Bradley by Alan Axelrod

Author:Alan Axelrod [Axelrod, Alan]
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780230600188
Publisher: New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Published: 2008-11-13T23:00:00+00:00

II CORPS COMMAND

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outnumbered force can accomplish wonders by vigorous and

aggressive action.7

This concern about the fighting spirit of the individual soldier was

typical of Bradley the leader of men. He determined that both the commander and deputy commander of 1st Division, Terry de la Mesa Allen

and Theodore Roosevelt Jr., would have to be relieved as soon as circumstances permitted. Brave and aggressive, they were nonetheless clearly incapable of instilling and maintaining effective discipline in their

subordinate officers and men.

Operation Husky was launched before dawn on July 10, 1943. At that

time, it was biggest Allied operation of the war—it would be eclipsed

only by the Normandy landings of June 6, 1944—and involved 180

thousand U.S. and British troops, 2,590 ships, and thousands of aircraft—although the airborne operations—paratroop and glider assaults—that preceded the principal landings were blown far off course by

unfavorable winds and so, without these initial assaults, Axis resistance

was stiffer than it would otherwise have been. Worse, sandbars grounded

many landing craft, and, in 1st Division’s landing sector, the sand was so

soft that Allen was unable to get his artillery and tanks ashore. Middleton’s division had some similar problems. Nevertheless, Operation

Mincemeat had worked so well that German strength in the landing zone

was, on balance, relatively weak. Moreover, the men displayed far more

aggressiveness than Bradley had good reason to expect of them.

While Bradley’s II Corps divisions landed on the southwest coast—

the 3rd Infantry at Licata, the 1st at Gela, and the 45th Infantry Division

at Scoglitti and points south of it—Montgomery’s two British Eighth

Army corps, the X and XIII, landed between Pozallo and Syracuse on the

east coast. The British met with virtually no opposition, XIII Corps taking Syracuse on the very day that it landed. German armor heavily counterattacked the Big Red One at Gela on July 11, however, whereupon

American warships riding offshore unleashed an intensive artillery bombardment that saved 1st Division and the American landings generally.

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The action instilled in Bradley intense respect for the navy and great satisfaction in the coordination between the naval and ground components of

the assault.

With Patton, however, Bradley worked less smoothly. During the

course of July 11, Bradley ordered one of his units to hold fast until a

threatening pocket of Germans had been cleared out. Patton, seeing only

that a 1st Division unit was apparently stalled, went over Bradley’s head,

ordering Allen not to hold, but to attack. The result was that the unit in

question was temporarily cut off. Enraged, Bradley complained to Patton,

who humbly apologized—but who later complained to Eisenhower that

the II Corps commander was insufficiently aggressive. An infuriated

Bradley was now convinced that Patton did not know the difference between aggressiveness and recklessness. As it turned out, Ike was about to

draw the same conclusion. When he visited Patton’s command post on

July 12, the Seventh Army commander boasted of his actions on the

front, how he had deliberately and extensively exposed himself to fire in

order to inspire his men to victory. Bradley thought that this meeting and

these boasts marked a turning point of historical importance, Ike’s loss of

faith in Patton.

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