1/8: Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943 by James Holland (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 28 May 2024
⏱️ 9 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Savage-Storm-Battle-Italy-1943/dp/080216160X
Following victory in Sicily, while the central command planned the spring 1944 invasion of France, Allied troops crossed into southern Italy in September 1943, expecting to drive Axis forces north and liberate Rome by Christmas. Italy quickly surrendered but German divisions fiercely resisted, and the hoped-for quick victory descended into one of the most challenging and protracted battles of the entire war.
James Holland’s The Savage Storm, chronicling the dramatic opening months of the Italian Campaign in unflinching and insightful detail, is unlike any campaign history yet written. Holland has always narrated war at ground level, but here goes further by chronicling events almost entirely through the contemporary eyes of those who were there on all sides and at all levels—Allied, Axis, civilians alike. Weaving together a wealth of letters, diaries, and other documents—from the likes of American General Mark Clark, German battalion commander Georg Zellner, New Zealand lance-corporal Roger Smith, legendary war reporter Ernie Pyle, and Italian politician Filippo Caracciolo—Holland traces the battles as they were experienced across plains, over mountains, through shattered villages and cities, in intense heat and, towards the end of December 1943, frigid cold and relentless rain.
1943 Italy
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS I on the World. |
| 0:05.0 | This is CBS I on the World. |
| 0:08.0 | Here's John Batchelor. |
| 0:12.0 | This is CBS I on the World. I'm John Bachelor. It is late August |
| 0:16.7 | 1943 Sicily. Sicily has been conquered by the Allied forces and the expectation is what comes next. |
| 0:26.4 | This is 43 the year that the war turned against the Hitlerites. |
| 0:31.2 | However, there's a great deal of tragedy ahead and I welcome a man who's telling the story in terms of battles and in terms of people and certainly in terms of the politics at the moment. |
| 0:43.4 | James Holland, the new book is The Savage Storm, The Battle for Italy, |
| 0:48.7 | 1943. |
| 0:50.9 | James, congratulations and a very good evening to you and I go to the meeting between |
| 0:55.7 | Castellano representing the Italian government and Harold Alexander, Sir Harold Alexander, the commander he meets with and other figures and |
| 1:07.4 | Casablay in August, the last day of August, I believe, 1943. |
| 1:14.0 | The understanding that has been hammered out some weeks and months before |
| 1:18.0 | is that the Italians are leaving the war, |
| 1:21.0 | and perhaps they're coming over to the Allied side. |
| 1:26.2 | How much was that concern for the decision to invade Italy, the fact that the Italians would come over. What did that mean to |
| 1:36.0 | the the the the the commanders in Sicily? Good evening to you. |
| 1:41.8 | Good evening to you John and thank you and thank you for having me on. |
| 1:46.2 | It's great to see you again. And good evening everyone. Well, yes, so the problem the Allies have is they don't really have enough shipping |
| 1:57.6 | to do the kind of amphibious assault in strength that they need. |
| 2:01.0 | They've got plenty of men, they've got plenty of air forces, |
| 2:04.0 | they've still got, you know, a reasonable number of warships. What they don't have is enough |
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