World War II in the Mediterranean, 1942-1945 by Carlo D'Este

Author:Carlo D'Este
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 1990-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Three thousand of the missing were now enemy prisoners. German casualties were comparatively small: 3,472, of which 630 were killed in action.

In British eyes American leadership was still displaying its inexperience. Although units such as the airborne, rangers, and field artillery had performed magnificently, leadership at the top echelon had been less consistent. At Alexander’s instigation, the VI Corps commander became the sacrificial lamb for the near disaster at Salerno. Dawley was relieved of command and sent home in his permanent grade of colonel. Although he was far from outstanding as a corps commander, his relief was equally a face-saving gesture on the part of the Allied high command.1

Alexander’s generalship at Salerno varied little from his performance throughout the war in the Mediterranean. He failed to influence the outcome of the battle in any but a negative way. Although his task was to ensure that the invasion commander received the optimum support, he failed to spur Eighth Army to reinforce Fifth Army more quickly, which it was fully capable of doing. Although the Eighth Army advance north from Calabria was inexcusably tardy, Alexander failed to instill a sense of urgency in Montgomery.2 Nor did he move to invest the beachhead with additional support at an earlier moment by committing the 82d Airborne when and where its presence would have made an appreciable difference. Moreover, Alexander failed to address the obvious problem of Clark’s flawed invasion plan or even to offer so much as his opinion that he considered it faulty.

Salerno established Mark Clark as a man of exceptional personal courage, but he had a great deal yet to learn about high command. He mistakenly believed he had saved the Allied invasion by his leadership, when in fact it was precisely his inexperience that precipitated most of the problems faced by the invasion force. His relations with Alexander, while always cordial on the surface, never went beyond the formality of a senior-subordinate relationship and frequently led him to ignore Alexander, in the same manner as Montgomery did throughout his tenure as Eighth Army commander. The difference was that Monty had considerable personal rapport with Alexander, while the Alexander-Clark relationship was essentially adversarial.

Nor were Clark’s relations with his own American subordinate commanders cause for elation. He related badly to most of them and rarely listened to their advice. As the Italian campaign developed, his relations with Fred Walker, the veteran 36th Division commander, would worsen.

Worst of all, Salerno promoted a continuation of the mistrust between the two Allies that had begun in North Africa. The British remained critical of the American performance, believing that little had changed since Kasserine, the Sicily campaign notwithstanding. McCreery held Clark in utter contempt, and in return the Fifth Army commander scornfully referred to the 10th Corps commander as a “feather duster.” Alexander, who was personally the epitome of an Irish gentleman, revealed his true feelings after the war in a little-known interview with the official U.S. Army historians. With few exceptions, the American generals under his command did not come off well.

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