The Day of Battle by Rick Atkinson

Author:Rick Atkinson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Europe, Non-Fiction, Italy, 1939-1945, bought-and-paid-for, Campaigns, General, War, Military, World War, World War II, History
ISBN: 9780316725606
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 2007-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

Mackensen’s troops poked and jabbed for two more days, but without conviction. Kesselring late on Saturday proposed suspending his counteroffensive, and Hitler agreed. “In the end, many hounds will kill even the swiftest hare,” a German staff officer lamented. FISCHFANG had cost Fourteenth Army 5,400 casualties. “It has become very difficult to evacuate the wounded,” the army log noted. “All ambulances, even the armored ones, have been lost, making it necessary to use assault guns and Tiger tanks.” Some units existed only in name: the 65th Infantry Division on February 23 mustered 673 men.

If the hares had been hurt, so had the hounds. VI Corps casualties also exceeded 5,000. The 45th Division alone counted 400 killed in action since Wednesday. Their scrubs blood-caked, surgeons donned nurses’ summer fatigues instead. In the month since the Anzio landings, 200,000 Axis and Allied troops combined had suffered 40,000 battle and nonbattle casualties, a double decimation that would impose at least a temporary stalemate at the beachhead.

One more casualty remained to be counted. “Message from Clark,” John Lucas wrote on Tuesday, February 22. “He arrives today with eight generals. What the hell.”

As Tommys and GIs fought their valiant fight, the delicate issue of what to do with their commander had obsessed the high command. Alexander, who privately told London that Lucas had “proved to be an old woman,” complained that he lacked “the necessary drive and enthusiasm to get things done.” A proposal by Brooke that a British general command VI Corps raised hackles in the Pentagon; Eisenhower, now in London, took a rare moment away from planning OVERLORD to send Marshall an eyes-only warning, then wrote Brooke, “It is absolutely impossible in an Allied force to shift command of any unit from one nationality to another during a period of crisis.” Truscott would make an admirable corps commander, he added, although if necessary Patton could serve at the beachhead for a month.

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