The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II (52 page)

“the world’s pet uncle”
Vernon Scannell, “Robbie,”
Of Love and War
, p. 42.

“Jesus Christ, no”
Scannell,
Kings
, p. 119.

In March, the Highland
Salmond,
The History of the 51st Highland Division, 1939–1945,
p. 137.

The Highland Division conducted
Delaforce,
Monty’s Highlanders
, p. 123.

“there were thousands”
David Reynolds,
Rich Relations: The American Occupation of Britain, 1942–1945,
London: HarperCollins, 1995, p. 353.

“The war was”
Frankie Fraser, interview in
Bad Boys of the Blitz
, documentary film first broadcast on British Channel 5, Tuesday, 3 May 2005 at 8:00 p.m. See also http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/tv_and_showbiz/s/156716_must_see_tv_bad_boys_of_the_blitz. According to Fraser, he killed two people in a raid on Wandsworth Prison in 1943 to free another deserter. http://www.madfrankiefraser.co.uk/frankiefraser.htm?story/book1.htm~mainFrame.

In April 1944
“GIs Major Crime in London is AWOL,”
New York Times
, 20 April 1944, p. 6.

“The Provost Marshal’s”
“Army & Navy—Malefactors Abroad,”
Time
, 1 May 1944.

“They also trapped”
“London AWOL Roundup Traps a One-Star General,”
Chicago Daily Tribune
, 18 May 1944, p. 6.

Five nights later
Thomas,
An Underworld at War
, pp. 215–16.

“An awful lot”
Timothy Sharland (4266), Interview, Second World War Experience Centre, Leeds.

“For crying out”
Scannell,
Kings
, p. 126.

On the perimeter
Patrick Delaforce,
Monty’s Highlanders
, p. 124.

“The men we get”
Major General Harold Freeman-Attwood to General Headquarters, 3rd Army, 30 May 1943, British National Archives, WO 231/10 (War Office, Directorate of Military Training), “Lessons Learned from Operations in Tunisia,” 1943, May–July.

“The resistance to”
Reynolds,
Rich Relations
, p. 356.

That meant not sending
Delaforce,
Monty’s Highlanders
, p. 123.

“We can do very”
David French, “‘Tommy Is No Soldier’: The Morale of the Second British Army in Normandy, June–August 1944,” in Brian Holden Reid, ed.,
Military Power: Land Warfare in Theory and Practice
, London: Frank Cass, 1997, p. 162.

“But the truth”
Vernon Scannell, “Why I Hate the Celebration of D-Day,” p. 8.

“We have got”
David French,
Raising Churchill’s Army
, p. 245. See also French, “‘Tommy Is No Soldier,’ in Reid, ed.,
Military Power
, p. 162, for a psychiatric survey of six hundred British troops between October 1943 and April 1944.

Believing the war
French,
Raising Churchill’s Army
, p. 244.

When the flotilla passed
Miles,
The Life of a Regiment
, Vol. V, p. 252.

“the LCI circled”
Scannell, “Why I Hate the Celebration of D-Day,” p. 8.

“What I with”
Vernon Scannell, “War Wounds,” original transcript, Alan Benson Collection of Vernon Scannell, 1948–2007, 2008-10-07P, Box 4, Folder 5.1, Scannell—Correspondence—2007, January–March, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas.

The LCI had trouble
Scannell, “Why I Hate the Celebration of D-Day,” p. 9.

“There was only”
Miles,
The Life of a Regiment
, Vol. V, p. 253.

“We seized the”
Scannell, “Mercenaries,”
Epithets of War
, p. 32.

During the night
Salmond,
The History of the 51st Highland Division, 1939–1945,
p. 145.

“He had managed”
Scannell,
Tiger
, p. 96.

“It seemed impossible”
Scannell, “Robbie,”
Of Love and War
, pp. 42–43.

Their first week
Delaforce,
Monty’s Highlanders
, p. 128.

At first, the wounds
French, “‘Tommy Is No Soldier,’” in Reid, ed.,
Military Power
, p. 163.

The percentage of
Beevor,
D-Day: The Battle for Normandy
, p. 111.

ELEVEN

“Maybe the war”
WD/Second Draft, p. 7.

Troops in Italy
The phrase was first coined by a disgruntled British soldier, who wrote a letter to British member of parliament Nancy Astor complaining of official neglect of soldiers in Italy and signed it, “D-Day Dodger.” When Lady Astor innocently repeated the term, she received widespread condemnation. There had been four D-Day amphibious landings in Sicily and Italy before Normandy. British Eighth Army squaddies composed “The Ballad of the D-Day Dodgers” to the music of “Lily Marlene.” One verse went:

We’re the D-Day Dodgers out in Italy,

Always on the vino, always on the spree.

Eighth Army scroungers and their tanks

We live in Rome—among the Yanks.

We are the D-Day Dodgers, over here in Italy.

A sergeant about
The 36th Division was composed of three regiments (the 141st, the 142nd and 143rd) of about five thousand men. Each regiment was divided into three battalions.

“locked within himself”
WD/Second Draft, p. 9.

“The two of us”
Ibid.

a blatant violation
Article Two of the Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva, 27 July 1929, states: “Prisoners of war are in the power of the hostile Government, but not of the individuals or formation which captured them. They shall at all times be humanely treated and protected, particularly against acts of violence, from insults and from public curiosity. Measures of reprisal against them are forbidden.”

“We never found”
WD/Second Draft, p. 10.

“I discover that”
Ibid., p. 11.

Weiss did not
Military psychiatrists reported that it was common for soldiers under stress to call out for their mothers, wives or girlfriends.
Psychology for the Fighting Man
, the book printed in England for Allied soldiers who would land in France, explained, “They may not realize it, but often the truth is they have become homesick. They are longing for those upon whose presence and affection they have long depended. They want their wives or mothers.”
Psychology for the Fighting Man, Prepared for the Fighting Man Himself
, op. cit., p. 334.

“most divisions took”
WD/Second Draft, p. 12.

“The stench of”
Ibid., p. 13.

“I was nothing”
Ibid.

“Lying in a fold”
Ibid., p. 14.

“Of all the lousy”
Ibid., p. 15.

“All advanced”
Alan Moorehead,
Eclipse
, New York: Harper & Row, 1968, p. 18 (originally published London: Hamish Hamilton, 1945). The British soldier Alex Bowlby, who fought throughout the Italian campaign, had the same impression: “The view from the mountain was—mountains. There seemed no end to them.” Alex Bowlby,
The Recollections of Rifleman Bowlby
, London: Cassell, 1999 (reprinted 2002) (originally published London: Leo Cooper, 1969).

“If they keep”
WD/Second Draft, p. 15.

“He was in every”
Steve Weiss, interview with the author, Paris, 17 July 2010.

The Italian campaign
Russell J. Darkes, “Twenty-five Years in the Military,” typescript, Lebanon, PA: A. Archery & Printing Place, 1991, p. 33. (As Lieutenant Darkes, he was executive officer of Company C, Weiss’s unit. His typescript is lodged at the Russell Darkes Collection, AFC/2001/001/48329, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

“so despised by”
Lewis,
Naples ’
44, p. 119. K rations were “Field Rations, Type K,” issued to U.S. troops from 1942 to carry on the battlefield. Lightweight if not nutritious, they were packages of dried goods for breakfast, lunch and dinner that included small cans of meat, crackers and cigarettes. These were distinguished from the slightly more substantial C rations, combat rations. When the army was able to set up kitchens close to the front, which was rare in Italy, the men had hot food.

TWELVE

“The smell of war”
Scannell,
Kings
, pp. 149–50.

After their landing
Salmond,
The History of the 51st Highland Division, 1939–1945
, p. 141.

A green flare shot up
Scannell,
Kings
, pp. 153–54.

“In the middle”
Scannell,
Tiger
, p. 97.

Captain Urquhart commandeered
Delaforce,
Monty’s Highlanders
, p. 129.

“B and C Companies”
Miles,
The Life of a Regiment
, Vol. V, p. 256.

By the time
Delaforce,
Monty’s Highlanders
, p. 129.

They also took prisoners
J. B. Salmond,
The History of the 51st Highland Division, 1939–1945,
p. 143; Delaforce,
Monty’s Highlanders
, p. 129; and Wilfrid Miles,
The Life of a Regiment
, Vol. V, p. 256.

The company bagpiper
Scannell,
Kings
, p. 156.