An Army at Dawn (98 page)

CHAPTER 1: PASSAGE

A Meeting with the Dutchman

A few minutes past ten
A.M.
: John Clagett, “Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, U.S. Navy,”
Naval War College Review,
XXVIII, summer/fall 1975, 2 (
“squeezed the tar”
); note, July 24, 1943, HKH, LOC MS Div., box 1 (
turkey trot
); George Sessions Perry, “Why Don’t They Write About Hewitt?”
Saturday Evening Post,
Dec. 16, 1944, 22; Louis Mountbatten, OH, n.d., HKH, NHC, box 6 (
“a fat, bedraggled figure”
); HKH, n.d., Col U OHRO, CNOF-0334, NHC, box 20; Thaddeus V. Tuleja, “Admiral H. Kent Hewitt,” in Stephen Howarth, ed.,
Men of War: Great Naval Leaders of World War II,
315–16; HKH, “Reminiscences of a World War II Admiral,” ts, n.d., NHC, box 21, 170–206; John T. Mason, ed.,
The Atlantic War Remembered,
160–63.

In April 1942
: DDE to T. Troubridge, Oct. 13, 1942, NARA RG 407, E 427, AG Office, WWII Ops Reports, box 203 (
“The object of the operations”
); Matloff and Snell, 291.

Through a tiny window
: Brinkley, 117 (
if the military
); William D. Leahy,
I Was There,
98; James B. Stack, OH-317, DDE Lib.; Alfred Goldberg,
The Pentagon: The First Fifty Years,
175.

The plane settled
: Associated Press article, in
New York Sun,
Jan. 30, 1943, HKH, LOC MS Div, box 9, folder 6 (
“You do everything”
); “Amphibious Training Command,” #145, USNAd, NHC, VII-26; William S. Biddle, “Amphibious Training of American Troops in Great Britain,” lecture, Fort Hood, 1943, William S. Biddle Papers, MHI; Kenneth Macksey,
Crucible of Power: The Fight for Tunisia, 1942–1943,
48 (
imaginary ocean
); Ken Ford,
Battleaxe Division,
6.

Would the eight
: “Reminiscences of a World War II Admiral,” 170–206; Michael Howard,
Grand Strategy,
112; C.B.A. Behrens,
Merchant Shipping and the Demands of War,
367–68; F. H. Hinsley,
British Intelligence in the Second World War,
vol. 2, 470; Walter Karig,
Battle Report: The Atlantic War,
167; Disney note, HKH, LOC MS Div, box 2, folder 6.

The staff car crawled
:
New York Times,
Oct. 21, 1942, 1;
Washington Evening Star,
Oct. 21, 1942, 1 (
“there aren’t any nylon stockings”
); Goodwin, 394.

The car pulled up
: Quartermaster report, n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 231 (
among the secret cargoes
).

Since Roosevelt’s final decision
: Theodore J. Conway, SOOHP, Robert F. Ensslin, Sept. 1977, MHI; Leahy, 136 (
“pig-headed”
).

First, he insisted
: Greenfield, ed., 149; FDR to Churchill, in Aug. 31, 1942, memo, E. King to GCM, NARA RG 218, JCS, box 325 (
“I am reasonably sure”
); James MacGregor Burns,
Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom,
290 (
public opinion in North Africa
); Larrabee, 424.

There was skepticism
: Harold Macmillan,
The Blast of War,
160 (
“where all good Americans”
); Churchill to FDR, Sept. 14, 1942, NARA RG 218, JCS, box 225; Danchev and Todman, eds., 316 (
wait a full month
).

The second vital issue
: Matloff and Snell, 287; minutes, CCS meeting, Aug. 28, 1942, NARA RG 218, JCS, box 225 (
“take great risks”
); Andrew Browne Cunningham,
A Sailor’s Odyssey,
470; Eisenhower,
Crusade in Europe,
79.

But General Marshall
: Howard,
Grand Strategy,
124, 127;
NWAf,
26;
Destruction,
124; msg, War Cabinet, Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee, Aug. 7, 1942, NARA RG 165, Plans and Ops, General Records, corr, box 1229; Bernard Fergusson,
The Watery Maze,
197 (
drawstring
); General Lord Ismay,
The Memoirs of General Lord Ismay,
261; MWC, OH, May 19, 1948, G. F. Howe, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 228; minutes, CCS meeting, Aug. 28, 1942, NARA RG 218, JCS, box 225 (
“only bring ridicule”
).

Roosevelt agreed
: FDR to Churchill, Aug. 31, 1942, NARA RG 492, MTOUSA records, box 1388; Danchev and Todman, eds., 315 (
“a much wiser plan”
); Eisenhower,
Crusade in Europe,
80 (
“realm of the probable”
).

On September 5
: GCM, OH, Oct. 5, 1956, FCP, GCM Lib; GCM, OH, July 25, 1949, SM, MHI.

At the White House
: William Seale,
The President’s House,
vol. II, 976; Hewitt, Col U OHRO, copy at NHC, Hewitt papers, box 20.

Even as he shook Patton’s hand
: HKH to GSP, Sept 1, 1942, HKH, LOC MS Div, box 2, folder 5 (
“By all means”
); HKH, OH, Jan. 23, 1951, G. F. Howe, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 228 (
Army planners proposed
); Ismay, 265 (
“bunch of rattlesnakes”
); “Amphibious Training Command,” #145, USNAd, NHC, VII-8 (
“failure to cooperate”
); Eisenhower,
Crusade in Europe,
82 (
Eisenhower’s personal warrant
); Carlo D’Este,
Patton: A Genius for War,
422 (
“Don’t scare the Navy”
); Warren Tute,
The North African War,
152;
NWAf,
43.

At precisely two
: “FDR Day by Day, Oct. 21, 1942,” Secret Service records, box 4, FDR Lib; diary, Oct. 21, 1942, GSP, LOC MS Div. (
“Come in”
).

“Well, gentlemen”
: Ladislas Farago,
Patton: Ordeal and Triumph,
195 (“
conqueror or a corpse”
); John S. D. Eisenhower,
Allies: Pearl Harbor to D-Day,
63 (
“cigarette-holder gesture”
); Larrabee, 486.

But TORCH had its own hazards
: Morison,
The Two-Ocean War,
223; S.L.A. Marshall,
World War I,
192.

For his part, Roosevelt
: Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy,
On Active Service in Peace and War,
425, 416; diary, Oct. 21, 1942, GSP, LOC MS Div (
how to moor
); Clagett, “Admiral H. Kent Hewitt,” 72 (
“just dropped off”
).

Gathering the Ships

An unholy din rolled
: “Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet,” vol. I, USNAd, 391; Morison,
Operations in North African Waters,
vol. II,
History of United States Naval Operations in World War II,
48;
Soldier Stevedores,
Signal Corps Film Bulletin #32, NARA Films, RG 111, Chief Signal Officer; William Reginald Wheeler, ed.,
The Road to Victory,
35.

Into the holds
: Richard M. Leighton and Robert W. Coakley,
Global Logistics and Strategy: 1940–1943,
465; Frierson, “Preparations for ‘Torch,’” vol. 1, 63 (
$100,000 in gold coins
); memo, Aug. 23, 1942, LKT Jr. Papers, GCM Lib, box 9 (
flyswatters
); msg, Oct. 18, 1942, NARA RG 338, General Records ETO, 7th Army Awards, box 1 (
Purple Hearts
).

In theory, only 800 people
: Oscar W. Koch,
G-2: Intelligence for Patton,
4; 12th Air Force doc., Oct. 17, 1942, Lauris Norstad Papers, Air Campaign in Naf, DDE Lib, box 6 (
“I am your friend”
); C. L. Strong, “Allo, Maroc,”
Bell Telephone Magazine,
Sept. 1943; “Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet,” vol. I, USNAd, 384; John H. Waller,
The Unseen War in Europe,
252 (
“Behold”
).

Quartermasters had
: Quartermaster report, n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 231 (
“Do not open”
); “Chemical Warfare Policy, Operation TORCH,” Sept. 10, 1942, AFHQ G-3, and memo, “chemical warfare policy,” W. B. Smith, Sept. 27, 1942, both in NARA, AFHQ micro, R-83-F (
“most unlikely”
). The use of chemical weapons appears never to have been seriously considered. See Brooks E. Kleber and Dale Birdsell,
The Chemical Warfare Service: Chemicals in Combat,
87–93.

Using a Michelin
: Jack F. Wilhm et al., “Armor in the Invasion of North Africa,” Armored School, 18; M.T. Wordell and E.N. Seiler,
Wildcats over Casablanca,
19 (
Baedekers
); Lucian K. Truscott, Jr.,
Command Missions,
33; Alfred M. Beck et al.,
The Corps of Engineers: The War Against Germany,
63; “Catalogue of Standard Ordnance Items,” vol. I, in “Kasserine Pass Battles,” vol. II, pt. 3, CMH.

All cargo was
: Leighton and Coakley, 443; Carl E. Bledsoe, report, Oct. 15, 1942, NARA RG 165, Plans and Ops, Gen’l Records, corr, box 1228; “Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet,” vol. I, USNAd, 391; John Erbes, “Hell on Wheels Surgeon,” ts, n.d., USMA Arch, 11.

On this disorderly Thursday
: Blumenson,
The Patton Papers, 1940–1945,
92, 94–95; Farago, 194; D’Este,
Patton,
425; Wheeler, ed., 10 (
Aeneid
).

It was a fair self-assessment
: Rick Atkinson, introduction to GSP,
War as I Knew It,
xi–xxii; Mark M. Boatner III,
The Biographical Dictionary of World War II,
413.

“Give me generals”
: Mountbatten, OH, n.d., HKH, NHC, box 6; Larrabee, 486; diary, Oct. 21, 1942, GSP, LOC MS Div.

His command for TORCH
: Matloff and Snell, 317; E. N. Harmon with Milton MacKaye and William Ross MacKaye,
Combat Commander,
69 (
“put iron in their souls”
); D’Este,
Patton,
422, 426–27 (
“had been ordered into arrest”
and
“If you don’t succeed”
).

In a dinner toast
: Harry H. Semmes,
Portrait of Patton,
81; Henry Gerard Phillips,
The Making of a Professional: Manton S. Eddy, USA,
84; James H. Doolittle with Carroll V. Glines,
I Could Never Be So Lucky Again,
299; Harmon,
Combat Commander,
69; Martin Blumenson,
Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1885–1945,
64.

On Friday morning, October 23
: “Reminiscences of Rear Adm. Joshua W. Cooper,” USNI OHD, John T. Mason, 1975 (
“If you have any doubts”
); Morison,
Operations in North African Waters,
43.

As the hour of departure
: Frierson, “Preparations for ‘Torch,’” vol. I, 23.

More usually
: Wheeler, ed., 224–25; Albert E. Cowdrey,
Fighting for Life: American Military Medicine in World War II,
165–67 (
Recent experience
).

No less dramatic
: GCM to AFHQ, Oct. 8, 1942, NARA RG 492, MTOUSA records of the special staff, box 1385; “W.R.P.,” “Mission to Morocco,”
Navy,
Nov. 1958, 7; Charles F. Marsh, ed.,
The Hampton Roads Communities in World War II,
259; Bertram B. Fowler, “Twelve Desperate Miles,”
Saturday Evening Post,
Aug. 28, 1943, 14; Wheeler, ed., 73.

All the confusion
: Walter T. Kerwin, Jr., SOOHP, D. A. Doehle, MHI, 1980 (
“a sweltering inferno”
); general courts-martial offense ledger sheets, NARA RG 153, Office of the Judge Advocate General, boxes 17–19; “Amphibious Training Command,” #145, USNAd, IX-34; Steve Kluger,
Yank: The Army Weekly,
58; Lee B. Kennett,
G.I.: The American Soldier in World War II,
32.

Naughty Norfolk
: J. Blan van Urk, “Norfolk—Our Worst War Town,”
American Mercury,
Feb. 1943, 1944 (
“solid block of beer joints”
and
“give me a concentration camp”
); Phyllis A. Hall, “Crisis at Hampton Roads: The Problems of Wartime Congestion, 1942–1944,”
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography,
July 1993, 405 (
“girlie trailers”
); Marvin W. Schlegel,
Conscripted City: Norfolk in World War II,
193 (
massacre white citizens
).

Sober and otherwise
: Owen C. Bolstad,
Dear Folks: A Dog-Faced Infantryman in World War II,
9; Edwin Hubert Randle,
Safi Adventure,
20.

Eight to twelve officers shared
: Robert Wallace, “Africa, We Took It and Liked It,”
Saturday Evening Post,
Jan. 16, 1943, 20.

From this very anchorage
: James R. Reckner,
Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet,
23; “Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet,” vol. I, USNAd, 383 (
“previously seen salt water”
); A. Russell Buchanan,
The United States and World War II,
vol. I, 148.
Patton settled into
: Diary, Oct. 21 and 23, 1942, GSP, LOC MS Div.; Fred Ayer, Jr.,
Before the Colors Fade,
116.

“generals so bold”
:
NWAf,
44; Farago, 194; D’Este,
Patton: A Genius for War,
885n.

Shortly before seven
: “U.S. Atlantic Fleet, Amphibious Force—Action Report,” NARA RG 407, E 427, box 24490. For an interesting antecedent, see Thucydides, “Launching of the Sicilian Expedition,”
History of the Peloponnesian War,
Rex Warner trans., 427–9.

The dawn was bright
: Bruce Catton,
A Stillness at Appomattox
, 56 (
bright and blowing
); Ch’ên T’ao, “Turkestan,”
The Jade Mountain: A Chinese Anthology,
Witter Bynner, trans., 14 (
into the rooms
).