Sicily, 1943 (4)

What role did the journalist play?

Having raised the subject of Bradley and Sicily, I’m reminded of two personnel conflicts that took place there that are still studied and debated by historians to this day. The first is Patton and the slapping incident, which Bradley tried to suppress, a fact rarely reported though Bradley himself talked about it, admittedly briefly, in his memoir.

The second was Bradley’s firing of Terry Allen, at the time the commander of the 1st Division.

Allen has a legion of fierce defenders on that score, and it doesn’t make sense to go back over the issues. (They are laid out in Omar Bradley, General at War, if you’re interested.) To what extent, if any, Allen’s drinking may have played in the decision is probably impossible to determine.

What really interests me is what role, if any, the journalist Quentin Reynolds played in both the Patton affair and in Allen’s sacking.

Reynolds – who by the way wrote an interesting first-hand account of the battle of Dieppe – reported the slapping incident to Eisenhower and was probably instrumental in convincing Eisenhower that he had to be punished. That’s been pretty well documented. What’s less well known is that Reynolds was in Allen’s camp, and witnessed at least one briefing where Allen acted, well, not in the way we would expect a general to act before an important battle. His report hints, but doesn’t say, that he was drinking.

Did Reynolds talk to Eisenhower about Allen? Did he talk to Bradley?

There’s no record that he talked to Bradley, and given Bradley’s attitude toward reporters, it’s at least debatable that he would have had much influence with him. Eisenhower’s a different story. And while Bradley denied it, many historians believe that he only fired Allen because Eisenhower wanted him to. (My view is that it had more to do with Bradley, but admittedly the case can be made that it went the other way.)

As far as I know, there’s no real evidence that Reynolds was involved. But I’d love to see someone dig into the issue. Reynolds himself is an interesting figure – worth a biography by someone someday, I’d say.