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This is intended to be a book for the United Nations. In it I have discussed the campaigns conducted by British, American and Canadian troops in Sicily and Italy, and I have tried to handle my material with true Allied realism; that is, with frankness for all no less than pride in all. My motivation has been the ideal of full and unselfish co-operation between our forces fighting in the West to high purpose.

Because I am a Canadian, I can do this perhaps with an easier manner than my British or American colleagues. Canada is now a crossroads of the world; it has always been, as Mr. Churchill once put it, the linchpin binding together the two great English-speaking powers. We in Canada have merged the philosophies and inherited some of the qualities of both nations; happily, we have developed the prejudices of neither. The Canadian is at once a North American and a fervent citizen of the British Commonwealth.

My own experience has extended this pattern. After completing my schooling and basic newspaper training in Canada, I spent seven years as a correspondent in the United States, including two years in the White House press room. This was followed by a year in Britain; a campaign with the Eighth Army; and finally accreditation to Lieut.-General Mark Wayne Clark’s headquarters of the Fifth Army.

The reader will note that I have written only of what I have seen, and something of what I felt as an eyewitness. This has necessarily made for certain glaring omissions. For instance, because I campaigned with the Eighth Army in Sicily, I have neglected almost completely the role of Lieut.-General Patton and his Seventh United States Army. Similarly, my description of fighting on the Italian mainland is devoted principally to the Salerno operation with hardly a mention of the Eighth Army’s important function. In my consideration of the American soldier’s attitude toward war, I have based my conclusions on what I saw of him in the Mediterranean theatre. His attitude in the Far Pacific may be entirely different. If I have overlooked Russia, it is because my war experience has not brought me into contact with our magnificent ally. In other words, this book devotes itself to what I have actually seen.

I should like to record my thanks to The Montreal Gazette, my employer during the Mediterranean campaign, and to the North American Newspaper Alliance and MacLean’s Magazine, my current employers. Despatches to these offices have been used as background material for this book. I must include a note of appreciation for the goodwill of Mr. Alfred Lunt and Miss Lynn Fontanne. They have occupied adjoining rooms to mine in the Savoy Hotel these last few weeks and their forbearance has been remarkable. I am happy to note that the endless clatter of my typewriter, which certainly must have imposed upon their leisure, has not interfered with their magnificent success at the Aldwych Theatre.

Lionel S. B. Shapiro.

London, February 23, 1944.