James Holland (3:29)

It's certainly worth having a little bit of context here, isn't it? And just, just reminding people of where we're at this point. So in the end of the last episode, they were crossing the, the Volturna, which they do in the middle of October 1943, and then, then have to move. You know, the Germans at this point kind of move back to the next sort of defensive line, which is going to be what's known as the Bernhard Line or the Winter Line. This is about 8 miles south of Cassino, which is the kind of the strongest point. And the valley runs between the kind of Minano Gap. So there's these two shied sentinels of Monte Camino and Monte Sammucro either side, and the Mignano Gap, through which the via Casalina Highway 6, the road between Naples and Rome, runs through that and the railway and all the rest of it. And that's what they got to get through. It's kind of early, early, early November. And Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, who is a Luftwaffe Field marshal, is now the man overall in charge of all German military operations in Italy. And Hitler has given him orders to kind of, you know, fight as far south as Rome as he possibly can and for as long as possible. And, and this is where he makes his stand. And the Bernhard line is pretty, pretty bad. It's pretty strong defensive position, but immediately after that is the Gustav Line. So it's this kind of double lock system. And the 3rd Infantry Division, the US 3rd Infantry Division, nickname the Rock of Marne from their performance in the First World War, they have reached the Mignano Gap and are now given the job of pushing to the top of Monte Sammucro. And the division has got some mountain warfare experience, but has never summited a peak as high as this before.

Al Murray (5:06)

The conditions are appalling. The Germans are dogged in defense. And as we talked about in the previous episode, if you're the Defender. You don't have to take any initiative, you don't have to make tough choices. You don't have to go first, which is of course the thing that the attacker has to do. Someone's got to go first, haven't they? Murphy's divisions, this is their lot that they now have to find their way of unlocking these German defensive positions. And some poor bum has got to go first. And as often as not, that's the infantryman, isn't it? Or in fact it's the, you know, we call it pbi, don't we? Poor bloody infantry. And this is a PBI story, isn't it, if ever there was one.

James Holland (5:50)

Well, yes, and, and they're ordered to the 15th infantry and particularly the Company B are ordered to clear Monte Rotondo. So you've got what you've got. You've got a huge towering, sort of 3,000 foot high peak of Monte Sammucro. Then immediately below it you've got this very sort of dome shaped rounded mountain unoriginally called Monte Rotondo. Then you've got another little gap and then you've got a smaller little hill which is on the map is marked as Hill 193. And there's a narrow trail which, which passes between the western side of Monte Rotondo and Hill 193. So it's like a little sort of pass between, between the two. It's very difficult terrain here. I mean, from an attacking point of view. There's lots of sort of plunging chasms and gorges and drops and stuff folds in the, in the mountain, jagged, jagged sort of ridge lines and what have you. You can be out of the enemy sight for a bit and then suddenly you're revealed again and you don't know where the enemy is and so it's incredibly difficult. But anyway, on the, on the 8th of November, Monte Rotondo is successfully taken. The 15th infantry attacks first from the south onto the lower part of Hill 193, which is next to Rotondo, drawing enemy fire. And then the third infantry strikes from the eastern flank. But at this point it's very much only a little, a little dent. Company B's task, which is the company to which Audie Murphy and his squad are attached, is keeping Hill 193 secure. And it's a vulnerable area given the saddle of Monte Lungo, which is this long, slug like sort of defile, which is sort of mountainous bit. It's a low level, kind of low slung mountain which runs dissects the middle of the Mignana Gap. From the kind of southern end of. Of. Of. Of Monte Lungo, the enemy can see down onto rotundo onto. Onto 193 and all the rest of it. So. And that's still controlled by the Germans. Murphy and his squad move up this little track and they move along a little bit. And this is between the saddle between Monte Rotondo, which is higher, and 193, which is. Is not so high. And they move up this track and they're told to just sort of look out for the enemy and kind of keep watch for the night. And what they find is this. This cave is still sort of old quarry, but anyway, there's a little sort of cave indentation into the kind of side of the rock where they settle in for. In for the night.

Al Murray (8:22)

And he fires at them. The Germans seem to then retreat. And I think it's. He's very eager, isn't he, to shoot at Germans because it. Because there's an argument that the last thing you do is shoot at that patrol because they know you're there, right? There's a strong argument for leaving them be. And the Germans don't find anything out. But, but, but Audie Murphy, he can't help it. Bam, bam. The Germans melt away. But now, though, that the Americans are there. And the next morning another patrol comes down because I think, although we were talking about how, you know, if you're the Germans, you're. You don't have to take the initiative because the Americans are forced into that, but because they're trying to make progress, Germans still need to know where the Americans are, particularly when things have changed, when, you know, Monte Rotondo has changed hands. So they particularly need to know where. What the limits of the Americans are. So they spot a patrol coming down the slope from Hill 193 above the quarry. And the silhouettes of the. Of the coal scuttle helmets, very, very distinctive. And there's sort of kind of seven of them. Murphy's guys are perfectly well concealed in this cave. They get their weapons ready. Fife, who's the native American with a. With a fondness for automatic weapons, as Murphy put it. He's the closest. And the Germans pause right by the cave.

James Holland (9:44)

Yeah, I think so what you've got is you've got this quarry and lime kiln, which is about 12ft deep or whatever, and the sides are sort of comparatively steep. And then you've got this cave of. Off the side of this quarry and there's a bit of rock that comes out. So, so it's quite a wide opening to the cave, but there's this bit that comes round and they're behind that. And so, so Fife is at the end of this bit and he can just peer through. And I think the Germans are on the top of the quarry, probably coming, coming down Monte Lungo towards that track up which Murphy and his squad had come the previous night. And so they can see them and, and as you say, the, the leader of the, of the, of the German patrol pauses and seems to be looking at them, straight at them, but, yeah, clearly he can't see them, you know, and so there is this tension because FIFA's at the front with his BAR ready and Murphy's just thinking, when the hell is this? You know, what's he going to do? You know?

Al Murray (10:51)

And he says, well, Kelly whispers to Murphy, doesn't he?

James Holland (10:55)

What's the chief gonna do? Shake hands with the crowds before he shoots them?

Al Murray (10:58)

And then Fife opens fire. And four Germans immediately stick their hands up, but three are cut down. They're on the ground, they're wounded. And Murphy recalls, from the ripped bodies comes only the sound of gasping. Shock for the instant stifles the pain that will soon stab through the flesh. They cart the prisoners away to company HQ while the squad stays with the prisoners, the wounded, waiting for a medic to take them away. And you've got this, you know, the thing that soldiers end up having to do. You have to tend the wounds of the men that you have injured. You've got this very peculiar thing that the way war forces people into this situation. One of the Germans is a lot older, the other two are quite young, but they're all alive, but they're bleed, you know, they're bleeding out, basically. Murphy tends to one of them, loosens his collar, who mumbles Denka in return.

James Holland (11:45)

So one of his men has gone off with the, you know, he's packed off one of the men with the prisoners and said to him, go and get a medic, get a medic and come back and get these wounded guys and then we'll get rid of them as well, you know, the last one we want is lots of, you know, three Germans dying out on us, you know, come and get them some help. So they're just tending him, tending these men until the medic turns up. But the medic doesn't turn up because suddenly the artillery fire gets more intense.

Al Murray (12:11)

So they're basically holed up in this cave with these Germans moaning and crying and dying. And in their Sort of agonies. They go in and out of conversation. The Germans will cry out, they'll mutter incomprehensible things like they're sort of having this ghostly conversation. And then Kelly, what Kelly says to the older German is extraordinary, isn't it,

James Holland (12:33)

at this moment, he goes, superman, you should have been home with your grandchildren. The German musters a small, weak smile, then closes his eyes and this whispers, vassa, you know, which of course is German for water. And the boys then, you know, the lads debate whether to give him some. You know, you shouldn't drink with bullet wounds to your abdomen. And one of Murphy's men goes, ah, let him have a drink, he's gonna die anyhow. So they do. And of course the old man loses consciousness soon after. I mean, we say old man, he's probably what, 35 or 30 even.

Al Murray (13:09)

I mean, you know, look. Yeah, yeah, they're all. They're all 18, 19, 20. Yeah. And then a runner turns up to tell them that the medics are delayed because there's too many Americans to treat first. So no one's going to come to the morning Tipton, who's one of the. One of the guys who's from Tennessee and he's a ferocious, tough soldier, but he can't cope. He can't deal with the idea of them dying. This drawn out, agonizing death really upsets him. He says, the poor bastards. What is death waiting for? And the. The rain is pouring, the artillery's thundering around the hills, everyone's exhausted. But Siegia, the Pole is having none of that, is he? When you read this, this scene is quite extraordinary because this is. This thing soldiers are forced into these extraordinary situations where that one minute they're trying to kill each other, the next minute they're tending each other's wounds. And then they've got to endure the business of them dying around them or what? What do you do? How do you show them mercy? How can you help them? Do you help them? Should you know, all these incredible conflicting motions. The son comes up, steam's rising from the. These dead German soldiers uniforms. He ponders, you know, this could have been me. This could have been us dead in a cave. Well, it's a.

James Holland (14:32)

The descriptions are amazing of these guys because. Because they talk about the kind of, you know, the waxy faces and, you know, the life kind of draining out of them and they sort of turn green in the kind of sort of half light. They just look like green and ghoulish and it's really unsettling. Because they're all stuck there with these three dead Germans who they've not been able to help. And of course, they're all thinking the same thing, a degree of compassion. But also, this could have been us, you know, and they're witnessing what can happen to young men, even the old man, still obviously young. And I mean, what a thing. I mean, it's just. It's just. It's just horrendous, isn't it?

Al Murray (15:13)

This incident is very much. It speaks to the fact that the Allies. The Allies. Well, we've talked about what a hard time they're having of it in terms of the actual. The task that's in front of them, that, you know, you've got to. You've got to endlessly break these German defensive lines. You've got to take the initiative, you've got to go first. And this seat, this obviously is going to start to eat into the morale of the Allied forces fighting at this Italian campaign. It's the winter line. As we have often said on this podcast, the winters of the Second World War are always difficult, and the winter line is difficult in itself. One of the things the Germans have a great deal of practice at in the Second World War is defending, because apart from the bit where they run rampant in the first couple of years of the war, they're generally going backwards. That's generally the tempo of operations they have to conduct. There's consolation in defence, which is that you aren't having to take particularly great risks if you don't want to. You aren't having to come up with ideas, necessarily, or take the initiative. And these defenses, from the German perspective, what they're trying to do is hold the Allies up and grind them down. It's interesting, though, because we have talked about this campaign a great deal we did last year when we were talking about the Cassino campaign, is that what is actually the German objective is to

James Holland (16:34)

hold on to territory and hold up the Allies for as long as possible. But it would have been far better for them to retreat to the Pisa remedy line right from the word go, because then they've had shorter lines of supply and easy to defend and less subject to Allied air power.

Al Murray (16:47)

But anyway, the German objective, essentially, is to take as many Allied soldiers with them as they can. That's what it boils down to, doesn't it?

James Holland (16:56)

Yeah, because.

Al Murray (16:57)

Yeah, because you're losing in this situation. You're not going to end up with control of Italy or the Mediterranean or whatever strategic objective there might be here.

James Holland (17:07)

No, but you've got to hold on to the dramatic turnaround. You know, the victory is still within their grass. Something will happen. The furor will do something decisive. The wonder weapons will come in and give them a chance. They've got jets on the way. They've got jets, they've got comets, you know, they've got V1s and V2s. And that's going to transform the fortunes of the war. And they can still turn it around and it's all going to be fine. And the fur is brilliant.

Al Murray (17:29)

When you say it all out loud, it just gives you a migraine, doesn't it? It's a shocking business.

James Holland (17:33)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Al Murray (17:34)

But basically it's a shocking business that, I don't know, they're trying to stop them. Get to Rome or something. So there's Highway 6, overlooked by Monte Cassino, and there's the town of Monte Cassino, the towns around there. And the way the roads bifurcate and split and the way that the terrain completely dominates anyone going in either direction. And Highway 6 is the direct road to Rome. And James's favorite general of the Second World War. And in fact, the argument was settled once and for all at we have ways fest funf in the autumn last year that he is the greatest of the Allied commanders and those of you who were in attendance at our last festival in the west, best in the west and the arguments made. Although he had a good run in Burma too, Jim, so, you know, he may be a candidate for the east as well, but basically he is the best of the lot that's decided and settled. And there are no. There are to be no further arguments or discussions. Just want to put that out there. And so what this leads to, of course, is that how do you solve this morale problem? What do you. What do you do? What you need is victories, right? Big fat decisive victories.

James Holland (18:43)

And maybe hold off till the summer.

Al Murray (18:46)

Yeah, maybe wait till the summer. But then the strategic momentum of things means that you can't take your foot off, you can't keep pushing. Certainly not now you've declared unconditional surrender as your goal. Why would you stop fighting if you want the enemy to surrender unconditionally as your goal? Right. It's no one's particular fault. There's also the issue that the Overlord campaign is now becoming the actual magnetic north of the Allied campaign. And so resources will be starting to be drawn away. Focus, effort and brains are all being taken back to Britain to prepare for the invasion of northwest Europe. The basic flaw in the Allied conception of Going up through Europe is what happens if the Germans do significantly reinforce Italy, make a stand south of Rome. And we've touched on this before, you've got super mechanized Allied land power and you've got air power. How you actually manage in an environment that negates both of those advantages, which is you can't use the roads for mechanised force and the weather's too crap for air power. The reason we're following an infantryman through Italy is because this is an infantry war, essentially, is what it boils down to.

James Holland (19:55)

It just is. And the problem is, is there's all these mountains in Italy. Where you've got mountains, you've got rivers, and rivers are running down to the sea, and they're trying to get to the sea in the quickest possible route, which basically means that 90 degrees to the axis of the Allied advance. So you've not only got to deal with mountains, you've also got to deal with rivers and all the accompanying canalization that that brings you. Because, of course, what happens is you've got limited roads and then you've got the bridges over these rivers are then blown up by the retreating Germans. All around are liberally sewed with mines, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and zeroed with artillery, just as they were on the San Fratello line in Sicily. But here it's kind of, you know, times 25 and with far worse weather, far worse weather. And it's Swissborn. And of course, the obvious thing to do in somewhere like Italy, which is sort of narrow and long and full of lots of mountains, is to continually outflank the front line by amphibious operations. And that's great if you've got lots of. Lots of assault craft of which to do your amphibious operations. But if you haven't, and the Allies don't at this point, because they're all being used in the Pacific, or they're all being getting made ready for Operation Overlord. You just haven't got enough. And the bottom line is this, that the Italian campaign is a useful distraction of job for German troops. It's very useful for improving the Allied strategic air capability with the increased airfields that there are in southern Italy. And the rest of it, you know, it is drawing off German strength and men and material and all the rest of it, but it is very much a secondary effort.

Al Murray (21:28)

The challenges that Italy offers the Allies are completely epitomized by the Gustav Line, aren't they? This winter line that we've talked about, it lays the problem bare. The Gustav line runs from coast to coast. I mean and you know, Italy is narrow enough and with challenging terrain that it's defensible, easily defensible. This is like defending Normandy where you can, can pop round and flank and break out into Brittany and all this sort of stuff that there just isn't the space. So the germ, you know, it's you, it's the thing that you trade time for space or space for time and all that sort of thing. Those opportunities don't really exist. It runs from coast to coast. There's the terrain, there's high ground, there's rivers, there's thick forest. To get across this and access the Liri Valley and then get onto Highway 6 which runs to Rome. There's the Garagliano river to cross, the Rapido river to cross or the Rapido and the, and the, there's the hills around Monte Cassino to take. So here it is and it's interlake interlink networks. And the Germans have had time to prepare this as well because the Allied progress is slow then The Germans are never in a position where they're bounced, basically where they're caught off balance. It's impossible to get them off balance. There's always another line. There's always another sort of, sort of layer to the defensive lasagna. And it's barbed wire, it's anti tank ditches, trenches, pillboxes, concealed anti tank guns. And then it's, and it's sometimes it's 3,000 yards deep. So two miles deep.

James Holland (22:57)

Yeah.

Al Murray (22:57)

Any bridges are blown that once the Germans have crossed them. And then of course that, you know, everywhere is charted on a fire plan. So if the Allies get to anywhere the Germans, you know, they go, all right, it's, it's position six shell that. They don't even have to put the, you don't even have to call the coordinates. They've got it all, all mapped out with their fire plans. So it's really, really, really, really hard. And I think, and we talked about this before, I think the amazing thing about this campaign is the progress the Allies make.

James Holland (23:32)

Yeah.

Al Murray (23:32)

Not the way the Germans hold them up. That's pretty simple really, isn't it? As a proposition?

James Holland (23:38)

Yeah.

Al Murray (23:39)

It's the progress the Allies make because everything's stacked against them.

James Holland (23:42)

Yeah. And I completely agree.

Al Murray (23:43)

Particularly if you believe that the German soldier is necessarily better than an Allied soldier. It's even more amazing if the Allied soldiers are supposedly crap. We're not going to get bogged down in that one. There is a small breakthrough when The Canadians from 8th army capture a small town on the coast, the eastern coast called Ortona and pop through the, they pop through the Gustav line. And that is an absolutely, that's a horrendous, protracted and brutal battle known as Little Stalingrad. Ends on Christmas Day, doesn't it?

James Holland (24:15)

Just after. Yeah, yeah.

Al Murray (24:16)

The Germans bug out. They decide, oh well, we've caused enough bloodshed, we'll get out now.

James Holland (24:21)

Yeah. And it's worth saying that meanwhile that, you know, the Americans have, the Americans of British on in 5th army have broken through the Bernhard line, the winter line. So they have captured Monte Smucro, they have captured Monte Camino, they have captured the little bashed up village of San Pietro. But now having done that at the same time as Eight Farm is breaking through the Gustav line on the there, the US 5th army is then facing the bulk of the Gustav line around Cassino. And that's what's still to come.

Al Murray (24:51)

Yeah, it's a complete nightmare. And I think it is the progress that is made is absolutely extraordinary that they make any at all, particularly in the winter. Should we take a quick break like Audie Murphy is going to take? We're going to take a little bit of R and R now and when we come back after the break, we will be joining Audie Murphy on a little bit of R and R. We'll see in a moment.

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Al Murray (26:44)

Welcome back to We Have Ways of Making youg Talk With Me, Almo and James Holland. So in our first part, we've looked at the task in hand not just for, well, for the Allies, but what it means for a soldier, for an infantryman, for a doughboy, for a GI in the desperate fight for Italy in the winter of 43, going into 44, Audie Murphy has been has got some leave.

James Holland (27:05)

The the 3rd Infantry Division have been pulled out of the line because there's plans afoot to do a limited outflanking operation which is going to be kind of 30 miles north of the of the Gustav line, a little place called Anzio and Nettuno, which is equally about 30 miles south of of Rome. And there's only six corps really is available to do this. So third division is pulled out of the, out of a line and they're taken back to Naples for a bit of R and R, but also for retraining. While they're there, they're in these camps outside Naples. They're given overnight passes. And this is an amazing episode in his book because what it shows is an amazing light on the kind of difficulties of the Italian civilians at this time and how impoverished Italy is and how, how breath they are of any kind of central government. And you know, they've been abandoned a lot of these people and they're having to kind of make do in the way that they, they best can. A lot of the young men folk are away they, you know, in the military and they're either now in German prison camps or Allied prison camps. So there's not many men around. The women are having to fend for themselves. There's no welfare state or anything like that. So they're just on their own and there's grifters and chances and people just trying to survive. And not least in Naples, which is, you know, the most pop densely populated city in the whole of Europe at this time anyway, on their camp on the edge of edge of Naples, they come across Drago, who's an Italian straggler and he has latched onto the company around this time, unnoticed by the brass but but tolerated by the men. Although Murphy kind of takes an instinctive dislike and distrust to him, but he becomes popular Once they get the naval pass is announced because he knows the city well and promises the men girls. And Murphy has this dream of being with a girl. He creates this image in his head and she's an innocent. She's called Maria. And she's young and beautiful and cares and looks after him and it's not really sexual. It sort of is, but it sort of isn't. It's more his dream, dream girl. Don't Forget he's only 18. He doesn't turn 19 until June 1944. So he's still very, very young. He hopes that Drago can find him his idealized Maria in Naples. And plans are made and they have a day to kill in the city first. So he and some of his old squad mates, they find a cafe in the center. It's a terrible story this really him

Al Murray (29:38)

and his squad friends are having. They're in a cafe and two, after a while two women wearing very thick makeup walk up and head to the boys table and introductions and introductions of aid. And one of the, one of the guys seems to know the women and one woman starts moving towards Murphy, running her hand through his hair and she says he is a babe. He is too young for soldier. He says, get away before I break your neck. So basically this isn't the idealized Italian woman Maria that he had in mind at all. He leaves later on to meet Drago as planned. And it's starting to get dark. I mean the thing is, is that the city, the city is full of displaced people, beggars, urchins, people trying to, trying to cut a living essentially in this absolutely desperate situation. And a skunizo, is it skunizo? Do I put, is the G Skunitzo?

James Holland (30:32)

Yeah. These are these little young street urchins. Yeah.

Al Murray (30:35)

Starts bothering him and the kid says,

James Holland (30:38)

hey Joe, you want to find eggs? You want to scramble eggs? You want a biff steak? You want a nice girl?

Al Murray (30:45)

No. Murphy replies, fine, tight girl.

James Holland (30:48)

16.

Al Murray (30:49)

Murphy turns to walk away, but the boys, the boy's still following him.

James Holland (30:52)

Hey Joe, you got a cigarette?

Al Murray (30:54)

Come here you.

James Holland (30:56)

Give me one cigarette.

Al Murray (30:58)

No chocolate, you're too young to smoke. And he gives the guy it, gives the boy one of these K ration chocolate bars, a bitter chocolate. And the little boy leaves him be. And then he, I mean it's awful this. He meets up with Drago, takes him to a house and this is a family home shared by a middle aged couple with her 18 year old daughter. And introductions are made. Murphy gives them some tinned food he can't speak Italian. So he's standing there all like, awkwardly. When Drago leaves, he considers going with him, but he stays. And the girl is actually called Maria. Pretty good. Pretty high probability of that being the case, right? In maple syn 1943. There we are. Yeah, but it's not the. She's not like the. The myriad he had in his imagination. And her hair is. Some in braids. She's wearing an old dress, barely to her knees. She's been marked by war, by the exhaustion, the drain of war. And he describes that already. Shadows dance in the hollows of her cheeks and her eyes, if they. The tiredness of age. So eggy. They sit around the kitchen table for a while. He can't understand anyone, anything anyone's saying because, you know, he doesn't speak Italian. The girl stays silent. I rather like this detail. When he looks confused, the mother just repeats her Italian louder, which is what, of course, what English people do when they're abroad. Right?

James Holland (32:25)

So. So God bless, of course.

Al Murray (32:28)

Maybe it'll work this time. And. And it's all a bit ridiculous. And he starts laughing. The ice has been broken a bit, But.

James Holland (32:37)

But the awful thing about this, Al, is this. Okay, so. So Drago is a. Is. Is. Is being a pimp. Okay?

Al Murray (32:45)

Yeah.

James Holland (32:46)

Everyone knows what the deal is here. Here's an American, he wants his oats. He's gonna hand over some. Some tins. Then he'll take Maria to a bedroom and the parents will try not to listen or imagine what is going on. But this is about survival. So the parents are effectively prostituting her. And the implication very heavily, is that she's already been prostituted a number of times.

Al Murray (33:07)

Well, and they think that. They think this is their best, worst option, don't they? Essentially, as they're making their small talk, he's got his Italian dictionary. So Murphy talks to the dad. They had a son, but he was killed in North Africa. The war is bad. Mussolini is treacherous. You can almost see him saying, you know, Mussolini kaput, can't you? The Germans are arrogant. Tedeschi are arrogant and vicious and all this. And Maria says, well, why don't we play a board game? It's a suggestion. And he realized he's played the same game at home with his siblings in Texas.

James Holland (33:41)

Yeah, I mean, what is it? It's Ludo or something, isn't it? You know?

Al Murray (33:44)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James Holland (33:46)

Snakes and something, whatever, you know.

Al Murray (33:48)

And then basically he's sort of saved by the bell, isn't he? Because an air raid siren, you know, because this Is a situation that Murphy doesn't want, but is he gonna go through? What's he gonna do? You know, like. Because he's handed over the food, they. They probably think the deal's done, you know, you. You know what I mean? And an air raid cellar and sounds. The parents, you know, immediately they grab everything. They gather their coats and blankets and say to audiomar, if you come with us, come with us. And he refuses. He says, I have only one night in town and I have no intention of spending it in the cold, damp depths of a bomb shelter. And Maria beckons for him to come, grabs his arm, and then she tugs at him. And then she seems to change her mind. She sits down with Murphy. Her parents are going, come with us, for God's sake. And. And she basically pushes them out the door, returns the kitchen and sits down opposite him.

James Holland (34:40)

Yeah, this is the amazing bit, because at this point, he discovers that she does actually speak some English. And they. They talk a bit about how her brother was killed by the British. And that's why she didn't speak English at the table before, because it reminds her father of the people who killed his son.

Al Murray (34:57)

And he says, I am sorry. Yeah, I am sorry. And she says, no, sorry.

James Holland (35:04)

It is the war. You died too. Maybe. One cannot be sorry for all who die.

Al Murray (35:09)

Why not?

James Holland (35:10)

It is too much.

Al Murray (35:11)

I know. And this moment draws them together. Rising to my feet, I put my arms around her. The body trembles. I kiss her full on the mouth. The trembling stops. So he stays the night, having found the sort of preamble, all like, too much to. To have to deal with and too awful to think about. The air raid. The air raid brings them together. And she wakes up, says, you gotta go quickly. The parent. My parents will be back soon, he says. He promises to write as he leaves. Maria knows well the way of war. Not only is she not gonna mourn all those who die and expects that he might die too.

James Holland (35:51)

Maybe she just said. She says, no. A soldier never writes, never come back. It is not for the first time. It's a really, really upsetting passage, this, in the book, actually. It's sort of. It's so tragic from every level because, you know, it's tragic for Audie Murphy, this sort of, you know, his own shortcomings and inadequacies and. And. And youth, you know, his. He's incredibly worldly on one level. On another, not at all.

Al Murray (36:22)

And.

James Holland (36:22)

And the awful pathos of this young girl who's in the prime of her life, who's having to Sacrifice and make, you know, so much and compromise herself so much.

Al Murray (36:35)

The walls of emotional protection she's putting around herself, you know, you might die, too. You can't be sorry for everyone who dies. Her brother's been killed, right? And she's saying that, you know, soldier. A soldier never writes. He never comes back. It's not the first time, no matter how you might feel, mate, I've. I've figured. I've. I've figured out my own ways to deal with this, and it's all very, very tough. And. And there is a. There is. Let's be honest. Murphy's talking about this, but he still slept with her, right? Hasn't he? So one way or another, he has engaged with prostitution in the city. He still traded his tins of food for a girl, one way or another. And at the core of it, the Allied effort and the sort of collapse of civil society in Naples is an opening of the window into what war is, what war brings when we get away from the front line and the sort of tales of. Of daring and courage and horror. There's this own. This own culture of horror and brutalization that sprung up behind the lines. Naples is a. Is an appalling business, isn't it, throughout the war? Absolutely.

James Holland (37:43)

Yeah. Really is. Really is.

Al Murray (37:44)

Anyway, it's not a stalemate as such, but. But there's a feeling that it needs to be hurried along. In Italy, Winston Churchill, who's bedridden in Tripoli, he's got pneumonia. He's had a close shave, actually, with pneumonia. He decides that what's needed is a way to get around the Gustav Line, and his brainchild gym, is Operation Shingle. In our Casino series, we've covered this in depth, so get yourself over to our Monte Casino series if you want to hear every last nudge and nurdle of that campaign. But. But basically. Jim, summarize Shingle. And, yeah, here's your elevator pitch for Shingle. Go. Yep.

James Holland (38:22)

Yep. So. So, you know, we were saying there's very limited landing craft for such an operation, but they managed to assemble enough to do a limited one, which is to land a core of. Which is going to be the US Six Corps, a handful of. Of two divisions initially, then. Then a third, and some Rangers and commandos thrown in for good. Good measure. And this is 30 miles southeast of Rome. And then they're going to advance inland towards the Auburn Hills, which are overlooking the. The key rows of Highway 6 and Highway 7. And then Highway 6 is a via Casalina, the one that goes past. Past Cassino and These hills are just to the south of Rome. And the idea is that you capture these roads, capture these passes, and you've cut off customing supply lines. And then hopefully the, the route to Rome is then, is unopened. But crucially, you've then outflanked the Gustav Line. That's the idea.

Al Murray (39:14)

Yeah.

James Holland (39:15)

And the problem is that once they plan, the troops are then going to be on their own if the, if the Gustav Line remained unbroken by the troops in the area. So a whole series of operations are planned on the Gustav Line. One, two, three. And the British down in the. By the sea and another little minor British one, then the Texans, they're all going to hammer in turn at the same time. Then, you know, this is all going to happen. First, draw off troops to the Gustav Line, try and break through there, but certainly draw off the German troops. Then the operation, the Anzio operation, Operation Shingle will come in around the back door. That, that's the idea. But, but they don't quite have enough landing craft. They don't have quite enough resources to kind of, you know, absolutely guarantee, guarantee it's surefire success. On the other hand, as long as it doesn't get flung back into the sea, there is an advantage to having this, this bridgehead behind the, behind the front line of the Gustav Line and, and south of Rome as well. You know, you can use that later on at another time. But anyway, be that as it may, there's uncertainty for, for the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division about what, what part it's going to be playing. They don't know about Operation Shingle at this point. And they're also hearing whisperings about heading to England for the invasion of Normandy and creating new Italian beachheads or possibly invading southern France. You know, the rumor mill is on fire. And by this point, January 1944, Audie Murphy has been promoted to sergeant after returning from Naples. But he gets ill with malaria again and once again is hospitalized. So he then misses the initial landings at Anzio, which, which happened the very next day, the 22nd of January. And when he rejoins the platoon a week later, he's told that both Sieja, who's the pole, and Fife, the Native American who was on the. The Browning automatic rifle that kills that German patrol or wounds those three in the German patrol. So they have both been killed. And Kelly tells him they were heating up coffee on the stove when they were hit by a shell and blown to pieces and the stove was still burning when the medics arrived, but not

Al Murray (41:16)

that he has time to dwell on the loss of these guys, he's thrown straight into a mission to secure the town of Cisterna, which is inland from Anzio. This is because the beachhead needs expanding. The combined effort is to push enemy artillery out of range of the town. So basically to create some space for the beachhead to make it safer and to get some way towards this business of cutting Highway 6 and 7 and reverse ferreting the Germans at Cassino. So Company B are ordered to clear a section of Highway 7 running between Terracina and Cisterna. And on Sunday the 30th of January, off they go. The men from Company B start to advance along the flanks of a dirt track. And Murphy's gripped by fear, which is interesting, you know, and admits, admits it here in his account. In the heat of battle, it might go away. Sometimes it vanishes you in a blind red rage that comes when you see a friend fall. Then again, he gets so tired that you become indifferent. But when you're moving into combat, why try fooling yourself? His feeling is someone's gonna die today. Someone's gonna be killed. Will it be me?

James Holland (42:33)

Well, it's odds, isn't it? It's just the law of averages. I mean, it's gotta be, you know, will it be him?

Al Murray (42:41)

He knows well enough by now. And you know, the fife and sage's death tell you this. It's random. There is no pattern. There's no order. If you can be killed cooking coffee on a stove and literally anything can happen. And when you're going into a situation, you know that nowadays will be called kinetic. Literally anything can happen to anyone at any moment. The guy who fired that shell didn't have casual and fife in his sights. He was firing a shell as ordered. You know that that mortar or that artillery piece that killed those guys, it's not someone. It's not someone eyeballing you down through an iron sight or, or whatever. So the German lines are a mile away. So that's a. That's quite a long walk into these circumstances, isn't it? American guns are firing into the German where they think the Germans are, but they're coming in tentatively. Then, you know, and you lean into a barrage like that, don't you? That's the big idea. If you're the infantry, you get in as close to it as you can while the enemy heads are down, which is easier said than done. Yep. And the artillery tails off. Germans are close ahead. Murphy knows this is this moment just before you make contact, before the enemy opens up that's the very worst moment.

James Holland (43:51)

That's when you're the tensest. That's when you're the most scared. That's when you're the most on edge. You're just waiting for the Sh1t to hit the fan on you.

Al Murray (44:02)

And that's dry mouth, loose bowels, whatever might come with that kind of fear. Which I'm going to say right now I'm entirely delighted that I've never had to experience anything vaguely resembling any of this. Just want to put that out there if people, people listening to this podcast want to know how I feel about that. Thank, thank God I've never had to do this. And, and, and now, luckily, I'm too old. So there we are.

James Holland (44:28)

You're through the other side.

Al Murray (44:29)

How the other side of it, Jim. As are you. We're both. We've, we've, we've, we've, we've made it to the sunlit uplands of being too old.

James Holland (44:37)

We have found the sunlit up anyway. The scouts at the front of the pack wave the men forward and then, and then from hidden positions. Suddenly the Germans open fire, as Murphy knows they're going to. And one of the scouts is hit and his entire upper body is spraying in a shower of red, you know. And Murphy watches this. An automatic fire splatters out from a dozen different places. Bullets are flying all over the place. They're hissing, they're zipping, they're snapping. And Murphy just watches the destruction unfold.

Al Murray (45:07)

The bodies writhe like stricken worms. The gun fires again. The body's relaxing, are still.

James Holland (45:12)

And at this point the platoon's tanks haven't yet arrived to the exasperation of everything. Because, you know, these attacks are all supposed to be coordinated. You have the barrage first you crawl behind it, then it lifts. You haven't got very much distance, but that's okay. Even if you have got distance, you've got tanks to support you and give you fastball rest of it. None of these things ever work on time because, you know, because they don't and because it's too difficult to coordinate and there's too many unforeseen things which come in the way to upset that timetable inevitably. But that doesn't stop the men from griping and, and Murphy slides into a ditch to take cover with a chap called Mason who's one of his men. And as he's trying to shoot a German sniping at them, the shriek of a shell fills the air and lands close to them. And Murphy's thrown up from the impact and then lands down again in the same ditch.

Al Murray (45:57)

Yeah, my brain whirls, my ears ring with the noise of a hundred bells. Greasy black smoke drifts over the earth and the stench of burnt powder fills my nostrils.

James Holland (46:06)

So he yells out to Mason, but there's no answer. And then he finds him and he's just staring back at him, you know, with dead eyes completely lifeless, blood seeping from his nose and his neck broken. And he removes Mason's helmet, closes his eyes and strains his head. And he's overcome by this image of having. Of him having to tell Mason's mother about his death. Then he taps his head with his fist because he again, you know, it's a bit like that image he had of Steiner's young 9 year old daughter when Steiner's riddled by the machine, you know, hit in the neck. Do you remember just after they landed at Salerno, he thinks of know, don't focus on this now. The tanks then arrive and Murphy crawls over to machine gun any German he sees. And some try to flee, but their panic makes them vulnerable and easy targets. And Murphy and his men shoot them all. You can see each one sort of, you know, crumple and fold into the ground. And as well as taking incredible casualties in this attack, Company B hardly gain any ground at all. And neither do any of the other companies. And this of course is the day that the raging battalions suffer their catastrophic losses in the battle. As a stern up, you know, it's an absolute disaster. And this is because Lucas, who's commanding 6 Corps in Anzio, has been too slow to do his major attack this first assault, by which time the Germans are too well dug in. You know, he's missed his chance. And the truth is it's just very hard to attack the Germans on flat ground when they're so well dug in. Just as it's very hard to attack Germans on mountainous ground you know, when they're dug in.

Al Murray (47:44)

Attacking is difficult.

James Holland (47:45)

And of those two Ranger battalions that get wiped out at Cisterna, I mean it really is a wipeout because 122 are killed, 639 are taken prisoner. Which means only 6 out of 767 ever make it back again. I mean it is terrible. And the battle for Cisterna continues over the next two days, but they don't make any ground whatsoever. And Murphy's pretty bitter about it, isn't he?

Al Murray (48:08)

Yeah, he says if the suffering of men could do the job, the German lines would, would be split open. Replacements cannot keep up with the pace of slaughter. Some of the companies have been reduced to 20 men. Not a yard of ground has been gained by the murderous. Three days of assault. A doom like quality hangs over the beachhead. So here we are. You know, he's world weary. He's becoming disillusioned. He's got the responsibility of being a sergeant of his platoon. And he's still only 18 years old,

James Holland (48:34)

but he's now a company sergeant. Now he's no, you know, because he's been promoted. He's no longer a corporal commanding a squad. He's now the company company sergeant. You know, this is a huge amount of responsibility and you know, war is hell, right? And that's what he's realizing.

Al Murray (48:49)

The burden is his to carry. You know, unlike Mason, who. Who is. No. Who's no longer carrying that burden. It's Audie Murphy's job to carry on carrying it. We hope you've enjoyed this episode. If you want to listen to this without the. The commercials, the adverts, then get yourself over to our Patreon. Become a member of the we have ways of making you talk Patreon where you can listen ad free ticket office for our festival. We have ways Fest Mark six in September of this year. Fantastic weekend of this kind of chat. Or join the Apple Channel and become officer class for a similar ad free experience. We will see you very soon as Audie Murphy's war continues. Thanks very much for listening and cheerio.

James Holland (49:28)

Cheerio.

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