Since then, General Alexander, his staff, and commanders had been working flat out, reorganising and training troops, planning and making sure that nothing was left to chance; they were not going to be caught short for want of a horseshoe.
All of the commanders felt tense. For every single one involved, whether at divisional, corps or army level, this was to be the biggest battle of their careers: more men, more guns; more aircraft above them. Each was acutely aware of how much was at stake. Despite the build-up of men and materiel, and despite the improved weather, there was unlikely to be any easy victory. The flooding in the valley had receded but the Liri Valley, only six miles at its widest and just four at the greater part of its length, was narrow for a two-corps assault. The serpentine River Liri was too wide and deep to ford, while numerous other tributaries and water courses cut across the valley and hence the path of the attackers. There were also heavy German defences: concrete dugouts, gun turrets, machine-gun posts, mines and wire. Furthermore, overlooking this softly undulating valley of pasture, cornfields and broken woodland – slow going for wheels and tracks – were the imposing mountain ranges, filled with yet more carefully positioned guns, machine guns and troops. Indeed, the mouth of the Liri Valley, the gateway to Rome, was protected by two superb artillery positions, Monte Cassino to the north, and Monte Maio to the south. In four months of fighting these ‘gate posts’ had not been cleared. Few of the Allied commanders, however, could have felt this pressure more keenly than Lieutenant-General Mark W. Clark, Commander of the US Fifth Army.
The planning for Operation DIADEM largely complete, Clark spent a final few days touring the front, briefing his commanders and inspecting his troops, many of whom would be going into battle for the first time. Earlier that morning of Thursday, 11 May, Clark had inspected also the US 36th Division, pinning a number of medals on the chests of Texans and addressing them briefly. It was the 36th Division who had been involved in the first disastrous attempt to break into the Liri Valley back in January, when they had tried to cross the narrow Rapido River that runs south through the town. Even before that attack, the auspices had not been good. The British 46th Division had already failed to cross the wider River Garigliano further south – an operation designed to help the Texans in their task to cross the Rapido – and had warned the Americans that the ground on the far side of the river was heavily defended. Moreover, they had insufficient river craft with which to do the job. Yet Major-General Walker, 36th Division’s commander, had assured Clark, despite considerable private doubts, that the operation was still achievable. Clark, who had urgently needed to divert German troops away from the Anzio beachheads for the Allied landing that would take place two days later, had consequently given the go-ahead.
In the forty-eight hour operation that followed, some 1,700 men were killed or wounded. Rather like the men on the Somme on 1 July 1916, the Texans had been cut down in swathes. The river had run red with blood; the bodies stacked six high in places. In America, the pressmen had labelled the ‘Bloody Rapido’ the worst disaster since Pearl Harbor.
General Clark had taken his share of the blame, but within a few days it became apparent that the American-led operation at Anzio, Operation SHINGLE, had also fallen short of its aims. Neither the Rapido disaster nor the setback at Anzio had been entirely Clark’s fault and both operations had been executed because of pressure higher up the chain of command. But an army commander lives and dies by his successes, and by the spring of 1944 – on the battlefield at any rate – these had been all too few. Clark was unaware that his position was under threat and that discussions had taken place about whether to remove him, but he nonetheless keenly felt the frustrations of his comparative lack of success.
Mark Clark – or ‘Wayne’ as friends knew him – had just turned forty-eight at the start of May. Standing six foot three inches tall, he was lean and muscular, his hair still dark, and despite a prominently hawkish nose, he was a youthful-looking and handsome three-star general who towered over most of his subordinates and superiors alike. One of the few American commanders who had seen action in the last war, he had led a battalion in France in 1917, until wounded when a shell had exploded nearby. He spent the rest of the war as a captain carrying out staff duties. It was a rank he kept for sixteen years, sitting out the post-war doldrums with mounting impatience.
In 1933 his fortunes had finally begun to change, with promotion followed by time spent at both the US Command and General Staff College and the Army War College, so marking him out for future high command. By the summer of 1937 he had joined the 3rd Division, where he renewed his friendship with his old West Point friend, Dwight D. Eisenhower. By 1940, he was a lieutenant-colonel and was appointed chief of staff to General Lesley McNair, the man commanded to expand, train, and reorganise the US Army ready for war. Clark immediately showed his exceptional aptitude for planning and organisation, demonstrating great resources of energy, intelligence, enthusiasm, and an ability to get things done, and done fast.
Catching the eye of General Marshall, the US Chief of Staff, Clark was sent to Britain in 1942 along with Eisenhower to arrange for the reception and training of American troops and to begin preparations for the invasion of Continental Europe. When immediate Allied plans were redirected towards an invasion of northwest Africa, Eisenhower was made Commander-in-Chief with Clark as his deputy. As head of planning for Operation TORCH, Clark deservedly won a great deal of credit for pulling off what was the largest seaborne invasion the world had ever known. It was also no small thanks to Clark and his pre-invasion discussions with Vichy French commanders that the resulting landing was a comparative walkover.
But however much Clark had proved himself as a planner and diplomat, he desperately wanted the chance for operational command but, as Eisenhower’s official deputy, he knew he was in danger of spending the rest of the war as a desk man. Consequently, he began to badger his chief for his own command until he was eventually appointed commander of the newly created US Fifth Army, the first American army headquarters to be formed overseas. Although for the first few months it was little more than a training organisation, it was then that he began to develop a deep affection for Fifth Army, a force that he nurtured and considered his own. Together, he believed, they were destined to achieve great victories.
Not until the invasion of Italy was Clark finally given the chance he so craved, of leading his men in battle. Given the task of planning the main Allied landings at Salerno, VI Corps from his Fifth Army duly landed on 9 September 1943. It was almost a massive failure. Heavily contested by Kesselring’s AOK 10, it had been a far more bitter fight than either the North African or Sicily landings. Clark, however, had showed resolve and courage, quickly getting himself onto the beachhead and taking firm and decisive command. At one point, during the second and most threatening German counterattack, he took personal charge of an anti-tank unit and turned back eighteen German tanks at almost point-blank range. The Allies regained their footing, a bridgehead was firmly established, and as Axis forces withdrew north towards the defences of the Gustav Line, Clark and his Fifth Army quickly took Naples, a key port on the route to Rome.
Despite this success, however, Clark suffered the mutterings of some. At the height of Salerno, with defeat a distinct possibility, Clark realised he had made no provision for an evacuation should the worst occur. Quickly trying to rectify this, he ordered his staff to make the necessary plans for a withdrawal. Although purely a contingency plan, news of these orders spread; to some, this was not seen as Clark’s pragmatism shining through, but rather a sign that he had momentarily lost his nerve.
In fact, at Salerno and in the fighting in Italy since the Allied invasion, Clark had proved himself an extremely able battlefield commander. He possessed a thorough understanding of modern all-arms tactics, an ability to grasp and see the bigger strategic overview, and was not afraid of taking difficult decisions or the rap if things did not go according to plan. However, many found him overly blunt, arrogant even; he could be prickly – and brusque and heavy handed with his subordinates. He was the boss – and no one was allowed to forget it. If that made him unpopular to some, well to hell with it; winning battles and the war was what counted, not worrying about telling people some harsh home truths. Again, in many respects,
