The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (The Liberation Trilogy Book 2)

by Rick Atkinson

And no one doubted that come the day of battle, they would fight to the death for the greatest cause: one another. “We did it because we could not bear the shame of being less than the man beside us,” John Muirhead wrote. “We fought because he fought; we died because he died.”

To him, war was simply “homicide on a scale which transformed it into a crusade and an art, dignified by its difficulties and risks.”

German and Italian prisoner trustees could use the post exchange at Fort Benning, Georgia; black U.S. Army soldiers could not.

the combat career of a new German pilot now lasted, on average, less than a month.

Morale problems could be seen in the decision of nearly ninety U.S. crews in March and April to fly to neutral countries, usually Sweden or Switzerland, to be interned for the duration.

braying whatever scraps of English they could recall, including one old man who repeatedly shouted, “Weekend! Weekend!”