Bloody River

In the shadow of Monte Cassino on January 21-22, 1944, the U.S. Army's 36th "Texas" Division tried to cross Italy's Rapido River. The rout of this former National Guard unit from Texas was one of the worst defeats Americans suffered on the battlefields of World War II, one that prompted veterans to present charges of incompetent leadership before Congress. In Bloody River, first published in 1970, Martin Blumenson presents his view of how the "personal equation" figured into the debacle. Focusing on the generals responsible for the ill-fated attack, Blumenson traces key points in the personal profiles of the diffident 36th Division commander Fred L. Walker; Gen. Mark "Wayne" Clark, the imperious commander of American ground forces; and the tactful and tactically gifted former cavalry officer Gen. Geoffrey T. Keyes, commander of II Corps and Walker's immediate superior. Walker, serving under the younger Clark and Keyes, witnessed the destruction of villages and the exhaustion of the n