DURING THE FINAL WEEKS OF THE TUNISIAN campaign, particularly after the outcome could be definitely foreseen, major staffs were busy planning our next campaign. As directed by the Casablanca Conference, this was to be the capture of Sicily.1 At the time of the conference, alternative missions for the Mediterranean forces were discussed by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. One of these was to assault Sicily with the least practicable delay; the other was to capture Sardinia and Corsica.
My own opinion, given to the conference in January, was that Sicily was the proper objective if our primary purpose remained the clearing of the Mediterranean for use by Allied shipping. Sicily abuts both Africa and Italy so closely that it practically severs the Mediterranean, and its capture would greatly reduce the hazards of using that sea route. On the other hand, if the real purpose of the Allies was to invade Italy for major operations to defeat that country completely, then I thought our proper initial objectives were Sardinia and Corsica. Estimates of hostile strength indicated that these two islands could be taken by smaller forces than would be needed in the case of Sicily, and therefore the operation could be mounted at an earlier date. Moreover, since Sardinia and Corsica lie on the flank of the long Italian boot, the seizure of those islands would force a very much greater dispersion of enemy strength in Italy than would the mere occupation of Sicily, which lies just off the mountainous toe of the peninsula.
This discussion served to focus attention once more upon the desirability of fixing, once and for all, ultimate objectives within the Mediterranean. It was completely normal that some differences in conviction should obtain—we were not yet far enough along in the process of defeating the Axis to produce crystal-clear and unanimous conclusions as to the specific actions that would obviously produce victory. General Marshall and I shared the belief that everything done in the Mediterranean should continue to be subsidiary to and in support of the main purpose of attacking across the Channel in early 1944. In this we were supported by some, but others held that, in war, opportunity should be exploited as it arises, and that if things went well in the “soft underbelly” we should not pause merely because we had made up our minds to conduct the cross-Channel operation. The doctrine of opportunism, so often applicable in tactics, is a dangerous one to pursue in strategy. Significant changes in the field of strategy have repercussions all the way back to the factory and the training center. They must be carefully scrutinized. Moreover, in the specific case, all the original reasons for adopting the cross-Channel operation as our basic strategic aim were still valid. However, even while adhering faithfully to this purpose there still remained important questions, then and later, as to the best methods of using the forces in the south for supporting the great projected attack of 1944.
At Casablanca the Sicily operation was decided upon for two reasons, the first of which was its great immediate advantage in opening up the Mediterranean sea routes. The second was that because of the relatively small size of the island its occupation after capture would not absorb unforeseen amounts of Allied strength in the event that the enemy should undertake any large-scale counteraction. This reason weighed heavily with General Marshall—moreover, this decision, in January 1943, avoided a commitment to indefinite strategic offensives in the area. Successful attack would advance our bomber bases still farther, but we would not necessarily be drawn into a campaign that would continuously devour valuable resources. The Combined Chiefs of Staff ordered that Alexander, in addition to serving as my deputy, should also be the ground commander of the Sicilian operation.2
The importance of Mediterranean bases for furthering our bombing campaign against central Germany was always a factor in the development of plans. During the spring of 1943 a project was developed in Washington for a special bombing effort from an African base against the Ploesti oil fields, the most important single source of natural oil available to the Axis.3 It was worked out on an academic basis and a special staff group came from Washington to explain the plan to us.4 Because of heavy defenses, the distance to the target—the fields were in Rumania—the nature of the terrain, and the alleged efficacy of “horizontal” bombing, the plan called for a single surprise attack, conducted at treetop height and with every crew briefed to attack a particular facility in the great installation. The originators of the plan had worked out mathematical probabilities in great detail and then provided strength on the basis of double the bombers deemed necessary. They calculated that the attack could achieve near perfection in its destructive results.
One feature to which we objected was the confidence placed in the efficacy of a single attack. Too often we had found that factories listed by our experts as destroyed were again working at full output within a matter of weeks or even days. We raised another question as to the advisability of the undertaking. The target selected was a great refinery, but our information led us to believe that the enemy had a surplus of refining capacity and that his true oil shortage was in production and distribution facilities. Our doubts and objections were not, however, decisive in the matter because the air units to be used were specially sent to us from the United States for the execution of this particular mission.
The attack was carried out, with great gallantry—five Medals of Honor were awarded—on August 1.5 As usual, mathematical calculations could not win over unexpected conditions, but the effort was reasonably successful. This was the second American raid against Ploesti. While I was still chief of operations in the spring of 1942 a small detachment of big planes had taken off from Near East bases on a surprise attack, but nothing was accomplished and the planes were mainly lost. Some were interned when they had to come down in Turkey. The early attempt, called the Halverson Project (HALPRO), because of the name of its commander, did something to dispel the illusion that a few big planes could win a war.6
Development of the Sicilian plan, assigned the code name Husky, began in February. The major points to be decided were the strength of the attack, its timing, and its exact location. Manifestly we could not depend entirely upon the employment of troops that were then engaged in the Tunisian battle. To do this would force us to defer decisions respecting timing until after the final battle in Africa, and since this date could not be accurately predetermined, all other planning would have been indecisive and commanders and staffs could not have proceeded with confidence.
Considering the strength of the enemy garrison, we felt that some five or six divisions should be deployed in the initial landing. An invasion on this scale required the concentration of a very considerable number of landing craft and additional fighting vessels of the Navy.
During the spring months of 1943 we kept in constant communication with the Combined Chiefs of Staff to determine the amount of the resources upon which we could count and the time at which they could be made available. The United States staff found that it could send us a splendidly trained division, the 45th, properly loaded on convoys for the assault. In addition we had the 3d, which we did not plan to use in the Tunisian battle. Moreover, our plans called for the release of the U. S. 1st Division from the Tunisian battle area as quickly as success was sure. These three divisions, reinforced by the 2d Armored Division, still in Morocco, paratroop elements of the 82d Airborne Division, and Rangers were to make up the American portion of the assaulting forces.7 On the British side it was determined to bring into the assault a Canadian division from England, while the Eighth Army was able, some time before the end of the Tunisian campaign, to detach part of its strength to prepare for the Sicilian assault.8 These forces were to attack Sicily in early July, and all preparation was based upon the keeping of that target date. Because of the location of our troops and embarkation points, the convoys would converge upon the island from the east, the west, and the south.
Selection of the assaulting areas was a complicated problem. From the standpoint of ease of approach from our scattered ports, protection of our communications, and the nature of the coast line, the southeastern portions of the island looked favorable, yet the supply staffs were convinced that a force of the size contemplated could not be maintained over available beaches. Even assuming the early capture of Syracuse on the eastern coast of the island, the technical experts flatly stated that without additional ports the operation would be defeated by lack of reinforcements, ammunition, and other supplies. The alternative was to arrange the attack so as to gain quickly more points and ports of entry, but since strength in landing craft was limited, each of these attacks would be relatively weak. Experience up to that time led us largely to discount the quality of the defense to be put up by the Italian formations; however, in the coming operation they would be defending their own territory, which could easily make a great difference.
Our Intelligence staffs were vitally concerned with the strength of the German garrison. We felt—and later experience proved that our estimate was reasonable—that if the German garrison at the time of attack should be substantially greater than two fully manned and equipped divisions, then the assault as we were planning it was too weak and we would be wise to defer the operation until we could effect a greater concentration of our own forces.9
Because of the estimated inability to supply several assault divisions and their reinforcements over the southern and eastern beaches, we studied and tentatively adopted a plan that contemplated assault by echelon, beginning in the southeast, followed by a second one in the south, and a third in the vicinity of Palermo on the north coast.10 The idea was that each would provide air cover for the following one and the result would be to give us a number of beaches and ports at the earliest possible date, thus facilitating supply.
The danger in such an operation was that failure in any particular assault would cancel out the following ones, and even if initial landings were successful, later concentration would be difficult, and we ran the risk of defeat in detail. This last possibility we did not consider serious unless before the attack could begin the German strength defending the garrison should reach the danger point, namely, substantially over two divisions. But the plan was complicated and that is always a disadvantage. At first, however, it appeared to be the only possible solution to the problem.
As time went on it was evident that the German was moving to stiffen up the garrison in Sicily, but our information led us to believe that he had not yet attained, or at least passed, what we considered to be the critical level.
No one really liked the plan for echelon attack. Its complications, dispersion, and successive rather than simultaneous assaults were cited as risks outweighing the chance of defeat through lack of port facilities. Montgomery, especially, always a believer in the power concept, desired to throw heavy forces into the southeastern portion of the island.11 The supply staffs were again required to study the problem, and now they came to a more optimistic estimate than they had some weeks previously.
This change resulted from the unforeseen availability of a considerable number of LSTs and the quantity production of the “duck,” an amphibious vehicle that proved to be one of the most valuable pieces of equipment produced by the United States during the war. Incidentally, four other pieces of equipment that most senior officers came to regard as among the most vital to our success in Africa and Europe were the bulldozer, the jeep, the 2½-ton truck, and the C-47 airplane. Curiously enough, none of these is designed for combat.
With considerable quantities of improved equipment in sight, the supply staffs agreed that their estimates could be markedly revised upward, and plans were crystallized on the basis of the British forces moving against the eastern coast and the American against the eastern part of the southern coast.12
Before leaving this point, a word upon the “might-have-been” of the alternate plan. Some professionals and others have since vigorously asserted to me that if we had correctly evaluated the low combat value of the huge Italian garrison we would have stuck to the “encircling” plan and so overrun the island in ten to fifteen days rather than in the thirty-eight eventually required. Moreover, it is alleged, we would have captured the German core of the defending forces instead of merely driving it back into Italy. It is possible that with Syracuse, Gela, and Palermo quickly in our hands we might have been able to capture Messina, the key point, before the Germans could have concentrated sufficiently to defeat any of our attacks. But not even by hindsight can it be said with certainty that the whole Italian garrison would quit—I still believe that we were wise to concentrate as much as possible, and to proceed methodically to the conquest of an island in which the defending strength was approximately 350,000.13 In any event the simple, simultaneous attack became the adopted plan.
To conduct the British portion of the attack General Alexander designated the Eighth Army under General Montgomery, while on the American side General Patton, who had been brought out of the Tunisian battle in the middle of April, was placed in command. General Alexander was to be in immediate charge of the ground assault; his headquarters was designated Fifteenth Army Group.14
While these plans were still in preparation, study indicated the desirability of first seizing the island of Pantelleria, lying roughly between Sicily and the northeastern coast of Tunisia. This island was popularly known as the “Gibraltar of the central Mediterranean” and was assumed by many to be unassailable. It possessed an airfield from which Axis planes were able to operate against us but, more than this, we badly needed the airfield ourselves in order to supply additional air support for the Sicilian attacks. Except for small numbers of P-38s, we were still using the short-range British Spitfires and American P-40s, and to bring their bases closer to their intended target would be of tremendous advantage.
Topographically Pantelleria presented almost dismaying obstacles to an assault. Its terrain was entirely unsuited to the use of airborne troops, while its coast line was so rocky that only through the mouth of the island’s one tiny harbor was it possible to land troops from assault boats. We would obviously have to use an attack of a blasting nature; that is, the volume of fire on the point of attack would have to be so great that, in spite of the lack of surprise, our assaulting troops could get ashore and make good their position.
Many of our experienced commanders and staff officers strongly advised against attempting this operation, since any failure would have a disheartening effect on the troops to be committed against the Sicilian shore. However, Admiral Cunningham, in particular, agreed with me that the place could be taken at slight cost. We based our conviction upon the assumption that most Italians had had a stomachful of fighting and were looking for any good excuse to quit. We believed that if the island were subjected for several days and nights to an intensive air bombardment, denying the garrison any chance for sleep or rest, the assault, if supported heavily by naval gunfire, would be relatively easy. The garrison might even surrender beforehand.
We proceeded on this assumption, since our air force had now grown to the point where a bombardment of the kind contemplated could be readily carried out. Air Chief Marshal Tedder, General Spaatz, and the air forces became enthusiastic supporters of the project. In a period of six days and nights approximately 5000 tons of high explosives were dropped on the eastern portion of the island and in such a limited area that the concentrations achieved were greater than any we had previously attempted.15
In the actual outcome the capture of Pantelleria was so easy—the garrison surrendered on June 11, just as our troops were getting into their assault boats from the larger ships—that few people had any inkling of the doubts and fears that had to be overcome in launching the operation.16 Indeed, objection had been so pronounced that I resolved to make a personal reconnaissance immediately prior to the assault date in order to determine for myself that the defenses were sufficiently softened to assure success. This reconnaissance took the form of a naval and air bombardment of the island two days prior to the attack, conducted so as to appear to the defenders to be a real assault and to simulate as nearly as possible the actual operation contemplated for D-day and H-hour.17 Admiral Cunningham and I boarded a British cruiser at Bône one evening, and during that night steamed eastward at full speed to join the squadron assembly near Pantelleria. Cunningham told me that the whole area was mined except for a narrow channel we were following, which had been swept. This prompted me to ask, “Are there no floating mines about?” His answer was, “Oh yes, but at this speed the bow wave will throw them away from the ship. It would be just bad luck if we should strike one.”
The squadron of some half-dozen cruisers and ten destroyers began the bombardment about eleven in the morning, while the planes came over in wave after wave to drop their bombs on selected targets. Reaction was weak and sporadic. Although all our ships pressed in close to shore, and small, speedy craft ran up almost to the edge of the mole, the ships suffered no damage. Cunningham and I were confirmed in our belief that little opposition would be offered to the attack and that we could have taken the island then if we had been accompanied by troops.
The Prime Minister, who was then visiting with me in Africa, was very anxious to go along on this operation. I evaded direct reply but would never have agreed to his going, on the grounds that it involved needless risk for a man of his importance. But I had a difficult time indeed explaining to him afterward that Admiral Cunningham and I had always intended to participate. Two years later he reminded me that I had been very unfair to him on that occasion, especially as he had a personal financial stake in the enterprise.
A small wager between us had grown out of his estimate that there were no more than 3000 Italians on the island. He offered to pay me five centimes each for all we captured in excess of that number. We took 11,000, and though I had naturally forgotten the joking wager, he paid up promptly, figuring out the exchange himself and remarking that at that rate (a twentieth of a cent each) he’d buy all the prisoners we could get.
With Pantelleria captured we immediately moved strong air elements onto its airfield.18 In the meantime we further improved our air position by building a new field on the island of Gozo, just off Malta. On Malta itself was stationed every aircraft that its fields could possibly absorb.
In late May, a month before we were to attack Sicily, Prime Minister Churchill, with General Marshall and General Brooke, chief of the Imperial General Staff, came to my headquarters to discuss further the objectives of the Sicilian campaign, other than the mere capture of the island to assure free use of the Mediterranean sea route.19 There was something to be said for closing down large-scale activity in the Mediterranean, once we had Sicily in our grasp, and saving everything for the main operation in northwest Europe.
Against this there were weighty considerations. To cease heavy attacks would eliminate all threat to the Germans on the southern front and would allow the enemy great freedom of action. In Europe, Allied ground forces would be completely unengaged from the summer of 1943 to early summer of 1944. We badly wanted the fine airfields of southern Italy. Finally, we wanted to keep up the pressure in the belief that Italy would soon crack and quit. Such an outcome would denude the Balkans of Italian garrisons and so force Germany to extend her forces still further.
Both Alexander and Montgomery were called to the conference, in which Admiral Cunningham, Air Chief Marshal Tedder, General Spaatz, and my chief of staff, “Beedle” Smith, also participated.20 Mr. Churchill was at his eloquent best in painting a rosy picture of the opportunities that he foresaw opening up to us with the capture of Sicily. He insisted, in the conference discussions, that he had no intention of interfering with preparations for the cross-Channel attack in 1944, but he was concerned that I understand the desire of the two governments that the Allied forces should quickly exploit any opportunity arising out of the fall of Sicily. He was fearful that we would interpret our mission in such narrow fashion as to stop short with the capture of Sicily, regardless of circumstances.
Since a normal part of every battle is maximum exploitation of victory, I was personally in doubt as to just what the Prime Minister expected or desired. However, he did not propose in my hearing any campaign on a major scale, with the Balkans, or even northern Italy, as a minimum objective. He seemed honestly concerned in the quick capture of southern Italy but, so far as I knew, no more, at that moment.
In private conversation, however, Brooke told me that he would be glad to reconsider the cross-Channel project, even to the extent of eliminating that bold concept from accepted Allied strategy. He had commanded a corps during the short campaign on the Continent in 1940; both Alexander and Montgomery had served under him. Impulsive by nature, as became his Irish ancestry, he was highly intelligent and earnestly devoted to the single purpose of winning the war. When I first met him in November 1941 he seemed to me adroit rather than deep, and shrewd rather than wise. But gradually I came to realize that his mannerisms, which seemed strange to me, were merely accidental, that he was sincere and, though he lacked that ability so characteristic of General Marshall to weigh calmly the conflicting factors in a problem and so reach a rocklike decision, I soon found it easy to work with him. He did not hesitate to differ sharply and vehemently, but he did it forthrightly and honestly, and heated official discussion never affected the friendliness of his personal contacts or the unqualified character of his support. He must be classed as a brilliant soldier. So I listened carefully to the expression of his ideas at that moment.
He said that he favored a policy of applying our naval and air strength toward the blockading of Germany and the destruction of its industry but avoiding great land battles on the main fronts. He held the belief that in ground conflict in a large theater we would be at a great disadvantage and would suffer tremendous and useless losses. He wanted to open no larger front than one we could sustain in Italy. I do not know whether the Prime Minister agreed with the part of this opinion that favored the indefinite postponement of the cross-Channel invasion, but he did want to pour into Italy the maximum amount of Allied forces available in the Mediterranean.
Any suggestion or intimation of abandoning Overlord could always be guaranteed to bring Marshall and me charging into the breach with an uncompromising, emphatic refusal to consider such an idea for an instant. Not only did both of us still believe in, and frequently repeat, all the basic reasons for originally adopting the Overlord concept as our principal strategic effort in Europe, but we closely examined every proposal for committing troops elsewhere in the light of the eventual effect of weakening or strengthening prospects of success in Overlord. Both of us were willing to concede, and to strive for, the advantages that would flow from a successful invasion of southern Italy—but we resolutely refused to commit ourselves, or Allied troops, to an all-out campaign for winning the war through the Italian approach.
These and other reasons led to an agreement which, in effect, left exploitation of the Sicilian operation to my judgment—but expected me to take advantage of any favorable opportunity to rush into Italy—and which emphasized the great value of the Foggia airfields.21 Since a major port was necessary to sustain us in Italy, the city of Naples was named as the other principal locality desired by the Allies.
At this conference long discussions were carried on regarding the desirability of bombing the marshaling yards near Rome. All agreed that the Eternal City should not be uselessly damaged—indeed, this was the policy we pursued with respect to all the relics of the ancient civilization of Italy—but it was common knowledge that the Germans were taking advantage of our restraint to use Rome as a principal link in their communication system. No final answer was then resolved but later we were authorized to bomb the yards, taking particular care to avoid damage to Rome and the Vatican City.22
The broad outline of the Sicilian campaign was announced to our press representatives one month before it took place.23 This unprecedented step was taken, paradoxically, to maintain secrecy.
I felt I had to stop speculation by war reporters as to the future intentions of the Allied Force. I knew the Germans were watching us intently and it is astonishing how expert a trained Intelligence staff becomes in piecing together odd scraps of seemingly unimportant information to construct a picture of enemy plans. At the moment northern Africa was a hive of preparation for the Sicilian invasion. At every possible spot along the beaches we were holding exercises; ports were being stacked with needed supplies, and harbors and inlets were receiving landing craft. It seemed certain that if reporters seeking items of interest for their papers and radio networks should continue to report upon activities throughout the theater, the enemy would soon be able to make rather accurate deductions as to the strength and timing of our attack, even if we should be successful in concealing its location.
During periods of combat inactivity reporters have a habit of filling up their stories with speculation, and since after some months of experience in a war theater any newsman acquires considerable skill in interpreting coming events, the danger was increased that soon the enemy would have our plans almost in detail. I do not believe that speculation by self-styled military analysts in the homelands, far removed from a theater of operations, is of any great benefit to the enemy. These long-distance conclusions are based upon the sketchiest of information and are usually amusing rather than terrifying, although they become dangerous as they edge closer to the truth and give statistical information to substantiate ideas. But in an active theater it is an entirely different matter, and because of an inborn hatred of unexplained censorship and, more than this, because of the confidence I had acquired in the integrity of newsmen in my theater, I decided to take them into my confidence.
The experiment was one which I would not particularly like to repeat, because such revelation does place a burden upon the man whose first responsibility is to conceal the secret. But by making it I immediately placed upon every reporter in the theater a feeling of the same responsibility that I and my associates bore. Success was complete. From that moment onward, until after the attack was launched, nothing speculative came out of the theater and no representative of the press attempted to send out anything that could possibly be of any value to the enemy. After the operation was completed many correspondents told me of the fear they felt that they might be guilty of even inadvertent revelation of the secret. During the period of preparation they even became reluctant to discuss the subject among themselves, and invented the most elaborate code names to refer to items of equipment and to details of the projected operation.
Mouths fell open as I began the conference by telling the reporters that we would assault Sicily early in July, with the Seventh Army under General Patton attacking the southern beaches and the British Eighth Army under General Montgomery attacking the eastern beaches south of Syracuse. There was almost painful silence as I explained that General Alexander would be in command of both armies and that we were already conducting the preliminary air campaign to destroy the German air forces and to cut his sea and land communications as well as to soften his defenses. I told the press that we were conducting this air offensive in such a way as to lead the enemy to believe that we would attack the western end of the island. I informed them that we would use airborne troops in the operation on a much larger scale than had yet been attempted in warfare. The attack was carried out in exactly this fashion on the night of July 9.24
Because of the existence of splendid naval communications at Malta that place was chosen as our headquarters for the initial stages of the operation. Most of our air formations were crowded into the airfields of northeastern Tunisia, so the principal air headquarters had to remain in the vicinity of ancient Carthage. General Alexander, Admiral Cunningham, and I all went to Malta a day or so before the attack was scheduled, to be in position to take any action that might prove necessary.25 We were guests of Field Marshal Lord Gort, governor of the island.
Malta then presented a picture far different from the one of a few months earlier, when it was still the target for a hostile air force that had little effective opposition. Malta had taken a fearful beating but the spirit of the defenders had never been shaken. As Allied air and naval support approached them through the conquest of North Africa, they rose magnificently to the occasion. By the time we found need for Malta’s facilities its airfields were in excellent condition and its garrison was burning to get into the fight.
A story in connection with this preparation illustrates the amazement sometimes created by American organizations that have been indoctrinated in the mass production methods of the United States. This incident involved the construction of the airfield on the little island of Gozo, lying just off Malta. It was so ill favored in the matter of terrain that British field engineers, who depended to a great extent upon hand tools and light equipment, had given up any hope of producing a field there in time for use in the Sicilian campaign. Happily, just at the critical moment Air Marshal Park, in command of the air forces of the island, had as a visitor an American engineer who specialized in the construction of airfields.
Park told the engineer of this particular problem and after showing him the projected site asked for an estimate on the time it would take to construct an operational strip. The answer was a nonchalant “Ten days.” This struck Park—who is a human dynamo himself—as so preposterous that he thought himself the victim of a joke. However, upon noting the thoughtful way in which the engineer was considering the problem, he asked: “When can you start?”
“As soon as my equipment can get here, which should take several days.”
The upshot was that messages began to fly through the air, and thirteen days from the time the first American construction unit stepped on the island the first fighter plane was taking off from the strip.
To perform this seeming miracle the engineers had employed almost every type of modern earth-moving machinery to be found on any large construction job in the United States, equipment that British engineers envied but had never dreamed could be brought into such a remote part of an active theater of war. This story was told to me over and over again by British officers on the island whose admiration for the American engineers was scarcely short of awe. This fighter strip gave us an additional base from which to sustain our attack against Sicily.
The ship convoys bringing the troops to their allotted places had to come from ports stretched throughout the length of the Mediterranean. The timing and final maneuvering of the various naval columns had to be exactly performed in the narrow, mine-filled waters separating Sicily from the mainland and had to be done so as to keep the enemy in a state of confusion and indecision until the last moment. Admiral Cunningham, Admiral Hewitt, and all their subordinates performed the task faultlessly.
Everything was proceeding with seeming perfection until the actual day of the assault. Then the weather, which in that part of the Mediterranean is normally serene in summer, began to deteriorate so badly as to threaten our ability to land. Since the wind direction was generally from the west it was the southern beaches for which we were anxious. The eastern beaches would have the shelter of the island itself.
I spent some hours with Admiral Cunningham in his office, to which meteorological specialists brought frequent reports and forecasts. Naval personnel has a habit of referring to wind velocity in terms of “Force.” In would come a man and say, “Force IV, sir,” or “Force V, sir.” For me this had to be translated into miles per hour, but I had no difficulty, watching Cunningham’s face, in realizing that Force V was worse than Force IV. However, falling velocities were predicted for sundown and this cheered us, because if that tendency continued conditions by midnight should be satisfactory!
Some of us went outside for a short walk, but we watched the wind indicators fearfully, almost prayerfully, because the hour was fast approaching when it would be impossible to turn back assaulting forces from their intended landings. A message came from General Marshall: “Is the attack on or off?” My reaction was that I wish I knew! Evening approached with predictions indicating some slight improvement. We decided to proceed as planned, and I so radioed to General Marshall.26 My feeling was that, even if the forces on the southern coast should find it necessary to delay landing, those on the east would surely get ashore and we would have less confusion and disadvantage than would result from any attempt to stop the whole armada.
But the evening wore on and the wind velocity increased alarmingly. There was nothing we could do but pray, desperately.