West Point ’41: The Class That Went to War and Shaped America

9 | Gothic Fronts

92 9 Gothic Fronts In March 1944, Captain Henry Bodson sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, into Oran, Algeria, which remained a point of debarkation for many Allied troops heading toward the Mediterranean Theater of operations. With its heavy naval traffic and submarine-infested depths, however, the Mediterranean was like a cauldron kept at a boil by the Germans. Allied commanders were hesitant to risk moving transport ships through its troubled waters, so troops had to bide their time in North Africa till the tide of power changed. Toward early April that occurred, allowing ships to press onward, which for Bodson meant squeezing aboard a crowded British transport ship. The final destination was undisclosed, but Bodson was tired of the stifling heat and swirling dust of North Africa. As long as I’m going somewhere, he thought, I don’t care who takes me there. The guns of the 39th Field Artillery Battalion, part of the 3rd Infantry Division, were waiting for him—wherever that might be. His orders were to report to the battalion’s commanding officer. He was replacing an outgoing captain who had either been killed or perhaps reached the end of his rope with combat fatigue; at this stage of the war combat veterans were permitted to return home in some of those cases. In a matter of days the skyline of Naples was within Bodson’s sight. It was the most bombed-out city in Italy, with close to two hundred Allied air raids having wreaked havoc for nearly a year in attempts to destroy Axis supply lines that originated from the port and led north to Rome and beyond . The raids succeeded, and the 82nd Airborne, including Jack Norton, helped take Naples in the fall of 1943, marking the first major European city to be captured by the Allies. Arriving in Naples in April 1944, Bodson saw the blunt impact of the prolonged air raids on the civilian population. There were charred storefronts and crumbling homes at every turn. As he dined at the Army base, Kazel-Wilcox - West Point.indb 92 3/19/2014 5:40:11 PM gothic fronts ★ 93 just beyond the fencing he spotted a boy, a mere five or six years of age, ducking his head face-first into a garbage can in search of food. The bin seemed to swallow the little boy, who undoubtedly competed with rats and mice for morsels. Bodson lost his appetite and wondered how to aid the hungry child, but the boy scampered off as quickly as he appeared. From Naples, Captain Bodson boarded an amphibious troop transport headed north, which landed infantry on the beaches of Anzio. Anzio was a region about halfway between Naples and Rome that had been captured in late January. In that operation the Allies succeeded in diverting German defenses south so that the enemy only loosely defended a fifteen-mile stretch of beachhead, enabling the 3rd Infantry Division and other Allied units to seize it. The region was key because it was within striking distance of the Allied objective of Rome, yet near to Allied airbases and military depots in Naples to the south. Onshore a lieutenant met Bodson, and the two drove several kilometers inland. Bodson scanned the gently rolling hills of lightly wooded farmlands as they went. The Anzio region had been part of an ambitious land reclamation program launched by Mussolini, whose projects included turning swampland into fertile agricultural land to increase Italy’s self-sufficiency. The fields were now dotted with brick farmhouses and barns that were built under the program in the previous decade. They offered sturdy, wellbuilt structures for Allied troops to house headquarters. Most of the local population, in fact, remained in their homes and were even occasionally forced to share accommodations with Allied officers. But more often than not, officers tried to leave the Italians some semblance of normalcy, instead taking to bunkers or other structures. Henry Bodson found the headquarters of his fire direction center in a large, brick barn, where it had been established shortly after the Anzio invasion. As he entered, he noticed the lingering smell of cattle, despite the farm’s few surviving cows—those not slaughtered for food—being relegated to the fields. Officers and enlisted men sat in the barn where the cattle once fed, hay still coated sections of the floor, and farm equipment stood idle; the locals could manage only small plots of acreage amid a war, just enough to raise crops for...