M ajorGeneral Matthew B. Ridgway knew what he had to do.
In less than a week—on September 9, 1943—American and British troops would hit the beaches at Salerno, the Allies’ first major landing on the Italian mainland. Hours before the Salerno assault, Ridgway’s 82nd Airborne Division was slated to execute Giant II, an airdrop far behind German lines near Rome designed to support the landings. But the Giant II plan had been cobbled together, and as Ridgway studied it, he concluded it was “exceptionally unsound,” he later wrote—maybe even “hare-brained.” He was sure far stronger German forces near Rome would decimate the 82nd, resulting in “death or capture for most of us.”
Ridgway knew he couldn’t stay silent and acquiesce to a plan that would end in the sacrifice of his troops. As the division commander, he felt duty-bound to his men to “carry my protests right up to the top.” Stopping Giant II, however, wouldn’t be easy.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill backed the plan. So did Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower and British general Harold R. L. G. Alexander, who would command all Allied troops in Italy. The brass’s blessing gave Giant II a seemingly unstoppable momentum—but that didn’t deter Ridgway, who hoped he could somehow change minds already made up and stop this runaway train before it was too late. He knew that the fate of his men depended on it.
AFTER THE ALLIES INVADED Sicily in July 1943, the next target was mainland Italy. The Allies coveted Italian airbases, which would give their bombers the range to pummel targets in central Europe. The campaign would also tie down German troops who might otherwise be used to strengthen the Atlantic Wall in France or join the fight in Russia.
Eisenhower, however, had limited resources. The Allies were saving troops for the invasion of France planned for 1944. That would be the war’s decisive campaign, and the high command refused to siphon off men for the Italian venture. The
