Command Decisions: General Lucas at Anzio. Chapter 13

摘要

The chapter describes the decisions of General Lucas at Anzio. A commander can make a decision simply by ruling out what appears to him to be impractical or unfeasible. This was how Maj. Gen. John P. Lucas, commander of the VI Corps in Italy, viewed and resolved his command problem immediately after the Anzio landing in January 1944. He rejected a course of action that to him appeared unwise or imprudent. Yet two alternatives were in fact valid and open to him, though neither satisfied him completely. One seemed to him to verge on recklessness, the other could perhaps be criticized as overcautious. With orders from the next higher echelon of command deliberately left vague, General Lucas was free to choose. Thus he alone would shape the pattern of events that was to develop at Anzio.