Hello and welcome to this edition of Between the Lines, the podcast that desiphers the

handwriting, unfolds faded pages and dips into the details of Diaries, logbooks and letters

written during this same week, there or thereabouts, in 1943, some 80 years ago.

Let's start with a quick recap of the situation.

We're on a countdown to Operation Avalanche now, the amphibious Allied landing on mainland Italy.

That will bring together the British 8th Army under Monty, General Bernard Law Montgomery,

and the American 5th Army under General Mark Clarke. That's a collaboration for you.

However, there's a somewhat divisive view on another American General's behaviour this week,

and that's General George S. Patton. This is the week that Patton visited an evacuation hospital

in Cyprus and lost his temperate of patient who was showing signs of what today we would probably

call post-traumatic stress disorder. While the instant-tarnished Patton's reputation for the rest of

his military career, it also highlights the presence of PTSD and the need to care for men who suffered

as much mentally as they did physically on the battlefield. In Europe, this is also the week,

it was decided that concentration camp inmates would be used to build German V2 rockets at Pina Munda,

and the liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto took place. It really is a dark time.

That said, the broadcasts in Britain are also full of the news that Soviet troops have recaptured

the city of RL from German forces, and Munda airfield in New Georgia has been taken by the Americans.

And, with a far-reaching impact that probably wasn't imagined at the time,

the commander of a wayward patrol torpedo boat, PT-109, gets rescued off Colour Banagara.

A certain young Lieutenant John F. Kennedy is at the helm. We'll go out to the South

Pacific first, in fact, to catch up with Major General Oscar W. Griswold and 14 Corps.

Week of the 4th August, we started to gain more ground. General Harmon present on August

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