World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF ITALY: Ike's Way

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In London, when he was shaping the genesis of his present command, Eisen hower's greatest achievement was a diplomatic one. As Allied commander of the European theater at a time when the U.S. had not contributed much fighting to the war, he took precedence over the British, and they came to like it.

General Eisenhower accomplished this all-important feat by example, cajolery and compulsion. He told his officers, U.S. and British, that they had to get along. He then saw to it that they did so or left his service. First in Britain and then in North Africa, U.S. and British ground, air and naval men have worked, eaten, drunk and fought together as one service, to an extent and in a fashion never dreamed of in World War I. In the heat of combat, U.S. and British field officers go out of their way to criticize themselves, compliment one another on a job well done.

On the Foot. After he had decorated General Mongomery last week, blue-eyed, bald General Eisenhower returned to his headquarters, to pore over planners' plans, to check over staffmen's work.

There were problems of routes and communications through Italy's foot. The middle of the Calabrian peninsula was a high and rugged hump, with narrow plains running around its coasts. The hump, the end of the Apennines, continued straight up Italy like a backbone. Main trunk lines, perforce, trailed along the two coasts of the Italian boot and were vulnerable to air attack. For days Allied bombers had pounded Italian railways south of Naples, had blasted freightcars in clogged yards as far north as Pisa. This was strategic bombing designed to hamstring Axis troops in the south.

Before the week was out bombers flew all the way to Bolzano and cut the Brenner route there. Through that pass in the top of Italy crawled 85% of the coal, 95% of the oil from Germany to Italy. By week's end, daily raids had disrupted and tangled the whole network of communications in the 700-mile-long peninsula, hampering the movements of reinforcements, blocking the withdrawls of troops.

Against this confused citadel of the Axis troops, the Allies, at week's end, struck another blow. Commando trooops landed and Bagnara on the west side of the toe, joined another force that had landed at Catona. Behind Allied planes that bombed and strafed enemy strong points, Montgomery's men cautiously advanced around the ball of the toe.

So far it had been a step-by-step assault. But Ike and his staff had ready all the plots and plans and reports and records, they had assembled men and matériel and were ready to uncork the next secrets of A.F.H.Q. It would not be long.