GOMYWAY Whilest you are correct in attributing to me the first quote of your posting #40 - the second one actually belongs to Minden - in his posting #38.... the main reason for the British promotion of Clark was that we had nothing left at that level - Leese was on his way to the Far East - McCreery was not ready-nor Keithley -Kirkman - Murray - Hull - Ward were mainly still Div Commanders - Monty was using up Generals e.g. 51st and 7th armoured - and while the US did not command a majority of troops in Italy at that time- they were well on their way in the NWE area to a massive majority- and thus were able to crack the whip - which they did as we were declining in all areas - as of Aug/Sept 1944 during the Gothic Line Battles - the British had nothing left - anywhere ! Cheers
Gomyway. Alexander's HQ was a good one and it very much the British style to be be informal - although a request or suggestion, said in a particular way, is often interpreted as an order by British Officers. The Americans gave much less latitude to their subordinates. I maintain that Clark made fundamental errors at Cassino that were his and his alone. In the second battle, he consistently ignored the suggestions from Gen Juin and Gen Tuker that an attack through the mountains would be more beneficial than trying to break the strongest part of the Gustav Line at Cassino and this view is strongly supported by von Senger, Comd XIV Pz Corps. The German defence was linear and had very little depth as Juin's success in May 44 finally proved. Had Clark directed a very strong thrust through the mountains to the north or south of Cassino, using more of the available resources that he controlled at the time, it is possible that Fifth Army would have got behind the Gustav and Hitler Lines. The difficulty was the movement of supplies and equipment but that was not a showstopper as the French showed in May 44. FdeP
Gomyway. Alexander's HQ was a good one and it very much the British style to be be informal - although a request or suggestion, said in a particular way, is often interpreted as an order by British Officers. The Americans gave much less latitude to their subordinates. Carver argues that it was not well organised and quotes from an Intelligence Officer to illustrate that. He also points out that Alex's new Chief of Staff, Harding, had to go to some lengths to persuade him the have a proper Army Group HQ rather than a large tent alongside Coningham's 2nd TAF HQ. Informality is fine but it needs a certain level of organisation underpinning it. As for Clark and Cassino, we may have to agree to differ. But what I would say is that if he made mistakes at Cassino then they were genuine mistakes, the kind that many generals make. His actions in late May when he chose to head for Rome instead of trying to cut off the retreating Germans are in a different league!
GOMYWAY Whilest you are correct in attributing to me the first quote of your posting #40 - the second one actually belongs to Minden - in his posting #38.... My bad:redface: the main reason for the British promotion of Clark was that we had nothing left at that level - Leese was on his way to the Far East - McCreery was not ready-nor Keithley -Kirkman - Murray - Hull - Ward were mainly still Div Commanders - Monty was using up Generals e.g. 51st and 7th armoured - and while the US did not command a majority of troops in Italy at that time- they were well on their way in the NWE area to a massive majority- and thus were able to crack the whip - which they did as we were declining in all areas - as of Aug/Sept 1944 during the Gothic Line Battles - the British had nothing left - anywhere ! Cheers They 'could' have left Alex there and replaced Wilson with the slightly rehabilitated Auchinleck. But I suspect WSC would have scotched that one.
GOMYWAY - Whether you agree to differ or not with anyone - history reflects that Clark's initial error was in Jan/Feb with the French close to Atina after capturing Colle Abate - were within striking distance of cutting Highway six thus isolating Cassino and the defences in the Liri Valley by reinforcing failure instead of the French success - it could be claimed that he was concerned with the lack of progress at Anzio -but then again it was Clark himself who advised Lucas " not to stick his neck out" so Lucas dug in - against the advice of the two British Divisional commanders and the chance of progress was lost, in both sectors! This then assured the next three battles at Cassino - with mainly commonwealth troops - these were elementary errors which must have been taught at West Point - where it is alleged he did so well - but to turn left to allow two German armies to escape and fight again was sheer dis-obedience. Now no one at the time even thought that we could capture two German armies at Valmontone - as they had other routes through Narni - Terni - Rieti et al BUT with having an Anvil at Valmontone to steady our Hammer coming tearing up from the South - we would have made a right old mess of them- and cut our losses of 14,000 killed at the Gothic Line... cheers
Tom, regarding Anzio, Clark was probably right to advocate caution (as Carver says in his book) given the speed and violence of the German reaction. An over-extended beachhead would have been crushed no matter what the advice of two British divisional commanders at the time. As for First Cassino, Carver's account is too brief to draw conclusions from but it's nowhere near as damning of Clark's decisions as you are. I have a couple of American accounts of the campaign up to the taking of Rome somewhere here so I'll see what light they shed, if any, on Clark's generalship at that time.
GOMYWAY can't lay my hands on Carver's book but as I recall he was a regimental commander in the campaign and so he is just reading other's decisions of the times - as you and I are - but like Carver - I was also there -the British Div.Commanders had suggested to Lucas that another five miles to the high ground might pay dividends and he therefore held to Clark's " don't stick your neck out - as I did at Salerno " was the full suggestion - so he dug in and felt the main blows- which he MIGHT have seen coming from the high ground- these are surely elementary errors like War 101 ? Cheers
