HISTORICAL NOTES: If I Had It to Do Over

Tall, flat-flanked General Mark Clark was the only U.S. general officer in World War II to lose his pants in enemy territory. He lost them trying to launch a small boat in the surf off the Algerian coast during his daring trip by submarine from England to meet French underground agents before the North African invasion. At other times, he served as deputy to General Dwight Eisenhower, helped make the Allied deal with French Admiral Jean Darlan, later commanded the Fifth Army in its long, bitter fight up the Italian peninsula. This week, as it must to all generals (it seems), publication day came to Four-Star General Mark Clark, now Chief of the Army Field Forces. In readable, relaxed prose, Clark’s Calculated Risk (Harper; $5) candidly describes the clashes between commanders and Allies, assigns praise & blame with soldierly bluntness.

¶ “Military expediency dictated that we do business with Darlan to minimize bloodshed and get on with the war . . . He did the job. If I had it to do over again, I would choose again to deal with the man who could do the job—whether it turned out to be Darlan or the Devil himself.”

¶ “We had been unquestionably timid (although far less than Washington) in the scope of our original invasion of Africa. Had we struck out boldly, and landed forces far to the east, even in Tunisia … we would almost certainly have been successful.”

¶ “We had a terrific time trying to keep up with [Churchill’s] demands for information.” British headquarters required that “all dispatches sent personally to the Prime Minister should spell ‘theater’ as ‘theatre’ and should not spell ‘through’ as ‘thru.’ ‘

¶ The bombing of Monte Cassino Abbey was a “tragic mistake … I said then that there was no evidence the Germans were using the Abbey for military purposes. I say now that there is irrefutable evidence that no German soldier, except emissaries, was ever inside the Monastery … It only made our job more difficult.” The bombing, says Clark, was ordered only on the insistence of Lieut. General Bernard Freyberg, commander of the New Zealand Corps, that it was a military necessity. After the bombing of the Abbey and the surrounding slopes, Clark says, Freyberg’s forces failed to attack quickly enough to exploit the Nazis’ temporary confusion.

¶ At Anzio, “we counted [on] the belief of the Air Force that it could ‘isolate’ the beachhead area … I might as well say right here that this didn’t work . . . Throughout the Italian campaign, I saw this isolation theory tried out again and again, and repeatedly the enemy moved his forces by railroad and by highway, with some difficulty to be sure, but with a great deal of effectiveness.”

¶ Clark defends his order of the bloody and abortive attack by the 36th Division across the Rapido below Cassino. It was necessary to draw German defenders away from the projected Anzio landing. The casualties were not 2,900, as the indignant 36th claimed, but 1,681. “If I am to be accused of something, thank God I am accused of attacking instead of retreating.”