get rid of foreign oppressors.

applied to partisans belonging to any party, whether

Communists or followers of the Montezemolo 'Badogliani'. In the months ahead the cities of the North were to suffer even worse retribution than in city, a city besieged;

Rome. But Rome at that moment was a front-line and Rome was Rome, la Citta Eterna. It was perhaps

inevitable that the slowness of the Allies should produce a despair, even

when

resentment,

contrasted with the Russians

who were

already

advancing towards Poland (though with what ironic consequences when they got to Warsaw). At Ponte Cavour a blind beggar used to sit with a placard

Aiutate

changed the words landings.

And

at a

barca',

slang

to 'Aiutate

meaning

lo sbarco',

'help

family'.

joker

sbarco referring to the Allied

cinema when the actor Toto shouted in some film coming, they're coming,' all the audience

'Arrivano, arrivano, they're

stood up and cheered.

Nowadays,

in retrospect, the

Party of Action, so soon to be dissolved

war, might seem the most interesting intellectually of the

after the

CLN

and romantic. The original 'Justice and Liberty' movement had been formed as long ago as in 1929 by exiles in Paris such as Carlo Rosselli and Emilio Lussu. It had sent a contingent to fight against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. By 1944 it contained some of the best liberal-progressive brains in the country, and was the only even the most

parties,

valid

'laic'

selfless

left-wing alternative to the Communists; moreover

was was

The party's clandestine newspaper L'ltalia Libera famous as the Communist L'Unita and the Socialist Avantil. The other parties had their heroes and intellectuals, but the Party of Action had an exceptional quota, and only a few names can be singled out, such as Riccardo Bauer, Pilo Albertelli, Carlo Muscetta, Mario Vinciguerra, Ugo La Malfa, and in the South Croce's son-in-law Raimondo Craveri, known among partisans in his native Piedmont as 'Mondo'. Less in the public eye were brave men like 'Furio' Lauri, a Triestino who later worked for No i Special Force and would make solo flights to partisan encampments in the North. As Lauri said, 'We had absolutely nothing in those days. It is not easy for a country to express its best, but that was the moment. After 8 September everyone had to make his choice. Of course older people found it more difficult, they had commitments. We were young And likewise another leading Actionist: 'You have no idea what it is like to hate one's country, but that was how felt when the strictly republican.

Fascists

were

power, when they invaded France

... In

the time of the

ROME Abyssinian war for

103

mc Anthony Eden was a

god.' But

Eden turned out

For Puritans 1944 to be a 'little man, neurotic, and a Puritan everything is impure.' Eden, he added, had no idea that the Resistance was the great new impulse in the political history of our modern age. He .

had no understanding for the poor patriots, those unfortunate idealistic people fighting on the other side of the line. Carla Capponi, though a Communist, would have agreed with most of these sentiments. She also said: 'It was in the Resistance that each one of us found our patriotism again. And it was in international Communism that

found the joy and pride of being part of the Italian nation, as distinct from the cosmopolitanism that emanated from certain sectors of the antiI

Fascist bourgeoisie.'

of the Communist party was the activity behind the scenes of its women, working not only for the partisans but for destitute refugees. In contrast there were the Gap girls, each operating as a team with a boyfriend, such as Marisa Musu and her Valentino. But Marisa was only seventeen and her testing moment was yet to come. The most active pair, and to some the most controversial because of the great number of feature

and acts of sabotage attributed to them, was Carla Capponi and Rosario Bentivegna. Their story begins almost like the opening of an operetta; Carla, described in an American book as a 'rebel contessa' from

assassinations

Florence,

attractive,

Bentivegna,

fair-haired,

with

some

Polish

blood

her;

medical student, an obvious intellectual, dark, be-

Forum, a place ot goad the Germans into

spectacled; Carla in a large house overlooking Trajan's

meeting for

plotters;

one of

their aims,

up the flaccid Roman public. Carla on the Barbenni cinema, when ten German soldiers were killed and fifteen wounded, and then again at the Regina Coeli - eight Germans killed this time, just before the Anzio landing a daring attack had been planned on Via Tasso, but it was called off in the belief that the Allies' arrival was imminent. Later Carla and

retaliation,

which

would

in turn

and Bentivegna took part

stir

in the attack

made an attempt on Pizzirani, Vice-Secretary of the Fascist Republican party, but only succeeded in wounding the driver of his car. On March came her supreme moment, the culminating test of her willpower and idealism, when near the Excelsior Hotel and smart cafes of the Via Veneto she shot a German in the back and seized the briefcase he was carrying. Yet she and Bentivegna still had to plan that major action which would finally outrage the Nazi hydra and goad him into

others

retaliation.

was soon

come, and

for the Gapists there

would

also

betrayals and flight.

Every day the Gapists attacked German vehicles, usually killing a few It was now fully realized that the moment for a general

soldiers.

insurrection had passed.

knew

this,' said

Amendola, the Communist

FEBRUARY

104 leader in

Kome, 'when

heard

German

lorries

and trucks rumbling

all

night through the streets otthe city towards the South'. In the Alban Hills Gapist partisans were reported arrested by the Allies near Campolcone;

was discovered

had been sent to Algiers for sabotage and due course they were returned, by air. Albano was virtually emptied of inhabitants, many of them taking refuge in the precincts of the Papal villa at Castel Gandolfo. However, on 2 February there was an Allied air-raid on the town of Castel Gandolfo, killing seventeen nuns. There was another major raid on 10 February, with bombs actually falling on Papal grounds. This time there were five hundred civilian casualties. It was said that the Pope received the news on later

that they

parachute training, and

way

Chapel and turned aside to arrange for help. - originally escaped prisoners of war - were now reorganizing themselves at Palestrina, further inland from the Alban Hills. In one action they had killed twelve German motorcyclists and had blown up a petrol lorry, which had thereupon attracted Allied divehis

mass

The Russian

in the Sistine

partisans

bombers- with unpleasant consequences

for neighbouring Italians.

Many

of the Russians had now found Italian girlfriends. Two took part in the murder of the Fascist Secretary at Palestrina. So once more the group was driven up into the mountains, living in shepherds' huts made of straw and

mud. They were supplied with food and tobacco by Aldo Finzi, who such is the wheel of history - had been Mussolini's Under-Secretary for Home Affairs at the time of the infamous political murder of the Socialist deputy Mateotti as

in 1924. Finzi's

German

he understood

house was occupied by the Germans, and

perfectly and

was

still

was able to due course he was

living there he

on valuable information to the partisans. But in found out, and he was one of those who died at the Ardeatine Caves. One day Levi Cavaglione went with the Russian leader Vassily and pass

another. Serge, to collect supplies from Finzi's house.

found

peasant

man was

woman

standing on

beside her, his head in his hands.

Germans,' the

woman

The room was

said,

and pointed

'What

at the

old

has happened?' 'The

house.

shambles, crockery broken, the simple furniture

smashed, the mirror broken. 'But wine, and

On their return they

threshing floor, weeping.

why

did they do

this?'

'They asked for

did not have any.'

There had been four of them. Levi Cavaglione and the Russians set out a mule-path. It was not long before they found them, under the leafless, dripping chestnut trees. The Germans were singing, with faces flushed and jackets undone. There was a battle. Serge was wounded, but along

in grey-green uniforms were writhing on the ground. Three Germans died, but the fourth tried to sit up. Levi Cavaglione stepped forward to finish him off with a pistol shot through the head, but Vassily pushed him aside and walked slowly forward. Then, deliberately.

soon the soldiers

ROME

105

Vassily gave a terrible kick at the man's face. Levi Cavaglione shrank

Many

back, horrified.

grisly things could

in this beautiful landscape,

have happened

in centuries past

perhaps in the time of Hannibal or the Goths,

but surely nothing could have been quite like

this

Levi Cavaglione

heard the rhythmic crunch of kick after kick, and groans and screams.

When into a

there

was

silence he

mush of gore.

looked and saw that the face had been turned wiped his forehead. 'I have seen hundreds of

Vassily

my comrades die like that, or whipped to death, in German concentration camps.'

To some extent

the

Roman CLN had been satisfied, or had to be satisfied,

of the Congress of their southern counterparts held at Bari on 28 January. These had been a compromise, simply demanding a new government containing representatives of the six parties of the CLN and, with the

above

results

the abdication of King Victor

all,

Emmanuel;

there

would

constituent assembly immediately after the end of hostilities.

also far

extreme resolution by the Party of Action, in effect nothing more than an attempt at a coup d'etat, was never put forward.

There had been no mention of the Crown Prince, Umberto. It was was because it might be easier to persuade the king to step out of public life if his son were to be Viceroy. For the time being in Rome Bonomi had other things on his mind, his own safety for instance. But the Socialists were having second thoughts, and Nenni was busy with an 'order of the day'. He wanted an outright declaration that the parties of the CLN would not collaborate in any way with the monarchy, and that it should be swept aside until the constituent realized that this

assembly could proclaim the

first

a republic.

This came

crack in the alliance and a hard

London

are not so

Foreign Office

convinced

Churchill had sent

Congress.

blow

earnestly

hope

for the

summed it up:

'It is

CLN.'

'All in

all,

the Italians

telegram to Roosevelt following the Bari

expressed the nub of British policy, against which

any number of Party of Action resolutions or were at present powerless:

shock to Bonomi.

we are of the blessings of constitutional monarchy.'

a secret

in effect

official

as a

that the existing

regime

Socialist orders

in Italy will

of the day

be allowed to

function at least until the great battles

now being

of our two countries have resulted

our capture of Rome. I am sure Italian State and the attempt to

now

of such authority

create a

new

fought by the soldiers

remains in the

CLN] with no real Moreover these groups win credit from the Italian

authority out of political groups [the

backing will add greatly to our

when formed

into a

Goverment,

difficulties.

order to

FEBRUARY

I06 people would

form than

feel

the

pity if Badoglio

Navy might British

essential to assert Italian interests in a

King and Badoglio dare threw

to do.

hand, and our reports

in his

much stronger

would be a great show that the Italian

feel

be powerfully affected by action against the king.

and American blood

flowing, and

Much

plead that military

considerations should carry weight.'

And in

the

meantime Roosevelt had

also

from Badoglio on would the United States' -

had

a letter

the old theme: if Italy could be declared an ally, then Roosevelt

have the 'eternal gratitude of the Italians living and in shrewdly phrased, with the American elections ahead, of course. The President wrote a note to the Acting Secretary of State Stettinius: 'What

do about

this

note from Badoglio?

Churchill Roosevelt wired back on

stumped.'

1 1

February, agreeing.

think, though, that you and I should regard this as a 'I temporary reprieve for the old gentlemen.' To Badoglio he replied on 21 February, and not quite in the way Churchill would have done. Until, he said, the government of Italy could include groups of anti-Fascist liberal elements within its composition, 'it will not be possible for any Head of Government to organize the conduct of the war on such a broad scale as the status of ally would require'. He then said: 'There is, I understand, a plan for the reconstruction of the Italian Government on a broad political basis as soon as the present critical military situation will permit, and not later than the liberation of Rome. also added:

With

all

these considerations in

abeyance any major changes

mind

Badoglio that the Americans had

government before

Rome

feel that

would be

best to hold in

our relationship.' This did in

mind

at least

warn

the possibility of a broader

had been entered. And very soon the

divergences between the British and American views were to be brought into the open.

By now

the American spy Peter Tompkins had donned steel-rimmed and had a new card identifying him as a captain attached to the Fascist headquarters, grandly calling itself the Open City of Rome. He lived in a secret room deep in the warren of the old city. There was a trapglasses

fdes marked 'Ammo Dumps', 'Counter-espionage', and an ammonia bottle was always to hand in case of an SS raid with bloodhounds, now becoming common. It was so cold in that room that he usually had to wear two overcoats. Tompkins had opted for the Socialists as helpers. Cervo was still in charge of the clandestine Radio Vittoria, sometimes operated from the sacristy of a small church, sometimes from a river boat used in summer by swimmers but a place popular in winter for homosexual assignations - the

door concealing

'Minefields', etc.,

ROME happy

caretaker, always

whatever went on

to earn extra

in the cabins.

The

lire,

107 conveniently closed an eye to

radio connections with the Fifth

Army base worked quite dramatically well for some weeks. For instance, Tompkins was able to give warning of a German build-up of equipment at Pratica di Mare, behind Ardea, as a result o{ which the place founded by Aeneas - was blasted by Allied bombers. No doubt this was the reason why Kesselring did not persist with his idea of attacking the Beachhead in a south-westerly direction along the coast and instead adopted Hitler's preference, the Via Anziate. originally Lavinium,

'Nice going

bombing

Pratica di Mare,' thejustifiably satisfied

Tompkins

radioed back after the raid.

He also sent recommendations for bombings of troop concentrations in which were promptly carried out, and gave details of German

the North,

Rome

movements through through

Rome

for

itself,

example on 17 February:

going south on 15th. 230 freight cars loaded with Mark VI tanks, 6

material, 50 loaded with personnel, 100 horse carts,

medium

tanks

.' .

and gave

1 1

So much for the German pretence of 'open

February he pinpointed Kesselring's exact Soratte,

'Traffic

details

command

city'.

post in caves at

of units' insignia on trucks and of the names of

Fascist agents crossing the lines.

For

work he had

hundred

workers recruited solely for the purpose of watching all the twelve major highways in and out of Rome. His most valuable contact was a young German-speaking Italian lieutenant who was a liaison officer between the Fascist commander of the 'Open City' and the German commander in Rome, General Kurt this

Socialist

Maeltzer. This Italian on 13 February was actually asked to

accompany Through

Mussolini's chief of staff. Marshal Graziani, to the Alban Hills.

him Tompkins discovered

that the Germans had broken the Allied planeto-ground radio code at the Beachhead. Another useful, though unwitting, helpmeet was a German at Via Tasso, no less - a stupid man with a taste for brandy, which was supplied to him after a hard day in

NCO

the cells

by another

warder and

ambassador to France).

And

doctor also worked for the organization.

Tompkins was asked

to locate the railway

gun Anzio Annie, and was

delighted to begin a search. Preparing and waiting for

equipment

of fact Baron Regina Coeli a

Socialist assistant, 'Franco' (in point

Malfatti, later Italian

parachute drop of

was one of the most exciting aspects of all the The code words for the exact time and place of these drops would be broadcast by Radio London after the news, strangely thrilling since everyone of course knew that they were for partisans

operations in which he was involved.

messages for partisans: 'The cigarettes have arrived'; 'the sun will dawn'; 'your sister's cow is ready.'

The Voice of America was beamed from

rise at

Algiers, putting listeners in

FEBRUARY

I08

American pubhc was against the king, but containing too many ingenuous platitudes by Mayor La Guardia of New York. Radio London was by far the most popular and the newscaster became a national

doubt

that the

figure in Italy, 'Colonello Buonasera', the Anglo-Neapolitan Colonel

Stevens,

who was

always preceded by the famous

Morse code,

tara-ta-tum.

how the-messages for partisans were worked out was and always a mystery. Those who were concerned at No Special Force say now that they were 'trained to forget', and needless to say no records were ever kept in writing. Many messages must have originated from spy networks in Switzerland, where Allen Dulles was the OSS chief, Quite

no doubt be

will

and then been relayed to London. Colonel Stevens hmiself never had an

meaning of the words. The British at Anzio also ran a 'black' radio station broadcasting in German. Tompkins used to listen to its late night jazz. By March he had inkling of the real

devised a the

new code

based enigmatically on the words 'Screw You'. But

whole of his network was soon

to crack

with the

arrest

of Cervo on

denounced Cervo himself

the Tiber houseboat, after another Vittoria operator had been

by the Germans and had revealed his name under torture. was sent to Koch's Pensione Oltremare.

One day a grinning Monsignor O'Flaherty entered the British Legation rooms and brought Sam Derry a letter: 'Back in Rome. Where the hell are you? Only consolation for my sore arse will be when sec your I

smiling face. John.'

was John Furman, whom Derry had scarcely expected to see again after he had been shipped north from Regina Coeli. He had jumped from a train, hence the soreness, and had bought a bicycle. At the end of his two-hundred-mile journey he had sent a message to O'Flaherty that a friend was waiting for him in St Peter's Square. Then had come the reunion, and a bellow from the Monsignor, 'In the name of God, John, it's good to see you back.' But Derry and Furman could not meet, Derry being unable to leave the Vatican and Furman forbidden to enter it. By special arrangement with O'Flaherty, Derry would sometimes stand and It

wave

at a

window of the

Santa Marta hospice, to be watched through

by Furman from the Collegio Teutonicum. The number of escaped prisoners in Rome, several from

field-glasses

the Anzio was swelHng, and the cost of keeping them rose in proportion. American bomber crews, six or seven at a time, would arrive largely unaware of the German grip on Rome, and generally expecting to find that the best hotel in the city had been taken over for their reception. Derry tried to persuade most of them to hide in the country, where food was easier to find. Some escaped prisoners never heard of Derry's front,

ROME organization until

much

later:

John

109

Miller, for example,

who

existed in

very simple conditions in the Prati, sharing the meals - often soup made from the husks of beans - with an old woman known as La Nonna. Often

Rome had the impression that their Germans. Some No i Special Force men were dropped near Tivoli and knocked on a door after dark. 'Don't be afraid,' they said, 'we are not Germans but English parachutists.' The non-committal reply was almost inevitable: 'Well you are all sons of God and welcome to a bed and a meal.' The British organization in the South in charge of getting escaped prisoners through the line was MI9. Necessarily, most successful attempts were from the Adriatic coast, usually by sea. Harold Tittmann, the prisoners living with peasants outside hosts did not necessarily dislike the

American Charge

d'Affaires at the Vatican,

was warned by Derry not to

encourage American soldiers in the organization to make their way south on foot, partly because of food difficulties, partly because of snow on the

mountains - 'Several British ex-prisoners of war, especially Indians, have been seen dead on the mountains, apparently having died of exposure and/or hunger.' Derry added: 'While I realize that it is the duty of all exprisoners of war to try to rejoin our forces at the earliest possible moment, I cannot help but feel it is exceedingly unwise to attempt to get through the lines now.'

MI 9

Nevertheless

(A Force) sent

Rome, and in due course Tumiati

a half-Italian,

Peter Tumiati, up to

returned to the South with

microfilm

of names of escaped prisoners and other information baked into a loaf of bread. This was passed to his chief at MI 9, Captain Christopher list

as a result successful arrangements were able to be made for away 1 04 prisoners by landing-craft - a group of commandos held

Soames, and getting a

beachhead while they embarked. Tumiati's adventures were often He would sometimes bring up money for the British Legation

alarming.

from the South, and on one expedition a contadino insisted on giving up his bed to him. After about an hour Tumiati found the bugs intolerable, and went to a haystack in a barn. To his horror he heard movements in the hay. Rats? No; only a dozen British escaped prisoners. By contrast the supply of Scotch whisky in Sir D'Arcy Osborne's rooms - with their stupendous backcloth of St Peter's - appeared undiminished.

Maybe Monsignor Montini enjoyed

an occasional nip

Harold Tittmann, who had lost a leg as an airman in the First War, was always welcome. Marchesa Claudia Patrizi, working for Montezemolo's Centro X, was taken to a party in the Santa Marta hospice by Princess Pallavicini and there found not only Osborne, so correct and British, but sundry other diplomats and Jews, not to mention Osborne's peculiar butler John May, a kind of Henry James character, or Mr Know-all, all enjoying their Johnny Walker, except for instead of tea

his

almost daily

visits.

FEBRUARY

a teetotaller. An American dance tune was put on an Irish priest gave a good imitation of Fred Astaire. and the gramophone, To some people Osborne seemed overcorrect and formal, the typical Englishman, 'the enemy of untidiness, noise and hilarity', a bit hypochondriac, but as his diaries show he was warm-hearted and loved children, especially the younger Tittmann boy, whom he called Tarzan. His diary of that period was confined to recording BBC news, partly for

O'Flaherty,

who was

security reasons, in case the

Germans should ever break

into the Vatican,

and partly for the benefit of the Pope, to whom he would send a typed digest at the end of each day. He found this writing out of news for the Pope a great chore, but had been begged by Montini on the Pope's behalf to continue and at least the work relieved the tedium of that enclosed Hfe. The visits of the Irish Minister's wife Mrs Kiernan were always enlivening

and

full

ofjokes. She had got on well with Ciano's wife, Edda Mussolini,

early in the war, but had had a

many anti-Fascist friends as well. Once,

party in the Kiernans' 'horrid

saying goodbye. As she

careful about

Much

flat'

drew on her gloves she

whom

after

near the railway station, Edda was

I'd invite to

said: 'If 1

were you,

I'd

parties.'

embarrassment O'Flaherty had taken pity on their Rome, General Gambier-Parry, who was beginning to get bored in his little room with a drawbridge. Now Gambier-Parry was being taken to Irish parties and introduced to high ranking Germans as an Irish 'doctor'. Eventually Derry managed to get the general safely into a clinic run by nuns known as the Blue Sisters; a to Derry's

most eminent escaper in

proved adequate for his exercise. was given in Osborne's rooms for the twenty-first birthday of Paul Freyberg, the son of the eminent New Zealand general at Cassino. Freyberg was a Grenadier Guards lieutenant and had been captured at Anzio. He had escaped and had reached the Papal villa at Castel Gandolfo by climbing over a wall that had been bombed. When D'Arcy Osborne, who was a cousin, had heard about this, he had arranged for Freyberg to be smuggled into the Vatican in a vanload of vegetables. Freyberg was now lodged in the Papal Gendarmerie, familiarly known by Osborne and other 'Santa Martians' as the Ritz. Rich Romans were able to live moderately well on the black market, sometimes through selling possessions of their own, such as sheets, and one could still get good meals at restaurants at high prices. On occasion British officers were able to get Roman friends to cash cheques which would be honoured, it was hoped, after the liberation. Wing Commander Garrad-Cole was lucky enough to meet a contessa named Cristina with 'blue-grey eyes', and who was so struck by his own eyes that she had him fitted out with suits from the best Roman tailors. A favourite restaurant for 'Garry' and others was the Ostaria dell'Orso, where the barman Felix pleasant and large garden

One

special party

ROME

I I

had once worked at the Savoy. Special allowances were made on the bills. One evening the editor of// Messag^ero was dining at the Orso. The next

day there was

headline in his paper:

'Rome starves

while British escaped

prisoners gorge'. British other ranks

origin,

fell

in love

had

their admirers too. In

with her family's lodger,

English. After the liberation the girl

was

one case a girl, of Finnish Cockney. He taught her by a woman captain who

a real

visited

compensation for those who had helped escaped POWs. On arriving the captain stumbled on the stairs and nearly fell. 'Jesus Christ,' said the girl, '1 thought you was going to break your fucking neck.'

was

assessing

alarming situation occurred

when

Anderson, developed acute appendicitis

Cameron Highlander,

Subiaco

Private

Sabine

in the

Hills.

Derry appealed to Mrs Kiernan, and in due course a Diplomatic Corps car swept out on the long journey, bearing not an Irish diplomat but the burly Father Spike Buckley. Again thanks to the machinations of O'Flaherty, Private Anderson was operated on in a hospital used for German wounded from Anzio. But he had to be removed immediately afterwards -very dangerous. So Father Spike took the boy to 'Mummy' Chevalier's flat and carried him in his arms up three flights of steps. This was not the end either. Anderson was very ill, but after a week Mummy was warned of an impending German raid. So once more the Kiernan car had to be requisitioned, and Father Spike took him to the American College on the Janiculum, considered to be the organization's safest billet.

Although O'Flaherty was supposed to be neutral, there were occasions say slyly to Derry (whose code-name was Patrick): 'My boy, there is a lot of funny business going on. The mouth of the Tiber is crammed with wee motorboats. Now, Patrick, what d'ye think they'd be for?' In point of fact they were German E boats, getting ready for a raid on Anzio harbour. Then, when John May told him that there was a German Army boot-repairing shop at the back of the Irish Embassy, O'Flaherty was delighted. During the night many of those boots disappeared over the wall into the garden of the Embassy. Derry had plenty of contacts for sending back military information to the South, but it was all one way; he never received instructions in return, and this could be frustrating. For instance, he had some ex-prisoners

when he might

hiding in

valley outside

Germans were

in the area,

Rome,

ready to escape across

network?) blew up the viaduct, which attracted the Germans, believed the local Italians

work

viaduct.

but Allied bombers (thanks to Peter Tompkins'

have been sabotage. So

who in

turn

big rastrellamento began;

were rounded up, most of the ex-prisoners

too.

The question of funds for the organization was often worrying. Some came from private individuals like Prince Doria or Claudia Patrizi, who

FEBRUARY

112 sold her tapestries to raise

money. Most was supplied by Osborne,

overhangs the exact methods by which both the British and American Ministries obtained this money in the first instance. Much came on Vatican motor convoys from

certain

amount by Tittmann. Again,

secrecy

still

Switzerland. Other sums were obtained by means of loans from religious

foundations or in devious ways from Italian banks. Derry had 2,591

names on his books in February, 16 being in Rome. The cost man was reckoned at 131 lire a day, and during the month 1,832,590 was spent, including money smuggled into Regina Coeli and assistance to escapers'

per

Russians in hiding. Tittmann of course also helped with supplying cash to Delasem, the Jewish organization run by the Capuchin monk Padre Benedetto. In point of fact there was only one American priest connected

with the Holy See, Monsignor McGeough, the score or so of

who was of particular help

American ex-prisoners.

had to avert its eyes from any of the mid-March the Secretariat was informed that a sum of $16,000 was waiting in London for the Jews of Rome, and it was

The Vatican

itself necessarily

dealings with Delasem. In

might be credited to a Papal organization known as the Opere di Religione, founded by Pius XII in 1942, and that D'Arcy Osborne should cable instructions to London. Such a proposal, and the implications if ever the Germans got wind of it, obviously horrified Cardinal Maglione, who wrote in a memo: 'I do not intend to give orders or assume responsibility. do not wish even to make suggestions.' Some of the money that reached OTlaherty also appears to have made its way to Centro X, the 'information' centre of the Montezemolo organization. The point of Claudia Patrizi being asked to the party in the Vatican was so that she could carry away two shoe boxes, containing money, each tied up with pink ribbon. She had to take these to the Bar Ronzi and hand them over to the Centro X treasurer, Lily Marx, who as it happened was the girl-friend of Ettore Basevi, the main forger of identity documents. She found Lily, a pretty brown-haired young woman of German-Jewish origin, already seated at a table. 'At last, here am, Anna,' she said in a loud voice, trying not to tremble. 'These are the children's shoes. Not very good quahty but hope they'll be all right.' suggested that

this

'You're an angel, Giovanna,' replied Lily, loudly too. to thank you. Letters

from

What

can

you?

Punt

Mes

families of British prisoners in Italy,

or escaped and in hiding,

Another

offer

would be

sent to the

don't

know how

Campari?'

whether still

Red

Cross

camps

Rome.

Madam

Bruccoleri, a widow, name of someone being hidden by the organization, she slip the letter into her bosom and it would then be given to her nineteen-year-old daughter, Josette, who would take

worked

Irish

there.

in a school

friend of O'Flaherty's,

When

came would

she

bag to O'Flaherty

across the

in the Vatican.

was rather

spotty,' Josette

ROME

modestly says now, 'and probably rather smelly, as there was no soap. I used to go to O'Flaherty's room, half studio and with a bed screened off in an alcove. Very miproper for

school

girl.

Major Derry, "Don't worry, she's a grand In actual fact O'Flaherty had his roguish

remember him saying

girl."

He said to one of his women helpers, a shade older than Josette, 'You know have a httle place in town. How about meeting me there on the quiet?' He added: 'And won't be in this robe you know.' And she thought he meant it. Young Josette was very scared sometimes on her visits, in case she was being followed by plain-clothes police. Once in a tram a man dropped a grenade on the floor, and when his coat opened you could see he had a whole belt of grenades. Nobody said a word on that tram. On another side.

occasion there were

lurched the

monks

a lot

of monks travelling with her.

clutched the hangers; their sleeves

When

fell

the tram

back and you

could see each one of them had very British tattoos, one being the

Mother on a tombstone. Once, on entering the Vatican, Josette saw at a window. 'You're English, aren't you?'

man

she said.

white shoes

He was

word sitting

surprised.

turned out to be Osborne's butler John May. Once reassured, he said, 'I'm waiting for an escaped prisoner but he hasn't turned up.' She also was told that Peter Tumiati, to stop a British prisoner

'Perche?'

from having to talk, had bandaged his jaw, and that inside the bandage was a map. Josette was a great friend of Orietta Doria, the daughter of Prince Filippo Doria and his Glaswegian wife. She had been at Palazzo Doria when the Germans came to arrest them. They were in point of fact celebrating Josette's birthday, and she was staying the night because of the curfew. Prince Doria, half English himself, was a man of outstanding integrity, an aristocrat in the great tradition, quiet and unostentatious. Princess Doria, who had the unGlaswegian-sounding Christian name of Gesine, had been his nurse whilst he was in hospital in England (after being injured in a sculling accident whilst up at Cambridge). Both had been adamantly anti-Fascist from the beginning, and had thus put themselves in great peril. Before the war the princess had refused the invitation of the queen of Italy to give up her wedding ring to 'help' in the invasion of Abyssinia, let alone take any notice of those British and Sanctions.

who had formed the 'Pro Italia' society at the time of When war was declared Dona was arrested, and had remained

in various

forms of confinement

American wives

until Mussolini

days preceding the Armistice, during the

was overthrown.

BadogHo period

In the

Rome,

had formed a committee for helping ex-political detainees, and had also assisted another committee for releasing Communists or suspected

Communists

still

prison. This last

committee included the film

FEBRUARY

114

director Luchino Visconti, the artist

Renato Guttuso, and Umberto

popular post-war director of the Itahan Institute in London Visconti later concerning himself with helping Italian soldiers on the run. Whilst Josette and the Dorias were at dinner, the door-bell rang.

Morra,

Orietta opened the door and found a down-and-out-looking fellow, who kissed her hand and gave her an urgent letter for her father, saying that

1940. The prince they both had been in the same concentration camp merely glanced at the letter and put it in his pocket without saying

was a warning that the Germans were coming hoax or a trap. At about 10 p.m., just as they were setthng down to listen to the BBC news, Giovanni the butler came to tell them that Germans were in the Vicolo outside. Sure enough, when they peered through the slats in the shutters, they could see that the SS were surrounding the immense palace. Then the telephone from the anything. Even though

him, he treated

to arrest

porter's lodge rang.

The

as a

They must open up

four of them hid in

once.

lavatory behind

could hear the clump clump of the Germans.

a sliding

book-case.

They

was almost the same story

The men must have been overcome by the great salons, the gilded furniture, the velvet and the statuary. They would have ventured into that incredible green room hung with Gothic tapestries, and where in normal times there were pictures by Memling, as at

Palazzo Rospigliosi.

Bronzino and Filippo Lippi - and, above all, Velasquez's formidable masterpiece the portrait of Innocent X, enough to scare away any intruder.

Once

again, as at Palazzo Rospigliosi, they said they

would be

'back tomorrow'.

A own

palace like the Dorias'

rooms, the

scores of flats

state

of all

in reaUty

Hke

a hive.

There are the prince's

apartments and the picture gallery, and in addition

sizes,

some

for relatives

'as

big

as Selfridges',

Orietta

was an easy matter to slip away, having gathered together a few clothes. The prince at first dressed as a priest, while Orietta and her mother dyed their hair black and, it has been said, posed as washerwomen. The princess was small and dumpy, but Orietta was tall, stately and very Anglo-Saxon. In any case the princess was a well-known figure in Rome, black hair or no, and finally she was discreetly advised by a Fascist policeman that she would be wise not to be seen in public. So in due course she and Orietta joined the prince, who - having grown a beard and affecting a hmp - was living with the parish priest of Santa Maria in Trastevere and was now a professore' An Englishwoman, Baroness Diana Corsi, courageously went to Palazzo Doria to rescue some of the family's precious belongings. It was after curfew when she returned on her bicycle with these things in her basket. Luckily she was not stopped by the police. 'My husband was very annoyed with me,' she now says mildly. has said.

ROME

115

Meanwhile Doria was working with O'Flaherty. Strangely enough he

who had been and Peter Tompkins' Cervo. When he heard the Villa Doria on the Janiculum was being used as an ammunition dump he was quite prepared to have it blown up. The princess and Orietta had themselves registered as third-grade employees at the Ministry of Agriculture. They in fact never dared to go out and subsisted only on vegetables. Orietta spent her time doing both Umberto Lusena,

also supplied information for

Derry's radio contact until his

housework and

translating a

to children. All

around

arrest,

book on

the technique of teaching catechism

in the ancient streets

of Trastevere brave, ordinary

people were hiding Allied soldiers and Jews, risking the death penalty. Stories about the ill-treatment

of Colonel Montezemolo

Rome. A woman

continued to circulate

Dollmann

Dollmann had been

to intercede.

military matter, out of his jurisdiction. Besides,

Strangely enough

One

was

everyone knew about his radio

con-

could hardly expect him to be freed!

Dollmann

cousin had seen

this

Via Tasso

polite but firm. This

Montezemolo's involvement with sabotage groups and nection with Badoglio.

cousin had tried to get

at his

pensione

few hundred yards away Montezemolo's wife and daughters were hiding in the convent attached to that very church. She had managed the interview through Prince Francesco Ruspoli, who was one of Dollmann's particular friends. Ruspoli was interned at the liberation, but had nevertheless been instrumental in arranging with Dollmann for several lesser fry to be released. He was to marry the Santa Trinita dei Monti;

daughter of Dollmann's landlady.

Montezemolo had a fever for most of the rest of his time in from mastoid trouble, probably connected with

also suffered

prison. his

broken

jaw. Survivors of Via Tasso speak of his extraordinary calm and dignity. When Signora Simoni and her daughters saw the Pope, he gave them a rosary for the old general. Vera Simoni had gone with her father to the

Pope

after her

Pope: 'Give something.'

brother had been killed

faith.

This

were not going in the

Simoni had said to the which I need to believe in his private library and had sat

in Africa.

moment

The Pope had taken them

into

remembers, 'Father already knew that we win the war, and he said, "I am not against the New

behind the desk. As Vera Zealander

tank

now

who

killed

son, but against the system that sent

war without proper arms. Why send all these people to be killed when anyone can see how useless it is? It is tragedy." Then the Pope had made a gesture for him to be quiet, and he had knelt down and taken out

him

the telephone's connection.

everywhere. shall

Now we

said, "I did that

can speak freely."

never forget, he said that

because there are spies

Then he

was the male

said

something that

sceso sulla terra, the evil

FEBRUARY

Il6

descended upon the Earth. And he spoke wonderfully, and gave my father the faith he needed. could sec that the Pope and my father were at I

one

in their ideas.'

Pope did not take out the connection. Through his influence Vera, her mother and sister visited General Simoni at Via Tasso on three occasions. Once Simoni said to his wife: 'Don't worry.

this

the

visit

Yesterday they took they said

was

thought of you, and

me in

last minute was another way of torturing me. But just you have done for me, and how grateful am.

front of the firing squad, and at the

mistake.

thought of my

all

life,

felt

could die

pace

am Dio

con ^li iwmini, in

peace with God and men.' Vera knew She took him in her arms and hugged him, and he screamed in pain.

that he was trying to give them strength.

When

came back, they would

the dirty laundry

find blood

it.

Once

fiamma d'amore per voi,' literally, 'I live in flame of love for you all.' Mostly he was in his tiny cell, and allowed twice a day to go to the stinking blue-tiled lavatory. At night the Nazis played the gramophone and had women in. All the windows were bricked up, but once Simoni managed to push out a note through a ventilator hole: 'Simone Simoni - cell 12. Giuseppe Ferrari - cell 2. I am they found

a little letter:

being tortured.

suffer

Vivo

with pride.

thoughts are with

country

and my family.' This note was picked up by one of the gaolers, who showed It to Kappler, with the result that General Simoni was given another beating.

appeal was also sent to

Dollmann on behalf of Simoni, but back came

the usual courteous reply, in the usual green ink

- 'The Person

whom .'

you are interested has been too gravely compromised to be released There has been much confusion about the personality of Dollmann, and too often has his role in Rome been muddled with Kappler's, especially in books published just after the war. In his black SS Colonel's uniform he could not help cutting an awesome figure in Rome, accompanied as he usually was by his wolf-hound, Kuno. There was gossip about his relationship with his handsome Italian chauffeur, and with certain effete young Roman nobles - but that was by the way. He was a Nazi, but no bloodthirsty monster, not a Scarpia, and indeed was .

later to

be exonerated of any war crimes.

intelligent

and witty, and

his

He was

frankly a socialite,

often proclaimed love for

Rome

genuine. Being called upon to be interpreter on the highest Italian levels,

of the

he was thus

Italians

Dollmann had

whom

in a

was

German-

position to influence events subtly in favour

he wished.

little

respect for General Maeltzer, the 'King of Rome',

Mr Bum-Bum-Bum. The animosity who was in command ot the Gestapo SD, was

he endearingly called

between him and Kappler,

ROME

117

indeed very deep. Kappler, slim, aged thirty-five, grey-eyed, the son of a Stuttgart chauffeur, but of Swedish origin, affected to despise him, and

probably was jealous, not only of Dollmann's better education but because he was the favourite of General Karl Wolff, the head of all the SS in Italy.

with

Kappler was intolerant, cold, vengeful, unhappily married and and photography. He had adopted a

interests in Etruscan vases, roses

son from the Lebensborn, the Nazi 'baby farm' scheme, where perfect SS

specimens of Aryan also loved allies

Rome,

manhood could mate with perfect Aryan women. He Romans who had betrayed their former

but not those

and thereby endangered the security of

his

country and comrades.

believed in the Third Reich, and was ready to carry out orders

unquestioningly.

German consul, who was acting head of the Embassy was half French and nicknamed by his colleagues the in Rome, 'Byzantine Christ'. Aged thirty, he was not a Nazi and secretly tried to Moellhausen, the

ease the

the

predicament of the Jews,

Embassy

Years later

to the

Holy

was revealed

did his colleague the Councillor at

See, Albrecht that

von

Kessel,

known

'Teddy'.

Moellhausen was approached by Kessel to

join the plot to assassinate Hitler, but refused.

The

position of Weizsaecker, the white-haired ambassador to the

See, with

his

blue

'sailor's eyes', will

Holy

always remain controversial. His

memoirs were to be described as 'teeming with absurdities, distortions and untruths fit to deceive'. According to Kessel, when Hitler considered kidnapping the Pope Weizsaecker found himself 'doing battle on two fronts'. 'He had to persuade the Pope not to say anything too extreme,

which might have fatal consequences. At the same time he had to convince Hitler, by ingeniously phrased despatches, that the Pope was not too ill-disposed towards Germany, and that Catholic gestures in favour of the Jews were insignificant and not to be taken seriously.' He went on to say that 'we knew that a violent protest against the persecution of the Jews would have certainly put the Pope in great personal danger, and it would not have saved the life of a single Jew'. Then: 'Hitler, like a trapped beast, would have reacted to any provocation with extreme violence. Kept at bay by the Allies, and their Unconditional Surrender demand, he was like a beast of prey pursued by hunters, capable of any hysterical excess or crime.' Thus, say some, if Weizsaecker distorted the Papal attitude,

by emphasizing

its

innate anti-Bolshevism, he did

good

Others say that this was a manipulation of history, and has been responsible for much of the calumny concerning the 'silences' of Pope Pius faith.

on 29 December Tittmann saw the Pope, who did which he feared would lead to the spread of Communism in the West. Tittmann had also reported to Washington that the 'consensus among diplomats' was that 'the XII. All the same,

'express concern at Soviet successes'

FEBRUARY

Il8

Communist danger was the Pope's chief preoccupation at the moment'. The Pope actually told Weizsaecker that whatever the danger he would not consider leaving Rome, and in the previous October he had even said to Osborne that he would never go unless removed bodily and by force. Early in February there were new rumours that he was to be abducted, even that the Germans were secretly excavating a tunnel under the Vatican.

9 February, in the Sistine Chapel, the Pope reiterated to

would 'yield only to violence'. He also said: 'We you from any obligation to follow Our fate. Each one of you is free to do what you think is best.' The cardinals, we are told, 'threw themselves at his feet' and pledged their loyalty. the cardinals that he release

After the attempted assassination of Hitler in July 1944, Weizsaecker as a leader in the plot among Germans in Rome, but in his Memoirs he denied having been an accomplice. At Nuremberg he was

was named

sentenced to seven years' imprisonment.

died soon after, a broken

man.

The men who acted as the Pope's own nephew. Prince Carlo Pacelli,

with the Germans were his and Padre Pancrazio Pfeiffer, of

liaison

Bavarian peasant stock and head of the Salvatorian Order. Padre Pancrazio had played

a crucial part at the

time of the October round-up of

Jews, and would again in connection with the events that led to the

He also has become a figure of controversy; he had the Pope's complete confidence and developed a very good relationship with the German authorities, particularly Kesselring's chief Ardeatine Caves massacre.

staff

Westphal,

'helpful, full

whom

he would

visit at

Monte

of decorations, young-looking and

Soratte, finding

al corrente di tutto,

date about everything'. Pfeiffer's testimony about the 'silences'

have been liberation

now,

vital,

but he died

Rome, without

in a traffic accident

only

month

leaving documents behind him.

him

would

after the

We know

was in touch with the Capuchin Padre Beneand therefore no doubt with the Jewish organization Delasem. There was yet another Bavarian who was close to the Pope, and this was a nun. Sister Pasqualina, who was his housekeeper and reputed to have ruled his personal life 'with a rod of iron'. for instance, that he

detto,

The Vatican had been

officially informed that Kesselring had ordered that neighbourhood of the Papal domain at Castel Gandolfo should not be used for military purposes. All the same there were more Allied raids. The Pope had given orders for the whole of the palace to be thrown open to the refugees, including the Hall of the Swiss Guards, the Throne Room, the Napoleon Room, even his private apartments. The Barberini villa, part of the estate and built on the ruins of a villa of Domitian, had also been hit; the London Foreign Office was relieved to

the immediate

ROME

119

Baedeker had httle to say about its merits. The ApostoHc Washington, Cieognani, protested about the raids. He was promised that there would be investigations, and was referred once more find that

Delegate

to Roosevelt's letter to the

Pope

July 1943.

was perhaps

little

would be carried out as far as was 'humanly possible under conditions of modern warfare' and that German forces near extra-territorial properties would only be bombarded if the consolation to be told that this policy

'crucial military situation' required

it.

Meanwhile bombs also fell on the periphery of Rome. On 3 February Mother Mary wrote: 'Last night British planes flew over the city. German planes rose to meet them, and there was a duel in the air. One big bomb fell in Via Mecenate, not tar trom the Colosseum, and hit a private nursing home, the Clinica Polidori, wrecking a large part of it and killing the surgeon who directed it.' 'A dreadful time,' wrote Mrs Whitakcr. 'Bombardments and sirens constantly. We hear they are still digging out the dead at Castel Gandolfo. Could not sleep atter hearing the mysterious aeroplane that flies low over Rome every night. People call it the Black Widow.' D'Arcy Osborne reported to London that thirty people had been killed and six hundred injured in Rome from air-raids on 15 February, and eighty killed and a hundred and fifty injured on 6 February. 1

And Cieognani wrote to that springs

Roosevelt: 'With

from the depths

grieving heart and with

cry

ot his paternal soul the Sovereign Pontiff

invokes Your Excellency's intervention that

Rome may

be spared trom

the horror and destruction ot turther aerial attacks.'

The

fifteenth

of February was the traumatic day on which the

Monastery of Monte Cassino was destroyed from the air by the Allies. 'One ot the major material tragedies of the war,' said Mother Mary. The news stunned the whole Roman Catholic world, and German propaganda made full use of this windfall. Rome and Vienna were spattered with posters showing how the destruction of the abbey was typical of the 'hatred felt by culturally primitive nations towards those with a iiigher and more ancient civilization'. It was fortunate that some months earlier the Germans had persuaded the Abbot of Monte Cassino to let them remove the main treasures and books to safety, including material trom the Keats-Shelley memorial house in Rome and several cases from Naples museums and the best bronzes from Pompeii. These had all gone to the German headquarters at Spoleto, but after some fuss were taken five months later to the Vatican. There was

grand parade of all the trucks in Piazza Venezia. 'It is difficult to understand the motives,' Mother Mary tersely said, 'after their wanton

destruction of the great library at Naples [actually

had

also contained the archives

Nola j' - and

this library

of the House of Anjou. Later

was

discovered that eighteen cases of Pompeian bronzes andjewellery had not

FEBRUARY

120

reached the Vatican, but had been sent to

Germany

as a

birthday present

for Goering.

As danger threatened the Monastery their troops. Nevertheless, there

convinced that

in the early

days of February, the

was not occupied by was hardly an Allied soldier who was not

Germans had repeatedly claimed

was being used

that the building

an observation post.

Paolisi

last

set sail for

The docks were

Naples, and the sight of it was

shambles, with ships upside

a sad

disappointment.

down and

buildings

bombed. The weather was icy, and even Vesuvius was in the clouds. Everywhere you saw beggars, and there were notices about VD dangers and lice causing typhus. It was very different to the O sole mio Italy that I

had expected.

were driven off

near

in three-tonners to a village called Paolisi

Benevento. Here too were misery and ugliness: people starving and

rumbling endlessly over cobbles, mud. In the chilly mess, where one drank yellow Strega, I heard of more friends who were casualties, both at Anzio and on the Gustav Line. No news of Nick, though. One night we saw more flashes than usual over the bare sugar-loaf hills, and were told that the Monastery at Monte Cassino had been bombed that day. We felt relieved and delighted. Sometimes when the weather cleared we would climb those hills, where there were wild narcissi. Or else we hitchhiked to Pompeii, to the San Carlo opera house to see Madam Butterfly, or to the officers' mess in the Royal Palace where a crazy old peroxided tart sang Ciri-biri-bim and Funiculi Funicula. All the same, was quite glad when was told that was to be sent up to the front at Minturno. was annoyed at not being able to join a battalion of my own regiment, the Rifle Brigade; instead was to join the Green Howards in the 5th (Yorkshire) Division. Minturno, eighteen miles west of Cassino, had recently been captured and was at the mouth of the River Garigliano, into which the Liri and the continuation of the Rapido flowed. My Baedeker told me that there was a Roman hating, wretched houses, trucks

theatre near the

mosaic work

town and some

in the churches.

interesting Giotto-type frescoes and

Cassino

The Abruzzi region of central Italy contains some of the wildest scenery in the country - chains of great jagged peaks forming part of the Apennines, some even covered with perpetual snow and intersected with valleys so remote dress.

that until recently

The

women

there

were

still

wearing traditional

larger valleys are very fertile, producing cereals, rice, vines,

ohves and almonds, and

in the

oak woods there are herds of

pigs.

main towns of the Abruzzi is L'Aquila, below the Gran Sasso where Mussolini had been imprisoned. The Emperor Frederick II had a dream of making this desolate place into the capital of Italy. Further south is Sulmona, a medieval town with Venetian-looking houses, and near what had been a main camp for Ahied prisoners of war. Then comes the Maiella massif and the Adriatic, where by the end of January the

One of

Eighth

the

Army

had reached

stalemate.

The high mountains continue towards the south-west, but the peaks of Monte Cairo, 5,500 feet, and Monte Baghella, 4,800 feet, are actually in the region of Lazio. The smaller peak of Monte Cassino, at 1,700 feet, stands like the last bastion of the Apennines, crowned by its famous mother of all the Christian monasteries, and with a view of incredible majesty. Between the Abruzzi and the sea is the area known as La Ciociaria, with the Liri valley and Via Casilina, Route 6, running through the centre, separated from the Appian Way, Route 7, and towns like Terracina and Gaeta by another smaller but nevertheless formidable range, the Aurunci mountains. The Appian Way here is along the coast, but it weaves inland, through Cisterna and the Pontine Marshes, up to building,

Velletri

and Albano

in the

Alban

Hills,

and so to Rome.

first major bombardment of Cassino had been on the morning of 10 September, causing havoc and slaughter among the civilians. People

The

rushed screaming from one ruined street to another, searching for their children. Later that

day German tanks and

lorries

appeared.

became

CASSINO

123

obvious that the town was to be taken over

some

sort

of miHtary

headquarters, and this meant that before long there could be other

bombings. The signal was clear, and in a panic the Cassinati fled - their was too vivid. For two thousand years the site of Cassino had been a point of vital strategic importance, standing at the head of the Liri valley, only four to six miles wide. As proof there were the remains of a 'Colosseum', built by sense of history

the ancient

Romans for the entertainment of the garrison's soldiers. Mark

Antony had chosen south.

have

his villa

French had fought there. But place a

byword

Originally

centuries,

its

was the mountain above

temple of Apollo had been

walls

in 529;

were as thick

built

many

as a fortress'.

known

rushed up the twisting road

made

the

on Monte Cassino. The

times destroyed over the

Over a thousand people now

the Serpentina to take refuge there.

outlying villages, or to caves

fled to

that

for impregnability.

Monastery had been founded

Others

nearby, to control the roads north and

Carthaginians, Samnites, Lombards, Saracens, Spaniards and

in the

mountains, joining

who

had escaped from Sulmona and other refugees who had tried to get through the lines and failed. In one village there was an Australian woman who seemed totally unafraid of the Gestapo; her capacity for organization was legendary, and it was said that she had commandeered a number of large saucepans from a nearby ironmonger and had made the locals wear them as tin hats. A future mayor of Cassino, Tancredi Grossi, took his family - his British soldiers

pregnant wife, two children and Michele, once

place

famous

his

mother,

for bandits.

ill

Now

with diabetes - to San they had to face

new

kind of brigandage. Farm animals were seized by the Germans, and food

became very scarce. Houses and shops were being looted in Cassino itself, and men were being rounded up to work on the Gustav Line defences. Grossi and his brother did not dare show themselves and had a hiding

when the Gestapo arrived. Sixty men of made to unload trucks at Cassino railway

place under the floor-boards for all

ages were seized and were

station.

only

Then

six

the Allied

had remained

bombers came, and

after the raid

was found

that

alive.

A German field hospital was established at San Michele, and the Grossis became

friendly with the

almost ascetic the farmers

young

a contrast to

by bursting

the very night that the

The

first

He was

a sensitive

who

man,

terrorized

demanding wine and women. On Germans were preparing to withdraw, Grossi's

into houses and

wife started her birth pangs. the child died.

doctor, an Austrian,

the drunken warrant officers

was the doctor

who

saved her

off at dawn, and they never saw

Allies to arrive at

life,

him

though

again.

San Michele were Japanese-Americans -

strong, dark-skinned, rather squat.

Without even being asked they

once

FEBRUARY

124

began doling out biscuits, candy, chocolate and packets of Camels and Lucky Strikes. Troubles were by no means over however, for the Germans started to shell the village. The Americans were relieved by French Algerian troops, who seized whatever animals were left and

behaved as if they were totally crazed by lust. Women and girls were dragged out of their houses and raped. One widow was raped thirteen times. Just in time some Americans intervened to protect Grossi's wife and sister, Grossi himself having been held by Algerians at pistol-point. One assumes that stories such as these prompted the Pope eventually to

Osborne

ask the British Minister

from going

A month

Rome

coloured troops could be prevented

at the liberation.

after the Allies arrived at

San Michele, on

February just

before 9.45 a.m., there was a rumbling, a roaring. Scores of heavy bombers seemed to be converging on Cassino. Grossi could scarcely

what he now saw. The Monastery of St Benedict was being pounded to extinction. It was the end of fourteen hundred years of believe

tradition, devotion, art

and learning.

History will judge, so

Monastery was tions,

justified,

bombing of the seems unlikely. Recrimina-

has been said, whether the

but

a final verdict

contradictions and counter-accusations echo from decade to

Monastery destroyed because of those much quoted through malice, it have been Protestant pig-headedness, revenge or even stupidity? Few people now would deny that, whatever the multiplicity of causes, apparently conflicting, the result was a tragedy not only historically and spiritually,

decade.

words

Was

the

'military necessity', or could

but tactically and in terms of

We start with Eisenhower. Department

that 'consistent

safeguard works of art and

Church property was

human life. November

1943 he reported to the

with military necessity,

monuments

necessity should so dictate, there should be

Monte Cassino was on

the Allied

And

list

War

precautions to

are being taken'.

to be protected, he said,

whatever action the situation warrants.'

all

adding:

Then 'If

hesitation

Clark.

military

taking

indeed long before February

of buildings especially to be

safeguarded.

There was no hiding the further

down

fact that

German

the slopes of the mountain.

troops were entrenched

late

14 February

statement from Weizsaecker to Tittmann

Monsignor Montini handed a and Osborne affirming that it was absolutely untrue that German defence works were within the Monastery, and indeed that there were no troop concentrations of any size 'within its immediate vicinity'. Everything possible was being done, it was said, to prevent Monte Cassino becoming a Durchgangsplatz, a traffic point. Even if the Chiefs of Staff would have

CASSINO

125

when it was had been able to send an observer to Monte Cassino at an earlier stage, and had given a confirmation that the Germans' many assurances were true, then events would have turned out differently. The present Abbot and monks of Monte Cassino appear to have by no means forgiven 15 February 1944. They now sell a booklet written by an American of German origin that squarely blames the British. Fred Majdalany's famous book on the battle of Cassino is described as glib, shallow, deplorable, the 'height of effrontery', an 'intricate juggling act', and an 'ecstatic defence of every mistake made by the commanders of the New Zealand Corps'. Freyberg is described as 'patently maladroit in military strategy', with an 'unwonted arrogance'. As for General Francis Tuker of the 4th Indian Division, he was intransigent and quixotic, and promulgated views that were ludicrous and ill-tempered, with an 'air o{ infallibility and ignorance'. In 1964 Montini as Pope Paul VI consecrated the rebuilt Monastery. 'We do not wish now,' he said, 'to passjudgement on those who were the cause of this [destruction], but we cannot but deplore that civilized men dared make the tomb of St Benedict the target of pitiless violence.' He also added: 'Because of the duties of Our office under Pope Pius XII We are a well-informed witness to that which the Apostolic See did to spare this fortress, not of arms, but of the spirit, from the grave outrage of its destruction. That voice [of Pope Pius], supplicant and sovereign, unarmed defender of faith and civilization, was not heeded.' Seven years after the event General Clark wrote in emphatic terms: 'I say the bombing was a mistake, and I say it with full knowledge of the controversy that has ranged round this episode.' He said there was no evidence that the Germans were using the Monastery for military purposes. He had been told that Alexander had decided that the Monastery should be bombed if Freyberg considered it a military necessity. As Freyberg had thereupon said it was a military necessity, Clark as the Army commander had to give the authorization for the bombing. 'I was never able to discover on what he [Freyberg] based his accepted Weizsaecker's word, the message reached them already too

Perhaps

late.

if the

Vatican

itself

opinion.'

And

Majdalany, 'Clark gave the order for the bombing which

so, said

he afterwards so bitterly repudiated.' Clark was also accused in the British press

of trying to

Roman

German graves And Churchill separate

'pass

on the blame

anybody

else'

Catholic. Cassandra of the Daily Mirror

from

because he was

remembered

seeing

had been tended by the monks just outside the walls. said, in any case 'the enemy fortifications were hardly

that

the building itself

Lieutenant Peter Royle of the Royal Artillery arrived at Cassino early

FEBRUARY

126 in February.

What

he wrote in his diary

summed up many

people's fears:

'One trained gunnery officer with binoculars could control nearly the whole battlefield by directing shell and mortar fire within a matter of

seconds.'

lo February the Battalion

Commander

of the 133rd

Regiment had said that he had seen a telescope at a window on face, as well as enemy moving around the base of the building on

Infantry the east

the north side. This

who

Wilson,

was relayed back to the Chiefs of Staff by General had been noticed dug in to cover the

also said that a tank

approaches to the Monastery. that there

were

thirty

9 February an Italian civilian reported

machine-guns and approximately eighty

soldiers

in the building.

On Air

February General

Ira

Command, who would

US head of the Mediterranean

C. Eaker, the

be in charge of the bombing, had flown with

General Devers only two hundred feet above the Monastery. They had reported seeing not only a military radio mast but enemy soldiers moving in

and out. Misapprehensions or not, these

decision.

generals,

helped to influence the

facts

to Clark. Thirty-five years later there are that the

Germans could not avoid

include Harold Macmillan, and British,

final

Eaker's report must have been known to the other American nearly all of whom were against the bombing, and presumably still

those

who

are convinced

Monastery, and they ex-combatants, American and

utilizing the

many

of high and low degree.

Kesselring was outraged by the suggestion that the Monastery had to

bombed

invention'.

because

his

troops were inside

No Germans

had been

it.

The

thing was a 'baseless

in there since the

'removal of the

had been used, he mainly blamed the Americans. 'As the commander-in-chief I therefore declare: United States soldiery, devoid of all culture, have, in powerless rage, senselessly destroyed one of Italy's most treasured edifices and have murdered Italian civilian refugees - men, women and children - with cultural treasures'. Since Flying Fortresses

bombs and artillery fire. Thus it has been proved that Anglo-Saxon and Bolshevik warfare has only one aim: to destroy the venerable proofs of European culture. I feel deep contempt for the cynical mendacity and

their

by which the Anglo-Saxon command tried to shift the responsibility on to my shoulders and on to my soldiers.' General Frido von Senger und Etterlin, the XIV Panzer Corps commander and therefore Freyberg's opposite number, was aghast too. An outstanding general, despite - according to photographs - his unmilitary headgear, the hypocritical sentiments

and a cultivated man, he was a Catholic from Bavaria and his later claim to have been anti-Nazi seems to have been justified - indeed he had been a Rhodes scholar at Oxford before the First War. He was always to insist that none of his men had ventured inside, and there is documentary proof

CASSINO that

127

both he and Kesselnng gave the appropriate orders for

this,

hideed,

the Germans often enough proclaimed to the world at large that the Monastery was unoccupied. Yet to some of those who fought against them in 1944 even that is not enough. Those who lash at the Allies, particularly at the British, for the decision to bomb seem unable to appreciate that not a single pronouncement, whether by Hitler and Goering, or by Kesselnng or Senger, could be trusted. And of course vice versa. War propaganda is a dirty business. Maybe only Protestants would have been ignoble enough to dismiss the 'solemn and firm' declaration made by the eighty-two-year-old Abbot after his escape from the ruins. After all, it was argued in London, the declaration had been drafted by the Germans, and he was in a state of

shock and

Could it have been possible, ventured a Foreign Office Abbot would not necessarily have been aware ot who

distress.

official, that the

was actually in that large and rambling building, especially as in the last weeks he was only left with a handful of monks and brothers, and a deaf and dumb servant? Clark has written a much quoted description of the fighting at Cassino. He called it the 'most gruelling, the most harassing, and in one aspect the most tragic phase of the war in Italy', the one aspect, of course, being the destruction of the Monastery. the

weeks and

finally

'When

months of

think back,' he continued, 'on

slaving struggle, the biting cold, the

snow, the lakes of mud that sucked down machines and men, and most of all the deeply dug fortifications in which the Germans waited for us in the hills, it seems to me that no soldiers in history were ever given a more difficult assignment than the Fifth Army that winter.' The defence works dug by the Germans were truly extraordinary, made of reinforced steel and concrete. 'We found later that during one of our most intense bombing and artillery attacks ... a group of German officers sat in an underground bunker playing cards. They didn't move from the table throughout the attack.' Given that the Germans had decided to build a defensive line a hundred miles south of Rome, Cassino and its mountain inescapably became its hub, and the Monastery was automatically put in danger. How much, it has often been torrents of rain and

them from blame? The Monastery has been stall for bowling down coconuts. Vietinghoff has said that it was impossible to withdraw from the Monte Cassino feature; not only would it mean loss of important observation posts, but the Anglo-Americans would certainly not bother about any sort of agreement at the decisive moment and would without scruple asked, does that absolve

likened to a tray of china at a fairground

place themselves in occupation.

D'Arcy Osborne even put up a theory that the Germans could have rumour that the Monastery was being used for military

spread the

FEBRUARY

I2S purposes,

ill

order to induce the Allies to

bomb

the place and give the

propaganda weapon. plenty of advance 'rhubarb', as Clark called it, in the been There had world's press about the possibility of Monte Cassino being destroyed. In early February there had been a debate in the House of Lords on the whole subject o{ bombing historic monuments, also in connection with the Allied saturation bombing of Germany, hi Britain it was taken virtually for granted that the Monastery was occupied, and as the dance of death in Central Italy became ever more terrible, and as the slaughter on both sides mounted, so questions of morality and the preservation of monuments were in danger of being forgotten. The Archbishop of Canterbury reminded the House of the Italian towns that lay ahead and were also in danger: Assisi, Siena, Florence, Padua, Perugia, Pisa, Ravenna, Venice. 'Think of Rome itself. Rome doesn't belong to Italy; it belongs to the world. It does not belong to any .' Lord Latham replied: 'I do not wish to see Europe particular time stocked with cultural monuments to be venerated by mankind in chains The people of this country will not submit to their and on its knees boys being sacrificed - even one of them sacrificed - unnecessarily to save

Germans

a fine

whatever building reputation

may

be.'

Lord Samuel spoke of the Germans'

highly cultured nation. 'But the

as a

malignity which

German army

has a

and he cited the deliberate burning of the 866 boxes of archives at Nola and the University of Naples - at the University a sailor had been tied to a gate and burnt to death, the fire engines prevented from reaching the building, and the bookshelves soaked in is

terrible,'

petrol.

Harold Nicolson announced that he would rather his son should die let the Monastery be destroyed. 'Works of art are irreplaceable.

than

Human really

lives are replaceable.'

did,

however, add, 'If the war could might agree to it.' He

be shortened by destroying Perugia, then

did not

know

In spite

that his son Nigel

was

Cassino

of Lord Samuel's view of the German

at the time.

Army

the

world owes

huge debt of gratitude to Colonel Julius Schlegel of the Hermann Goering Panzers. For it was he who in October 1943 had persuaded Abbot Diamare to let the treasures, including the reliquary of St Benedict and the famous library, be removed to safety. If the Allies remembered Nola, the so-called Baedeker raids on Bath and elsewhere, and Coventry Cathedral, Schlegel had been 'tortured' by a 'small inner voice' that reminded him of the basilica of San Lorenzo in Rome and many shattered Sicilian towns and villages. It was he too who, on his own initiative and using trucks that could ill be spared, got the Abbot to allow the majority of the monks and civilian refugees to be evacuated. As far as the latter were concerned, there was another reason. Sanitary arrangements being

CASSINO Utterly inadequate, the refugees' habits

129

had already caused

a threat

typhoid.

now

turn

'torrents

who were

to those

actually doing the fighting in the

Who saw the guts of their comrades scattered mud. Who were expecting to die just like that, at

of rain and snow'.

on that same snow and any moment. Who remembered

their families in Marysville,

Lostwithiel, Cornwall, in Waikari, South Island

New

Ohio,

Zealand, in

And for that matter in Greifenburg, Pomerania. And who wanted to see their families again. An historian or thesis-writer who has not experienced what it is like to be told, under the equivalent of Birsilpur, Rajputana.

sentence of death, that you are about to go on

impossible country, which could

face or groin, cannot possibly appreciate the feelings soldier,

unaware moreover of disagreements,

level, trusting that there

seemingly through your

a patrol across

at best result in a bullet

jealousies

of the ordinary

and

strain at top

sanity in the things he has been asked to do,

and

what seems like ghastly confusion does really have a purpose behind it. If most of the American top brass agreed with Clark about the Monastery not being occupied, that feeling did not permeate into the lower ranks. Harold Bond, a lieutenant in the Texan Division, the 36th Infantry, has written: 'All of us were convinced that the abbey was a German strongpoint, and that it was being used by them for the excellent trying to believe that

observation

gave of

all

our positions.'

fantrymen, fighting for their

bomb

after

bomb crumbled

lives it

near

And

'The tired in-

then:

were

slopes,

its

to cry for

joy

into dust.'

London Irish was in the plain had to be bombed. Oh, it was mahgnant. It was evil somehow. I don't know how a mopastery can be evil, but it was looking at you. It was all-devouring if you like - a sun-bleached colour, grim. It had a terrible hold on us soldiers. I don't think I was convinced that the Germans were firing from there, but it was such a wonderful observation Sergeant Evans of the 2nd Battalion of the

below.

post.

'It

just

thought

had to be destroyed.

place could be taken otherwise.

sure

We just what

didn't

know how

the

thought was shared by

ninety per cent of the lads in our division.' Sergeant Jenkins of the same

on had been in the ist Battalion's Intelligence on Monte Camino. 'I had a pair of captured German periscope binoculars. You could see the Germans walking around the base of the building, and the regiment

earlier

You could see small trucks. You couldn't see them going into the monastery because you couldn't see any exits or entrances.' Lieutenant Bruce Foster of the 60th Rifles one morning had been to call on a Guards battalion, camped in a dreary olive grove. 'Since you ask me what felt about the Monastery, I'll ask you something. Can you imagine road coming down.

what

is it

like to see a person's

head explode

in a great splash

of grey brains

FEBRUARY

130

and have the blood and muck all over you, in your mouth, And can you imagine what it is like when that head belonged to your sister's fiance? knew why it happened, was positive, it was because

and red

hair,

eyes, ears?

some bloody fucking Jerry was up there Monastery

directing the fire that killed Dickie,

fucking bloody

that

and

know

that

still;

hell with all those Pontius Pilates who pretend they were so bloody innocent and had nothing to do with the bombing. Christ, Dickie was the am just glad that he finest, most upright man you or I would ever meet. died quickly, which is more than a lot of other poor fuckers did up there. poring over coloured maps and It drove me mad to see those chaps at never dreaming of going up to the front line to see what conditions were I

really like.'

bombardment, some forty women rushed to the Monastery from caves and shacks where they had been hiding. They battered on the doors screaming to be let in. Then they were followed by several other terror-stricken civilians. The population of the Monastery now consisted of perhaps eight hundred persons, including the six monks. One man was killed by a stray round, and several people were wounded by shrapnel. Water and food were minimal. The dark, freezing cellars stank of urine, diarrhoea and unwashed clothes. The newcomers' panic never abated. Whenever there was an explosion they shrieked and wailed and rushed frantically from room to room. Typhoid broke out, and some people died, including one of the monks, Dom Eusebio, who had been responsible for caring for the sick. It was a scene for Goya. On the afternoon of 4 February a pamphlet was dropped signed 'Fifth Army', and addressed to Amici italiani, Italian friends. It had been decided,

February, following

with regret, to attack the Sacred Precincts. lasciate

Monastero. Andatevene suhito.

The

'//

nostro avvertimento e urgente:

Our warning

urgent: leave the

stampede to the Abbot. Monastery. Abandon it at once.' Eventually a message was sent to a German post, and a lieutenant appeared in the small hours. Here again there has been a divergence in accounts. The monks' booklet simply says that the battle that was raging prevented immediate departure, and that it was agreed that everyone effect

was

at 5 a.m. on the i6th. The Germans have said that the Abbot had been given 'complete liberty of action' about when to leave and that he chose to delay until the night of 1 5/ 16 February, perhaps underestimating the danger and fearing daylight. He had been forbidden by the lieutenant's commander. Major Schmidt, to walk to the Allied lines, as this would mean giving away the German positions, but had been

should leave

recommended

to take a path north to Piedimonte, being less

exposed to

shelling.

Later

Abbot Diamare said publicly

that he

thought the

Allies

must have

CASSINO deliberately

dropped

131

their leaflets too late in order that there

German command

chance of notifying the

would be no

or allowing his people to

The warning was indeed dreadfully short, for the bombing came at From a military point of view the Allied aim been to give the Germans as little time as possible to move out their had escape.

9.45 a.m. the next morning.

equipment, assumed to be within the Monastery and

in the

immediate

neighbourhood. Alexander never flinched from taking the ultimate responsibility for the fatal decision. 'Every commander is a lonely figure,' Macmillan said of him, and Alexander said: 'A commander, if faced by the choice between risking a single soldier's

life

and destroying

work of art, even

a religious

He used to say to Macmillan, 'I am Marlborough,' by which he meant he had to be a

symbol, can only make one decision.' not

Wellington but

diplomat.

Under

command were

his

Americans,

Zealanders, Canadians, Indians, Poles, Italians and,

New

French,

later, Brazilians.

had to face the fact that Freyberg was answerable direct to the New Zealand government. There was another aspect in the matter of giving orders. In simple terms it was this: by 1944 the British were pensioners o{ American lend-lease and rapidly becoming the juniors in the alliance, but in the Mediterranean they had to keep up the pretence of being the also

masters.

The whole drama of situation at Anzio,

where there was at the

the decision has to be set against the worsening

where another Dunkirk was

a failure

of confidence

Beachhead. His deputy

a real possibility,

and

General Lucas. Clark had to be

Cassino was General Alfred Gruenther.

So discussions with Clark had mainly to be by radio or, on his flying visits main front, by telephone. It was ironic that a major attack had now to be made at Cassino to relieve Anzio, when Anzio had been conceived as a means of breaking the deadlock in the South. On 12 February Freyberg told Gruenther that he wanted the Monastery bombed the next day. 'The division commander who is making the attack feels that it is an essential target and I thoroughly agree to the

with him.'

These are the key words which for some have made General Tuker into a scapegoat.

Gruenther told Alexander's chief of staff. General Sir John Harding who himself thought the Monastery was occupied - that Clark did not consider that

bombing

endanger the

lives

was

many

military necessity. 'He believes

will

and that a bombing will not destroy its value as a fortification of the enemy. In fact. General Clark feels that the bombing will probably enhance its value.' To civilian refugees in the building,

FEBRUARY

132

which Harding repHed: 'General Alexander has made his position quite on this point. He regrets very much that the Monastery should be destroyed, but he sees no other choice.' The author of the Monte Cassino booklet, therefore, comes to the 'painful' conclusion that 'those British officers wanted to show their American counterparts how to conduct a war properly'. Clark says now that he asked Alexander for a written order to bomb the Monastery, and that this was received. However the document has clear

unfortunately been

Two

lost.

points about General

Tuker

are often unfairly ignored

including the author of the monks' booklet, and

his

writers,

views therefore

some detail. The first is that he went into on 4 February and did not return to command his Division. The second is that he did not even want the Monastery to be attacked, and could possibly have prevented it if he had been well. 'I went through hell on earth during the early days urging desperately that no attack on Monte deserve to be examined in hospital

Cassino should be contemplated.

Army

Fifth

decided to batter

its

could never understand

why

head again and again against

the

this

powerful position, held by some of the finest troops in the German in heavily wired and mined and fixed entrenchments.'

most

Army

The US 34th and 36th were the Divisions that were doing the They were on the high ground to the north-east of the Monastery. How they even managed to establish themselves there, in

battering.

such bleak weather and supplied by mules that took seven hours to reach

them, as

almost impossible to imagine.

The

icy,

windswept ridge known

Snakeshead, fifteen hundred yards from their goal, was the main

feature they held, but

was

also essential to capture

Albaneta Farm and

Point 593, which the Germans and Italians aptly called Calvary. On arrival it became clear to 'Gertie' Tuker that before long the

New

Zealand Corps, including 4th Indian Division, would have to take over

from the Americans. He was an expert on mountain warfare, having fought on the North-West Frontier; and indeed he was to write standard

books on military strategy. And for good measure he was an artist and poet. His plan was to 'turn' Monte Cassino by wide flank movements. He went to see General Juin, whom he regarded as probably the finest tactical

commander

in Italy.

exert the pressure

'We were

was

in perfect

to follow

agreement

that the best

his recent success

way

and pass through

The next move would be to force a river crossing to the south of Cassino town and 'there establish a strong bridgehead, but necessarily more than that'. He discussed the 'fearsome possibility' of being made to attack Monte Cassino with Juin. 'We had decided to well to the North.'

CASSINO

133

it strongly and point out that if anybody had to attack it directly, must be under tremendous air bombardment.' This did not mean that Juin wanted the Monastery to be destroyed. Clark in his diary records that on 14 February Juin came to see him to try to prevent the bombing. By then the decision was irrevocable. And Tuker himself said: 'No civilized human being would have wanted it to have happened.' When Tuker was struck down by an old ailment and sent to hospital at Caserta, for morale's sake the news was kept from the

oppose

then

Division,

which had

command

under the

to be put

of one of

his

subordinates, Brigadier Harry Dimoline. Meanwhile, the possibility

looked

becoming

a reality.

As Freyberg

trouble of Cassino was Tuker being taken there he

would have stood up

ill

said afterwards:

'The whole

so suddenly. If he

Mark Clark and argued him

had been

out of the

was repeated to Tuker he had no idea how Tuker considered Freyberg to be 'as brave as a lion' but 'no planner of battles and a niggler in action'. He also thought Alexander was 'indolent' and gave in too easily. Tuker went on arguing his views by letter. He was amazed to learn that nobody had precise details about the Monastery's construction. Lying in hospital, he sent a subaltern to Naples, and thus obtained a book of 1879 which revealed that the walls were massively thick, at least fifteen feet. To send flesh and blood against that would be plain murder, more than the planners realized. 'If we were to be forced to attack directly, then it would have to be a matter of obliterating the whole Monte Cassino feature with bombs day after day and following the bombs with artillery, and then shoving the infantry up at dusk on the heels of the shelling, leaving them the whole night to do the job.' It would be necessary to beat the Germans into complete 'imbecility', and this could only be done by blockbuster bombs. Whether the Monastery was occupied or not, it was certain - he said - that the last remnants of the garrison on the mountain would use it direct attack.' Until this

heavily Freyberg leaned on him.

as a keep.

This alone

The 34th and

made

essential to

demolish the building.

36th had lost eighty per cent of their effective strength by

The last attack they made was on 1 snow reduced visibility to a few yards.

the time the 4th Indian relieved them.

February,

when

violent rain and

The Germans had thrown them back from Albaneta again and again. So

now

was up

the features Point 593 and to the 4th Indian, for Clark

want any flank movements, but the direct attack. Tuker wrote: 'I had tried three or four times to get back to my HQ, but each time collapsed On 12 February managed it and sent for Freyberg ... stood at my HQ on Monte Trocchio with Freyberg, did not

looking straight reiterated

all

Monte

Cassino.

reasons. He, as

again argued the business

...

was rather usual with Freyberg when he

FEBRUARY

134 really did silent

not understand what one was talking about, remained quite

but did appear to be agreeing. At the end of my

which had

talk,

one as was pretty feeble, pomted at Monte Cassino and said to him plainly and emphatically: "Whatever you do, Freyberg, don't compromise!" And Tuker said later: 'I feel sorry for Freyberg, but he should never have been put m command of a corps. He had not the tactical Most understanding and certainly not the experience in the mountains Germans put the blame of the destruction of the Monastery upon the British. The blame is fair and square on the Germans, who knew full well that if they enclosed the Monastery hill within their defences, as they did quite deliberately, then the Monastery was bound to be destroyed if a direct attack was delivered upon the hill. If they did not wish to offer up the Monastery as a sacrifice, then they should never have included it in their defences. They make a fme case out of all this for their own culture and kindness, but I would rather they should have sacrificed the .' Monastery than that they should have had gas chambers 'Gas chambers' are an obvious retort in this controversy. Just how much fighting German generals knew about such things, or shut their eyes to them, is an issue on its own. To be fair, the argument is only really relevant as a counterblast to Goebbels' exultant propaganda after the bombing. Senger, in his autobiography, does say: 'Sometimes my friends would discuss the oppression of the Jews. Although we had no precise information, it was common talk that evil things were afoot. We felt .' ashamed at these developments He also says that Vietinghoff was 'in harmony' with his views, not only about Jews, but about Hitler and Nazism, and about the need for 'getting rid of the regime'. be

a short

The

had to be delayed two days, because of the weather and because of difficulties over relieving the 34th and 36th. Below Point 593 fifty of the remaining two hundred Americans were so exhausted and cold that they had to be carried off by stretcher. It was the first time that heavy bombers had been used in such close support of infantry, and the first time that bomber groups from Great Britain had struck an Italian target. They came over in waves and nearly six hundred tons of explosive were dropped. But it was still by no means the pounding to 'imbecility' that Tuker had recommended, and the great walls on the west were hardly demolished. 'The air attack should have been ten or twenty times as heavy.' Worse, the whole thing had been hustled along so that there had been no time for the 4th Indians to make a proper reconnaissance, and the main infantry attack did not go in immediately but three days later. it

air attack

So Freyberg, to Tuker, had compromised. Clark said in his book that if had been an American under his command he would not have allowed

CASSINO the

bombing

- and

at all

this

135

presumably

of Alexander's order.

in spite

On the day of the bombing the 4/16 Punjabis were on a slope near Snakeshead Ridge that looked straight across to the Monastery. 'Almost within touching distance,' said an officer.

of the 4th Indian Division, was small fort, built no doubt

Benedict; their

men

lay

when

prone

Royal Sussex,

ist

also part

Point 593, surmounted by a the Saracens threatened the shrine of St

shallow scrapings behind boulders and

scrub — in daylight to raise one's head sniper or spandau

The

now below

would have meant

instant death

fire.

At 9.30 on the 1 5th Brigadier Lovett, on Snakeshead, heard a rumbling moment I was called on the blower and was told that the bombers would be over in fifteen minutes. started to blow up myself but even as spoke the roar drowned my voice as the first shower of eggs came down.' There had been no warning whatsoever. One of the Punjabi companies was just three hundred yards off the target. There were some twenty-five in the sky. 'At that

casualties.

What seemed

and ground forces was, in fact, partly due to intense pressure on Freyberg to attack before the big German counter-offensive at Anzio, which indeed started the next day. Rain was also imminent. The plan of Tuker's deputy. Brigadier Dimoline, had been to capture Point 593 on the night ot the 1 5th, and put in his main attack on the Monastery on the night of the 1 7th. He insisted that it was physically impossible to advance his timing, which would have been in line with Tuker's recommendation. The 'hustle' about Anzio was not Freyberg's fault. And Tuker was told later that one reason for Clark refusing his idea about a turning operation to the north was a dearth of essential animal transport. With strongpoints already secured so close to Monte Cassino and at such cost it seemed folly not to make the final, supreme effort. So Freyberg the lionheart, inspiring leader of men, failed for precisely an atrocious lack of liaison between

air

the opposite reasons to his counterpart at Anzio, Lucas.

lieutenant in the

war.

remembered

Royal Sussex had

visited the

Monastery before the view from

the marvellous sense of peace, the sublime

the Loggia del Paradiso, the kindness of a dear old Benedictine his

black robes

who showed me round

monk

- such richness, such Peter's. But it was the

the basilica

it, not even at St of reverence, that was quite overwhelming.' The basilica was the first to be destroyed; the frescoes of Luca Giordano, the seventeenth-century choir stalls, the marvellous baroque organ, the high altar were gone. The multi-coloured marbles were

marble,

I'd

seen nothing like

feeling of holiness,

FEBRUARY

136

tombs of St Benedict and his twin sister below were unharmed. In the atternoon the the open. 'The palm trees which had for so long

pulverized. But miraculously the St Scolastica in the vault

aged Abbot came into

graced the courtyard had been reduced to

pitiful

The

stumps.

central

courtyard, attributed to Bramante, had been completely shattered, beautiful pillars and the superb Loggia had collapsed

all

picture of nothing but ghastly destruction, a picture that proclaimed

eloquently then any words the

futility

could be heard under the rubble.

of war.' Moanings,

Some

17 February a sad

little

and gunners it

pass.

One

group of survivors

a large

in their trenches

A woman who

had

lost

wooden removed both

feet

left

of agony

down

the

blast

German

crucifix.

paratroopers

watched on the way. went back and

their helmets as they

had to be

left

to die

aged eighty, Carlomanno Pelagalli, life in a building that had been his

lay brother,

and shrapnel. the Monastery, headed

mountainside during the attack, only to be killed by

by the Abbot carrying

cries

people had rushed

its

sides a

returned to end his

home

for fifty

years.

Vatican documents released in the summer of 1980 include an account by Monsignor Domenico Tardini - whose rank was the equivalent of Under-Secretary of State - of his meeting on 20 February with Abbot

Diamare and

his secretary

Monte Cassino

in 1977.

the controversy.

The

Dom Martino Matronola, to become Abbot of

This important account gives some

been badly damaged even before mid-January, often by short; he did not

been any

blame

German

new

slants to

Abbot told Tardini that the Monastery had already either side.

He confirmed

shells

that there

falHng

had never

machine-gun nests or observation on some Germans had come in for January some German officers told the Abbot that it had soldiers, artillery,

posts within the Monastery. Earlier

confession. In

been agreed with the Vatican that there should be

a neutral

zone, without

any military objectives, for three hundred metres from the walls (no such agreement has been found in the Vatican archives). It

was

difficult, said the

Abbotj

determine those three hundred

metres, given the steepness of the mountain. At any rate they were not respected, and gradually the military objectives

they reached the outskirts of the Monastery. objectives?

Martino.

The

details

were mostly given

were brought

What were

to the

closer, until

those military

Monsignor by Dom guns - moved

Two tanks - or perhaps they were self-propelled

round the Monastery at night, firing. Since the Allies were on the heights to the north of the Monastery, and had actually once got within a hundred metres of the walls, it was easy for the Germans to observe them and hit back accurately. Immediately below the Monastery there was an observation post, which at night would flash signals to German batteries

CASSINO

137

pinpointing Allied positions. There was also

cave underneath the

ammunition. The Abbot protested that these military installations could endanger the Monastery; he received vague promises, but nothing was done. On 14 February the leaflets were shown to the Abbot. German officers on bemg told either paid little attention to the threat of bombardment or procrastinated. Eventually, early on the 1 5th, they said that under a kmd of truce (Tardini wrote: 'I think they added, under the auspices of the Holy

Monastery

itself,

Father') at

and

this

was used

for storing

a.m. on the i6th everyone in the Monastery could be

evacuated. Instead the

bombardment came

9.40 a.m. on the 15th,

many

destroying the Monastery completely and burying shelter.

those

people in

(A Vatican note says that most of these people were saved, but

who

hundred

fled in panic

were

killed.)

The

usual estimate

that three

died.

The Abbot on

leaving was given every kindness by the Germans, and

Having been was driven to Rome, but on the outskirts the car was suddenly diverted. The Abbot thought the Pope wanted to see him immediately, but after a long journey found himself at a radio station, and here - exhausted physically and mentally he was made to speak (the Abbot wept in front of Tardini as he spoke and added that what he had said about there being no German soldiers or mihtary objectives within the Monastery was the truth). Then, when this was over, he was taken to the ambassador Weizsaecker, who offered him a prepared document to sign. The Abbot did not want to sign this was

told that the

received by the

Pope would

before examining

must sign reporters.

like to see

German commander

con calma.

him

in the Vatican.

(Senger), he

Weizsaecker more or

Then,

said the

Abbot,

lost patience,

anything, and sent everybody a quel paese

Germans accompanied him

Abbot spent

the

first

night

did not

[literally, to hell].'

to the Benedictine

on the Aventine. Senger in his memoirs blamed Ribbentrop said that the

less insisted

that he

once. Other signori were introduced to the Abbot; they were

at his

want

to say

After this the

monastery of San Anselmo for this interrogation.

where he had the Abbot was taken

headquarters,

by a radio reporter. When was not even given a meal. Senger protested to to the radio station he Kesselring, who assured him he had nothing to do with such gaucherie. Goebbels' propaganda machine nevertheless made full use of such a already been interviewed

splendid windfall: 'In the senseless lust of destruction

mirrored the

whole fury of the British-US Command, which first announced the capture of Rome by Christmas with great verbosity and then discovered Thus it has been that the road to Rome is just as far as to Tipperary .

decided

by Jews

Washington.

and

pro-Bolsheviks

Moscow,

London

and

one of the grotesque manifestations of history that

FEBRUARY

138 British-US youth

risks its hfe to carry

out the Jewish desire to destroy.'

John Miller, the escaped British prisoner hiding in Rome with La Nonna, met a survivor from Monte Cassino. She was so thin that she reminded him of a starving camel. For three weeks, she said, she had eaten nothing but grass. She also swore that she had never seen a single German within the precincts.

The defence of the

area to the north-west of Monte Cassino

was under the

command of the remarkable General Baade of the 90th Panzer Grenadiers - a wealthy Brandenburg landowner, lover of fme brandy, reader of Aristotle

and accustomed to wear

over

a kilt

his riding breeches,

with

was from his bunker that General Senger saw the bombing come down. 'Both of us were at a loss to know what this appalling spectacle signified.' To most German soldiers it looked like some vicious act of revenge or disillusionment, as the bombs thudded down, sending up huge angry clouds and spirals of smoke and dust, spurting flames and blackness, like a volcano erupting. Baade had been of the opinion that the Allies' leaflets were a bluff. He had a reputation for humanity, but according to some Italian survivors they were kept there in the Monastery under pain of being shot, and the gates were barred. The youths of the crack ist Parachute Division, heroes of Crete, were said later to have been 'hanging on by their eyebrows' on the mountainside overlooking Via Casilina. If the Allies had concentrated on blasting them instead of the Monastery, the result - some thought - might have large pistol instead of a sporran.

been

break-through. After the Monastery's destruction, of course, the

Germans had no need done

so,

moving

for scruples about

into the ruins.

Having

almost immediately they were subjected to yet another major

by two hundred Alhed bombers. highly charged German novel by Sven Hassel describes the reaction of a group of paratroopers, as fierce fires now broke out: 'The holy mountain quivered like a dying bull in the ring Lance-Corporal Brans got shell shock. He seized his trumpet and started playing jazz. Then he got it into his head that he ought to blow us all up. Tiny managed to wrest the T-mine from him and flung it into the yard ... A paratrooper, who had both legs crushed by falling masonry, lay in a pool of blood. "Shoot me, shoot me! Oh God, let me die!" Medical Orderly Glaeser bent over the shrieking man, jabbed the morphine syringe through his uniform and emptied it into his pain-racked body. "That's all can do for you, chum. If you'd been a horse, we'd have shot you. God is merciful."

raid

Glaeser spat viciously at a crucifix.'

CASSINO

139

The bombing continued by day, and the artillery by night. In forty-eight hours the Royal Sussex lost twelve out of fifteen officers, 162 out of 313 men. Their ordeal on

that icy lunar purgatory ot a ridge,

lit by explosions and with bullets ripping down, can only be guessed at - so few, let alone novelists, are left to tell the story, or wish to remember it. Grenades ran out, because mules carrying them had been blown up by shells on the

way. Down below the guns roared in a colossal symphony. 'The night was pricked with belching flames,' wrote the 4th Indian's historian. 'Across the valley stabs of light against the mountainside showed where the shells struck. Sudden glares and steady fires marked exploding dumps and burning houses. The enemy began to loop white flares on to the lower slopes

of Monte Cassino. Lines of tracer cut the sky. Then came the distant

went in. The Rapido moon. On the soar of praying that each mounting light would

staccato crackle of small-arms fire as the infantry

valley filled with smoke, soft as ermine under the

every flame

we strained our eyes,

prove to be the success signal and that our men had won home.' The end for the Sussex came through a coincidence. The Germans sent up three green Very lights, which was the Sussex's signal for withdrawal.

The

big attack went

in.

The

6th Rajputana Rifles were flung against

Point 593, to be devastated by crossfire. They lost 193 personnel in casualties. Months later the bodies of a number of their men were found

on the summit. The 2nd Gurkhas reached a ridge only three hundred yards from the rear walls of the Monastery, to be faced by German machine-guns fifty yards apart. They plunged into thick briars, tearing them and tripping them, and found them to be riddled with anti-personnel mines. Their colonel fell, shot through the stomach. The little men, although nearly all wounded, fought on and closed with the Germans, slashing at them with kukri knives. Stretcher-bearer Sherbahadur Thapa made sixteen trips through the deadly scrub before he was killed. A wounded signaller crawled back to say that some men had reached the Monastery. None of the Gurkhas who were taken prisoner was heard of again.

At dawn on the 19th

was reaUzed

that the position

was hopeless, and

they too were withdrawn.

Meanwhile, the Maoris of the 2nd New Zealand Division, commanded by General Kippenberger, attacked to the south of Cassino town. Their objective was the railway station, but they came up against minefields, barbed wire and flooding. Nevertheless, they did reach the station, only to find that in daylight they were in full view of tanks and guns stationed at each bend of the Serpentina road above. A massive smoke-screen was put up, but the Kiwi casualties were too great, and they had to retreat back

over the Rapido. Cassino station was another crucial point for the whole Gustav Line.

FEBRUARY

140

The

New

Zealanders did not realize

how

badly mauled were Baade's

Grenadiers facing them. Indeed the Germans had not expected their counter-attack to succeed, as an intercepted telephone conversation

between VietinghotY and Kesselring testifies: Vietitighojf: 'We have succeeded after hard fighting in taking Cassino station.' Kesselring: 'Heartiest congratulations.' VletinghoJJ: Kesselring: 'Neither did

Now

didn't think

the winter weather descended once

offensive

operations

we would do

it.'

I.'

were

impossible.

in earnest

French

troops,

and further including

Moroccans, so greatly feared by the Germans, and an Italian combat team took over some of the difficult country on the Fifth Army's north-eastern boundary. In spite of the hideous conditions, the Italians were glad of this further chance of proving themselves, and their spirit was high. It

was on 24 February

that

news came

that Freyberg's son

was missing

Anzio.

March

there

was

this laconic

'Corps Conference at 1400 hours.

entry in Kippenberger's diary:

Went with Frank Massey up Monte

Trocchio afterwards and, coming down, stepped on a mine and one foot blown off, the other mangled and thumb ripped up. Frank slightly hurt. Picked up by very plucky part of 23rd and amputation done at ADS by

Kennedy

Elliott.

Saw General

[Freyberg] and [Brigadier] Jim Burrows

before operation.'

Second Lieutenant Niranjin Singh was intelligence officer with the 2nd Punjab Regiment at Ortona. When he heard that his close friend in the 6th Rajputanas had been killed near Monte Cassino, he at once obtained leave to come across. He had his friend cremated on the night of his arrival.

Then he took

the long track

crawled into the Monastery strewn about everywhere.

ruins.

the

From there he actually German rations and equipment were way he saw many bayoneted bodies,

to Snakeshead.

evidence of hand-to-hand fighting. Then, in the light of explosions, he

saw things glistening in the ruins. Gold! It was everywhere. He could not believe his luck and filled his pockets and pouches with as much as he could. Only on his return did he find that the gold was simply gilded plaster - he had been standing in the remains of the basilica, and what he had found were remnants of baroque work from the ceiling. As daylight approached, Niranjin Singh could see the German gun positions. He was horrified. There were so many of them, blasted into the rock and well camouflaged. He crawled away and was joined by another friend from the 6th Rajputs, who had been attempting to hack out a trench below Point 593. Suddenly they came upon a German trench, and there inside was a German soldier bent over with his head in his hands.

CASSINO The Rajput took up

his

pick and gave

141

great swing.

The

pick

went

right

through the German's body. Niranjin Singh had

a great

admiration for

German

intelHgence. Itahan

were often used as spies, and would cross the lines as 'refugees'. He once saw a girl having tea with his colonel, who said that he had found her crying in the village. The next day she had disappeared. It happened that the Punjabis were able to advance shortly afterwards, and there was the girl once more in a newly captured village. Sometimes these spies were shot - men usually, not the girls. girls

was on

inside,

that occasion that he

this great

bambini?

Do you

sight

had to requisition

house.

having been primed by German propaganda, was

The woman

terrified at the

man with

turbaned

the curled moustache. 'Mangiare quavered in childish Italian. 'No, only eat grown-ups.'

eat children?' she

mangio soltanto uomini. No,

London and Washington were extremely alarmed by the repercussions over the Monte Cassino bombing. On 2 March Victor CavendishBentinck of the Foreign Office scribbled on

keep

quiet'.

The evidence on which

satisfactory'.

memo

the order to

There was no proof, he

that

'we had better

bomb was given was 'not

said, that the

using the Monastery, but they were firing from

Germans were sites

in fact

nearby.

Osborne reported that in Rome the staunchest supporters of the Allies were among the clergy, who were willing to believe that there must have been some unknown reason for this apparently useless destruction. A 'raging campaign' had been let loose in the press, however, though the Germans were irritated by the Vatican's 'guarded mildness'. Extensive investigations by the Vatican did nothing to disprove the Abbot's declaration that neither German soldiers nor German weapons had been inside the Monastery. All the same it was decided in Washington to insist that there had been 'indisputable evidence' that the Monastery formed a part of the German defensive line. As for Rome, in his Lenten address to parish priests the Pope had said that since Athens and Cairo had been spared he confidently hoped that Rome would be spared also. It would be a 'stain and shame which centuries would not efface' if for military reasons Rome 'fell victim to the devastating fury of this terrible war'.

March Roosevelt wrote

Cicognani about the air attacks on Rome, confirming that the Allied authorities were committed to a policy of avoiding damage to religious shrines and historical monuments 'to the extent

humanly

possible in

modern

warfare'.

then

said:

'We

fighting a desperate battle against a hard and unscrupulous foe

are

whose

ultimate defeat will accomplish the liberation of Italy and the Italian

people

Our

only reason in attacking any part of Rome

because

it is

FEBRUARY

142

occupied and used by the Germans.

His Holiness will be successful in

persuading them to respect the sacred and cultural character of Rome by withdrawing from it without a struggle he could thus assure its preservation.'

On that day, i March, six bombs fell on the Vatican, very close to where the diplomats Hved in the Hospice of Santa Marta. As Air Chief Marshal Tedder once said to Alexander: 'Sorry to say some of the early Popes went airborne this morning.' Perhaps the Hartnell,

Brigade:

last

words about

the

bombing of Monte Cassino can go

who was in temporary command of the 'Too many sacred memories are involved.'

5th

to Sid

Infantry

Minturno

memories of Minturno

are

all

sepia.

arrived

dazed by the sound of guns so near, to find trouble about

by night,

tired,

billeting.

Some

woman was having to give up bedrooms to me and my Timmy Lloyd, and this made us feel guilty. was surprised that

middle-class friend

there

were any

civilians in

Minturno

at all,

seeing that the front line was

only two to three miles away. The guns went on roaring, the house shuddered, the sky was sepia.

The woman's

face

was

sepia, the

mud

outside was sepia.

was introduced to my platoon, consisting of had already had enough of fighting and seemed older than me. There was no chance to sightsee, and anyway as

The next morning Yorkshire miners,

much

who

had been virtually destroyed. In the mess at were suddenly told we were going back to Naples, en route

learnt later the churches

lunchtime

for Anzio, that very evening.

Obviously some

sort

of panic was going on

there.

Timmy came

'I think must have scabies,' he said. go with the battalion to Anzio.' The poor chap knew people would think he was a malingerer, and certainly was

'The

says

up, looking white.

can't

appalled at losing such to share tents, billets

and before that

and

good

cattle trucks

in Philippeville.

reunion with Nick.

we had been together, often having on railway journeys, around Algiers We had both looked forward to our

friend;

Anzio — Carroceto

The most famous comment on he

now

preferred to

were hurling

call

wild cat on to

Anzio Beachhead - or Bridgehead as one of Churchill's: 'I had hoped that we the shore, but all we got was a stranded the

whale.'

The whale was not quite moribund, though the Allies had withdrawn from the Campoleone salient and were about to lose Aprilia, the Factory.

7-8 February the Germans recorded taking 791 British prisoners,

mostly from the Guards Brigade and North Lucas. that

wish

had an American

don't understand

excessive losses. in

They

opinion, and

them

It is

[the British] better.

are certainly brave

Staffs. It

division in there.

men

was

'terrible', said

probably

fault

think they suffer

but ours are better trained,

sure that our officers are better educated in a

military way.' It was not surprising Penney 'seemed rather irritated'. At least no one could compain about the performance of the Allied airforces. In the great battles of the 8th and 9th, 687 tons of bombs were dropped in direct support of the

Unfortunately he did not conceal these opinions.

that General

infantry.

Via Anziate remained the very linchpin of the Beachhead. Allies to lose

Carroceto they would have to

to the viaduct bridge

known

as the

fall

back two and

Were

a half

itself.

miles

Flyover, which had high banks on

cither side, an ideal defensive position, in effect the last before the

Anzio

the

smaller road ran east and west

town of

from the Flyover. The

Allies

Road, and the part to the west lay behind not only the two crucial features, the Vallelata and Buonriposo ridges, but the deep thorn-filled wadis of the upper Moletta. If the Germans could reach this road, they would be able to swing round and cut off the Flyover. But called

the Lateral

these wadis presented a special, intricate kind of obstacle, hell to attack,

defend. The most notorious to the British were the Starfish, the North and South Lobster Claws, the Bloody Boot and the Oh God Wadi.

hell to

ANZIO - CARROCETO

145

areas, especially later, was the junction of three by some high ground, the Fortress, but called by the Germans Das Schwalhennest, the Swallow's Nest. The Germans towards the middle of February had their own Festung, or Fortress; this was the area around the pozzolana caves still held by the Allies and north of buildings called Pantoni, nicknamed White Cow Farm. Near the Festung was another wadi with grim associations for the Germans, Der

One of the most

dreaded

valleys overlooked

Geierschnabel or Vulture's Beak.

The

units

of the British division sent

the front the

moment

in rehef, the 56th,

they were landed.

were rushed

They were by no means

fresh,

When Lucas had asked Alexander for As for Mackensen, in addition to smiled. merely Alex had reinforcements, as yet untried in battle, he Lehr Regiment, receiving the vaunted Infantry Yugoslavia, the South of France had received large reinforcements from and even Cassino. He had also, 'for pohtical reasons', been given elements of the Itahan Fascist Parachute Regiment, Nembo. By 2 February he but no others had been available.

already had 95,000 men in combat units facing the AUied 76,400. Support from the Luftwaffe had been strengthened, and he had good supplies of ammunition. So he had reason to feel confident. When Churchill was told that 18,000 vehicles had been landed in 'this small pent-up bridgehead', he was aghast. It looked to him like 'highly

'We

organized insanity'.

must,' he said sarcastically, 'have a great

He was very soon suspicious about Lucas' and this was not helped by a cable from Wilson mentioning a 'Salerno complex' and the fact that the Anzio command was 'only geared to work at slow speed'. The reference to Lucas having been 'urged' by Alexander and Clark to take advantage of the original surprise made him write to Alexander himself:

superiority of chauffeurs.' capabilities,

have

feeling that

you may have

hesitated to assert

your authority

because you were deahng so largely with Americans, and therefore urged repeat urged an advance instead of ordering it. You are,

however, quite entitled to give orders, and American authorities that it is their wish

have

from the highest

that their troops should

Army has been formed more expect to receive commanders and that American on Prussian lines positive orders. Do not hesitate to give ordersjust as you would to your own men. The Americans are very good to work with and quite

receive direct orders. .

They

say that their

prepared to take the rough with the smooth.'

Alexander was not

satisfied

with Lucas, Churchill

said,

then he must

someone else whom he could trust. Of course the War Cabinet had great sympathy for Alex's heavy tasks, and he was assured of their find

FEBRUARY

146

'confidence and goodwill' in his further struggles. 'You have

always

felt

that

sure

you have mine.'

The rough with the smooth. Critics of Alexander still feel that the rough was something he too often avoided. On the nth Alexander told Churchill that Lucas was 'probably the best' among American Corps commanders, 'but all American higher commanders lack the years of practical battle experience we have had, and this

an undoubted weakness

when

Lieutenant Paul Freyberg was Battalion Kleye.

He had

been

fighting against veterans'.

among

the Grenadiers captured

company holding the important which the Germans called the Bug,

in the

group of farm buildings near the spot of Carroceto. Two other Grenadier companies were completely surrounded, many of the men and officers, such as Lieutenant Marmaduke Hussey, having been wounded when trying to avoid capture. The North Staffs on Buonriposo ridge had been wiped out or taken prisoner, and some Irish Guards had been sent there to 'plug the gap'. Between the Bug and the ridge there was a pozzolana quarry, known as the Gully, held by No 2 company of the Grenadier Guards and a company of the 504th US Parachute Regiment. Facing them was the No 7 Company of the German 147th Regiment, under Lieutenant Heinrich Wunn, an exceptional soldier who was to receive the Knight's Cross for his bravery on this and subsequent days. Some Italian civilians were

just south-west

unhappily sheltering

in caves in the Gully's walls.

Wunn's men were glad to leave the back area, plastered so often by Allied artillery and - even worse - by phosphorus bombs, and where the nights were made eerie by the creaking of a windmill, the knell of death, someone said. The Schafstall, Sheepfold, was ablaze that night. It had changed hands often, and had been used as a field hospital; the wounded had lain among starving animals. The first attack was halted, but it was Wunn's determination and courage that drove the men on, and soon they stormed and overran the Grenadiers' anti-tank positions, taking twenty prisoners. They reached a deep ditch, completely choked with brambles

was the last barrier before the Gully. They rushed up and down trying way through, shouting to one another, hysterically so the Grenadiers thought. In the process there were many casualties from American machine-gun fire, since for once the night was clear and the

this

to find a

moon about to rise. A path had once been cut through the brambles by an Italian farmer. At its entrance stood Major W. P. Sidney, descendant of the great Elizabethan, Sir Philip Sidney, and a relative of Shelley. Behind

him was

the Grenadier headquarters and behind that Via Anziate. If Wunn broke through at this point, he would cut off the Scots Guards at Carroceto and

ANZIO - CARROCETO the

London

Irish at the

Factory.

Then

the

German

tanks

would have

of the whole Beachhead was at stake. Like Horatius, Major Sidney - the future Lord De L'Isle - stood alone, sprayhig the Germans with tommy-gun fire. The gun jammed, so he

clear

down

run

to Anzio.

The

fate

began throwing grenades, handed to him by two Guardsmen. 'One of the Guardsmen pulled out the pin too soon and killed himself, and was wounded in the backside. bled like a pig.' But he continued to throw the I

grenades,

still

blocking the

way

alone, whilst the

enemy

threshed in the

undergrowth and water. He was hit in the face by a German stick grenade. His opponent Wunn's attack was weakening, and now some American parachutists arrived to take over from the Grenadiers. The moon had risen, and Sidney felt faint. He lay down, while the shooting continued. He remembered a GI saying, 'Gee, captain, don't feel so well. goddam son of I think I'll go back to base,' and the captain replying, 'You I

a bitch,

you

stay

where you

are.'

Sidney was awarded the Victoria Cross. Of that wild confusing night he said, 'The great thing you had to remember was that the other side was

you were.' The next morning showed

just as puzzled as

that the

ground was strewn with German

corpses. But there were only twenty-nine Grenadiers and some forty-five Americans, including wounded, left in the Gully. The rain came down, turning to sleet. Water flooded into the bottom of the Gully, and everyone was exhausted, having barely slept for seventy-two hours. There was no alternative but to withdraw to the Anziate. The Grenadiers were attacked again, and the colonel was killed, shot through the chest.

pounded the German concentrations in front of the Factory. When smoke lifted there would be absolute silence, and then you would see a whole lot of ambulances rushing about. Several German soldiers surrendered, but turned out to be from Luxembourg American Liberator

aircraft

and only too glad to pass on information. There was an American tank destroyer, its occupants apparently dozing, near a little farmhouse near the Factory. Sergeant Jenkins of the

was told by his colonel to tell the Yanks to start firing. He went across and was confronted by this huge closed monster. 'Well, thought to myself, how does one make anyone hear? began to call out, when suddenly a flap opened and an American officer's head appeared. "Yeah, waddyer want?" I told him, and he said, "Tell your colonel he doesn't command me," and shut the flap again. He was obviously scared.

London

Irish

The colonel was not pleased.' About the time of Sidney's defence of the Gully, the Company of the London Irish went silent. This meant that

wireless of at

long

last

the

FEBRUARY

148

Germans had captured

huge

the

pile

of rubble that had once been the

Factory.

Now

was on the hamlet of Carroceto, held by two Scots Guards companies and one Irish Guards company. Battalion Kleye, from the west, pushed resolutely onwards, although badly mauled. The Scots Guards hit back with phosphorus grenades, but one by one their machine-gun posts were overwhelmed. Yet the Germans had been so weakened that Kleye doubted whether further advance would be possible. Major Gericke himself now took personal command of the battalion, and Kleye was told that his objective was the mmiscule railway station. Kleye's attack was well prepared. He went forward with two companies, and was able to advance about a hundred yards. Meanwhile, in the east, Battle Group Graeser entered Carroceto from the direction of all

the concentration

the Factory.

Then Kleye was succeeded

killed,

capturing

five prisoners.

mam

There were

a shell.

But one of

his lieutenants,

Weiss,

Scots Guards strongpoint and took thirty-

now

only sixty

men

left in

the

two German

companies. 'Rollicking evening in San Lorenzo with cloak and dagger boys,' wrote

Mansell

in his diary, referring to the

Special Force contingent under

Malcolm Munthe. 'Sat round a brazier nearly suffocated by smoke while Mike Gubbins sang "Abdul the Bulbul".' All the while, he added, the Germans were 'pot-shotting' the tower overhead. 'Heard that Munthe has crazy idea of getting some Italian spy through German lines to Rome.' The 'spy' was with the main part of the Irish Guards in the caves behind Buonriposo ridge, and Munthe and Gubbins had determined to cross open ground to reach them near Via Anziate — in daylight, which was even crazier. Of course they were spotted, and the Moaning Minnies started up. They dashed for a trench, but it had a dead German in it. Five yards further there was another, empty this time, and they leapt in, shoulder to shoulder. To drown the Moaning Minnies Gubbins sang 'Abdul the Bulbul'. As Munthe wrote later: 'The flat field all around was spluttering earth every time

mortar

shell

landed

... as

though

invisible

mushrooms were popping up.' Then a shell landed on the dead German in the next trench, sending him high into the air. Gubbins sang on. 'He turned

direction, muttering his song and screwing his face

a wry smile - that was the last time was to see him alive. A whine was coming down to the left of me. shut my eyes. A tremendous thud filled our trench. A thud as though someone had hurled a dining-room table against my heart.' Munthe was sure that it was the end. Then he

into

ANZIO - CARROCETO

I49

opened his eyes, and to his astonishment he found that he could still see. Gubbins was pressed against him. 'He was on his back, his face looking up, unaltered, but his eyes were open and a fringe of red appeared round the roots of his hair. His helmet was off. The rest of his body was crimson. I saw was crimson too.' 1

when

Mansell heard that

the stretcher-bearers

came

to fetch

Munthe

of shrapnel out of his skull. He seemed unwilling to believe that Gubbins was dead and insisted on being taken back to touch his body. back they had to pull

happened

a piece

that the 95th Evacuation Hospital

Munthe reached

was bombed and

strafed

There were twenty-eight deaths, including three nurses, and sixty-four injuries. The news caused an outrage, and it was considered to have been a deliberate piece of barbarism, for the hospital was clearly marked with a red cross. Whatever the truth, it was almost impossible for a bomb or shell to fall in any part of the rear echelons of the Beachhead without causing some damage. There were to be several other incidents. The 95th was simply a large area of dugouts covered with canvas. They called it Hell's Half Acre, and some people soon

after

actually concealed their

The

it.

wounds

so as not to be sent there.

Guards had reached their caves, in effect long excavated on 4 February. They had found that here too were some Itahan refugees. At first the novelty was welcome. The caves were rain-proof, and fires could be made out of empty shell cartons. During the nights sHt trenches outside would be occupied, and when dayhght came the men Irish

galleries,

'like

sleep

nocturnal animals' crept back into the

and wait.

One company was

warmth of

their shelter to

sent to reinforce the Scots

Guards

Carroceto.

The whole

situation

changed with the collapse of the North

Staffs,

followed by the withdrawal of the Grenadiers from the Gully and the

of the Factory. heard of

loss

No Company was sent forward,

and nothing more was the names of some prisoners were broadcast by Rome i

until

Radio.

The caves were visited by Colonel Freeman, a lanky Melancholy Jaques of a Virginian, from the 3rd Battalion of the 504th Parachutes. His comments on 'Those Krauts,

arrival I

were unShakespearean but inspired sympathy:

sure hate their guts.'

The Irish Guards' No

Company had encountered Jerries/Krauts/Huns of

the 145th Grenadier Regiment. Lt. Ferdinand Schaller of that regiment recalls sides.

how

the Irish

came

be heard. So

him, 'masses of brown overcoats', from all Not a single shot from our own artillery was to

'There were tanks too.

we used 2.50 and

2.75

guns. This did the trick because

FEBRUARY

150

saw those Tommies trying to escape with their brown coats flying open.' But the Tommies were in a neat trap and many died. The German artillery had been having difficulties with the mucky ground. The guns had either to be manhandled or dragged by horses. The next morning presented a spectacle of devastation. The wadi was full of dead bodies - German, British and American - and all sorts of equipment, including a lorry and an anti-tank gun. Schaller passed British heavy machine-guns still at the ready. The stench of death and cordite was incredible. But there was so much food about - corned beef, vegetables, plum pudding — not to mention tarpaulins, gas-capes, socks and blankets.

made himself tea, using brown ditch water. It was real luxury. Meanwhile, further inland, thanks again to the efforts of Lieutenant Wunn, whose company had taken eighty prisoners, the Gully was being occupied by the 147th Panzer Grenadiers. Among the first to enter it was Staff Sergeant Bernhard Luy. He at once questioned the Italians about whether there were any inglesi left there. The Italians assured him there were none, and he said they would be shot if they were lying. 'No, no, Schaller

niente inglesi, niente inglesi.'

And

indeed they turned out to be right.

This place too appeared to have been used

Everything was arranged

supply depot.

ammunition, barbed wire, spades, uniforms, Red Cross material. There were also motor bikes and some lorries loaded with food. A lieutenant appeared and said that nobody must touch anything in case it was booby trapped, but as soon as he had gone soldiers began prising open the tins with bayonets. The food that could be eaten cold they ate at once, but anything that had to be cooked they threw away. Luy noticed that one of the dead Tommies had a large blue-green ring on his left hand. He also saw several long-legged pigs running about. There appeared to have been more civilians in the caves than he had at first thought. Luy selected a cave rather high up as his command post, so that he could watch the entrance to the Gully. When he went down again, to his disgust he saw that the pigs were eating the Tommy with the ring. He shouted at them but they took no notice. He was so enraged that he fired at them, and they ran away. A runner came rushing up to see what was happening. Luy showed him the half-eaten Tommy. 'Is this what we are fighting for, to be eaten by pigs?' Together they buried the Tommy. After such horror it was some compensation later to find a cache of several tins of cigarettes and a lot of in piles

rifles,

chocolate.

Luy was astonished to find three Tommies They had been there for twenty-four hours. He and then found a hut with smoke coming out of it. He

searching the caves

hiding behind

a blanket.

explored further,

thought

Italians

must be

in there,

but then discovered that the whole place

ANZIO-CARROCETO was wired

in.

I5I

shouted 'Open up, open up.' Nothing happened. So he

were three Americans. Apparently they were in the retreat. So these three 'Amis' joined the three Tommies in the march back to the cage. Before leaving, the Amis told Luy that they had killed eighteen sheep, which were hanging at the end of the hut ready for cooking. In the evenmg Luy met Lieutenant Wunn, who was very depressed, having lost a whole platoon in an attack on Carroceto. He had run into heavy machine-gun tire, and had heard his men crying in pain and cut the wire and inside

cooks and had been

left

behind

POW

shouting for help well into the next day.

Some

British stretcher-bearers

had picked up a few of them, but after that the Tommies had taken no notice of the German Red Cross flag and had kept on firing.

The defence of Carroceto started reasonably well for the Scots and Irish Guards, with several Germans suddenly surrendering. Evidently the coupled with the weather, had been too much and certainly they looked miserable, filthy and soaking was soon realized that some farmhouses to the north-west were

tremendous

artillery fire,

for the Jerries,

wet.

the key positions.

Guardsman English and Guardsman Kerr had

great

way through stables and lofts Keep his head down while fork him out.'

time shooting and bayoneting their 'There's another in that straw.

But

who

was Lieutenant Weiss

finally

drove out the Guards, taking

eighty-one prisoners.

sudden thrust forward by the Germans took the British by

and Weiss

at last

reached the railway station - simply

surprise,

platform along

few Fascist-type buildings and a signal box. He was able to take a hundred more prisoners. Now his runner, young Joachim Liebschner, was sent to make contact with Battle Group Graeser advancing from the Factory. To be a runner at the height of a battle was a terrifying job. Liebschner had first begun to feel it when one night he found the body of another runner in a wood; the boy had obviously bled to death with no one to help him. Two Sherman tanks advanced on to the station platform and raked Weiss' platoon with fire. About thirty British prisoners were able to escape, and Weiss found himself left with twelve men. He retreated into some cellars, only to find that some sixty British prisoners had been herded down there. Luckily a Recce group sent by Major Gericke destroyed one of the Shermans, and the other thereupon withdrew southwards. Weiss was thus able to emerge again, and hand over all his

single track, with a

prisoners.

group of Scots and

other end of the station.

was enough

tell

them

Irish

Guards was

still

The sound of German that

'life

holding

building

the

tanks rumbling on the road

was not going

to be a

bed of roses'.

And

FEBRUARY

152

enough a Mark IV Tiger tank soon made its appearance. The Scots Guards adjutant radioed back to Brigade HQ: 'There's a fucking great sure

German tank sitting outside my door demohshing my house brick by brick.' By midnight the whole station was in ruins. The Guards' cellar was full

of wounded. Oxicc again

remnants of the did they

know

Irish

Ciuards

was decided

that Weiss' platoon

- though before long

withdraw. Finally only the

company and two

was

signallers

were

left.

had been reduced to precisely

to be joined

Little

five

men

by some of the Battle Group

Graeser.

Lance-Sergeant Duffy of the

Irish Guards said later: 'The Germans hundred yards away, and we could hear them calling to one another. They started to fire HE Guardsman Murphy - "Old Jock" had his thigh broken. went over to Murphy and another 88 shell hit me in the back. was taken to the cellar, which was full of dead and wounded, and lost consciousness. When came round the cellar was full

were only

of Germans.'

So Carroceto was

German

Kleye was withdrawn for

a rest.

have taken prisoner four

hands.

February their Battalion

Since 22 January Gericke could claim to

officers

and 541 other ranks, and to have

destroyed four tanks. People had been surprised by Lieutenant Weiss'

He was such a quiet, modest man, originally a lawyer from one would not think 'in harmony with war events' - though he had already been wounded five times. great bravery. Silesia,

When

Nick Mansell was with the 6th Gordons near the dawn at a delightful spot they call Horror Farm'. 'So back we go to World War I,' he jotted in his diary. 'Oozing thick mud. Tank hulks. The cold, God, the cold. Graves marked by a helmet, gashed with shrapnel. Shreds of barbed wire. Trees like broken fishbones, or even wish-bones. Rip, rip, rip of machine-guns. Racket of shells screeching, snarling, whirring above like furious witches. Earth shudders. Sadistic. Hot shrapnel tearing through what were bushes. The zip of a sniper's bullet. The repellent smell of stomach wounds - human Carroceto

Flyover,

offal.

'in a

haystack

old Aprilia.

fell

flamingo

burning.

dead gunner,

Smoke clouds coiling and his

headsquashed by

reeling

tank.

above poor

Not an

attractive

a good "Those Jerry buggers were full of vino, they walked straight into our brens, blazing away like merry hell at them they were"; "Maybe I'm a hard old bugger, but was inured to death long long ago". Scream from a wounded GI - "Medics, medics" Like Agag lay my cables

sight

Voices disembodied:

"I'll

say this for the Irish, they put

scrap";

delicately, for there are

Schuh mines about. The terrible sight of seeing

men go bomb-happy, "yellow". Deliberate self-mutilation. Weeping. The worst moment is dusk, a breathless, anxious hush of waiting. Will we

ANZIO - CARROCKTO wc not

Which of us

153

Something blue boy with me was badly tied him up with a bandage off a dead hurt during a mortar stonk. Grenadier. Which reminds me, Guards officers say it is common to turn up your coat collar. saw a Grenadier subaltern doing just that today. Shame! ... A letter from S today. think the only thing that keeps me alive is my yearning for her. Woodpigeons in June. New Year's Eve at the Bagatelle; that party with Raleigh. Suppose the old bastard is still wallowing in the fleshpots of Algiers.' Later that day Mansell wrote: 'A real flurry. Would you believe it? Old Corncob Charlie has actually been near here to see Penney and the Guards HQ.' or will near

be attacked?

a shell crater.

violet!

will die tonight?

Yesterday up front

had been

puffing

strange meeting between the generals. Lucas, red-faced,

urgency for

of the crisis, the need for reinforcements, and

listened to Penney's exposition

at his pipe,

a counter-attack, the desperate

eventually for the British

ist

Division to

turned to General Eagles of the 45th: 'OK,

rest

and

refit.

He had

finally

you give 'em the works.' diary: 'No operational appreBill,

The highly strung Penney noted in his ciation, no orders, no objective, no nothing.' Junior officers, both British and American, were puzzled. The 179th and 157th Infantry went in against the Factory but were driven back with heavy casualties. The force was simply not strong enough, and it was too late and too hasty. Some prisoners taken by the Americans were insolent and cocky, especially the paratroopers. A major asked where the sea was because the Allies were about to be driven into it. Others talked about the Russians being the real, the common enemy. John McCarthy of Brooklyn took a prisoner whose main worry was whether he was to be sent to Canada or Florida; Florida was his preference. Another prisoner cried because he had lost his comb. Some said that a major attack was to be mounted shortly and were glad

the

unknown

up before it started. down: 'Several newspaper men, names wind up a couple of days ago and took off

to give themselves

2th Lucas wrote

me, got

their

wishing to avoid another "Dunkirk". alarmist

rumours

hear they have been spreading

Naples and other places safely

in the rear ...

will

There is no reason, however, to doubt the ultimate successful outcome of the show. I called in They all the correspondents and went over the entire military situation assured me that the weak sisters had departed.' Churchill was annoyed by the American NBC reports, echoed in the Evening Standard, Daily Mail, and elsewhere, about 'sweetly flattering hopes' having evaporated, and initiative having passed to the enemy. readily admit

serious. All battle situations are.

Roosevelt

also

admitted publicly that the situation was tense.

'Why all the

FEBRUARY

154 defeatism?' Churchill asked.

The

censorship should have been imposed to

stop the circulation of these alarmist rumours.

He was

forced to

make

was no disguising that morale was 'rock bottom' in the deep cellars that housed VI Corps HQ, a world of trickling damp, perpetual darkness and reassuring statement in Parliament. But at Anzio itself there

centipedes.

Some hopes were

raised

with the arrival of the commander of the

Templer, an electric personaUty and an energizer, though perpetually looking dog-tired - he lived on his nerves, they said. When Penney was wounded in the head by a shell British 56th Division, General Gerald

Templer took over the command of both the was he who had chosen the Black Cat as the 56th's emblem. 'If the tail pointed to the left, you went left. If to the right, you went right. If it was straight, you went straight on, up the arse.' His opinion of Lucas was hard. 'Lucas was absolutely full of inertia, and couldn't make up his mind,' he told Harold Nicolson's son Nigel. 'He had no qualities of any sort as a commander, absolutely no presence; he was the antithesis of everything that a fighting soldier and general ought to be.' splinter outside his caravan, ist

and the 56th Divisions.

Mackensen's

final all-out thrust

was planned

for the i6th.

was

to be

Operation Fischfang, or Catch-fish. Hitler took the closest interest in its planning and wanted a creeping barrage 'reminiscent of those used in World War I' along the Anziate. He also insisted that the Infantry Lehr called

should be to the fore. Both Mackensen and Kesselring were nevertheless

- this would provide too easy and too restricted a target for Allied bombers. It was decided that the main push would be to the east of the Anziate, with a feint attack by the Hermann Goering Division from Cisterna. The Germans were now in uneasy about an attack on such

small front

125,000 men ranged against approximately was just not possible to have a creeping barrage; there was plenty of ammunition but not enough for this. There were also fears that the ground in front of the Flyover would be heavily mined against tanks. the position of having 100,000.

The weather was

getting colder. Sergeant

Luy found

ice

on the puddles

cope with some nasty incidents. A guard called Jankowski, a Beute Deutsche (i.e. not of German blood), had by mistake fired on a returning recce party, badly injuring some of them. As a result the Gully.

He had had

he had

nervous collapse. Then an ItaUan boy was killed by

women,

a rifle

set up The remaining Italians in the caves, especially the tremendous caterwauling. Luy tried to pacify them, saying piano piano, making the sign of the cross and kneehng by the body. It was not long afterwards that an Allied Jak (fighter) dropped a bomb near the Gully,

grenade. a

causing part of the wall to crumble and burying eight soldiers.

ANZIO-CARROCETO After being relieved by the 4th Paras, Luy's

I55

company returned

its

old

At HQ Luy was suddenly asked by Captain Richter when he had last had a shit. 'Why yesterday of course.' Richter said he hadn't had one for five days. 'I told him about a place where he could squat in peace, and he went there. When he came back, realized he had had a bad time and had been crying, for his eyes were red. Then remembered that for the past five or six days he had been living on Tommy chocolate, which must have caused the trouble. He said to us, "I've done myjob, but it was as thick and hard as a shell case." We laughed a lot, but didn't envy him.' position.

of the

In an earlier stage

battle,

near the Factory, Sergeant Folkerd of the

London Irish had been performing his 'ablutions' after breakfast near a well, out of view of the enemy. He noticed an old Italian waiting deferentially for him to finish. There was a quiet insistence, an urgency, in the man's manner, though Folkerd - accustomed only to the Naples dialect - could not understand him. Evidently the help of three or four was required, and fortunately men were available. They followed him to a barn. 'The old Italian, holding two short lengths of rope, greeted us humbly with undisguised gratitude and pointed to a corner. There we saw a crudely fashioned coffin containing the body of his wife. She had soldiers

been killed by

a shell.'

Folkerd and

his

mates carried the coffin to

grave

which the old man himself had dug. Further east

Divisional Headquarters battery Philip Norris of

a slightly quieter area, though under constant There were some peasants about, 'and when some of the boys started to take logs from a pile in the yard to cover their fox holes we got into trouble'. An old lady started to cry and carry on at a great rate. 'We couldn't figure out why she was so angry, but we left the logs alone, and

Cleveland, Ohio, was in shellfire.

after that

time

our relations with the peasants were fairly cordial. From time to a bottle of vino from the old man, but his supply finally ran

got

and we had to go elsewhere.' Only when the peasants had been evacuated did Norris and his friends find out why the old lady had been so agitated. 'Under the pile of logs, beneath the ground, was a Certainly it boosted our morale at a critical time.' barrel of vino Everyone knew that the supreme test, the final clash of arms, was inevitably approaching. There was thus a rush to evacuate all accessible civilians, and these included the nuns who were sheltering in the cellars of the Borghese villa. The assembly point was in the big church a few out, so he told us,

hundred yards from the landing-craft that would take them to Naples; there were panic dashes in between air-raids and the attentions of Anzio Annie. Famihes had to be separated, and the sight of waterspouts out to sea was no inducement to go aboard, causing struggles and dreadful screamings. Ennio Silvestri had to leave his donkey, letting it loose in the

FEBRUARY

156 Padiglionc woods, but

managed

refugees were finally to end

Prince Borghese remained at

to bring his pointer

camp

Zuga with him. The

Capua, north of Naples. Nettuno with a few essential workers,

in a

his father's World War Capodimonte porcelain, which was secretly walled up in an underground passage; Americans from VI Corps HQ were enlarging his cellars and he was terrified lest their excavations would lead to this treasure trove. It was remarkable that throughout the Beachhead fighting only one bomb, an incendiary, should land on his villa, poised as it was on such prominent ground above

who were

put under his charge.

He now wore

helmet. His greatest anxiety was about his

the port.

Mark Clark arrived at the Beachhead on the 12th. Lucas found good humour. There were widely different reactions about Clark. Some British officers were impressed by his confidence, a relief from Lucas' gloom and 'bumbling'. He was not a martinet. But many Americans on the VI Corps headquarters were irritated by his mania for publicity and the headlines, and there was an institution ironically named 'Mark Clark for President Society'. He had himself photographed with a General

him

as if

sharing

ration,

and then again

in the

cemetery, with photo-

graphers jumping on fresh graves.

14th Lucas wrote: 'General Alexander arrived

the

8.30 by

The General has great ideas for breaking Things manpower and artillery he waves aside as of little this thing. like moment. These handicaps must be overcome by an energetic commander. He never sees the logistics of a problem. The picture he sees is

destroyer.

such

Always optimistic

big one that none of the difficulties appear in

it.'

Alexander asked to

war correspondents, so Lucas assembled them 'in my little wineshop after lunch', and there followed a caustic tirade by the Commander-in-Chief about spreading of false rumours. The correspondents were deeply incensed, said Lucas. 'This was the first time it had actually occurred to me that there were some people who really thought we might be in danger of defeat ... A bad case of wind-up.' On the 15th, the day of the bombing of the Monastery at Cassino, Alexander cabled the War Office: 'I am disappointed with VI Corps Headquarters. They arc negative and lacking the necessary drive and enthusiasm to get things done. They appeared to have become depressed by events What we require is a thruster like George Patton with a capable staff behind him, or to replace the VI Corps HQ by a British Corps commander and staff The latter solution is completely drastic, and should like to know what reaction Eisenhower thinks.' To which the see the

Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Sir Alan Brooke, cabled back that he and Eisenhower were against a British commander, except as a last resort. Just as an emergency measure Eisenhower would be prepared to

ANZIO - CARROCETO spare Patton for a

Lucas would be

month, but

his personal selection for a

Truscott, 2 Eagles,

hi the long, sleepless nights

157

replacement for

Harmon.

Lucas found relief in chatting to Captain

Mack, the British Public Safety Officer. He spoke about his home and West Point, and about Sherlock Holmes. He thought Sherlock Holmes had been

chief of police.

Alexander's recollection of his talk with Clark about replacing Lucas

was is

typical

of his tentative diplomatic approach. 'You know, the position

very serious,' he told him.

'We may be pushed back

into the sea.

That

would be very bad tor us — and you would certainly be relieved of your command.' That 'gentle injunction', he was to write, 'impelled action'. Clark was prepared for the decision that Lucas would have to be axed. 'My own feeling was that Johnny Lucas was ill - tired physically and mentally - from the long responsibilities of command in battle; he died a few years later. said would not in any circumstances do anything to I

hurt

man who had

so greatly contributed to

our successes since Salerno.'

Clark had indeed been putting pressure on Lucas. put

mmes along

the coast, but

his

visit

He had

found

ordered him to

that this

still

had not

been done. It was Templer who had 'got on to the blower' to Alex: 'We'll lose the Beachhead unless Lucas goes.' Of Alex himself Templer said: 'Very few people knew or understood him. He was a very lazy man. To this one could attribute his success in battle. He always had something in reserve.' Some days later, at the very worst moment of the fighting, Alexander

on Templer at 8.30 a.m. 'Could you give me a drink?' He wanted Templer shuddered because he had precisely one double peg left. Then Alex talked about hunting, shooting, Yorkshire, Ireland, 'not a sausage' about the Beachhead. Templer tried to steer the conversation round to the battle, but without success. After nearly an hour Alex said suddenly: 'By God, must get back to an important conference.' Before departing in ajeep he remarked: 'I have done everything I can to help you, called gin.

haven't

I?'

The Germans but schism

tried leaflet

among

propaganda, aiming to spread not only gloom

the Allies: 'Beachhead

- Deathshead'; 'The worst you a

to come'; 'British soldiers! General Clark certainly played

yet

dirty

Yankee trick! And who has got to bear the consequences?' And for the Americans there were some anti-Semitic messages about rich Jewish draft-dodgers in New York seducing GIs' sweet innocent girl-friends. These leaflets were especially useful in the tront line during outbreaks of diarrhoea.

Then

there

was the 'Front-line Radio', more popular than the Germans wrong reasons. The announcer was a woman with a

imagined, and for the

FEBRUARY

158

as Axis Sally, who would intersperse of prisoners' names in Rome, and news of Russian with boogie-woogie on scratchy records. 'Think it over,' the

sexy voice and soon to be familiar choice grisly retreats

tales, lists

programme would

'Why

should you be one of those rotting tomorrow. And a big kiss from Sall-y.' New arrivals at the shattered quay of Anzio were not much encouraged by rows of stretchers with bandaged figures bearing labels like dogs about to travel by train. Innumerable signs - pointing to ration dumps and unit headquarters, or giving traffic instructions - festooned the piles of carcasses?

end.

Don't forget

to listen in

masonry and twisted concrete. The house with an old Italian sign, Al Ricouero, meaning To the Air-raid Shelter, was a favourite joke and known to all as Al's Place. Broken glass was everywhere. As usual the worst danger was from anti-personnel bombs. Above the town would be about thirty barrage balloons.

The British CCS, Casualty Clearing Station, was in the Padiglione woods, but became so overwhelmed with work that another team under Major J. A. Rose was sent up from Naples. On his first night Rose operated on fourteen major cases, including four penetrating abdominal wounds. Later he had some harrowing decisions in the case of gross injuries, when it was realized that men were beyond saving and there was a flood of urgent cases which had to have priority. If possible, 'mercy' operations would be performed - a pretence really. A man one day asked

he could have attention, he had been there twenty-four hours.

him and saw he was beyond hope. 'I am afraid you are not quite ready yet.' The man closed his eyes and said: 'I understand.' On the fatal i6th a succession of men with ghastly wounds continued to Rose looked

CCS throughout the day: head wounds, distinguished by loud snoring breathing, protrusions of intestines and brains, shattered muddy stumps tied up with filthy, bloody bandages and yellow pads, fragments of men. Rose heard a plane approaching, but before him lay an unconscious patient with an open wound, the blood welling fast. 'Down boy, down, my knees said, my shoulders hunching, every cell in my body shrinking, crying out to fling myself down.' But he had to carry on. A bomb dropped. 'God that was near!' The noise of the plane receded. Every one of the theatre staff had kept on working. be brought to the

Pozzuoli

Yorkshire miners and

waited

day or so

the port of

outside Naples before saihng to Anzio in landing-craft.

Pozzuoh

The sun had come

change. My main memory of that time is sitting in a restaurant had been eating chops. Suddenly a ragged old woman dashed in and snatched the bones off my plate and started sucking them. had seen passers-by being haphazardly sprayed with DDT In Naples

out for

where

powder by

seemed horrifying and humiliating, was worse. At Anzio the civilians had been evacuated, so would not have to look poverty, or hunger hoped.

but

military police. That had

this

Anzio — Fischfang

The

night of the 15th had been unusually quiet

56th Division had

now

the front. Templer's

taken over the line from the

Moletta, along the wadis to Buonriposo ridge, where 'Thunderbirds', the

what was

left

mouth of

the

linked with the

US 45th Division. The depicted Guards Brigade with

of the North

Staffs

and other battalions of the British

ist

Division were in reserve.

The US 3rd Division was

facing Cisterna, and along the Mussolini

Canal was the American-Canadian ace

commando

unit, the ist Special

— 'an outfit Germans were to make

Service Force or 'Black Devils' under General Frederick crazier than hell'.

was

in these

two

areas that the

their initial attack.

imminence of a German opened up. 'The skies split open. Cannon roared and argued; it was like a huge eruption ... it was the greatest artillery concentration that had yet been fired on the Anzio Beachhead.' At first light the German guns replied. Nick Mansell put in his diary: 'Deafening, mad, screaming senseless hatred. The whole sky alight. Towards Aprilia flames. Very lights of all colours. Thick brown smoke. Houses, stacks burning. Strange beauty. It made me want to shout and laugh. Ack-ack. Bombs. Smoke biting. Oh Tiber, father Tiber, will I ever see you again? Watching the incredible sight, heard a man say, "Cor, fuck me," and another reply, "Not bloody likely, Johnson, you bloody crow's nest of shit and sticks."' These were the last words Mansell ever

intercepted radio message betrayed the

attack, so at 4.30 a.m. the entire

VI Corps

artillery

wrote.

The main

Infantry Lehr, allocated to the 3rd Panzer Grenadiers,

attack, as required

Hitler, to the east

attack developed into a massacre.

The Regiment broke under

and

This was

its

remnants turned and

fled.

made

the

of Via Anziate. But the shell-fire,

grave shock to Kesselring,

ANZIO - FISCHFANG

The Hermann Goering Division's attacks from repulsed. However, to the west Gericke's 4th Paras British 56th Division, and some platoons infiltrated

'disgracefuT he called

Cisterna were also

broke through the

l6l

it.

almost to the Lateral Road.

And

in the

evening the American forward

now a gap between the 45th's two regiments, the 157th and 179th. Operation Fischfang was developing according to plan. The casualties from Allied bombing were however far worse than the defences astride the Anziate were wiped out. There was

Allies themselves realized. Several

rather have been in Russia. Lorries

taken for burial

German

prisoners said that they

were being

piled

would

up with bodies,

Ardea.

During the night many bombers had made two

sorties,

and

Wellington would carry up to eighteen 250 lb bombs, or forty-eight 40 lb anti-personnel bombs and six 250 lb bombs. Most came from Foggia, a

hundred and

distance of a

sixty miles, leaving anything

one and

half hours before each sortie over the Beachhead. Generally speaking, of course, they

now was When

would have had

specifically

to hit 'anything that

was

lit

pinpointed targets, but the order

up'.

daylight came, for the hard-pressed American and British

it was cheering to see squadron after squadron of fighter bombers and even heavies. Liberators and Fortresses, majestically flying over, and to feel the ground shake as the planes unloaded their eggs. On the 1 6th there were 468 sorties. The Jerries' flak was intense, yet the planes went on in perfect formation. You could see them being picked off in the sky, and just as fast another 'kite' would move into place so as to maintain

infantrymen,

formation.

Before midnight the Germans resumed their attack, widening the gap

were being forced back to Road. German snipers, who had crept through the Allied lines and lain low all night, caused a scare, though for them it was suicide. Eighty Tiger tanks were now thrown into the assault. From time to time, above the noise of battle, you could hear a tank being hit - like a blow on a church bell, followed by an explosion. As one GI of the 179th remembers: 'Those goddam Krauts came on us heiling Hitler and acting as if they were doped up.' A part of the 1 57th and an artillery company were cut off near Buonriposo and had to withdraw into the caves once occupied by the Irish Guards. On that day, 'the dust and smoke and confusion were such,' wrote General Lucas, 'that little could be seen, and many events occurred which will never be part o{ recorded history.' And he added: 'A blunt, square salient was eventually driven into the line six kilometres in width.' In spite of this, on the 17th over eight hundred Allied aircraft dropped about one thousand tons of bombs on the German front line positions, a massive quantity and further. Gradually during the 17th the Allies

the final line of defence, the Flyover and the Lateral

FEBRUARY

l62 until then the heaviest

weight ever dropped

in close

support on

a single

day.

On the German side Sergeant Luy's unit had been reinforced with youths aged seventeen to nineteen. They were distributed around the battalion with two or three older soldiers to look after each group. After twentyfour hours' resting the battalion was to go into the attack again, as the

second wave behind the paratroopers.

The

noise of the artillery on the i6th

couldn't distinguish friend from foe.

The

was

so extraordinary that

Allies'

you

warships were also firing

of the battalion commander and Luy knew that things must be going well. Gradually the hammering of machine-guns and explosions of grenades grew fainter. Luy then heard that the German Paras had been again. Later,

watching the eager

faces

adjutant, sitting near the wireless operator,

halted,

and that there had been heavy

casualties.

Heavy rain that night made the brooks swell and the going difficult. The battalion was due to attack the caves at Buonriposo, but it was all so first out of his hole. He shouted machine-gun fire we couldn't hear much. After a few steps he shouted, "Everybody back!" But we had run into Eventually I such a heavy barrage that there weren't many of us left made my way to some ruins with two or three fellows, but one man just

carelessly planned. 'Captain

Richter was

orders, but in the inferno of

got up and went forward. his left

shouted, "Wait, stay here!"

arm and saw he had no hand. I

realized

was

simply raised

Britzius.

grenade

went off very close to him. I thought he was finished, but when the smoke cleared he was still stumbling on. I do not know if he survived the war. Then Captain Richter joined us. He too was wounded.' The Americans defending the caves had used smoke so that the attackers would be silhouetted. From the moans in the ravine that night

knew they had caused a lot of casualties. A German kept crying, 'My name is Mueller, am wounded,' over and over again. Neither side made any attempt to help him. Shells fell. The voice died down, and then A GI could stand it no longer. He started again, 'My name is Mueller pulled the pin out of a grenade, which he hurled over. 'What's your name they

now, you son of

a bitch?'

Further west Gericke's progress against the British (Royal Fusiliers and

Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry) was not fully recognized it seemed at Mackensen's headquarters, and was not therefore exploited. Gericke reached the Swallow's Nest and also swung round to attack the wadi known as the North Lobster Claw. The casualties from the shelling were again heart-breaking, added to which the weather was

at its

most

vile.

The men were soaked and suffered from lice.

food.

They

also

for

two days went without

ANZIO - FISCHFANG By

the i8th the Americans in the caves

were

163 virtually isolated.

The German

losses had been so great that Mackensen was in some doubt whether he ought to continue the attack. His chief of staff, Hauser, urged him on; they were on the brink of victory, it would be mad to break off now. The Allies were exhausted, but they did not realize how seriously depleted their opponents had become. During the early mornmg the 29th Panzer Grenadiers and 26th Panzers virtually elimmated a battalion of the US 179th Infantry. The commander of the 179th was in a state of collapse through sheer lack of sleep, and General Lucas therefore ordered Colonel Bill Darby of the Rangers to take his place. It was the most serious moment of the entire Beachhead battle. Papers were ready to be burnt in the rear echelons. Cooks, despatch

anybody who could be spared, were rushed to the front. was brought out of reserve. To make matters worse, the harbour at Anzio had to be closed because of mines dropped from the air. On the 7th the British cruiser HMS Penelope, renowned for its earlier service in the Mediterranean, had been sunk by a submarine. Lucas' state of mind could hardly have been improved by the news that Truscott was to be his deputy jointly with the British General Evelegh, chosen because he got on well with Americans. Lucas knew what was to be in store for him. 'I have done my best,' he wrote, 'I have carried out my orders, and my conscience is clear. do not feel should have sacrificed my command.' Truscott had gone to bed early but soon after midnight had been awakened by his aide Colonel Carleton with the news of his appointment: 'Boss, hate to do this, but you would give me hell if held this until morning.' General 'Iron Mike' O'Daniel was to take over from Truscott as commander of the 3rd Division. Truscott at first was upset. He had not been consulted and he was a friend of Lucas'. He also had a feeling that he was being used to pull chestnuts out of the fire. Then he decided that 'this was certainly no time to consider personal preferences.' 'I was a soldier, riders, clerks,

The

British ist Division

and

could only carry out the order loyally.'

Truscott's

first job

Later Clark told

would not happen unique

In his

to try to dispel the 'pall

that he

was probably

until the present phase

way Darby

of gloom'

Corps

HQ.

to replace Lucas, but this

of the battle was over.

put confidence and enthusiasm into the

singled out malingerers and stragglers and put

such

was

him

them on menial

79th.

duties,

bringing in dead animals and scooping excrement out of foxholes

of their comrades. Nevertheless, he was worried about low strength and actually suggested that it should be withdrawn into the Padiglione woods. General Eagles absolutely refused all this

in front

the regiment's

FEBRUARY

to give permission.

Every yard of the Beachhead must be held at whatever piece of luck, the Germans suddenly of attack further east, against the relatively intact 1 8oth

However, by an amazing

cost.

switched their line Infantry.

One of the Germans'

weapons, the radio-controlled midget tank,

secret

Goliath, turned out to be a flop, since

easily

became bogged down

in the

mud

and was then picked off by anti-tank rifles. Corporal Frank Cooper of the Gordons was at the Flyover. He spotted one of these strange objects approaching and saw it skid off into a ditch.

once reported it, and the thing was blown up. Just as well too, for whole of the Flyover archway was thickly mined, and there could have been just one hell of a mess'. Cooper was a stretcher-bearer. 'You had a strange feeling of nakedness going out into no-man's-land under the Red Cross flag.' About this time he went to pick up a sergeant and two privates who had not returned from patrol. After he and his mate had gone out about a hundred yards a voice called: 'Hey, Jock.' It was a German sniper, all snug, surrounded by grenades and schmeissers. He wanted to swap cigarettes for a tin of bully. As myself heard later, Nick Mansell saw them talking, as did some 'monkeys', two-inch mortar spotters. When Cooper returned with the wounded men, the mortars opened up and that was the end of the sniper at

the

and the tin of bully. Because of the crisis, Mansell - although a signals officer - volunteered to man a bren-gun in a platoon commanded by his close friend Jonathan 'Nick was incredible,' Jonathan wrote to me later. 'He was so highspirited. We were huddled in those miserable slit-trenches, water up to our knees. He told us about summers in Capri, and nights at the opera. remember trying to enlarge my foxhole and uncovering a corpse, or its leg. suppose I looked rather wonky because he made me change trenches with him. A spandau was going tat-tat-tat, bullets thudding into the bank. We knew we were in for the high jump. He began to call out silly things to the men like "Mind your hairnet, dearie." The moment he

W—

climbed out,

a bullet

but there was so

was

horrible.

got him, in the neck.

much

blood.

loved him,

had

He wasn't dead,

go on,

could see

was an attack you

that,

see,

really did.'

Nick's body was never found.

The American companies of

the

157th defending the caves were

gradually contracting. Captain FeHx Sparks had only eighteen

men

left in

E Company. 'The Germans pressed every advantage. Enemy artillery poured into the Battalion sector without let-up, and German foot-troops appeared on all sides. Battalion medics moved about the area, carrying

ANZIO - FISCHFANG seriously

wounded men

drugged

to reheve their pain.

could carriers

work

trickled a stream in red, but

many of

where they were Water was needed, but only occasionally way forward to the caves. In a nearby draw

to the aid station in the caves,

their

which the

lay corpses

men

Garcia bravely crawled in

of enemy dead. The water ran blood

filled their

With more rumours of enemy liaison officer,

165

full

canteens, boiled

infiltrations, singly

and drank.'

or in pairs, Sergeant

daylight to the caves, so that the artillery

Captain Hubbert, could radio for Battalion

caves were like tunnels, mostly fitty or sixty feet to twenty-five feet high,

and with

six entrances.

fire.

These

below the surface, and up With wadis on three sides

you could only be starved out. Inside were also not only several Italians but some German prisoners. The constant shelling of the entrances reverberated inside, so it was often impossible to speak. Nevertheless there was still a chance for stretcher cases and walking wounded to be evacuated by night to the Anziate, where a truck would await them. Across the wadi in the German area crouched Sergeant Luy's decimated company. Once more, a man said that what he had experienced had been worse than at Stalingrad; none of his platoon was left. 'A young boy from Saxony who joined us twenty-four hours ago,' wrote Luy, 'came up with a rather tearful child's voice. He said he had no ground sheet. told him to take one off a dead man lying just outside. I saw him I

crawl out in the rain, but he only unbuttoned the groundsheet halfway

down. Then he came back, yellow in the face, saying that the groundsheet was full of blood. told him the rain would wash it off. So went out I

myself and finished the unbuttoning, and put the groundsheet out rain.

The dead man was

young

lieutenant with curly hair,

in the

between chest and

twenty to twenty-five. He had caught machine-gun fire in his lower abdomen. did not recognize him.' There was another attack. Luy had to take cover behind a dead sheep. It became imperative to call for artillery help, and his lieutenant produced an American intercom radio set. The lieutenant started speaking to I

HQ and then handed over to Luy. 'I said, "This is Luy, can you me?" "Yes," came the reply, "Loud and clear." It seemed as if were talking to a huge conference hall with everyone speaking at once. However directed the fire - more to the left, more to the right, with some success. "Now let them have it." The answer came back, "What do you mean, let them have it? We've only six shots left." Whereupon there was laughter on the line. couldn't make out what was happening. Then another voice said, "Shame on you, shaine on you, have you only six shots? Then we'll send you some." Suddenly realized we were being listened to by the other side.' Battalion

hear

the

end of the i8th the

Allies

were

still

just

hanging on to

their last

FEBRUARY

l66

line, but only just. To the right of the Flyover were the ist Loyal Regiment; they held the eastern continuation of the Lateral Road, which they called Wigan Street, after their home town Preston in North Lanes.

defence

Then came Darby's 179th, then The Flyover, pitted with shell

the i8oth.

enormous vaccination marks, some decaying mammoth, had become a symbol of endurance, of survival. If it were lost, then the Beachhead was lost. At times the Germans had been within a few holes like

iron girders hanging loose like the broken ribs of

yards of the Flyover, and had only been beaten back in hand-to-hand fighting. Worse, though, the building known as Todhunter Lodge (in honour of a sergeant) had been lost, and this was actually south of the crucial Wigan Street. The North Staffs had been sent to help them; even men from the docks at Anzio were rushed to replace casualties. Ahead of the Flyover were two roads. Dead End Road and the Bowling Alley, running eastwards from the Anziate, straight towards the 179th and 80th. This small triangle of churned up mud and crunched up vehicles had become the pit of hell; and it was near the Bowling Alley that 1

occurred one of Anzio's legendary

acts of bravery. of the LIS 180th had been reduced to some fifty men, without any grenades left and only ten rounds per man. There was no option but to withdraw. The wounded had to be left behind, and one of them, Private William Johnston, had been shot through the chest and was

A company

thought to be dying.

took

calmly, saying,

'It's

okay, fellows. Those

guys paid for it, and they'll pay more. So long.' He crawled back to his machine-gun, and they made him comfortable and left. He continued

company had safely gone. The next morning a lone figure was spotted by an outpost of the 80th

firing until the

staggering, falling, getting up, dragging.

talk,

Johnston.

was

GI, scarcely able to

The Krauts had found him but giving him up for dead had He knew he could give information that might save his

taken his shoes.

comrades, and had been determined to get back.

'My only

recourse,' said Lucas, 'was-to attack.

weaker of two opponents

The only

to attack unless he stands

recourse of the

still

and be cut

pieces.'

He therefore decided to use his last striking force of any power:

the 30th

Armored Infantry and the ist Armored Division tanks under General Harmon, for an attack up the Bowling Alley. This would swing left and join with another force under General Templer at Dead End Road. Templer would have to use one of his brigades due to land Infantry, the 6th

from Naples

that very

morning.

Because of the mines dropped in Anzio harbour, the British 169th Brigade had to be put ashore without its heavy equipment. There were

ANZIO - FISCHFANG also

167

dangers from one-man submarines. People said that Templer looked

So Harmon would have to attack alone;

'flipped', as thin as a rake.

Lucas

seemed

like suicide to

send

this 'pitiful little force' against the

German strength. 'Yet the German attack had to be stopped and saw no decided to let it go.' other way to stop it. The gamble succeeded. Bluft, energetic Ernie Harmon, that 'genius for saying the wrong thing', reached his objective, capturing five hundred I

prisoners.

Meanwhile

the Loyals, having retaken

turiously attacked. Their colonel, another

Todhunter Lodge, were being

who

had been unable to

sleep,

had been forced to hand over the battalion to Major Geoffrey Rimbault, 'as brave as a lion' said Templer. The Loyals had been shelled and divebombed at night, and the Germans advanced across Wigan Street absolutely regardless of losses. Suddenly there was a lull. To allow the

Germans

would be

to be reinforced

fatal.

Templer

laid

down

all

he could possibly obtain, and the Loyals and the North advanced under a smoke-screen. artillery fire

The

the

Staffs

The Germans came forward 'in droves' with and hands up. The last bombardment had been too much. Some were trembling, one or two were 'literally gibbering'. Several officers and a battalion commander were among the prisoners. It seemed white

incredible happened.

flags

had been told that the Allies were already embarking, but had been shocked and disillusioned to learn that yet more troops were that they

landing.

'Swell

work today - keep

Harmon

Loyals and

were

piled in heaps all-out

last

the

Beachhead was temporarily

safe.

along our front,' Lucas wrote. 'This

all

effort.

after them,' signalled Lucas.

message

Harmon on

from

Clark

Thanks to the 'German dead was the Hun's read

part:

want to tell you that your accomplishments today have been outstanding. Keep it up."' Kindly words, to smooth the way for the blow yet to come. And "Congratulate

whatever the

his success

today. Again

criticisms, Lucas' obsession

with supplies and an adequate

base had paid off.

had lost about five thousand men, more. Since the landings on 22 January Allied

In the four days' fighting the Allies

the

Germans very

slightly

and German

man

in six.

enough

casualties had each numbered about nineteen thousand, one The Beachhead had been saved, but the Allies were not strong

to advance.

stalemate had been reached.

Sergeant Luy was captured

from

late

21 February.

He had

just recovered

brief bout of dysentery. In the darkness of the night the

company

and he had realized he had wandered into enemy territory. A Very light went up, and he and his men were suddenly surrounded by

had

split,

FEBRUARY

l68

Tommies. So now the

was

case

Tommies began looking

of 'Come on, come on, hands up.' At once and shouting

for souvenirs, feehng pockets

'Watch, watch.' Luy pretended he couldn't speak English and said 'Capita

One

man

While Luy was kneeling to was suddenly kicked on the backside. 'I fell on the ground. Someone was shouting, and I heard, "Yes sir, Yes sir." It was clear to me that this was an officer. Suddenly all the soldiers took their rifles off their shoulders and pointed them at us. As soon as the officer went away they put the rifles back on their shoulders and began joking about him.' Luy and the others had to help with carrying some wounded men on stretchers. More Tommies, artillery men, came up and handed out cigarettes, trying to get into conversation. Luy had some bread which he was cutting with a penknife. Then another officer appeared, snatched the cigarette from Luy's mouth and broke it in half. 'He noticed my penknife and held it up, yelling at the Tommies. Then he closed it and put it in his pocket, and continued his morning walk. One of the Tommies quickly gave me his own knife and indicated that I should finish cutting the bread while he watched for the officer.' niente.'

little

seized his binoculars.

rescue his spectacles out of his haversack, he

war continued, Germans had a habit of knew where anybody

the west, in the labyrinthine wadis, a special sort of

stealthy

and hand-to-hand; here

eating a platoon for breakfast.

was

said that

Nobody

was. There seemed to be no fixed front

quite

line. It

was almost impossible

evacuate wounded, except along the deep stream-beds, and then there

was the danger of grenades being lobbed on you from above. The undergrowth was gradually being blasted away by grenades and the rifle- and mortar-bombs. Some day Arcadian peace would return to this once lovely part of Italy. But first shepherd's children would have their feet blown off by mines, and people would go hunting for souvenirs,

tommy-gun bullets or jagged pieces of shrapnel. Someone would find a German helmet with a hole through it, and he would fill it with apricots and lemons and tie a bow round it, as a present. And wild cyclamen would where the blood of the 7th Battalion of the Oxford and Bucks had soaked into the earth, in unimaginable pain and bewilderment. Nearer the Flyover and south of the caves was that notorious wadi called the Boot, and here among the craters lurked another dwindling spring up

company of able to

the

move up

The

157th Regiment.

and

their

for supplies.

Irish

their earlier

Dead End Road,

Templer's task force had been this

company would have been

would have had a lifeline As it was, the company was virtually marooned. Guards were in their rest area, back with B Echelon. After experiences, they expected, and hoped, to be despatched

secure,

opened up

to the

comrades

in the

caves

ANZIO - FISCHFANG quietly to Naples for refitting. Suddenly they relieve the

Americans

Brigadier described

on the

British

the Boot.

169

were

told that they

They were not

fooled

were

when

tidying-up arrangement, just to get

as a

all

the the

of the Via Anziate and the Americans on the right. 'The reassuringly, 'is very quiet, so you will have no trouble,

left

he said and your weakness does not matter.' sector,'

due course therefore the

Irish

Guards reached the Boot, where for

four nights they lived under constant attack, experience'.

They

also suffered

air

'savage brutish troglodyte

when

attack

anti-personnel

butterfly-bombs were sprinkled over them. Icy water swirled old and snipers.

new

'The bringing up of supplies every night was

nightmare. Carrying parties got

swearing troops heaved

Andrew

at their feet,

corpses lay unburied, being impossible to reach because of

Scott, always

them,

lost,

down came

amusing and

'a lot

the

of fun',

recurrent

bogged and,

jeeps got

shells.'

tried to

the

Their colonel,

keep up

spirits,

but everyone could see he was exhausted, 'You know,' one of his officers said,

actually

saw him talking

in his sleep

small diversion was provided the in a

nonchalant fashion with

first

with

his eyes

a bottle in his

hand.

wide open.'

German walking up He said that he had come

morning by

on his usual errand, to exchange cognac for bully beef or spam. 'SergeantMajor Pestell explained that the trade agreement had been cancelled "as from now". The German spent an unhappy day deepening Major G. FitzGerald's trench and asking at intervals why Irishmen were in Italy at all.'

being sent out from the caves to neighbouring farms. were brought back, and were initiated to a diet of K rations, not much appreciated. Sergeant Alvin Biggars of Arkansas went out with eight men and was pounced on by twenty Germans who leapt from overhanging trees. He beat them off, killing a few. As he said, 'They ain't so tough when they get into good hard fighting.' Private Jim Alcock was a poet. 'It did strike me vaguely that here was my chance to be America's Rupert Brooke. had nothing to write with anyway. And I was so tired. I tried to think of God; the fact that Jesus died to save us didn't help. I wondered a bit about what the guys with me thought they were fighting for, twenty-year-olds mostly from the MidWest, never crossed the ocean before — though, come to think of it, a few of them must have been descended from people escaping from persecutions in Europe. We were just cornered animals, unwashed and ugly. If we killed, we could go on living. Whatever we were fighting for seemed irrelevant. Only suffering was real.' The 2nd Battalion of the 7th Queen's Royal Regiment had landed on the 1 8th. It was now selected to take over from the 57th in the caves. On the way there were butterfly-bomb attacks, and the Germans used flamePatrols

Some

were

still

prisoners

FEBRUARY

170

throwers. Vehicles that were supposed to follow with supplies were

down by spandau fire. So by the time the Queen's had struggled through to the caves they were almost in as bad a condition as the people they were to relieve. 'In the caves we found many seriously wounded Americans, while huddled in the back galleries were about thirty Italian pinned

- men, women and children - and one large, very bad-tempered were now added our own wounded.' Because of supplies being delayed, the Americans reluctantly had to stay on a further twentyfour hours. Before dawn on the 23rd they pulled out, leaving the medical officer with eighteen of their wounded. They had to wriggle along ditches, and about half-way along were spotted and raked by machinegun fire. The column found itself spht in half. Captain Sparks was left without a single man in his company, except for Sergeant Leon Siehr, who worked his way back two days later. Three quarters of the battalion had been lost, and of the survivors ninety were hospital cases, several due to trench foot. Some men had lost their hearing after the constant din of refugees

pig; to these

gunfire in the caves.

Ammunition good

one'.

Now

was so precious that 'every shot had to be a the Germans were mortaring and machine-gunning the

in the caves

entrances 'to the lusty protestations of the pig and the only slightly

discordant wailings of

its

less

owners'. Tiger tanks cruised around outside,

clanking and grumbling. As food had given out, longing eyes were cast

emergency rations were eaten — 'an obnoxious mixture tasting like ammunition boots, sawdust and dried mud'. A signal was sent out for 'Uncle 5', the code-word for a Corps artillery concentration, which duly came to pass. But even after this the position was hopeless, and the Queen's were ordered to withdraw on the 24th. Again the Germans got wind, and very few Queen's men managed to get through, though one party was mistaken for Italian refugees and the pig. Instead

passed right through the

two days

enemy

lines

without being

fired on.

Altogether

men. On the same day the Irish Guards were thankful to hand over the Boot to the Duke of Wellington's Regiment. The first six Dukes to arrive seemed bewildered by the constant crashing of the shells and the glutinous mud, not to mention the appearance of the 'irrepressible' Captain D. M. Kennedy, red-eyed, grey-faced, with a torn trouser leg and flapping bandage. 'They're new, you see,' said a lieutenant introducing them. 'We only got them this morning.' The Dukes' Colonel Webb-Carter was to write: 'As the tall guardsmen filed out, leaving us the heritage of death and desolation they had borne so long, a peculiar sense of isolation struck in those

the Queen's lost 362 officers and

.' .

At the German 65th Division headquarters cost us a lot

of blood. The

lion's share

their diarist wrote: 'This has

of the success must go to the

ist

ANZIO - FISCHFANG Battalion of the 9th Panzer Grenadier

who It

has been

recommended

was on the 22nd

arrives

that Lucas

171

Regiment under Major Ecker,

tor the Knight's Cross.'

had put

in his diary:

with eight generals. What the hell.' at 8 p.m. He was m his

Clark sent for Lucas

'Message from Clark.

command

post in the

basement of Prince Borghese's villa. He said that Lucas was to be relieved from his command of VI Corps, and that this decision had been made because he could no longer

resist

the pressure

which came from

Alexander and Devers, Wilson's American deputy. That Alexander Lucas was defeated and Devers said he was tired.

said

Devers had come to Anzio to see Lucas a week or so previously. 'I was not surprised,' wrote Lucas, 'at General Alexander's attitude. He had been pretty badly frightened, but what heard about Devers was a great shock. 1

All of us

were

Had been

And thought was winning something of a victory. by the Army Commander after Harmon's counter-

tired.

told so

attack.'

Lucas said goodbye to Anzio the following day. in

the

world when

commanded them me.'

lost

in their

left

the finest soldiers

VI Corps, and the honour of having hour of greatest travail cannot be taken from the

MARCH

"...

forever.

Amen. Hit

the

dirt.'

"Go

tell th'

boys to line up, Joe.

We got fruit juice fer breakfca

"Tell him to look at th' bright side of things, Willie. His trees is pruned, his grau/nd is plowed up, an' his house is air-conditioned."

Rome In her large turreted house,

amid silver-framed photographs of the

royalty of Europe, old Mrs Tina Whitaker awaited 'the grand apocalypse'. She seemed to her daughters to be the more concerned because her German nurse had been ordered to leave Rome for Berlin, to work in a hospital.

'These Berhners,' Tina Whitaker wrote in her diary, 'are so

sentimental, always crying.'

The

nurse's soldier friend had encouragingly

Morgcn Rom kaputt.' crawl on sadly,' Tina continued. 'The days March. 'The 3 but most ot his family survived, property has Albano contadino from our Nemi which we Lake have been killed. Mrs Hodert's lovely villa on occupied in 1940 has been smashed up. Fear of water being cut off. A new told her: 'Anzio kaputt, Cassino kaputt. It

man

was

hunt.

Our Dr Rocco

witnessed

a terrible scene.

pregnant, rushed to embrace her husband,

who was

A young woman, A

being deported.

guard pushed her back violently. She tried once more to reach her husband, upon which the guard drew a revolver and shot her in the face. counted the sirens ten times this morning. Bombs falling, aeroplanes constantly overhead. Everyone in the house including Schwester Weisskopf [the nurse], but not me and my two girls, in a panic. We had to I

send them

down to the rifugio, some early Christian catacombs we opened From my window at nights see the red flickering line ot

recently.

Anzio.'

When

she was young Mrs Whitaker had had great promise as an opera and in 1881 she had sung before Wagner in Palermo. Now, as the bombs dropped, her daughters heard her break into Elsa's Dream from singer,

Lohengrin.

woman, who was also the was the spark that seemed, at last, to ignite the Roman people. She became the necessary martyr; her name was Teresa GuUace and she was thirty-seven, a popolana, a woman of the people. Her husband had been one of scores rounded up for forced labour and sent to The

incident of the shooting of the pregnant

mother of

five children,

MARCH

the barracks in Viale Giulio Cesare.

The Communist women - led by

the

Lombardo Radice - had helped to stir the fury of wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, and a great crowd gathered outside. The boy Peppino Zamboni was taken along by his Trasteverina aunt indefatigable Laura

Luisa,

even though she had no relations there - she could never bear to be

out of demonstrations.

left

mortacci tua,' Zia

unfortunate

'Fijo de

una mignotta,

venisse un bene, a

Luisa screeched at the Fascist guards.

rastrellati

could be seen

Some of

women

the gates, and

the

battled to

them packets of food or clothes. Then Teresa Gullace glimpsed her husband, and rushed towards him. 'She was only five metres away from me,' said Laura Lombardo Radice. 'I cannot swear whether the man who killed her was an SS motorcyclist or one of those imbecile, arrogant Fascist militia-men. remember vividly his pale face, fair hair and black uniform. saw the woman lying in the rubbish of the street - she died instantly. The confusion and uproar were dreadful. An ambulance arrived, and her husband was allowed out to accompany her body to the hospital. A young man was also killed trying to escape.' This was the incident that inspired the dramatic scene portrayed by Anna Magnani in Rome, Open City. Then Laura collected money for flowers, which she laid in the horrid mess of blood. She had some leaflets printed and circulated that same day. And in the afternoon there was another demonstration. Here the stories conflict a little. For whilst it is known that three Fascist 'traitors' were murdered by Gapists, it is not clear whether it was on this occasion that the man who was believed to have killed Teresa Gullace was himself shot by give

the

Communist

Fascist

partisan Blasi.

meeting, singled out

version

his target, shot

that Blasijust strolled into a

him dead and then walked

calmly out again. Whatever the truth, the fascination this

apparently brave partisan - small,

— should

the following

month

virile,

lies in

nervous, with

the fact that

little

blue eyes

turn traitor and betray his

own

comrades.

The

despair of the

Romans now

rose like an invisible supplication to

weeks the Allies were still at Anzio, any young man venturing out of doors was in danger of arrest, food was scarce and prices were soaring; it was very cold, gas and water were often cut off; there were the grisly stories of tortures at Via Tasso and by the Banda Koch, and of the executions at Forte Bravetta and Forte Boccea; and then, above all, there were the bombings with their daily toll of deaths. At least the Allies did not bomb Rome's historic centre, but many bombs in the areas of marshalling yards did go clumsily astray. The bombs dropped on March near the Vatican were, however, believed to be the work of Fascists, simply to create resentment against the Allies. The raid on the 3rd in the Testaccio district (some bombs falling on the the grey winter's skies. After six

ROME

177

Protestant cemetery near Keats' grave, and others destroying part of the

Aurehan wall) resulted in many dead. One of the worst was on 19 March, when some hundred people were killed near the Castro Pretorio barracks, which presumably had been the real target; other bombs fell on wings of the Policlinico hospital nearby, causing thirty deaths, and a direct hit on a tram killed sixty people. There were scarcely any precautions taken by the Roman authorities against these raids. Such was the feeling of chaos that quantities of families took to camping out in the Bernini colonnades leading up to St Peter's. A member of the Swiss legation, looking after British and French interests, told Sir D'Arcy Osborne that he had spent one of the most painful days in his life searching for the body of a Frenchwoman among the mangled corpses in the Morgue. The general fear and resentment in the city was palpably beginning to turn into a hatred of the Allies.

Meanwhile

blowing up vehicles, was also an attack on

the Gapists continued their attacks,

eliminating Fascist

spies.

Rome

Outside

Kesselring's headquarters at

there

Monte Soratte. Not surprisingly many arrests a key man in the Action party, was

followed. Professor Pilo Albertelli,

taken by Koch. So was

Tom

Carini, likewise betrayed

by an informer.

Carini was so badly punched and beaten up that he had to go to the

infirmary

the

Regina Coeli

confronted by Albertelli swollen for him.

in the

face. Albertelli's ribs

He had

prison.

When

his

arrest

he was

he could hardly recognize that

cell,

were broken, and each cough was agonizing air, and hung up by his heels; needles

been tossed into the

had been stuck under his finger nails and then heated up. After having been told by his captors that they would fetch his wife and rape her in

commit suicide, once by throwing himself window, once by cutting his wrists with broken watch glass. Eventually he was to die at the Ardeatine Caves. Another to be executed at the Ardeatine Caves was a simple contadino, Angelo Calafati, father of six. He had been hiding escaped prisoners — two front of him, he tried twice to

out of

Russians, one French and one British,

all

arrested and sent to con-

centration camps.

There were said to be 350 prisoners at Via Tasso. Harrowing messages reached the outside world, with rumours of brandings and of disinfectant poured into tubes inserted up the penis. The Jews had to live in the lavatory rooms, and other prisoners had to do their business in front of them. Food would be sent from Regina Coeli. Before it was given to the

Jews the guards would sometimes pans over

The Gestapo heard of barricades

swill dirty

water from the lavatory

it.

were

set

plots to

storm Via Tasso, so barbed wire and

outside. •¥^

MARCH

lyS

The two

girl Gapists,

Carla Capponi and Marisa Musu, had also been

the Viale Giulio Cesare riot. Carla had been arrested, but the

women

around her had converged on the Fascist police and tried to drag her back. In the turmoil Carla had managed to pass her revolver to Marisa, who in turn slipped

a Fascist

identity card into her friend's pocket.

Thus Carla

due course was able to be released, and was back that evening to help in doing justice to Teresa GuUace's assassins. Some days later Carla, entirely on her own, set fire to a German petrol lorry near the Colosseum. The fire almost got out of hand, and there was a danger to neighbouring houses. All day long smoke wreathed in and out of the Colosseum's arches, as if the shades of Nero's victims were at last released.

was

Carla cut her hair short and dyed it black. was On 10 March there an ambitious Gap attack with mortar-bombs and machine-gun fire on a Fascist procession in Via Tomacelli, with plenty of casualties. A reward of half a million lire was awarded for information about the perpetrators. When a Communist was arrested shortly afterwards and taken to Via Tasso, other prisoners could hear his screams as he was tortured, alternating with the monotonous voice of the interpreter: 'Tell me who threw the bomb at Via Tomacelli. Tell me who threw the bomb at Via Tomacelli.' In more fashionable circles in Rome jokes were at least occasionally possible. A rich Florentine, always bedecked with jewels, had rushed during an air-raid to a rifugio, there to bejoined by other women. They all knelt and prayed before a statue as the bombs thudded outside. When the lights came on the Florentine found that her companions were from the local brothel, and that they were all praying to a naked statue of Bacchus. It was a common sight in Rome to see ladies in high heels pushing prams with demijohns of water in them. Coprijuoco, curfew, parties were the fashion — you had to spend the night at your host's. Mrs Bruccoleri, although Irish, was chased by her porter's wife with a knife 'because of the Allied bombings'. And Baroness Corsi, English, had a bad time with her maid, who was caught stealing. 'Denounce me if you dare,' the maid cried, 'and shall have you sent to a concentration camp.' It

after this that

German girls,

and men on leave or passing through Rome were not aware of this current of hatred and fear. They made eyes at the

officers

necessarily

and waved from the

concerts, and at the

turrets

their tanks.

There were marvellous

Opera one could hear Beniamino

Gigli and Maria

Caniglia.

Lieutenant Ferdinand Schaller, for instance, was released from the wadi

country west of Buonriposo ridge the front line arrived

Anzio, and within hours of being in

unwashed and unshaven

at the

Hotel Regina.

ROME bathed and had unbelievable.

meal from

Then he went

outskirts of the city.

table with a white cloth.

to find the rest

wealthy

179

Italian

his

seemed

company on

the

couple was most hospitable - the

meat - and offered a log fire, and their piano. One evening his also played men had a Fest or party and for him, riding one another as if on horses, to English staged a march-past

man had

him

originally been concerned with importing

bedroom

upstairs. Schaller ate

with the family before

dance music.

Some German

soldiers

were stationed below Tivoli

the villa

belonging to the Jewish family of Nathan. Obviously they loved being there.

'The uncanny thing,'

Nathan daughter

said later, 'was that they

kept everything in perfect order, even leaving money, but

when

they

whole place was mined and could have been blown to smithereens. It was the British who stole our grand piano. But the Germans shot our dogs, which the British would never have done.' finally left the

Intelligence reports reaching

Germans were preparing

Caserta

still

to defend the city 'to the

maintained that the last',

ringing

with

Famous monuments and public buildings were being used as ammunition dumps. On the other hand there was no indication either that the Allies would recognize Rome's road-blocks and anti-aircraft batteries.

open

deepened at the Vatican about the Allies' a promise not to let aircraft fly over Rome on 12 March, the fifth anniversary of the Pope's coronation, and when a big concourse was planned in St Peter's Square. Osborne was particularly upset about this. He felt at least the promise could have been given as a courtesy. After all, the Vatican had interceded with thejapanese about Allied prisoners, and had been exceedingly generous to him and his staff, not to mention the ten British escaped prisoners who were being housed absolutely free. Protests about bombings in Rome reached King George VI, Churchill and Roosevelt from all the South American countries. The Foreign Office was impatient. 'We cannot enter into polemical telegraphic and other correspondence with the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Ecuador and Peru.' Finally Roosevelt was driven into making an official pronouncement: 'Everyone knows the Nazi record on religion. Both at home and abroad Hitler and his followers have waged a ruthless war against the churches of all faiths. Now the German army has used the Holy City of Rome as a military centre. No one could have been surprised by this ... It is a logical step in the Nazi pohcy of total war.' He also added that the Allies had made freedom of religion one of the principles for which they were fighting. All this while the 'scrimmage of power politics' continued between the six parties of the southern CLN and the Badoglio government in city status. Suspicions

motives

when

they refused to give

l80 Brindisi;

and

Rome

the

MARCH CLN was

being rent by argument.

still

Churchill was obviously very bored by Italian politics and repeated in the

Commons a version of the 'coffee-pot' half-joke that he had once made to Macmillan: 'It is hard enough to understand the politics of one's own country; .

it is

almost impossible to understand those of foreign countries

When you

handle

[i.e.

have to hold

hot coffee-pot

Badoglio and the King] off

it is

until

another equally convenient and serviceable or,

was not seen

better not to break the

you at

are sure

any

you

will get

rate, until there

funny by the Italians, and indeed caused outrage, with the threat of a ten minutes' token strike in Naples 'to tell Mr Churchill what our country wants'. Then came more dishcloth handy.' This

anger, about

rumour

that a third

as at all

of the

Italian fleet

would be handed

over to the Russians. Roosevelt,

always with the Presidential election

view, was getting

The fact that in Turin and Milan there had been a general strike, the first in occupied Europe, had shown that a new militant spirit was rising in Italy. Then there were continued complaints alarmed by the British

attitude.

that Fascist sympathizers

were

still

king was irretrievably tarnished. 'our advices

from

grouped round Badoglio, and

that the

March he cabled Churchill

Italy indicate that the political situation there

that

rapidly

deteriorating to our disadvantage and that an immediate decision in

breaking the impasse between the present government and the

He was

six parties

might have to use fire against anti-Fascist groups. The United States government favoured the southern six parties' proposal that the king should abdicate and the powers of his successor (either Prince Umberto or his son) should be delegated to a 'Lieutenant of the Realm', possibly Croce. To which Churchill replied in emphatic terms. He had no confidence in Croce, let alone in his bete noire Sforza, or for that matter in any southern politicians, 'ambitious windbags'. 'I understand from Macmillan,' he wrote, 'that Croce is a dwarf professor about seventy-five years old who wrote good books about aesthetics and philosophy Vyshinsky tried to read the books and found them even duller than Karl Marx.' In the midst of such a 'heartrending battle', he said, it would be wrong to get rid of Badoglio's 'tame and helpful' government. Churchill was of course anxious for a broad-based government, but this should wait, he repeated, 'until the battle has been gained or, best of all, when Rome is taken'. If Churchill had been able (let alone had the patience) to listen in to the explosive and utterly inconclusive conference, lasting eight hours, between the leaders of the CLN parties in Rome on 18 March, he would probably have doubted whether an all-party government would ever be is

essential'.

afraid that Allied authorities

possible.

Then everything, suddenly, appeared

have been turned upside

down

ROME

I»I

by Russia's announcement that it was ready to establish diplomatic government - evidently preparing the way for its recognition of Italy as a full ally, quite contrary to any agreement hitherto at the Moscow or Teheran conferences. Russia had also asked Badoglio for facilities for its airforce in southern Italy. The Russian representative on the Advisory Council was now Alexander Bogomolov, in Vyshinsky's place. As Bogomolov, whose behaviour was described to the Foreign Office as that of a 'penitent cobra', was unable to clarify Moscow's motives, it was obvious that this crafty move had been arranged by Vyshinsky before his departure. Badoglio, of course, was delighted, if only because two hundred thousand Italian prisoners were in Russian hands and might now be released. The greatest danger — and indeed it was probably the Russians' aim - was that the wedge between the Americans and British would now be deepened. The whole foundation of the Advisory Council and the Control Commission would also be undermined. As Macmillan said, the Russians were looking forward to more plums out of the Italian cake. 'We cannot disguise a diplomatic defeat if that is the proper description of a process by which we have been deceived by a tortuous and disingenuous policy pursued over a number of weeks by an Ally whom we were treating with complete good faith and frankness.' And the US ambassador in Moscow, relations with Badoglio's

Harriman, cabled the Secretary of difficult

road while the Soviets learn

State:

how

'We have to

behave

long and perhaps

in the civilized

world

community.' As it happened, Allied aircraft did keep away from Rome on 12 March. Mother Mary St Luke joined the enormous crowd in St Peter's Square. It was a cold and windy day. There was a strong rumour that the Holy Father would make some important announcement, perhaps about the withdrawal of the Germans from Rome. Mother Mary noticed that there were no Germans in the crowd - no doubt they respected the new temper of the Romans. On the way to St Peter's she noticed a strange thing, namely the sound of footsteps, 'the feet of a multitude converging on one spot', but no voices, let alone laughter. The Pope appeared on the balcony without any ceremony, his lone white figure standing out against the grey stone of the in

Mrs Whitaker's words, was ngrande delusione, just

need for prayer,

faith,

hope and

charity.

He annoyed some

impartiality, and his appeal to the 'vision and

war

to save

Communist

Rome

from

priest,

Don

ruin.

When

basilica.

was

over

about the

people by

wisdom' of both all

His speech,

'platitudes'

his

sides in the

a so-called

Catholic

Pecorano, created an uproar by shouting

'Down

with the Germans' and 'Long live Peace.' This was followed by others shouting 'We want bread.' Then Communist women, headed again by

MARCH

Laura Lombardo Radicc, distributed

blaming the presence of the Germans in Rome for the continued bombing by the Allies. As excitement grew and red flags were waved, mounted police rode into the crowd, firing shots into the air. People began to flee, and Mother Mary and other nuns pressed themselves against the walls of Castel Sant' Angelo, 'while frightened men and women ran past like leaves in the wind'. On the 14th the raids resumed, and in earnest. To Mother Mary that day was the worst since lyjuly 1943 when San Lorenzo was hit and there were a thousand casualties. 'Bombs fell in streets where queues were lined up for water from emergency pipe lines, and simply wiped out entire groups. One woman was beheaded by the blast, the body of another was thrown on to a telegraph wire.' This happened whilst Lily Marx was on her way to her boyfriend Ettore Basevi of the clandestine Centro X information centre. Thanks to Monsignor O'Flaherty she, a Jew, was officially Chancellor of the Legation of Haiti and therefore living in extraterritorial property. Apart from being in charge of finance for Centro X and editing its daily clandestine bulletin, she was an expert forger of permits and identity documents in Gothic script, and was now bringing a consignment to Basevi. When she heard the bombs she was terrified, and then to her horror on reaching Via Nomentana she found the street blocked off. 'Oh my God, my God,' she thought, 'Ettore's been hit.' She begged the police to let her through, saying that she was his wife. But he was safe, by a miracle. His neighbour Virginio Gayda, the famous foreign editor of the Giomale d' Italia, and author of so many tirades against the British and Americans in the early war years, had been killed - ironically whilst leaflets

having an English lesson. In the dells

of the Vatican gardens the mimosa was

D'Arcy Osborne,

dignified and calm,

would be

now

bloom.

Sir

seen exercising his aged

and admiring the camellias in the occasional sunshine. Sometimes he would be with his friend Tittmann, who would limp along the paths with his two lively boys, 'Haroldino' and 'Tarzan'. The gardens had a formality which reminded Osborne, in spite of those great dark cairn terrier

flames of cypresses, of public parks at Iltracombe or Scarborough; there

were some

was a little Renaissance pavilion of the time of Paul IV away from all the saluting and bowing from the hips within the Vatican and even St Peter's. Now the war had brought to the gardens a genteel shabbiness mixed with typically Italian exuberance, but Osborne never tired of gazing at Michelangelo's dome, especially in the evenings, when it seemed to swim, enormous and iridescent, a contrast to the ugly power station and the radio masts. It was even possible to walk in the gardens at nights, the fairly ostentatious buildings

around, but

his favourite spot

ROME

183

disadvantages being frogs, which might be squashed underfoot, or

Ethiopian

priests,

and black

faces.

who were

almost invisible with their black garments

The only time

the gardens

were closed was when the

Holy Father took his constitutional. The French ambassador, Berard, being pro-Petain, was not on speaking terms with Osborne and Tittmann, who referred among as the 'Marquise de Vichy' and to his typist as the 'Marche Funebre'. Eyes therefore had to be averted when passing in the Vatican gardens, not always easy on account of the Berards' sheepdog, Judith, which seemed to have an aversion to pets of Anglo-American

themselves to his wife

ownership.

The mysterious lone aircraft known as the Black Widow was heard no more over Rome. Actually it had been found out by AFHQ at Caserta that the bombs dropped on i March had been from a British plane. The pilot

of a Wellington had mistaken

night photograph

now

his target during the bad weather, as a showed. This discovery could not of course be

made public, but AFHQ in making a clean breast to the Air Ministry in London felt impelled to add that the captain had been Pilot Officer

McAneny 'who

Roman

Catholic

faith',

adding that 'unfortunate

incidents cannot be prevented without imposing unacceptable restrictions

on our

air operations'.

bombing of Monte Cassino the Derry-O'Flaherty organizawas finding some difficulty in getting billets for new arrivals, mostly from the Anzio Beachhead. Among those who hid 'lodgers' were the film stars Gina Lollobrigida and Flora Volpini; and the Vatican had taken in two American airmen. There were one or two flurries of anxiety, when Since the

tion

for instance a British officer stole the pennant off General Maeltzer's car,

and another was arrested by German soldiers and fought his way to Bill Simpson was in a bar when some German

freedom. Lieutenant

officers entered, 'accompanied by a flat-nosed giant', none other than the heavyweight boxing champion Max Schmeling. Simpson could not leave

without arousing suspicion, so he decided to offer drinks all around. In due course he found himself having to join in a sing-song round the piano.

piece of good

news

Derry was the sudden appearance of a British key figure in the escape organization, who had been recaptured by the Germans in January and believed shot. This bouncing little man, with a gift for languages, had been through some wild experiences. He had, among other things, originally been in charge of sending out funds from Derry to Sulmona, where many exprisoners were hiding with Italian families. His name however had been betrayed to the Germans by an Australian sergeant-major. This had led to a chase through the streets of Rome, ending at a building near Santa for

soldier of Czech origin, Joe Pollak, a

MARCH

184

Maria Maggiore. Stupidly he had spoken to the porter

in ItaHan:

escaped British soldier. Please help me.' Since he was small and dark, and

was merely a pickpocket am the Pope.' So on il Papa, and Pollak was caught, and after further adventures taken to Sulmona. There again no one would believe he was British, and he expected to be shot as a Jewish spy. After contracting pleurisy in a damp cell, he was put on a train for Germany. He escaped during an RAF bombing attack, and for a while dressed in civilian clothes, the porter thought he the run, and therefore replied: 'Edio sono

travelled to

Rome

underneath

a lorry

carrying

German

soldiers

The Gapists continued their attacks with increasing confidence. On 20 March three German motorcyclists were ambushed on the Appian Way. On 21 March a German truck was attacked near St John Lateran, and an officer was seriously wounded. On 22 March a lorry loaded with troops was attacked in Via dell'Impero; four Germans were killed and some wounded. On the same day there was an encounter with a patrol in Via degli Annibaldi, with one killed and one wounded. Carla Capponi took lessons in converting mortar-bombs into hand

much

grenades. She and Rosario Bentivegna, both in several actions together as a team,

two major operations

and

now

March,

in love,

had taken part

they and other Gapists were

day of special significance since it was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of Fascism. The first action was to plant a bomb under the stage at the Adriano theatre, where all the leading Fascists in Rome would be gathered. The second would perhaps be even more devastating: to ambush and blow up a column of some hundred and fifty German police on its daily march through the centre of Rome. If both those actions succeeded, this could be plotting

for 23

the signal for a general uprising.

The second

plan was under the

command

of Carlo

whose had marched

Salinari,

nome di battaglia was Spartaco. For some while those police on an identical route, always at the same time, clumping in their nailed boots and singing in a way particularly irritating to Romans, from Piazza del Popolo through Piazza di Spagna and past the Spanish Steps, then to Via del Tritone and up the narrow Via Rasella. It had been realized by Salinari that Via Rasella was the ideal place to entrap them. The plan was to detonate a huge bomb, which would be concealed in a street-cleaner's cart. But who would be right for this task? Salinari asked Carla her opinion.

For

Not

surprisingly she suggested Bentivegna.

his part Salinari

not sure about Blasi,

was inclined towards

Blasi. Carla,

however, was

who was a piccolo artigiano (literally, a small artisan) goods. He was a married man and always worried

and lived off stolen about money. Bentivegna was university educated, very courageous and an optimist, definitely not

worrier. So Salinari suggested Blasi as

ROME Bentivcgna's

number two. Here

again Carla was doubtful. She

185

would

have preferred Marisa Musu.

was not yet decided whether Marisa Musu or Carla should a change of plan, histead of the bomb under the stage, a pram with another bomb would be pushed into the meeting by one of the girls. There would only be fourteen seconds between detonation and explosion. Little did the Gapists know that the Germans had been debating whether they would even allow - in view of the Via Tomacelli incident such an important gathering of key Fascists in a public place. Finally General Maeltzer took the decision: the meeting would not be at the Adriano theatre, but at the heavily guarded Ministry of Corporations. So the Gapists were foiled of one supreme act of defiance. The result was that neither Marisa Musu nor Blasi became Bentivcgna's number two at Via Rasella; it was to be Carla.

However

undertake the Adriano theatre operation. For there had been

Cassino

19 February General Freyberg

- Anzio

had decided that an all-out

assault

town o( Cassino itself was his only solution. This, 'Operation Dickens', would be followed by a massive push up the Liri valley,

the

towards Anzio and, eventually,

Rome.

mind primarily on Anzio, was 'really shocked' at the proposal that the Monte Cassino feature should be bypassed. He had realized that Freyberg was coming to the conclusion that it was impregnable. The plan was to pulverize the town from the air, followed by an artillery barrage from every gun that could be mustered with tanks Clark, his

and troops

wake.

in its

General Tuker's

In other

words, Freyberg was

at last

accepting

tactics.

After discussion with Clark, Freyberg agreed on

double attack, on

both the town and the ruined Monastery, some of whose walls were still a height o( forty feet. The bombardment of both targets

standing to

would be

far

heavier than on 15 February - like nothing indeed that had

ever been attempted before. In effect, therefore,

experiment, which

if successful

Overlord, and

such

could be similarly used

appealed to the

would be an at

the time of

US Commander

of the

who was Commander of

Mediterranean Allied Tactical Air Force, General John K. Carr, ready to 'whip out Cassino like an old tooth', and to the the

US Army

Americans

Air Forces in Washington, General

in the

higher levels of the Fifth

Army

Hap Arnold. Most

were, however,

full

unease.

Freyberg would have to capture two strongpoints, shown on maps as known in the Cassino drama as Hangman's Hill

Points 435 and 192 but

and Castle Hill. The former, only three hundred yards from the Monastery and nearly on the same level, was an exposed knoll on which stood the gallows-like shape of a ruined pylon - the i/9th Gurkhas were to have the fearsome job of scaling it. The latter place, also known as Rocca Janula, in palmier days would have been considered a romantic

CASSINO - ANZIO

187

it was by a tower and with wooded slopes where May; the 6th NZ Infantry Brigade and the 19th NZ Armoured Regiment were to capture this and the main part of the old town clustered below.

spot,

surmounted

nightingales sang in

had been

insisted

by Freyberg

prerequisite for the attack.

that three days

without

'brushed aside' complaints that

rain it

was

would be

through the debris. General Eaker wrote to Washington: 'I am anxious that you do not set your heart on a great victory as a result of this operation. Personally, I do not feel it will throw the German out of his present position completely and entirely, or compel him to abandon his defensive role.' The streams were swollen, he said, and the land had become a quagmire. Added to which the Germans had their artillery on the high ground, and all the defiles were heavily mined. The multi-national regrouping of Allied forces showed how important it was to have a diplomat like Alexander in overall command. The New difficult for tanks to get

General Arnold

Zealanders relieved the Japanese-Americans.

their left, at the entrance

was the British 78th Division brought over from the Eighth Army, with the Americans on the Tyrrhenian coast. To the right were the Indians, and beyond them the Algerians. The Germans had also reorganized. General Baade's 90th Panzer Grenadiers had been relieved by the ist Parachute Division, described by the historian of the opposing Indian battalion as 'one of the greatest of the

Liri valley,

fighting formations ever to take the

The code signal

field'.

was appropriately sporting, even if 'Bradman bats tomorrow'. Unfortunately for Freyberg's plan it rained every day for three weeks, and postponement followed frustrating postponement. Thus the Germans had time to fortify the cellars in Cassino town. Meanwhile the New cricket

was

for the Allied attack

closed world to Americans:

Zealanders shivered under their gas-capes in ruined farmhouses and sodden foxholes, to the

shells,

marmots

accompaniment of an apparently

endless swish and crash

punctuated by cracks of bullets from snipers hidden

on Snakeshead and the bleak ridges near the Monastery the Indians had to contend with blizzards. Every day it was reckoned there would be fifty casualties. Mortars crunched down, and again there were snipers, always snipers. Mines were the great dread. in the rocks

above.

The scribe of the 4th

One

Indian Division recounts two stories of this period. of the 'proud death' of Subedar Subramanyan of the nth Field

Park Company. a minefield.

He went with others to rescue a

mine sprang Subedar Subramanyan threw himself lives of his comrades by absorbing the burst.' The concerns Major Clements of the nth Field Regiment. 'He

elapsed before the

upon

and saved the

other story

British officer trapped in

shrapnel mine was detonated. 'In the four seconds which

MARCH

188

had ended

long and exhausting tour

observation post

Monastery.

spandau-swcpt

artillery

rear walls of the

On his return to his battery he found

who besought him, visit

few hundred yards from the

should he ever be

in the

a letter from his mother neighbourhood, not to fail to

the famous Benedictine hospice.'

A word

must

now

be added on the behalf of mules -

love-hate relationship with the

towards hate.

was

essential to

human

of their

in spite

species, often tipping the scales

keep clear of the teeth and hooves of these

'four-footed playfellows' and one was not sure whether they responded

Urdu, French, Italian or broadest Brooklynese. Nevertheless without mules the Gurkhas - at any rate - felt that the battles in Italy would never have been won. Alas, there were too few of the animals best to

available,

and

casualties

among them were

high.

General Heidrich was the formidable, and to some arrogant,

of the German

ist

commander

Parachute Division; 'he tolerated no weakness, and had

no thought for his own comfort'. But the 'soul' of the defence of Cassino town was Colonel Heilmann of the 3rd Para Regiment. To those two

men

the parachutists

owed

them such

the inspiration that gave

reputation for esprit de corps and toughness. Heilmann 's courage was

legendary; he was said to drive a white sports car in places under

enemy

artillery observation.

Lower in

Austermann was with the ist had thejob of strengthening some of the cellars in the area of the Fishmarket, beneath Castle Hill. All the country nearest the river was under water, which had even penetrated the churches where Pioneer

the hierarchy, Lieutenant Heinz

Company

that

mouldering corpses of over a hundred Italian civilian victims of former raids - now a feast for rats, too fat even to swim any more. The

floated the

were cobbled and narrow. Mattresses and sofas had been dragged into the cellars, so life was almost comfortable. It was somehow reassuring to be told that the castle above had been built when streets outside

the Hohenstaufens, Germans, had ruled in Naples.

From windows of the less damaged houses you could moving into the outlying streets. During

actually see

Zealanders

March hundreds of lorries could be counted in range of German artillery. Such activity made that a

new

attack could not be far off, and they

a single

the

first

day —

New

days of

all

out of

the paratroopers realize

were ready

for this trial

strength.

The

attack

began on

March.

Almost the only good news, said Clark, that he could remember about time was that, because of his 'preoccupation' with the Italian campaign, 'I had been relieved of all further responsibility for the "Anvil" this

CASSINO - ANZIO

189

invasion of Southern France.' General Wilson in particular had been lately

abandonment of the project. Few wartime issues had shown such acute divergence between American and British strategists. The Americans had seen Anvil as part o{ a great pincer movement in the final invasion of France, with Clark as its commander, pressing for the entire

but the British, traditionally

sea-power and thus accustomed to using

external lines ot communication, had always favoured the policy of attrition

- smaller actions - resulting in

the Balkans

main

theatre.

Now,

in various parts

of Southern Europe, including

the syphoning off of

German

because ot the tailure to capture

troops from the

Rome, and

the

shortage of landing-craft, the resources for a major landing in Southern France to coincide with Overlord were obviously no longer available. It

was agreed by the Combined Chiefs of Staff that the campaign would have to have overriding priority over all operations

in Italy in

the

Mediterranean. Less controversial, indeed

ing offensive against to the north

Rome.

welcome, was Operation Strangle,

German communication In this, for the

centres, road

bomb-

and

rail,

time being, the information from

American OSS agent, Peter Tompkins, played an important part, though it was soon to come to a halt with the arrest of his radio operator. And it was at this moment of particular stress, Clark later remembered, that he was being niggled by directives trom Churchill insisting that the

in personal

and

memoranda the word

'theatre'

never

'through' should never be spelled 'thru',

'theater'.

At Anzio, between 20 and 28 February, fighting had been confined to local actions, particularly in the wadis. A feature of this hand-to-hand wartare was that neither side was certain where exactly the other was. People lived like savages, faces smeared with mud, clothes never changed, creeping and pouncing in the darkness, lunging with bayonets, firing

The Germans made various overcome the Swallow's Nest, alias the Fortress, which was strewn with the unbuned bodies ot their Sturm Regiment. And the rain pelted down. Signallers, dog-tired, tried to keep the communications going, stumbling into gullies and shell-holes, equipment soaked, fingers numb. A company o{ the Sherwood Foresters was attacked by tlame-throwers within an hour or so of relieving the Queen's. Everyone in it was killed or captured. A culvert under the Anziate road gave some welcome protection until the rain turned the water into a river, washing away earth over shallow graves and revealing a khaki-covered arm or a boot. Everyone was exhausted, hardly noticing now the shrieks of the sobbing sisters, the multi-barrelleci Ncbelwerters. The Foresters' adjutant would give the signal tor an all-out 'stonk' by the American blindly into bushes at the least rustle.

unsuccessful attempts to

MARCH

artillery, and next morning would forget that he had ever done it. At least one could be sure that a great percentage of German shells were duds. Brigadier Scott-Elliott of the Oxford and Bucks, in a wadi way out beyond the Lobster Claws, would regularly get a telephone call from his boss Templer. 'Hullo, Jimmy, that you?' 'Yes.' 'Good, still there.' And

Gerald Templer would ring off

Colonel David Wedderburn of the Scots Guards was hit whilst at B rest area, and died of his wound. 'He was a fantastic person,'

Echelon, the

and good-looking, a good for a change - had hit an umbrella pine, causing an air-burst. It had also killed two Scots Guards majors, two subalterns and the colonel's driver, and had wounded to another. Captain Peter Tunnard, unaware of this, arrived at Corps see a fellow Scots Guards officer (Lord John Hope) and found him absolutely grey, having just heard the news. 'If ever morale was to touch rock bottom, it did so that afternoon.' Since 22 January the Scots Guards had lost fifteen officers and 122 other ranks killed, nine officers and 303 other ranks wounded, four officers - including the Padre and Doctor -

one of

his corporals

athlete, smashing.'

remembers, 'very

The same

shell

- not

tall

dud

and 213 other ranks missing. The equivalent number.

Irish

Guards and Grenadiers had

Because of the overwhelming Allied

artillery

the

lost

Germans found

virtually hopeless to lay telephone wires at the front. In the wadis,

communications with the observation posts had to be by runner. Corporal Liebschner would occasionally have to take messages back to 65th Divisional Headquarters. there in

I'm

cave

all

He would

Pfeifer,' the general said the first time.

trestle

Helmuth Pfeifer sitting wooden props. 'Yes, He made you sit down on a

find General

alone, behind a blanket screen with

bed. There

would only be

few radio operators outside the

cave. Pfeifer, always simply dressed, and walking with a stick, would sometimes stay all night with an officer at a particularly dangerous position, talking to him, giving him courage. It was said that he longed to die a soldier's death. He had been wounded five times; he was to be wounded again and on 22 April 1945 he was killed by a dive-bomber, just

before the

war ended.

about 23 February Liebschner had to guide Pfeifer's cave to receive the Knight's Cross. Liebschner

his lieutenant

slept a

good hour

or so while Lieutenant Engelhardt chatted with the general, and was

awakened

to see the cross glittering in the candlelight. Engelhardt

from the general. Once Liebschner was chased and machine-gunned by

carrying

a bottle

Lightning aircraft

of wine,

when

was also

present

bicycling along

a track.

The

two-tailed

Allied ships firing

CASSINO - ANZIO the wadis a

young

were the very

devil.

I9I

minds off the

shelling

blankets they used to plan ideal houses together -

where

a trench with and the soaking many bedrooms,

Liebschner usually shared

architect; to take their

how

nursery would be, even colour schemes.

Sergeant Bernhard Luy after his capture by the British was cross-

who

spoke faultless German. His jacket which was watched with great interest by his Tommy captors. Then Luy and other Germans were put into the hold of a Liberty ship bound for Naples. Luy was uneasy about the ship, which he thought was poorly built. When dark came, the engines were switched off, and the Germans were told that they were lying beside an island; the crew would not travel by night for fear of U boats. The prisoners were awoken by a hammering sound and the noise of people rushing about. The guard had disappeared and the only door was locked. The hammering increased like a rhythm. Now people above were shouting, and some prisoners began to panic, shouting, 'Aufmachen, aufmachen, open up, open up.' 'Surely,' Luy wrote, 'they were not going to let us drown like rats. Suddenly a hatch opened. Somebody shone a torch and rolled down a rope ladder calling, " Rauskommen schnell, schnell." We all climbed up. When we got to the top we saw that the boat was very close to a rock, which obviously had caused the hammering. The boat was tilting, and you could see sailors disembarking. People were sliding down ropes on to that rock, which was getting overcrowded. We realized we were to be the last, and were worried if there would be enough room. However, now we could see Tommies putting down ladders from the cliff tops, and Americans climbing up. Suddenly there was a heavy explosion in the middle of the boat, and quite a panic followed some Blacks stretched a net, and the rest of the Americans jumped, followed by the German prisoners. A few of my friends missed the net and were sucked under the boat, others jumped into the open sea on the other side. The rain was heavy, and there was quite a storm. Out of forty-six prisoners ten were lost and some had broken limbs and other injuries because of the rocks Later the Tommies marched us through a village, and some Italians appeared with knives, indicating that they wanted to cut our throats. The Tommies seemed to expect this and fired shots, which made the Italians run away. We were taken to a big house near some beached ships, but the Italian woman there refused to make a fire even though we were wet through. A British corporal, however, brought hot tea, biscuits and some questioned by an American Jew, pockets were emptied,

process

wood

for the stove.'

The next

day, by a subterfuge,

Luy found

that the

name of the

they were on was Ponza, which was where Mussolini had

first

island

been

MARCH

192

interned after his arrest in July 1943.

What was more,

transpired that

they were in the very house where Mussohni had then hved.

Hitler's insistence another

major attack had

Beachhead. Once again he intervened

made on

to be

the

main effort should be against the American sector in the south, between Cisterna and Nettuno. He believed that the country there was easier for tanks, and also felt that the Allies would be forced to remove their reserves from the Via Anziate area, which would then be laid open for one more final thrust to spHt the Beachhead in two. Mackensen and Kesselring were in tactics,

demanding

that the

forced to accede.

Dummy tanks were placed in the Alban Hills and Ardea areas, but here once more Peter Tompkins

were not sited

foiled.

He was

long-range

even so the

latter

too quickly into

The

attack

Rome was able to tip off the Allies and they some of the newly gun Anzio Annie - but

able to provide locations of

artillery, as

well as the railway

could never be silenced, since snakelike its

disappeared

tunnel.

was planned

hours because of torrential

for 28 February, but delayed twenty-four rain. In spite

of Hitler's directive, Mackensen

soon found that he was having most success at Carano nearer the Anziate, against the 509th US Parachute Infantry. A company was overrun, and

seemed really serious. 'God,' their colonel, Bill Yarborough, remembered, 'we were attacked with everything, including flame-throwing tanks, and still didn't give up.' The Germans, knowing that it was a sensitive area, kept hammering away. 'The word was whatever you have you hold. It was one hell of a fight, and we thought that the German attack was really going to roll over our final protective guess. And then all the line. It came within two hundred yards of it, Corps artillery we had was churning up the ground in front of us. The Germans came forward in their usual disciplined way and tried to dig in their weapons; but, boy, the stuff that was flying in the air around there. Nothing could live, and so they finally stopped.' At 6.30 p.m. on March Kesselring ordered the attack to be called off. In two days the Germans had lost nearly three thousand men and at least thirty tanks, without any worthwhile gains. The next day being clear and brilliant, the Allied planes came out into the attack, and in a very big way, concentrating on assembly points and gun positions, from Cisterna to Campoleone and Velletri. 201 Fortresses and 96 Liberators, escorted by 76 Lightnings and Thunderbolts, dropped 349 tons of fragmentation bombs. 'Christ, General,' Truscott's aide said to him, 'that's hitting a guy when he's down.' But Wynford VaughanThomas, the BBC correspondent, thought that 'the great flight of aircraft looked strangely beautiful, remote, and efficient, as they came in from the for a while matters

CASSINO - ANZIO south

193

an endless stream, jettisoned their load of death with

a clinical

detachment and swung back for more'.

There could have been little enthusiasm by the German task force sent Canadian-American Special Service Force, on the lower reaches of the Mussolini Canal - such was the reputation of these 'Black Devils'. And indeed it made no progress whatsoever. 'The Krauts were afraid of us,' said one Devil, Stoney Wines. 'They had been told that we took no prisoners and that most of us were exconvicts and would show them no mercy.' General Frederick had the idea of printing stickers with the words 'The Worst is Yet to Come' in German, and these would be pasted on the foreheads of Germans killed during patrols. 'Killing is our Business' was also the Devils' motto, and night raiding the speciality. As a Canadian journalist wrote, 'When a toughjob comes up, the Black Devils take to it like a duck to water. They revel in danger. With blackened faces and armed to the teeth they make desperate silent killings, and come back as dawn streaks the Italian sky, bloody, weary, torn but grimly satisfied.' General Frederick was an unlikely figure to command this 'mob': slight, pale, neat, with a little moustache. Often he went on patrols himself, 'just to check conduct'. On one occasion a patrol of Forcemen was caught in a minefield, and a heavy German barrage opened up. A stretcher-bearer was hit, and his fellow turned angrily to the nearest against the

soldier: 'For Christ's sake, don't stand there. litter!'

The

soldier obeyed,

and only

Grab the other end of

base was

this

discovered that he was

Frederick.

Morale among the Allies had quickly begun to rise now that Truscott was in command of VI Corps. There was a feeling of positive action, of determination. Truscott

wine shop, and on

moved

his

headquarters out of the cellars to

Mauldin with the caption, 'The hell this ain't the best hole in the world. I'm in it.' While he held his briefings, shells would be crashing down in the square outside and anti-aircraft

He was white liked

scarf.

wall he had

cartoon by

Bill

guns clattering away almost deafeningly. quiet

man, usually dressed in breeches, leather jacket and a his head was too small for his helmet. The British

People said

him and he

liked them.

believed in being seen.

To some

extent,

said, he was of the Patton variety. 'But he wasn't as hard-boiled as Georgie was, and he wasn't quite the showman that Georgie was ... he

Clark

was a dashing cavalryman.' During the succeeding month the 504th Parachute Infantry and the Rangers were withdrawn from Anzio, to be replaced by the 34th Infantry [Truscott]

Division. In the British sector,

now

the smallest, Templer's 56th Division

MARCH

was being replaced by the

sth Division

under Gregson-Ellis from the withdrawn and their

Garigliano; the three Guards battaHons were also

by the nSth Infantry Brigade. Truscott thus had five divisions British and three American, plus the irrepressible Black Devils, who carried on their private war in the old Pontine Marshes .across the Mussolini Canal. Since 22 January the total American Beachhead casualties were reckoned at 10,775; the British were 10,168, and the German 10,306 place taken

under

officially,

Hitler

command, two

his

but probably greater.

was

Berchtesgaden, whilst

his

'Wolf's Lair' in East Prussia was

He was in a poor mood, and his Eva Braun, found him old and sombre. It was, therefore, not the best of times for Kesselring's youthful-looking chief of staff, Westphal, even if he was friendly with Hitler, to tell him that the German strength at Anzio was no longer adequate, and that the sacrifice of troops must be stopped at once. This did indeed precipitate an outburst of Hitlerian rage, and it was demanded that twenty officers of all ranks should forthwith be sent up from the Beachhead, to account personally for such a shameful business. As Westphal said: 'Hitler would have done still better to visit the front himself and be convinced of our aerial and artillery inferiority on the being fortified against Russian

air attacks.

girlfriend,

spot.'

Westphal spent more than three hours with

Hitler,

and was often

interrupted. 'At the end he [Hitler] said, with obvious emotion, that he

knew

well

how

great

was the war-weariness which

afflicted the

people

and also the Wehrmacht. He would have to see how he could bring about a speedy solution. To do so, however, he needed a victory.'

The group of

officers

was

led

by General Walther

Fries

of the 29th

Panzer Grenadiers, and Hitler grilled them for two days. Fries gave decisive causes of the failure:

The

fire

that

The complete air superiority of the

the

Allies; 2

superiority of enemy artillery, including naval guns; 3 The fact was impossible for the Germans to commit their heavy armoured

forces at the critical time because of the soft

swampy ground,

travel off the

highways and hard surfaced roads not being feasible to any extent. The co-ordination between enemy artillery air observers and their own artillery had been excellent, with disastrous effects also on German artillery sites. Hitler then said: 'In other words, you believe we should have fighters?' The answer could only be in the affirmative. Fries vigorously objected to the suggestion that his troops' morale had been low. In so many cases reinforcements had been insufficiently trained, and they had immediately been subjected to enormous strains. Even, he said, the most superior infantry force is no longer able to advance if it is

CASSINO - ANZIO being smashed by massed

artillery fire

and

195

air attacks.

Only

ten per cent

of the German losses had been due to infantry weapons; fifteen per cent had been due to enemy bombing, seventy-five per cent to artillery. At the end Field-Marshal Keitel said to Westphal: 'You were lucky. If we old tools had said even halt as much the Fuehrer would have had us hanged.'

the subject of Nazism, an artilleryman of the

German 65th

Division

were Nazis in the Army but on the whole we fought for our country and not for Hitler. Everybody knew that after the sorrowful and sad end of the First World War we could not expect anything good should we lose the war. In my opinion the Germans were only better soldiers because there was no other choice. We were so poorly equipped after the end of the so-called Blitzkriege that we had either to be brave or give up. The Allies could save lives because you had more and better weapons ... As sons of their mothers our soldiers wanted to come home safe, and as partners of their comrades they did not want to let them down. think something like this is in every honest army.' And another, from the same division: 'Did / feel that we were has said: 'There

defending civilization against the barbarian hordes? Yes,

did, but only in

The Russians were our enemy number one. The fear of those "sub-humans" entering our country and plundering, burning and raping as they went along (which in fact did happen) forged the German nation into the kind of war-machinery which still fought on when all hope of victory had long gone. As regards the British and the Americans, they were simply pawns in the plot of International Jewry to relation to the Russians.

achieve world domination. There was always

a certain respect for the

bombing, for fairness, but the Americans did not have this reputation - they were considered flamboyant, too rich to be true, rather insensitive. On newsreels one could see over and over again how ignorant were the captured American air-crews. They really had no idea what they were doing and why they were fighting: just paid mercenaries The German front-line soldier did not know about the concentration camps, nor about any other crimes committed by our side. British,

even

And

the height of the

that applied to the vast majority

which we

civilians too.

The only crimes

were aware of were those committed by the Russians and the Allies. know it is very difficult for the British and Americans to understand, but unless they do they will never be able to explain why sixty miUion people were able to fight the rest of the world and keep them at bay for over five years - Pfeifer's voluntary death only makes sense in soldiers I

these terms.' In effect, stalemate

also incapable

had

of further

now

been reached

attacks.

Anzio, for the Allies were

Mackensen, however, guessed

that if the

MARCH

196 Allies

succeeded

Cassino an attempt would be

out ot the Beachhead. In

this

made by them

to break

he was right, for Truscott was planning just

such an operation, codenamed Panther, which

it was hoped would start on 19 March. For the Germans, however, it was important to keep up aggressive patrols and raids. The Allies must never be allowed to feel that they had

the

whiphand

And

Anzio.

so landed at Anzio docks on 2 March with the Green Howards. Within ten minutes was nearly killed by a shell from Anzio Annie, the railway gun. Within three days was at the Fortress, and there stayed for a fortnight - not so very far from the wadi where Nick Mansell had died, though did not know it. 'Quiet, yer bloody fool,' were the words that welcomed me at the Fortress on arrival at night. 'Jerry's only seventy yards away.' As wrote afterwards to my brother: 'My first shock was the sight of no less than eight dead Jerries in various stages of decomposition. They were too far gone to be removed. Anyway perhaps they were a useful deterrent to any more hostile patrols. But the smell of them — and the smell of human shit and empty tins - was atrocious. Eventually I got used to these bundles with wax faces. People had been looting their wallets, and photographs were scattered around. I picked a photo up but was ashamed to pinch it, and couldn't even take a postcard of Romulus and Remus.' By day it was fairly quiet at the Fortress, but at night shells whirred and sighed continually overhead, and there were air-bursts. Machine-guns spattered, Jerry mortars coughed, ack-ack crackled, bombs crumped. The sky was like a deadly fireworks display. 'One day saw a helmet moving across a gap,' I went on in my letter. 'Often we heard voices. Further away we could see a spandau post on a ridge - too far to snipe at the men walking so obviously on the skyline, and too near for our mortars, and anyway we didn't want to attract fire on our positions. It was all so ridiculous, I even saw a German relieving himself on the hillside in full view.' had brought the Everyman edition of War and Peace, but only the Peace parts were suitable for front-line reading. Two Germans, who turned out to be Danes, wandered into the British lines carrying a dixie of greasy stew, which tasted and found 'filthy muck'. One night heard a German patrol creeping about in the undergrowth, making bird noises. 'Ten yards away from me there was distinct movement. We positively hared into our trenches, and I belted off with a tommy, and Corporal Humphrey with a bren. Then Corporal H. chucked a grenade and one was thrown back at us. This went on for a bit. Next morning Davis said he had seen a dead Jerry just where I'd fired. My first kill! Everyone is so I

CASSINO-ANZIO amazingly cheerful. feeling,

what's

You

almost thrilling

don't actually

in a

more you can laugh

way. Like

feel

depressed

a child's

at all

game on

it's

a strange

a large scale,

and

at these idiotic things.'

changed somewhat, as confessed in my diary, as more were killed and became affected by the 'frantic' strain of sleepless nights and of watching for German patrols. Sometimes the odd sniper's bullet ripped the groundsheet over my head, and mortar bombs would fall short. Then there were the 'commando slopes' to be climbed with clanking water-tins. Socks were perpetually soaked and blankets sopping. Then was sent to a forward observation post for three nights, and here feelings

friends

platoon was only thirty yards from the Germans.

creep forward along the wadi and see above,

among

You

could even

the branches, the

heavy machine-gun against the night sky. 'The men were when crawled round with the rum ration. You could hear the Jerries plainly laughing and talking, and coughing as they dug. One's name was Gustav.' Then a man called Sutton took fright and threw a grenade, and all night long we could hear a wounded Jerry gurgling and crying. 'I crawled up next morning to fetch the body, but it had gone. saw the blood though ... It continued to rain and we felt miserable. Next night they mortared us and machine-gunned down the wadi so that we were flat against the sides. It was all could do to keep the "bomb-happies" in check. Then some grenades were thrown, but, mercifully, no casualties.' And so back to B Echelon, sleep, and even a little 'convalescent sun'; and at nights the older and hardened Green Howards officers played nap and drank rye whisky. silhouette of a

blue with cold and nerves

That German machine-gun had seen probably belonged to the 2nd Battalion of the iith Parachute Regiment, and could thus have been a part of the runner Liebschner's company. Orders had come through for the 3rd Battalion to replace the ist and 2nd, which had been constantly in the line without rest since their arrival. On the night of 15 March, therefore, the very night on which my platoon was withdrawn from the forward position, Joachim Liebschner was taken out of the line too. It was raining hard as usual, he has told me, and all through the next day he slept. For the hrst time in weeks he felt dry. He was given his back pay, which seemed a lot ot money. In the evening he played pontoon and lost everything. A month earlier he would have been very worried, but now he didn't care. He had drunk a lot ot wine, and he crawled back into the straw, feeling extraordinarily happy, warm, dry and glad to be alive. The next day he had his first haircut in two months. I

Cassino

morning of 1 5 March most of the Alhcd top brass - includmg Alexander, Clark, Freyberg, Juin, Devers, Eaker and Leese - assembled

Early in the

the village of Cervaro, three miles south of Cassino. In this 'picnic

atmosphere', they were to watch the annihilation of the

town and

its

defenders.

The weather was perfect

for

bombing. Within

the great ordeal of the battle of Cassino,

now

couple of days perhaps

its

third phase,

would be

Winston Churchill's dream, the link-up with Anzio. As zero hour approached everyone fell silent. Then there was a distant drone, and soon this grew into a rumble

over, and that

and

would

lead to the realization of

throb. Fleets of black specks could be seen, trailing long straight

Then these specks turned silver, and the planes were suddenly overhead - Liberators, Fortresses, Marauders, Mitchells - a thousand feet up; and then they dipped and opened their bellies. The war correspondent Christopher Buckley saw 'sprout after sprout of black smoke' leaping from the earth, coiling upwards like 'some dark forest of evil fantasy'. Even from that distance the VIPs found the noise stunning as it reverberated from mountain to mountain. The very relentlessness of the attack was in a shameful way exhilarating. This was revenge for Coventry, Warsaw, Rotterdam, London. scarves of white vapour.

another hillside Tancrcdi Grossi also watched, petrified,

as the

on the place of his birth. The tall buildings, the ancient remains, the Cyclopean walls, the elegant villas, the pretty modern houses - all gone. For six months Cassino had endured its horrors, but 'in our hearts there had always been the hope that the town would not be entirely destroyed'. Now Grossi was witnessing its final throes of death. Some of the men of the German ist Pioneers in Colonel Heilmann's 3rd Parachute Regiment were stationed in the cellar of the town prison, only a hundred yards from the Allied lines. They had heard the New Zealanders moving around and talking during the night, but by first light

bombs

fell

CASSINO

199

was complete quiet and the Kiwis had obviously been withdrawn to escape the bombardment, so it turned out. Sergeant Georg Schmitz had just returned from his nightly digging and was getting ready to eat when he heard a wave of bombers approaching. He scarcely bothered, for Allied bombers flew over daily to targets in Northern Italy. Then, when he felt the earth trembling and heard the explosions, he knew what he and his comrades were in for. 'The first wave dropped most of its load near the station, but before we could think straight there was a second wave coming, and this time we were in the midst of it. The air vibrated, and it was as if a huge giant was there

shaking the town.

The bombs came

faded away. Well,

we had been

nearer and nearer, then the thunder

lucky. Dust and dirt got into the cellar,

and mouths, tasting of bones.' Another wave. The men 'as if we were one lump of flesh'. Silence again, and unbelievably they were still alive. They couldn't see. Any sound seemed to come from a long way off. After a while a dim light appeared at the cellar entrance. Schmitz went upstairs, and saw that the whole row of houses opposite had disappeared. Only one house was left standing, and this was where he knew there was a group of his comrades. He wanted to run across, but yet another wave of planes could be heard. After the next load of bombs, it was like night again in the cellar. The men tried to feel their way through the stifling dust to the entrance, but there was nothing there except rubble. 'This was terrible. We were buried ahve. Frantically we started to claw in a mad haphazard way at dirt and .' During a lull stones. And then there was another wave just overhead into our eyes, ears

clung to one another,

upper world. The people in the house opposite were still alive - they had been sheltering under a stairway. He went to search for another group north of the prison, and discovered that they had dug themselves a hole underneath a tank Schmitz

at last

managed

to scrape a passage into the

archway - indeed excellent cover. Schmitz called out a few words of encouragement and returned to the prison, which was still standing. His men were clutching

which

in turn

was

sheltered under a massive stone

columns that supported the building. Back he went the way he'd just come. But yet more bombs had completely changed the landscape, and for a while he lost himself. Then he found that the stone archway and the tank had been obliterated. His friends would be under that pile of broken masonry, 'but there was nothing we could do except weep and rage.'

the

Schmitz that he and any survivors must get away at once. He suddenly remembered a cave below Monte Cassino, so during another lull they made a dash, just reaching it in time; and there they found the 2nd It

was

clear to

Battalion headquarters and eighty paratroopers.

weapons

hand, until the

bombardment

finally

They

would end,

could rush out and take up positions of defence.

all

waited,

so that they

MARCH

200

At noon it did seem to be over. To the Germans' amazement - since the town was supposed to have been evacuated of all civilians - some eight families, including children, tore out in a panic from other caves, below Castle Hill. They were crying out, tumbling over debris, falling into craters, some of which were the width of a street, clambermg out again. Down came the Allied artillery - a 'creeping barrage' that was to last over two hours. It was pitiful to see the Italians being hit and falling. A few survivors struggled towards the Via Casilina. These were not the only civilians to die that day. At Venafro and other villages on the edge of the Abruzzi mountains one hundred and forty were killed by bombs from heavy aircraft that went astray, as were ninety-six Allied soldiers,

many of them Moroccans.

The German Corps Commander, Senger, was on

who was

his

way

to see General

Regimental headquarters, when the bombing started. Later he remembered the blast throwing him backwards and forwards. Afterwards when things died down a little, Senger walked by himself over ground that seemed deserted by human beings. But every now and then men would bob up from hidden batteries and then rush back again to cover. The splintered trees, the smell of cordite mixed with Heidrich,

at the

fresh earth, the jarring explosion

of shells, the whistling ot shrapnel, red-

made him feel isolated. 'What saw and felt took me back twentyeight years, when experienced the same loneliness crossing the battlefield of the Somme.' hot,

There was

a loneliness, too,

when the New Zealanders entered

Cassino, the bleak loneliness of death.

seemed

the ruins of

incredible, therefore,

machine-gun opened up, somewhere among the peaks of rubble. were rifle shots, and grenades were thrown. Far from being annihilated, these Germans - emerging from their cave and even some cellars - did not seem even to have been stunned. As it happened, some three-quarters of the 3rd Parachute Regiment had been killed, and one company had been reduced to seven men. Later, one of their battalion commanders. Major Boehmler, remarked how the New Zealanders had looked so confident, advancing 'gaily' and 'for the most part in close formation'. Their tank commanders behaved as if they were on a ceremonial parade, head and shoulders exposed. He added: 'They were the first targets of the German snipers, and over many a tank

when

Then

there

commander his turret crashed down for the last time in his life.' And as Freyberg had been warned, the bomb craters also served to impede the tanks. The New Zealanders tried to flatten the craters with were even easier targets for the snipers. All the the Kiwi troops reacted quickly; they were as

bulldozers, but the drivers

same,

Boehmler

said,

CASSINO 'alert as

gun-dogs', and their

'deviUsh

good

own

snipers,

201

who soon

got into action, were

shots'.

corporal of the 25th

end of the world,

NZ wrote:

past description.

'Entering Cassino was It

was

some

vision of the

ghastly warning.

Would this then be the fate of Rome, or for that matter Pans, or London, or Berlin, or even Auckland? Marching into those ruins brought out a kind of sadism

in us.

We were really enraged when

the Jerries hit back

They were behaving like machines. he went screaming straight towards and Some bugger near me was hit, the Jerries, not in pain but in sheer fury, like some frantic wild animal scrabbling through the ruins which were covered with a sort of white they had no right even to be

alive.

marble dust - and, God, did that dust dry up your throat. Of course they got him. can only describe Cassino as looking as if it had been raked over by some monster comb and then pounded all over the place by a giant I

hammer. There were these vast craters, you see, which when the rain came that night, filled up like lakes, deep enough to drown a wounded man.' Allied Air Force critics of the next day's battle said that the infantry

follow-up was 'puny', and certainly there was an unexplained delay in the area of the station. But the dark night, the flooding, the sheeting rain and all combined to confuse communications. It was an extraordinary though typical - feat of the Gurkhas to scale Hangman's Hill, literally by using a goat track up an almost sheer face and wriggling along it man by man. When daylight came many Gurkhas were revealed to the defenders o{ the Monastery and promptly decimated. However the remnants of the company dug in on the south slope and were able to be

the

mud

reinforced, in time to beat off a

Some

of the Gurkhas had

German

lost

their

counter-attack.

way on

the night

march

Hangman's Hill. Now they obediently reappeared. One of them. Rifleman Manbahadur, had taken shelter in a wrecked tank, and from there he had shot a German sergeant in the throat. He had emerged to bind up the man's wound, and when he reached his fellows brought with him an abundant and welcome supply of American cigarettes that he had chanced upon en route. The fortitude of the Gurkhas during that next week is one of the most It seemed impossible that these remote land thousands of miles from Europe, could exist up there, without enough cover from enemy fire, let alone the weather, and without enough to eat or drink. Yet they were the

moving

sagas of the Italian campaign.

small brave

Allies' great

brown men, from

hope.

only they could hold on,

only they could be

reinforced, an attack could be launched on the Monastery itself, and this long, long, bitter struggle might be brought to an end. The Allied artillery began to drop smoke on Monte Cassino, the object being to

MARCH

202

prevent artillery observers from bringing down fire on the New Zealanders, who were building a Bailey bridge over the Rapido below. But the smoke drifted on to the Gurkhas, choking and blinding them.

Worse, the

shell cases

and smoke canisters came showering down, causing

several casualties.

Two-thirds of the town, including the railway station and Castle Hill, had been captured by the New Zealanders. Dead tired - some of them not having slept for forty hours and without any outside communications the

Germans had formed themselves

into 'hedgehogs', notable strong-

points being the Continental Hotel, the Hotel des Roses, zpalazzo

known

Roman

'Colosseum' and the 'Hummocks' as Baron's Palace, the (presumed, according to guide-books, to be the site of Mark Antony's villa and his 'nameless orgies' - 'Orgies! Lucky sod!' as the corporal of the 25th remarked). In the corner of the Fishmarket stood

handful of

down by

German

pioneers under Lieutenant

machine-gun) had turned into

Cord

a fortress.

house which

(soon to be struck

There were

New

Zealanders in the building next door, but the Germans had the advantage

and could lob mortar-bombs into the upper windows. The battle for these points was to last for days, with wounded from both sides crying for help from the rubble. Colonel Heilmann, because of the severe shortage of manpower, had brought a company of bakers and butchers in to the line. He inspired his men with the feeling that the eyes of the Fatherland were upon them, and they were ready to risk their Hves. General Heidrich now laid on a big artillery concentration, and this also slowed up the New Zealand advance.

The

Allies

once more

Brother Carlomanno,

last

starving sheep and goats

Germans took refuge

bombed

the Monastery,

where

the ancient a

few

in the vomit-sweet stench of death.

The

survivor of the Benedictine monks, and

roamed underground

in the

passages and

were unscathed.

having refused to face the admittedly very dangerous task of taking supplies to the Gurkhas, this was done by companies of the 4/6 Rajputana Rifles and some gunner volunteers. Only eight casualties British pioneers

were involved; nevertheless, it was decided that from now onwards all supplies would have to be dropped by air, even if a great number of packages would necessarily miss their target. Two or three men had to subsist on a shared one-man K ration per day. Radio batteries were usually smashed, and several

packages which had rolled transfusions landed

men were sniped when trying to recover down the mountainside. Some blood tor

on the Monastery ruins and was actually used by

Cierman surgeons. Reinforcements

also reached Castle Hill. After a

day of confused fighting

CASSINO

203

maze of ruins in this phantom town, it became obvious that the battle was reaching stalemate. The New Zealanders were not making the progress hoped for. Clark wrote in his diary: 'Freyberg's enthusiastic plans are not keeping up to his time schedule. have repeatedly told Frcyberg from his inception of this plan that the aerial bombardment alone never has and never will drive a determined enemy from his in the

position

and the

Due

to General Alexander's direct dealings with Freyberg

fact that this

an all-British show,

reluctant to give a direct

order to Freyberg.'

was few days

Officially Freyberg

was

to realize a

carnage - was worried

lest

responsible for a defeat.

still

Army. As General Juin Clark - whilst being appalled by the

part of the Fifth

later,

by the world

he would be regarded show a flop,' Clark put

at large

hate to see the Cassino

his diary.

Freyberg had another ambitious plan for breaking the stalemate on the 19th. All

would depend on some

always would have to play

The 28th (Maori)

New

effort to capture the area

its

delicate co-ordination,

though luck

part.

Zealand Battalion would launch an all-out

of the two hotels

in the

town, and the Gurkhas,

would make a frontal attack on the Monastery from Hangman's Hill. At the same time Freyberg would put a surprise into effect, something which could well be his great trump card. All during the past weeks his sappers had been carving - unknown to the Germans — a track for tanks, known as Cavendish Road, across the reinforced by the 1/4 Essex Regiment,

mountains north of the Monastery,

remarkable achievement not only of

engineering but of endurance and secrecy. Whilst the Gurkhas and the

would sweep on the troops As Fred Majdalany has said: 'It was the appearance of tanks from this direction would cause

Essex attacked from the south, tanks

defending the building from the

rear.

hoped that something like the consternation that greeted Hannibal's elephants their

after

Alpine crossing.'

So much, however, would have to depend on the Essex, who were Hill. They were to be relieved by the Rajputana Rifles during the previous night and would then have to climb

ensconced on Castle

Hangman's

Hill,

ready for the attack

6 a.m.

Unfortunately, luck was not to be on the side of the Essex. For

a start,

on the evening of the i8th stray tank shells hit the Castle walls, burying a number of their men. Then, later in the night, almost a whole platoon stumbled over a 150-foot precipice. Finally the Rajputs were not able to reach the garrison holding the Castle until well after midnight. This

meant

that the attack

on the Monastery had

The Essex might have been encouraged

necessarily to be delayed.

they had

known

quite

how

MARCH

204

worn out and desperate were the remnants of the German parachute company at the foot of Castle Hill. When reinforcements from a Pioneer battalion reached the parachutists, the newcomers were literally embraced by the lieutenant in command. Spirits however recovered quickly, and there was a sudden eagerness to get going. As morning approached the Germans attacked. Platoons of the Essex and Rajputs 'disappeared in a smother of enemies', and the Germans swept on with their new-found vigour. A kind of medieval battle developed

the top, with defenders firing through loopholes and

and being beaten back with rifle butts. The Germans almost seemed not to care about casualties, and at last were driven back. But the Essex were left with three officers and sixty men on their feet. There had been a terrific expenditure of ammunition, and attackers trying to scale walls

barrels, crimson hot, had even curled and bent. As for the Essex companies that had set out during the night for Hangman's Hill, only seventy men got there, and thirty of them were wounded. Down in the town the Maoris were not meeting with much success. Although they took a hundred prisoners, they were repeatedly hit by a tank half buried in what had been the lobby of the Continental Hotel. In the Fishmarket the Germans drove the Maoris into bomb craters, some of which were fifteen feet deep. Little did the unfortunate Maoris know that these craters were mined. The Germans threw in grenades, and there would follow great hollow-sounding booms - and then silence, the

mortar

of an immediate extinction. The corner house in the Fishmarket was still held by the Germans, with the New Zealanders next door. Each side respected the Red Cross, until one incident when the New Zealanders took a German stretcher-bearer prisoner. No doubt there had been an order to the Kiwis to bring in

silence

prisoners, but this

such

was too much

breach in the rules of war.

for the

They

Germans,

who were

battered the

enraged by

New

Zealand house As one of them

with everything they had got, including anti-tank rifles. said: 'We finished off the inhabitants of that house by the evening.

None

got away.'

A further blow to the AlHes was the failure of the attack by the tanks, an along Cavendish Road. The appearance of Shermans and Stuarts did indeed cause consternation, but the Germans soon rallied and found it only too easy to knock them out with their

Indian-American

affair,

When

the tanks blew

up they blocked the Without sappers to help, without even supporting infantry, the expensive gamble failed. German paratroopers were even able to leap on the turrets and drop T. mines inside. Twenty-two tanks were destroyed or damaged. Faustpatroneri

and bazookas.

track and the rest could not pass

- it was

simple

as that.

CASSINO That afternoon Frcyberg by the Gurkhas and Essex.

205

called off the frontal assault

on the Monastery

Christopher Buckley, Cassino had become the 'ultimate quintes-

Half a mile away from where he sat in his trench, he wrote afterwards, 'men were hurlmg at one another lumps of jagged metal, everything that could tear and rend the living flesh, crush and shatter the bone ... A wave of total and overwhelming despair swept over me. It was all going to happen again, so many times more. One had to cling hard to the purpose and meaning of it all. One had to steel oneself to recall the shrill hysterical screeching of Hitler, Goering's brutally triumphant smile at Munich, and all the obscene bestialities done in secret in the black night of a concentration camp.' The British public was by now thoroughly alarmed by press and BBC reports. Winston Churchill therefore wrote, as gently as he could, to Alexander: 'I wish you would explain to me why this passage by Cassino, Monastery Hill etc., all on a front of two or three miles, is the only place which you must keep butting at. About five or six divisions have been worn out going through these jaws. Of course I do not know the ground or battle conditions, but, looking at it from afar, it is puzzling ... have the greatest confidence in you and will back you up through thick and thin, but do try to explain to me why no flanking movements can be sence of war'.

made.'

Alex replied patiently, describing the geography and winter weather, the extraordinary tenacity of the at

outflanking

movements had

German paratroopers and why attempts He had, he said, to decide within the

failed.

next twenty-four hours or so whether to

call

off the operation and

more efforts to capture some while he had been planning a future regrouping

consolidate gains, or whether to continue with yet the Monastery. For

within the Eighth and Fifth Armies, with 'an attack on

wider front and

with greater forces than Freyberg had been able to have'. This other attack would have to wait until 'the snow goes off the mountains, the rivers drop,

and the ground hardens'.

conference was held on 21 March, St Benedict's birthday,

some

which

generals such as Juin thought that the battle should be called off.

Clark, said juin, was 'anxious and nervous', and in his diary Clark

admitted to being discouraged, though

later

he was

won

over by

who were determined to fight on until the was gained. So it was agreed to continue for a few days more, though Alexander was to review the situation each day to decide whether Freyberg's subordinates,

objective

or not to

call a halt.

The German command was

also worried.

Heidrich even told

his

Corps

MARCH

206

commander Senger

that he

doubted whether

his

Division, the 'Green Devils', could hold Cassino

vaunted

ist

town much

Parachute

longer.

The

was still in the hands of the New Zealanders, and the Royal West Kents had managed to reheve the defenders in the Castle. The main supply route to the German lines was down the dangerous and steep gully known as Death Valley, between the Monastery and Snakeshead Ridge, the path being marked by the bodies of dead mules. Corporal Karl-Heinz Meier, just returned from wedding leave in Germany and a veteran of the siege of Leningrad, found himself one of those in charge of bringing supphes and ammunition along Death Valley. On his return journey, which took two hours, he would fetch back the hghtly wounded and the possessions of those who had been killed. General Heidrich had decreed that the severely wounded had to be

station

transported in daylight under the

Red

Cross

flag

along Via Casilina.

Meier and his friends found that mules would bolt as soon as artillery started up, and then there would be the dreadful task of catching them and rescuing the loads. It was thus decided one night to do without animals, but this turned out disastrously, since his men fell about and hurt themselves, occasionally badly, and the journey took twice as long. So back they went to those sometimes stubborn and sometimes panic-

were often made

stricken mules. Prisoners

to help in carrying

wounded.

'We kept cigarettes and chocolates in our pockets for the worst cases,' said Meier, 'whether friend or foe. We felt really good when we managed to get them back safely, and they in turn would shake our hands and give us Danke or Thanks.' The Germans were proud of their gunners. Colonel Heilmann claiming

their

'we achieved the great feat of gaining, for a while at least, superiority And it was true that the 4th Indian Division suffered some ferocious bombardments. A New Zealand NCO, watching from below, wondered how men could survive in such exposed places. In the darkness that

fire'.

he saw

how 'shells and mortars crashed among the rocks, burst in spraying

red circles o{ flame

their flinty surfaces

and sent

their echoes rolling

down the hillside'. The Alhed guns then replied

'with a hurricane of steel'. thought I could see the occasional flash of grenades. As the storm subsided through the comparative silence came the rip of an occasional spandau and - by contrast - the slow rattle of a bren in reply. The Indians 'I

were

still

there!'

March General Heidnch's

the battle

was turning

concede that the

New

He was

right.

Zealand Corps had exhausted

23rd Alexander gave the days the Corps had

depression had passed and he

in his favour.

command

lost three

its

felt

that

Freyberg had to strength.

the

for the attack to be halted. In nine

thousand men.

CASSINO

207

There was now the problem of getting the Gurkhas down from Hangman's Hill. An order by radio to withdraw could not be risked in case it were intercepted by the enemy. Three officer volunteers therefore agreed to take up the instructions by word of mouth, bringing with them three carrier pigeons, by name St George, St Andrew and St David (since one officer was English, one Scots and one Welsh), which would fly back with the acknowledgements. In the end only two officers and one bird the

honorary

Englishman

—

reached

their

destination

Unfortunately, St George did not care to

fly in

night adjusting his plumage; but

after first light

little

intact.

the dark and spent the

he dutifully

returned home.

And

on the night of the 25th, the withdrawal began. In order to Germans' attention, the Monastery was heavily bombed and the Royal West Kents sent out fighting patrols. It was an eerie journey for the Gurkhas down the hill, shielded by that curtain of fire, the noise of the shells mercifully drowning the sound of feet slipping and stumbling on the rocks. Ten officers and 247 men made the journey, and they could hardly believe their fortune when they reached the bottom unmolested. However a number of badly wounded had to be left behind, in the hope that they could be collected by stretcher the next day under the Red Cross so,

divert the

flag.

least that was one story. The Germans maintained that 'excessive was made of the Red Cross. Major Boehmler's version was as follows: 'Heavily bandaged and with a prominent display of a Red Cross flag, they made their way in small groups and in broad daylight to Rocca Janula [Castle Hill]. From there they slipped through the two hundred yard gap between the Castle and Cassino. The paratroops let them pass unmolested, and the commander magnanimously refrained from prying too closely into the nature and severity of their wounds. Consideration for a gallant enemy could not have done more!' It was a surprise to everybody the next morning to see the swastika flying from the top of Hangman's Hill. This object became a favourite for Allied pot-shotters but nevertheless remained in situ for an amazingly long time. The Gurkhas were furious when the German propaganda machine gave out that the Hill had been recaptured after 'hard fight-

use'

ing'.

The end of the third battle of Cassino coincided with a blizzard. The 4/16 Punjabis, when they were relieved from the high ridges, were in as bad a state from the numbing cold as their American predecessors had been before the bombing of the Monastery. Their diarist wrote: 'The shape of the now shattered Monastery loomed out in a mantle of snow as if to hide from

us her scars of battle.

was

a fitting farewell.'

MARCH

208

A German '25

machine-gunner's

March. There has been

post.

You would

going to have

comment

heavy

fall

less

romantic:

whirling into our

It is

when you

think you were in Russia. Just

few hours'

was

in his diary

of snow.

rest to get a sleep, the fleas

think you are

and bugs torment

you. Rats and mice are our companions too.'

The weather had contributed much to the great defensive success of the Germans. Nevertheless, the stamina and bravery of the paratroopers had astonished the world and were to develop into a legend. Boehmler was annoyed at the insinuation, once again, that the defenders of Cassino were 'fanatics'. This was nothing but 'an excuse with which to cover up a military blunder'. True, he said, the paratroopers had been brought up in 'lies and dogmas' of the Hitler Youth Movement, like other young Germans of their age, but the secret of their success, he said, could be summed up in three qualities - comradeship, esprit de corps and efficiency. 'Those were the foundations upon which the German parachute arm was

the

and they are the foundation of every corps d'elite.' had been another victory for the Germans, though, as Senger knew. It could only be a temporary one. German writers have said that Freyberg failed because he had been too indecisive and had wasted his reserves. This is simplifying matters too much. As Senger has also said, this battle was one of the most perplexing and difficult operations o{ the war. For the

built; It

German people it provided, in spite of the casualties, some welcome optimism and new faith in their ultimate invincibility.

And both

graveyard,

so, for a while, in this vast stricken

bereavement, with mines sides

were

last

sockets and

its

able to settle

booby

down

in this

Golgotha of

traps in

its

cavities,

what was modestly

At Anzio they had their wadis filled with mud and brambles; here the wadis were of broken bricks, bits of marble flooring, and jutting beams, with gables of crazy masonry where snipers hid, watching and waiting for any careless flicker of movement during the hours of daylight. As at Anzio it was hard to know at first just where one's called the quiet period.

enemy was

'The

exactly.

Kiwi platoon, and Gripes, did

heard

nearly give

unoccupied.' Another

time

first

we had

Kraut whistling

said:

heard "Lili Marlenc",' said

'was soon after

Lancashire Fusiliers officer,

heart attack -

'The

rats

taken over from

in the

a a

very next house.

thought the house was

were revolting. They were

fat.

We know they were gorged on the hundreds of bodies nobody could reach. We used to catch them and put them in empty sandbags and chuck them

into a place

where we were

sure

German

observation post was

stationed after dark. People speak of the sense of space at Cassino and of the clear nights, and of the black shape of the

were, above

us.

There were

Monastery glowering, was often a

clear nights later on, but there

hell

CASSINO

209

of a noise too. A mine would explode and you would know some poor bloke on patrol had copped it. Sometnnes there would be a scream, you've no idea how chilling; once heard some chap calling desperately, a 1

woman's name, always

fainter, as

died this agonizing death. But

it saying goodbye tor eternity betore he remember too the reflections of stars in

the pools of the craters, like eyes, and as the weather got better the

uproar of the croaking and quacking of bull-frogs from the river. also remember at dawn Christ, there must have been billions of them. one day seeing the German part of the town covered with little Nazi flags. fantastic

Those Krauts could be cheeky. One chipped into a "Hey, Tommy, got any socks? We've run

Hitler's birthday!

wireless conversation with

out.'"

'And

remember,'

sent to collect in

a private in the

dead bodies for

burial.

German pioneers has said, 'being They had been piled in a big crater

was probably the most terrible sight have ever seen. Green faces, swollen; and all those eyes - staring, loathing. And the rats. The stench was colossal. Even gas-masks were no use. We had to put first-aid packs soaked in cologne over our mouths and nostrils.' by both

sides

over the weeks.

Denis Johnston of the

by the

British.

BBC remembered visiting the town prison, held

reach the unit latrine one had to sprint across what was

known as Spandau Alley - no fun. Among do we long to be constipated.' In the

open country

to the

the graffiti

was written: 'Boy,

west of Cassino there was

a tenseness

of a

Germans in the hills above had Royle of the Royal Artillery remembered taking up a position on 29 March: 'I could see the flashes of exploding shell fire about one mile ahead every twenty seconds or so. Being shelled is always frightening, but on this particular night I had a lot of time to think about it as the columns advanced slowly northwards at 8-10 m.p.h., and by the time we had gone a few hundred yards was feeling quite terrified. There was nothing could do except to go straight different kind, for here

seemed

as if the

absolute dominance. Lieutenant Peter

into the area of exploding shells and pray that

armoured

carrier

was

hit.

splinters, a

near

weren't

only protection against flying

On the next day Royle admitted on the edge of a nervous breakdown. 'The Americans would have classified it as battle fatigue - it w^s a mild form of shell shock but it affected my speech and found it increasingly difficult to speak without a fairly serious stammer ... had two main worries — the all important one a real fear and my inability to control my actions, and secondly the knowledge that would disgrace myself in front of my men .' Strangely, it was the mere fact of confiding in another officer about this business of losing his nerve that made him recover a little. miss or direct hit

would be

the end

that he felt

•

MARCH

210 Alexander now planned was hopeful: Diadem.

next offensive for mid-May.

The code-name

woke up and erupted for the first Man-made destruction could not vie with those

not to be outdone, old Vesuvius

time

his

in thirty-eight years.

spasms of flame and red-hot rock flung a thousand feet into the sky. Earth tremors shook the countryside around, and lava poured through villages.

As the dust descended

thickly.

Army

hospital staff beneath the

mountain

prepared to evacuate. The port of Naples was illuminated by night, an

advantage - so raids.

For Allied

was

said

aircraft the

to the

Germans, on

volcano was certainly

beacon.

Then, on 29 March, Vesuvius too subsided.

their nightly

bombing homing

a perfect visual

*^"

In the calm of a perfect winter's

morning the

British land at Peter Beach, north of

Anzio

{Photograph by Denis Heatey)

The Americans land

JANUARY

X-Ray

1944

Beach, south-east of Nettuno

{National Archives, Washington)

-ur*^

Csjd^^i^^^' p-*^^"'"

^^'

'.^-.'-jT"

.TT:-^-'^'-'''

z.-'-ffS'

la:^^^

The

author, en route for Anzio {Raleigh Trcuelyaii)

r-..-

>''^-^;5^v.

Hi t-,<

i-iy*

Two members

of the author's

Company

during an attack across the Moletta {Imperial

Americans

in a

river,

Anzio

War Museum)

bazooka attack on farmhouses near the MussoHni Canal {National Archives, Washington)

Jews digging sand out of the banks of the Tiber, 1942 {Publifoto, Rome)

.^•i;4>- -«^i

«&.,:;

^Bll j—'H

mr''l'f''r

—

9. ^ ll .j^A -

liC

« 'i.- -

.iS-rt

7 Captured American and British soldiers are marched up Via Tritone,

Rome,

February 1944

{Publifoto,

The rolHcking

Rome

Rome)

'king of Rome', General Kurt Maeltzer, with Maria Caniglia, diva of the

opera, in her costume for Tosca, early

May

1944

when

m Hn

she sang with

Beniamino Gigli {Publifoto, Rome)

1 w^^^^Kt^m

^^H

^'^1^ 'JB/ '

RJ r :W# .

i'.-f'

Iffl.

r'-^^s

10 'You have the eyes of a hyena.'

Captain Kurt Schutz of the Gestapo

Drawing

Via Tas< by Michelc Multedo. Schutz commanded the es at

cutions at the Ardeatine Caves

{Michele Multei

Mother Mary

Luke {Robert L. Hoguet)

1 1

Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty

in his office

{Col. S. C. Toniliti)

12 Italian Alpini troops

encamped

Monte

Marrone, near Cassino, 30

March {Imperial

13 Italian

from

War Museum

women escaping

the shell-battered

village

of San Vittore,

near Cassino, February.

The American

tanks have

been knocked out by

mines {Keystone Press Agency Lmite(

'';:f':i^^ ;^i1

^fl

Germans bringing

in their

are inside the house

wounded

at the

Fishmarket, Cassino, 17 March.

New Zealanders

the right

{Georg Schmitz)

16 General

Helmuth

ceto, typical

Pfeifer of the 65th Division wadi country

visits

an advance post in the Fosse di Carro-

{Wilhelm Velten)

^\\

l.r^

^ 4^

^^/.

^»

it^'

>*•• '

'f*^,

American and

British prisoners carry stretchers behind the

German

lines,

about

kilometre

south-west of Aprilia

{Wilhchn Velten)

Near

the Lobster

Claw

wadis. hi the foreground graves of

men who

fell

during Oper-

ation Fischfang, 16-19 February {Imperial

^"S-

•

- *»

i-.r-

i}^-:^A •s 1 1-i. ,.„;:.:

^-iA^^S

4! 'A.'UB.l iBL ;i'>it.

•

«.-

••iV.*'-

War Museum)

¥ "$^j^

!(>

White

way

tapes guide a platoon past a minefield protecting a sand-bagged headquarters

to the Fortress, early

on the

May {Imperial

Wounded

War Museum)

GIs {Anzio Tourist

Office)

AI-l4*-l*44-r

fMBK W44 21

German propaganda

leaflet:

on the front

a luscious pin-up,

on the back

a grisly

shock

{Wilhelm Velten)

22 At a

fair,

Sulmona.

matically taken.

When

the

German

corporal hit the bullseye, a photograph

did not realize that he was surrounded by escaped

Joe Pollak (British private), a French naval

(American

officer,

PoWs.

was auto-

Left to right:

Gilbert Smith (British officer), 'Duke'

officer)

{Joe Pollak)

A GI shares his rations with an Itahan boy

(Anzio Tourist

At the Moletta

crossing, 23

May.

Private

platoon, has stepped on a mine, and left

has been bandaged

Mornington Sutton, a member of the author's by German prisoners. The German on the

carried

by the author {Imperial

War Museum)

Office)

German guards at St Peter's. The entrance to the Santa Marta hospice is through the archway to the left {Piiblifoto,

The Americans

enter

Rome)

Rome (Publifoto,

Rome)

27 The Germans retreat from Rome,

June.

Taken by Harold Tittmann's

elder son,

from the

Santa Marta hospice. In the foreground are carts camouflaged with greenery {Harold H. Tittmann 3rd)

The Pope meets

Allied

war correspondents, 7 June (Imperial

War Museum)

The lynching of Donate After

this picture

Carretta, director of the Regina Coeli prison, in September 1944.

was taken he was beaten with oars

until

he drowned

{ANPI, Rome)

30 Field-Marshal Albert Kesselring arrives for his

trial

a British military court,

Venice,

February 1947

{Mrs Aubrey Gibbon)

Rome

March 1944, 3.45 p.m. The first swallows were arriving

Rome as the Duchess of Sermoneta

paced the terrace of her hiding place in Palazzo Caetani. For two months she had been 'boxed

window

like a

hunted animal', unable even to look out of a Suddenly she heard an explosion

for fear o{ being recognized.

echo over the roof-tops, then three

bombs going off

maddened her not

Rome,

lesser ones.

but the

first

By now one was

used to

seemed especially alarming.

go out and see what had happened. up Via Nazionale, on her way back from some hospital work. The explosions sounded really close and frightened her - the Messaggero newspaper offices blown up perhaps? In any case it was something serious, she knew, and she took off her high heels and ran for all she was worth. She found a dirty boy panting and crying in a doorway, and had to stop; he had fallen and cut his knee rather badly. He told her that he had come from the Quattro Fontane and that partisans had bombed a lot of Germans in Via Rasella. Luisa helped him into the house ot some friends — who seemed annoyed at being disturbed at their to be able to

Luisa Arpini was walking

game of bridge. The boy was Peppino Zamboni. He had been on an errand was

for his aunt.

and he had not liked going barefoot all that way from Trastevere. The terrific blast from Via Rasella had thrown him backwards, and a van had literally been flung against the railings of Palazzo Barberini. The screams and cries were awful. People came running and staggering towards him, he didn't know whether they were hurt or if they were the partisans themselves. He saw some German soldiers rushing away in a panic. Then there was some machine-gun fire and Peppino too began to run - he had been blind with fear and had It

a springlike

day but

still

cold,

a German. He had struggled and twisted, and soon got away; being barefoot was a help and anyway the German was more interested in catching someone older.

charged straight into someone,

MARCH

212

cloud of dust and smoke

now

spread over the entire quarter, as

Sermoneta could see from her terrace. Along the Tiber's embankment frightened peoplejumped on circolari trams and stayed there for an hour, going round and round Rome. There were shots all over the centre of the city. You saw German soldiers m twos and threes, brandishing revolvers and machine-guns at upper windows. Shopkeepers drew down their blinds. Was this to be the start of the great insurrection at Vittoria

last?

The Communist leader who had partly planned this action, Giorgio Amendola, was at that moment in an extraterritorial house off Piazza di Spagna, where he was meeting De Gasperi of the Christian Democrats in order to discuss the crisis of the CLN. De Gasperi asked him what had happened, and Amendola replied that the explosion was probably 'one of ours'. De Gasperi smiled a little: 'Deve essere cost- It must be so.' Then he repeated an old saying: Vol una ne pensate e milk nej'ate - You think of one thing, and you do a thousand.' And without more ado, they got down to business, namely the implications of Bonomi having told De Gasperi that morning that he was going to resign from being president of the CLN, which would inevitably mean a drastic split between left and right. When at last Amendola emerged again into Piazza di Spagna, he found an 'inferno' with Germans everywhere. 'Here was concrete proof that we '

had not envisaged such a furious German response.' This time the affront had been too much, the audacity and success of the partisans had been too obvious. People were running here and there and shouting that the There was again that cry of Germans were rounding up all pedestrians .

terror,

They

only too familiar

in recent

weeks: 'Stanno chiudendo

zona -

are closing the area.'

Exactly as had been plotted, the forty-pound

rubbish

cart,

bomb

with Rosario Bentivegna disguised

had been placed

as a street-cleaner.

in a

Carla

Capponi's job was to give him the warning of the Germans' approach. Other partisans were ready with mortar-bombs converted into grenades, the rear of the German column after the main would be ready to block the Germans' escape. The victims of this assault were from the nth Company of the 3rd Battalion of the newly formed Bozen (Bolzano) Police Regiment. They were all over-age, too old for fighting and - ironically — could have been considered Italians, since they came from the South Tyrol, annexed by

which would be thrown

explosion.

partisans

Italy after the First

War

but in October 1943 incorporated into the

German Reich. Because of the increasing partisan activity and the fact that so many Romans were defying the call-up for labour service in Germany, these men of the Bozen Regiment had been sent to Rome to enforce stricter law and order. The Germans could not afford civilian Greater

ROME Upheavals whilst the

critical fighting

213

continued

Anzio and Cassino.

happened, however, that the normally punctual police company was very late on its accustomed march towards Via Rasella. Indeed, if it had delayed ten minutes more, the whole operation would have been called It

clump of the Germans' nailed boots which so irritated the Romans, column of 156 men could be seen could be heard. Three abreast, the beginning the ascent. Carla Capponi took cover from the expected blast.

Then

off by the partisans.

at last the

and the raucous, confident sing-song,

Bentivegna put

his lighted

pipe to the fuse in the rubbish cart; the fuse

ignited at once, and he then placed his cap all

was

well.

He had

fifty

on top of the

cart to signify that

seconds in which to saunter to safety.

The noise was far greater than even the partisans expected. The column of Germans seemed to crumple, as if blown down by a great wind, and shrapnel, spHntered glass and bits of brick sprayed out far

beyond Via

Rasella. Twenty-six men were killed at once, and about seventy wounded, some very badly. At the top of the street, in the great baroque Barberini palace, built in part from the stones ot the Colosseum, and

where both Bernini and Borromini had worked, the teenage Prince Augusto Barberini rushed to the window. Three hundred years before at that very window people had watched one of the most fantastic and extravagant pageants ever staged in Rome, in honour of Queen Christina of Sweden. Now he saw bodies writhing, pools of blood, scattered helmets, smoke. A water main had burst. A few Germans were on their feet, firing pistols in a crazy fashion. If he also saw a young woman throw a raincoat

over

young man and dash with him towards

the Quattro

Fontane, they were Carla and Rosario.

Some of the wounded were

carried into the

had been the Scots College but was

now

sombre courtyard of what

inhabited by nuns,

The portiere was

who

ran an

'Oh yes, They were

called Lorenzo.

I orphanage and a soup kitchen. in. carried saw them, those men in their grey uniforms, being old, old, from Bolzano, fathers of families. felt sorry for them, their feet were bleeding, and took off their boots. Then heard a lot of shouting down the street. Disastro! got up and ran. If they arrive here, was thinking, they'll kill me. To hell with those old bleeding men. Kaputt, oh yes knew that word. No Kapuit for Lorenzo. wasn't going to wait for I

another bomb, or

German

bullet,

not Lorenzo.'

and six other civilians had been killed, and others were to die from wounds. The Germans blamed the Italians for this, the Italians blamed the Germans. Now General Maeltzer arrived, puffing and fuming, his face aflame with too much wine after a long lunch at the Excelsior Hotel. Next Colonel Dollmann of the SS appeared, and Consul Mocllhauscn, both of whom had been roused by the explosions whilst listening to flowery and boring Italian speeches at the meeting extolling child

MARCH

214

Fascism's twenty-fifth birthday. Moellhausen

was accompanied by

Buffarini-Guidi, Mussohni's Interior Minister. Caruso, Itahan chief of

German and Itahan pohce and members of the Sturm Division had also by now arrived. The dead bodies had been laid out in a row. Dollmann was aghast and 'very excited', but Maeltzer was raving, shouting for revenge, weeping, gesticulating and threatening to blow up all the houses in the street. The inhabitants of Via Rasella pohce, was there, and both

and the octogenarian widow of a out, prodded and beaten with rifle butts, and made to stand facing the Barberini railings with their hands behind their heads. Maeltzer was seen to clout a sick old man who did not move quickly enough. Later, Prince Augusto Barberini saw all the people taken

including

a dentist

and

his patients,

Senator - were now forced

away in lorries. The portiere Lorenzo had hidden under some

stairs.

'Yes, the

Germans

were shooting with machine-guns at windows. saw big holes in the walls of the cortile. It was like an earthquake in there. Pazienza, Lorenzo, I said, you must save yourself. Down went to the cellar, where there were nuns, full of fear, and children. Suddenly I became very brave. "Why are you crying?" said to the nuns. "Have courage. Think of Our Lord." You know, am not a fanatical Catholic, but believe in God. I

There were four other porters down there, heard Germans coming: "Schnell, schnell!"

among

kneel

with

a torch.

in here."

me and

it I

was very dark. Then we said to the porters, "Let's

the boys, and we'll look smaller."

"No, no,"

the nuns cried.

So the Germans

left.

Dio!

"We

The Germans came

swear there are only children

was lucky,

had an

Italian

gun with

fifty bullets!'

Moellhausen was trying to calm Maeltzer and prevent him from blowing up the houses. Maeltzer rounded on him: 'There you are, this is the result of your politics! Now everything will change! don't care. All these houses will go up in the air, even if the diplomats fire me tomorrow!' He threatened to telephone Kesselring and tell him that the Consul was being obstructive. Dollmann was also insulted. Finally the pale, cool Colonel Herbert Kappler arrived and took over. This was a matter for his SD. I

When night

Rosario Bentivegna reached the Capponis' house he fainted. That Radio made no mention at all of the explosion.

Rome

Moellhausen telephoned Kesselring's headquarters from the German

Embassy to find that the Field-Marshal was at the front. He relayed the details, which were then passed to the OK W, Hitler's Army headquarters. Hitler was not well - it had been noticed by Eva Braun that his knees shook when he stood. Moreover, only a week before he had lost his

ROME

215

temper with Admiral Horthy, the Regent of Hungary, accusing him of an 'Italian-style' betrayal; and on 19 March German troops had occupied Hungary. The Allied planes were ravaging Bavaria, and from Berchtesgaden at night Hitler could see the red glow of fire-bombs on Munich. And the Russians were advancing in the Ukraine. that Hitler was Kesselring's headquarters was told by the 'roaring'. Not only was the whole area around Via Rasella to be burnt down, but all the inhabitants were to be shot. For every German soldier who had died (now thirty-two), thirty or fifty Italian hostages would have to be killed as a reprisal - and within twenty-four hours. Dollmann, meanwhile, had telephoned his chief. General Wolff, who said that he would fly down next day. Dollmann had a plan, which was to bring the relatives of the dead soldiers to Rome for the funeral, with maximum publicity, and make the city of Rome pay them reparations. In his memoirs Dollmann was to say that he was totally ignorant of the gruesome retribution that was in fact being plotted. Yet later on he admitted to having been uneasy. 'There was only one power in Rome,' he said, 'who could have done something, and this was His Holiness. Because, you know. Hitler was very cautious with the Pope and did not want an open war. So at six in the afternoon I went with my chauffeur to the monastery of the Salvatorians at St Peter's and asked for an audience with Padre Pancrazio Pfeiffer, who was the head of the Salvatorians. I said: "Padre, I am certain that something serious is about to happen, what I do not know, but you must go immediately to the Vatican and tell His Holiness to intervene at once, at once, at once, either through me or Kesselring, and defer any decisions, defer them, and gain time." And he did this, but what happened in the Vatican I do not know.'

OKW

And

many

again,

years later,

was

said

by Albrecht von

Kessel,

councillor to the ambassador Weizsaecker, that the Vatican did tele-

phone asking about

possible executions.

The Via

Rasella incident had

when the delicate negotiations between the Vatican and Weizsaecker (and Kesselring) were reaching a final stage about the Germans' acknowledgement of Rome's open ci^y status - which in

occurred precisely

theory would

mean

was instructed

the withdrawal of their troops. Kessel has said that he

Germans

to relay an evasive reply to the effect that the

linked the killing of the police with the fate of the open city and might

have to re-examine their

attitude.

went to Maeltzer's office, and both spoke to General Mackensen, who, as commander of the Fourteenth Army facing Anzio, was Maeltzer's superior for the Rome area. 'I remember well my Kappler

conversation with General von Mackensen,' Maeltzer was to say. 'After

had reported on the incident, von Mackensen asked

me what

thought

MARCH

2l6

had to be done in the way of punishment, and I answered that for the moment I had no suggestions to make. Von Mackensen, however, state what kind of punishment had to be adopted, and insisted that therefore referred to the examples of Paris, Brussels and Nantes, which were in the way of reprisals. would like, however, to make it clear that during the conversation nothing was laid down, and von Mackensen told me that would get a definite ruling later. Shortly afterwards von I

Mackensen phoned me again and asked me what people had available for stated that I had none and that did not intend to a reprisal to be taken. arrest anybody as hostage, but mentioned that the SD might have people available who had acted against the security of the German Army.' Later Maeltzer was told by Kappler that he had about two hundred such people available and that more could possibly be obtained from Caruso. 'I reported the results of this conversation to von Mackensen, who said that he would give me a definite ruling as soon as possible.' Later again that evening the message reached Kappler from Maeltzer's 1

it had been confirmed that ten Italians for every German killed were to be executed within twenty-four hours. Kesselring had returned from the front about 7 p.m., to receive the news of the attack at Via Rasella. To him partisan war was a 'complete violation of international law and contradicted every principle of clean soldierly fighting'. He had already warned the Roman population of serious consequences if attacks continued 'under the cloak of patriotism'. By and large he had attempted to be fairly lenient with partisan activity anywhere behind the lines, even meeting it with 'welfare measures', radio propaganda, etc., and only in March had he issued a directive to German troops on the penalties of looting and the question of behaviour towards Italian civilians. But this was much the most serious incident so far, and a strong reaction was necessary. In due course, after the war, an Italian court of law was to pronounce the bombing a legitimate act of war, but Kesselring would

office that

have agreed with Maeltzer this

outrage against

but

common

Even today

mended

who

personally of the opinion that

does not represent

a patriotic

deed

murder.' it

unclear whether Kappler himself originally recom-

reprisals at the ratio

this ratio fair,

said:

German policemen

often to one. Certainly Mackensen thought

provided there were enough

men

available in

Rome who

were already condemned to death, and he would appear to have passed on this recommendation to Kesselring, who in turn was responsible for calming Hitler and getting him to scale down his original demand of thirty or fifty and accept the lower figure. And although Kappler was to be evasive about another crucial matter, whether or not he did speak to Kesselring on the telephone, Kesselring later declared on oath that he had been telephoned by Kappler, who was 'elated and happy' because he

ROME

217

tbund he could provide the required number ot people already condemned to death. Kesselring said that he thereupon thanked him 'from the

bottom of my

heart because

relieved

Kappler having so

also said, at

my soul'. He was not surprised,

many

people available, since

this

was

Kappler's 'habit'. 'Kappler was also in close contact with the Italian police

who would

have been

would have been

more people from the great reservoir of sentenced

in a position to furnish the rest, if

required,

criminals.'

Kesselring then

felt free

go to bed, and early next morning was off to was to mamtain that he never used the words anyone, he had referred to persons who were accordance with German military law to

the front again. Yet Kappler

'condemned 'worthy

to death' to

o{ death'

Todeskaudidateti, death candidates.

Mackensen wanted

swift, decisive

in-chief of the Fourteenth

Army

measures because

'I,

commander-

fighting at the Anzio front, could only

my task

of holding that front sector if there were peace and order in of millions situated immediately behind the fighting lines.' He had made a further stipulation to Kappler, which would have to be kept secret from Hitler, that should the SD not be able to produce a sufficient amount of persons condemned to death, then it should be publicly atjfwimced that the whole number oi' the ratio of ten to one had been fulfil

that city

executed.

Like Kesselring, Mackensen did not ask carried out.

met

him that

did not occur to

before, but 'shifty'.

they

who seemed

him

how

the executions

to distrust Kappler,

level-headed and loyal. Later he was to tind

Both Mackensen and Kesselring were

had

been

would be

whom he had not

misled

about

to insist afterwards

Todeskandidaten.

'Kappler,'

said

Mackensen, 'was an SD man and as such opposed to the Field-Marshal's and my principle of trying to win over the Italians. He was living in the ideas of Hitler and especially the SS chief Himmler, who thought they could guarantee law and order by terror.' Kappler, he added, had long before made up his mind to 'clean up' the gaols and Jews in Rome to 'assure himself of Hitler's and Himmler's benevolence', and here was his great chance. And Kappler's arch-rival Dollmann was to say: 'The order [for the executions] was an order from God, and this God unfortunately was called Hitler. For me Hitler was a great personality, he was a great man; however he was not my God, and that was the difference. Kappler was the classic policeman of all times, and so he carried out an order which perhaps he could have deferred.'

Kappler himself was to say that

when

he saw the body ot

a child in

Via

poor children who had died first thoughts was for all in the Hamburg raids. When interviewed about the executions on Italian television thirty years later, he wept. 'Yes, was there, but did not start it. Rasella one of his

the

MARCH

2I I

did not create those conditions.

do not want

to speak

The German Embassy

it,

carried out orders, and

was very hard.

please.'

Wolkonsky -

Dollmann's words 'an was only ten minutes' oasis of peacocks, roses and chirping crickets' walk from Via Tasso. So Moellhausen called on Kappler that evening and found him caressing a sick dog while he drew up his list. 'What you arc doing, Kappler,' he said, horrified, 'goes beyond patriotism and war. Remember that you will be answerable not only before men but before God.' To which Kappler replied that for every name he would think three times. There would be no 'injustices'. Kappler worked all night. By the early morning he had 223 names, only four of whom had in fact been condemned to death. Four others had been taken out of the houses at Via Rasella and seventeen had been sentenced to long terms of hard labour. The rest had committed acts which he himself considered called for the death penalty. 'So decided to add fifty-seven Jews.' But even so he was still far below his target. He therefore turned to Caruso and his protege Koch for fifty more names. Koch could certainly be relied upon for a good supply at his torture-house in the Pensione at Villa

Oltremare.

Caruso

felt

he must get the authorization ot Butfarini-Guidi,

Mussolini's Minister of the Interior.

He drove round

to the Excelsior at 8

still in bed. "What can do?' said Buffarini-Guidi. him what he wants, otherwise who knows what will give them to him.' Having received this authorization,

a.m. to find the Minister

'You'll have to give

happen. Yes,

yes,

Caruso felt happier. But when Caruso had to tell Kappler that, even with Koch's names, he could not possibly make up the required total from his prisons, Kappler simply said: 'Then find some more Jews.' So Celeste Di Porto, the Jewish tart-informer, alias the Black Panther, was put into action, to scour Rome for friends and relatives in hiding whom she could betray for a fee of fifty thousand lire a scalp. Meanwhile Caruso and Koch went to the police station to wrestle with the same problem that had kept Kappler up all night. The only name on Koch's list which was familiar to Caruso was that of one of his own officers. Lieutenant Maurizio Giglio. This Giglio

was none other than 'Cervo', radio operator for the Tompkins; he had been arrested a week previously.

With

the arrest of Giglio/Cervo messages

OSS

spy Peter

from Tompkins' Radio

had necessarily been halted. Giglio, who after the war was to be awarded posthumously the Medai^lia d'Oro, the highest Italian award for bravery, had been betrayed by a colleague among Vittoria to the Fifth

Army

ROME

219

Tompkins' helpers. Brought up as a Fascist, he had volunteered for the war in Greece, but had fought against the Germans by the Pyramid of Cestius on 9 September. He had fled to Naples, where he took part in the 'Four Days', and had then returned to Rome to work for the OSS, having joined the metropolitan police. Scottu, his orderly, had had only

vague

alter ego, but had also been arrested. day-by-day account of the horrible tortures both he and Giglio endured. Sometimes they would be watched by Koch's new mistress, Marcella Stoppani, who wrote gloating poems about the

of the lieutenant's

idea

Scottu has

left a

ordeals of victims.

The man who

tortured Giglio,

'olive-skinned, ascetic, always wearing a raincoat'

been

a friend

brought

of his.

a cigarette

known - had

Walter —

actually

once

On the fifth day of interrogation Walter had suddenly and chocolates for Giglio, and had attempted to

flatter

him. 'Quietly,' said Scottu, 'the lieutenant replied: "Walter, you are like

was emerged with his face completely disfigured. 'Walter punched him in the mouth. Blood flowed from his cracked lips. As he sat on the bed wiping the blood with his handkerchief he weakly called out for his mother. At that moment Walter, like a beast,

Judas!"'

the sixth day, the night of the Via Rasella affair, Giglio

interrogated for twenty minutes and

raised his foot

uttered

feebly to turn striking

turned

and brought

down

with

all

the weight of his body,

him in the pubic region. The lieutenant, at the end of his strength, a weak cry: "Mamma, Mamma, they've killed me!" As he tried

kicking

him

to his side,

Walter

in the kidneys.

white

as a

corpse

let

was

.' .

the next day Walter told the

turned over to the families.

go another kick, as hard as the first, that was needed. The lieutenant

all

German SS and

cell's

inmates that they were to be

they had better write

last

notes to their

'Everyone was crying.'

a brave but hopeless plan to rescue Giglio, who if he had broken down under torture could also have betrayed the entire OSS network. But when the day came for this coup, it was already too late, and Giglio was dead. Eleven other OSS helpers were also shot. Perhaps not surprisingly on the walls of a Via Tasso cell these words were written (and still remain): 'At the OSS headquarters there is a traitor connected with

Tompkins had

the

enemy.

The main

E.'

clandestine operator for the British,

Umberto

Lusena,

who

had also recently been caught, along with four colleagues, was totally unconnected with Giglio; he was a natural Todeskandidat. There had been consternation

the British Legation

Brother Robert Pace was picked up,

Derry-O'Flaherty organization.

who

when as

the

little

Maltese priest

he was also important

However he was

in the

released, but the

had been with him, Andrea Casadei and Vittorio Fantini, were

fortunate, and

were due

to die.

two less

MARCH

220

General Simoni and two other generals were on Kappler's

list;

were

the fifty-three-year-old priest Padre Pappagallo, Colonel Frignani and several other ex-Carabinieri, Professors Pilo Albertelli and Gioacchino

Gesmundo, and of course Montezemolo and

the crippled diplomat had been arrested with him. Among the Jews were a butcher, Di Consiglio, and his three sons, one aged seventeen. Montezemolo's cousin, Marchesa Ripa di Meana, had had an audience with the Pope on 19 March. She found him seated behind his desk, emaciated and lined, dressed in white and with a splendid crucifix of diamonds and sapphires on his chest. She told hmi about Montezemolo's plight and how he could be invaluable in keeping order in Rome when

Filippo

Grenet,

who

Germans left, and begged the Pope to Montezemolo into the Vatican. After the

shudder. 'He

and said:

Your

flicker across the Pope's face.

Holiness,

Eventually he

we can, absolutely all we can.' He took Marchesa heard afterwards that he had summoned

we shall do

and the

and take

Montezemolo's tortures have been

that means.

She saw acute pain

details,

while the Pope seemed to

Kappler's hands then?' he asked. 'Yes,

promise you

down

know what

all

atrocious.'

intercede with the

all

Monsignor Montini and had given

precise instructions

- though

whatever they were, they were to be of no avail. The Black Panther had to work quickly, but she was in luck. Her hunting ground was in medieval Rome, round the Campo dei Fiori in particular.

and

Two

easy catches were her

brother-in-law,

his

Ugo Di

first

cousin,

Armando Di

Segni,

Nola. Then she spotted the boxer

Bucefalo. The Fascist police had a job arresting him, and he laid out three of them before being overpowered. He was dragged to Celeste Di Porto's flat

cell

to be beaten

up and then flung into Regina Coeli.

Bucefalo, father of

two

children, wrote:

the wall of his

Lazzaro Anticoli,

as Bucefalo, boxer. If I do not see my family again it is because of having been betrayed by Celeste Di Porto. Revenge me!' And there were

known

others in the day's haul. Altogether at least twenty-six Jews

were

to die

through the good offices of this 'helva umatia', the ages ranging between fifteen and seventy-tour. Other Jews, in the weeks ahead, were to be deported to the ovens of Auschwitz, with her

Kappler called on General Maeltzer

names,

less

know

himself from tried instead

midday on

the 24th with his

Caruso's. Afterwards he could not

Maeltzer had asked to go through the to

assistance.

list,

included Jews. Maeltzer,

Rome knew

or whether he had even wanted

who had

always tried to dissociate

must happen at Via Tasso, and who by adc:)pting a sort of Falstaffian to Kappler: 'You yourself must take responsibility for

what

all

to attract popularity

bonhomie, had said

list

remember whether

ROME the

list.'

221

Kapplcr did remember that Maeltzer had been surprised that only

four local inhabitants o{ Via Rasella had been included.

commander of the 3rd Bozen Battalion, now men would have to carry out the executions. He refused. 'My men are old. They are partly very religious, partly full of superstition, and they come from remote provinces in the Alps.' Above all, there were now too few of them to carry out such a large Major Dobbrich, was told

the

arrived and

that his surviving

was therefore put through to Fourteenth Army headquarters. Mackensen was not available, and it was his chief of staff, Hauser, who answered. No, he could not spare men for the to Kesselring's executions. Quite clearly, too, the teleprint from headquarters had stated: 'Execution by SD.' So Maeltzer, relieved, was able to say: "Well, then, it is up to you, Kappler.' In the trials of Kessclring, Mackensen, Maeltzer and Kappler after the war much time was expended on the responsibility for this final order. Although in effect it had been passed from Kesselring to Mackensen to Maeltzer to Kappler, and although Mackensen was to sign the statement saying that the executions had been carried out, it was maintained by the three generals that all this was formality, and that they were really just transmitting Hitler's and Himmlcr's decision. The SD and the whole SS were totally separate from the Army and they had nojurisdiction over it. This was due to Hitler's extraordinary insistence on centralization. Kappler, therefore, returned to his office at Via Tasso and informed his men of their duty. It was agreed to shoot the Italians in batches of five, and that the officers would shoot first, a 'symbolic necessity'. Speed was essential, and no time could be wasted. Any religious assistance was out

job, in so short

time.

call

OKW

of the question therefore.

single shot per person

would quicken

things

too; death should be instantaneous if the shot entered the cerebellum at close range.

One problem was how would

large cave or grotto, or a

policeman had died total

to dispose

of the bodies. Digging

take too long. Kappler then had a brainwave:

number of

why

catacomb even? He then heard

in hospital.

his

own

mass grave

not find some

that a thirty-third

initiative

he increased the

hostages to be killed to 330.

was quickly found: some pozzolana Rome, near the catacombs of Domitilla and the Church of Quo Vadis, where St Peter had met Jesus as he fled from persecution. The place became known as the Fo^^se Ardeatitie, ideal spot for the executions

caves oft the old road to Ardea just outside

the Ardeatine Caves.

Caruso names.

at this late

stage

was

still

having difficulty

making up

his fifty

MARCH

222

SS General Karl Wolff's plane from the North did not reach Viterbo until 3 p.m., by which time the executions had already started. He was met by Dollmann and together they drove to Kesselring's headquarters at Monte Soratte. Wolff's ill-humour was by no means improved by partisans sniping at their car. Whatever Kappler had in hand was not going to be nearly sweeping enough for him and Himmler. He was bringing instructions for all Communists and other suspects to be 'eliminated radically'; what was more, in the most dangerous areas of the city every male between the ages of eighteen and forty-five must now be rounded up immediately, and shipped to Germany for labour duties. Prisoners at Via Tasso were aware of sudden

some minutes before

commotion

in the corridors,

Doors were flung open, and German voices barked out: 'Los, los!' Raus, rausl' Sometimes names were called. Then three warrant officers appeared at the entrance to the crowded cell where old General Peppe Gariboldi, nearly seventy, had mostly lived since 2 p.m. '

before Christmas. Another series of barks: 'You, you, you and you.' This

random. The were taken from his cell had

time no names were given, and the selection seemed general was not chosen; none of those

ever had a

who

trial.

Several prisoners had difficulty in walking

- Montezemolo, toes, and he was

for

had had the nails pulled out of his also unaccustomed to strong light. Others were full of hope, believing that they were to be transferred to Regina Coeli. When outside, however, instance,

their

hands were tied with cords behind their backs, and they were

crammed such

into vans, used once for transporting meat.

General Gariboldi, were ordered to

belongings and place them

make up

in piles in the corridors.

Those

parcels

left

behind,

of the men's

This seemed to them

owners were destined to be killed. Captain Schutz had been put in charge of the executions. Before leaving Via Tasso he told his squad that anyone who baulked at the job - even if he were an officer - would be shot also. The vans drove past St John Lateran, where so many of the CLN were hidden, past the little church of the martyrs Nercus and Achilleus alone among umbrella pines sure sign that the

and cypresses, past the red hulks of the Baths of Caracalla, past the tomb of the Scipios, through the Aurelian Walls at the Porta San Sebastiano with its

twin

Catacombs of

Way into Roman Campagna; past

then they turned right off the old Appian

turrets;

beginnings of the sad and beautiful St Calixtus, past the

little

trattorie

the

with their wooden

benches under vines, almost unchanged since the days of Keats, Byron, Goethe and Buffalo Bill. At the entrance of the quarry Kappler was waiting. like a

He had

were As the

investigated the tunnels in the reddish earth; they

maze, some

hundred yards long and

fifteen feet high, ideal.

ROME

223

load of prisoners descended, he gave the assembled

first

Germans

a brief

on their duties and reminded them that the order had come direct from the Fuehrer himself. He felt moved, almost tearful. SD guards had been posted all round to keep civilians away. They did not realize that Nicola D'Annibale, a peasant who minded pigs, was looking all the while from a spot near the Catacombs of St Domitilla. D'Annibale was petrified, but what he saw was later to be evidence of first importance. He saw prisoners being divided into groups of five, all bound to one another. They went into a tunnel, and later he heard shots, but no cries. Some of the waiting prisoners shouted 'Italia!' One was a priest and he was asked for blessings; this was Padre Pappagallo. When Pappagallo lifted his hand, the man tied to him was suddenly freed. This was Josef Raider, an Austrian deserter from the German army. He attempted to escape but was caught, then recognized as a deserter. His life was thus, at the last minute, spared. An SD man was to remember: 'They died quietly. talk

Most of them prayed. An

man whom

elderly

knew

to be General

Simoni comforted everybody.' Once deep inside the tunnel, the prisoners had been made to kneel, and machine pistols had been held a few inches from the napes of their necks. In the insufficient light of torches Captain Schutz had given the order to fire, and in due course a medical orderly had checked to see that the men

were dead. Kappler

now selected a

officers did the

way,

a little

prisoner that he himself would

kill.

'Four other

We led the victims to the same place and, in the same

same.

behind the

first five,

empty vans turn round and back with more prisoners.

the

they were shot.' Outside D'Annibale saw

leave.

Within

a short

while they would be

At Anzio the pozzolana caves had been a refuge. Here they were of doom and of not always instantaneous death.

The vans had gone

men the

fifty

Regina Coeli.

place

reaching the prison, twelve

got out with several lengths of rope, and

wing kept

made

for the terzo braccio,

for the Nazis' political prisoners.

that time there

were about four hundred male prisoners

in the

wing,

females and several children belonging to Jewish inmates. Eleonora

who

had been arrested for helping escaped British POWs, was in the lavatory washing mess-tins, a privilege granted only to female prisoners. On the way back to her cell she saw about twenty male prisoners grouped in front of the offices on the ground floor. 'This was an unusual sight. then saw three or four pairs of German SD, in uniform, with papers in their hands, going from cell to cell opening the doors and Lavagnino,

lawyer

shouting out names.'

Guglielmo Morandi was

in a cell

with Lusena, the

man who had been a

MARCH

224

radio operator for the British. Lusena had only recently arrived

Tasso and had been allowed

a shave.

Through

from Via

the bars of their cell they

saw people being hauled out roughly, and noticed

that they

not even allowed to take belongings. 'A guard stopped

were usually of our cell

in front

and threw open the door. We all stood up. The Nazi's eyes searched the list of names, crossed out some that he had already called, then looked up and shouted: "Umberto Lusena".' 'The name,' said Morandi, 'lay heavily in the still air of the cell - hard, inexorable, not permitting any doubt.' They all turned to look at Lusena. 'Only the pallor of his face, a result of the ordeals he had already suffered, was a little accentuated. He looked

who

had been caught doing something wrong.' As Lusena small bag, he said: 'They are going to shoot me.' But Morandi, thinking he was merely to be sent to a concentration camp, gave him a piece of his bread for the journey. Eleonora Lavagnino reached the women's floor. In one of the cells she saw a Dr Pierantoni giving an injection to a female prisoner. A member of the Party of Action, he had been arrested about forty days ago. Miss Lavagnino then met two agents of the Feld Polizei who were looking for like a child

bent to pick up

name. 'When the doctor answered, the and took him away without even allowing him to was finish his work. tried to speak to Pierantoni but was unsuccessful. then pushed towards my cell by the Germans with their usual words:

the doctor.

They

agents entered the

called out his cell

"Komm komm,

los, los."'

Peering through the grilled window she watched the ever-growing group of prisoners in the courtyard below being sorted into Jews and Aryans. The doctor was very noticeable in his white coat. Morandi saw a young Carabinicre officer, Fontana, with them. Fontana's wife had been arrested at the same time as her husband and now she was permitted to wave goodbye from a balcony. The prisoners in the courtyard had their wrists tied behind their backs. 'First, however, they were stripped of all their belongings. Some even had to give up their shoes. The Italian Guardie di Servizio then threw themselves on these things like jackals.'

The

prison had

window

heard Fontana shout: 'Ciao, Nina,

become

coraggio.'

The departure of the trucks rattled the Morandi was to miss hearing Fontana and his

a desert.

frames. That night

wife calling to one another from their different

floors.

Kapplcr was back at Via Tasso, worrying because Caruso had still not completed his list of fifty men. Then he was told about indiscipline at the Caves. Some prisoners were being finished off with rifle butts, and an officer called Wetjcn was refusing to shoot, in spite of Schutz's warning.

So Kapplcr rushed round, to find that his men were indeed becoming 'I spoke to Wetjen as a friend, as a comrade.'

'spiritually depressed'.

ROME

225

Kappler then put an arm round him and drew him into five

men were waitmg

to be shot. 'Whilst he

was

firing

a tunnel where was myself firing

at his side.'

Next Kappler ordered a rest period, during which some of the corpses were stacked on one another. He had brought cognac from Via Tasso and now advised his men to drink. When firing resumed, it was often found easier

and

less

wasteful of space to

make prisoners climb on

the piles before

kneeling to be executed. Kappler returned again to Via Tasso.

Thanks presumably to the cognac, the soldiers became careless. It took sometimes to kill a man, and there were cases of heads being blown off Lieutenant Guenther Amonn arrived rather late, when about two hundred prisoners had been killed. Captain Schutz ordered him to take his turn at the shootings, but Amonn was nauseated by the sight. 'I was too afraid to fire. The four other raised my gun,' he said, 'but Germans fired one shot each into the backs of the necks of the other prisoners, who fell forward. Upon seeing the state in which was another

several shots

German pushed me out of

the

detailed to shoot.' After that

way and

Amonn

shot the prisoner

had been

fainted.

Meanwhile some local people, particularly monks who were guides Catacombs of Saint Calixtus, had heard repeated muffled shots and were becoming suspicious. Their evidence was again to be of importance.

at the

list was still not ready. In a fury one of Kappler's stormed into Regina Coeli and ordered eleven men to be random. Within the hour the victims were dead.

4.30 p.m. Caruso's

lieutenants seized at

Antonello Trombadori, the Gapist leader arrested early

thought the

men were

being taken away for labour duties.

join them, since he thought he then his request

was

refused.

work

the

Anzio

front

would have

did

manage

February,

asked to

chance of escaping, but

happened, several days

and

later

he was taken to

escape

during

bombardment. The Germans had never suspected Trombadori of being a Communist, so he had been spared torture. The Actionist Tom Carini, however, had been less fortunate; he had been so badly beaten up that he was in the Regina Coeli with a suspected fracture at the base of his cranium. Nevertheless he featured on Caruso's final list. When Canni's name was called, he believed he was going to be released. He tottered down the stairs where he met the chief male nurse, who had heard rumours about hostages in the city and had hastened to Regina Coeli. 'Where are you going?' 'I have an order for release. I'm leaving.' 'Back you go to bed, quickly.' And escorting Carini upstairs, the nurse explained the dangers. Soon Carini was in bed again with an ice pack on his head. But once more his name was called. His state of health

MARCH

226

was no obstacle to the Fascists, and this time he knew he was to die. He found himself facing Carretta, the director of the prison. Three Germans were just leaving the office as he arrived; they seemed in a hurry, as if they had just concluded some business. Carretta had, generally speaking, done what he could to ease the prisoners' conditions, and indeed some weeks back had secretly arranged for the Socialist leader Saragat to escape. He now said to Carini: 'They have eleven men too many, so am allowed to delete eleven from our list - ten Jews and you. So back you go to the infirmary, and don't you move from there.' I

The executions were

finally

over

at S

p.m. Engineers

now

sealed off the

tunnels with explosives, hi point of fact 335 people had been killed, including seventy-five Jews and ten men who had been rounded up near

Via Rasella. Kappler was to blame the

names, and

his

own men were

Italian police for the extra five

either too tired or

cognac to be bothered about such

small matter.

had had too much claimed that he

left

men said he was there to the end. That evening he addressed all under his command in the Gestapo mess: 'The reprisal has been carried out. know it has been very hard for some of the Caves an hour before, but one of his

you but in cases like this the laws of war must be applied. The best thing for you all to do is to get drunk.' Most were drunk already. At Monte Soratte General Wolff- intensely irritated and red in the face — confronted Kesselring with Himmler's demand, which in effect would

mean evacuating one

Romans. Kesselring was calm, pointing out would mean withdrawing three divisions from the front line. Moreover, taking into account enemy air strength, such a vast movement of personnel on the main highways outside Rome would result in huge casualties. In the end it was decided that Wolff would meet million

that such an operation

Kappler, the consul Moellhausen and others

midnight

the Excelsior

Hotel.

According to Dollmann, when he and Wolff entered the Excelsior, they found Kappler looking like a 'true executioner', his pupils 'flaming from deep livid eyes' after nearly two days without sleep, the duelling scar on his cheek looking like a raw snake. 'General,' said Kappler, in a paradeground voice, 'the order for the reprisals has been carried out.' Dollmann said Kappler then gave the figure as 335, but in later years Kappler maintained that he did not know about the additional five until the next morning, and other Germans said that he also at that time concealed the fact that

he had gone beyond the authorized 320.

A subtle communique was hammered in this the

crime'

out for publication the next day;

phrase 'Badoglian Communists',

Via Rasella, was used for the

would deny any such

association,

first

perpetrators of the 'vile

time. Inevitably the right

and there was

chance that the whole

ROME Roman

227

split in two. The communique continued: made as to the crime being caused by AngloThe German High Command is determined to crush

Resistance might be

'Investigations are being

American

influence.

the activities of these villainous bandits.

one

will be

allowed to

sabotage the renewed Italo-German co-operation.

Command

ordered that for

ten Badoglian

The every German who was murdered

has

Communists should be shot. This order has already been executed.' Himmler was telephoned at 2 a.m. The small hours were not the best time to suggest that his plan for the evacuation of most of Rome's male population should be abandoned. As Dollmann said, his threats were positively Neronian. Then everyone went to bed, to be ready for the funeral of the Bolzano policemen when Wolff would make a speech.

The Papal

representative

Cardinal Nasalli Rocca.

who called regularly at Regina Coeli was He had been told by a prisoner that several

people had been taken away to the firing squad. Greatly alarmed, the Cardinal had hurried straight to the Pope.

'When

him what

had and murmured: "It is not possible, I cannot believe it.'" Nasalli Rocca was asked to return to Regina Coeli for more news. 'The guards there confirmed that many prisoners had been sent to be shot.' Earlier on the 24th the Osservatore Romano had, in its usual ambiguous and careful language, appealed to all Romans to refrain from acts of violence, the implication being that reprisals might result. Detractors of Pius XII have since claimed that this proves that he must have known what was in store. In point of fact there is only one document in the Vatican archives referring to Via Rasella and possible reprisals on that day. It is a note made at the Secretariat and the time shown is 10. 1 5 a.m. A certain Ingeniere Ferrero, never identified, from the civil headquarters of Rome had given details about German and Italian casualties, adding that 'up till now the countermeasures are unknown, but it is foreseen that for every German killed ten Italians will be shot'. Vatican historians have reemphasized the fact that Via Rasella was a serious blow to the Pope's strategy for saving Rome from destruction, and added that it would seem likely that someone such as Padre Pancrazio or Prince Carlo Pacelli would have gone to the German authorities to ask for moderation, in the same way as they had often done in individual and less important cases. There is nothing about any warning from Dollmann. The whole of Rome expected some sort of German reaction, possibly violent, but nobody knew it would be so swift. As for contacting the German Embassy, there is only documentary evidence after the massacre, when details of victims of the reprisal were requested by the Secretariat on 22 April - the embassy denying any connection with the affair; earlier, on 29 March, an official at learnt in

the prison, the

Pope covered

his

told

face with his hands

MARCH

228 the embassy,

when

asked about pohtical detainees, had said that

enquiries should be sent to

As Dollmann has

all

No. 155 Via Tasso.

said: 'This

page of history destined to remain

mystery.'

The curfew was now reduced, from

Mother Mary

1700 hours again. Then the bread ration was

50 to 100 grams

St Luke, the

day. 'Another turn of the screw,' wrote

American nun,

communique about

the reprisal, she

other inhabitants of

Rome.

Carla Capponi was stunned; she

felt 'a

her diary.

When she read the

shiver of horror', as did

most

desperation, anguish'.

felt 'a terrible

Bentivegna was overcome by 'wrath, pain and outrage at so cowardly a His impulse, he said, was to take revenge, to kill. 'For the first

reprisal'.

time

understood the ferociousness of the enemy

faced.'

could not shake off a feeling of individual responsibility. Gapists

Amendola

He and

the other

who took part in the Via Rasella affair were to be criticized for not

giving themselves up before the executions. Yet they were never asked to

so.

'But,'

The executions were announced by the Germans as ufait accompli. Amendola said, 'quite apart from the circumstances of those times,

we partisans had a duty not to give ourselves up, even if our sacrifice could have prevented the death of so many innocent people. We were a unit in a fighting army, we were also part of the headquarters of that army, and we could not abandon the struggle and go over to the

knowledge of the organization's network.

enemy with

We had one duty:

all

our

to continue

the fight.'

And so on the 26th the Gapists issued

their

own communique,

with that

very message: the partisan war would not cease until the total evacuation

of the It

city

was

by the Germans. assumed that only 320

Italians

still

Osservatore

always not to take

two victims at Via

killed.

sides,

on the one hand expressing grief for the thirtyon the other 'for the three hundred and twenty

this as a

who

escaped

arrest'.

The

double barb, but the Germans were not pleased after long arguments with Wolff had finally

- who Himmler's plan - did not

either. Kesselring

The

careful as

Rasella,

persons sacrificed for the guilty parties

Communists saw stalled

had been

Romano now printed another announcement,

like the

word

'sacrificed'.

therefore

of staff to ask Kappler for clarification about the Vatican's by word of mouth, that innocent people had died. Once more, Kesselring was later to maintain, he had been assured that 'all those who had been shot had been condemned to death'. Nothing had been said

told his chief

further claim,

him

either about the fifty-seven

Jews

'You cannot imagine,' Luisa Arpini has

who

had been included.

said, 'the

grimness, the dread of

ROME

229

all of us had a friend, a brother, a father, a husband who have been assassinated by that horrific Gestapo. Near me there lived the family of a dear little housepainter called Gigi, who had been caught in a man-hunt some weeks back. Perhaps the Nazis felt he was a partisan, because he went straight to Via Tasso. The wife was desperate for news.

those days. Nearly fui<^ht

rumours - seven hundred, eight hundred had died. Of course it leaked out quickly that the executions had been at the Ardeatine Caves. We heard that a priest from St Calixtus had actually managed to get into one of them and had seen bodies - true, as we now

There were

fantastic

know. Then Gigi's wife had a typed note from Via Tasso saying her husband was dead, not how or why. Even after the liberation of Rome she

tried to

still

make

herself believe that he had really been deported to

Frankfurt or somewhere. All the same, she decided to go to the Ardeatine

me to go with her. We brought flowers — gladioli. But The memory still makes me feel sick. You noticed it

Caves, and asked the smell

hundreds of yards away. The Nazis had dumped rubbish entrance to camouflage insisted

was

afraid

Eventually the Nazis put

really sealed up,

it.

March

there

said

was

further

Rome's open

city status.

Vatican, after

all

the

least the

Caves'

explosives there and the place

and they kept guards outside.'

German communique,

Messaggero. Part whitewashing, part threatening,

sourly.

at the

could not go on, but she

To many Romans

weeks of negotiation,

Germans had not

it it

published in the

in effect

affirmed

seemed mere bluff. To the must have read somewhat

carried out their threat to re-examine

their attitude.

The communique claimed

that it had done everything possible to Anglo-American adversaries of every pretext for the senseless bombardment of the city of Rome', yet the 'terroristic attacks' continued. Now all military movements across Rome would be prohibited, and there would be no German troops whatsoever in the city, apart from police and hospital personnel. Soldiers would not be allowed leave in Rome, even to visit St Peter's. If, however, Badoglian Communist

'deprive the

elements took advantage of those measures

order to 'carry out

cowardly ambushes', the German High Command would find itselt obliged to take what military measures it deemed necessary. 'Thus, the fate of Rome and its civilian populations rests exclusively in the hands ot the

Roman

The

population

arrests

itself.'

continued.

The

black market continued.

The miserable

bread ration continued, and the bread mostly consisted ot ground chickpeas, maize flour, elm pith and mulberry leaves. People

were

and benches in the parks for firewood. Every day in Piazza Navona the church of Sant'Agnese tolled for the dead. Water was short;

hacking

trees

MARCH

230 the shabby Allied

women clustered

with their buckets round the fountains. The

PO Ws were moved from new billet to new billet, but by the end of

month twenty-one had been recaptured. The walls all over Rome were scrawled with provocative graffiti, often sarcastic about the Allied slowness. Three women had their heads shaved by neighbours for sleeping with Germans. Not all those who received notes from Via Tasso about their relatives' deaths still had hope. The parents of Maurizio Giglio the

put

in the

paper that 'torn with grief they requested their friends neither to

nor send messages of condolence'. Families were allowed to collect belongings of those reported dead. In

call

the seam of a shirt this note

and of my love

wound -

whom

like the

was found:

shall

dream of the hills around Siena, shall become one gaping

never see again.

winds, nothing.'

Mother Mary wrote in her diary: 'There is a sort of vague, dissatisfied, ominous feeling in the air. Some German cars and lorries have gone, and a good many soldiers with them, but barriers are still up around the German offices, and they are guarded by sentinels with machine-guns as before. Those who have gone outside the city have not gone far, and can pounce in on us whenever they wish to do so.' The Allied bombardments had died down, but not in the suburbs, and there was a good deal of shooting in the streets at night. The Communist underground newspaper L'Unita published an article 'Avenge our Martyrs', and called for 'war to the death'. The Action the 30th

Party paper Vltalia Libera had terror'.

Meanwhile Kapplcr and

considering

how

the plan of the

of any

new

Schweincrei.

case

not

bow

Kesselring's headquarters

were

secretly

headline:

still

'We

insistent

shall

Wolff could be

That moment was soon

Nazi

effected in

come.

APRIL-JUNE

Anzio

By the end of March the Beachhead had become, to use a military euphemism, static. The failure at Cassino naturally meant that Truscott could not proceed with

breakout

in the

offensive.

his

Operation Panther, designed to coincide with

Both

sides

were worn

out.

There was

refitting, in readiness for the big Allied offensive that

the late spring with the In

own

South. Mackensen also abandoned his

plan for

new

and must surely come in need tor

rest

good weather.

mid-April the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff decided that

Operation Anvil could not

now

possibly be launched simultaneously

with Overlord, scheduled for early June. According to Clark's reckoning

weeks might be needed for the Fifth Army troops in the South to up with VI Corps at Anzio. By now he had some 30,000 men on the Beachhead, over 90,000 of them being Americans, a fair proportion of whom had been there since the earliest days. The drive by XII Air Support Command to disrupt German rail, road and communications north of Rome, Operation Strangle, continued inexorably. Between 15 March and 10 May there were 4,807 sorties. General Eaker divided Italian towns containing historic and religious monuments into three categories. Those which were in no circumstances to be bombed without his authority were Rome, Fiesole, Florence, Venice and Torcello. In category two were Ravenna, Assisi, San Gimignano, Pavia, Urbino, Montepulciano, Parma, Aosta, Tivoli, Udine, Gubbio, Volterra, Spoleto, Ascoli Piceno, Como, Pesaro and others listed enigmatically as Borgo, San Spolone and Aquia, presumably Borgo San Sepolcro and L'Aquila. 'The bombing of these towns,' Eaker directed, 'which have at present no spectacular military importance should be avoided if possible. If, however, you consider it essential for operational reasons that objectives in any of them should be bombed, you should not hesitate to do so, and accept full responsibility tor the results.' In the third chapter of this Apocalypse were such towns as Siena, Orvieto three

link

APRIL-JUNE

234

and Perugia - 'There are important military objectives in or near those towns which are to be bombed and any consequent damage is accepted.'

The expenditure yards,

higli

explosive rained on Italian marshalling

railway lines and bridges was vast, but the

Germans merely

increased their round-ups of Italian male civilians and, with the help of the

Todt labour organization, the end only to be

were quickly made. Strangle proved in nuisance, and the Ciermans - masters always of repairs

improvisation - managed to keep their It

was

still

traffic

going.

expected by the Germans that there might be further Allied

landings, possibly at Civitavecchia or Tarquima, or even at Ostia.

Although troops were regularly withdrawn from the front

specifically to

help in building defensive positions around Vclletri and before

they had to be kept on the alert

at night.

By and

large units

Rome,

would

stay

weeks in the line and were then withdrawn for ten days' construction work. This compared with the Allied habit of keeping men in the line tor ten days, then bringing them back for two days in reserve three

followed by Anzio,

six days'

new

complete

rest.

Further south, between Cassino and

known

as the Hitler Line, was also being was even stronger than the Gustav Line. The Beachhead perimeter now measured sixteen miles along the coast by five to seven miles deep, 'no larger than a medium-sized Western ranch'. The British still guarded the Flyover on Via Anziate; this area was held by the ist Division, with General Penney back in command. To the west, taking in most of the wadi country and as far as the swampy pools and dunes at the mouth of the Moletta, was the 5th Division under General Grcgson-Ellis, whose gaunt figure in khaki shorts, very British, amused Truscott so much. The American 45th Division, commanded by General Eagles and with men trom Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, was to the east of the Flyover, at the beginning of the great a

built; in

flat

some

stretch

defensive area, places

of tarmland

known

some

as the Billiard

Table. Facing

Cisterna three other American divisions alternated during the next

months: the 3rd (General O'Daniel), the

ist

Armored

Old

Ironsides

(General Harmon), and the 34th Iowa Infantry Division (General Ryder).

Then along ist

the Mussolini Canal as far as the sea

were the Black Devils, the

Special Service Force, under the remarkable (General Frederick.

Stories about the Black Devils

outrageous appeared

home

buzzed round the Beachhead and the less newspapers. There was 'Gusville', for

a group of ruined farms from which patrols would go out but where animals still maintained a kind of life. Its mayor. Lieutenant Gus Heilman, boasted that it had no strikes, unemployment or black market, and was able to run a well-stocked bar through bringing back booze from raids far in the enemy hinterland. His colleague George ('The

example,

ANZIO Mustache') Krasevac once guided

235

whole herd of

cattle

back through

The Force surgeon managed to deliver five Italian babies of two eggs apiece, later increased when he heard that the

the minefields. for a fee

chaplain had been given

chicken for

christening.

The Force also kept a prophylactic station for men who were lucky enough to chance upon farmhouses behind the German lines where there were young wives or older daughters. Such escapades were fewer when the 'Heinies' began sowing more anti-personnel mines. On one occasion tanks had to be sent to rescue a number of severely wounded men. Sergeant Knox remembered a tank trundling up to the surgeon, the other Evashwick. 'A boy was sitting on the tank with one leg up having been blow off. The Forceman called to Evashwick: "Hey doc, got .

an extra foot around

this place?'"

As the weather improved, and honeysuckle came into flower, and narcissi and cyclamen appeared in this 'arsehole of Italy', so the trenches dried out and were reinforced by beams, doors and girders taken from Nettuno and Anzio. By day there was relative quiet, but the horror returned each night, with the stealthy combat patrols, grenade duels and mortaring. It was the War of Little Battles. Observation posts would have to be

manned, and maybe

a trip-flare

would be

set off,

illuminating the

landscape in stark aluminium-coloured detail, and spandaus

would rake

the frozen figures. Mines were the greatest dread, particularly 'Bouncing Betties'.

The thousands of propaganda leaflets caused a diversion. Some were some useful as pin-ups. There were also surrender passes. Most leaflets were purposely grisly - 'The road to Rome is paved with skulls', etc., with appropriate illustrations - and there were others with frankly obscene,

your

and 56th English Divisions The Limeys have good whether they are shedding blood reason to keep mum, for as history proves other peoples have always been the cat's paw of England.' 'Jerry's Front Line Radio', starring Axis Sally of the low-keyed sexy voice, alias the Berlin Bitch, and her helper George, continued to be popular. Her programmes usually began with the words 'Hullo suckers', and her signature tune was 'Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea'. After the routine boogie-woogie there would be some choice tale: 'Heard

subtler messages: 'Ask

pals in the 5th as

about Private Jones?

He had

all

you

his guts

are.

blown away by

Schuh mine

last

week, but went on living twelve hours. Nasty things Schuh mines.' Then would follow messages from POWs enjoying the good tood and comforts of captivity. Sally also seemed well informed about happenings

on the Beachhead: 'Well, boys, night?'

how

did you like the blasting

you got

last

APRIL-JUNE

236 As Truscott But we

said: 'Life

death.

learnt

was tense

how

always

when men

are close to

to survive.'

At the other end of the Beachhead, in the British zone, also listened to avidly, enjoying the banality and always hoping that in her catalogue of prisoners my batman-runner Vickers, recently captured, I

Sally,

might be included. counted myself lucky to be hving for three weeks - as - in a deep and therefore shell-proof I

against the usual ten days in the line

hole under a cowshed, once excavated by Americans and with a store

rations, tinned pineapple,

sweetcorn and chewing

good

gum

left

reHef from bully beef and 'conner', Maconachie's stew. Unfortunately, there was also a legacy of crab lice. Water was very short,

behind,

only enough for two mugs of tea per person

day. Illumination in the

dugout came from a smoky paraffin lamp made out of a cigarette tin. 'If,' wrote to a girlfriend in London, 'we do venture to poke our dirty unshaven faces over the top by day, the light is so dazzling we have to blink. What one has to go through to save civiHzation. There's no water for washing. Yet we are a merry enough dugout - all walks of life. The Honourable Society of Moles and Earthworms.' And later again: 'Excuse paper - hands are filthy and it's loot from a farmhouse anyway. don't mind dancing with you all night, but when it comes to being platoon commander, wireless operator, guide, stretcher-bearer and general liaison stooge all night long it's a bit of a strain. As you would say: my dear, the noise and the shrapnel!' In my diary was less flippant. 'Dusk, and these awful nights. A Jerry patrol slipped in behind one of my forward sections and nabbed a corporal. We are very uneasy. I'm determined we shall be offensive from now on, and I'm laying ambushes, snipers everywhere, booby-trapping the wire. My knees are so sore from crawling.' And later: 'The men seem dispirited. They've been on the go since the invasion of Sicily and are worn out. It's terrible to see what war can do to a man's will. I'm always coming across those people - mostly old soldiers and excellent fellows who are entirely shaken and a bag of nerves, a captain among them. Bomb-happiness is a dreadful thing. Jerry knows it too. His propaganda is very subtle, though often stupidly crude Today I'm organizing a burial squad to deal with dead cattle and sheep. We have a dead horse near here. It stinks. Mosquitoes are now hatching out.' And later: 'We are beginning to bore one another in this hole, and I'm sick of the smell of I

Then these grouses. Why don't we advance? What are we fighting Why don't they send out the strikers to take our place?' On Easter Sunday we had powdered eggs for breakfast. In the

feet.

for?

Padiglione

woods

the

Old

Ironsides organized a multi-denominational

service at sunrise in their 'Church-in-the-Wildwood', erected

from

trees

ANZIO felled

by enemy

perhaps luckily, attracted the

shells,

as a

and invited some at us

bugle

German

237

besides

call

artillery

summoning

across.

declined,

the worshippers also

An underground cinema was

town ot Anzio was for when we came out of the line to rest, and for people who existed permanently in rear areas - though nowhere in the Beachhead was safe from bombs or shells. There were also concert shows, with costumes looted from the town, and sometimes starring professional entertainers - but the Americans, we itself,

seating thirty-five 'and

constructed nearer the

no queueing';

this

humour of a British pair, Ramsbottom and Enoch, The pipers ot the Scottish Horse, complete with kilts and sporrans, did however provide a sensation for the Yanks. Nevertheless, first priorities when we emerged from the front were (a) sleep and (b) heard, found the

'unrewarding'.

'disinfestation' at the

mobile showers.

Green Howards, Charles halt French, as lively a character as Nick Mansell - to a show called The IVaggoners. 'I hadn't laughed so much for a long time.' wrote in my diary: 'The "leading lady" was most voluptuous, heavily rouged and with a low-cut dress. We all whistled and cheered, he might have been Betty Grable. Later we heard he had been ordered to tone it down. Such is the all-male atmosphere in the Beachhead. The whole place is fraught with what Charles calls sulphur.' Beetle-racing became a mania for some; a Green Howards favourite was called Mae West, carrying a lot of money as well as weight. An exNew York bartender, Corporal Joe Boyle, rounded up some mules, donkeys and horses, 'as nitty a bunch of steeds as ever turned a quarter ot a mile in thirty-five seconds flat'. He formed a Beachhead Racing Association, the high spot being the Anzio Derby, with a can of C rations for the winner, and another ot spaghetti and meat balls for second place. The Derby was won by Quartermaster Stable on Six-by-Six, who surged ahead of Suzie and others such as Slow Motion and George, 'a white jackass well anchored under 240 pounds of Pat Burns of Brooklyn'. All this to the strains of the 3rd Division band playing its famous hymn, 'The Dogface Soldier March'. On my return from my three weeks' sojourn under the cowshed, found that the 'lads' at our rest area, B Echelon, in a pineta by the sea, had excavated roomy sleeping-holes, each containing real beds filched trom Anzio with camouflage nets as mattresses. Most of these holes had been thoughtfully provided with notices, such as 'Seaview Hotel', 'Good Eats Cafe', 'The Nook', 'Hawkers and Shells Not Welcome', or 'Sunny Side 1

once went with another subaltern

in the

Newton —

Up'. Front-liners

were never allowed

to venture into

Anzio town,

strictly the

APRIL-JUNE

238

domain of VI Corps HQ, port authorities and suchlike. Anyone arriving port from Naples during the day would find himself plunged in an unpleasant greasy smoke-screen, through which could be discerned numerous barrage balloons which kept off the dive-bombers. Some signs might also be visible: 'You are Here', 'Beachhead Hotel - Special Rates at the

New

became more menacing: 'No 'Danger - Shelling. Make No Dust'. The unloading at the port continued with marked unconcern (at times) for Anzio Annie, whose shells were like an express train running full tilt overhead, and for the plumes of spray constantly spurting up from random shells. Indeed, between March and May 1944, Anzio had the for

traffic in

Arrivals'. Further inland they

daylight

beyond

this point',

reputation of being the seventh busiest port in the world. less

On 29 March no

than 7,828 tons were brought ashore.

There were days, or more usually nights, of great disasters down at the On 3 April, for instance, 150,000 gallons of petrol went up and several men were scorched to death. Every day, too, there were casualties from 'Popcorn Pete', the anti-personnel bomb. Hospitals continued to receive direct hits. Altogether nearly a hundred medical personnel were killed by shellfire, including six nurses. German 'human torpedoes' or Eboats looked like being a menace until it was realized that their pilots port.

became hopelessly

sea-sick. Occasionally

some

intrepid saboteurs, dressed

uniforms, would land on beaches in small boats and then be

in Allied

blown up on assassinate

One group

the mines.

actually claimed to have a mission to

General Clark.

The Beachhead during

this period of 'lull' was a great place for Americans as Gadabouts and to the British as Swanners — senators, members of Parliament, self-important journalists, Russian observers. To Anzio hands there was always some sadistic pleasure in noting the anxiety of these people to return home as quickly as possible. Often the visitors would express a wish to 'fire a gun' and would then be directed to a twenty-five pounder reserved for that purpose. A Colonel Robert Spears, an Ordnance officer, made a special trip from Palermo just to be able to snipe a German, so that he 'could hold his own with his son', who was a pilot in the Pacific. He was in luck. 'The Colonel nuzzled his cheek against the stock of his 103, squinted down the sights at the grey-green tunic Now he was ready for retirement. The old Colonel had killed his German.' And somebody else, in Germany, had

sightseers,

known

to the

lost a son.

surprising scourge

short leave to Naples

acted as

among new

was VD.

kind of father to us

all

was

recruits or those really upset

in the platoon,

who

when my

announced

had been on

sergeant, that he

who

had got

and must go into hospital. could not believe that he had 'stooped' to what Neapolitan pimps called ficky-fick, he a married man. In my

ANZIO innocence

was

he had caught

Timmy

Lloyd's scabies,

blankets, like the crab lice, or us

might

239

also a bit afraid lest

also be

from American and that the rest of it

contaminated.

were not finally evacuated from the Beachhead until though a few hundred were kept back for jobs such as mess waiters or as hospital orderlies. Captain Mack, British and cooks at Corps Public Safety Officer, used to visit a farmer who had insisted on staying on in a danger area. The man lived in his cellar, and one day Mack was amazed to find a girl cooking something there - she was his daughter. Mack warned him not to let her .outside, in case she was spotted by a nearby American unit. He called again and found an American sitting in the cellar; but the man was a deserter. The GI couldn't keep his eyes off the girl. So Mack quickly disarmed him and called the military police - but in Italian civilians

April,

doing the

secret

be despatched,

was out and the farm came under

siege.

The

girl

had

the Italians succinctly say, precipitevolissimevolmente to

Naples.

There were said to be three hundred deserters, both British and American, at large on the Beachhead. At first nobody made out where they could hide themselves in such a small area. John Hope, the British Guards officer at VI Corps, used sometimes to take time off birdwatching in deserted gardens to the east of Nettuno, making his way along a very deeply dug ditch. 'Once saw some washing hanging out, which thought was odd. Then saw something shining beneath a lot of old sticks. kicked at it and found a large cache of new tins. I thought: "My God, those deserter bastards must be in the wood here." turned a corner and was confronted by two unshaven GIs, one with a red beard, with rifles. I knew it was touch and go. "What are you doing here?" one of them asked. showed him my British badges, and when I said I was birdwatching they burst out laughing. They pretended they were just back from the front.' As soon as he got back, Hope reported the affair to the American Provost. After some difficulty, it was agreed to send a jeep. Hope, to his alarm, was asked to sit on the bonnet. 'As we approached the ditch, Red Beard and his companion jumped up and ran like hell I

men God knows whether any were into a tobacco field; the

go into the bushes

to find out

the jeep belted off into the crops.

killed.

who was

expedition was organized to there.

Men

just couldn't be

spared.'

Hope was delighted one day to see a pair of bee-eaters, which appeared German lines. He also saw several golden orioles.

to be nesting in the

you might hear a cuckoo at dawn. Nightingales sang day and night, and people complained they were becoming bird-happy. The more the nightingales were frightened by two-inch mortars or volleys of grenades, the more they sang — and the more this so-called In the front line

APRIL-JUNE

240

music of the moon seemed callous to those holes and who saw their comrades die.

who

crouched

shallow fox-

was no substitute for the sausage, so complained about the composition of his Wurst, that almost sacred item of the national diet. Sergeant Fritz Wolff, who belonged to a butcher company in 65th Division, was eventually given money to scour the countryside for pigs. Amazingly, he was in the end generally able to fmd one pig per day. Animals for slaughter were in very short supply around Rome, especially beef, and Field-Marshal Kesselring had forbidden the killing of milking cows, as he said that milk for Roman children was more important. The ersatz coffee, supposed to be made from roasted wheat, was nicknamed Muckefuck, and cigarettes were rationed at three a day. By and large, food at the front was better than in rear echelons. In spite of Axis If

British felt that the 'soya link'

German

the

soldier

Sally's eulogies,

any Allied

camp pronounced

prison

POW food

who managed be

vile,

to escape

mostly

from

potatoes

and

cabbage. Lieutenant Schaller, returning from his comfortable leave in his Italian

was relieved to fmd himself attached for a while to the Regiment HQ, under Colonel Claus Kuehl, a man of some charm,

friends' house,

145th

aged forty-five, with

passion for dance music. After visiting front line

would return to peppermint liqueur and Schnapps, though the colonel would only allow a Spartan meal of sandwiches in the evening. Early in April Schaller had to return to his original unit, which positions they

was

at the

hated Dreijinj^erschlucht, Three Fmgers Ravine - no-man's-land

you could chuck a grenade. His batman was from a splinter in the groin. If, like me in my cowshed, Schaller suffered from lack of washing water and from lice, he fared better on Easter Day, receiving from base tobacco. Schnapps, cake and one fresh egg, hard-boiled. A derelict Sherman tank was used as an observation post, and Schaller sat inside it throughout daylight hours. His radio set broke down, which meant that he could not direct artillery fire. This was a nuisance, as you could actually see Americans of the 45th Division shaking out their blankets in the morning. They seemed to have diarrhoea, because they were always dashing out to ammunition boxes which they used as there being just as far as

almost

once

killed

lavatories.

radio was mended, and the artillery opened up on Schaller's Did those Americans rush into the bushes! They retaliated with a

last his

targets.

grenade-thrower, but of course Schaller directed the too.

artillery

on to

that

When night came, he made a reconnaissance and found several bodies,

including

German ones from

earlier actions

which nobody had bothered

ANZIO

241

Colonel Kuchl visited the unit and was so upset by these dead that burial parties were at once arranged.

to bury.

Germans

When

was not in his observation post he spent his time looking fifty to sixty a day were not rare. Whenever he returned to HQ for lice he was always astounded by the greenness of the meadows and the trees, just coming to life, in contrast to the blasted ground, like cocoa powder, at Schaller

the front line.

Lieutenant Richard Ochler was in April, he noted, the average

'uncanny

disquiet', a

time

gave him

this

drier weather, the

Signals

German

Company. By

kind of dread of the unknown, though

heightened readiness for

ground would be nicely hard

battle.

skies Erite,

weakened

that

least,

for the Tiger

tanks, always superior to the Allies' 'hardware'.

Force, by contrast, had been so

the end of

soldier in his foxhole felt an

the

same

with the

and Panther

But the German Air mostly kept out of the

by day, even when the Allied observation plane, known as the Lahme Lame Duck, came trundling overhead. At night it was different, and

one heard bomber formations speeding for Anzio. The enemy antiaircraft defences were massive, but the planes obviously found some good targets, judging by the pulsing red glows in the sky. 'I am sure,' wrote Oehler, 'that few of my comrades will forget the firework displays on those nights.'

His

company was moved back

to Ninfa, west

of the Alban

Hills,

and

positioned in tents and straw huts on the mountainside opposite the

of Norma. Ah Ninfa! hundred years,

magic beauty, a village deserted its towers and ruins reflected in pools and streams. The American wife of Prince Bassiano had begun to turn the whole place into a garden, with water-lilies and climbing roses, but now the Bassianos had fled to Rome and the undergrowth was taking over again. And high above, past the olive groves, was Norma, perched incredibly like a kestrel's nest on the barren cliffs; and opposite it Sermoneta, with its romantic castle and the Borgia dungeons. Oehler's company had the job of blowing up no less than twenty-eight village

place of

for at least a

bridges

when

would launch

their attack.

was back at the Fortress. As before tried to be breezy in my my London girlfriend: 'My dear, fancy beating off patrols all last

18 April

letters to

the Allies

night, with mortar barrages, flares, tracer everywhere!

the old nerves.

Such

a strain

We have to climb a thirty-foot vertical slope to get to this

place!'

To my

wrote more frankly: 'Here we are stuck in the shittiest a hillside and completely under observation from the enemy. We can't so much as stir above the top or snipers are at us at once. We just crouch at the bottom of our trenches and hope for the best. brother

position on the edge ot

APRIL-JUNE

242

listening to the distant report

grenade-thrower, waiting for the

whistle of the falling grenade, and then hearing the explosion, maybe twenty yards away. The German adjusts his aim and there is another report. This time the thing explodes only fifteen yards away. And so on The dry ground is now like iron and it's difficult to dig deeper. Only Charles Newton cheers us up. Last night the Germans were talking and shouting across the valley, and he shouted back, Ruhe da, wir koenneti nicht schlafeti. Shut up, we can't sleep.' And in my diary: 'GOD THIS IS A BLOODY WAR. First of all the occupied six weeks ago is now the target ot vicious Jerry position just cannot forget having to attacks, just across the valley from here. Then last night two listen to a wounded corporal sobbing and crying of my men were wounded, one a stretcher case, I swear the worst thing Charles at least could be funny, even hilarious, about have ever seen Jerries rolling egg grenades down a slope, trying to get them into his platoon's weapon slits. He says Brian Ryrie, who fought so bravely, had a bottle of whisky in his trench and that was the only thing that kept him going during a rifle grenade attack. One of Brian's men became so hysterical that he had to sit on him There is a feeling that our defences are being gradually nibbled away. Dusk is the worst time. Will there or .

will there not be that big attack

survive the night? ...

had

we now real

expect?

command about What We Are Fighting For. this talk

Who among

us will

trouncing from our second-inIn a nutshell.

He said that all

about crusades made him retch. The Four Freedoms, Herrenvolk

and German "inhumanity" were incidental migrations of insects -

as issues.

Wars

are like mass

matter of impulse. Rarely had they anything to

were nearly always buried in much more intricate matters, mainly economic, over which the emotions of the little man, be he British or American or German, had absolutely no control.

do with sentiment;

And

their roots

so on.'

The

had been a far more war diary shows how

Fortress

Gericke's

encroaching on

it.

restricted place than in

His policy had been to 'give the

boost his men's morale by

March. Major

the 4th Paras had been gradually

enemy no

succession dt small successes.

peace' and to 1

March he

recorded taking eleven prisoners, on 19 March forty-five, then forty-

He claimed that most ot the Schn'alhetim'st' was in German hands by 23 April (I left on 25 April). There followed for me a spell at B Echelon: 'This could be glorious country,' I now wrote. 'Charles and did a little tour in a jeep - brilliant moon and dark trees shrugging their shoulders; even an illicit bathe by moonlight.' Then found myself in the North Lobster Claw wadi, among the graves of men who had died two months before, mostly belonging to the Queens and the Oxford and Bucks, in a 'wasteland of

seven.

ANZIO

243

churned up earth and craters'. From my trench the Alban Hills and Vclletri were easily visible in the freshness of morning light. This time, for a change, found my platoon had the advantage over the I

Jerries,

and

would sometimes crawl out spot of sniping. But

in the

now

sweltering sun to

was not long before remorse ruined houses to do a overtook me: 'Yesterday did a terrible thing. There was an attack scare and we had a hundred per cent stand-to. went forward to an old trench on the ridge above us to have a "dekko". Like a fool I only had a grenade with me, and to my surprise saw a Jerry get up and walk, about two hundred yards away. went back and fetched a rifle, and then saw a head looking over the top which fired at. It fell backwards straight away. knew I had scored a bullseye. was thrilled. Shortly afterwards I crawled up to the Jerry wire to get my field-glasses, which thought I'd left there. As wriggled into a big shell-hole, about fifty yards from me I happened to notice a very blond Aryan, as Charles would say, looking the other way, combing his hair. tried to fire three rounds with my Winchester and of course - as always in such cases - it was jammed. Back I went to fetch a rifle, and then, watched closely by my platoon, fired at this wretched chap. He threw up his hands with a gasp, which I clearly heard, and collapsed. Then the meaning of what I was doing hit me. Oh God, oh God, let me out of here before I do any more such things ... At Company HQ theyjoked and called me "Killer" or "Crippen", which makes me all it

the

miserable.'

This happened on 10 May. Alexander's great offensive, Diadem,

opened

Cassino on

May.

At the end of April the American 3rd Division had carried out two small but bloody actions, known as Operations Mr Black and Mr Green, in the region of Spaccasassi (Break Stones) Creek, which their predecessors, the 45th, had thankfully handed over to them. The hero of the former action was Pfc John C. Squires, who - in spite of his eighteen years and never having been in action before - coolly took over command of his platoon when the NCOs were knocked out. Single-handed, he captured twentyone prisoners, one by one, from the 29th Panzer Grenadier Division. Squires was later killed and posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Operation Mr Green was notable for its use of the 'psychological attack'. Loud-speakers warned Germans that more and heavier artillery fire was about to come, and they had better surrender before it was too late. German NCOs could be seen rushing from hole to hole to pacify their men. The 3rd Division's successes with these two operations helped to raise morale, for up to now the enemy had been gradually pushing forward.

APRIL-JUNE

244

Since, in that flat and bare country, and unlike some of the British sector, any vehicle stirring during the hours of daylight could be watched from the Alban Hills, movement was naturally sparse. It was not surprising, maybe, that one track to the front was called variously Via Dolorosa and

the

Burma Road. Now,

at last, there

was

a slight feeling

of offence rather

than defence. It

was

also noticeable that the

Germans had

shipping. Instead, their chief targets

virtually given

raids

were supply dumps, landing

strips

and troop concentrations. Captured German documents gave these casualty figures: 4-8 April, 82 killed, 403 wounded, 14 missing - Allied prisoners 11; 14-18 April, 97 killed, 342 wounded, 82 missing - Allied prisoners 12; 19-23 April, 107 killed, 340 wounded, 48 missing - Allied prisoners 9; 24-28 April, 1 16 killed, 447 wounded, 56 missing - Allied prisoners 43; 29 April

missing- Allied prisoners 23. The German deserters were usually Beute Deutsche, i.e. from occupied countries. Of the German prisoners, few under twenty-one proclaimed

-3rd May, 132

themselves

killed, 531

wounded,

anti-Nazi though not

many were

politically conscious. All

those in the 65th Division praised General Pfeifer. General Greiner of the

362nd Division, opposite the

3rd Division, however, was generally

Wird immer kleinerjZum Schluss hleibt einer/ Greiner division/Gets smaller and smaller/At the Greiner, The das ist Und man left/ And that will be Greiner. He was felt to end there will only be one be conceited and tremendously ambitious, and had actually said that he disliked. 'Die Division Greinerj

would never

leave the Beachhead until his division could be loaded

single truck.

There was

also scorn for

Battalion zbV,

who was

Captain Aschmann commanding the 7th

considered/ei^e, chicken-hearted.

The zbV,

was composed of court-martialled men and physically fit criminals on probation, some being veterans. The morale of these men was not very high either, and cannot have been improved by the fact that they often had to encounter the Canadian-American wild boys, the Black Special Service,

Devils.

During April Alexander and Clark did not visit the Beachhead. Clark had summoned briefly to Washington. In the meantime Truscott was preparing alternative schemes for the great breakout, after the Gustav and Hitler Lines had been breached. On 5 May Alexander visited VI Corps headquarters and at once selected the scheme known as Operation Buffalo as the most feasible; it called for a thrust to a gap south of the Alban Hills towards Valmontone on Route 6, the aim of which would be to cut off the retreat of the right wing of the German Tenth Army. been

ANZIO Alexander launching

245

also told Truscott that he reserved for himself the

time for

this attack.

Truscott decicled to alert Clark about this at once, and the next day Clark arrived, obviously annoyed by what he considered to be an attempt

by the his

British to run his

men

any

case,

he was not

cut otf the

ground 'I

Army. What was more, he was determined

should have the glory of being the

at all

convinced that

first

to enter

that

Rome. And

Valmontone would them holding the high

drive for

Germans; it would certainly leave the Alban Hills.

asked Alex,' said Clark, 'please to issue orders through me, instead of

my subordinates.' Alexander climbed down at once, Rome first, he said: 'You see where I've drawn the boundaries, Wayne. Rome is in your area. Rome is yours. You dealing directly with

and

as for

take

it.'

who

should go to

Clark then remembered him saying:

the Eighth

Army

worry, Alex,

if it

nice gentlemanly

over to take

it.'

To which

can be taken, we'll take

way -

'If

you

can't take

it, I'll

send

Clark hastily replied: 'Don't

it.'

for the time being.

All concluded therefore in a

Rome Disgusted and disillusioned by the quarrels president Ivanoe

the

Rome CLN,

its

Bonomi wrote in his diary on 23 March: 'Today, in the room [in the Lateran], simple and austere as is right for

silence

of my

young

seminarists devoted to divine service,

little

have written

letter

resignation.'

So now there was a vacuum among the six parties. Some further manoeuvring had also toppled General Armellini, who had been in of the pro-Badoglio Military Front, and his place had been taken by General Bcncivegna, considered to be more acceptable to all parties of the CLN. Unfortunately, Bencivegna had broken his leg and

command

was

laid up, helpless, in

with

another Lateran

cell.

This state of disorganization,

future dangers of clashes between rival factions,

all its

the Allies dreaded, and

was not helped by

was just what

vigorous and successful drive

by the Nazifascisti to arrest yet more leading Resistance figures. But these squabbling Roman politicians were unaware of an imminent wind - gale - of change among their counterparts in the South. This was of the Communist leader, Palmiro Togliatti, codenamed Ercolc (Hercules) and surnamed Ercoli, who had been in exile in Moscow since 1924 and had been Secretary of the Comintern, no less. 'A

due to the

weedy

arrival

little

man, with no obvious

member of Macmillan's

fire-ball characteristics,'

reported

was wishful thinking. Togliatti's impact was like the arrival of a paladin on a charger. Within a few days he had made his pronouncement: everything must be subordinated to the defeat

oi'

Germany, and

staff;

the

but

this

Communists would

therefore collaborate

with Badoglio and the king.

A brilliant piece of statesmanship? A Moscow's orders? A deftly aimed shot at the Anglo-

clarion-call for national unity?

move on Americans? The announcement brought consternation to the parties of the left, both in Rome and the North. What price now the Bari cynical

Congress of last January, with Badoglio regime?

all

those fiery resolutions against the

ROME

247

Churchill's first reaction was one of reHef. 'It looks,' he told Eden, 'as though we may get pretty well all you asked. As long as we keep that old trickster Sforza out or in a minor position, all may be well.' Others saw it as Russia's way of getting a chance to run Italy's affairs after the war. There was no doubt that Communism was on the mcrease in Italy, even among the bourgeoisie and upper class, and for several reasons, which could loosely be summed up as impatience: frustration over Allied policies and the misery of living conditions in the South, the at present lukewarm help for partisans in north and central Italy, the bombing of towns and the civilian casualties, and the failure to break through the German defences as compared with Russia's successes. As a Foreign Office man wrote: 'We do not inspire burning faith or hold out prospects for a better future.'

might have been affected by the efforts of an eminent Neapolitan lawyer. Senator De Nicola, who, with the backing of Croce, in mid-March had persuaded the old king to retire from public life after the liberation of Rome and to appoint his son, Prince Umberto, Lieutenant-General of the Realm, or Regent. So this had been another dramatic step forward, and at long last. It also helped Roosevelt, with the American Presidential election in view. However, as Russia's star was now gleaming so brightly, the Anglo-Americans realized that they must take some positive step to refurbish their own. Could the king be Togliatti's decision

persuaded to

retire at

once?

The king and queen were living

in a great villa at

Ravello perched over

the Amalfi coast, a kind of Mediterranean Tintagel,

deputation

set out, consisting

of Robert

Murphy

someone

for the

said.

USA, Harold

Sir Noel Charles (destined to succeed Macmillan on the Allied Advisory Council), and General Mason-MacFarlane. The wily little

Macmillan,

game well and refused to bring forward his retirement, but he wept when he agreed not to go to Rome at the liberation and to make an immediate public announcement about his decision to hand over to his son on the day of Rome's liberation. General MasonMacFarlane is said to have been tearful too, as was Badoglio when he went

king played

his

to see the king a

little later.

on 21 April, the government of the South, after much haggling, announced that Badoglio had reconstituted his Cabinet on an all-party basis. Togliatti, Croce and Sforza were to be among the ministers without portfolio. Togliatti told Mason-MacFarlane that he considered And,

so,

Badoglio to have This U-turn,

a 'perfectly

clean record'.

this 'si'olta del Sud',

was welcomed

Gasperi on behalf of the Christian Democrats, and by rightist leaders.

The unease of

the

Rome

Bonomi and

Communists, who had

little

other

option

but to accept their leader's dictum, was watched with some amusement

APRIL-JUNE

248

by their opponents, though Amendola records that as early as 3 April he wrote to his northern colleagues saying that they must approve Toghatti's initiative 'with enthusiasm' and recognize that in the past they had been mistaken. The Socialists, rather than be left in the lurch, seemed prepared to give in too. The Actionists, however, were appalled. Much clarification would be needed before the parties of the Rome CLN could be reunited, against

background of increasing

civilian distress.

first week in April the food situation in Rome was becoming ugly. Ninety per cent of the supplies were black market, centred round Tor di Nona, the site of a medieval prison. Prices had increased tenfold since November: the official ration of bread was a hundred grams, the equivalent of about two slices a day. There were more riots. Bakeries and German food-carrying lorries were assaulted. Worse, Vatican convoys

By the

bringing supplies from the North were constantly being mistaken by Allied aircraft for

German

transport and therefore machine-gunned.

Germans were systematically trying to cow the Romans through starvation. The Communist women leaders distributed It

was assumed

that the

lavoratori, leave your work, leave your houses, out and demand your right to live!' Argentina and Spain made approaches to the Vatican about sending flour. The Swiss suggested dropping supplies by parachute. D'Arcy Osborne transmitted a Vatican plan to the Foreign Office - accepted, apparently, in principle by the

leaflets:

'Donne romane,

into the street

Germans - whereby Rome could be sent food by ships flying the Papal colours from ports such as Genoa. For the poorest people it was now only possible to subsist thanks to the Vatican's soup kitchens.

had been no official Allied reaction to the 'open city' issue. gave the total of victims from bombing to date as five thousand killed and eleven thousand injured, which some thought was

There

still

The Roman

press

The Communist women

organized an appeal to neutral countries to intervene with the Anglo-Americans. The continued German presence in the city, in spite of some gestures towards 'demilitarization', was underlined when seven of their parked vehicles were too low.

set

fire

also

partisans in the Circus

Water-sellers appeared

on the

Maximus.

streets,

and

a bottle

of drinking water

valued present. Since telephones were tapped, wealthier people spoke in code when they acquired black market food which they wanted to share: 'Moo moo' perhaps for a piece of beef, or 'Buttons' for potatoes.

could be

was nearly non-existent. With many public services practically defunct, Rome had become like a besieged city. There were so many rumours. However wild they were snatched at eagerly, so long as they were optimistic. Farm animals were kept in the Villa Borghese. People, desperate for money, stood at street corners selling gramophone

Cooking

salt

ROME

249

was joked the radio under the bedclothes, meaning

records, furs, prams, books, shoes and

empty

bottles.

that

that most of Rome hstened to everybody was listening to the forbidden BBC news. Although the American chiefs of staff wavered, the British were firmly against declaring Rome an open city. As usual it was a matter of the 'known unreliability' of the Germans. In an emergency, the Germans would not hesitate to make the fullest use of communications through Rome, and as things were they were perfectly able to maintain supplies to the southern fronts without using the marshalling yards. Another argument was that recognition of the open city would affect the Allies' prestige;

could be regarded

the Allies themselves

wanted

an admission of guilt.

to use

Above

all,

Rome after its occupation.

though,

Since they

had overwhelming air superiority there would be little question of subsequent attacks on the city by German planes. Although the disruption of German communications and the 'de-

by or working for the Germans' were of first importance, strict rules had been laid down about precision bombing close to Rome. There were mistakes of course, not to mention some dreadful acts of carelessness. A squadron leader flying a Wellington remembers: 'Far trom being given specific targets in Rome we were categorically banned trom any attacks on the city and were lett in no doubt that any "accidental" bombing would bring trouble to the crew responsible. We carried cameras which were linked with bomb release gear and automatically took photos of areas under attack, so we couldn't have "got away with it" unless we were over 10/10 cloud.' Bombs did however continue to drop and cause damage in the vicinity of the Papal villa at Castel Gandolfo, where four thousand five hundred refugees were now living. A special plea was sent by the Vatican to spare the sheds housing Caligula's tamous barges on Lake Nemi, since three thousand more civilians were there. As day by day agonizing reports came in about the destruction ot ancient and beautiful buildings in the North, there were renewed appeals to spare places such as Assisi. Surely Assist could at least be regarded as a 'hospital city'? And what about Orvieto, Chieti But again the Allies kept their sphinx-like silence. 'I am against it,' wrote Churchill tersely, about supplying Rome with food by ship. General Wilson considered that the military reasons tor not granting such facilities 'far outweighed any possible humanitarian or propaganda value'. As for the road convoys, it was almost impossible to identify them as Vatican vehicles. The Allied Air Forces must have freedom to attack all road transport so long as the enemy was more struction of economic targets used

dependent on roads than on railways (because of Operation Strangle) tor their supplies.

Prime Minister of

20 April Roosevelt sent

Eamon De Valera, German forces were not

note to

Ireland, reiterating that if

APRIL-JUNE

2 50

entrenched

Rome

no question would

preservation; 'the fate of

Rome

concerning the

arise

city's

Germans'] quarter.' But on 25 April Osborne was writing to London: '1 cannot too strongly emphasize that unless we can within the immediate future either ourselves provide for essential supply ot flour to Rome or enable the Vatican to do so

we shall

the

be inviting

Germans who, by

rests in that [the

catastrophe by which the sole beneficiaries will be

their demilitarization ot

Rome,

can claim to have

divested themselves ot the responsibility.'

The

late

spring burgeoned.

water poured down trom

were

leaf.

The Tiber

swirled high

the melted snows; along

its

brown waves,

banks the plane

on the

the Vatican gardens diplomats played tennis

Ethiopian College courts, or bicycled

down

avenues ot

ilex,

trees

umbrella

Soon the pomegranates would be in flower. narrow streets by the Pantheon - streets stinking was on the desk in the interrogation room at Via Tasso - a

pines and cypresses. Lilac

was on

of urine. Lilac

sale in the

room stinking of congealed blood. After curfew the sound of cheap dance music, women's squeals and German voices could be heard from upstairs rooms above bars in Largo Argentina and otf Via Veneto. Mrs Whitaker's younger daughter climbed the tower of their villa to watch a night raid over Ciampino airfield. It was like a red spangled net, she said, with 'myriads of sparks dancing in the sky'.

Easter

Day

there

were sirens in the morning, but planes did not fly over Rome. The guns were booming towards Anzio, quite loud, and at the same time the bells of St Peter's were ringing out. 'I looked over the cupolas and terraces shining in the sun and tried to remember that this city is supposed to be eternal.' Still

the executions continued at Forte Bravetta, and a prize catch for

the Gestapo

having full

was the

new

Giuliano Vassalli.

Socialist

The

Fascist police

of friends

arrested,' said

'That nice Chicco Multedo', the portrait painter

Montezemolo and

San Gregorio.

who had

been secretary

Armellini, was in Via Tasso. Vincenzo Florio ot the

fabulously wealthy Sicilian family and his wite were arrested on

charge of trying to

though

briefly.

sell

all

stupid

the royal family's jewels and also put in Via Tasso,

The Duchess of Cesaro came home

daughters Mita and Simonetta

and

Mrs Whitaker. Badoglio's son Mario had

been caught. Princess Gangi was apparently locked up to

were

drive to round up the rich and the aristocracy. 'Everyone

(later a

the servants had been arrested.

famous

The

to find that her

two

dress designer), their tianccs

film director Luchino Visconti

spent three days in Koch's Pensione Jaccarino, without being tortured,

and then went to San Gregorio. Joey Nathan, the Jewish banker, was put in Via Tasso, but

assumption by

his

moved

family was that

also

Rcgina Coeli, again unhurt; the he was for some reason being kept as a

later to

ROME hostage. lists

251

was commonly believed that the Fascist police had prepared Romans who might be of some service to the Allies when they Rome, with a view to deporting them to the North. Most It

of all

reached

university professors, lawyers, doctors and

were supposed

have been included on the

government functionaries lists.

The Cesaro household had been arrested for helping Allied prisoners. They spent Easter week in a police station, usually being questioned in the small hours. In due course Mita's fiance was taken to Via Tasso, where his nails were ripped out. She was made to watch him and a contadino being beaten. After a while she fainted. Her mother was able to obtain Simonetta's freedom by promising a Flemish picture in exchange, and she also tried to get her friend Harold Tittmann at the Vatican to arrange an exchange of prisoners for the others through the Fifth Army - hopeless of course. Eventually Mita was smuggled into the Vatican dressed as a Palatine Guard. When Multedo was arrested, he was found to have a note with the words 'Letizia e bella' in his pocket. The SD men at Via Tasso were suspicious (and justifiably, for it was connected with a parachute drop of arms), but Multedo pretended to break down under the nine hours' interrogation under strong lights and raved incoherently about religion, philosophy, Carducci's poetry, etc. A doctor was called, luckily an Italian, who pronounced that he had a weak heart, so he was spared torture. In quieter moments Multedo did drawings of his gaolers. One named Mueller had been a boxer, and Multedo knew that he had tortured a boy from his cell. 'As expected to be shot, could say what I liked - those Nazis seemed to respect people who were proud. said: "You have tortured people," and he replied: "Yes, but I didn't use instruments. I only used my hands." In the distance we could hear Chopin's Prelude No. 1 5 in D Flat Major being played on a piano. I explained to this great burly Nazi that It had been inspired by raindrops in Majorca and had been played to George Sand, and that she had loved Chopin. You know tears came into his eyes.' There was another SD official, quite handsome, called Schutz (the one who gave the command to fire at the Ardeatine Caves). '1 said: "You have eyes of a hyena." Schutz was pleased at this and told me: "In Germany if you are in the Gestapo and are told that you have human eyes it means that you have eyes of glass."' Multedo was in a cell usually with five others. There were no mattresses and most slept on the floor. Every twenty-four hours they had soup like I

Sometimes you could hear the screams of Jews being kicked Once there was a cry: 'No, no, not the scissors.' On two occasions Multedo was permitted to be visited by his mother and sister. The second time his mother thought she had come to say goodbye for ever. She was dressed up as for a visit, full of dignity, a true Genoese, and dirty water.

on the

stairs.

APRIL-JUNE

252

'Remember what Madame de

did not weep. She said to him:

"Death does not separate

The execution of

Rome. He had

us,

young

Stael said.

only makes us invisible."'

Don Giuseppe

priest,

helped soldiers in hiding after

Morosini, shocked

September, and had been arrested because some weapons had been found in his library. The Pope had tried twice to have him reprieved, and the matter had been referred to the Fuehrer himself.

would

Suddenly on 2 April Morosini was told

that he

die the next day. His reaction was: 'Ci vuole piu coraj^io per vivere

one needs more courage

che morire,

Mother Mary

to live than to die.'

Luke knew Morosini and gave this description of his end: 'He died like a saint and a hero. Having asked as a favour to be allowed to celebrate mass on the morning of his execution, permission was granted to him, and Monsignore Traglia, Vicegerent of Rome, was present at

The

it.

entering the

latter protested against the priest

motor van

that

was

to take

them

Before being blindfolded he [Morosini] kissed platoon of [Italian] soldiers the

man who had

overcome by to the

who were to

being handcuffed on

to the place

of execution

his crucifix, blessed the

shoot him, and publicly forgave

betrayed him. Possibly because the executioners were

heroism, he was not killed by their volley, and fell ground, wounded but conscious. He begged for the Sacrament of his quiet

Extreme Unction, which was administered at once by Monsignore which the commanding officer shot him at the base of the

Traglia, after skull

with

a revolver.'

A Dutch

Father Anselmo Musters, was also arrested - dragged of Santa Maria Maggiore. In the Derry-O'Flaherty escape organization he was known as 'Dutchpa'. The SD believed he was

from the

priest.

sacristy

Via Tasso he was stripped and beaten up,

a British colonel in disguise, so at

then kept in for

dark

cell for a fortnight.

Germany, but managed

jump

Afterwards he was put on out of

his carriage

a train

and return to

Rome. There were many such

Koch was reputed to have said that if he would have his nails off his fingers before he shot him. Everyone in Rome knew of the kind of horrors that went on at Pensionejaccarino, thanks to the Allied radio from Ban which also gave lists of names of double agents and traitors. All the same, denunciations were common, and an American escaper, Lieutenant Dukate, was betrayed to Koch by a jealous girlfriend. stories.

ever caught O'Flaherty he

was

officer,

sorry time for the escape organization.

Lieutenant 'Goldilocks'

living in the Vatican

Elliott,

little

submarine

an invaluable helper for Derry and

gendarmerie barracks, had walked in his sleep nightmare and fallen from a window. Five of Derry's Italian associates had been executed at the Ardeatine Caves and twenty more were arrested soon afterwards. Outside Rome eight recaptured

apparently during

ROME British prisoners

forwarding

were

shot.

letter

253

dated

April had reached Derry for

Rome.

after the liberation of

'Dear Mother and Father and Family, This

the

family,

was dear

last letter

have to

laid

me.

will be able to write as

down my

hope

this

life

war

for

will

get shot

tomorrow. Dear

country and everything that

soon be over, so that you will

all

have peace for ever.

Your ever lovmg

this

was attached

soldier-son and brother, Willie'

further note:

'Just a tew words to tell you that your son Willie was shot because he was caught and arrested in civilian clothes. assure you that he received the comfort of our religion, and died in peace. The Reverend Father II Cappellano, P. Antonio Intreccialagli' I

ot ex-prisoners picked up in Rome because of debecoming ever more alarming. Other men, bored with being cooped up in flats, broke out and went into bars and got drunk, and were thus too easily caught. As a result, and because of the high cost of feeding them on the black market, Derry decided that no more escapers could be allowed into Rome. Then there were other escape organizations with which he was indirectly involved - Yugoslav, French, Arab, Greek

The number

nunciations was

(known also

'Liberty or Death') and Russian. Recently

two Americans had

been admitted to the Vatican gendarmerie barracks.

There were about four hundred Russian ex-prisoners in and around Tardini, the Cardinal Secretary of State, took a special interest in them. D'Arcy Osborne's butler, John May, was in charge of the Arab escapers. It was a splendid piece of luck for Derry when May suddenly produced a friend who was a spy at the Questura, or police headquarters. This spy, known as Giuseppe, produced all sorts of useful tip-offs about impending raids. Then came a really choice item: Pizzirani, the Fascist bigwig whom Carla Capponi and other Gapists had tried so often to assassinate, was willing to annul all denouncements ot escapers for a fee of fifty thousand lire. A middle man, however, was involved, and he would want another ten thousand lire Derry decided that bribes like these were a legitimate expenditure of British funds. The OSS man, Peter Tompkins, consoled as he was by sundry pretty girls and a fortunate supply of gin and cognac, was also in danger, since both German and Italian police had his description. In addition he found himself plunged in denigrating rivalries with the agent 'Coniglio', who operated in the North and considered himself Tompkins' superior. For a

Rome.

while Tompkins passed information to British

whole month

to be relayed

back to the

OSS

MI6

agents (taking a

base). Finally,

with so

many

APRIL-JUNE

254

helpers having been shot in the Ardeatine Caves,

he must

now get

or by sea.

Tompkins decided

that

back to the South, either by land through the Apennines

Once more he disguised himself as a Fascist policeman and The way overland turned out to be impossible, so off

reached L'Aquila.

American went to Ancona in the hope of buying a boat some Allied craft which might spirit him away Adriatic and so home. He was still in Ancona when news came

this high-spirited

or secretly contacting into the far

of the Allied offensive

If,

Rome,

May.

clandestine radio

communication with the

only intermittent, some half dozen well established operating in the North, thanks in part -

Allies

OSS

was

now

were must be admitted - to stations

Tompkins' hated Coniglio. Details of help to northern partisans, at this particular period, and of Allied sabotage teams and missions behind the lines tend to be misty and vague, mostly unrecorded, though early in 1944 the British No Special Force had six missions working in enemy territory. The partisan bands on the whole were local, without overall leadership. Nevertheless, rubber dinghies would appear at fixed appointments on beaches in the dark nights, and an agent would be parachuted by some prearranged plan in a remote forest clearing. With the fine weather it was possible to live rough; patriotism was alive, glowing, heroic - and at times relentless. By May it was reckoned that partisans in the North had trebled since February. In the Florence area there was a particularly courageous woman, 'Vera', who organized sixty-five OSS supply operations by parachute. Yet from the German armed forces' point of view partisan warfare only developed into a real menace in the second half of 1944. Down at Monopoli battle schools and courses in subversion and sabotage were being run by No Special Force under Commander Gerry Holdsworth, 'half hero and half filibuster'. For the time being Corsica was the chief launching place for raids and landings by sea. In late March, for instance, there had been an amphibious OSS raid near Spezia in connection with Operation Strangle; it was successful but the whole team was caught and i

shot.

Operations were becoming more

German

difficult

with the establishment of

radar installations on the coast, and with fast patrols

and E boats.

However on 27

April an

OSS

by corvettes

agent and two radio operators

were successfully landed on the Adriatic coast by the British. The agent had a forged pass 'signed' by a high officer of the German Todt Organization. This he presented to the

German commander

at Ascoli,

who at once gave him and the radio operators a staff car to drive to Rome. In April and May the bands in the vicinity of Rome were still mostly run by the Gaps.

The war had driven them back somewhat from

the

ROME

255

but they were intensely active near Lake Bracciano and

Alban

Hills,

Monte

Soratte and in the Sabine Hills, one of the best organized being the

Banda

Stalin.

A young

Italian-born

nephew of Mrs Whitaker, who was

Viterbo gaol on a charge of spying, escaped during an Allied bombardment and - though far from being left-wing -joined the Banda in

Antonio Gramsci

southern Umbria. But these partisan bands also

were an excuse for banditry and personal was the shocking incident of the 'massacre of Leonessa' near Rieti on Good Friday, when a woman called Rosa Cesaretti, mistress of a German lieutenant, led a German patrol which rounded up some fifty people including her relatives, who were all shot. As usual the parachute drops were linked to the mysterious code messages read out after news bulletins on Radio London (such as Multedo's Letizia e hella). Bonfires would be lit to guide the planes. Radio London announcers, who knew nothing of the meaning of these messages, admitted to being in cold sweats in case they got a word wrong, which might result in lives being lost. Some Germans were also deserting to the partisans. Operation Sauerkraut was an OSS 'black' propaganda scheme. Carefully screened German POWs were infiltrated in uniform behind the lines; their job was to circulate a forged announcement by Kesselring to the effect that he was resigning his command knowing that the 'war is lost to Germany' and attracted criminals and vendettas.

Then

there

that only senseless slaughter could ensue.

Operation Cornflakes consisted

of dropping fake German mailbags filled with subversive letters to real addresses with copies of an apparently underground newspaper Das Neue

Both had a fair success. Radio Bari was operated by the Allied organization known as PWB, Psychological Warfare Bureau. It concentrated on giving impartial news and opinions on Italian subjects and was greatly respected for its honesty. Deutschland.

had recorded the speeches of the various parties at the Bari had a programme especially for partisans, Italia Combatte. And for a short while the Germans had their answer to Italia Combatte with their Radio Baita, purporting to be run by a partisan called Barba di Ferro, Beard of Iron, in the North.

For instance

Congress.

also

There were plenty o{ stories circulating in Rome about atrocities committed by German soldiers near the front line, such as massacres of whole families and the exposure of mutilated dead bodies. Some of these were hard to substantiate, a product of what Kesselring called 'the exaggerations and fancies so characteristic of the Italian people', but sharp

had been issued by him about looting. '1 am not prepared to tolerate such indiscipline,' he had said on 13 March, 'which brings the good name of German forces into disrepute.' The penalty would be directives

court-martial.

And somewhat

later

he announced: 'German soldiers have

APRIL-JUNE

256

behaved like bandits with Itahan peasants, demanding goods with pistols. These men have lost the right to call themselves German soldiers. demand strongest action. Every man must know this.' Much later he even I

decreed that looters could be shot on the spot, but

manded by Goering and

On on the

8 April

increase,

Kcitel at the

this

was counter-

OKW.

was acknowledged that and Kesselring had to lay

Italian 'terrorist activities'

down

were

rules to safeguard troops.

When

marching through large towns, for instance, men should be in open formation, with weapons at the ready. 'If an attack takes place, weapons must be used without consideration of passers by. Fire must be opened at once Quick action is the first necessity.' To Kesselring guerrilla warfare was 'horrible and treacherous', in disregard of Article i of the Hague Convention. 'The previous comradeship in arms [with Italy] had turned to brutal warfare,' he was to say. Byjune 'brigades' had been formed by partisans in the more sophisticated areas, and it became, as he said, a matter of 'unrestricted guerrilla warfare'. There were also some villages, and indeed zones, where the entire population - men, women and children - would be somehow implicated. Partisans, therefore, had to be judged by the German authorities from military standards and 'not on an emotional basis'. What was more, partisan warfare gave individuality the chance to run wild, and 'the southern temperament did the rest'. The 'scale of crimes' against German soldiers included 'shooting from ambush, hanging, drowning, freezing to death, crucifying and all kinds of tortures'. The Germans were thus forced to suspect any civilian of either sex of being a fanatical assassin and could expect to be shot at from every house. And in this way, said Kesselring, 'one could predict with almost mathematical precision the gradual brutalization of the conduct of war which, steadily increasing, inevitably had to lead to the most dreadful crimes on either side One has to admit that illegal and detestable deeds were also committed by the Germans.' Soldiers were liable to see red. It was a vicious circle. Kesselring was to be tried after the war and condemned not only because of the Ardeatine Caves but because perhaps over a thousand Italian civilians, including women and children, were killed as a result of his two orders dated 17 June and July. The second order, read out at the trial, included these words: 'Where there are considerable numbers of partisan groups, a proportion of the male population of the area will be arrested and in the event of acts of violence being committed, these men will be shot. The population must be informed of this. Should troops, etc., be fired at from any village, the village will be burnt down. Perpetrators or ringleaders will be hanged in .' public The defence at the trial, however, put great reliance on the context of the times and on words in the same order: 'All countermeasures .

ROME

257

must be hard but just. The dignity of the German soldier demands it.' Alexander was also quoted at the trial of Kesselring as saying that as far as he was concerned he thought the warfare in Italy had been carried out fairly and cleanly, though of course it was pointed out that he was only referring to the German conduct towards regular Allied forces.

The

followed the Via Rasella incident did not deter the

reprisals that

from (urthcr aziofii. One independent band, non-political, was led by a figure worthy of Pasolini's books, Giuseppe Albani, alias II Gobbo, The Hunchback, aged seventeen. He was immensely brave and ferocious Gapists

(and

much

an encounter with Carabinieri), but did not

later to die in

scruple to rob houses on Monte Mario or to sell stolen bread on the black market. On 10 April the Gobbo's men killed three German soldiers at Cinecitta. This was the signal to put into effect a modified form of Himmler's and Wolff's original plan for whole-scale deportation. The working-class area of Quadraro had long been regarded by the Nazifascisti as a 'nest of wasps', so much so that the curfew there was at 4 p.m. Now it was surrounded by police and parachutists, and the houses were systematically searched. At least eight hundred men were caught and sent up for 'productive work' in Germany. It was the largest rastrellametito

experienced

Rome.

was held at Santa Maria Maggiore in memory of three professors presumed executed at the Ardeatine Caves: Pilo Albertelli, Salvatore Canalis and Gioacchino Gesmundo. The interior of Santa Maria Maggiore, like the colonnades at St Peter's, was packed with 16 April a mass

refugees (and in

highly insanitary condition). Atter the mass, students

distributed leaflets, and the people libera!'

and 'Fuori

tedeschi'

became

excited, shouting

Fascist corporal tried to arrest

Ivn

two

Italia

students

narrow street they turned and shot him dead. The Nazis posted more warnings. Nevertheless, once more there was an attempt, though again unsuccessful, on the Gapists' fiivourite target, the Fascist Pizzirani. Two of the partisans involved in this were Franco a:nd

gave chase;

Calamandrei,

in a

who

had given the signal tor the

Via Rasella, and Fernando Vitagliano.

group

fc:)ur

including Marisa Musu,

set

bomb

to be set off at

was Vitagliano who, out to

kill

Musst)linrs son,

Vittorio.

The

reason for killing the fairly innocuous Vittorio Mussolini was,

ultimately, so that the head of police, Caruso, could be 'eliminated'. For

long time the Gapists had been studying ways of assassinating Caruso, but he was too carefully protected.

Now,

if Vittoric^

chance to

Young

Mussolini were to

would have to attend the funeral, and that would be an shoot him down, probably from a flower stall.

then Caruso

Mussolini habitually

left his

house

at 7

die,

ideal

a.m. to fetch his car from

APRIL-JUNE

2SS

That would be the moment to get him. After the first shot had hit man, Vitaghano and Marisa Musu would rush up to

the garage.

been fired by the finish

him

ott if necessary,

However

while the fourth partisan would be ready with

happened that on the day before there had been a burglary in the house next door to Mussolini's, and unknown to the Gapists some phun-clothes police were in the vicinity. Sc^ the four went straight into a trap. Only Vitagliano escaped, and Marisa was caught after a roof-top battle. The police were convinced that she and the others were common criminals, and battered them with questions such as 'Where is the Gobbo?' and 'What have you done with Colombo's money?', referring to some robbery. In actual fact this was the first time any Gapists had been captured. Marisa was sent to the covering

fire.

Mantellatc, the

women's prison. two special friends

Vitagliano had

in his

Gap, Raoul Falcioni and

Guglielmo many brilliant azioni. He was invited by Blasi to join in a raid on a wine shop, but when he realized that it was simply to steal wine from an old man he was horrified and knew that Blasi was little better than the Gobbo. A little while later Blasi was picked up by the police on another thieving exploit. The arrest of Blasi was of major significance to the Gaps, for at the police station his nerve suddenly broke and he asked to see Caruso. He then confessed to Caruso that he had been involved in the Via Rasella affair and could supply names and descriptions of everyone else who had taken part in it. As proof he said that he would lead the police on the next day to a house near the Colosseum where he was to meet three of them: Salinari, Calamandrei and Falcioni. Blasi had joined the Gaps in the euphoric perioti following the Anzio landings. His credentials had not been properly checked, therefore, and it had not been known that he had a criminal background. Since then he had done so many brave things, including the shooting of the murderer of the pregnant popolana Teresa Gullace in March, and he had behaved like a Blasi, the

author of so

great patriot. Salinari,

Calamandrei and Falcioni were arrested and removed

Koch's Pensionejaccarino. For the time being Falcioni had no idea that he had been betrayed by his friend.

The Pensione Jaccarino, recently taken over by Koch, still retained some of its comfortable furnishings, and Koch and his colleagues were able to enjoy its good supply of wine and - best of all - that rarity coffee. They retained the kitchen staff but had to get new cleaners, since the old ones didn't like the mess in the torture rooms. Koch slept in the Pensione's honeymoon suite. The chief punishment rooms were variously known as the Bnco or hole (a tiny room with no window where prisoners would collapse frc^m lack of

air),

the (^arhonaia or coal-room, and the Soffitta or

ROME

259

which was also without hght and stinking of excrement. When Luchino Visconti had looked nito the mam torture room, No 15, he had seen two men tied together and hanging by their arms from the ceiling. attic,

Cala mandrel managed to escape from the Pensione almost

had had

a spell

the Bucc and, feeling

Since he was exceptionally

window and

tall

and

thin,

once.

had asked to go to the WC. he was able to climb through the ill,

warn some other

Gapists of the danger. But he was not able to contact everyone, and there were some more arrests, for which Blasi received money from the police. Marisa Musu of course had 'disappeared'; nevertheless Blasi went to her parents and asked for money so as not to give away her name. When, tor the second time, Blasi saw Falcioni coming out of Room 15, bleeding and bruised, he was ashamed, for he knew Falcioni's family well and realized the trouble his wife and children would now be in. So he

small

made

thus

surprising offer: Falcioni could

become

chauffeur for the

Pensione. Falcioni was able to discuss this with Salinari,

who had

badly tortured, and they decided he should accept,

way

be able to play

double game and

tip off

as in this

those Gapists

still

been

he would

danger of

being traced.

Here there

are slightly conflicting versions to the story.

who

According

him of this new job. Together Banda Koch, including Koch and Blasi. Each night Falcioni had to drive up to the Pensione in his van and give a special toot on his horn, when Koch and the rest would come out one by one and get into the back. Thus the idea was to shoot each member of the gang as he climbed in, using a revolver fitted with a silencer. All details were exactly planned, even to the extent of having towels to mop up the blood. Vitagliano, he ran into Falcioni,

they concocted

plan to

kill all

told

the

On the night before the coup Vitagliano slept in Falciom's basement flat, to have a said that

but

sleep,

good

rest.

He was

uneasy

he had confided in another

woke when two

when Falcioni came in and casually member of the Koch gang. went to 'I

taxis arrived, giving that special toot. Falcioni

out, telling me to escape if he didn't come back. But how could do The windows were barred and there was no back entrance. waited, then two men pushed open the door. The sigtiora screamed and switched on the light. My room was still in darkness, but one man had a torch, which blinded me. He fired an automatic, wounding me in the neck and

went

that?

arm. that

only had five rounds in my gun, but fired four of them. realized had hit somebody as heard him crying out in the bathroom. Then I

man went into the bathroom and threw a grenade. The sigriora went on screaming. Somehow managed to get to the door, expecting to be shot down — but a third man had gone upstairs, to telephone for help the other

apparently, and one of the taxis had taken Falcioni away.

must have run

APRIL-JUNE

260

was bleeding and only wearing my underpants. I owners stopped me because they were hiding a Jew. Then an old woman let me into hers. She embraced me but kilometre and

a half.

tried to get into a flat, but the

could only give

next day went to

a pair

of trousers.

hid in the roof

church where the sacristan

let

all

ring

night, and the

brother

Ugo, who brought me shoes and a coat.' Marisa Musu, being in a non-political prison, used to receive presents of food from her family. One day there was an alarming, though somewhat damp and barely readable, message in a Thermos flask, to the effect that her real identity was about to be betrayed. The only way to get out of the Matellate was the usual one of faking an illness. So Marisa ate a large quantity of hard-boiled eggs and made herself badly constipated. This at least was a start. On reaching a hospital, she found a friendly doctor who at once pretended she was a rare case which would eventually need an

operation.

this

used to stand

time the police wanted her for interrogation, but the doctor

insisted that she

bed. After

her bed and lecture about her to students.

was not

fit

while Marisa

be moved.

made

policeman kept guard by her policeman and persuaded

friends with the

him that they should both escape together. After all, the Americans would soon be in Rome, and he would surely be promoted to sergeant for his good deed In the Santo Spirito hospital lay the Actionist Tom Carini, ill for more genuine reasons and still suffering from being tortured by Koch. Two armed guards took turns by his bedside, and it had been made clear that if he so much as got a foot outside that would be his end. Meanwhile his mother had been working on the sympathies of the nuns who ran the hospital, instilling them with maternal feelings for this poor handsome boy. The Mother Superior decided to plan his escape. It was realized that around 2 a.m. a guard was liable to nod off. One night at that time therefore Tom was awoken by someone tickling his feet. It was the Mother Superior, and he saw that the guard was asleep. 'Fila, fila via, off you go, quick.' Still in his bare feet he followed her down the corridor to .

was kept there behind nuns bringing him chocolate, milk and cognac. In the morning he was dressed as a monsi^nore and during all the hue and cry he sat with the Mother Superior telling his rosary. It was the indefatigable the nuns' dormitory, and for the rest of the night he a

screen, the

O'Flaherty

who

this dangerous partisan was compromising the nuns.

Favourite spots for It

was easy

sheets.

when Tom was safely up the Gestapo and telling them in hiding - without apparently

got him into the Vatican, and

there O'Flaherty took pleasure in ringing

now

women

safely

partisans to hide

to leap into beds, in case

Dr Giuseppe

Pitigliani

was

were maternity

hospitals.

of danger, and stuff pillows under the a

Jewish obstetrician of high repute.

ROME Even

261

October he continued his rounds, and not even carrying talse identity documents. The Itahan pohce turned a bhnd eye- anci Pitighani was only too easily recognizable, since he always wore a blue overcoat that had once belonged to an Air Force officer. Occasionally there were police round-up of Jews

after the

visiting (genuine) maternity cases

and then it was considered prudent for him to slip out of a back window. But throughout the whole period of the German occupation of Rome he was never betrayed. visits to his

hospital at Testaccio,

Sometimes fake illnesses would be arranged by the French Capuchin monk, Padre Benedetto, who ran the Rome branch of Delasem, the organization for helping foreign Jews.

only

become aware of

took

a surprisingly

long time for

even though he operated few hundred yards from Pensione Jaccanno. He had once even

Nazifascisti to

his activities,

Milan by car to investigate the possibilities of smugglingjews into Switzerland. The expenses of supplying food, medicines, false travelled to

identity

and ration cards and clothing grew enormously. The Padre was some funds through loans against money deposited in New

able to obtain

York and London, Herisse.

else

usually through

Tittmann and

his contact

funds were obtained trom Osborne, the

occasionally Spanish and other legations at the Vatican.

Monsignor

Red

Cross and

By May two non-

were discovered to be making denunciations about Delasem to the Gestapo, and there were arrests. It was also learnt that a warrant for Padre Benedetto's arrest lay on Kappler's desk. One night the Gestapo entered the house where he was hiding and he escaped over a

Jewish French

wall.

himself

With

spies

took refuge

as a

in a

convent, shaved off his beard and disguised

nun.

two important Gapists, Silvio Serra and Franco Ferri, the remainder went into hiding for a while. Blasi's efforts had blown the organization to bits. The choice now lay between remaining in hiding in the arrest of

Rome or going out into the country

to fight

with partisans near the front

lines.

Carla Capponi and Rosario Bentivegna decided to make for Palestrina, which had become a main centre for those partisans who had operated in the Alban Hills. In recent centuries the inhabitants of Palestrina - the Praeneste of Virgil and Horace, famous too in the struggles between Guelphs and Ghibellines - had had a reputation for violence and cruelty, and the Germans were finding that their descendants were only too willing to offer help to the partisans. Carla and Rosario arrived after a ten

hours' walk, having pushed

grenades.

Dead

tired,

a single

bicycle loaded with revolvers and a meeting with by one candle. It was a

they had immediately to attend

local partisans in a pigstye, full

hallucinatory experience, with

of all

flies

and

lit

those half-seen faces around.

Some

APRIL-JUNE

262

Russians were there too, unable to speak Italian and communicating only by gesture. The Germans had ordered the Comune to make a list of all males over sixteen. It was decided there and then to enter the Comune building and burn all the papers. Some typewriters were also removed. The town of Palestrina was almost deserted because of carpet bombing, so the next day Carla, Rosario and some partisans went down to the main Cassino-Rome road near Valmontone. Here among the olive groves and vmeyards the Russians had been very active and had killed several Germans. Now Carla could see some of those Russians' features - they were mostly terribly ugly, but simpatici, and each one had an Italian girlfriend. The partisans - usually just armed peasants and farmers - were indeed an undisciplined lot; altogether there were some hundred and forty in the band.

Germans coming on leave from make thejourney on toot, which made them much easier to capture. As they stole food from farmhouses on the way, they were by no means popular with local Because of the Allied

air attacks

Cassino were too scared to go by lorry and preferred to

people. In no time the partisans had bagged forty-seven of them, plus rifles,

machine-guns and grenades.

All the

Germans were put

conveniently near the partisans' headquarters, which was

in a cave,

straw hut

inside a sheeptold. Next the partisans managed to capture a German Red Cross unit, complete with doctor, nurses and medicaments - a great help

wounded and had gangrene.

because one of the Russians was

The Russian

partisans couldn't understand

why

Carla wanted to ration

the medical material. All at once they lost their tempers and began firing in the air.

The

partisans thereupon

all

ran away, and the Russians

left

too,

leaving only Carla and Rosario.

After the third day there was no food

they be

left

for the

Germans, nor could

out of the cave to relieve themselves. The sun was very hot and

let

Rosario suddenly collapsed. Carla was, therefore, on her own, and she could sec the Germans crowding up to the entrance of the cave. Snatching

up her machine-gun she sprayed the ground in front and told them not to move. Then she ordered the doctor out and made him revive Rosario.

What

now

certainly didn't

though? Night was approaching. Carla and Rosario

want

to kill

quietly

away and taking

arrived,

all

They thought ofjust slipping when suddenly the Russians

these people.

forgiveness and smiles, bringing food and water and wanting

to shake hands.

able to

all

the weapons,

Then

go back

the partisans reappeared, so Carla and Rosario

to Palestrina

and leave the (iernians to

were

their fViends'

ministrations.

another occasion Carla and Rosario were asked to help

out some

German

soldiers

from

peasant's house,

driving

where the men had

ROME

263

killed the only pig and were helping themselves to his wine. Carla shot one of the Germans point-blank and was nearly shot herself. This led to a big dawn raid by the Gestapo the next day, and the Nazis raided other houses nearby where they discovered arms. In one house Carla was appalled to come across the bodies of three brothers and two sisters, summarily shot in front of their mother who had been tied up and was

now

raving mad.

In the city itself the

consequences of

managed

CLN,

shaken by the

still

Blasi's betrayal

Sud and by the

on i May in and the deportations. There had been Italy in March, and those had actually

to distribute leaflets calling for a general strike

protest against the bread crisis strikes in

svolta del

of leading Communists, nevertheless

northern and central

Romans

resulted in an increase in the bread ration. For the

everything

depend on Allied recognition of the open city status. If this came to pass, then the Germans might really pull out. As usual the walls were scrawled with slogans and exhortations to strike. The Fascist police cleverly put an abrupt end to this by making porters of houses responsible for subversive writings on their walls, on pain of arrest. And indeed the strike had to be postponed until 3 May. Even then it was mostly a fiasco. The tram-drivers were bribed to stay at work with a fifty per cent pay increase. However, a hundred workers did not turn up at the Messaggero newspaper offices that morning, and this did cause a sensation since the Messaggero was considered the official organ of the republican government at Salo. As a result eighteen printers were seemed

arrested.

On 3 May there was also another big assalto aljorno, and

mother of

six children,

attack

bakery,

Caterina Martinelli, was shot dead by

policeman of the PAI, Polizia Africana Italiana. Then on 5 May the CLN at last made up its mind to recognize

'Paino'

Badoglio's government, which was

of the

left

now

situated in Salerno.

The

parties

reaffirmed their republicanism, and the Socialists pledged their

readiness to take part in the national insurrection.

The Party of Action

gave only muted support; 'without assuming political responsibility', it would give every contribution to the war effort and the rapid expulsion of Nazism and Fascism from

Italian soil.

agreed to take over the presidency of the in the cold.

the Allies

It was realized by all parties on entering Rome should

working order. At Salerno Badoglio was aiming Allied status.

sly

that

Bonomi once more Rome, after forty days

a result

CLN it

find a

was of vital importance that CLN that was in capable

for another

major

step forward: full

dig had been passed on to Washington.

United States preparing to abandon

Italy after the

war

Were

to Britain

the

and the

APRIL-JUNE

264

when Noel Charles told Badoglio that the British and Americans had received a shock when he had made a separate agreement with Russia, arousing the suspicion that he was playing one government against the other, he protested his sincerity in wishing to co-operate with both Britain and the United States and said that he believed that Italy's future lay with the Western countries and not with Russia. Churchill, on hearing this, was kind: 'Was it not natural, when so many people were trying to boot out Badoglio, and many more were ready to let him go, that he should have "clutched a helping hand"? One may be vexed at the Russians for their lack of etiquette, as often am in many connections; but to beat up the wretched Badoglio for grasping at the only chance which would have enabled him to remain in his difficult position much to our advantage, is, think, rather hard The best medicine for this tangled situation is a decided victory on the Italian front and am quite content to wait until one is gained.' But there was no question of either the United States or Britain agreeing to Allied status, and Cordell Hull at once made this clear. For one thing there would be huge objections from the Greeks, Yugoslavs and Free French. For another it would entail having to hand over the liberated Soviet Union? But

territory to Italian administration,

was being used

important. Allied status

become a signatory to The Foreign Office ments had

and

this

would be impossible

since

either for military bases or as an operational theatre.

finally

would mean

that Italy

Most

would automatically

the final peace treaty. also

informed Osborne

decided against declaring

that the Allied

Rome

govern-

an open city, 'on

military grounds'. If the Germans wished to declare Rome an open city and keep to their word, then the Romans had nothing to fear from Allied bombers. But Osborne had to point out that the Vatican food convoys were still being attacked; on 29 April a convoy of fifty-two vehicles had been machine-gunned, with a lot of damage. Quoting the Cardinal Secretary of State he telegraphed back: 'Famine, with all its terrible unknown consequences, is now hanging over the city of Rome.' The

was now 'destitute of all resources'. The was by lorry. 'It cannot be believed that the Allies wish to deprive the population of this ultimate means of subsistence.' Osborne also feared that mobs might be induced to attack the population, swollen

only

way

to supply

refugees,

Rome

diplomatic corps in the Vatican and even the Pope.

A detailed plan for supplying Rome by ship was transmitted by Osborne: two ships were waiting at Marseilles, two at Genoa. The Allied Chiefs of Staff were still against this proposal, considering that it would impose unduly severe restrictions on military operations. In any case, it was pointed out, the Germans had the civilian population.

Any

real responsibility for

feeding the

would

relieve the

concession by the Allies

ROME Germans of the

strain

their

communications. 'Wc arc

'Rome,' Eden added,

'is

not merely an

the Catholic capital of the world,

which we hope

own

with

all

it is

occupy ourselves

interest to risk

Eden

enemy

and

social

in the

near future. Again,

Rome

is it

really in

to starvation

consequences from which

when we occupy

Churchill replied:

from being

city; apart

the capital of a co-belligerent state

reducing the population of

resulting political

the chief sufferers

To which

in effect,'

'blockading Rome.'

said to Churchill,

our

265

we shall

the city?'

'Fon'i<^n Secretary.

with pain that

Rome

must starve till freed.' For Operation Diadem was near. On May Churchill sent this cable to Alexander: 'AH our thoughts and hopes are with you in what trust and believe will be a decisive battle, fought to the finish, and having as its object the destruction and ruin of the armed force of the enemy south of write these words.

1 1

Rome.'

Cassino—Anzio

Alexander

Prime Minister, \2 May: 'Offensive launched according to

plan and up to time.

confusion and

loss

Weather good but heavy ground mist caused some

of direction to XIII Corps

German

artillery

and

do not think they have had the heavy losses they had first reported. They are continuing their attacks by moonlight with strong artillery support On the whole the battle has gone fairly well considering the stubbornness of the opposition. This is the Poles' first battle There is no doubt that the Germans intend to fight for every yard and that the next few days will see some extremely mortar

fire

have worried Poles but

bitter

and severe fighting.'

Alexander

now

Prime Minister, 13 May: 'Poles lost all previous gains and started. They were very depressed but are in better

back where they

spirits

today and are reorganizing for further

wounded back through

been unreasonably heavy. At rough estimate, but

may

Alexander's greatest triumph,

his

Our

have not

losses

thousand prisoners taken

be more.'

Operation Diadem was under

They have a thousand

effort.

casualty clearing stations

command,

many ways was

classic

battle.

triumph for individual generals

also a

including Sir John Harding, his chief of staff

masterpiece of deception and surprise,

was

victory for Allied intelligence.

On another level, as the drive northwards developed, Diadem was an example of how conflicting temperaments in high places can change the course of battle just as much as blood, guts and high explosive. The breaking oi the Ciustav Line and subsequently the next line of defence, the Hitler Line, symbolized then and symbolizes

now

nations the ultimate in courage and endurance. Perhaps above

remembered

in history as a

tragedy:

German many

for

all it

will be

victory through tragedy - the

tragedy of the Polish Corps.

The Germans had once again, as at Anzio on 22 January, been caught They had assumed that the Allied assault could not take

totally off balance.

CASSINO - ANZIO place before 24

May, and were

also

267

expecting landings

Civitavecchia or

Leghorn, which had meant having to retain valuable forces

the very afternoon of

May

1 1

from were on

Vietinghoff had

receive a decoration

Hitler. Senger,

important officers

leave.

Kesselring was to say

The move from

Army

left

for

in the

North.

Germany

Westphal, Baade and other

look back on those days

in horror,'

later.

the Adriatic sector of the greater part of the Eighth

under General Leese had been achieved over the past two months

with elaborate secrecy,

had the reorganization of the various

divisions.

The Germans had little idea of the strength of the French Expeditionary Corps. The extent to which Kesselring and his staff had been fooled was clear to the Allies thanks to the code-breaking system 'Ultra'. The Allies also knew that the German units were in many cases not yet up to non-commissioned due to the growing manpower shortage in Germany. It that German forces were being held back in the North to

strength, with a shortage of junior officers and officers especially,

was

also clear

deal with partisans. It

was

essential to Allied strategy that the battle

around Cassino should

won before the landings in Normandy took place, scheduled now for 6

Diadem would be a American II Corps; into the four-speared attack: along the coast by the Aurunci mountains south of the Liri valley by the French Expeditionary Corps; across the River Rapido by the British Xlll Corps (which included the 8th Indian Division and an Italian Motorized Group); and against the Monastery from the north by the Polish Corps. The second phase would be a follow-up in the British Sector by Canadian Corps and the 78th British ('Battle-Axe') Division. The Americans would drive on to the important coastal towns of Formia, Gaeta and Terracina, on the way to the Anzio Beachhead, whose forces would break out at the appropriate moment. As far as Alexander was concerned, the major role in these first stages was assigned to the Eighth Army (British, Indians,

June. In simple terms the

first

phase of Operation

Poles, Canadians, Italians and Fifth

Army

South Africans), whilst the duties of the in vague

(Americans and French) were only sketched out

terms to give

flexibility.

Clark and Juin however had always been

about yet another frontal attack against the main Gustav Line defences, let alone the Monastery death-trap. They saw the Aurunci sceptical

mountains, with their three-thousand-foot peak, Monte Maio,

the

way

Germans at their weakest. The British however could not that it would be possible to cross such rugged and trackless

to catch the visualize

country within the time the

main

air

limit,

and for

reason Alexander insisted that

was

still

who would

first

into

be the

Army

sector.

nothing specific about that burning

In Alexander's orders there

question:

this

support should be in the Eighth

Rome?

was

difficult,

however,

APRIL-JUNE

268

was going to be the Americans' trophy, and certainly Clark understood that Alexander intended it. Nevertheless, the true objective of Diadem had been stated in clear terms: the destruction of the enemy south of Rome. Alexander had furthermore, also quite clearly, ordered that Truscott's VI Corps in the Beachhead would when the time came 'launch an attack on the general axis Cori-Valmontone to cut Route 6 [Via Casihna] in the Valmontone area, and thereby prevent the supply and withdrawal of the German Tenth Army'. Subsequently the Fifth Army was expected to 'pursue the enemy north of Rome and capture the Viterbo airfields and thereafter advance on Leghorn'. The Eighth Army was to pursue the enemy in the direction of Terni and Perugia, and advance on Ancona and Florence. The French Expeditionary Corps now consisted of four divisions, two Moroccan, one Algerian and one French. The North Africans looked forward to the attack as a further test and proof of their fighting ability, already famous. For Frenchmen it was a first step towards the liberation of la Patrie. General Juin's uplifting order of the day spoke of a struggle which must be implacable and relentless. 'La France martyre vous attend et vous regarde. En avant!' The Polish Corps had two infantry divisions and one armoured brigade; for these Poles their role had an even greater significance. As Harold Macmillan has said: 'Recruited largely from eastern Poland, they had been imprisoned in Russian internment camps in 1939 after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the defeat of Poland by Germany. When Germany attacked Russia they were at last set free and after incredible adventures they marched (Hke the Greeks in Xenophon's Anabasi.<) until they finally reached Palestine. Now they had re-entered Europe in Italy.' Many of those Poles had lost their entire families. Some were Jews. If the Germans now had eighteen-year-olds in the line, there were Poles in the infantry platoons who were over fifty. Their General Anders himself had been in Lubianka prison. 'Soldiers!' his order of the day ran. 'The time for not to imagine that

The

the Polish soldier

Providence

battle has arrived.

retribution

this

have long awaited

this

moment

for revenge

task assigned to us will cover with glory the

all

over the world

we go forward

Trusting

in the Justice

with the sacred slogan

our

and

name of

of Divine

hearts:

God,

Honour, Country.'

The

Poles had

moved

into their assembly areas about three

having taken over from the help as they loaded up

Irish

Brigade.

weeks before,

The language problem was no

at San Michele, especially as the muleteers were and the mules themselves had been accustomed to working with Indians. 'Cor,' a London Irish sergeant, sent to meet the advance party, remembers, 'you might have thought they were taking up bloody

Italian

CASSINO - ANZIO elephants instead of mules. get

them

The

Poles had even brought tents.

to understand that there weren't even

sangars - parapets of stone,

269

slit

couldn't

trenches up there, only

you know.'

Mad Mile. 'There was a fucking great notice up, "Shell Trap No Halting". Those Polaks understood the meaning of that all right. It was murder along there.' The journey was seven miles, the track being marked by phosphorescent arrows. The scent trom the red clover fields was almost like an anaesthetic, it was so strong, but soon this was replaced by another smell, fusty, persistent and nauseous, the reek ot the unburied corpses of mules. Then came the climb, ever steeper, and the slithering and stumbling among boulders. A six-barrelled Nebelwerfer would panic the mules, which would snort and rear. The men staggered on, sweat streaming, lungs almost bursting, as all around mortar shells hissed and whistled. A few scraggy pines. Dwarf bushes. A schmeisser like a dog yapping. The red glow of flares. Then at last they came upon the Irish: coated figures, fully laden, delighted to leave. There were some quick whispered instructions, which tonly helped to confuse, about the direction of the enemy and the sangars, and they were oft. The Poles tound these sangars to be mostly three feet high, with a blanket or groundsheet for cover. As a chronicler of the 3rd Carpathian Division wrote: 'We felt heavy at heart. There were two soldiers to every sangar, which scarcely had room for one and smelled of dankness and rot. Rats were scurrying about in search of food.' That first night was spent on the alert, staring into the darkness at the unknown, listening to the spandaus, and to the confusion of bowlings, thumps and buzzings. In the morning they heard a cuckoo. The 3rd Carpathians were eventually to have the task of capturing the Monastery ruins, but first they would have to take Point 593 (Calvary Hill) of such evil repute, and Albaneta Farm, another graveyard of the At

past.

last

The

have to

the

mule

train

moved

o{{ along the

5th Kresowas had been allocated the outer sector, and assault

Phantom Ridge and Sant'Angelo.

would

All these features

having been secured, then the attack on the Monastery could be launched. tactics of encirclement, as promoted by Tuker and Juin two months before and discarded. It was known that the ist German Parachute Division still held the Monastery, and that it was their particular pride to be there. Great pains had been taken to conceal from them that Poles were now their

For Anders favoured the

opponents, including elaborate camouflage and

strict

wireless silence.

May had been a day of heat. Just before moonrise, at 2300, six hundred and fifty guns opened up on the British XIII Corps sector below the Monastery. Three-quarters of an hour later the ist Royal Fusiliers and the Pathans of the 1/12 Frontier Force, with shells whipping overhead. 1 1

APRIL-JUNE

270

launched their hrst assault across the Rapido. All around was the debris of

made by

the disastrous crossing

hampered by reducing

the

mist which with the

visibility to

two

feet.

Texans

smoke and

There were

January.

They were

dust soon turned into fog,

trip

wires and mines, and

hand-to-hand fighting developed. By daylight they

at least

had

toehold

across the river.

the

flank the

left

2nd Moroccan Mountain Division had some

hours before been creeping up to the assault position. The

down on

shells

crashed

mountain slopes ahead. Juin had hoped to reach Monte Maio hours - but this, alas, in spite of advances, was not to be the

the

within five case.

Clark sector:

in his

book

has a vivid description of the barrage in the

'The ridges

monstrously

in a great blaze

under the next

American

Army seemed

to stand out

light, sink into darkness,

then tremble

front of the Fifth

Enemy batteries were 'smashed into dust'. But the known as the Oklahoma Wildcats or Blue ot many men as yet untried in battle — made little

salvo.'

88th Division, otherwise Devils - consisting

headway that first day. So it was up to the 'fire-eaters',

the Poles. Within twenty minutes the

3rd Carpathians were on Point 593, and the 5th Kresowas managed to gain the Phantom Ridge crag. But they paid grimly, because of mines

and enemy

trom concrete-reinforced positions. It was a familiar at first by the bombardment and suffering terrible casualties, soon recovered. Four times the Carpathians were beaten back, and Major Veth of the ist Battalion of the 3rd Paras counted a hundred and thirty Polish dead before Point 593. The smoke was so thick that the Germans had to wear gasmasks. With the fifth attack the Poles were back on the hill again. It was a night of confusion and butchery for both sides, a 'collection of small epics,' Anders said, 'many ot which story.

cross-fire

The Germans, stunned

can never be told, for their heroes took to their graves the secrets of their exploits.'

2.30 a.m. the Kresowas had lost twenty per cent of their

men.

Dr Majewski was

at the Casualty Clearing Station. 'I was working on was smeared all over with blood. Amid the unearthly cries of the wounded and the dying went through the mechanical motions of uncovering the wounds and bandaging them. As a guess I'd say that over a hundred wounded, perhaps more, passed through my hands before 2a.m. Some crawled to us on their own, others were helped by friends, others were slung over shoulders like sacks. The helpers, the wounded and the dying were all in a state ot excitement. At times thought was dreaming. There was no tear to be seen in them, only a kind ot t\iry and rage ... A corporal came anci stood among the wounc^ed, panting and breathless. was bandaging a stomach wound. turned my eyes from the monstrous

my knees.

CASSINO-ANZIO gash and glanced

the corporal

His eyes were wild, his jaws shaking.

dim lantern light his face was like a vulture's. He knelt before me without a word and showed me his back. Through his torn tunic saw a He wouldn't let wound the size of two hands, the shoulder-bone bared me give him an injection. said: "I can't evacuate you without an injection." The corporal stood up and said: "I'm not being evacuated, must go back. I'll be killed, but shan't let you evacuate me until I've In the

thrown all my grenades."' At 1400 on the 1 3th Anders was forced start-line. It was a bitter decision.

to give the order to return to the

crucial day of 12 May ground on. The British in the valley were fully exposed to the German batteries on Monte Cassino. Sepoy Kamal Ram, aged nineteen, of the 3/8 Punjab, single-handed had attacked and

The

bayoneted two German machine-gun

posts,

he was later awarded the Victoria Cross.

Highlanders had suffered

many

which he captured;

The

ist

for this

Argyll and Sutherland

casualties in crossing the

Rapido, and

a small force managed to hold on to During the day Canadians and Indians succeeded in imbedding two Sherman tanks in the river and on these a Bailey bridge was built. Then three other bridges were completed in the same way; and over them clanked and rumbled troops of Canadian tanks, camouflaged with greenery as if bound for Dunsinane.

boats were swept downstream, but the far bank.

The

incredible

Goums

suddenly made

a spectacular

dash into their

mountainous sector, which the Germans had thought virtually impassable. It was said that juin was always to be seen with the most advanced units. These burnoosed men preferred to use their knives rather than rifles, and quickly dealt with their opponents of the 94th Division, many of whom had been badly upset by the acoustic effects of the bombardment in the mountains. As General Montgomery had once said of them in his typically staccato manner: 'Dark men, dark night. Very hard to see coming.' Ausonia,

at the

centre of the defile leading into the Liri valley, was

Monte Maio was taken on 13 May. The pushed on through the ravines and scrub towards the north of Spigno, one of the objectives of the US II Corps, and Esperia, on an encampment overlooking the Liri. The successes of the French Corps greatly encouraged General Keyes,

captured by the Algerians.

Goums now

commanding

II Corps. Once more Allied warships came into good use, German positions behind the Gustav Line. The little village beautiful name of Santa Maria Infante was rubble after so many

battering the

with the

air attacks.

As the

338th Battalion advanced towards

counter-attacked hard, and there were disasters.

it,

the

Germans

many Germans were

APRIL-JUNE

272 killed

and captured, many Americans died too. The 338th Battalion

S.3

commander over the telephone: 'Two years of gone up in smoke my men about half of them -

reported to the regimental training [have]

almost

all

leaders.' In the

confusion an officer thought some

fire

was

coming from American guns. He advanced alone towards it, waving and shouting: 'We're Americans, stop your fire!' He was wrong about the guns, and a burst of fire silenced him for ever. Sixty Italian peasants also helped

the

the battle for Santa Maria Infante; twenty-three of and several wounded. At last, on the 14th the village, or was captured. Spigno did not fall until the 15th.

as couriers in

them were of

killed

site

it,

Mark Clark makes it clear that he was disappointed by the progress of the Eighth Army, even taking into account that it had a 'tough assignment' against prepared positions. He felt it was 'not pushing In his diary

hard It

seems,

General

might', and that the Fifth at

any

rate, that

Army was

really carrying the load.

he excluded the Poles. Major-General 'Pasha'

who now commanded

the 4th Indian Division, might have had a might individual members of the Black Watch and Royal West Kents, whose Captain Wakeford was eventually to be awarded the VC. Another VC also went to Fusilier Jefferson. On the 1 5th Leese ordered the Canadian tanks into the attack. Until just before then Kesselring had not realized that the Canadian Corps had been in the Allied reserve. He was furious: 'It is intolerable not to know whom one is fighting for two whole days. Then on the 6th the Indians captured the mound that had once been the village of Pignataro. In four days the Eighth Army had advanced four miles at the cost of 4,056 casualties. Suddenly there were signs that the Germans were breaking, on both the British XIII Corps and French fronts. At 5.25 p.m. this telephone conversation occurred between Kesselring and Vietinghoff: Russell,

word on

that subject, as

consider withdrawal to the Senger position [Hitler Line|

imperative.' V: 'Then

north of the

Liri;

will be necessary to begin the

withdrawal

'How far?' V: 'And how is the

tanks have broken through there.' K:

'To 39 [two miles north-west of Pignataro].' K: were about one hundred tanks

situation further north?' V: 'There

Schulz's area

[a ist

up Cassino.' V:

Para Battle Group].' K: 'Then

we shall have

to give

'Yes.'

That evening the Poles began their new assault. The Germans, meanwhile, having discovered their opponent's identity, had blared out propaganda about the Russian advance into Poland and the Katyn massacre. The Polish Corps had been regrouped and, as a result of

CASSINO - ANZIO now

patrolling and capturing prisoners, terrain ahead. Their objectives

felt

273

more confident about

were exactly the same

the

The

before.

Carpathians would neutralize Albaneta and Point 593, thus diverting the enemy from the Kresowas attacking Phantom Ridge and Sant'Angelo.

from the Monastery would be blocked, and the Kresowas would link up with the British 78th Division already making headway along Route 6. In this

way

the Germans' escape route

company described the approach: 'It's so Though our boots are wrapped in crash ... a man has on the nerves. Then

chronicler of a Carpathian

quiet;

oh Lord -

rags every step

a strain

look like ghosts

stone

everyone

lies flat

But

on the ground,

suddenly one, two, then .

wounded by

third spandau starts

The boom of grenades

shell splinters in the

head

Staszek

.' .

went in. Corporal Feliks Redlarski o{ the ist Gunner Bobon burns with enthusiasm, like a torch. He is

attack

last

severely

Then the Company: the

spitting out their lethal bullets

Wejman

very They haven't heard we can go on. Slowly stooping, the soldiers make slower and slower progress. They

listening tensely .

time crawls

knocked against

carelessly

slowly

how

of a group of tourteen. His arm, leg and forehead are wounded by

stone chips

Lieutenant Baran gathers up the remains of the

Platoons and renews the assault.

wounded

the neck, but does not care.

and 2nd

ist

goes right close to the bunkers, he

Germans. Then with one

The

soldiers surge up, hurling

Mary," Baran on the rocks like a felled tree-trunk.' The Polish tanks - each with a name, like 'Pirate', 'Claw' and 'Pigmy' advanced on Albaneta, gurking fire at the burnt-out hulks of Allied tanks, remnants ot the attack in March and now being used as machine-gun posts by the enemy. They were halted by mines, big black dishes not even grenades

the

last cry, "Jesus!

collapses

camouflaged. Sappers, theretore, had to crawl underneath the tanks, for

moved forward inch by inch were defused by the men. In spite of the hellish din, cries and moans could be heard in the bushes; one didn't know whether they were

protection from snipers, and the tanks then as

the mines

German

who

or Polish.

had

A German mortar barrage wounded all 'We were in utter despair,'

be evacuated.

the sappers, said

commander, 'being unable to reach our comrades dying in Albaneta. With real fury we blasted away at the ruins, and suspicious bush or pile of stones.' After a couple of hours the out,

and they had

to be

to retreat

acknowledged

backwards,

that the

'like

Germans were

proboscidean

tank

tront ot at

every

ammo

beetles'.

ran

had

'absolutely first-rate soldiers,

well-drilled and disciplined'. Luckily there had been

no enemy

air activity

whatsoever.

During the night of the 17th the Poles had gained objectives, including Point 593, but not Albaneta.

all

their

main

APRIL-JUNE

274

As the British and Canadians moved forward in the valley, the overwhelming material wealth ot the Allies became obvious to the Germans in the mountains above. All the same Kesselring had to give orders personally tor pulling out of the Monastery and the town of Cassmo, as otherwise his parachutists would have stayed on - 'the drawback,' he was to say, 'ot having such strong personalities as subordinate commanders'. Even then some parachutists chose to remain forward positions, to tight to the death. Poles to enter the Monastery, early on 18 May, were Lieutenant Casimir Gurbiel and a platoon ot thirteen uhlans of the

in their

The

tlrst

Podolski Lancers.

Through

the trailing smoke, and across the ravaged

landscape, strewn with tree stumps and blackened corpses

long ago, the silhouettes of these ruins.

Then

Hejtial floating across

lump

could be seen

many grim

Choma,

against a

by the

battles,

sight

of so

battles

Then

many

the

'Mouths dropped

'and the sound ot the

background of

to everyone's throat

from

moving among

the red and white tlag of Poland appeared.

with emotion,' wrote Sergeant

brought

men

shellfire

Krakow

now

distant

these soldiers, hardened

deaths, started sobbing like

children

The Germans who had remained

Monastery were mostly the like wild animals, on the verge oi' madness. Only their Captain Beyer seemed composed, but he had lost his leg. Asked why his men had held out so fanatically, he said that they had been told that the Poles did not take prisoners. It was found that corpses had been disposed oi by pushing them into large drawers for vestments in the cellars. The great vaulted cellars had easily withstood the thousands of tons of bombs, and contained enough tins of food to feed a whole regiment. Books were still on the shelves. Some fine liturgical robes were rescued to be given to the chaplain. Nearly a thousand Poles had died in the two attacks, and within the next week three thousand had been wounded, and about three hundred and fifty were missing. Years later a majestic cemetery, with two great eagles at the entrance, was to be created in tiers tacing the rebuilt Monastery. There is an inscription: 'We Polish soldiers tor our freedom and yours have given our souls to God, our bodies to the soil of Italy, and badly wounded.

was

in the

said that they

looked

our hearts to Poland.'

Not

away, on

far

cemetery:

a stark

cum grows 'just as

small valley, 20,047

vigorously around

tiers

Germans

tully the

at the

grieving for their son.

anguish and waste of war.

their

six

men -

rest'.

At the

of graves, usually one for

an iron cross like two girders;

man and woman

lie in

beauty nevertheless, where hyperi-

they had to tight for one another, so are they laid to

top there ot a

a hill in a

black place, with

entrance there are statues

Few

places

convey

so force-

CASSINO - ANZIO The

British

Commonwealth cemetery

dead by contrast

for the Cassino

gives an impression of greenness, and has pool;

275

formal garden and

from

personal, graves often bearing messages

goldfish families.

Here 4,266 men are buried. There are other British cemeteries at Minturno and Caserta. A French cemetery is at Venatro and contains 3,414 graves. An Italian war cemetery, with 975 soldiers' graves, is at Monte Lungo. 7,812 American dead from Cassino, the Beachhead and all Southern Italy are at Nettuno, in a huge cemetery of seventy-seven acres like a park with avenues, oleanders, viburnums, and a chapel. Statues of two youths, shirtless, in bronze, convey themes of comradeship and the essential vulnerability of flesh. 14,500 other bodies were returned to the United States, and on the chapel walls are 3,094 names of those who were never found.

There

German

are

two

May

and

British cemeteries at Anzio, with 3,369 graves,

one, with 27,436 graves, nearer

Rome

Pomezia.

him on the some opinion here that it would

Churchill had cabled Alexander congratulating

Armies' advance.

added: 'There

have been better for the Anzio punch to have been let off first. But CIGS [Brooke] and I agree with you that it is better to keep the threat of the

My compressed spring working on the enemy in the present phase feeling is that seven or eight thousand killed or wounded would cover your losses on the whole front. All blessings upon you and your .

own

men.'

To which Alexander replied that the German reserves in the Anzio area were too strong, and that the enemy had expected that the major thrust would be

there.

reserve] to start

added:

moving

have ordered the 36th

into the Bridgehead tonight.

Division

[in

trying to

them in unseen. When the right moment comes the Americans punch out to get astride the enemy's communications to Rome. If successful, this may well prove decisive.' This secret move of the 36th Texas Division - the same which had suffered disaster at the Rapido in January - had, of course, been decided upon with Clark. At that meeting Clark again brought up the question of the direction of Truscott's breakout from Anzio. 'Alexander remained adamant that the attack should be towards Cori and Valmontone dribble will

[eastwards], regardless of the

enemy

situation at the time.' Clark pointed

out the problems - having to cross mountains, the

Alban

Hills

and being

in a

dominant

enemy still holding the He argued that they situation when the time

position.

should keep themselves ready to 'evaluate the

might well prove that the Cori-Valmontone idea was mistaken. 'We left it thus, with Alexander still feeling it would be best to

comes' and that

APRIL -JUNE

276 cut

Route

No 6 at Valmontone in an effort to trap the Germans opposing Army.'

the Eighth

his XIV Corps on 17 May, to find the worse than he had expected, particularly in the area facing the Americans. General Vietinghoff had been bombed out of Tenth Army headquarters. The French were sweeping forward at an alarming rate further north, and the British 4th and 78th Divisions had not only cut Route 6 but joined up with the Polish Kresowas. 'I had to report to

Senger returned from leave to

situation

Kesselring, as usual right in the front line, that for the

months

time

first

nine

Corps' front had been broken through.'

He recommended

a withdrawal to the Hitler Lme, but even after the of Cassino Kesselring refused to consider such a suggestion. The American 338th Infantry having by now captured the coastal town of Formia, Kesselring decided to order the 29th Panzer Grenadiers from the loss

Fourteenth

Army

reserve opposite Anzio to block the Americans in the

area of Terracina and Fondi, further

up the

coast

and both strongpoints of

the Hitler Line. Mackensen, needless to say, objected vehemently to this

proposal and was responsible for

a delay in the departure of the Panzer Grenadiers - one of his actions which was ultimately to lead to his

by Kesselring. of Senger that at the height of this fatal battle he should have time to ponder on the fact that in almost identical positions, along what was now the Gustav Line, the Spaniards and French had fought one another in 1504. He also regretted the plight of the small town of Aquino, another key pomt in the Hitler Line, facing the Canadians; for here St Thomas Aquinas had been born in 1226. Fondi was Horace's Fundi; Cicero had had a villa at Formia and had been murdered on escaping from it, and his head had been taken to be exposed in Rome. In more recent history Terracina had been the gateway to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and at Gaeta - named after Aeneas' nurse - the ancient castle had dismissal It

was

typical

been defended for four months by Queen Maria Sophia

i860— i.

The GIs of the 338th, part of the 85th or Custer's Division, might not have known much about this ancient land of the Ciociaria or, given the circumstances, cared. But they would have all been aware that here was beauty of the grandest sort - the steep grey-greenish mountains, still untamed, on the right, the shimmermg lapis lazuli Mediterranean on the left, and far away like a pale mirage the hump of Monte Circeo. A lieutenant

who

aback to find

'liberated' the fishing village

grotto with

Roman

Tiberius had given a supper there.

come back It

to Sperlonga,' he

was incredible

wrote

of Sperlonga was taken

carvings inside

'Somehow

—

believe

in I

point of fact shall

want

to his father.

that in such heat the

French should be advancing

GASSING - ANZIO almost

277

running pace through the mountains. There was

rumour

that

Goums buggered their prisoners, then went in with the bayonet. A report about the Goums reached the Badogho government a week later. the

appeared that the people of Spigno and Esperia had escaped to the scrub

the fighting. As the Goums approached and the Germans withdrew, they came out 'convinced that they were meeting liberators, convinced that their days of tragedy were over at last'. 'We suffered more during the twenty-four hours of contact with the Moroccans than in the eight months under the Germans. The Germans took away our goats, sheep and food, but they respected our women and our meagre savings. The Moroccans flung themselves upon us like unchained demons. They violated, threatening with machine-guns,

woods during

women, young men, following money from us, they

children,

rotation; they took our

each other like beasts in

followed us into the village

linen, our shoes. Even those of their our defence came under their threats.'

and carried off every bundle, our officers

who

tried to intervene in

Atter the capture of Esperia, the French clear

Monte d'Oro

made

mistake.

They

failed to

near the town, and while trying to push through

wrecked vehicles were fired on by German mortars above. A light tank was in the lead and as the correspondent Will Lang recorded: 'Screams pierced through clouds of smoke as the Germans poured their fire into the exposed men and machines. The tank exploded with a roar and belched a mass ot flame and smoke as the ammunition side caught fire. Other vehicles were catching fire as their frantic, crazed occupants scrambled out, running up the road towards the shelter of thick-walled old buildings in the village.' Lang saw a chaplain, Father Baudoin, his silver crucifix hanging trom his neck, dragging bleeding men under vehicles tor safety.

The

Poles

were

now

preparing for yet another drive,

this

time against

May

Corporal Szymon Jankielewicz was on the table-land behind the Monastery, watching men in gloves gathering up the dead, putting aside wallets and personal objects. Flowers were growing everywhere- poppies, chamomile, irises. He saw the body of a Pole with a tommy-gun facing a German's with a schmeisser. 'Together they fired, together they died.' Without the documents he would never have recognized Lieutenant Betkowski, that brave and helpful man, vital and vigorous. It was 'a scene straight out of Villa

Santa Lucia and Piedimonte.

Dante: people burned by flame-throwers, naked, their clothes like

cobwebs

not even corpses, but ashy remains that crumble

at a

touch'.

was soon occupied. Lieutenant Durlik had the job of convent, perhaps the very one where the abbess had invited

Villa Santa Lucia

capturing

General Senger to meals, the nuns remaining behind fired

my tommy-gun down

long corridor

grilles in silence.

Two Germans

lay in a

APRIL-JUNE

278

pool of blood, two others ran away

and vanished behind the wall. .

at us

now.

took

and pelted us with grenades There were only three of us backed into a crypt, and stacked some forty skeletons in .

fell down on whole convent was covered with dust and smoke.

upper edge ot the entrance. Stones and corpses

shells hit the us.

had surprised the whole bunker team

We could hear Germans talking in loud voices in the next We thought they would try to smoke us out One of our own

front of us

room

shouted, " Mein Gott!"

entered the cloisters, shouting " Haende hoch!", but they fired

spandaus lett

A German

...

a look: the

Here was our chance.

The Poles had May.

shouted

make

"Run

for it"

.' .

four attacks on Piedimonte, capturing

on 25

at all pleased to hear from General Lcmnitzer, Alexander's American deputy chief of staff, that Alexander had ordered that the attack from Anzio should be launched on 21 May towards Cori and Valmontone. By this time the 36th Division had safely arrived at the Beachhead (Bridgehead to Churchill).

Clark was not

From

Clark's

memoirs

appears that he saw

this as a ruse to let the

Army into Rome first. He wrote passionately about the ordeals of the Fifth Army during its winter campaign: 'We not only wanted the honour of capturing Rome, but we felt that we more than deserved it Eighth

Not only

did

intend to

become

the

first

army

in fifteen

centuries to

Rome

from the south, but we intended to see that the people at that it was the Fifth Army that did thejob, and knew the price that had been paid for it.' In any event the attack could not possibly take place before 22 May. Alexander came to see him and must have used all his famous diplomatic charm. It was agreed that the Anzio attack would

seize

home knew

in the

and

small hours of 23

'flexibility

would make

May

had to write what

The Green Howards had been chosen

Aquino.

thought could be

mother.

out ot the Beachhead,

and

mam thrust towards Cisterna, On the same day the Canadians

the

on the Hitler Line

attack

a frontal

the afternoon of 22

last letter

May, with

of movement thereafter'.

platoon was to

the coast and across the ot bathing huts called

to lead tlic diversionary attack

tew hours betore the main attack against Cisterna, be in tront. We were to attack northwards along

mouth t)t the Moletta, t)ur objective being a group L'Amencano. was, above all, terrified ot the I

minefields. I

wanted

letter to

can't write properly,

sound

chcert'ul,

my mind

but

turned out rather

so occupied

by things

flat:

that are

CASSINO - ANZIO happening

somehow

in the

near future.

don't

feel like

it.

have so

many

279

letters still to

answer, but

only want to write to you. Everyone here

complete confidence and tremendc^usly excited by it all. By the time this reaches you, you will know what mean. As soon as can shall write wish could talk to you and not write letters.' again. in

day

Earlier that

did

let

myselt go

in a letter to

brother, but never

had been on a reconnaissance patrol to posted it. see the starting-off point of the attack, which was in the bed of the Moletta itself, the water being only knee deep. 'On the way back,' I wrote, 'I volunteered to be the guide, as a shell had blasted away the white tapes marking the path through our mines. Suddenly there was an explosion, a hot flame seared my neck and I was dazzled by vivid streaks and sparks. The colonel, who was behind me on the same patrol, seemed to be lifted up and thrown into a bush. was knocked over and lay stunned must have stepped right over the mine. got up and saw a for a little. figure behind me all quiet and dark, and another just behind groaning slightly. The first was a sapper officer, quite dead, with his face blown away. I lifted up the other who had stopped groaning. It was LanceCorporal Atkinson with both legs off. His breath came out with a great gurgling sob and he died. Oh the smell of the hot thick blood on my hands and of the fumes of cordite. They haunt me still ... felt responsible ... I dread this attack ... am so afraid of disgracing myself.' the night of the 21st

wrote again to my brother: 'I am actually writing this from hospital where I am for a short while with five very slight wounds from a couple of grenades Ot course our barrage was quite fantastic. We had to go slap through a minefield and the two men next to me were blown up. When led a section round some bushes, a spandau opened only ten yards away, killing the section leader behind me and badly wounding four others. chucked a grenade and tore otf, only to discover another Jerry trench just below me. The Jerry threw an egg grenade, which hit me on the nose and it bounced back into the trench on to him and exploded. The next few hours were a haze of grenade throwing and tommy-gunning, sand and bits of scrub flying everywhere. My platoon took fifteen prisoners and we must have killed

Some time on

the day after the attack

half a dozen.' I

went on

left,

and

line

to describe

how

how on reaching the furthest point had nine men did not tell how on the way to the start I

got wounded.

wireless operator panicked and deliberately shot himself through

one of my very best friends, Charles Newton, was killed. Typical of him, he went into the attack laughing and singing, but an anti-tank bullet got him in the face - I'm sorry to tell you the foot. 'Worst thing of all

this,

but

about

have to

p.m.,

tell

when

was

that

somebody. He didn't die at once. pegged out at was beginning to feel sick and my wounds were I

280

APRIL-JUNE

Stiffening.

The

brigadier came here and said it was all highly satisfactory achieved our object. Also the main American attack seems to be going extremely well.'

and

we had

'Stalingrad'

— Valmontone

The Allied press was urgently speculating once more whether the Germans intended to defend Rome street by street. Would the city's claim to be eternal

mass of rubble',

at last

as at

Kesselring feared

be ended?

Would

there instead be

'smoking

Stalingrad - or Cassino? repetition

o'i

Stalingrad in

different sense.

German army had been cut oft in a vast pincer Russians, and 130,000 men had gone into prison cages.

Stalingrad an entire

movement by the He thought he could

see precisely

what Alexander had

course he was right: Alex's intention was

breaking out of the Beachhead, should

still

make

towards Valmontone on Route

Alban

Hills

off the

German Tenth Army's

line

mind, and of

VI Corps, on gap south of the

that Truscott's

for the

Via Casilina, thus cutting

of retreat. Here Mackensen's thinking,

from his superior's. Mackensen was sure that the main must come up Via Anziate, as in February, and then swing west of the Alban Hills towards Rome along Route 7, the Appian Way. it had long been realized by the Germans that when the attack came they would have to face fir superior fire-power. Vox this reason they had created their 'C-Line', which the Allies were to call the Caesar Line, a series of fortifications from Ardea on the coast to Campoleone, to the south of Velletri and up to Valmontone, and across Italy to Pescara on the Adriatic. The fortifications were mostly built by the Todt Organization and forced labour from the streets and prisons of Rome, and as at the Gustav and Hitler Lines contained emplacements so deeply and strongly dug that it was hoped they would be immune to bombardment. Then there was another line of defences, not so formidable, in the Alban Hills themselves near Lake Nemi; this the Germans called the Campagna or as usual, differed

Allied attack

Rome

Line.

in May the Germans had noticed that enemy reconnaissance on the Anzio front had been increasingly active. IDuring April the May, Allies had fired on an average eighteen hundred shells a day. On when the Cassino battle reopened, the number had risen to about five

From early

patrols

APRIL-JUNE

282

thousand, some concentrations lasting an hour on end and not apparently

aimed start

any particular

taking aim

German

'Once they But such random firing by the contuse, and in this it was successful.

target.

shall

soldiers used to say:

in trouble.'

was deliberately designed to As Kesselring had now removed the 26th Panzers as well as the 2yth Panzer (Grenadiers trom the Anzio to the Cassino front, Mackensen was lett without any reserves whatsoever, although the 334th Infantry on the Adriatic and the Hermann Goering Division, refitting near Leghorn, had been promised to him. He had just over tive divisions in the line, ranged against five American divisions, two British divisions and the ist Special Service Force. Mackensen had further anxieties in that he still thought that the Allies were plotting a seaborne landing further up the coast. Allies

Mark Clark had moved

Beachhead on 22 May. At a press it was made clear that the forthcoming attack would be under his 'personal command'. Reporters telt in no doubt either that after the capture ot Cisterna and the next town Cori the objective would be the Valmontone gap. Clark however still had in mind the need tor flexibility - a word that was to prc^ve ominous. On the next morning it was n(,)ted that Clark had risen at 4.30 a.m., almost an hour before the big bombardment. The guns had become silent, and there was a strange overlying feel of tension throughout the Beachhead, as before a big race. Over a hundred and thirty thousand men were waiting to take their part in this supreme gladiatorial combat. The minutes ticked towards zero hour. Watchers saw the Army Commander get into his jeep and drive towards a command post nearer conference

in the

wine

the

of Nettuno

cellars

the front.

The US

1st

Armored and

Ernie

generals, offensive,

the 3rd Infantry, under that

Harmon and

attack

The would be

right. it

lett

aiming

special

pair

lead the

German

SSF striking across the Mussolini Canal was to be minor; after the diversionary

ist

British role

matter of keeping the

doughty

Mike O'Daniel. would

with Eagles' 45th on the

strongpoints and Frederick's

on the

Iron

enemy on

its

toes, guessing.

Ptc Ceroid Guensberg had recentlyjoined the 3rd, and in the previous

afternoon had been

ment

in a final parad.e past Iron

of the Division

March'.

some ways

Mike, to the accompani-

Band, interminably playing 'The Dogface Soldier it was relief to him that the weeks of hard training

He was aged eighteen, Germany. In the small hours of 23 May he found himself, at last, in a long narrow drain or ditch, ready for the attack. It was so crowded in there that it was difficult to lie down. Nobody spoke. Having listened so much to older soldiers talking about sex - how English

and the 'chicken

shit'

of spit and polish were over.

and had actually been born

'STALINGRAD' - VALMONTONE

women

liked

best standing up, or Italian

women

283

from the back -

his

was that he would die before he had 'become a man'. Guensberg like his companions had of course heard about the Rangers' disastrous attack on Cisterna in January. This was something that everybody now preferred to ignore. The barrage came at daybreak. 'Just one continuous thunder,' said Guensberg afterwards. 'And overhead squadron upon squadron of aircraft coming in to strafe and dive-bomb the German lines.' At about 6.30 the fire lifted and the doughboys went in. 'While we were waiting to advance down the ditch the first wounded began filing past in the opposite direction. Those with light wounds seemed to have a silly smirk on their faces, as if they had won their tickets back to the US.' In another ditch further back the war correspondent Eric Sevareid great fear

Any moment he would see violated bodies carried back on stretchers. Out of the racket a man said to him: 'They can hear this in Rome maybe.' And another: 'Are you noivous in the soivice?' listened to the battle.

In the

the

site

jeeps.

morning

huge column of dirty smoke could be seen above later in the hot sun the stretchers arrived on

light a

of Cisterna. Then

People peered

at faces to see if

Guensberg's column slowed

make our way

down

they belonged to friends.

after a

hundred

yards,

'as

we had

gingerly between remains of corpses, dismembered limbs,

must have dropped short. "We were too numbed to give this any thought We climbed out of a ditch and crossed a field. A few German soldiers began running towards us waving their hands high in the air and calling out " Kamerad". They were terrified.' The Krauts were simply told to keep on running in the direction of the Allied lines. Every hundred yards or so you would stop, hug the ground for a while, and then move on again. 'The tactics were simple: you walked when the guy ahead of you walked, and stopped when he stopped. This way we went on for much of the early morning. There was continuous shellfire: especially and unforgettably the German 88s. There was small arms fire but this largely went unnoticed. Here and there in the field or in a dip in the ground there was a GI, dead, wounded or dying. Then we came across German emplacements: some fairly elaborately constructed with steps leading down into a large dugout covered with timber.' Mines, as always, were almost the greatest concern. Various elaborate ruses had been evolved to deal with them - 'Snakes' for instance, scraps of bodies'.

shell

pushed in front of tanks and equipped with flailing chains. These were quite successful, and the huge explosions seemed to stun the enemy, so that the sectors where they were used were easily cylindrical rollers

overrun. Iron

men behind

Mike had another

tanks; but they

were

invention, 'Battle Sleds', a fiasco

which towed

and were hardly able

advance

APRIL-JUNE

284

any distance because of the irrigation channels, fortunately perhaps for the who had never expected to survive anyway.

so-called volunteers inside the sleds,

Isola Bella.

Femminamorta Creek. Names

the January and February fighting, were

bulletins.

When

The

ist

Armored made

Omohundro

like these,

now

dreaded so

much

recurring in the battle

better progress than the 3rd Intantry.

forward company reported to General Iron Mike that he had been pinned down, the reply came back: 'We have no such words in our vocabulary now.' Resistance by the Germans however became ever tougher. In the confusion of combat and in the Colonel

in a

white-hot frenzy of elation mixed with tiredness,

men emerged

unexpected death-or-glory heroes. Pfcjohn Dutko, maddened by an leapt

'like a

ruptured duck' and ran towards

it,

88,

oblivious of machine-

ground around him. He was followed by him- kill the two-man crew with a grenade, and then wipe out five others firing his BAR automatic from the

gun

bullets spattering the

Private Charles Kelly,

who saw

Then Dutko charged another post. 'With a single burst he killed the gunner and, staggering forward, fell across the dead German machinereached him he was dead.' This won Dutko a postgunner. When humous Congressional Medal of Honor. Two other men survived that

hip.

day to win the same awards, Pfc Patrick Kessler and Pfc Henry Schauer, whose nerve they said was 'like ice'. The 3rd lost no less than ,626 men on that one day, and Guensberg was among the 642 wounded. As a shell exploded near him and he leapt into a trench, that same old thought raced into his mind: 'Must be knocked off before have had a woman?' He was hit by a small fragment that seemed to ricochet off the shoulder of the man in front (much more badly wounded) - small enough, as it happened, to enable him to recover quickly in hospital in Naples, where it was easy to address himself to the problem of his manhood. i

The

3rd failed to reach Cisterna, but the

ist

Armored

cut the railway to

SSF - though beaten back half a mile by a counterattack from Tiger tanks - actually was astride Route 7. The 45th had had a lot of casualties but had overrun a battalion of the 29th Panzer Grenadiers and captured its commander. Poor weather conditions had reduced the amount of air support. Nevertheless, 712 sorties were flown on that day. It was learnt that the German 362nd Division, opposite the the north, and the ist

ist

Armored and

part of the 3rd Infantry, had lost half of its fighting

strength, whilst the 71 5th, partly defending Cisterna and partly facing the lost forty per cent. The Americans claimed to have taken hundred prisoners. The Germans said they had destroyeti a hundred tanks. So another day of slaughter, for both sides, lay ahead. ist

SSF, had

fifteen

'staling RAd' -

VALMONTONE

Kcsselnng was disappointed by Mackciiscirs Americans. Ultra picked up

failure

his signal to Vietinghoff:

expectations things do not look so

285 hold the

'Contrary to

good on Mackensen's

refused permission for the Cc^irps

commander General Herr

the 715th to higher ground, since

all

front.'

to withdraw might create a gap north of Terracina, which indeed was about to tall to the advancing Americans of II Corps Terracina being the last obstacle to the link-up between the two halves of the Fifth Army. Still Mackensen was worrying about an attack in the British sector, i.e. along Via Anziate, and this made him delay moving units from divisions in that area (the now veteran 4th Para Division and the 65th) to reinforce Herr. Clark and Truscott would have felt more at ease if they had been aware of the growing rift between Mackensen and

Kesselring.

ROME The

fate

of Rome had been discussed two weeks

in the Vatican, a

earlier at a secret

meeting

of which the very idea would have outraged some people:

meeting between Pope Pius XII and the head of the SS in Italy, General It had been arranged by Dollmann, who has since said that he used

Wolff. as

Donna Virginia Agnelli of the Fiat family. German ambassador, was not informed until after-

intermediary

Weizsaecker, the wards.

Wolff had

wear

civilian clothes.

ironic aspect of the

meeting was

who

had been abortively deputed by Hitler before Christmas to abduct the Pope and the Curia. Padre Pancrazio Pfeitfer was present, and the three spoke in German tor about an hour. Wolff told Dollmann later that the conversation had been 'very cordial', and that he that

had been he

had found the Pope amazingly conversant with

minor

all

sorts

of details even of a

nature.

They had

talked about the atrocities

Via lasso. Pius XII had

especially asked for the release of the Socialist Giuliano Vassalli

(who had

OSS and Peter Tompkins, though the Pope could hardly know this), now in Via Tasso and whose father was an old college triend. On finding Wolff so amenable, he is supposed to have said: 'How many crimes, how many injustices, how many offences against the human spirit would have been avoided if we had met earlier!' And: been working for the

'Whatever happens here, and

shall

never leave

shall fight until the

Rome

voluntarily.

place

end for the Christian commandments and

for peace.'

During the meeting Wolff had promised

do whatever he could

help bring the war to an end, should the opportunity occur. As he

lett.

APRIL-JUNE

286

forgetting that he was in civiHan clothes, he gave the Nazi salute. true to his

word

He was

asking Kappler to release Vassalli, and he spoke to

Via Tasso, though Kappler gave him

him

'word of honour' that he had never tortured anybody. Later, the Allied drive from Cassino having begun, Wolff saw the Pope again, and the subject this time was a possible armistice m Italy. Afterwards he flew to Berlin to sec Himmler, and then to Hitler's headquarters in East Prussia. Early in 1945 he did indeed initiate secret discussions about an armistice, and after the war he was the only leading SS figure pronounced 'clean' by the Allies. However he was sentenced by a West German court in 1946 for 'high altitude experiments on human beings', whatever that meant, and again about conditions

imprisoned

his

in 1964.

Wolff, of the pure Aryan type, with considered to be

his

ginger hair and grey eyes, was

connoisseur of female beauty.

One Roman

inriamorata,

matron in the days of the Emperors, slit her veins for love of him on the day the Allies entered Rome. Around the time of his visit to the Pope, he caught sight of a particularly appetizing woman, partially American, in a restaurant, and, raising his glass, sent across an officer with his card and a message saying that he would grant her three wishes. This Hans Andersen-type gesture was not spurned. The lady immediately asked for milk for her child, a permit to go to the country to get food, and the release of the painter Chicco Multcdo, who was her great friend. Wolff granted her the first two, but said he had to refuse the last. All the same Multedo's family was able to procure his release by paying a bribe of two like a

million

lire

to guards at Via Tasso.

As the food crisis developed ever more alarmingly, some barges loaded with bread by the Germans appeared on the Tiber. General Maeltzer, the 'king of Rome', had himself photographed distributing loaves and hugging children. Late in May D'Arcy Osborne reported to the Foreign Office that the Vatican was supplying 100,000 meals

day

one

lira

per

convoy to lorries, which

person. Finally, General Wilson agreed to allow one food

Rome

each week. There

would have

to follow

would be no more than

certain route at

a set

thirty

time every Thursday, and

there must be

no German vehicles accompanying them. But how,

Osborne

could thirty lorries feed two million people? In some of the worst hardship was among small employees

Rome,

fairly asked,

said,

and the white collar class; he estimated that only about four days' supply of flour was in hand. When Tivoli was bombed, he continued, the water supply was mostly cut off and electricity disappeared.

Rome

was

now

besieged city.

AFHQ's comment on

Rome It

its

the Allies

liberation

were

still

all this was that arrangements were well in hand.

for the feeding

being evasive about the matter ot the open

city, so

'sTALINGRAD' - VALMONTONE the

Germans remained

be driven back

to.

passing through

evasive about their

the city's outskirts.

Rome

without

own

Now

restriction.

287

vehicles

was rumoured

were to were again

intentions if they

German

that

the

all

bridges and main public buildings had been mined. Pillboxes had been

Tardini,

27 May the Papal Under-Secretary of State, Weizsaecker to protest against the mounting arrests

built outside the walls.

summoned

and the food shortage, which he

felt

might

result in riots.

He also said that when the

he feared that Kesselring would be prepared to abandon the city time came, presumably

as a result

Pope's special envoy, to the this the

ambassador shook

He added

of another

German his

visit

headquarters

head and

said,

by Padre

'No,

Pteiffer, the

Monte

at I

Soratte.

do not have

that

thought Kesselring was determined to hold around Rome. 'But,' protested Tardini, 'if he the does that Rome will be attacked and it will be its ruin.' The ambassador smiled and gave a sibylline reply: 'An attack on Rome will depend on Roosevelt's forthcoming elections.' Earlier Tardini had also seen Osborne to discuss his anxieties about the possibility of uprisings at the time ot the Germans withdrawing from Rome. He stressed the importance tor the Allies to send a small force at the earliest moment to show itself in the centre of Italy. 'Such ocular demonstrations of impending Allied control and administration,' impression.'

Campagna,

that he

the plain

Osborne reported

to the

avert disorders and

Foreign Office, 'would, he believed, serve to

think he

probably

right.'

Tardini must have realized only too well that the lusurrezione was the

dream would

ot the partisans, the great at last rise

up and prove

moment when

the people of

their valour, patriotism

and

Rome

ability for

sacrifice.

Now there were round-ups every day. Men and boys were plucked off More

were arrested and executed at Forte Bravetta. The leading trades unionist Bruno Buozzi was sent to Via Tasso. Agents of the Fascist interrogation squad, the Banda Koch, shot down Eugenio Colorni, Professor ot Mathematics at the University and editor of the clandestine Socialist paper Avanti'.. A deadline of 26 May was given for reporting for military service. Headlines in the Fascist newspaper read: 'After midnight punishment will be relentless'. There would be house-to-house searches. trams or trapped

in bars

and

cafes.

All this to the sinister crescendo anti-aircraft fire anti

had been killed

partisans

of the approaching

battle,

of shellfire,

dive-bombing. It was said that a thousand civilians of a few hours in Tivt^li, and many hundreds

in a raid

wounded. Refugees poured into Rome. There were now torty-one Mother Marv St Luke's small convent.

APRIL-JUNE

288

On the Cassino front, a new advance by the French on 22 May, at Pico above the upper Liri valley, had made Kesselring 'almost cry with rage'. On the next morning, in sopping mist, the Canadians began their attack, concentrated on a three-thousand-yard front. It was to be another bloody day, with nearly nine hundred Canadians lost, but by night the Hitler Line had been pierced. The worst casualties were suffered by the Seaforths and the Princess Pats, all of whose platoon commanders died or were wounded. The attack had been preceded by a creeping barrage, shells droppmg at over eight hundred a mmute, and was supported by tanks of the North Irish Horse and the ist Royal Tank Regiment. German artillery airbursts over the thickly

wooded country

caused terrible gashes from splintered

wood; they from trees.

decimated their

own

also

snipers,

who were

seen hanging

A 'killing zone' had been cleared by the Germans, laced with minefields and overlooked by anti-tank guns, Nebelwcrfers and dug-in Panther turrets. Some of the Canadian infantrymen were lacerated by British tanks dragging barbed wire caught in their tracks. There were unexpected wadis, and a Churchill turned a somersault into one. Then rain came down, but nothing could quench the flames of the many burning tanks. Allied and German. One commander of a Sherman troop, who had left his tank to winkle out a machine-gun pit, had the unusual experience of being offered money by its defenders for their safe conduct. In a dugout a stock of new Iron Crosses was found. On the next day the Canadians entered what was left of the ancient Volscian town of Pontecorvo, and the French took Pico. As the press communiques poured out news of the successes of 'General Mark Clark's Fifth Army', Churchill asked Alexander if a little more could be said about British achievements. 'I know of course what the facts are, but the public may be upset.' On 24 May Alexander was able to tell him that five hundred square miles of Italy had been freed in a fortnight and over ten thousand prisoners taken. The

situation for

Mackenscn was worsening

out, was, nevertheless, surrounded.

ing the

down

Valmontone

gap.

The

The US

Cisterna,

still

holding

Armored was approach-

36th Division was driving southwards

the coast towards the sad, crushed but

fast.

ist

now

liberated Terracina, to

were the Pontine marshes, flooded again, and on its right umbrella pines and the gold-glittering sea. On 24 May O'Daniel tried a frontal attack on Cisterna which failed. But the ist Special Service Force had broken into the centre of that part of the German 71 5th holding the area below Cisterna. Kesselring saw that

the Aeneid's fabled shore;

its left

'STALINGRAd' - VALMONTONE the battle had reached a decisive stage and again forbade

from any key position without

who

regarded Kesselring

his express order.

289 any withdrawal

However Mackensen,

dangerously over-optimistic, took

upon

himself to withdraw the division, though by night to escape Allied dive-

bombers.

When

garrison, he

an attempt was

was

made

to get

through

to the Cisterna

told: 'Cistcrtia atitwortete tiicht mehr, Cisterna did

not

answer any more.' The only hope now of preventing the Americans from sweeping up to Valmontone was the arrival of the Hermann Goering Division, still on its hundred-and-fifty-mile journey from Leghorn and

much

harassed by Allied aircraft.

On the evening of the 24th Truscott saw Clark, who had asked: 'Have you considered changing the direction of your attack towards Rome?' By this he meant not pressing on towards Valmontone but veering away and taking the geographically shortest route. Truscott was puzzled, since he thought his attack was doing well, and was later to realize the significance of the question. Ultra caught

He a

agreed to keep the option open.

message trom Hitler to Kesselring agreeing to the

Army withdrawing

general principle of the Fourteenth

to the Caesar

Line.

War

correspondents such

Wynford Vaughan-Thomas of

and Eric Sevareid awaited the big

moment which must

the

surely

BBC come

soon, the link-up with the South and the ending ot the Beachhead. Italian labourers were digging graves outside Nettuno in readiness tor the dead

Americans. Sometimes they were unable to keep up with the amount of bodies; sometimes there

would be

score or so of waiting holes, like

mouths. German prisoners had the job of unloading the corpses. They

were not given rubber gloves. The days were hot. The nights, the Mediterranean nights, could have been beautiful under that moon. A few ruined villas had bougainvillea and jasmine around their porches, and correspondents could relax there. At least the field hospitals were now not so vulnerable to air attacks. So many boys had lost legs from mines. So many had been blinded by shrapnel. So many would be crippled for life. M realized,' said Sevareid, '! was becoming a little obsessed by the tragedy of these youngsters.' On the 25th, 655 German vehicles were knocked out. The fall of Cisterna was announced. Vaughan-Thomas drove up in his jeep and found two soldiers with mine-detectors. 'Go right up into the town, bud,' they said. Bullets were still singing in that litter of broken stones and brick-dust, and Vaughan-Thomas could hear an occasional rattle from a spandau. Some tired GIs crouched in a mess of filthy German clothes and abandoned rifles. Then there was another .

APRIL -JUNE

290

tommy-gun;

Thomas' head. A the sunshine.

clothing was torn, showing skin, and none ^wcrc

tlicir

A tommy-gun

wearing hehnets.

shout:

'Come on,

sprayed the wall above Vaughanout of it.'

battle-weary lieutenant

More Germans crawled

said:

'Well,

into

guess that about

up the town.'

cleans

Then

at last the

reached the scene

link-up, so unexpectedly quick that by the time Clark

had

to be re-enacted tor

photographers. The

first

men

nicknamed Borgocrappa, were said to be Lieutenant Francis Buckley of Philadelphia, arriving from the South, and Captain Ben Souza of Honolulu, coming from the Beachhead in the North. A British reconnaissance unit was also present. Cigarettes were exchanged, there were jokes and yarning. It was heart-warming, reported Vaughan-Thomas. \n the background someone dared to quote T. S. Eliot: Where is there an end to the driftin<^ wrecka'^e, the prayer of the hone on actually to

meet

at this place,

the heach ..."

A a

lark sang, even.

white

flag

tarmhouse. Dead Germans lay

photographs,

now

was

flying

from the broken red roof of

green wheat. Looters had scattered

in the

limp, around these bodies, and there were letters with

all smeared. If you could read German, you might have been embarrassed by the endearments oi grandmothers,

writing like birds' footmarks,

aunts, girlfriends.

The remnants of the German

were

71 5th

now

completely cut off from

Army, and mostly without radio part of their heavy weapons. The night

the rest of Mackensen's Fourteenth contact.

They had

lost the greater

of the 25th had been very dark. Lieutenant Richard Ochler had been almost blinded by the exploding shells, and flaming ammo trucks had only served to attract more

many dogs

enemy

fire.

V'iele

Hunde

sirid des

Hasens Tod,

of the hare. All next day the bombers went on attacking. Oehler drove his vehicle criss-cross over the countryside, but it was no use. He had to abandon it, blowing up the engine with two hand are the death

grenades. Exhausted and out of breath, with

of units, he eventually climbed to the

motley group from

crest of the Lepini

all

sorts

mountains. 'The

hung blood red over the Tyrrhenian Sea. We threw a sad glance at the where so many of our comrades had given their last. We had fought as long as we could against the overwhelming power of men

sun

valley below,

and material.'

An American task force from the ist Armored, under Colonel Hamilton Howze, consisting of three battalions and three companies, was ten miles from Valmontone. But the British Eighth Army was still forty miles away. Only a few reconnaissance units from the Hermann Goering Division had arrived from Leghorn. Truscott was confident that by the 26th

Howze would

be astride Route

As the Allied planes pounded Valmontone, few people on

that

day had

STALINGRAD -VALMONTONE time to worry about the

baroque Palazzo Pamphili. were only about eight German tanks tailing back in front ot him. There was no resistance at all in that lush valley, lined with chestnut woods and oaks. Soon he realized that he was about twelve miles deeper than any other force in VI Corps. He drove back in hisjeep all night to Ernie Harmon. 'My message was, "I am

Howze

has described

tatc ot

its

how on

in a soft spot, for Pete's sake let the

the 25th there

didn't

want

it all

myself,

whole

ist

didn't have

Armored come

enough

strength.

way!" was over-

this I

Harmon agreed instantly and told Truscott.' command post, 'feeling rather jubilant', Brann, Clark's G3. 'The Boss wants you to mount

extended and vulnerable

When Truscott returned he was met by General

to his

you discussed with him to the north-west as soon as you can,' Only the 3rd Infantry, depleted now and battle-weary, and the St SSF were to continue towards Valmontone. The main drive would thus be along Route 7. Clark's decision - subject of what he again terms 'Monday morning quarterbacking by the British' — is one of the most controversial actions in the whole Italian campaign, as controversial almost as the bombing of Monte Cassino. Truscott however has admitted that he was dumbthe assault

he was

told.

founded, and

Howze not surprisingly

has described

'one of the worst

I ever knew'. When Truscott demanded to see Clark he was told was impossible, as Clark had left the Beachhead (to be ready for the link-up, no doubt) and could not be reached by radio. It was an order and there could be no argument. So Truscott had to feign enthusiasm when reporting back to his VI Corps divisional commanders. Generals Harmon and O'Daniel were particularly bitter, but Truscott reassured them by saying that along this new axis 'the Boche is badly disorganized, has a hodge-podge of units'. The focus of attack would now be the towns of Velletri, Lanuvio and the once much fought-over Campoleone. Places like Aprilia and Buonriposo ridge would also have to be regained. There now ensued extensive and complicated shifts of troop dispositions, which held up any positive action for nearly a day. Howze's task force was allocated to the 3rd Infantry, only just emerged from the Cisterna battle, and the 3rd Infantry and the ist SSF became part of General Keyes' II Corps. It would be some time, however, before Howze could have backing before Valmontone. Only on the next day, twenty-four hours later, when it was too late to object, did Alexander receive news of the change from General Gruenther. Alex seems to have behaved with his usual inscrutability, saying that he was for any line of action Clark believed would offer a

decisions

chance to continue the present success. Then he asked Gruenther: sure

that

the

Army Commander

will

continue

push towards

APRIL-JUNE

292

Valmontone, won't he?' Gruenthcr reported back to Clark: 'I assured him you had the situation thoroughly in mind, and that he could depend upon you to execute a vigorous plan with all the push in the world.' In actual fact the push towards Valmontone had now become only a token that

one.

Alexander concealed any disappointment

memoirs, did he

later, in his

carrying out

very for

much

its

my plan', he said,

greater ...

let

in his despatches.

himself go.

'the disaster to the

Only

years

Clark 'had succeeded

enemy would have been

can only assume that the immediate lure of Rome

publicity persuaded

Mark Clark

to switch the direction

his

advance.'

He was

when

reticent

the enemy's retreat.

him on 28 May movement cutting off

Churchill, alarmed, signalled

about using some of his armour

in a 'scythe-like'

would

feel myself wanting in comradeship,' you know that the glory of this battle, already great, will be measured not by the capture of Rome or juncture with the Bridgehead but by the number of German divisions cut off.' Harold Macmillan saw Alexander soon after his interview with Gruenther. He realized there was trouble because Alex's eye was twitching, as it would do before a big battle. He asked what was wrong. 'What is right?' Alex snapped back, and told him. Macmillan asked him why he had not put his foot down. 'Why do you talk nonsense?' Alex replied. 'How can I give orders?' This was the only time Macmillan had ever seen him lose his temper. Clark, for his part, has always made it clear that he was determined that the Fifth Army was going to capture Rome. 'I was probably oversensitive to indications that practically everybody else was trying to get into the act.' The Eighth Army was lagging behind in the Liri valley. 'The British had a tough nut to crack, but don't think it was any tougher than what we did in the mountains [presumably referring mostly to exploits of

Churchill

said, 'if

did not

let

the French, part of the Fifth Army].' If he had attacked the

wanted,

would have been

throwing the British

way Alexander He always

a rope.

had to be careful about 'making it possible for the British Eighth Army to get an easy victory by Fifth Army efforts and swinging along on the successful offensive of the American Fifth Army'. That was a main factor. And as for the 'chance of trapping a lot of Germans', it was 'absolute rubbish'. There were other escape routes they could have used. And in any case, the Hermann Goering Division was moving up, and Truscott's lines of communication in the Valmontone gap would not only have been over-extended but overlooked by the Alban Hills. The question of trusting or not trusting the perfidious British is one matter, and whether the Fifth Army deserved to be the first into Rome to

STALINGRAD - VALMONTONE something

293

But the remaining points raised by Clark have some validity, except that as the American historian Martin Blumenson has pointed out (and as earlier invaders knew), capturing the exclusion of the rest

Valmontone provided

else.

way

the quickest

Rome.

C^lark underestimateci

manning it. enough attention to Ultra, it being exclusively hitelligence. At any rate, again m Howze's words, he

the strength of the Caesar Line and of the 'hodge-podge'

Perhaps he

still

did not pay

operated by British

consequently 'ran into

many

losses'; in

stone wall, had very heavy fighting and took

other words he ran himself into

stalemate.

Another important matter governing Clark's thinking was that Marshall had told him that it was essential that Rome should be captured before the Normandy landings, and D-Day for the landings was less than a

fortnight off.

The

units

from the German 65th Division and

the 4th Para Division,

facing the British on the northern sector of the Beachhead, had had to be

rushed to the Valmontone gap. the heading The Crisis: 26

came through without food. repelled. East

Artena only

historian of the 65th has written

May: 'During

to the front line. In the area

few provisions

the night very

Some companies were completely

of the 65th and 4th Paras

attacks

all

were

of Velletri, however, the Americans had pushed through to

six

kilometres from

Route

the supplies for our Cassino troops. the Allies

under

from closing the sack

6 at Valmontone,

which most

our divisions

could be thrown. General Clark provided that miracle "Stalingrad" south of

which carried

miracle had to happen to prevent

in Italy

Then

the

Rome, which had been the Allies' goal since The way back for the Tenth Army remained

January, did not materialize. open.'

Without much

made

little

air

or artillery support, the British on the Beachhead had

progress. According to the

Mathews, 'when asked about the reasons under Fifth

Army command,

that their lack

correspondent Sidney T.

for the failure

of the British

General Clark stated emphatically

of aggressiveness and their

due to poor leadership rather than

failure to

[in

1948]

accomplish more was

to difference in transport or tactical

concepts from Americans".

The fate of the king of Italy at this precise moment, with D-Day in Normandy also so near, must have seemed small beer to Churchill. On the whole it was left to Harold Macmillan to make decisions. The question was when or if the king should enter Rome on its liberation,

and even

if he

should be allowed

that for the time being he

would have

as far as

Naples.

to stay in Ravello,

was decided

and that Prince

APRIL-JUNE

294

Umberto and

representatives of the six parties

would go

Rome as soon

as feasible.

The king was over

his

also apparently

having second thoughts about handing

powers. Macmillan was incensed by

orders that

this

'wriggling out' and gave

there were to be 'any nonsense' the king was to be put on

plane and sent to Kenya.

more concerned by Badoglio's demands

Churchill was

peace treaty'. 'None of these matters,' he told Eden, 'should

Rome

are safely ensconced in

peninsula

Badoglio

untroubled demise.'

'Why

tollowing:

is it

and chasing the enemy up the

very lucky

he gets

you want

away

to settle things?

all

and the

tremendous mistake Foreign Affairs, if one

It is a

for the Foreign Office to settle things ... In

question

until

Italian

to retirement

Churchill crossed out

draft note,

his

for a 'partial

come up

it only gives way to another usually more disagreeable. words of wisdom from an aged friend. Let me send a nice Badoglio on the theme of ''disquictn non movere", trans-

settled,

Please take these

telegram to lation

"Pig

it".'

when

Churchill was annoyed

he received

High Commissioner Noel Charles about

who

long telegram from

his

meeting with the Communist

meet Italian leaders in had told Charles that he wanted to solve the pc:)sition of the monarchy and Badoglio, and felt that Umberto's position was 'none too good'. He also complained of 'bad discipline' in the Roman Party of Action, though he hoped he could control the situation, provided he was able to get to Rome 'as soon as is leader Togliatti,

Rome when

had asked for

facilities to

the Allies arrived in the city. Togliatti

practically possible after the arrival ot the Allied troops'.

Churchill's draft reply

was transmitted

was preserved but never sent, though the sense 'I do not like Togliatti's attitude. Having

to Charles:

boosted the king and Badoglio into

a certain

position, he

now

wants to

will

them and no doubt the Communist gang will sing their part. They certainly pulverize any form of government that can be set up

You

should not hesitate to use language suitable to the rights and dignity

ruin

ot Britain,

which has done

day she entered the war. the Russians

Togliatti as

trom the down. A good row with

tour-fifths of the tighting against Italy

sometimes

much

not take

it all

lying

very healthy episode.'

the Allied leaders was anxious to avoid an

matter in the Castelli, the towns There at the right moment the partisans could be of immense value. The code word for them to strike would be 'Anfia Maria c pioniossa, Anna Maria is promoted'. And that message came over Radio London on 27 May. IiisiirrczioHc in the city.

111

and around the Alban

was

a different

Hills.

Sorrento

went

to the i86th General Hospital in Naples, a 'head

dealing with head

wounds and

cases.

There

had

and

tails'

hospital

piece of grenade

removed from my cheek. also fell ridiculously, violently and briefly in love, and it was all to the good when was sent to convalesce in the Hotel Tramontano at Sorrento. The Tramontano was an enormous Edwardian-type building, on the I

site

of camellias, bougainvillea and sheer cliff over the Bay. On the evening of my

of Tasso's house, with

palm

trees,

arrival

and

built

looked out

at the

garden

full

smooth milky-blue

waters.

could just see

and the double hump of old Vesuvius, which was no longer smoking. thought had never seen anything so perfect. This, at last, was the real Italy had been longing for. Naples outlined

in the distance

had been pushed out. They were going to catch calamari. of the hotel, near the herringbone bricks of a Roman villa, the

fishing boat

Just in front

boat stopped and singing

'Lili

man began

Marlcne'.

to sing, a typical Neapolitan tenor.

He was

'Stalingrad'

Under

a radiant

Liri valley,

— Rome

sky the juggernaut of war pushed slowly up the narrow

obhterating whatever was

of farmhouses and

left

villages,

ruining crops and ancient olives. But, incredibly, wild flowers sprang up in

seemed overnight, and

dark the thunder of the guns myriad frightened frogs. The Canadians advanced, their numbers diminishing. Tanks were being held up by an unexpected quantity of blown bridges and by the wadis, and were only too easily picked off by guns sited in the defiles above. Indian and Italian forces, like the Moroccans and Algerians to the west of the valley, were having some success in the mountains, and on 26 May the 8th Indians had captured Roccasecca. the shell holes,

had

its

after

counterpoint in the quacking of

Kesselring called for a 'fanatical defence' of the Liri valley: Fuehrer's explicit order and

belief that

we must

bleed the

'It is

the

enemy

But once again, in spite of the tremendous Canadian casualties, he was being too optimistic, as is clear from a conversation between General Feuerstein o{ the German Mountain Troops Valentin and the Tenth Army commander:

exhaustion.'

Feuerstein:

men

report

we have

Vietinghoff.

as a

matter of duty that

to hold out at

must accept

we shall not bring back many

all costs.

that risk.

Army

has given explicit

orders to hold the line for several days. Feuerstein:

enemy has two places.

regret to report to the Colonel-General that the

already crossed the River Melfa

tributary of the Liri] in

(On the day of this conversation the Canadian Westminsters' Major Mahony, wounded in the head and leg, won his VC.) The Germans were also being bled to exhaustion. Even Kesselring was coming to realize that there might have to be a phased withdrawal to the crucial town of Valmontone.

thick cloud of dust, like a smokescreen, covered the Allied rear

-ROME

STALINGRAD

297

moved ahead, mile by by yard, so each army left behind it the usual detritus of burnt vehicles, smashed gun carriages, broken rifles and valuable precision instruments. If these things had belonged to the other side, you saw them with satisfaction, a good job done; if not, too bad. As for the corpses, if they too were the other side's, and if they stank, the best way to be rid of them was with a can of petrol and a lighted match. There was no time for regrets; after all you were trained to kill, to destroy. Some vignettes then, recorded by a Guards officer, through a trance of echelons. As the agonizing 'text book' advance mile, yard

sleeplessness:

'German blown to

prisoners blazes.

made

to clear their

A whole convoy

subaltern, once a cabaret-singer,

invisible

off.

The long

minefields; half a dozen

a London Irish number one act from a next time saw him one arm had

was doing

scout car, flinging his arms about; the

been blown

own

held up because his

black locks of an Italian

beneath rubble; muffled screaming.

decapitated - people fighting for his wallet, watch,

Anthony,

woman

old man, shirt.

otherwise carpenter,

statue

of St

Flames ot Jerry guns almost beautiful at dusk; spitting crimson, amber and opal. Fireflies, mistaken at first for the

also decapitated.

dimmed

Kipling's

sidelights ot trucks.

Limpopo.

In the

The

hurricane lamp, anxious taces around

company commander

greenish waters ot the Lin, like

remains of a stinking

dead.

a field

Someone

of the day, about seventy-four

lost

cellar,

by the

light ot a

telephone, hearing that

tussmg,

overcoats.

at the hottest

The

whistle ot

moment a

mortar

and diving into a ditch full ot blood-red poppies. 'Then trying to snatch a half hour's kip and being kept awake by the earth trembling from the concussion of bombs. And the sour smell of shell,

captured Jerry trenches, the same

something

do with

as in

Tunisia and the Desert.

their tobacco, or the

tood they

Was

ate?'

at the Eighth Army's slowness, his 34th and 45th had been on the Caesar Line. Like the Canadians along the Liri, they were having to attack on a congested tront, only three miles wide, and there was confusion about boundaries. Towards Anzio, in the British sector, the line bulged inwards across the Anziate, taking in the wadi country, and Aprilia, alias the Factory. However the role of the British was still meant to be diversionary, with plenty of vigorous patrolling. In any case their stamina had been much reduced by weeks in the trenches the 2nd Sherwood Foresters, for instance, had lost the equivalent of a hundred per cent c:)f its original battalion strength, and no less than two hundred per cent of its original officer strength. On the night of the 27th the Germans pulled back two to three kilometres in order to shorten their own line, and on the 2Sth they also If Clark

chafed

truly blocked

APRIL-JUNE

29^

withdrew from

tlic

Factory, which was thereupon reoccupied by the

Wyntord Vaughan-Thomas drove past the Flyover with its now unnecessary sign, 'No traffic past here in daylight', and up to the site Gordtins.

of Carroceto gully

station, past the Lobster

where Major Sidney had won

known

Claws, the Bcwt, Puntoni and the

his

VC. Here had been Spandau

Pete,

seemed on such a small scale now. He reached the Factory. The famous tower had crumbled long ago, and the brick walls of the church were barely standing. But in front of the church the bronze statue of the Archangel Michael, one foot on a dragon, was still there, although slashed by shrapnel. The Foresters were able to recover bodies of men killed three months before and still unburied. The Loyals took over the beginning of the rough road \\ hich the Germans called the Schottcrstrasse: heavy traffic had churned it up so that now any movement sent up clouds of choking dust. Above, the ground was unpleasantly open and overlooked by familiar features of the past such as the Schafstall, the Sheepfold. Mortar shells were constantly being lobbed into the Sclio[(er

as the

King's Arms.

It all

due course the Factory area was handed over to the 45th Division, the 'Thunderbirds', in preparation for the major American attacks on Campoleone and Lanuvio. The German 65th Division had successfully resisted the Thunderbirds on 27 May and in consequence had been sent a special message of congratulations from Kesselring, who made a daily habit of visiting advance command posts along all fronts. Then on the 2Sth the American I St Armored put in its attack on Campoleone with five hundred tanks. Two companies of the German 147th Grenadier Regiment were lost entirely. The only reserve now left was the 7th Company of the 147th, and this was under Lieutenant Heinnch Wunn, who had faced Major the carrying of these had to be given up. In

Sidney

Wunn

February.

occupied Campoleone church and

the tower giving

extraordinary soldier.

man

He was

his duty"

was

him

its

surrounding buildings,

perfect observation for kilometres around. This

typified the doggedness and discipline

in his

element:

his favourite

'We cannot

dictum.

always see that he was given

lose the war comrade was

of the German

everyone does

killed he

would

burial with militarv honours, three shots

being fired over the grave. Wunn now quickly gathered in any stragglers - runners, artillery observers and anti-tank men who had lost their guns. The American tanks had broken through, but he was able to beat back their infantry.

Concentrated

artillery fire then

majority of the tanks. Stuc:::pnnkt

Wunn

proceeded to decimate the Wunn - had

Strc:»ngpoint

key outpost defending Rome, and apparently impregnable. Yet on the 29th Mackensen had to tell Kesselring that the 65th Dn'ision only

become

-ROME

STALINGRAD had

tor tank defence six assault guns,

lett

299

one Tiger tank and

few

anti-

tank guns.

house called Villa Crocetta

citadel ot

German

resistance.

difficult to assault in

delay, and told

any

t:)utside

Lanuvio was the other great

Lanuvio, being on high ground, was more

case.

Truscott was getting impatient with the

a staff officer to tell

General Ryder of the 34th, the 'Red

Lanuvio, it's holding up the whole thing'. But Lanuvio was not to be cracked. Stalemate had been reached. There was no progress towards Valmontone. In the last days' fighting virtually all the Allied gains had been in places where the Germans had withdrawn, and this included Ardea in front of the British 5th Division near the coast. Vaughan-Thomas went to look at the Valmontone gap, where the Hermann Goerings were digging in. There had been a disaster here, when American artillery of the 3rd Infantry had by mistake bombarded positions held by their own men, including a group of a hundred and sixty new recruits, most of whom were killed or hurt. There had been a similar occurrence at Cori when the small town was bombed after American troops had occupied it. On the other hand Task Force Howze had taken advantage of a mistake on the German side, due to a confusion over orders, and had mown down scores of Hermann Goerings in an almost suicidal counterattack. Men in Howze's outposts had thought they must have been Americans. 'Hell, no, shoot them up!' Howze had roared down Bulls', to 'crack this

the phone.

Yet the valley looked lushly

Vaughan-Thomas watched

shells

rich after the devastated

dropping on the church

Beachhead. at

Artena.

him on the tree-lined road - old folk and children, stumbling, bewildered, whimpering when a shell burst too close. He heard an American voice shout: 'Hey, can anyone speak dago pitiful

procession of refugees passed

around In

here?'

another area

his

Transatlantic colleague Eric Sevareid

saw the

young German soldier. 'Two American soldiers were resting and smoking cigarettes, a few feet away, paying the body no attention. "Oh him?" one of them said in response to a question. "Son of a bitch kept lagging behind the others when we brought them in. We got tired of hurrying him up all the time." Thus casually was murder

sprawled figure of

deliberately

announced by boys

who

year before had taken no lives but

those of squirrel or pheasant.'

Murder in war is not always casual. Ptc Lloyd C. Greer of the i8oth Regiment in 45th Division returned to his unit after escaping

Infantry

He told how he had been captured in February and farmhouse where there had been about thirty-five German soldiers. 'On the way to the house we passed two other German soldiers standing over two bodies on the ground. One of the men on the ground from

prison camp.

taken to

APRIL-JUNE

300

The former was groaning and had apparently been badly wounded. The latter may have been dead. While watched, one of the German soldiers pulled out a pistol and shot understood that the unit which the wounded man on the ground. captured us was part of the famous Hermann Goering Division.' was American.

think the other was too.

And now

was

there

new

cause for friction between Clark and

The French Expeditionary Force was poised in the mountains above Ferentino on Route 6, several miles ahead of the Eighth Army. Juin Alexander.

proposed, therefore, that he should take Ferentino and then follow on up

Valmontone - something which would greatly assist Clark's embattled divisions on the other side of the Alban Hills. At last Clark was appreciating the value of Valmontone. But Alexander refused to give this permisssion to Juin; he wanted Route 6 Route 6

clear for the

Eighth

'My French

corps

Army is

and

its

armour.

being pinched out,' Clark wrote

in his diary.

doubt his suspicions were aroused further when Alexander said that without uninterrupted freedom to use Route 6 it would be impossible to bring the Eighth Army to bear in the battle for Rome. There was nothing for it but for Clark to persuade the French to continue on their difficult course through the mountains, with the object ofjoining up with the American 3rd Infantry at Artena. Eventually Alexander - realizing that there was still little hope of the Canadians and the 78th Division gathering much speed - finally agreed

Army were

that if the Fifth

Route 6

for the attack

Valmontone then it could use on Rome. The Eighth Army would swing to capture

northwards and thereby bypass the

May

Lieutenant

Wunn

city.

repulsed five attacks.

The

Stt4etzpwikt

had

men. As the chronicler of the 65th Division recalled: 'What the Allies could not achieve by force, they were now trying to obtain with sweet words.' They promised Wunn 'honourable treatment' if he surrendered. His answer was probably not understood, 'Goetz von Berlichingen' which, although the title of one of Goethe's early plays, to a German simply means 'Up your arse'. 'Three more times the enemy attacked Campoleone, but in vain,' the been reduced to

fifty

chronicler continued. encircled.

He had

'Wunn

thirty-five

eventually had to clear out, to avoid being

men

left

and destroyed

all

the

weapons he

could not take with him.' In due course he was awarded the Knight's

were Lieutenant Finkbeiner and Corporal Vetter, Company of the 147th Grenadier Regiment, holding another point nearby. Between 30 and 31 May seventy Allied tanks had been destroyed around Campoleone, fourteen personally by Corporal Cross for

his

bravery,

both of the 14th

STALINGRAD - ROME

3OI

Wunn was later to die of wounds outside Bologna, and

Vcttcr was by low-flying aircraft outside Rome. Still there was no sign ot the Campoleone-Lanuvio line breaking. The mounting American casualties were becoming alarming, and the casualty Vettcr.

to be killed

clearing stations in the vineyards could at times hardly cope with such a

wounded. Both sides were exhausted. The exploits ot Vetter were matched by Captain Gait ot the i68th US Infantry Regiment, who single-handed killed torty Cjcrmans; he was awarded the Medal of torrent ot

Honor posthumously. If

Clark did not break

possibility that he a

or four days, there was

this position in three

would have

to wait for the Eighth

co-ordinated attack with both armies.

would be both humiliating and

And

Army and go in

this,

with

of course, for him

disastrous.

Nevertheless the turning point

in the battle for

Rome

was about

to be

reached, and this was due to General Fred Walker, the rugged

commander — ex-Ohio tarm-boy and now honorary Texan - of the 36th Division. The German command had come to realize that there was a possibly dangerous gap in their defences on the slopes of Monte Artemisio to the east of Velletri, but Mackensen had concluded that the difficult terrain would counterbalance any lack of German strength there. He did not know that patrols of Walker's Texans had been roaming the slopes since 27 May. The 36th had, frankly, come to be looked down on by the other divisions in the Fifth Army. It was considered not only to be a 'hard luck outfit' but trigger-happy. This made Walker, 'the Old Man', determined to redeem his division's reputation. It his troops could scale Monte Artemisio, then Velletri would be cut off. Both Clark and Truscott realized the potentialities

of the

idea,

but

felt

could scarcely be achieved.

you do it and succeed, we on our way to Rome; but if you fail you will have to bear the brunt of what comes with the failure, and your action will be without my approval Clark said to Walker: 'Fred,

can't

this. If

are

or the approval ot Truscott.'

Before midnight on 30 May, by the light of Battalion of the 142nd Infantry

Regiment

set

new moon,

out on

German

its

the

2nd

arduous climb,

were eliminated by wire and knives. The leading squads reached the crest by dawn without meeting opposition, and were not spotted by the enemy until the atternoon. A clever ruse at first light had destroyed the neighbouring German positions. Aircratt had been sent in from the north, and the Germans, thinking that they were their own planes, had sent up Very lights to indicate their positions. The bombs fell right on their targets. So now Velletri was completely with the help of

Italian guides. Several

and

on the way,

deftly

noiselessly

sentries

their jugulars cut

APRIL-JUNE

302

overlooked and there were road-blocks on escape routes. After so 'caused us

however was

command, and

this

Germany, and

his

for

news,

this

Clark

said,

Mackcnsen offered In less than a week was accepted. it place was taken by General Joachim

raging. For the third time

to resign his left

but one of the Germans'

all

days of frustration,

to turn handsprings'.

all

Kessclring

many

time

Lemclsen.

For some days the point ot the

been

ist SSF had been occupying Artcna, still the farthest Corps tront tacing Valmontone. Many fine Forcemcn had

many

and

lost,

have survived about

stories

this strange,

hardboiled

organization where differences in rank hardly mattered except to define

combat

Colonel George Walton remembers watching

duties.

men

seeing

going out on patrol and taking bets on whether they would or not. Major Jack Sector, ajewish Canadian, was a Forceman

their buddies

return alive

whom

about

He never

legends grew.

and would laugh andjoke

stick,

mortally

hit,

won't need

The

by an

88,

and

his last

carried a

weapon, only

toughest spots. Then,

swagger-

at last,

words were: 'Here, take

he was

watch.

it.'

achievement on Monte Artemisio and the

36th's spectacular

imminent

in the

fall

of Velletri made

imperative that Valmontone should be

was at this stage that Alexander agreed that the French Expeditionary Corps should advance on the town, and that the rest of Route 6 should be in Fifth Army territory. Juin was told that his ultimate objective would be to seize a crossing over the Tiber east of

captured quickly, and

Rome. The Germans were

still

ing. Needless to say the

consisting

now

of the

ist

fighting back hard,

SSF, the

Howze Task

and 88th Divisions, seemed destined

June

ordered

his

white

flag

though obviously weaken-

French made rapid progress. Keyes'

was

raised

Corps,

Force, and the 3rd, 85th

to be the first in the race for

Rome.

over Valmontone. Iron Mike O'Daniel

3rd Division artillery to 'plaster the

hell'

out of anything that

went along Route 6. 'The important thing is to shoot every goddam vehicle that comes by there.' Velletri was entered, at last, on June: a ghost town. The place was with 'littered the bodies of Krauts', and two hundred and fifty prisoners were taken. The Krauts had also pillaged the tourteenth-century church of Santa Maria del Trivio and sacked the seminary, though the German command had obviously later put up an out of bounds notice, threatening i

the death penalty for entering or plundering the building.

was half in ruins, and only Doors of houses were torn

May

a third

off,

The Cathedral

of the Palazzo Comunale remained.

windows gaped.

the Canadians of the Eighth

Army

had made

sudden dash

STALINGRAD

-ROME

3O3

forward and had captured the important market town of Frosinone, capital of the province of which Cassino was a part. Kcsselring's fear of another Stahngrad for Vietinghoff's Tenth Army thus returned. Units from the coastal area of the Fourteenth Army and whatever reserves were available

were rushed

to safeguard the right flank

of Tivoli. But on 2 June Lanuvio

tell:

the ancient

there had been a temple to Juno, and

of the Tenth

in the area

Lanuvium, where once

where once,

so Livy said, the

had shed blood; and where, for good measure, one o( the great admirals had been born, Marcantonio Colonna, a victor of

statues Italian

Lepanto.

There were

insufficient

German

reserves to plug the gap. Kesselring

gave the order for both Armies to withdraw. Vietinghoff,

and was forced

who had been ill for some while, could carry on no longer hand over his command of the Tenth Army. Westphal,

Kcsselring's chief of

staff,

collapsed

from nervous

strain.

Alexander and Clark met on 2 June. It was a difficult encounter once more, though somewhat glossed over in Clark's memoirs, where he

demand

speaks of his

that the

French should take over yet more of the

Army

(thus keeping the latter at a safer distance

territory ot the Eighth

from Rome?).

rather expected an argument, but Alexander said that

go through he would bring in the whole Eighth Army to assure success. replied that our attack was going through.' Clark also says that it was made clear that an eventual

shouldn't worry;

attack didn't

communique should be released specifically saying that Tifth Army troops' had entered Rome. He did not mention in his memoirs that the future boundaries between Armies

Rome

were also discussed. Harding, as was their nearest approach to 'coming to blows' with Clark. And Sidney Mathews, recording his interview with Clark atter the war. has said: 'Everybody was anxious to the

after the tall

Alexander's chief ot

get to

Rome

Corps, Clark

staft, recalls

or to take part in

that this

its

capture

The French Expeditionary

wanted to be in on it [as did the Poles) Clark he wanted the Eighth Army to take

says,

Alexander told

capture, Clark got pretty sore.

told Alexander that

When

part in

its

he [Alexander]

gave him (Clark) such an order he would refuse to obey it and if the Eighth Army tried to advance on Rome, Clark said he would have his troops

fire

on the Eighth Army. Alexander did not

press the point

Juin also apparently got the message, and kept his

Rome.

.' .

men away from

APRIL-JUNE

304

ROME The

distant

Roman

menace of heavy guns seemed out of place

such perfect

weather. 'Always these guns, always nearer,' wrote Mother

Mary

St Luke. The incarcerated diplomats in the Vatican watched the dive-bombing on the outskirts of Rome from a hill in the garden. At night there was a constant pulsing glow in the direction of Velletri. History was about to turn another page. The question at the back of every Roman's mind was, of course, whether or not the Germans would defend the city, and there were clear signs that they intended to do so. But any feeling of dread was, for most people, counteracted by hope. Josette Bruccolen remembered: 'Everyone seemed to be in possession of a great secret which they did not dare reveal. People hardly spoke to each other and if they did it was only for a moment. I myself felt like a time-bomb ready to explode, but like everybody else I did my best to look as innocent as possible.' The BBC news was saying that it was better to surround Kesselring's Armies than to capture Rome. 'Oh yes, is it?' said Mother Mary. 'We arc not strategists, armchair or otherwise, but we have practical knowledge of the urgent need of liberating Rome.' Old people collapsed from lack of food in the streets. Beggars were everywhere. It gave Mother Mary 'heartache' to see how cadaverous some friends looked. Once again the Allies had turned down a suggestion of a way of feeding Rome, this time again by sea, using Spanish and Irish ships.

The news that yet another revered Benedictine shrine had been bombed by the Allies was seized on gleefully by the Fascist press — the Renaissance cloister at the convent of Santa Scolastica at Subiaco had been damaged, and a workman and a student had been killed. Bombs had also been dropped on the Villa D'Este at Tivoli. The Anglo-Saxon barbarians were coming. The Fascist police seemed to be possessed by a kind of frenzy, and were horribly successful in capturing key Resistance figures. Among others they caught Generals Oddone and Filippo Caruso, who were sent to Via Tasso. Lieutenant Bill Simpson, a helper in the O'Flaherty-Derry organization, had also been rounded up and was believed to be in the Regina Coeli prison. Then, suddenly, it was noticed that senior German officers' luggage was being sent north from the Via Veneto hotels. There was a mysterious fire at Koch's torture-house, Pensione Jaccarino. And Monsignor O'Flaherty received a surprising message from Koch himself. Could the Monsignor arrange for Koch's mother and sister to be housed in a

STALINGRAD - ROME

3O5

Koch would make sure that O'Flaherty's friends in would not be deported north? O'Flaherty asked, as an earnest of good intention, for the release of Simpson and a Captain John Armstrong, who was thought to have been in Regina Coeli for nine months; but events were moving too quickly The Allied radio at Anzio broadcast names and addresses of spies and collaborators with the NaziJ'ascisti. The OSS man Peter Tompkins was annoyed about this. He had the addresses filed away and was hoping to hand them over to the Allied authorities as soon as Rome was liberated. Now those people were simply fleeing northwards. Mother Mary wrote: 'Two of the informers mentioned yesterday by the Anzio wireless are the porter o{ a house we know, and his wife. They have specialized in reporting the whereabouts of Jews. This morning they are sitting in their convent, and in return prison

lodge shedding put

and well they may.' Josette Bruccoleri was told by Angelo is arrested when the Allies come, your mother.'

tears;

her porter's wife: I'll

'Sij^tioritia, if

knife in

around the Alban Hills, following the code words partisans were harassing German supply lines with considerable success. Carla Capponi was slightly wounded by shrapnel in a hit-and-run raid. She and Rosario Bentivegna were summoned back to the Gap headquarters in Rome, but Carla was not well, spitting blood and with a high temperature. She recovered a little, and was sent with Rosario and another Gapist, Fiorentini, on bicycles to Tivoli, to be ready in case of In the Castelli district

Anna Maria e promossa,

an Allied lancio or air-drop.

June

was xhc jcsta of Sant'Eugenio, Pius

XII's

name-day. The

Pope's message of warning was broadcast to the world: 'Whoever

raises a

hand against Rome will be guilty of matricide to the whole civilized world and in the eternal judgement of God.' That evening the codeword Elejante, Elephant, came over the air from the South. This meant that the Allies' arrival was imminent.

The

Lateral! Seminario,

be shaken from

hungry

packed with what Churchill —

his fixation against the

politicians',

began to buzz

Captain Charlstrom o^ the Caesar Line dugouts.

and below were beds,

were

tables,

living in comfort',

outside.

Sometimes you

And now Anzio

You had

CLN

- was

who

could not

to call 'aged

and

an excited beehive.

medical corps examined

to descend

twenty

even kitchen stoves.

few

o'l

the

some of them, 'Those damned Krauts steps in

while good American blood was flowing

realized that

women

had been kept

Annie, the famed and hated 28

down

there.

railway gun, was

APRIL -JUNE

306

captured, hidden in the Nenii tunnel which the 362 Division had also been

using

headquarters.

as a

length

was 96

feet; its

The weight of the gun was 479,600 pounds and

its

561 -pound shell could be fired thirty-eight miles,

a team of ten men. Lake Nemi: 'navelled in the woody hills', Byron had said. In normal times the towns around this enchanted place, early in June, would be thronged" with Romans for the saj^ra delle /rrtijo/t', the feast oi^ strawberries. When shells dropped on the placid surface, they looked like whale spouts, and masses of silver fish floated on the surface.

and

had required

The

sheds housing Caligula's boats

with everything

blamed

from Lake Nemi had been burnt, it was said. Others Whatever the truth, it was a major

them, by the retreating Germans, so

careless refugee families.

archaeological tragedy.

The

unreality of death lurking in such countryside

was

dream.

like a

the dappled groves and verdurous glooms, with the hot sun above,

were

one another,

killing

flaming,

booby

shells

screaming backwards and forwards, tanks

traps exploding.

As Sevarcid

defeat'.

Rome was falling The horror of bluebottles German, face downwards, had shat himself. .

Lieutenant Harold T.

Bond was

was charged

said, 'the air

with excitement, savage triumph and obscene

men

feasting

where

dead

comhad gone on some

aide to General Stack, deputy

mander of the 36th Division. Near Nemi

the general

Bond behind. Bond came across a sergeant whom he knew. The man was badly wounded, his face drained white, and clutching his belly in pain. He recognized Bond and asked to be put urgent business, leaving

on the general's jeep and driven to first aid. 'The request was terrible for me. wanted very much to do this, but felt could not. With a pitched fight in progress here and with the whole division engaged in a fast moving battle the general might return at any moment and move to another part of the battlefield. had to say no. He didn't reply at all, but I

just stared at

remember

tor a while before closing his eyes in pain.

his stare, half

Rome

was

until a

woman

falling.

shall

a child kicking a dead German and removed the man's boots.

Sevareid saw

shoved

aside

Genzano, Albano, Castel Gandolfo see the dome of St Peter's.

Highway

climbed

always

incredulous and half contemptuous.'

uphill.

fell.

Harmon's

Through

ist

field-glasses

Armored was on

officer,

you could

that road, in

STALINGRAD - ROME

3O7

vanguard of VI Corps. 'A hell ot a place to put an armored division, on top of these mountains,' he grumbled. But at present it was II Corps which looked Hke winning the race, from Valmontone. The spearhead of the Corps was under the ist SSF's General Frederick, who also had Task Force Howze attached to him. As usual Frederick was always far out ahead. Once when he had been slightly wounded Colonel Akehurst, the Canadian regimental commander, had to tell him: 'Please don't get in front of my regiment again.' The next time this lanky unmilitary-looking general was hurt, he said to Akehurst: 'Jack, kept my word, didn't get in front of your regiment. This one happened when was in front of another outfit.' the

now taking notice of Ultra. For on 2 June Ultra had decoded Kesselring's request to Hitler for permission to evacuate Rome without fighting in the city, and on 3 June Hitler had agreed. For once Hitler must be accorded some credit; Rome, he said, was a 'place of culture' and must not be a 'scene of combat operations'. Mussolini, on the other hand, is said to have asked that Rome should be defended street by street - 'Why should the citizens of Rome have a better life than those of Perhaps Clark was

Cassino?' It was the last big battle south of Rome, a desperate attempt by the Germans to prevent their two Armies from losing contact. The Fourteenth Army had lost seventy-five per cent of its manpower since 23 May. The

paratroopers forcing the British and the Panzer Grenadier regiments

north of Lake Albano held on almost to the

last

round, so that the

remainder of the army could withdraw across the plain

The war

diary of an artilleryman of the

'The whole day

Tommy

attacking.

red-hot. At 12.15 groups of

enemy

German

point

Soon

after that

Rome.

We answer until the gun-barrels are

tanks are trying to break through

the Schotterstrasse. This attack also collapses in our attacks again.

east

65th Division ran:

fire.

At 1600

receive orders to retreat.

about eighteen kilometres from

Tommy

Our assembly

Rome [at Mussolini's Exhibition

buildings].'

had been destroyed by the 65th in front In recognition of the achievements of this horse-drawn division. General Helmuth Pfeifer and Colonel Martin Strahammer were later awarded oakleaves to the Knight's Cross. On the opposing side, the only VC of the British 5th Division was won It

was reckoned

of the

that 168 tanks

Schotterstrasse

and Campoleone.

posthumously by Sergeant Rogers of the Wiltshires. Two posthumous Medals of Honor went to Private Elden Johnson and Pfc Herbert Christian, both of the 15th Infantry Regiment in the US 3rd Division, in what has been described as 'one of the most stirring tales of courage and self-sacrifice in the annals of United States military history'.

APRIL-JUNE

308 In order to save their

comrades'

lives

both continued to fight on, although

mortally wounded; Johnson had been gun, Christian had

hit in the stomach by a machine- he crawled onwards on one knee and a Kraut with his tommy-gun' until he was shot

lost a leg

bloody stump, 'raking the down and died. This last episode took place during a German rearguard action near Palestrina, on the other side of the Fifth Army front. The Germans still feared that II Corps would thrust on from Valmontone, past Palestrina to Tivoli, thus not only separating their two Armies but preventing a

withdrawal to the important bridges north of Rome, where a new line could be formed. The danger seemed even greater now that the French were also approaching Palestrina on the US jrd's right. But whatever chances the Americans had of effecting either of these, they were ignored.

Rome,

was the one and only goal, and the jrd's positions around Palestrina were handed over to the French. Indeed, from what Gruenther told Clark, it would seem that there could have been very little overall control left at Fifth Army headquarters on the afternoon of 3 June. Such was the excitement and optimism, he said, 'no one is doing any work here ... all semblance of discipline had broken down'. Everyone had his 'pants full of ants'.

With

at present,

the British Eighth

Army on the move, Kesselring was extracting his

through the Abruzzi mountains in a masterly manner - all the more impressive now that he had lost his three most important generals. Senger's XIV Panzer Corps was despatched to Tivoli, seven divisions being pulled back through the often precipitous roads in five days, mostly by night. All of which showed that Clark had some justification in saying that there would have still been escape routes for the Germans even if he had driven on to Valmontone on Route 6 in the early

Tenth

Army

days.

As usual Senger, during glories

his

withdrawal, had time to appreciate the

of the 'sacred valley' through which

his

XIV Corps passed:

the rich

vegetation and the ilexes, olive groves, throbbing with cicadas and scented with sweet box, and the river dashing wildly below.

has

wood of chestnut had so refreshing a night's rest for many a month. It was like moving through a landscape by Claude. 'I spent the following night in a castle at Orvinio, which lies at a good elevation. Here, in the deserted but well-furnished bedroom of a young marchesa, slept in a wonderfully wide bed, with clean linen and a bath described awakening to find himself in trees in a beautiful setting';

provided.'

he had not, he

'wonderful

said,

STALINGRAD

-ROME

309

ROME During the afternoon of 3 June in lorries

several prisoners at

Regina Cocli were put

and sent north.

A number

were also selected for men, including the trades unionist Bruno Buozzi, four of Peter Tompkins' helpers, and Captain John Armstrong, who had recently been transferred from Regina Coeli. At a dreary spot called La Storta, where in vetturitio days horses had been changed at the last staging post before Rome, all fourteen were taken out and shot, their bodies being left in a schoolhouse. removal. The

Rome

was

Generals

ot other prisoners at Via Tasso first

lorry contained fourteen

falling.

Oddone and

Filippo Caruso, the Gapists Salinari and Falcioni,

Uberto Corti, were among a long wait they were told that their lorry had broken down. The noise of bursting shells seemed to be getting louder. The German guards were obviously scared and ordered and the Duchessina Mita

di Cesaro's fiance,

those lined up ready for the next load. After

the prisoners back into their

Padre

Pfeiffer,

cells.

on behalf of the Pope, came

Giuliano Vassalli, the Socialist for whose

to the prison

and fetched

release Pius XII had asked

General Wolff three weeks before.

Rome

was

falling.

The Germans were

Roman

anxious

The

as the Allies to

prevent

mass uprising by

would happen was defended. Or would the Germans, as it clear that the city was to be Mother Mary said, cease upon the midnight with no pain -just fold up the

population.

necessary spark, presumably,

Arabs? Kesselring gave orders, to avoid suspicion o{ immediate withdrawal, that General Maeltzer and other high officials should that evening attend a gala performance of Gigli singing in Vn hallo their tents like

maschera.

The

all-important bridges across the Tiber were blocked by machinegun posts. Thus, for civilians, the city was cut in two. With a feeling of total uselessness, D'Arcy Osborne listened to the artillery and heavy bombings, quite near, and to 'other indeterminate warlike bonkings'. In that 'heavenly' weather he eased his mind by going for a bicycle ride

with the youngest Tittmann, 'Tarzan',

in the

Vatican

gardens. That night he could not sleep. 'An unending and exceedingly

noisy stream of German motorized

traffic,

including heavy tanks, poured

APRIL-JUNE

310

north along the branch of Via AureHa beneath our windows. At 2.30

went on a lot

was lovely up the sky due north.'

the roof to look.

of red

flares in

there,

with

bright

moon and

Via Tasso were suddenly There they were taken to Ivanoe Bonomi, as head of the CLN - he was horrified by the sight of Fihppo Caruso, swollen and limping from torture, his mouth still bleeding after fourteen teeth had been ripped out.

During the small hours the

set free

and made

their

way

Italian generals in

to the Lateran.

Rome, Pietro Caruso, left Romeo, taking with him a

Caruso's namesake, the Fascist police chief in at

dawn from

the Plaza Hotel in his Alfa

pound notes and lire. Near Lake Bracciano him and his leg was broken. His identity was

quantity ofjewellery, watches, a

German

car crashed into

discovered whilst

in hospital at

Viterbo, so in due course he found himself

Rome, to a cell in Regina Coeli. Koch made the journey northwards unscathed,

sent back to

on his work first in Florence and then in the 'Villa Triste' in Milan, by which time his methods of interrogation had achieved further refinements, and Pietro

to carry

some reason he attracted people from the stage as accomplices, two well-known film stars, Osvaldo Valenti and Luisa Ferida. Both Koch and Pietro Caruso were to be tried in Rome and shot at Forte

where

for

including

many

Before Caruso died, which he was much criticized. Kappler also left in good time. He too was to be arrested and after the war tried in Rome. He was to be condemned to life imprisonment, and was visited in prison at Gaeta by Monsignor O'Flaherty, who converted him to Roman Catholicism. Celeste Di Porto, the Jewish prostitute known as the Black Panther, had no intention of leaving Rome. She looked forward to new clients among GIs and Tommies. It was not yet time for Maeltzer to depart. Tompkins heard that he was Bravetta, the scene of so the

Pope

sent

him

patriots' executions.

rosary, for

'stinking drunk, speaking in lamentable French'

and that

his

headquarters

complete confusion. Colonel Eugen Dollmann, on the other hand, boldly plunged southwards through the shelling to Frascati to say goodbye to Kesselring. He found the Field-Marshal pale and exhausted.

was

They shook hands and looked forward

Rome

was

the

meeting again

Florence.

falling.

Dollmann took

known and

a last

walk round some favourite spots

loved since 1927. Then he

Romans,

left, as

in the city

he cynically

said,

true and otherwise, flung themselves eagerly

their liberators'.

he had

betore

'all

the feet of

STALINGRAD - ROME

3II

Early that morning the Alhes had dropped leaflets over Rome. They were headlined 'Headquarters of General Alexander' and urged the citizens of Rome, now that liberation was at hand, 'to stand shoulder-toshoulder to protect the city from destruction and to defeat our common enemies'. Romans should do everything they could to safeguard public services, telephone and telegraph plants, railways. They should remove any barriers or obstructions from streets to leave free passages for military vehicles, so that Allied troops could pass through without hindrance. 'Citizens of

Rome,

directions and

this

to save the city, ours

These

last

not the time for demonstrations.

go on with your regular work. is

to destroy the

Rome

Obey

yours!

these

Your job

enemy.'

words, repeated on the radio, have been misinterpreted by

certain writers as a call to rise up, the opposite, of course, being the truth.

Togliatti also sent a message instructing the

Communists not

to attempt

any independent action, which in some ways must have been a disappomtment to his most ardent supporters. Various other reasons have been given for

Rome,

mancata Insurrezione, the Insurrection that never was, in

chief one being that the Nazifascisti had been so successful in

rounding up leaders of the Gaps and the pro-Badoglio Military Front (i.e. Oddone and Filippo Caruso); also the man who, after so much fuss weeks ago, had become head of the Military Front, as being more acceptable to the CLN - old General Bencivegna - was still semi-immobilized with his bad leg in the Lateran. And very little help, if any, could have been expected from partisan bands outside

with the northern industrial

middle and

cities,

Finally, when compared was dominated by the upper,

Rome.

Rome

clerical classes.

Exasperated by the sense of paralysis, Peter Tompkins took himself to write an order, 'Republican' authorities police, instructing

them

now

OSS

on headed nominally

to take charge

paper,

upon

the

Italian

charge of armed forces and

of public order, to prevent

from leaving the city. Suddenly D'Arcy Osborne was sent for by the Vatican UnderSecretaries of State, Tardini and Montini. He heard that the Germans had 'weighed in' with a last-minute proposal to make Rome into an open city. 'It was too late and absurd, particularly since German troops had been pouring through Rome all last night and this morning.' The only effect would be to deny facilities to the Allies. The Germans also suggested that Florence should be designated a hospital city - the ulterior sabotage, arrest deserters and prevent civilians

motive was too transparent.

exciting

moment came when Osborne had

telephone

call

Castel Gandolfo, and over the crackling line heard the voice of liaison officer

with the Fifth Army. Derry

also

from

a British

spoke to the officer and

APRIL-JUNE

312

answered questions about bridges being still intact and whether there was any street fighting. 'The Jerries appear to be withdrawing from the city very nicely,' Derry told him.

Vehicle congestion and the problems of logistics necessarily bedevilled the

Army. There had been occasions when the vehicles had been suspended over cliffs or Westminsters' Canadian jammed nose to tail in sunken narrow roads. 'If only the country were progress of the Eighth

more open we would make hay of the whole lot,' noted Alexander. Now the 6th South African Armoured headed the Canadian Corps. True

to Clark's wishes, the Eighth's line

of advance kept well to the

notoriously difficult mountainous centre of

Italy,

with XIII Corps

aiming for Subiaco and X Corps for Avezzano, and the Tactical Air Force doing its best. Between 12-31 May it claimed 2,556 German motor vehicles destroyed and 2,236 damaged. Naturally it was disappointing not to be able to take part in the entry into Rome, but this was compensated for by the jubilation in each small town or village liberated.

'Please take

much

Rome

longer. I'm

soon,' Clark's all

The night of 3-4 June had been small task forces rushed towards

Corps, Task Force

mother wrote.

can't stand the wait

frazzled out.'

Howze

confusion of conflicting rumours

the Citta Eterna. In the case

and the

ist

SSF were

still

of the

the lead, each

having battalions attached to them from the 88th Division. But when the French relieved the Americans around Palestrina, units of the 3rd Division were freed to join in the race. General Frederick reported that he had reached the city limits

6.20 p.m.

Yet there were strong rearguard posts to be dealt with. Only three miles from the centre of Rome several II Corps tanks were knocked out. There were also mines and snipers, and a crowd of eager newspaper correspondents did not help the situation. Clark arrived with Keyes, to tell

Frederick that he wanted the Tiber bridges seized

possible.

also

wanted

generals posed under

and

all

sign

know why

there

marked 'Rome'

was

quickly

hold-up. As the three

a sniper's bullet

three dived into a ditch. 'That's what's holding

pinged

up the

ist

past,

Special

Service Force,' said Frederick. Truscott's VI Corps

advance

in a less

was

also suffering

from

traffic

jams but able

confused manner. 'Ernie and his boys', Harmon's

to ist

were in the Corps' vanguard along Route 7. The arches of the Claudian Aqueduct were a foretaste of the architectural splendours ahead. Among the umbrella pines and the dark malachite-green flickers of

Armored,

still

STALINGRAD cypresses

were

old Appian

-ROME

ruins of medieval towers; then

Way,

and sarcophagi,

still

all

came

that

haunted road, the

and lined with tombs with brambles, ivy and rampant pink

with the marks of chariot

overgrown now

313

ruts,

oleanders.

But the 36th Division was making unexpectedly quick progress. Truscott found Walker and some of his staff bustling about trying to decide what to do next. He told them they should be half a mile further east. There, however, it was discovered that II Corps' 85th was in danger of crossing their boundary. Keyes remembered that the 36th's chief of staff 'began yelling out to ours like a pig caught under a fence'; if the 85th did cross over, 'he intimated they were going to shoot

By about

out with

us'.

p.m. Allied tanks had broken through near the Exhibition

buildings outside

Rome. The

headquarters of the

German 65th

established there had already been burning papers and

Division

blowing up food

dumps, soldiers having been told to take whatever they could carry. So the division was on the move again, through the westerly outskirts of Rome. The roads were completely deserted. Here was the basilica of San Paolo Fuori le Mura, there were the Tre Fontane, there the Pyramid o{ Cestius and the Protestant Cemetery - but such famous sights were of no interest now. The 'Jabos' and 'Jaks' were dominating the skies, and they were taking a good harvest. The 4th Parachutes were in charge of covering the retreat. Corporal Joachim Liebschner, no longer a runner, was now with a heavy machinegun post on the Appian Way. People said he and his team were crazy to hang on. Then the Americans were sighted, advancing as if they were on a Sunday School outing. Liebschner's team opened up when the enemy was a hundred and fifty yards away. The Amis, having no protection, all fell down. Dead silence followed for half an hour, then the Ami artillery really did let fly. All one could do was to crouch in the little bunkers. Soon the Germans could see the shadows of Americans jumping over the bunkers. They waited, then went up and began firing. In the battle that followed only Liebschner and two others were left alive, and all three were taken prisoner. One German was badly wounded and carried off in a Red Crossjeep, another was shot dead out of hand in the back. Liebschner was kept for questioning, and for three days had nothing to cat or drink, usually under a glaring light; he only gave in after he had been blindfolded and told he was going to be shot. A sergeant said to him: 'You haven't been reported yet as a POW, so if you die nobody will know.' Liebschner was sent to Anzio on burial duties. Liebschner has said that only then did he realize that the war was lost for Germany. 'I saw vehicles, tanks, jeeps, guns, lorries in long columns, as long as the road stretched and as far as the eye could see. There were even

APRIL-JUNE

314

down. Never had seen was just the supply route, not even the masses they must have had at the front line. was used to our lorries sprinting along under shellfire, in ones or twos or threes.' The bridges south of Rome, not being of historical interest, had already been destroyed, and this meant that many Germans had to swim across the Tiber. North of Rome along the Via Aurelia thejabos were causing havoc among the convoys. They were like birds of prey wheeling above. Sergeant Zumtclde of the Pioneers has recalled. You were always having to leap into a ditch. All the while civilians were streaming past, carrying bags and equipment obviously looted from a German hospital. 'At about 6 p.m. there was a lull in the dive-bombing,' said another Fourteenth Army man. 'On the roads we had lorries, guns, horse-drawn vehicles, anti-aircraft guns - very often in three columns, side by side, and in among them soldiers from different units. The shambles was grotesque. Columns tried to overtake each other, and the ack-ack attempted to take up firing positions. Officers on motor bikes kept trying .' to get those columns into order watcr-lorrics sprinkling the roads to keep the dust

such an array.

And

this

ROME In the

Vatican the elder Tittmann boy, Haroldino, aged fifteen, wrote in

'Today we did. nothing except watch the Germans retreat. got view of all, as had gone into the nuns' garden, which overlooks the road on which the Germans were retreating They were extensively using horses to draw carriages, waggons and every kind of contraption you could think of Some were even on bicycles. They had stolen all Rome's horse-drawn cabs. They also used horses to pull their artillery. his diary:

the best

One

Some were tired There were long columns marching. These were the ones that looked exhausted. Some had to carry machine-guns on their shoulders. They looked terribly depressed. Some stopped right below me and sat on some grass. Others bought some filthy lemonade from a little stand also right below me. must say that the Romans were very kind to them, although they were immensely relieved to see them leaving. They gave the Germans drinks and cigarettes. It is in the character of the Romans to be kind to everybody in trouble.' D'Arcy Osborne watched the retreat down the 'rather slummy street' from the roof of the Santa Marta hospice, 'but it became too social up there so came down and watched dive-bombing behind the radio masts from- my room'. As Haroldino added, one could actually see the bombs dropping and little spurts of flame from the machine-guns. 'It was rather rather sorry for them; they looked so young.

felt

and dirty

STALINGRAD - ROME sickening to see tired

German boys walking

being dive-bombed and

past us

315 and then watch them

strafed.'

From time to time explosions and rifle-fire could be heard. Osborne was told that the latter was due to civilians looting shops. The Germans blew up patrol and ammunition dumps at the Macao barracks and the Verano cemetery. They also succeeded in destroying the Fiat works in Viale Manzoni and three railway yards, but patriots saved many public buildings, in particular the main telephone exchange, by removing detonators from mines. No attempt was made to blow up the main bridges.

blond German soldier smelling of sweat and

Bruccoleri the

way

to Florence,

young boys of about seventeen and eighteen half-starved, hardly able to walk.

fear asked Josette

and she gave him some

Some were

cherries.

saw

years old, exhausted and

crying,

was

pitiful,

others

were more courageous, perhaps older, and marched in threes singing.' Vera Cacciatore, the curator of the Keats-Shelley house, saw them going down the Corso, mostly very young and in rags, usually singmg and shouting. The Italians stood back - they did not harass them, it would like hitting someone who was dying. Once in Piazza di Spagna some Germans fired into a crowd and a man dropped. Mrs Cacciatore afterwards walked to Piazza del Popolo. It was deserted, except for two people, a beggar and a prostitute under the arch. 'You read about invasions, but it is extraordinary actually to be present when two armies are going through a city. We had no water, gas or electricity, only the telephone. There was a complete breakdown of services, a void, no government at all.'

have been

Campidoglio — St Peter's

a Mark IV tank or a scout car would block main highways Rome, and partisans would then guide the Americans through back

Sometimes into

alleys.

There were some

particularly at the

War

scuffles

between

civilians

and

Fascist police,

Ministry and in Piazza Farnese. Individual groups

of partisans had been allocated the tasks of occupying most of the ministries, public buildings,

banks and newspaper

offices.

Carla Capponi

and from there the first nonclandestine copy of the Communist L'Unita was eventually produced. Major Sam Derry sent his helper Joe Pollak to San Paolo Fuori le Mura raced to the offices of the paper

Teuere,

liaise with an American advance guard, in point of fact part of Armored. Miraculously, Pollak had found a motor-bike, and on the way passed lines of weary retreating Germans who had mistaken him for a comrade: 'Heil!' The Americans, needless to say, were at first suspicious, but Pollak was able to convince them not only of his own good faith but that of people claiming to be partisans, and thus Rome's main gas works, situated close to San Paolo, were saved from being blown up. During the afternoon of 4 June prisoners at Via Tasso heard cries from

order to

the

1st

uscite! Non c'e nessuno. They emerged, dazzled by

come

below:

'Fratelli,

Brothers,

nobody

here.'

the daylight, and local people

dashed

in to

out! There's

ransack the premises, in the process destroying papers and

other material which could have been valuable later

incriminating

evidence.

The Rector of the Lateran Seminary, Monsignor Ronca, was urging Bonomi to contact in the name of the CLN whatever Fascist authorities remained (the same authorities, as it happened, to whom Peter Tompkins had written) to make some effort about ensuring public order and handing over the city to the Allies. Bonomi agreed finally, and while discussions began two excited priests rushed into his room with the astounding news that Allied troops were already outside the walls. They

CAMPIDOGLIO went on

to the terrace,

sightseers.

ST PETER

where they tound

crowd

small

317

c:)f

other eminent

tank appeared through the great castellated gateway and

halted suddenly in tront of the basilica, as

venerable grandeur.

A few

civilians

came up

unfurled the green, white and red Italian

People gathered round

flag.

Bonomi and shook

was stunned by such shouting, and

Then more

his

someone

tanks arrived.

hand, hailing him

the

ist

country's future leader.

the northern perimeter companies of Task Force

SSF and

Howze,

the 88th Division fanned out towards four bridges, including

Ponte Milvio, famous for its associations with the Emperor Constantine and with Garibaldi. As darkness fell, two units mistook one another for Germans, and it was then that General Frederick was wounded for the seventh time.

on the little fountain shaped like a baroque Spagna found the stones still warm from the June sun. In the moonlight he could hear people clapping from upper windows. Two dead Germans lay outside the English church in Via del Babuino. The Colosseum had been used as a central supply-point by the German Parachutists, since it gave good cover from dive-bombers. Sergeant Hoege of the 4th Paras had the hard task of sending food and arms to outposts - one never knew where they had moved from hour to hour. Eventually he managed to cross Ponte Milvio with the American 88th close on his tail; he had had to leave behind his company commander, who was badly wounded. At about 8 p.m. Irish Dominicans at San Clemente near the Colosseum heard a commotion like big wheels grinding and went out to investigate. A line of American tanks was drawn up close to the walls of the college. 'Two of the Fathers walked along the tanks, but no soldier spoke or made a noise. Suddenly from the last tank there jumped an officer, who went down on his knees and asked for a Dlessing The people who had with gathered in the street joined us in welcoming the Americans, and in many windows flags appeared. They were indeed amazed to see that sign of religion since posters and leaflets depicted the Allies as savages and murderers.' The Fathers then invited the soldiers into the college for wine and cold showers; as San Clemente was built on an underground river, which emptied into the Cloaca Maxima, it was one of the few places left in Rome with fresh running water. Private Ceroid Guensberg, back from hospital in Naples and late of the US 3rd Division, had been assigned to the ist SSF. He arrived in a jeep just as the sun was setting. 'A vast crowd had gathered on both sides of the road. They were cheering madly as they held aloft flowers, jugs filled with liquids and other symbols with which to greet victorious armies. captain of the 88th resting

ship in the Piazza di

APRIL-JUNE

3l8

Most men seemed and

starts

wear

priests' cassocks

could the jeep advance into

or monks' cowls.'

Rome

until

was

Only by fits drowned

finally

mass of humanity. There was no hope of getting to Ponte Milvio or any other bridge that night. 'Some monk inquired in English why we had in a

waited so

many months before coming to Rome. That was the end of any Hands began to reach out and found young signorina into a building nearby Germans had withdrawn by then from Rome. A

serious philosophical discussions.

myself following

Not

that

the

all

of General Greiner's 362nd Infantry was wandering around back streets looking for a bridge that had not yet been captured. Sometimes the Romans mistook them for Americans and began pelting them with little pink roses. Sometimes there were bloody collisions with American patrols. Finally an unprotected railway bridge was discovered, and in this way by early morning the approximately one hundred survivors were able to reach new positions on Via Trionfalc near Monte battalion

Mario.

Some two thousand Germans were near the Tiber's

mouth and taken

trapped by the British 5th Division

prisoner.

Three Green Howards

could not bear the suspense of waiting, and decided to

risk

officers

being hanged,

drawn and quartered by General Clark; they got into a jeep and were thus among the first into Rome. Hence the cry that went round: 'G/i iriglesi staufio al Grand Hotel, the English are at the Grand Hotel.' During the night elements of the 36th Division reached Piazza Venezia and the 'Wedding Cake', the Victor Emmanuel monument. They crossed by the best known of all Roman bridges, the Sant'Angelo, lined with its of angels, and saw the bronze quadriga on the round castle silhouetted in black against the parachute flares. Perhaps the ghosts of the Emperor Hadrian, of Beatrice Cenci, of the Borgia Pope Alexander VI and of Tosca looked down as the legionnaires from Texas swung leftwards into the Via della Conciliazione, to be faced by the immensity of St Peter's in the dawn. 'We can't go in there!' General Stack cried, statues

pointing

much

the Vatican. 'We'll create an international incident.' After

column to where everything was soon snarled up by the crowds of cheering Romans just risen from bed. In spite of the it^^lesi inside the hotel, a German sniper remained for quite a while on the roof of the Grand, terrorizing the neighbourhood until captured. All credit, therefore, to Mrs Kiernan, wife of the Irish Minister, when in the morning she risked being sniped and ventured out to the nearby railway station. She saw a lot o{ lads lying about on the pavement and presumed they were Germans. Then one sat up and said in an American accent: 'Say, sister. Come and park your ass near me.' She gesticulating with the Italian guides, he ordered the

plunge off to the

knew

that she

right, the

wrong

had been liberated.

direction,

CAMPIDOGLIO -

ST PETER

319

Armored crossed at the island in the Tiber, close to where made his renowned stand, and swept past the Regina Coeli prison. D'Arcy Osborne saw some of their tanks on Via Aurelia early that morning; and they advanced so quickly that Sergeant Hoege of the German Paras had to leave his breakfast behind. The

Horatius had

With daylight the American dive-bombing began again. Near Lake Bracciano Hoege saw horse-drawn German vehicles coming up at the gallop; there were shouts that American tanks were only three kilometres away.

Mark Clark arrived in Rome at 8 a.m. with his entourage of staff officers. He drove first in his jeep to St Peter's, and there posed for what is now a familiar

Clark

photograph with

tells

a priest,

us that this priest said:

can do for you?'

who was none

'Welcome

other than O'Flaherty.

Rome.

there anything

Clark saying that he wanted to go to the Hill, the priest arranged for a youth on a

Campidoglio on the Capitoline

him there through the crowds. were ringing. Clark climbed the great stairway built for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1536. Here Cola di Rienzo had been mortally stabbed. On the right was the Tarpeian Rock, on the left the Aracoeli church. He was approaching one of the most beautiful and majestic places in the world, the centre of civilization. He was the conqueror. He had a right to be proud. The statue of Marcus Aurelius had been taken away to safety. On this spot Brutus had harangued the people after Caesar's murder. Here, in 1764, Gibbon had been inspired to write the Decline and Fall. Behind Michelangelo's Senate House lay the colonnaded temples and basilicas of the Forum, and above them were the ilexes half concealing the ruins of the bicycle to guide Bells

Palatine.

Ave Roma

Immortalis.

Another well-known photograph shows Clark, his elation hardly House steps. With him are his two Corps commanders Keyes and Truscott, the latter looking grubby still from battle - and a little embarrassed.

suppressed, climbing the Senate

Correspondents, newsreel men and photographers had been summoned. Juin was allowed to be there, and in due course General Bencivegna arrived from the Lateran. Eric Sevareid found General Clark lounging on a balustrade, modestly surprised that this discussion with his Corps commanders had turned into a press conference. After the

photographers had finished, Clark made

day for the Fifth

Army

a short

and for the French,

speech: 'This

British,

a great

and American troops

APRIL-JUNE

320

of the Fifth who have made this victory possible' As Truscott was to say: was anxious to get out of this posturing and on with 'I reckon it was, but the business of war.' Sevareid was disgusted: 'It was not, apparently, a great day for the world, for the Allies, for all the suffering people who had desperately looked toward the time of peace.' It was not even a great day for the Eighth Army. In the three and a half weeks since Diadem started, American casualties had been some 18,000, British Commonwealth and Poles 15,000, French I

(proportionately the largest) nearly

have been estimated

One of

German

1,000, while total

casualties

over 38,000. 82,000 altogether.

Sevareid's colleagues said:

'On

this historic

day

feel

vomiting.'

During the afternoon placards appeared everywhere St Peter's at six o'clock to

Mother Mary

in Italian:

thank the Pope.'

Luke was

in the

huge crowd

that

packed the Piazza.

'The afternoon light slanted across the roof of the torrents of golden light

'Come

on the

Basilica,

of colour below. With the

spilling

and bloom. Soldiers in battle-dress provided an olive-drab background.' Ceremonial draping was thrown over the parapet of the central balcony and the great bell ceased to toll. Then the slender white figure of the Pontiff appeared and raised his hand for silence. He seemed to shimmer. Every phrase in his short speech over the microphone brought a crash o{ applause. From that balcony one looks across the Tiber, across ochre and amber roofs, to the Quirinale palace and the Campidoglio, and to the starkly white Victor Emmanuel monument, symbol of the unification of Italy and the overthrow of Papal temporal power. On this historic day, 5 June 1944, Romans in their hundreds of thousands knelt before not only the Vicar of Christ but the personification of deHverance from tyranny and of a new Risorgimento. Denis Johnston of the BBC saw the scene as a foreigner and watched banners,

looked

like a

sea

herbaceous border

in full

while the Pope 'gave thanks to supernatural agencies, for that so clearly

flags

all

the blessings

had flown from himself.

Alexander toured Rome quietly by jeep. At least the Commander-inChief was accorded this privilege. Elsewhere, as bridges east of Rome had been demolished, a staff officer of the 6th South African Armoured Division tried to obtain permission for passage over one of the city's bridges. He was held back at gunpoint by a white-helmeted military policeman, as was Major Sidney VC. D'Arcy Osborne was photographed by a New Zealand press photographer and met Harold Caccia, British representative of the Control

CAMPIDOGLIO Commission, and Caccia asked

his

ST PETER

American opposite number Sam Reber. Harold

he could have

bath. General Freyberg, in the South, sent

a car for his son. Prince Filippo

Dona became Mayor of Rome.

Pallavicini found that Dollmann had been occupying at

3^1

Princess

house she owned

Porta Latina.

The Duchess of Sermoneta got

her silver tea

set

readiness for British friends in the Brigade of Guards.

out of the bank,

The Black Panther

was put in Regina Coeli but escaped and hitch-hiked to Naples in an American jeep. Windows of shops owned by Fascists were stoned and smashed. Sevareid saw terrified owners running and stumbling, blood down their faces. The rat-hunt was on. The Allied S-Force managed to round up forty-seven German agents and seventeen radio sets. According to Osborne, the Communist headquarters was also 'raided', to bring the Communists 'into line' about disbanding their forces. Princes Francesco Ruspoli, Pignatelli, Massimo

and Tasca di Cuto and Duke Andrea Caraffa were among those arrested and sent to a high-class detention centre near Salerno at Padula, eventually to house eighteen hundred people. The Excelsior Hotel that night was like a

roaring brothel. It

was quieter up on thejaniculum where Lieutenant Harold Bond was

quartered with the headquarters of the 36th Division m a 'Renaissance mansion', perhaps Palazzo Corsini where Queen Christina had lived, close to the Vascello so gloriously defended in

Among

June 1S48 by Garibaldi.

down upon that came on below and he heard

flowering hedges, pools and cypresses he looked

superb and famous view of Rome. laughter. Rome was being rejuvenated -

Lights

as she

had been so many times

before.

At Ravello the king of

Italy

made one

last

attempt to

assert himselt,

demanding that he should be allowed to go to Rome where he would hand over his powers to his son, Crown Prince Umberto. Then the Action Party representatives m the Salerno government began saying that

anyway they now considered Umberto

unacceptable, partly because ot

an indiscreet interview he had given to The Time.< a month before. 'Always that brainless Action Party,' wrote Benedetto Croce crossly m his diary. 'Are

very

last

we to send everything sky-high?'

was absurd

this at the

minute.

However, General Mason-MacFarlane, as head of the Allied Control Commission, called on the king and got him to transfer his powers forthwith to Umberto, who now became Luo^otencute or LieutenantGeneral of the Realm. The king also said that he would now completely disappear from the political scene. Badoglio handed in his resignation.

June the

Luogotetictite flew to

Rome,

did Badoglio, Storza,

APRIL-JUNE

122

Crocc, Togliatti and other politicians from the South. Badoglio had already said that he did not wish to take part in any

new government,

negotiations tor which were conducted under the auspices of

Mason-

MacFarlane but without reference to the Alhed Combined Chiefs of Staff. So Bonomi was elected Prime Minister. ThisJ^/f accompli aroused Churchill's utmost

ire:

surprised and shocked about Badoglio being

replaced by this wretched old lost the

only competent

Bonomi

Italian

with

[the

same age

as himself].

We have

whom we could deal.' Churchill also

change was a disaster; he had thought Badoglio 'we could bring the democratic North in'. A similar telegram about these 'non-elected come-backs' was sent to Stalin. The situation was further complicated by 'Mason-Mac' tactlessly tcllmg told Roosevelt that the

would 'go on'

until

Bonomi without

authority that the Allies

would not

tolerate Sforza as

Foreign Minister.

Osborne saw Sforza, Croce and others and thought them 'far too old to form a Ministry'. For their part the politicians from the South, as Crocc said, felt that they were being received coldly and with diffidence by the Rome CLN, 'as though we had travelled away from the straight road of which they alone possessed the key and knew the direction'. In the end, Croce, Sforza, Togliatti, Saragat for the Christian Democrats, were

Bonomi took on

made

Socialists,

and

Dc Gasperi

for the

ministers without portfolio and

foreign affairs himself. In the end, too, Churchill had to

calm himself, especially

as the

Bonomi government undertook

to accept

obligations entered into by Badoglio.

all

On 6 June Bogomolov, the Russian representative on the Allied Commission, asked to see the Pope. According to his American counterpart, Robert Murphy, the Pope said: 'That can wait. want deeds not words. Where are the churches, where are the priests in the Soviet I

Union?'

June British troops began

played

Piazza Venezia.

the Allied pressmen.

Osborne heard and

that a

Rome, and bagpipes were same day the Pope consented to meet

to appear in

that

No black veik or black dresses now for the ladies; woman correspondent went to the audience in pants

torage cap. 'Photographers were incessantly interrupting His

Holiness with flashlight effects and cries of "Hold

"Attaboy".'

added: 'H.H. has suffered greatly by

Pope" and

his visit to the

poisoned by the Hollywood publicity bug. But you can't do that if you are Pope without hopelessly cheapening and vulgarizing your Office.

and

sick when think of Pius XI. You can't compensate for mind. Better not said.' Denis Johnston saw a correspondent called Yehudi first in line to

makes

well, .never

CAMPIDOGLIO -

ST PETER

323

Then this Ychudi dashed to the end of queue and started again, to receive yet another string. As he was about to try once more, a colleague said: 'What's the idea, Yehudi? You're not one of the Faithful, surely?' To which Yehudi replied: 'These are good. You can lay any chambermaid in Montreal with one of these.' Attaboy! receive rosary beads and blessings. the

About this time Evelina Weiss, an Austrian, was executed for high treason by a German firing-squad at Orbetello, ninety miles north of Rome. She had been an interpreter for Kappler at Via Tasso, and it had only just been discovered that she had been passing on lists of suspects, including Jews. She had been working in collusion with Donato Carretta, director of Regina Coeli. Carretta had also saved many lives and had connections with the CLN throughout the Occupation. He was the chief witness at the trial of the police chief Pietro Caruso. Spotted in the hall of the Palazzo di Giustizia by a crowd screaming for Caruso's blood, he was immediately identified in the minds of widows and mothers of men who had died or had suffered under the Nazifascisti as the personification of official collaboration with the Germans. He was thereupon seized, as if by maenads, beaten and trampled on, the numerous police hardly attempting to intervene.

Next he was dragged half-naked

in front

driver of which refused to run over him. So he was

thrown

tram, the

into the Tiber

and youths bashed him with oars until he died. His body, followed by at thousand people, was hauled by the legs to Regina Coeli and

least ten

hung by the head from the Oh, Tiber! Father Tiber! Celeste Di Porto was

Naples

May

until

bars of a

Friends,

window. Romans, countrymen.

more fortunate. She operated as a prostitute in when she was visited by three clients who were

1945,

Roman Jews. She was arrested, and in 1947 sentenced to twelve years' imprisonment. Not long afterwards she was released in order to become a nun, but after

fifties,

she

year was dismissed from her convent. Foolishly she

Rome, where

returned to is

believed to

was nearly lynched after be still working as a prostitute she

a chase. In

her

Milan.

June was the month in which partisan activity began to be a real menace to the German army. As Kesselring was to say at his trial, an irregular battle of unleashed passions was about to begin. The attitude of his troops,

withdrawing northwards in that Italian summer, and strafed continually even at nights under the bright moon, turned at times to fury when confronted by ambushes or fired at suddenly from houses. That fury was reciprocated.

At San Polo outside Arezzo regimental

partisans

commander of the 94th

were beaten and

The blow up

shot.

Infantry Division decided to

APRIL-JUNE

324

no trace of maltreatment would be discovered. On 6 and children died at San Giustino di Valdarno when houses

their graves so that

July

women

LXXVI Panzer Corps. Far worse above Carrara and in the mountains south of Bologna. On 20 August at San Terenzo-Bandine a hundred and five people were shot, not more than seven being adult males, and mostly with hands tied behind their backs with barbed wire, after seventeen SS had been killed by partisans. Hundreds were massacred in the region of Monte Sole and Marzabotto where the Stella Rossa band, one thousand strong, was operating with the support of SOE. These were among the extreme cases. Kesselring had to form special units to combat the partisans. 'Unless one intended to commit suicide,' he said, 'guerrilla warfare required a complete moral readjustment which in itself concealed dangers. These could, however, be avoided only by committing well-disciplined troops under a rigid command.' He tried used

was

strongpoints were blasted by

to happen, especially

to take precautions against 'unreasonable measures'

manders. But some

'My

human

by individual com-

beings he found were corruptible.

he also said, 'were ambushed; they were hunted; they were burned - the wounded soldiers in the Red Cross ambulances were burned; their bodies were nailed to window frames, their eyes struck out, their noses and ears were cut off, also their sexual organs; they were put into barrels which were filled with water and afterwards machinegunned, and, last but not least, in Pisa as a sign of gratitude that we supplied the children with milk, the wells were poisoned.' Blow, bugle, blow on Monte Sole. Set the wild echoes flying about the Leaning Tower. Blow, bugle ... The war was by no means over. At least Rome had been spared. soldiers,'

At Cuneo in Piemonte, after the war, a marble slab was erected with a long inscription written by the well-known jurist Piero Calamandrei, rector of Florence University, and addressed to 'Comrade Kesselring'. Free men, Calamandrei's inscription ended, rather than in hatred 'to

would gather in dignity redeem the shame and terror' of Kesselring's

world.

The

trial

of Field-Marshal Albert Kesselring by

British military

tribunal in Venice began in February 1947 and lasted over three months.

He was charged with having been concerned massacre, and with inciting forces under his

in the

Ardeatine Caves

command

between June and August 1944.

to kill Italian

few months earlier, in a trial of only eleven days in Rome, Generals Maeltzer and Mackensen had been sentenced to death by another British court for their part in the Ardeatine Caves affair. Maeltzer, that once 'rubicund clown', looked drawn and defeated at civilians as reprisals

CAMPIDOGLIO the

trial.

Jesuit priest,

German,

ST PETER

325

testified to Maeltzer's

deep religious

convictions and 'outspoken admiration tor Pope Pius XIT. Mackensen,

on hearing

father

that he

not

was

alive.'

to be tried,

reported to have

said:

'Thank God

Colonel Tomlin, the British com-

also said to

mander of the Rome area, who had visited him in his cell, 'If am to be shot, will you please record my request that do not wish to be blindfolded.' And Kesselring said at that trial: 'If General von Mackensen I

found

guilty, then

guilty too.'

Kesselring's dignity at his

own

trial

greatly impressed

many

onJookers,

though on occasions he lost his temper because he felt he was not being treated in accordance with his rank. He was found guilty and sentenced to be shot. But there were those, like one of the witnesses. Colonel Scotland, who thought the trial had been 'tortuous, ill-informed and rambling' and were appalled by the verdict. In particular they considered that the court had seemed unable to grasp the fact that Kesselring's military authority in Italy had been independent and separate from the Gestapo-SD. At least nobody could deny that he had been one of the most brilliant strategists of the war, on either side. As a member of the court admitted later: 'He was a soldier's soldier through and through.' Kesselring certainly did not look an ogre.

Churchill, no longer Prime Minister, cabled Alexander,

then Governor-General in Canada:

'Am

who was by

concerned about Kesselring's

death sentence, and propose to raise question in Parliament.' Alexander cabled back that he too was concerned and asked Churchill what he suggested. Churchill said that he should

make

his

views

known

to Attlee,

Prime Minister: 'I am unhappy about Kesselring's sentence. hope it will be commuted. Personally, as his old opponent on the battlefield, have no complaint against him. Kesselring Alexander cabled

the

and

his soldiers

fought hard and

Kappler was sentenced

Caves but

clean.'

in July 1948,

not only because of the Ardeatine

September 1943 he had extorted the fifty of two hundred Roman Jews who would otherwise have been deported to Germany. By a complication in Italian law he could not be sentenced to death. Inevitably, therefore, and as a result of Alexander's intervention, the sentences on Kesselring, Maeltzer and Mackensen came to be commuted to imprisonment of twenty years each. Maeltzer died in prison, but Kesselring and Mackensen were released in 1952. Kesselring died in i960 and Mackensen in 1969. In the mid-1970s it was diagnosed that Kappler had cancer, so he was transferred to Rome for treatment. In 1977 his wife smuggled him out of hospital and took him to Germany, where he died the following year. also because in

kilograms of gold

After the

fall

in place

of Florence

August 1944 an

Italian priest

asked the

Irish

APRIL-JUNE

326

Abbot of San Clemcnte Cahill,

who was

Rome,

Father Dowdall, to apply to a Father

Haison officer between the American

Army

and the

permit to go up there on business. Father Cahill eventually scrawled agreed, and on a piece of paper 'Give this guy a break', just Vatican, for

it 'Cahill'. The priest was worried and asked the Abbot what 'guy' and 'break' meant. It was explained that the former was American for gentleman or nobleman, and that 'break' meant removing a barrier.

signing

Strange to say, two months later the priest returned happily to San

Clemente

shown The

this

order to thank the Abbot, and to say that whenever he had

paper to

a soldier

or guard he had been

let

through

once.

of exhuming the 335 bodies in the Ardeatine Caves had also begun by August 1944. Vera Simoni, still hoping against hope that her father had not died but had been sent to Frankfurt, nevertheless went daily task

watch the work. Anything that might identify a victim was put into an a piece of paper, hair, rag - with a number corresponding to a coffin. One day she looked at the contents of envelope 44. 'It was a knife in my heart. saw my father's denture.' That was not something which in his lifetime she normally would have seen, but she had happened once to go to the dentist to fetch her father and had then noticed the denture on a table by the chair. She did not tell her mother about it, but suggested she might come with her to look in coffin 44. 'Well it was him. We could not recognize his face, but we knew his clothes. We took the cords that had bound his feet and hands. have them still.' to

envelope -

Sorrento

—

Castiglione Fiorentino

found that Benedetto Croce's family at Sorrento was living in Villa Tritone, next to the Hotel Tramontano, and I soon became friendly with his four daughters. Croce himself I found rather alarming, red-faced and delicate-looking, fussed over by a retinue of females as if he were a precious fruit in cotton wool. On 6 June heard the news: the Second Front (Overlord) had started in Normandy, the moment we had longed for all those months. By this time I was living in the annexe of the hotel, a villa among olive groves that was in an even more wonderful position, with a view of Capri and amazingly transparent sapphire water to bathe in. All of us in the villa went wild and could hardly eat breakfast. People were whistling, singing, laughing. The Liberation of Rome had definitely now been outshone. Later m the day took three of the Croce daughters out in a boat. I made some probably banal remark about the peacefulness of the bay compared to what must be going on in Normandy. At which the eldest, Elena, shrieked at me: 'My goodness, do you mean you've been sitting here a^ the time and haven't told us that the Second Front has started? Now know that you are an Englishman!' For the news had not penetrated Villa Tritone. So we rowed back madly to the house, and interrupted the old man, who was waiting for his summons to Rome and who, as now see from his published diary, was in the throes of reading the manuscript of 'noteworthy essays' on history and philosophy by a young soldier. Soon was called to the front again, and was delighted to be joined by Timmy Lloyd - our great hope was that it would mean that, at last, we would see Rome, if only for a few hours on our way north. But that was not to be the case. The battle for Florence was about to begin, and Alexander was apparently concentrating on the capture of Arezzo. Reinforcements were needed urgently. 6 July was my twenty-first birthday. On that day, my first back in

Whilst convalescing

APRIL-JUNE

328

I found myself in a shallow trench scraped out of some scree, on a mountain high above a walled town which was told was Castiglione

the line,

Fiorentino.

Then

heard that

2330 hours

small patrol, perhaps myself and one

man

would have

to take out a

only, to see whether a place

known

as Spandau Ridge was still occupied by the enemy or not. The ground was completely open. There was no cover, and there would be a full moon. My sergeant muttered 'Suicide!' There could be no chance of the patrol surviving if the Germans were still on that ridge. So was going to die. My mind was numb. could not even think of home. The sergeant suggested should meanwhile try to sleep and did I

sleep, deeply.

was awoken by schmeisser

and grenades. It was a German We saw we were about to be overrun, and I had to withdraw the platoon a hundred yards downhill. After a while it was quiet, and I decided to fmd our company headquarters. climbed up the mountain again, only to fmd the headquarters trenches empty. Almost at that same moment I heard mortar fire from our own lines, down in the valley, and shells came dropping down all round me. I realized immediately that the entire company must have moved out, and that now our people were shelling the positions in case the Germans had taken over. During a lull I jumped up, and as took my first step the whole world cracked open in a sheet of flames. There was a noise like a dinner gong in my head. My face was all sticky, and hot liquid streamed into my eyes. knew I had been hit, and vaguely heard German voices crying out quite near. managed to keep walking towards the valley, my arm was limp, my thigh was stinging. kept thinking of a man in my platoon who had been hit by a shell that morning and whom we had had to leave, to die alone. Whenever stopped walking, began to lose consciousness. had to keep going. did not want to die alone. I

fire

counter-attack, and this in a sense had saved me.

long while afterwards

awoke

to find

myself in

Perugia. Before the clouds of morphia enveloped

Rome.'

near

tried to write

my parents. also remember thinking: 'Now at last Timmy never saw Rome, though. He was killed on the

a reassuring letter to

shall see

a field hospital

me again

night of 26 July. Whilst on patrol he had come face to face with and had realized too late that it was a German's.

a figure,

Events

ig4j

14-24 Jan.:

Casablanca Conference. Principle of unconditional sur-

2 Feb.:

German

render announced.

war 13

May:

resistance ends in Stalingrad.

Axis forces defeated

Allies land in Sicily.

19 July:

Mussolini meets Hitler.

North

help for Italy refused.

Mussolini arrested. Marshal Badoglio chief of Italian

government. Second Allied bombing of Rome. being released

Badoglio declares

Rome

Aug.:

Secret discussions

with

Political

prisoners

in Italy.

14 Aug.: 15

Africa.

German bombing of Rome.

First Allied

Aug.:

point of

Russia.

10 July:

25 July:

Turnmg

an open city. Madrid about Italian collaboration

Allies.

17 Aug.:

All Sicily in Allied hands.

17-24 Aug.:

Quebec Conference. Eisenhower pressure' in

to maintain 'unrelenting

May

1944 target date for crossChannel invasion (Operation Overlord). 23 Aug.: 3

Sept.:

Russians advancing. Kharkov recaptured. British Eighth Italian

8 Sept.:

Italy,

Army crosses Straits of Messina

Armistice signed

6.30 p.m. Eisenhower announces Armistice, though not

expected by Badoglio until 12 Sept. in vicinity

9 Sept.:

unopposed.

in secret.

Fifth

Rome

Army

hoped

for

etc.

Allied air drops

by Badoglio.

lands at Salerno.

Taranto. Royal family, Badoglio

German

No Sth flee

Army

lands

Rome.

Fierce

reprisals against Italian garrisons in Yugoslavia,

Italian

fleet sails

to Malta.

The

CLN

(Committee

of National Liberation), anti-Badoglio coalition of

left

ROME

330 and right

German 10 Sept.:

parties,

formed

Rome

shells land in centre

under Ivanoc Bonomi.

Rome.

Hitler announces 'very hard measures' against Italy,

must be enter

a 'lesson for all'.

Rome.

CLN

goes underground. King's son-in-law,

Calvi di Bergolo, military governor of 1

Sept.:

Germans confirm Rome's open ledged by

12 Sept.:

which resistance and

Germans crush

Rome.

city status, not

acknow-

Allies.

Mussolini rescued by Skorzeny and flown to Munich. martial law in

Strict

Rome. Curfew. Food

situation

deteriorating.

Aegean

13-17 Sept.:

British landings in

16 Sept.:

Fifth

2} Sept.:

Calvi di Bergolo arrested. Mussolini's Social Republic

and Eighth Armies

Islands.

link

up near Salerno.

('Government of Salo') proclaimed

North. Clandestine

Military Front, pro-Badoglio, formed in

Rome

under

Colonel Montezemolo. 26 Sept.:

Colonel Kappler of SS demands 200 hostages or 50 kgs of gold from Roman Jews - paid on 28 Sept.

Oct.:

Allies enter Naples, after four days'

Oct.:

Last

4 Oct.:

Germans withdraw from

Hitler orders stand in

Italy,

popular uprising.

Sardinia and Corsica.

from Gaeta

Ortona

(Bernhard and Gustav Lines). 7 Oct.:

9 Oct.: II Oct.:

Nazi round-up ot Roman Carabinieri. Man-hunts tor torced labour begin in Rome. Nazi sequestration ot Roman Jewish Community's

and ancient documents. Badoglio government declares war on Germany and library

13 Oct.:

18 Oct.:

by Allies. Mass round-up of Roman Jews and deportations to deathcamps in Germany. First Communist partisan attack on Gerrrian troops in

19 Oct.:

Allied Foreign Ministers meet in

23 Oct.:

Red Army

accepted 16 Oct.:

as 'co-belligerent'

Rome.

24 Oct.:

Moscow.

breaks through on lower Dnieper.

Eisenhower requests retention of landing-craft, pending new amphibious landing in Italy.

plans for 1

Nov.:

Germans

Nov.:

Fifth

Nov.:

Vatican

Army

Crimea cut

off.

reaches River Garigliano.

bombed by unknown

aircraft.

5-7 Nov.:

Secret Allied talks with Turks in Cairo.

6 Nov.:

Hitler orders Kesselring to take over

Rommel

transferred to

N-W

all

Europe..

Italian theatre.

EVENTS Nov.:

Eighth

Army

IN 1943

reaches River Sangro. Fifth

up outhne for landing near Nov.:

22-25 Nov.:

331

British evacuate

Aegean

Rome

Army

draws

('Operation Shingle').

Islands.

Cairo Conference: Churchill, Roosevelt. Churchill advocates taking attrition'

Rome

January. British favour 'war of

Mediterranean versus American desire for

strong decisive thrusts in N. France and Burma.

27 Nov.: 28 Nov.: 1

Dec:

New Allied attack in Italy, impeded by bad weather. Teheran Conference: Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill. Overlord postponed until end May; possibly simultaneous landing in S. France ('Operation Anvil'). Winter offensive in Italy to continue, at Churchill's insistence.

Dec: 4—6 Dec: 2

German

air-raid

Bari. 17 ships sunk.

Cairo Conference resumed: Churchill, Roosevelt. Overlord and Anvil to be supreme operations for 1944. Eisen-

hower 5

Dec: Dec:

Fifth

Overlord commander. capture Monte Camino, south of Cassino.

to return to Britain as

Army

Communist partisan bombs at Hotel Flora, German HQ in Rome. Original plan for Shingle now considered impractical. Strikes and rioting in Turin factories follow-

ing Allied air-raids.

Dec: 18 Dec: 21 Dec: 24-25 Dec: 11

Churchill with pneumonia in Tunis.

Eisenhower Strikes and

Supreme Commander, Overlord. in N. Italian factories.

to be riots

Churchill holds conference in Carthage for revival of Shingle.

28 Dec:

Roosevelt cables agreement to release of 56 landingcraft.

Events 7-8 Jan.:

Churchill

January-July

in 1944:

holds

conference

landing-craft authorized.

Marrakech.

Go-ahead

16 Jan.:

French capture Monte Trocchio facing Cassino.

17 Jan.:

British

20 Jan.: 22 Jan.:

Further

for Shingle.

Corps capture Minturno.

36 Div. attacks across River Rapido.

Shingle:

Allies land

Anzio and Nettuno. Second

attempt across Rapido. 27 Jan.:

Montezemolo arrested. German blockade of Leningrad

28 Jan.:

CLN

30 Jan.:

Rangers' attack on Cisterna.

31 Jan.:

British ist Div. at nearest point to

25 Jan.:

lifted.

congress in Bari.

Campoleone.

Romans

Feb.:

Nazis round up about 2,000

Feb.:

Fascist police raid St Paul's basilica.

Via Nazionale.

4 Feb.:

British pull back

from Campoleone

9 Feb.:

Germans capture

Aprilia.

10 Feb.:

Allies

15 Feb.:

16-17 Feb.: 16-19 Feb.:

Bombing of Monte Cassino monastery. Heavy Allied air-raids on Rome. German Fourteenth Army all-out attack on Beachhead.

22 Feb.:

General Lucas replaced

23 Feb.:

Eisenhower and British Chiefs of Staff recommend first priority for Italian campaign; approved by CCS on

bomb

to Aprilia.

Castel Gandolfo: 500 casualties.

Anzio by General Truscott.

25 Feb. 1

Mar.:

Bombs drop

close to Vatican, causing

damage

to Papal

buildings.

10 Mar.:

Death of Teresa Gullace. Allied raid on Rome: many casualties. Gap attack on Fascist procession in Via Tomacelli.

12 Mar.:

Pope's concourse in St Peter's Square.

2 Mar.: 3

Mar.:

EVENTS 15

Mar.:

IN 1944:

concentrated

Allies'

JANUARY -JULY

333

bombardment of Cassino town.

18 Mar.:

Germans

19 Mar.:

on Rome: many casualties. Alexander halts attack on Cassino. Bonomi resigns as head of CLN. Gapists explode bomb in Via Rasella,

2} Mar.:

enter Hungary.

Allied raid

killing 33

24 Mar.:

Nazi

German

reprisal for

military police.

Via Rasella: 335

CCS

Ardeatine Caves. Allied

Italians

executed

in the

agree to postpone Opera-

tion Anvil, target date 10 July.

End Mar.:

Arrival of Palmiro Togliatti ('Ercole'), head of Italian

Communist Apr.:

party,

from Moscow.

Pravda announces Togliatti's decree that

Communists

must collaborate with Badoglio and king. Execution of Padre Morosim. 10 Apr.: 11 Apr.:

Russians capture Odessa. Russians enter Crimea.

district

21 Apr.:

May:

Badoglio reconstitutes

Roman

CLN

Bonomi back May: 10 May:

Round-up of 800

Quadraro

Rome. his

Cabinet on all-party

recognizes

head of

Badoglio's

basis.

government.

Rome CLN.

Russians capture Sebastopol. Secret meeting

between Pius XII and General Wolff

of SS. 11

May:

May: May:

Operation Diadem: Allied offensive against Gustav and Hitler Lines.

French capture Monte Maio.

Beginning of deportations of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz.

May:

Poles capture

Monte

Cassino.

Corps capture

Formia. 23

May:

VI Corps break out of Anzio Beachhead. Canadians pierce Hitler Line.

May:

Fall

of Cisterna. Link-up between Beachhead forces and

June:

Fifth

4 June:

Fifth

June:

6 June: 8

June:

9 June:

Corps.

Germans withdraw from

Army Army

Aprilia.

enters Velletri. enters

Rome.

King Victor Emmanuel

signs decree creating Prince

Umberto Lieutenant-General of the Realm. Overlord: Allies land in Normandy. Badoglio

New

resigns.

Italian

six-party

under Bonomi.

government formed

Rome

ROME

334 13 June:

14 June:

Midsummer:

V-i lands in England. South Africans enter Orvieto. End ofjapanese threat to India. Russians clear Crimea and Ukraine, attack in Finland and S. Poland. First

4 July:

French enter Siena. Eighth Army captures Castiglione Fiorentino.

20 July:

Attempt on

July:

Hitler's life

fails.

Acknowledgements Sources and Notes ,

The following were among

those

who

kindly

let

interview them:

Federico Alessandrini, Aileen Armellini, Luisa Arpini Collinson, Sandro

Richard Bates, Riccardo Bauer, Captain Mieczyslaw Monsignor Byrnes, Vera Cacciatore, Bruno Cagli, Antonio Call, On. Carla Capponi, Tom Carmi, Sofia Cavaletti, Mrs Nathan Ciucci, Mary Corell, Baronessa Diana Corsi, Contessa Mita Corti di Cesaro, Raimondo Craveri, Piero Delia Seta, Rt Hon. Viscount De L'Isle VC, KG, Lt-Colonel Sam Derry, Donald Downes, Raoul Falcioni, Mario Forti, Carlo Alberto Gentiloni Silverj, Marisa Giuliani, Rt Hon. Lord Glendevon, Renato Guttuso, Field-Marshal Lord Harding of Petherton, Colonel Dick Ballio, Sergeant

Bialkiewicz, the late Prince Stefano Borghese,

Hewitt, Radice,

Commander Gerard Holdsworth, Major-General

Lascelles,

Laura Ingrao Lombardo Furio

Lauri,

'Lorenzo',

Monsignor Loreti, Falcone Lucifero, W. McCall, A. G. Mack, Monsignor McDaid, Charles Mackintosh, Rt Hon. Harold Macmillan, Sir Henry Marking, Lily Marx, John Miller, Archbishop Andrea Di Montezemolo, Conte Umberto Morra, Marchese Michele Multedo, Malcolm Munthe, Marisa Musu, Elio Nissim, Principessa Nini Pallavicini, the late Marchesa Claudia Patrizi, Principessa Enza Pignatelli Aragona, Donna Orietta Pogson Doria Pamphilj, Joe PoUak, Brigadier Geoffrey Rimbault, Goffredo Roccas, Principe Francesco Ruspoli,

Major-Generaljames Scott-Elliot, Derrick Simoni-Tham, Major-General Naranjin Singh, the late Field-Marshal Sir Gerald Templer KG, Lady Thorneycroft, Brigadier G. E. Thubron, Colonel S. C. Tomlin, On. Antonello Trombadori, Peter Tumiati, Peter Tunnard, Monsignor Elio Venier, Fernando Vitagliano, Claudia Vinciguerra, Hon. Mrs Douglas Woodruff, Peppino Zamboni.

Josette Scarisbrick Bruccoleri,

Scott-Job, Vera

S. Cortis, late

of the London

Irish, also

introduced

to several

ROME

336

'44

ex-comrades-in-arms, including Sergeants Evans and Jones, and provided

with the reminiscences of Sergeant Folkerd. gratitude also goes to the following for assistance

ways, including written or taped reminiscences, and

in a variety

addition to those

people specially mentioned in the Prologue: Zara Olivia Algardi, Martin

Blumenson, Liana Burgess, Robin Campbell, R. P. M. Child, Frank D. Cooper, Nicoletta Coppini, Elena Croce, Sir Douglas Dodds-Parker, F. O. Fingel, Ernest F. Fisher Jr, Edward Fuller, Mrs Aubrey Gibbon, R. A. Gristwood, Ceroid Guensberg, W. S. Hall, Mark Hamilton, Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, A. C. Lefeiste, John Letts, Vera Lombardi, George Low, Dr W. Macleod, Lady McEwen, John McNab, Barbara Milne, Peter O. Montgomery, Bill Neill-Hall, Gabriele Pantucci, Ken Peterson, Gordon M. Quarnstrom, Josephine Reid, Anthony Rhodes, Conte Alvise Savorgan di Brazza, Charles A. Shaugnessy, Connie Sherley, Ingo Spaeing, Mark Steinitz, Dr Barbara Stimson, Scott Supplee, Ronald E. Swerczek, John E. Taylor, Nan Taylor, the Tittmann family, Alan D. Williams, Robert Wolfe, Weiner Zicsche, Steve Cox, Piero Pantucci, Antonio Sannino, Ilsa Yardlcy, and for the index, Tony Raven. The diaries, etc., sent to me by Wilhelm Velten from his personal archives included those by Hackenback, Luy, Schaller, Weber, Wessell, Zumfelde, and at Cassino Austermann and Schmitz. As already recorded, Major-General Walther Gericke sent me his Anzio war diary. Georg Schmitz also sent me his Dokumentation Fotos-Berichte for the International Peace Meeting at Cassino in 1974; his story of the Cassino bombing appeared

(1965)

Joachim Liebschner (1959) and Hoege and by Oehler (1962) from

in Fallschirmjaeger Fallschirmspringer (1971).

also obtained articles

by Gericke

from Der Deutsche

(1954),

Fallschirmjaeger,

Hermann

Alte Kameraden.

For permission to quote from Sir D'Arcy Osborne's diary

am grateful

Robin Campbell; from Nick Mansell's diary to the executor of Ben Smith; from Tina and Delia Whitaker's diaries to Tony Whitaker; from Mother Mary St Luke's diary to Mrs Daniel M. McKeon and Robert L. Hoguet; from his own diary to Harold H. Tittmann 3rd. Many articles on Roman clergy during the war have been published by Monsignor Venier in Riuista Diocesana di Roma. The articles on Jews to

from the

mostly appeared in // Giornale d' Italia (1945), and Shalom (various). Gianni Bisiac's TV Documentary film Testimoni Oculari was produced for RAI, Rome, in 1979. Pacifici archives

L' Espresso (April i960)

ANPI {Associazione Nazionale me to many articles and books concerning the Resistance, and similarly to the staff of the Imperial War Museum library for showing me articles on Anzio and Cassino in various I

greatly indebted to the staff of

Partigiani Italiani),

Rome,

for guiding

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, SOURCES AND NOTES British regimental

magazines and

Regimental Gazette

Scottish

histories,

The Magazine

337

The London Rifies, The the Tuker and Royle

particular

Royal Ulster

oj the

KSLI Journal, The Reconnaissance Journal as well as MSS, and a microfilm of Corporal R. H. Turner's diary (not quoted). The transcripts received from Carlisle Barracks, Pa., in addition to General Lucas' diary and the Clark interviews with Mathews and Rittgers, were interviews with Charlstrom, Howze, Norris, Yarborough and some others not quoted in this book. Peter Tompkins generously sent me copies of many of his secret radio messages and other documents. ,

In the

following sources

books that

listed

chapter by chapter

consider to be essential

assumed, after

book

has been

chapters any further reference to

first it

have included

background reading.

mentioned, that

have

subsequent

will be self-evident to the reader.

JANUARY Rome The main as a basis

files

the Public

of research

Record

Kew,

Office,

in all the chapters

Rome

that have used and the Vatican are I

FO371/37254-5, 37334, 43«<^9-77, 44213-27, 50084; PREM3/243-9; WO16/3926, 3941, 4038. Files that concern escaped POWs include FO381/87-9, FO916/693 and WO204/1012 (Report on the Rome Organization). The FO898 files deal with underground propaganda, and

WO204/943 with

'S'

Force. Vatican papers on

1944-July 1945, were published

Victimes de

1980: Actes

Gi/crrc ', Jan.

Documents du Saint

relatifs a la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, vol. 10, edited by Pierre Blet, Robert A. Graham, Angclo Martini, Burkhardt Schneider; vol. 9, dealing with 1943, was published in 1975.

Siege

Two

Italian histories

have found

essential are

Rome

German occupation that Roma in 2 volumes by Renato

during the

resistenza in

Perrone Capano (Naples 1963) and Storia Piscitelli

also a

(Rome

help.

della resistenza

1965). Storia dellTtalia partigiana

The Story of

the

Italian

Resistance

romana by Enzo

by Giorgio Bocca was by Roberto Battaglia

on Rome. Paolo Monelli's Roma ig4j Robert Katz's Black Sabbath (London 1969) is regarded as the standard work on the October 1943 deportation of Roman Jews. Dan Kurzman's The Race for Rome (New York 1975) IS a popular account of the period, political and military,

(London 1956)

useful but brief

(Pescara 1959) carries the story into 1944.

with

much

original research.

Books of published memoirs, diaries, etc., have been supplemented by personal interviews and other documents. Mother Mary St Luke's diary was published as Inside Rome with the Germans by Jane Scrivener

ROME

};^^

(New York

(London

Nazista (Milan 1949),

1947).

memoirs were entitled Sparkle Eugen Dollmann is the author o( Roma Call me Coward (London 1956) and The Interpreter

1954). Victoria Scrmoncta's

Distant ll'orlds

(London

1947).

1967). For Ivanoe Bononii's diary Diario di un amio (Milan

Sam

(London

Rome Escape Line Rome (London 1962);

War

Report of the Strategic

Derry's adventures are recounted

i960), Peter

further exploits of the

Tompkms'

OSS

appear

Spy

in the

in his

(Washington 1949), R. Harris Smith's OSS (Berkeley 1972) and Anthony Cave Brown's The Secret War Report oj the OSS (New York Services

1976). hi addition, there are

many OSS

files

available at the

Modern

Washington DC. According to Harris Smith, on Christmas Eve 1943 SOE was ordered not to have any direct dealings with the Roman underground, but this has yet to be confirmed. Ernst von Weizsaecker's Memoirs were published in London in 1951. Scarlet Pimpertiel of the Vaticati by J. P. Gallagher (London 1967) is a biography of Monsignor O'Flaherty. Before the arrival of Major Derry in Rome the Escape Organization had been run by a 'Council of Three': O'Flaherty, Mrs Henrietta Chevalier (Maltese) and Count Sarsfield Salazar of the Swiss Legation. A biography of Padre Benedetto has appeared as The hicredible Mission of Father Benoit by Fernande Leboucher (London 1970). Among the attacks on the Pope's attitude towards the Jews the best known are The Representative by Rolf Hochhuth (London 1964) and Pius XII and the Third Reich by Saul Fricdlaender (New York 1966); counterblasts have appeared in the introduction to Actes et Documents vol. 10 and in books such as Anthony Rhodes' The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators (London 1973) and // Vaticano e il Nazismo by Robert A. Graham (Rome 1975). Zolli's apologia was published as Before the Dawn (New York 1954) under the name of Eugenio Zolli. Weizsaecker and his aide Kessel claimed that, in the matter ofJewish deportations, they had done all they could to warn the Vatican, the Curia and the Pope against 'rash utterances'. Kessel said later that he was convinced that the Pope almost broke down under 'conflicts of Military Branch, Military Archives Division,

conscience' while he struggled to find the right answer, and that this

was shared by Montini. hi point of fact 8,000 Jews had marked for elimination. The Cardinal's prompt protest Weizsaecker, on the Pope's order, and another by Monsignor Aloys

'agony of

spirit'

originally been to

German Church, Santa Maria dell'Anima, to the commander of Rome, obviously were instrumental

Hudal, Rector of the

German in

military

alerting Berlin

and Hitler to the

possibility ot a disastrous break

with the Vatican, and the round-up of Jews was halted, in the event the Pope kept his silence, except for elliptical communiques in L'Osservatore Romano.

The Whitakers

also feature in

Princes

Under

the Volcano

(London

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, SOURCES AND NOTES 1972).

New

From

York

Carthage

The

339

Ashes of Disgrace by Frank Maugeri was published in

the

in 1948.

- Marrakech -

Caserta

'Shingle' papers at the

PRO

are in

PREM/248/1-7.

Churchill's

Ring (London 1952), is vital to any account of the preparations for the Anzio landings. See also John vol.

his

war memoirs, Closing

Ehrman's Grand

the

World War, UK Military Series (London 1956) and Arthur Bryant's Triumph in the West (Alanbrooke's diaries, London 1959), Albert C. Wedemeyer's Strategy, vol. 5 in the History oj the Second

Wedemeyer Reports! (New York 1958), Robert

(New York

and Hopkins

1950),

Sherwood's Roosevelt

Active Service

Peace and

War

Stimson and McGeorge Bundy (London 1959), The Mediterranean Strategy in the Second World War by Michael Howard (London 1968), and The Struggle for the Mediterranean by Raymond de Belot (Princeton 195 1). The two important official histories of the Italian campaign up to the end of March 1944 are Salerno to Cassino by Martin Blumenson {US Army in World War II, Washington 1969) and The Mediterranean and the Middle East by C. J. V. Molony and others {UK Military Series, vol. 5, London 1973). The quotation hkening Wilson to cheese and beer is from Kenneth Strong's Intelligence at the Top

by Henry

(London 1966). Clark's opinion of Alexander is from the Rittgers interview {supra); all remarks by Clark quoted in this book are from Rittgers unless otherwise stated.

Brindisi

The 'Abdication Badoglio by cal

Issue'

covered

PREM3/243 12 and

matters are in

PREM3/241-7,

the

PRO

by FO371/43909-12,

Sforza by FO371/43899. Various politi243/8, 250/3

(PREM/249/3B 'Negotia-

closed for 75 years!); FO371/43814, 43837-8; the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY,

tions for Surrender'

WO204/3833. At PSF Box 57 Italy 1943-5

Box

71 has

has papers on Badoglio, Bonomi and Sforza; wartime Vatican correspondence. Several of these documents

have been printed

in Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic

The British Commonwealth and Europe (Washington Harold Macmillan's characteristically urbane The Blast of War (London 1967) and Robert Murphy's Diplomat among Warriors (London 1964) are also important sources. Much original research among British and US official papers has been synthesized in David W. Ellwood's Papers 1944,

vol. Ill

1965).

L'alleato nemico Italy

(Milan 1977). See also Allied Military Administration of

1943-194^ by C. R.

Harris in the

The

Salo

government has been the

subject

Military Series

(London

War (London 1978). of two major works; The

1957) and Ehzabeth Barker's Churchill and Eden

ROME

340 Brutal Friendship

prostitution,

Bertoldi (Milan 1976).

given in

Deakin (London 1962) and Said by Silvio

vivid description of liberated Naples, including

Norman

Lewis' Naples

'44

(London

1978).

Anzio The first

narrative books of importance to be published on the Anzio were Wynford Vaughan-Thomas' Anzio (London 1961) and Martin Blumenson's Anzio: The Gamble that Failed (London 1963). Christopher Hibbert's Anzio: Bid for Rome (London 1970) is an excellent summary. Peter Verney's Anzio: An Unexpected Fury (London 1978) retells the story from the British viewpoint, with clear maps, and is based in part on interviews with generals, etc. Two standard works are The Anzio Beachhead by John Bowditch 3rd {American Forces in Action Series, Washington 1947) and Sicily-Salerno-Anzio by Samuel Eliot Morison (Boston 1954). Command Missions by Lucian K. Truscott (New York 1954) contains Hong's story and is essential reading generally; it is strange that neither this nor Fred Sheehan's Anzio: Epic of Bravery (Norman, Oklahoma 1964) were published in Britain. have quoted from Red Shingle: US Naval Proceedings vol. 73 no. 534 by Theodore Wyman (Washington 1947). The Silvestris' story and the finding of Angelita are recounted in the privately printed Dove e Max (Angelita di Anzio) by Ennio Silvestri, who also has a file of newspaper reports on Fusilier Hayes and Angehta. The many Ultra files at the PRO are in DEFE3; see also Ultra Goes to War by Ronald Lewin (London 1978) and The Ultra Secret by F. W. Winterbotham (London 1974), the latter especially for the later advance on Rome. For the campaign in general see Fifth Army History published by the Fifth Army Historical Section Italy 1945, The Italian Campaign ig4j-45 by G. A. Shepperd (London 1968), From Salerno to the Alps: A History of the Fifth Army by Chester G. Starr (Washington 1948) and The Battle for Italy by W. G. F.Jackson (London fighting

1967).

theory about the

name

'Angelita' instead of Angelina

that

was merely a mistake by Hayes, and that she could have been the abandoned child of shepherds down for the winter from the Abruzzi mountains. Dollmann's statement comes from Testimoni Oculari (op cit). it

Monte Soratte - Albano Key books concerning the German aspect at Anzio - apart from Molony and Blumenson {op cit) - are A Soldier's Story by Albert Kesselring (London 1953), Walter Warhmont's Inside Hitler's Headquarters (London 1964) and Siegfried Westphal's The German Army in the West (London 195 1). The Modern Military Branch, Military Archives, Washington DC, has invaluable German material, in particular transcripts by Kesselring and Westphal (B-270), Mackensen (C-061), Fries (D-141), Maeltzer

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, SOURCES AND NOTES

34I

comments (C-oyy) by Kcsselring, Sengcr, Drwe on Rome by Britt Bailey (R-50); see also The Campaign in Italy ch. 12 by Hauser (T-ia). Wilhelm Velten's history of the 65th Division is entitled Vom Kugelbaum zur Handgranate (Neckargemuend 1974). Anzio-Nettuno by Joerg Staiger (Neckargemuend 1962) is a succmct account with interesting maps. (D-314), Scngcr (C-095), and

Victinghoff and Warlimont on The

Rome The

activities

of the O'Flaherty-Derry organization are further described

Be Not Fearful by John Furman (London 1959). There is a story that Colin Lesslie, before the landings at Anzio, planned an escape through in

the German lines by hiding in a names of ex-POWs throughout

coffin. Italy

Ultimately there were 3,925 list, including 185

on Derry's

Americans, 429 Russians and various other nationalities. Lettere a Milano by Giorgio Amendola (Rome 1973) ^^ essential for the Communist background. Antonello Trombadori gives details of Gap formations and attacks in Formazioni partigiane del PCI, as well as an account of the role

of Communist

women,

Quaderni

della resistenza laziale

Until the publication of the Actes Giovannetti's

Roma

cittd

aperta

(Rome

1975).

Documents volumes, Alberto (Milan 1962) was regarded as a main et

book on the Vatican attitude towards the bombing of Rome. The ordeal of Montezemolo is described by his cousin Fulvia Ripa di Meana in

Roma

clandestina

(Rome (Rome castelli

1972), a

(Rome

1945) and in Gabrio Lombardi's Montezemolo

companion volume

Guido Stendardo's Via Tasso

1965). For partisan warfare in the Alban Hills see Guerriglia nei romani by Pino Levi Cavaglione (Rome 1945) and / partigiani

sovietici nella resistenza italiana

by Mauro

Galleri

(Rome

1967). After her

bemused by the splendour of her palace, had said: 'We'll come back tomorrow and take everything away.' So for the rest of the night the servants were busy removing the remainder of the pictures and the best furniture to safety. A price of ten million lire was put on the princess' head.

escape Princess Pallavicini was told that the Germans,

Anzio a full account of the disastrous Rapido crossing on 20 January see Martin Blumenson's Bloody River (London 1970), and for an examination of Lucas' predicament see Blumenson's contribution in Kent Roberts

For

Command

(London 1969). The following have some quoted or referred to by me: Nigel Nicolson's The Grenadier Guards in the War igj^ig43 vol. 2 (Aldershot 1949), David Erskine's The Scots Guards igig-ig^^ (London Greenfield's

many

Decisions

vivid stories of exploits in battle,

1956), D.J. L. FitzGerald's History of the Irish Guards in the Second

War

(Aldershot 1949). Nigel Nicolson

also the

World

author of Alex (London

ROME

342

1973); see also Alexander's autobiography, edited

by John North, The

Alexander Memoirs (London 1962) and Alexander of Tunis as Military Commander by W. G. F.Jackson (London 1971). The Rangers' stories

The Spearheaders (Indianapolis i960). Robert H. Adleman and George Walton are the authors of the racy history of the ist Special Service Force, The Devil's Brigade (Philadelphia 1966), to which am indebted for various anecdotes about Forcemen throughout this book. The SOE group's sad experience at Anzio is chronicled in Malcolm Munthe's Sweet is War (London 1954), Max Salvadon's The Labour and the Wounds (London 1958) and Alberto Tarchiani's // mio diario di Anzio (Milan 1947). General Ernie Harmon's autobiography is entitled Combat Commander (Englewood Cliffs 1970). The plight of civilian refugees near Anzio is well illustrated in / giorni della guerra in prouincia di Littoria by Pier Giacomo Sottonva (Latina 1974). The description of Harmon was given to me verbally by Sir Gerald Templer.

are told in

James

Altien's

FEBRUARY Rome Moravia's telephone

call

appears in his Foreword to 16 ottobre 1943:

by Giacomo Debenedetti (Milan

Other books concerning by Michael Tagliacozzo (Milan 1963) and Mussolini and the Jews by Meir Michaelis (Oxford 1978). Kappler had demanded that the fifty kilograms of gold should be handed over within thirty-six hours. Zolli had received the Pope's promise ot a loan of fifteen kilograms, but this turned out to be unnecessary. Immediately after the payment had been made in full, the Gestapo raided the Synagogue, a preliminary to the seizure of books, manuscripts, etc. General Raffaele Cadorna was one of those sheltered by Padre Barbieri {La riscossa, Milan 194S). Some other source books on the Occupation of Rome include La prigonia di Roma by Carlo Trabucco (Rome 1945), Roma sotto il tcrrore by A. Troisio (Rome 1944), Rome under the Terror by M. dc Wyss (London 1945), Occasione mancate by Jo Di Benigno (Rome 1945), Caccia aU'Uofno by Luciana Morpurgo (Rome 1946), Italy Speahs by Barbara Carter (London 1947), // sole e sorto a Roma by Lorenzo I^'Agostini and Roberto Forti (Rome 1965), Quegli anni by Claudia Patrizi (Vicenza 1973), and an escape story Single to Rome by E. Garrad-Cole (London 1955). Eitel Moellhausen's memoirs were published as La carta pcrdente (Rome 194IS). Weizsaecker was attacked by Sir Lewis Namier in /// the Nazi Era (London 1952). Kessel's reference to Hitler like a trapped beast, etc., comes from Der Papst und otto ebrei

Roman Jews

include La comunitd

1959).

Roma

sotto I'incubo della Svastica

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, SOURCES AND NOTES diejuden in Die Welt 6 April 1962.

favour of the

bias in

Osborne

expressed to

German

the subject of Pius XII's supposed it is

worth recording

that

D'Arcy

of 28 December 1940 said that the Pope had

his diary

him

people,

343

his 'unstinted

admiration for British resistance, which

he said was almost superhuman'.

Dona had refused to be one of the 'Mothers of Italy' Mussolini's words) who gave up their wedding rings for the Cause, Princess

(in

the

had lined up to drop It was noticed that Palazzo Doria was the only building in the Corso without a flag; a mob broke in and came up the staircase, six abreast. At the top they were met by the princess, who had been making scones and was in an apron covered with flour. 'The prince is out,' she said. Assuming she was the cook, they merely smashed up some furniture, hung out their own flag and went away. invasion of Abyssinia. their rings into an

the great day the people

urn on the Victor

Emmanuel monument.

Cassitio

For

general history of Cassino see Cassino daU'ottocento

novecento

(Rome 1977), and of the monastery Monte Cassino: la vita, I'irradazione by Tomaso Leccisotti (Montecassino 1971). The bitter monks' booklet is

entitled

The Bombardment of Monte Cassino by Herbert Bloch (Monte-

cassino 1976, originally printed in Benedictina

Meeting was pubHshed

national Peace

Cassino

in 1974).

XX,

time for the Inter-

Tancredi Grossi's

calvario

Cassino in 1946 and reissued in 1977. A famous account of the Cassino battles is Fred Majdalany's Cassino: Portrait of

Cassino

a Battle

(London

(Rome

1970) contains

1957). Incontro a Cassino edited

many

useful articles

by Lilya A. Alecchi

different nationalities.

Rudolf Boehmler's Monte Cassino (London 1964) and Frido von Senger und Etterlin's Neither Fear nor Hope (London i960) are chief source-books for anyone writing about the German side; the description of the bombed Loggia is from Boehmler. The destruction of Naples university is described in L'Universita

Napoli incendiata dai tedeschi (Naples 1944).

Harold Nicolson's remark comes from his Letters and Diaries (London 1968). Harold L. Bond is the author of Return to Cassino (London 1964). The histories o{ Fourth Indian Division (London 1949) and The gth Gurkha Rifles (London 1953) ^r^ by G. R. Stevens; see also The Campaign in Italy ig4j-ig45 by Dharm Pal (New Delhi i960). A biography of Freyberg, General Lord Freyberg V.C., was written by Peter Singleton-

Gates (London 1963). N. C. Phillips

is the author of Sangro to Cassino: World War (Wellington 1957), another essential source-book. The extract from Kippenberger's diary is in Infantry Brigadier by Howard Kippenberger (London 1961). The novel by Sven Hasscl IS entitled Monte Cassino (London 1969). Freyberg's 'key words'

New Zealand in the Second

ROME

344 to

Gruenther on the bombing are

in a

Cassino bombing, Feb 12 1944, Fifth {cf

Blumenson, Salerno

'44

memo signed

Army Rpt

'Gruenther' in Monte

of Monte Cassino bombing

Cassino).

Anzio - Carroceto, Anzio - Fischfang For background to these chapters, see Staff Officer with the Fifth

addition to other works cited above,

Army by Edmund

F. Ball

(New York

1958)

Anzio by T. R. Fehrenbach (Milan 1962). The History of the Third Infantry Division by Donald G. Taggart (Washington 1947), The Fighting Forty-Fifth by Leo V. Bishop (Baton Rouge 1946) and The Battle History of the 1st Armored Division by George F. Howe (Washington 1954) are all important sources whenever refer to these divisions - here the description of the 157th at the caves comes from Bishop; and see and La

battaglia di

The Caves of Anzio by Edward A.

December

fournal vol. 34 no. 12, stories

can be found

Raymond

1944.

in the

Field Artillery

The Mueller, Johnston, Biggars

Sheehan's Anzio {op

cit).

Besides British regi-

mental histories already mentioned, the following have been used for reference in particular: History of the zjjth Bn. The Queen's Royal Regiment

19^9-1946 by Roy E. Bullcn (Exeter 1958), The Loyal Regiment by C. G. T. Dean (Preston 1955), 6th Gordons 1939-1945 (Aberdeen 1946), The Story of the 2nd Battalion the Sherwood Foresters by John U. A. Masters

(Aldershot 1946), The London

Irish at

War

(Chelsea n.d.).

A. Rose's

was republished 16 from Blackwood's Magazine (1946).

account. With a Casualty Clearing Station at Anzio,

The KSLI Journal

vol.

MARCH Rome There

a fascinating

but grim feature on the

German occupation of

Rome, with

reproductions of original 1944 sketches by R. Pullini, in the Time-Life book The Italian Campaign by Robert Wallace (Alexandria Va. 1978), which also includes etc.,

many

throughout the campaign.

appears in

Rumour and

Reflection

outstanding photographs of battles,

version of the Florentine lady story

by Bernard Berenson (London

Cassino - Anzio For the struggle over 'Anvil' see Maurice Matloff 's chapter

1962).

Commatid

The British Fifth Division 1939-1945 by George Aris and C. S. Dartnell was published in London in 1959, and The Story of the Green Howards by W. A. T. Synge was published Decisions, ed. Greenfield {op

Richmond,

cit).

Yorks., in 1952.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, SOURCES AND NOTES

345

Ca.ssitw

Christopher Buckley's Road

Rome and Denis Johnston's Nine

Rivers

from Jordan, both exceptional books, were published in 1945 and 1953 respectively. La Campagtie d'ltalie by Alphonse Juin was published in

The quotation from a German machine-gunner's comes from Majdalany's Cassino {op cit). Paris in 1952.

letter

Rome The most

though controversial book on Via Rasella and the Robert Katz's Death in Rome (New York 1967). It was filmed by Carlo Ponti and Georges Cosmatos, with Richard Burton as Kappler and Marcello Mastroianni as a priest who sacrifices himself in the Caves. Katz, Ponti and Cosmatos were sued by Pius XII's niece and sister for defaming the memory of the late Pontiff. They lost the case but appealed; the result was inconclusive — 'History will judge'. detailed

Ardeatine Caves

However the Supreme Court (1981) has ordered the case to be reopened. The closing speeches of counsels for defence and opposition in the second trial were published in Gli oratori del giorno (Rome 1976). The revised version of Attilio Ascarelli's Le Fosse Ardeatine (Bologna 1965) gives

many

documentary sources verbatim, including the full text of the sentence on Kappler. Under the thirty years' rule the trials of Kesselring, Maeltzer and Mackensen are now available at the PRO, and have had recourse to these, especially when quoting Kesselnng's views on partisans; Kesselring's trial is in WO366— 77, Maeltzer and Mackensen in WO235/438-9. The publication o{ Actes et Documents vol. 10 {op cit) has also been important as giving the Vatican's stance, though revealing a lack of documentary evidence in its archives; vol. 9 (1975) is also useful in relation to the Pope's attitude towards the persecution of Jews in general in 1943. Also in the archives there is a note by Montini, dated 19—20 March, briefly recording the visit by Marchesa Ripa di Meana on behalf of Montezemolo, and there is another about it on 25 March. An undated comment by Montini runs: 'Suspend; it seems he has been original

killed as a result

of the events

Via Rasella comes from also Poi ce

tie

andammo

his

Via Rasella.' DoUmann's reaction to

interview in Testimoni Ocnlari {op

cit).

See

by Guglielmo Morandi (Rome 1944), and romana by Giuseppe Intersimone (Rome 1976);

insieme

Cattolici nella resistenza

and for Kessel telephoning the Vatican The Race for Rome {op cit), and for Capponi and Bentivegna reacting to news of the reprisals Death in Rome {op cit). Somewhat ironically, in view of the German communique about the 'open city', on 25 March a secret appreciation was issued at

He had

decided that the part of

Colonel Lundquist of G.3 Plans.

Rome

west of the Tiber, including the

the Allied headquarters at Caserta

ROME

346

'44

'may

Vatican, was 'admirably suited tor dctcncc'. 'The Hun,' he said, us in the position ot having to shoot or

jfbt

City it

... If tlie

enemy chooses

to fight

the

bomb him out ot Vatican city we may conclude that

time to oust him.'

will take considerable

APRIL

JUNE

A}iz:io

The other towns in Eaker's third group were Modena, Pisa, Padua, Pistoia, Brescia, Cremona, Verona, Cortona, Piacenza, Lucca, Bologna, Arezzo, Ferrara, Vicenza, Prato, Viterbo, Ancona, Bracciano, Frascati

and Rimini. The Anzio Derby, along with other 'Quiet Period' anecdotes not mentioned here, appears in Combat Boots by Bill Harr

York

who

1952).

Colonel Spears' story comes from Anzio {op

adds that on passing through

Patton,

who

kindly

set

Normandy

up another

cit)

(New

by Sheehan,

Spears met his old triend

'sniping stint' for him. For Clark's

confrontation with Alexander: Calculated Risk and Rittgers interview

who was Scrmoneta and husband of Marguerite Caetani, to become the celebrated editor of the literary magazine Bottej^he Oscure. He was the owner of an original manuscript of The Divine Comedy. When he had originally left Rome he had hidden it among his shirts. On his return it had gone, and it was only rediscovered atter his death. His heirs assumed that a servant had stolen it for selling to the Germans but had been unable to find a buyer. {op

cit).

cannot

resist

footnote about Prince Bassiano,

the brother-in-law oi Vittoria

Rome For more about Radio Bari and Radio Lc^ndra see papers by Ian Greenlees and Uberto Limantini printed in the Atti di Convegno of the Bagni di

Lucca Congress for 1972,

book and

its

Lotta di Liberaziotie

Fascism,

Inghilterra e Italia nel 'goo (Florence 1973).

sequel on the Congress of 1975,

(Florence

PWB, MMIA

ig40-ig45 vol. 2 by to 'Colonello

and the

Maura

Italia e

Gran

This

Bretai^tm nella

1977)

contain other useful papers on

PWB

Resistance. See also Radio Londra

Piccialliti

Caprioli

(Rome

1976). In addition

Buonasera' (Col. Stevens) popular features on Radio

London were commentaries by Paolo Treves, 'Candidus' (John Marus) and L'Vomo Qualuncjue lisher,

did

(Elio Nissim).

George Weidenfeld, future pub-

regular comic turn as an obtuse Austrian businessman.

main organizers

The

Radio London were John Shepley, Tony Lawrence Resistetize e (^li Alleati by Pietro Secchia and Filippo

and Stuart Hood. La Frassati

(Milan 1962) mostly covers the Resistance in the North, but official consternation at the time by publishing in English

caused some

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, SOURCES AND NOTES the

whole

text

of a secret document, Report on No.

347

Special Force Activities

Vincenzo Florio's story is told in Quattro giorni a Via Tasso (Palermo 1947). There is more about Carini in // violino della Quinta Armata by Gino de Sanctis (Milan 1961). The Allied literature on missions during April 1945.

to partisans ni the

North

histories such as Britain

and

still

the

present sparse, except for general

European Resistance by David Stafford

(Oxford 1980). The Centro Studi Formazioni Autonome di Piemonte has, however, produced an excellent and detailed work, Le missioni alleate e le

formazioni

dei partigiani

autonomi nella resistenza piemontese (Cuneo

1980).

Cassirw In the

- Anzio

US Army

World War

II series Ernest J. Fisher Jr takes

over

from Martm Blumenson with Cassino to the Alps (Washington 1977), again an important source book for facts and anecdotes. The course of Operation Diadem is followed in Alexander's Generals (London 1979) and The Battle for Rome by W. G. F. Jackson (London 1969). See also Les Forces Allies en Italie by Marcel Carpentier (Pans 1949) and Cassino by Jacques Mordal (Paris 1952). General Anders' own book is entitled An Army in Exile (London 1949). Expanded versions of Polish accounts given by me, along with many other first-hand stories, are in Trzecia Dyu'izja Strzelcow Karpackich 1942-1947 edited by Mieczslaw Mlotek (London 1978). Monte Cassino by Charles Connell (London 1963) is told largely from the Polish point of view, as in Cassino - Anatomy of a Battle by Janusz Piekalkiewicz (London 1980). Will Lang's account of the French near Esperia comes from the Time-Life book The Italian Campaign {op cit). To Allied troops all Moroccans were colloquially known as Goums, though the word Goum meant in fact the equivalent ot a company in the 2nd Moroccan Division. 'Stalingrad'

- Valmontone,

'Stalingrad'

- Rome

Command Decisions {op cit) the essay on General Clark's Decision to Rome is by Sidney T. Mathews, who in his 1948 interview recorded Clark's remark about an 'easy victory' for the Eighth Army. In

Drive on

"Throwing the

is from the Rittgers interview. The (Ottawa by W. L. Nicholson G. 1957) is 194J-1943 also useful as a detailed account of the campaign. For Walker and Clark, Walker and Kcyes, Clark's mother, see Rome Fell Today by Robert H. Adleman and George Walton (Boston 1968), for ist SSF again The Devil's Brigade {op cit), for some individual 3rd Division exploits again The History of the Third Infantry Divisioti {op cit). Eric Scvareid's fine book is i\'ot So Wild A Dream (New York 1962); Harold L. Bond's is Return to Cassino (London 1964). See also for this period But for the Grace of

Canadians

British a rope'

Italy

ROME

34^

God by

Patrick Carroll-Abbing

the author ot L'arma dei carabinieri

(Rome

Campidoglio - St

(op

Mrs Kiernan cit).

(New York 1965). Filippo Caruso is in Roma durante I'occupazione tedesca

1949).

For General Stack for

'44

Peter's, Sorrento at St Peter's see

In Calculated Risk

encountered

Bond's Return

Cassino {op

cit),

and

the railway station Johnston's Nine Rivers from Jordan

Clark says that the

was 'from

St Peter's

Rome

Detroit'.

he Michael Stern has an priest (O'Flaherty)

in Rome (New York Abbot of San Clemente, is the author oi Memories of Italy (Athlone 1972). Photographs show that the Pope gave souvenir cards not rosaries {pace Johnston) to the war correspondents. The trial of Pietro Caruso and the lynching of Carretta are described in detail in Processi ai fascisti by Zara Algardi (Florence 1958). The massacre on Monte Sole is the subject o{ Silence on Monte Sole by Jack Olsen (London 1968), and Colonel A. P. Scotland writes in defence of Kesselring in The London Cage (London 1957) and Der Fall Kesselring (Bonn 1952). Nigel Nicolson writes of Alexander's inter-

account of the entry into

vention about Kesselring's sentence

Our enemy was of the

rumour helped Germans in but feasible Father

Owen

been giving

then

Alex

ring said of the Allied troops at Anzio: equals.

American

Raymund M. Dowdall OP,

1964). Father

{op

"We

cit).

felt

For

his part, Kessel-

we were opposed by

highest quality.' There

that after the Allied entry into

an unsubstantiated

Rome

O'Flaherty

hiding. O'Flaherty's helper on Vatican Radio,

Snedden, later became a bishop in New Zealand; he had food rations to the poor, so that by the liberation he

his

weighed only seven

stone.

Benedetto Croce's diary was translated

Croce, the King and the Allies

(London

1950).

Appendix poem was published in Staff Officer with the Fifth Army by Edmund He says that it was written by six men in the American armed forces in Italy and published in Army Literature. Three of the authors

This

F. Ball.

lost their lives in battle

of war - their names

and three were captured and became prisoners

now unknown. As

he also rightly says, the

poem

from being great poetry, just a jingle in fact, but it is showing the Serviceman's view of the pathos and degradation of Southern Italy - the Naples area really - during the winter of 1943-4. is

extraordinarily

far

vivid as

not,

who grew

however, agree with

all

of the

to love the South, in spite

last lines.

was one of those

of the wretchedness, and

ready to return.

Panorama of If

were an

artist

with nothing to do

I'd paint a picture, a

Of historic

Italy

Italy in

composite view

which

I'd

show

Visions of contrasts, the high and the low.

There'd be towering mountains and deep blue

sea;

Filthy brats yelling 'Caramella' at me;

High-plumed horses and colourful carts. Two-toned tresses on bustling tarts. I'd

show Napoleonic

Dejected old

women

caps,

with too

carabinieri;

much

to carry;

dignified gentleman with a Balbo beard;

Bare-bottomed bambinos with both ends smeared.

always

ROME

350

Castle and palace, opera house too.

Hotel on

mountain, marvellous view, of weeds, stone and mud.

Homes made

People covered with scabs, scurvy and mud.

Chapels and churches, great to behold,

Each a king's ransom in glittering gold; Poverty and want, men craving for food, Picking thro' garbage, practically nude. Stately cathedrals, with high-toned bells;

Ricouvre

with horrible smells;

shelters,

Moulding catacombs, Noisy

Palatial villas

a place for the

dead,

clamouring for bread.

civilians

with palm

Stinking hovel,

trees

mere hole

tall.

in the wall;

Tree fringed lawns, swept up by the breeze. Goats wading

Revealing

sensual

in filth,

to their knees.

statues, all details lass

with

scars

complete,

on her

Big-breasted damsels, but never

Bumping

against

you -

Creeping boulevards, Alleys that

wind

like a

feet. a bra.

there should be a law.

spangled team.

dope

fiend's

Flowers blooming on the side o(

sidewalk

latrine,

privacy

nil.

Two-by-four shops with shelving Gesturing merchants, arms

Narrow gauge

sidewalks,

dream.

a hill,

all

bare.

flailing the air,

like a shelt.

Butt-puffing youngster scratching himself.

Lumbering

carts

hogging the road.

Nondescript truck, frequently towed;

Diminutive donkeys, loaded for bear. Horse-drawn taxis seeking a fare.

Determined pedestrians courting disaster. Walking in the gutter, where movement Italian drivers all accident bound,

Weaving and

twisting to cover the ground.

faster;

APPENDIX Home-made brooms, weeds Used on

351

tied to a stick,

the street, to clean off the brick.

Bicycles and push-carts, blocking your path, Street corner poUticos

needing

bath.

Barbers galore with manners mild.

women

Prolific

all

heavy with

child,

Duce's secret weapon, kids by the score. Caused by his bonus, which is no more. II

Arrogant wretches picking up Miniature

Young

Fiats,

snipes.

various types;

hand-organ tune. Shoe shining boys, sidewalk saloon.

street-singer,

beauteous maiden,

With

smile on her face.

breath of garlic, fouling the place;

housewife, no shoes on her feet. Washing and cooking out on the street.

Listless

The family wash of

Hung from

tattle-tale grey.

the balcony, blocking the way;

Native coffee, God! what

mixture.

Tiled bathrooms, with one extra fixture. Families dining

from one

common

bowl.

to a fish-shop, a terrible hole;

Italian zoot-suiters, flashily dressed.

Bare-footed beggars looking depressed.

Mud-smeared

children, clustering about,

Filling their jars

from

community

spout;

dutiful mother, with a look of despair,

Picking the

lice

from her small daughter's

Capable craftsmen

hair.

skilled at their art.

Decrepit old shacks, falling apart;

needle-work out on display. Surrounded by filth, rot and decay. Intricate

Elegant caskets, carved out by hand.

Odorous

factories,

where

shoe-maker's shop,

leather

tanned;

black-market

store.

Crawling with vermin, no screen on the door.

ROME

352

I've tried to describe the things

Panorama of

Italy,

I've neglected the

But those

war

are things

I'm glad that

Give

the

have seen.

brown and

the green,

scars, visible yet.

we want

to forget.

came, and damned anxious to go.

back to the natives, I'm ready to blow.

Index

Allied Control

Abruzzi region, 122, 308 Action, Party of,

15,

19,

19-20, 60, 61,

loi, 102-3, 105, 230, 248, 263, 294,

Donna

American College, 59-60,

134,

198-201, 312;

161-2,