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Achtung, Achtung. Welcome to We Have Ways and Making You Talk USA with me, Al Murray, John

McManus and James Holland. And now, today we're going to talk about a subject that is dear

to Jim's heart. Is that not right, James? Well, no, it's, I think I'm slightly overcooked

how much I like Mark Clark. I don't, I don't. I know it's not that I really, really like him.

I just feel a bit indignant on his behalf that he gets such a bad press because I don't really

understand it. And I've been studying the Italian campaign on and off for the best, you know,

more than 15 years. And I haven't really changed my opinion and all the work I've done recently,

I would say is only improved my opinion of him. And the bottom line is is there's absolutely no

question that he has a massive chip on his shoulder. And the chip is basically this, that in

the interwar years, he didn't really do an awful lot in terms of soldering, you know, he was

deskbound much of the time. I mean, he had a proven track record in the First World War,

but he didn't, you know, he wasn't going around fighting in the Northwest Frontier. He wasn't

a Dunkirk, you know, he wasn't in North Africa in the early days. And the fact of the matter is,

when he took over Fifth Army and landed with it in September 1943 on the beaches south of

Salerno, he had never, ever done anything close to that before. And he was surrounded by people

who were a heck of a lot more experienced than him. And he was chipy about it. He just was, you

know, he was paranoid that someone would get, he, I think he thought in his heart of hearts,

he was up to it and that he would rise to challenge, but I think he felt very keenly that lack of

experience. And he, I think he felt that behind people's backs, people were going,

ah, who's this American? You just think he can rock in and command armies, you know.

And that is the root of his, of his insecurity. And that then manifested itself sometimes

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