From Here to Hell

In September of 1943, the preliminary Allied assault on Nazi-dominated Europe commenced with Operation Avalanche, the code-name for the invasion of Southern Italy via Salerno.

It was British Prime Minister Winston Churchill who considered this region "the soft underbelly" of the European continent and the key to an Anglo-U.S. spearhead, first into Nazi-occupied France, and then into the heart of Hitler's Reich itself.

Supreme Commander of Allied forces, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, was not of the same opinion as Churchill. Ike regarded Italy as non-essential to Allied victory in Europe. The decision to invade Italy was arrived at only as a compromise solution, and Eisenhower would at first commit American troops only to a limited assault role.

What ultimately took place, however, was a series of battles that were among the bloodiest of all those fought in the European and Pacific theaters. While the Allies pushed relentlessly toward Rome, finally capturing the Eternal City in June of 1944, the price paid for victory was among the heaviest in the history of warfare. Even today, the immense toll in lives taken by this campaign is the subject of a debate that will probably never be satisfactorily resolved.

It is the campaign for southern Italy that is the subject of this book. If I have taken certain liberties with the historical record, it is because what follows is not war documentary, but war fiction.