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181 Chapter 10 Southern France After IV Corps officially relieved VI Corps Truscott enjoyed a few drinks with Colonels Langevin and Harrell before leaving in his sedan for Rome, where he opened VI Corps headquarters in Villa Spiga, 135 Via Trionfale, just ten minutes north of the Vatican. The first order of business after their grueling months of combat in the Anzio beachhead and the exhilarating but frustrating breakout and subsequent drive to Rome was a dinner-dance on June 11, hosted by the general. Among the guests were nurses from a nearby Army hospital. The 3d Infantry Division symphony quartet provided music during the dinner and for the dance that followed.1 On the fourteenth Truscott and his aides left for the Vatican, where Truscott had a private audience with Pope Pius XII in his chambers. The next day Truscott told his wife of his papal visit, and in a subsequent letter revealed that he had “found also a spiritual need. The Jefferson Bible [that you sent me] has been very invaluable to me.”He then told her that when he returned from overseas they could expect to see changes in one another. But he hastened to assure Sarah that the one thing that would never change was“the spiritual foundation of our lives—in our case our love for each other. . . . [O]ur love and trust must be boundless and I’m afraid mixed with much charity on your part. I have certainly grown to be disagreeable and irritable at times.”2 The next day their Roman holiday was rudely interrupted by a message from General Patch ordering Truscott and “not more than five key staff officers” to report to his headquarters at the Ecole Normale in Algiers for a briefing on Operation ANVIL. Truscott immediately arranged for a C-47 to fly him and Carle‑ ton, Langevin (G2), Harrell (G3), Conway, O’Neill (G4), and his aide, Wilson, to Algiers. The group arrived at AFHQ the next afternoon, where Truscott’s old friends Maj. Gens. David G. Barr, 6th Army Group chief of staff, and Thomas B. Larkin, 182 Dogface Soldier chief of Services of Supply, NATOUSA, greeted them. They informed Truscott that General Marshall was to arrive in Algiers the next morning, and Barr requested that Truscott join him to greet Marshall on his arrival. Truscott then met General Patch, who drove the party to his villa, where they would be his guests. Patch and Truscott had not previously met, but Truscott knew that Patch was held in high esteem throughout the Army. Their conversation that evening dwelled on their combat experiences to date. Although Patch had been prominently involved in the Guadalcanal operation, his Americal Division entered the campaign after the amphibious landing, so ANVIL would be the first amphibious operation in which he and his staff would be involved. Truscott’s initial and lasting impression of Patch was that he was “a man of outstanding integrity, a courageous and competent leader, and an unselfish comrade-in-arms.”3 ThenextdayBarrandTruscottmetGeneralMarshallatMaisonBlanche,where Marshall invited Truscott to join him for the half-hour drive into Algiers, during which they discussed the Anzio operation in some detail. Marshall was particularly interested in hearing Truscott’s evaluation of the American “weapons and equipment, and the fighting quality of [the] American soldiers.” Marshall then went on to commend Truscott “on a job well done,” and informed him that Eisenhower had recently requested that he be assigned to England to command a field army in Operation OVERLORD. However, Marshall had advised Eisenhower that Truscott could not be spared from the Anzio operation.4 David P. Colley puts a somewhat different slant on this matter, stating that when Eisenhower made a specific request to Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers, commander of NATOUSA and General Wilson’s deputy, to release Truscott for field command in the upcoming Normandy invasion, Devers refused to do so, since he had already selected him to command the ANVIL forces.“Eisenhower called Devers ‘obstinate’ and complained to Marshall that Devers was standing in the way of the Normandy invasion. But . . . Marshall concurred in Devers’ decision.”5 After returning to Algiers Truscott met with Patch for two hours before joining his staff, which was meeting with Force 163, the Algiers planning group for ANVIL. Patch told Truscott that his corps was to make a three-division assault on beaches along the French Riviera east of Toulon, after which the French Expeditionary Corps would land. An additional three or four...

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