World War II Chronicle: July 22, 1943
Click here for TODAY’S NEWSPAPER
The front page reports that newspapers in neutral Switzerland are considering the Allied bombing of Rome as an unfortunate necessity. The Axis could have declared Rome an open city and spared itself from any destruction, but it did not. Pope Pius XII asks for peace (on page four), but the message of peace only resonates with people who want peace. Tyrants like Hitler and Mussolini can only see such calls as weakness from a man that could influence millions of Catholics currently fighting Germany and Italy… Meanwhile in Sicily, Lt. Gen. George S. Patton says his Seventh Army is “outblitzing” the Germans…
Page seven explains how the iconic Jeep got it’s name… An incredible story of a man who survived 131 days in a raft after his ship was sunk by the Germans (page eight)… On page ten is a story about a former American crop duster named John H. “Tex” Bryan, who became an ace with the Royal Air Force and has earned a briefcase load of medals. I have yet to come across records for a John H. “Tex” Bryan, or Byran for that matter as his name is spelled both ways. But names often are misspelled in the newspaper, such as Gen. Claire Chennault’s son David who has been reported as Davis in today’s and yesterday’s paper. It’s also possible that this former barnstormer is making it up, but who knows…
George Fielding Eliot draws parallels between Germany’s strategic situation in 1943 and in 1918 on page 12. Before becoming a military analyst Eliot fought in the World War as an Australian infantry officer, seeing action in the Dardanelles, Passchendaele, and the Somme among his other battles. He was gassed once and wounded in hand-to-hand combat twice… The Brooklyn native served in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police after the war and then returned to the United States as an intelligence officer, attaining the rank of major…
Sports on page 18… Pictured on page 27 is a young Frank Sinatra. “Sinatramania” is sweeping the nation, and the paper says he is the “current singing ‘rage’ of America’s younger generation…”
Roving Reporter by Ernie Pyle
SOUTHERN SICILY — The American assault upon the southern coast of Sicily was divided into sections, each operating independently under sub-commanders and with the troops brought here in separate fleets, each commanded by an admiral.
I traveled with the section that was assigned to the western third of the American’s designated territory. We had to take about 14 miles of beach front. This force itself was sub-divided down into sections each with an equal amount of beach to take.
The assault troops found nobody at all. The thing apparently was a complete surprise. Our troops had been trained up to such a point that instead of being pleased with no opposition they were thoroughly disgusted. At two beaches the opposition was trivial and soon over. On a fourth beach it was stronger and the beach wasn’t occupied until after daylight but even so it was minor league defense in every sense of the word. Our sector covered the territory on each side of the city of Licata.
When I went ashore I landed about two miles east of the city, waded ashore, and hitchhiked a ride into town with a bunch of engineers in a jeep. Licata is a city of about 35,000 with a small river running through it. It has a big wide main street and a very nice little harbor.
The buildings are of local stone, dull gray and very old but very substantial. The city is so colorless it blends into the surrounding dry countryside and you can’t see it a few miles away. A hill rises up right behind the city and there is a sort of fort on the top.
When daylight came we looked at the city from the boat deck and could see the American flag flying from the top of this fort although the city itself had not surrendered. Some Rangers had climbed up there before daylight and hoisted our flag. The city hadn’t been bombed. The only damage came from a few shells we threw into it from the ships just after daylight. The corners were knocked off a few buildings and some good-sized holes gouged in the streets but the city got off pretty nicely.
Apparently most of the people got out the night before although we did see two or three hundred on the streets during the day. All the stores with their Latin type shutters were pulled down tightly. Although we hadn’t bombed right around here the people were certainly bomb-jittery.
During an air raid by the Germans I saw two soldiers herding about 100 civilians down the road to a prison camp and when the shooting started at the German planes overhead the people all took to an adjacent field and lay there cowering beside the little rows of grain that gave no protection at all.
They looked terrified and would not move when the soldiers ordered them up and finally one soldier had to fire into the ground beside them to make them move.
Their defenses throughout our special sector were almost childish. They didn’t bother to mess up their harbor nor to blow out the two river bridges which would have cut our forces in half. They had only a few mines on the beaches and practically no barbed wire. We’d come prepared to fight our way through a solid wall of mines, machine guns, artillery, barbed wire and liquid fire and we even expected to hit some new fiendish devices. Yet there was almost nothing to it. It was like stepping into the ring to meet Joe Louis and finding Casper Milquetoast waiting there.
The Italians didn’t even leave many booby traps for us. I almost stepped into one walking through a field but it obviously had been dropped rather than planted. Down at the docks we found whole boxes full of them that hadn’t even been opened.
The road blocks outside town were laughable. They consisted merely of light wooden frameworks about the size of a kitchen table around which barbed wire had been wrapped. These sections were laid across the road and all we had to do was pick them up and lay them aside. They wouldn’t have stopped a cow, let alone a tank.
The civilians in town told us they were sick of being starved by the Germans and didn’t want to fight us. It was obvious that they didn’t but in these early days we have little contact with other American forces so it’s possible maybe that the Italians laid down here in order to fight harder somewhere else.
Evening star. (Washington, D.C.), 22 July 1943. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1943-07-22/ed-1/