ONE SOLDIER’S STORY

 The Wartime Experience of John Gay Bascom

World War II Italian Campaign

as told by his son, John Gay Bascom II

Part 2

The Military Situation 

In 1941 just before the start America’s participation in the war, our peacetime military was small.  When we officially declared war in December, the nation mobilized to build a formidable force, but it would take time.  The goals were to defeat our enemies by destroying Japan militarily in the Pacific, and by driving Hitler out of Western Europe and back into Germany, where he would be forced to surrender or face complete destruction.

The Pacific campaign started with pushing Japanese forces from various small islands primarily to obtain U.S. bases closer to the home island of Japan.  This would position us to launch massive bombing and naval raids preparatory to an ultimate land invasion of their main homeland.  In Europe, the goal was to mount a credible invasion force to take back France—the famous D-Day landing that would not take place until June 6, 1944.  This final goal would take a considerable amount of time, men, material, equipment and training before success could be assured.  In the meantime, there were a few smaller fish to be fried.

The Germans and their allies, Spain and Italy, controlled the Mediterranean at the outset of our involvement, including North Africa and the Suez Canal.  This served to cut off allied shipping and supplies through that area while protecting Germany proper from invasion from the south.  As a first order of business following America’s involvement, we along with British and Canadian forces, set out to drive the Germans from Africa, reopen the canal, then attack north, taking Sicily and eventually all of Italy.  Thence, it was thought, an attack on German forces from the Mediterranean through Austria and southern France could be launched, augmenting our planned invasion (D-Day) in northwestern France and catching the Germans from two sides in a sort of vice.

These Mediterranean theater operations were launched in 1942 and 1943, and were largely successful.  After epic fighting in North Africa (the Dessert Rats) and our successful invasion of Sicily, the Germans consolidated remaining Mediterranean forces on the Italian mainland. 

In September, 1943, a month after my birth, the U.S. and its allies invaded the Italian mainland at Salerno, on the western coast of Italy well south of Rome.  British forces under Field Marshall Montgomery drove up the east side of the boot which is Italy, while American and other allied forces under General Clark drove up the west coast.  Italian forces had surrendered by that time and only the Germans remained to oppose us.  But the resistance was far more difficult than the allies had expected.  Mountainous terrain and wet, cold weather made assaults bloody, difficult and often unsuccessful.  Rome was not taken until nine costly months later, in June 1944.  Still, the Germans continued to follow a strategy of falling back to new defensive and highly fortified lines running west-east from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, across the entire upper boot of Italy.  Following the fall of Rome, the next line of German defense was the Arno River from Pisa through Florence, their line of defense then continuing east all the way to the Adriatic coast.  After the Arno Line fell to allied troops in early September 1944, the Germans—as planned—retreated north to the infamous Gothic Line running through the northern Apennine Mountains south of Bologna.  These lines of defense were carefully prepared and heavily fortified, making good use of mountaintops, ridgelines, and overlooks of approaches.  The Germans realized they could not defeat the allies, but their strategy was to tie up our forces in a protracted and costly conflict that would both protect the southern border of the homeland and freeze our forces that could otherwise have been used for the main D-Day invasion through Normandy in northwestern France, which everyone knew was coming.  

“You’re in the Army Now” 

When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941—two days after my sister’s birth—our family lived in an apartment in Milwaukee where Dad had found a good job.  He told me years later his stomach went into a knot as he first heard the news of war and contemplated its implications: not only would our country be embroiled in a costly, lengthy war, but he was sure to be drafted and have to leave his new family behind.

He was not called to duty immediately.  Due to his age (almost 32) and with a wife and children, his priority level in the national draft system was not high.  Younger men and those without dependent families were called first.  But by mid-1943, shortly before my birth, he knew his draft number was coming up soon.  Not wanting to strand his wife and children without close friends and family in Milwaukee where they had lived only a relatively short time, my mother and my siblings Walter and Judy moved back with our grandparents, Nanny and Carl, in St. Louis.  With no work available for him in St. Louis, my father would remain in Milwaukee until he was drafted, while my mother and the children would ride out the war with family and an extended support system of close, long established friends in hometown St. Louis.

I was born in August, 1943 while my dad was still in Milwaukee.  When I was but six months old, in late January, 1944, Dad—still in Milwaukee--was inducted into the Army and reported for basic training at Camp Blanding in Florida.

Basic training lasted about three months.  He was assigned, despite his age of 34 at the time, for infantry training, one of the oldest in his class by far.  Most recruits were in their teens or twenties.  My father told me he was always called “Pops” by his fellow soldiers in deference to his “advanced age”.  He qualified with an M-1 rifle, the standard weapon of the infantry, and was accordingly designated with the job title of rifleman, a basic “dogface.”  Later, in combat in Italy, he would at some point be assigned to a two-man BAR or light machine gun team.  Records reveal he injured his back at some point during his stateside training, and family lore established he contracted trench foot while on maneuvers in the Florida swamps.  He continued his training, however, and finished with his class.

The D-Day invasion of Normandy in northern France occurred just as he was completing final infantry qualification in Florida.  There had been a massive buildup of men, equipment and supplies for that effort.  However, on the boot of Italy vicious fighting had been going on for nine months, and troops and equipment were dangerously depleted.  Tens of thousands of Americans had already been killed, maimed, captured or gone forever missing there.  Success was in doubt.  Dad was assigned as a replacement for decimated forces.  He traveled to Fort Mead, Maryland in mid-June 1944, then to Virginia the following month to board a troop transport ship to Italy.  In August, 1944, after several weeks fighting seasickness and the threat of German subs, he arrived near Rome.  Then it was north to Castel Fiorentino, Tuscany and Company L where the grind was to begin in earnest.

On Nomenclature and Assorted Details 

This narrative on my father’s service is a combination of copying and paraphrasing from military history documents, information taken directly from his service records, and my original prose.  Since it is intended primarily for family as opposed to broad general distribution, I have sometimes dispensed with detailed citations, other than a few general attributions, a few specifically quoted passages and the bibliography.  Older sources proved technically difficult to change after copy-and-paste, and some stilted phraseology was simply left in place as a nod to expediency.  My apologies for my laziness, but it is what it is.  Also, I have chosen to write from the first-person, speaker point of view rather than the more acceptable third-person to make it personal.

A word or two on military terms.  There are numerous references to units and subunits.  By way of context, an “army” is a massive invasion force built of corps (pronounced cores), divisions, regiments, battalions, companies, platoons and squads, in order of size from the largest (army) to the smallest (squad).  Essentially, there were two “armies” fighting the Germans in Italy; the British-led Eighth Army, and the American Fifth Army.  A force consisting of more than one army, such as was the case in Italy, is referred to as an “Army Group” in military parlance.

An army may number several hundred thousand men and is commanded by a high ranking, say three-star general.  They may be augmented or reinforced by specialty organizations such as air wings, hospitals, intelligence units, allied foreign contingents and the like.  In World War II Italy, the US 5^th Army and associated forces were under the command of American General Mark Clark tasked with attacking up the western coast of Italy (extending well inland to the peninsula’s center).  Comparably, the British 8^th Army and related contingents were under the command Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery for much of the time, going up the east coast.  Naturally the operations of each were closely coordinated.

Several “corps” and supporting elements constituted each army.  They in turn were each composed of three or more “divisions” of 10,000 – 15,000 men each.  Divisions were normally the smallest units commanded by generals.

My father was in the 5^th Army, II Corps, 34^th or Red Bull Division, 135^th Regiment, 3^rd Battalion, Company L.  No smaller breakdown was available in researching this piece. Divisions were in turn composed of regiments, and then battalions (1,000 strong give or take).  Battalions contained three or more “companies” of several hundred men each, and these were in turn broken into platoons and finally squads of 9 to 11 men.

All references here to L Company, 3^rd Battalion or 135^th Regiment are those to which my father belonged and their combat actions would represent those in which he directly participated.  Of note, in a “company” such as my father’s L Company, there would be two hundred men give or take, and he would likely have personally known each of them such as do members of a small high school graduation class.  Fellow members of his platoon or squad would have been intimately known to each other, eating, sleeping and fighting shoulder-to-shoulder on a daily basis.

Finally, I know most who read this will have done so because my father meant something to them, and not because they are interested in military history.  Unfortunately, the day to day details of his personal experiences are sadly lacking, and I’ve had to rely on military records that focus largely on dates, places, groups and impersonal events, rather than on individual people.  Was he bold, timid, terrified, depressed?  Were his actions central to the outcomes, or confined to the background of events?  We will never know.  How wonderful it would have been had Dad kept a journal, had I talked to him more about these things, or had my mother perhaps saved his letters.  Unfortunately, none of these things occurred.  All that is left of his experiences are a very few family recollections, spotty records (his were extensively damaged in a fire at the military records center in St. Louis some decades ago), and soulless official military reports.  Therefore, to tell any part of his story with accuracy, I’ve had to recount impersonal historical minutia.  What is left for readers who knew my father is something of a puzzle or mystery which must be processed in the imagination to understand what he experienced.  To my children, grandchildren, and to those who will come later, I give this advice: ask the old people their stories, and remember them.  Then write them down for future generations. 

Therefore, for those readers to whom these details seem tedious or repetitive, I sympathize.  It was the only way forward.

And so it begins.

______________________________

Next installment in One Soldier's Story, First Contact with the Gothic Line