Mark W. Clark - World War II

World War II

In January 1942, a month after the American entry into the war, General Clark was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff Army Ground Forces, and in May 1942, became its chief of staff as staff officers were rapidly moved to newly created commands by General Gage Michael Miller.

In June 1942, he went to England as commanding general of II Corps, and the next month moved up to Commanding General, Army Forces European Theater of Operations, promoted to major general on August 17, 1942. In October 1942, Clark became deputy commander in chief of the Allied Forces in the North African Theater. Clark's duties in this succession of assignments was to plan and direct the training of units for the invasion of North Africa known as Operation Torch. Part of the preparation for the invasion involved spiriting him into North Africa by the British submarine Seraph weeks before the invasion (Operation Flagpole) to negotiate the surrender or cooperation of the Vichy French at Cherchell on October 21–22, 1942.

After the negotiations, Clark was promoted to lieutenant general on November 11, 1942. When the United States created its first field army overseas, the U.S. Fifth Army, Clark was made its commanding general and given the task of training units for the invasion of Italy (Operation Avalanche) in September 1943. According to Montgomery, Clark was subsequently criticized by British historians and critics, for the near-failure of the landings at Salerno, as a result of perceived poor planning.

Clark gave orders for the bombing destruction of the Abbey of Monte Cassino based on direct orders from his superior during the Battle of Monte Cassino, February 15, 1944. Clark and his chief of staff Major General Alfred Gruenther remained unconvinced of the “military necessity”. When handing over the U.S. II Corps position to the New Zealand Corps, Brigadier-General Frederic Butler, deputy commander of U.S. 34th Division, had said "I don't know, but I don't believe the enemy is in the convent. All the fire has been from the slopes of the hill below the wall". The commander of the 4th Indian division urged the bombing of the entire massif with the heaviest bombs available. Clark pinned down the Commander-in-Chief Allied Armies in Italy, General Sir Harold Alexander: “I said, 'You give me a direct order and we’ll do it,' and he did."

Clark's conduct of operations remains controversial, particularly his actions during the Battle of the Winter Line, which evidence suggests were motivated by a desire for glory that would come from his entering Rome as a conqueror. Possibly also with the focus of the war about to swap to France. Here, ignoring orders from his Army Group Commander, the British General Harold Alexander, Clark sent U.S. VI Corps towards Rome. The British divisions at Anzio were sent to Ostia in the west and the French to the east, leaving the undefended capital (first declared an "open city" in August 1943) to the US component of the Allied force. This left only the 3d Division and 1st Special Service Force to try and close the trap on the German forces at Valmontone. Clark made a well-photographed entrance on June 4, 1944. As a result, he failed to exploit the gap in the German positions that had opened up following the capture of Monte Cassino, allowing a substantial number of German units to escape and reinforce what became the Gothic Line.

Pope Pius XII thanked Clark for liberating Rome. The American military historian Carlo D'Este described Clark's decision to take Rome as militarily stupid as it was insubordinate". Although Clark described a "race to Rome" and released an edited version of his diary for the official historians, his complete papers became available after his death.

In December 1944 Clark took Alexander's position as overall command of Allied ground troops in Italy, renamed as 15th Army Group - Alexander, now a Field Marshal, had become Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces Headquarters in the Mediterranean - by that time an international coalition of numerous diverse cultures with often conflicting interests.

He was promoted to general on March 10, 1945, and at the war's end Clark was Commander of Allied Forces in Italy and, later, U.S. High Commissioner of Austria (there he won the lasting estimation, almost, it would seem idolatry, of the Austrians). He served as deputy to the U.S. Secretary of State in 1947, and attended the negotiations for an Austrian treaty with the Council of Foreign Ministers in London and Moscow. In June 1947, Clark returned home and assumed command of the Sixth Army, headquartered at the Presidio in San Francisco, and two years later was named chief of Army Field Forces.

On October 20, 1951, he was nominated by President Harry Truman to be the United States emissary to the Holy See. Clark later withdrew his nomination on January 13, 1952, following protests from Texas Senator Tom Connally and Protestant groups.