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Chapter 13. Anzio: The Willing and Ables
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . c h a p t e r t h i r t e e n ........................................................... Anzio: the willing and ables Around the palace and trailers of Fifth Army Headquarters at Caserta, Lieutenant Colonel Wiley H. O’Mohundro was restless. In thirty years in the army he had seen very little combat. At the Arzew amphibious training center in North Africa he had worked with General O’Daniel, a friend since 1918 and now Third Division commander. Before the Salerno landings he had said to O’Daniel, ‘‘For twenty-five years I have been explaining why I saw no combat in World War I; I’d hate to do so after World War II. I would like to smell a little powder in this one.’’ He got a whiff with the Thirty-sixth Division on the beach at Salerno before returning to amphibious planning at Fifth Army Headquarters.1 When General Clark overheard O’Mohundro tell General Gruenther that he would like a chance to earn his colonelcy, Clark told Gruenther, ‘‘Send O’Mohundro to Anzio and tell the Corps Commander [General Truscott] to give him a regiment.’’ Truscott called O’Daniel. In the Seventh Infantry Col. Harry Sherman would soon be moving out and up. O’Daniel made O’Mohundro executive officer of the Seventh Infantry Regiment long enough to get acquainted. A couple of weeks later, O’Mohundro replaced Sherman as regimental commander.2 Then there was the matter of an executive officer to help O’Mohundro —perhaps someone who had already smelled a lot of powder in the past sixteen months; perhaps someone who himself was about ready to command a regiment. At 2230 on March 13, Dad arrived at Seventh Infantry headquarters3 to become executive officer of the regiment into which he had been born thirty-six and a half years earlier. General Truscott had recently seen Dad and, sensing that he needed a change of assignment, told General O’Daniel to make Dad ‘‘Executive Officer of the 7th Infantry as soon as it could be done.’’4 The ‘‘Cotton Balers,’’ as the Seventh was called, had earned thirty-three battle streamers going back to 1814. They had got their nickname fighting against the British with Andrew Jackson behind the cotton bales of New Orleans in 1815. Their regimental crest bore the motto Volens et Potens— ‘‘Willing and able.’’5 The first we heard of Dad’s new job and outfit came in his letter of March 16. At first he downplayed the matter, saying he had no special news to report and no mail except letters from Bob Redpath and Dick Kent. Then he turned to the assignment. Things on my new job are very normal and I haven’t gotten really acquainted or in the groove as yet. There is a feeling of very sentimental pride in being in a position of responsibility in my Dad’s old regiment —altho it is a very different regiment in thousands of ways. Perhaps some of the excitement was dampened by the fact that he was ‘‘a very tired boy, physically, organically, and mentally—but I don’t see much I can do about it.’’ While he waited for more mail from home, he observed, ‘‘Rain has been frequent in this area and weather unpleasant over a period of nearly two months.’’ Three days later, on March 19, letters from Mom, Anne, and me had caught up to Dad, and he felt better. Mom had apparently received the cameo bearing the crest and motto of the Fifteenth, and Dad was delighted with his ‘‘tinted glasses by H. L. Purdy,’’ which were ‘‘marvelous and a delight to my eyes.’’ He mentioned the motto of his new regiment, but added, ‘‘I can’t figure out if I am or not.’’ Yet again he told Mom, You may pull out all the stops on anything to be worked there for my case. We are again at the stage we were in when Ritter found me in Sept.—playing 2d fiddle to a second trombone to mix my metaphors. A case of the rare and ancient once more—gives me a stifled feeling again and this time I’m sort of tired to fool around with it. . . . Tell Ritter to get me back any time now—and tell him to take it easy. Mom had apparently read recently a Collier’s article by the correspondent Frank Gervasi and asked Dad if he knew him. In fact...