World Battlefronts: THE BEACHES OF SALERNO

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Jack Belden, war correspondent for TIME and LIFE, was wounded at Salerno (see p. 15). This, his last dispatch for many months, was written in sick bay aboard ship leaving Italy.

The Germans knew we were coming and waited for us. All they had to do was study the map and see that the obvious place for us to strike was south of Naples. The day before our landing our LSTs were bombed continuously. Probably the German air force had us under observation at all times. The enemy knew not only approximately where we were going to land, but when.

The announcement of the Italian surrender, which we heard at 6:30 on our radios, had an unfortunate effect on the troops. We all cheered the news and shouts from the whole fleet echoed over the Mediterranean as we followed one of our surfaced sub marines and swung around her close in to the coast of Italy. But too many officers and men thought it was all over but the shouting. Some of them had not been in combat before and some complained that they would not have a chance to fight.

Everything seemed to be going too smoothly. As soon as the anchor was down the boats of the first assault wave were away and circling in the water. It was the smoothest debarkation I had ever seen. It was too smooth.

Toward the Beach. We were nearly ten miles from the beach. The continuous circling in the water was tedious and some of us fell asleep. When we woke the yellow moon was turning orange and growing dimmer, the sky to our left was lit by flashes of gunfire where the British were supposed to be attacking Salerno, and now & then a huge glare ripped apart the darkness, as if a ship were exploding out to sea. But before us all was quiet and dark. We broke our circle and headed in a column toward a shore, which we could not see but which still looked safe.

Above the roar of our motors we did not hear the approach of that first shell. But I saw the flame leap out of the boat next to me and the crash shook our boat. The boat jerked once or twice and then went on. Abruptly I sat down in the bottom, not as a precaution but because I was afraid. I heard a soldier say: "I saw a shell close like that in training once," and I was more afraid.

We were still a good distance from the beach; we had not even reached our line of departure; yet the German guns were on us already. As we learned later, the Germans were so sure of where we were going to land that they brought their defenses right onto our beach. Trees, brush and all obstacles were cut down so as to obtain a clear field of fire. Nothing was left to chance. Machine guns fired only in certain zones; the zones interlocked. Almost on the water's edge, in some cases only 50 yd. apart, machine guns were set up facing the sea. Fifty yards from the beach four-barreled machine guns threatened death to anyone coming out of the boats. Behind these were mortars. Only 200 yd. from the beach 88s were employed.

As we came abreast of the Navy patrol vessel marking our line of departure, the assault waves bunched up and shells fell in among them. We needed no order. We broke column, went into a skirmish position and throbbed toward shore like so many racing boats, close together, with motors roaring and spray flying.