0:04

Let's get right here with another episode of the History Unplugged

0:06

Podcast. Nineteen months after Japanese

0:09

forces attacked Pearl Harbor and forced the United

0:11

States to enter World War II, boats

0:13

carrying the 7th US Army landed on

0:15

the shores of southern Sicily. It

0:18

was dubbed Operation Husky, which was a

0:20

campaign to establish an Allied foothold in

0:22

Sicily. The campaign was led by

0:24

two of the most noted American tacticians of the

0:26

20th century, George S. Patton

0:28

and Jeffrey Keys. Patton is

0:30

the subject of numerous books and films, but

0:33

Keys' life and achievements have largely

0:35

gone unrecognized, mostly because he never

0:37

wrote an autobiography and promoted himself

0:39

after World War II. But

0:41

even though he's anonymous, this is by no means

0:43

an accurate reflection of the value of his

0:46

contribution and dedication in World War II and

0:48

the Cold War afterwards. His

0:50

defense of occupied Austria is why most people

0:52

believe that it wasn't overrun by the Soviet

0:54

Union and there was never a need to

0:56

do a Vienna airlift like there was an

0:58

airlift in Berlin. Today I'm

1:00

speaking to James Halsinger, who's edited and

1:03

released Keys' personal diary in the form

1:05

of the new book Patton's Tactician, The

1:07

War Diary of Lieutenant General Jeffrey Keys.

1:09

Halsinger has integrated a variety of

1:12

related sources, including correspondence between Keys,

1:14

Patton and Eisenhower, a day-to-day

1:16

chronicle of Keys' experiences in the World War

1:18

II Mediterranean theater and the early days of

1:20

the Cold War in occupied Germany and Austria.

1:23

Hope you enjoy this discussion with James Halsinger. And

1:28

one more thing before we get started with this episode,

1:30

a quick break for word from our sponsors. Some

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10:00

him to the western half

10:02

of the island and General

10:05

Keys took the western half of

10:07

Sicily, including the capital Palermo. Then

10:09

following the fall of Sicily, with

10:12

General Bradley who had been with General

10:15

Omer Bradley, who was the commander of

10:17

the Second Corps for the invasion of

10:19

Sicily, and after the capture of Sicily,

10:21

General Bradley was pulled back out and

10:23

sent to England to begin development of

10:25

the Operation Overlord. And as

10:28

a result, General Keys was assigned

10:30

as the court commander.

10:32

It was interesting, when the word came down, it was

10:34

originally used to be the court commander, and then a

10:36

few hours later it came down and it was going

10:38

to be temporary. And there's a

10:41

couple of letters written by General

10:43

Paton and Keys to General Eisenhower

10:46

asking for some explanation. And General

10:48

Eisenhower, when this letter is in the

10:50

book, wrote a very detailed letter to

10:52

General Keys telling him how he expects

10:55

him to function as an army

10:57

general, as a commander, and General Keys in the

10:59

diary takes some memories with that feeling like he's

11:02

already doing that. But there was an interesting,

11:04

Robert Capa noted combat photographer

11:07

did a three or four

11:09

page spread in Life

11:11

Magazine. On page one of Life Magazine

11:13

is a half-page picture

11:15

of General Keys and General

11:17

Molinaro, the Italian commander who

11:20

surrendered to him. And I

11:22

suspect that without anything having been

11:24

said, anywhere that I found that

11:26

General Eisenhower saw that Life Magazine

11:28

article and took, in fact, that

11:30

General Keys was promoting himself,

11:32

when in fact it was General Paton

11:35

that he was promoting his protege

11:37

and arranged to have that series

11:39

of photographs published in Life Magazine.

11:41

The result, though, was he went

11:44

on to become the commander and

11:46

went ashore at Sallerno just

11:48

after the landings there and fought all the

11:51

way up to the end of

11:53

the war as the commander of II Corps.

11:56

There were 34 corps commanders

11:58

in World War II, only 20. to

18:00

Rome and the night before they move in

18:02

the next day, they put up Follow the

18:04

Blue to Speedy 2 signs all over Rome

18:06

to which the final German

18:09

contingent's pulling out. There are photographs

18:11

of them driving by the Colosseum

18:13

where there's Follow the Blue to

18:16

Speedy 2 signs already posted. And

18:18

so like I said, it's a very personal piece

18:20

of writing. Let's

18:23

come to when he enters the European theater

18:25

19 months after Pearl Harbor

18:27

boats carrying the 7th US Army laying

18:29

on the shores of Sicily. And

18:32

he and Patton are the two

18:34

tacticians that are leading this operation,

18:36

Operation Husky. So can you

18:38

tell us about this and his involvement

18:40

in it? Right. It's

18:43

very interesting. He was very heavily

18:45

involved in the planning

18:47

for Operation Husky because that's during

18:50

the peak of the planning for

18:52

it. General Patton is

18:54

commanding 2nd Corps following

18:56

the Casterine Past debacle. When

18:59

Patton is sent in to

19:01

shape up 2nd Corps, General

19:04

Keyes is designated acting 1st

19:06

Armored Corps commander and he's heavily

19:08

involved in the planning for it.

19:11

And then when they land, his job is

19:13

to take the western half of the island

19:15

and then once he does that, they start

19:18

across the northern half of the

19:20

island in a race from Messina, basically

19:23

trying to beat

19:25

the British 8th Army there, which landed

19:27

in kind of a scattered fashion on the

19:30

southeastern corner of Sicily. And

19:32

they were supposed to move

19:35

around Mount Etna but get blocked

19:37

by the Germans and finally split

19:39

out a portion of the

19:41

8th Army to come around the western

19:43

side of Mount Etna. And the

19:46

British 8th Army was supposed to move

19:48

straight up the coast and bypass Mount

19:50

Etna to the east and

19:52

take Messina and cut off the

19:55

German retreat. And unfortunately, that doesn't

19:57

happen. General Keyes in the

19:59

case, he thinks... They've been near Dallene and

20:01

not getting the job done. So

20:03

the American Second Corps is moving straight

20:05

up the central part of the island,

20:08

then it becomes kind of a race

20:10

between the provisional corps and second corps

20:12

to see who's gonna get to Messina

20:14

first. But unfortunately, they are

20:17

not able to entrap the German army,

20:19

and they are able to withdraw, fortunately,

20:21

all their forces, most of their equipment

20:24

across the straits of Messina.

20:26

And those divisions became a

20:29

major issue for the Fifth

20:31

Army when they landed Salerno. Hey,

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30:01

But soldiers on,

30:03

keeps things going, deals

30:05

with the refugee crisis. You know, there's

30:07

40 million people displaced

30:09

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30:11

are clogged with people just trying

30:14

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30:16

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30:18

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30:23

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30:27

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30:32

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30:34

how to handle those situations.

30:37

And then the whole thing blows

30:40

up with General Patton's being pulled

30:42

out as 7th Army commander. At

30:44

this point in time, General

30:47

Keys is really expecting to go home on

30:49

leave and potentially not

30:51

come back. And they ask

30:54

him to go be the

30:56

acting commander of 3rd Army while

30:58

they figure out another general officer

31:00

who's been ill is not able

31:03

to take command yet. And then

31:05

it ends up the

31:07

other general officer does not return

31:09

and he becomes 3rd

31:11

Army commander and they decommissioned 7th

31:13

Army and milled the whole area

31:16

of American occupation in Germany into

31:18

a single command and control element

31:21

in the 3rd Army, which

31:23

he does for not quite a

31:26

year. And then he's, at

31:28

this point in time, General Mark Clark

31:30

has been the American High Commissioner in

31:32

occupied Austria. We have an

31:34

American High Commissioner in occupied Germany.

31:37

There's also a separate one for

31:39

Austria. And General Keys gets designated

31:41

to take Mark Clark's place and

31:43

for a while Hallmark Clark is

31:46

involved with a major series

31:48

of negotiations that are going on, among

31:50

other things to determine if they can

31:52

assign a state treaty that would allow

31:54

Austria to be a separate

31:56

independent country again. He's acting

31:59

for Mark Clark. and then Clark gets

32:01

sent back to the United States reassigned

32:04

and he becomes the American High Commissioner

32:06

and occupied Austria for

32:08

the next three years. And here

32:10

again, he uses his tactical sense

32:13

in a very interesting way because

32:16

he's sitting there dealing with the

32:18

Soviets and the British

32:20

and French High Commissioners and the

32:22

Soviets keep trying to undermine the

32:25

Austrian government which he keeps pushing

32:27

to support in. But he also

32:29

knows that Austria is not going

32:32

to become an independent nation

32:34

again unless they have at least

32:36

some military force that can control

32:38

their borders and so on. And

32:41

he works to develop surreptitiously an

32:43

Austrian proto-army through the use of

32:45

the police forces and so on.

32:47

And getting them trained and so

32:49

on so that they'll be ready

32:51

to develop very

32:53

rapidly their own armed

32:55

forces in effort to maintain their

32:58

borders once the state treaty is

33:00

signed, which isn't signed until 1955.

33:03

It's interesting that during this period of

33:05

time the State Department is pushing to

33:07

have the American forces

33:09

withdrawn from Austria. And General

33:12

Keys says that all of his intelligence

33:14

tells him that if we do that

33:17

the Soviets will take over the entire country.

33:19

Which if you take a

33:21

look at the map outflanks the American

33:23

forces from the south while

33:25

we've been making sure that we've got

33:27

the folder gap plugged. But if

33:30

the war were to break

33:32

out with Austria being behind

33:34

the Iron Curtain they would provide an

33:37

outflanking movement from the south to

33:40

heading towards southern Germany and

33:42

on into France. So he's

33:44

constantly in his relationship with

33:46

his State Department and

33:49

kind of deputy, consents become more and

33:51

more fraught as the years go by

33:53

and eventually they decide in 1950 to

33:57

which civilian American High

33:59

Commissioner and he retires in

34:01

October of 1950 and it's

34:03

back home. But it is

34:05

immediately recalled in January of

34:09

1951 to be the director

34:11

of the weapons evaluation

34:14

board, which, interesting

34:16

enough, some of their work is

34:18

still classified, and I'm guessing it's

34:20

probably from their review of

34:22

the use of the atomic weapons at

34:24

Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But he ends up

34:26

serving then until 1954. He's got a

34:28

41-year career

34:31

when he retires and it's

34:33

been a remarkable career. I

34:35

think he's, well, he lets it kind of

34:37

hang out and diary doesn't understand why

34:40

the American High Commissioner and occupied Germany

34:42

gets promoted to four stars, but he

34:44

doesn't, for example. And I

34:47

suspect by the time he retires, the

34:49

senior is three-star general in the army.

34:52

He has perhaps one of the most important postings

34:54

in the early years of the Cold War. And

34:58

his legacy could be much more

35:00

tied to his Cold War years than his World

35:02

War II years because when he's

35:04

there in the 1940s, early 1950s, this is before America's

35:10

Cold War doctrine is

35:12

really ironed out before the

35:14

contours of the Iron Curtain descend.

35:17

And he very well could

35:19

have played a critical role in keeping

35:21

the Soviet Union from advancing further than it

35:23

did. What would you describe

35:25

as his legacy on the Cold

35:27

War since he plays such an important role in

35:30

its early years? Scott

35:34

here. One more break for a word from our sponsors.

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it's interesting that the Austrians credit him

37:14

with keeping them from going behind the

37:16

Iron Curtain. And I think that's probably

37:18

the place where he has

37:20

a significant legacy in the Cold

37:23

War period, is that he was

37:25

able to maintain a

37:28

relationship with the Soviets

37:30

and to allied High Commissures in such

37:32

a way that he was able to...

37:35

First of all, there was no need

37:37

for a Vienna airlift. It

37:40

was always a concern during the Berlin airlift that they

37:42

would, you know, block off

37:44

Vienna, which was inside the Soviet

37:46

zone. And Toland, the

37:48

airfield that was used outside of

37:51

Vienna, was in the Soviet zone.

37:53

And he immediately went to work

37:55

and developed a location where they

37:57

could put in an airfield inside.

37:59

the allied zones in occupied

38:02

Vienna so that they could airlift if

38:04

they needed to run a Vienna airlift.

38:07

But that did not occur. And

38:09

I think to some extent it's because if he

38:12

developed interesting relationships

38:14

with the Soviet High

38:16

Commissioners, they don't always agree, obviously,

38:21

but they seem to continue

38:24

to be on a reasonably friendly basis,

38:26

which when he had an excellent

38:28

relationship with both the British

38:30

and the French High Commissioners. And

38:32

he's constantly engaged, obviously, you would

38:35

expect with the Austrian

38:37

leadership of the

38:39

Austrian government. So I think

38:41

that his post-World War II

38:44

legacy is really in having

38:46

maintained a strong Austrian

38:49

government that was able to, once

38:52

the state treaty was signed in 1955 and

38:56

everybody withdraws, the four powers

38:58

withdraw from Austria, there's

39:00

actually a withdrawal of the Soviets

39:03

from the eastern half of Austria,

39:05

which was the only place really

39:07

that Soviets withdrew from that they

39:09

have control of after World War

39:12

II. So I think being

39:14

able to maintain the position of

39:16

the allied position of strength in

39:18

Austria and to enable

39:20

a strong Austrian government

39:23

to come into play, to be able to

39:25

have a proto-military force ready

39:27

to expand immediately into

39:30

an army large enough to control their

39:33

borders, allowed Austria to

39:35

become a free and independent country once again

39:38

from World War II. And only 10 years

39:40

after the war was over, which is, he

39:43

would have liked to have had that done much earlier,

39:45

but under the circumstances, it probably was

39:48

about as soon as it was going to happen. And it

39:50

did, even though they were neutral

39:52

in those early days after the war, at least

39:54

it was, we didn't have

39:56

our military forces in Germany outflanked

39:59

by Soviet satellite of

40:01

Austria. This

40:04

goes back to our question we started this

40:06

discussion with about his legacy, why he

40:09

hasn't been noticed as much as other

40:11

generals. Looking at

40:13

his career, overall, what do you think

40:15

his legacy is, his impact on World

40:18

War II, the Cold War, and what

40:20

do you think people should remember him by? Well,

40:23

I think they should remember him as

40:25

a very successful corps commander, one

40:28

of the most successful corps commanders that

40:30

we had. He was fighting after

40:32

the invasion of Normandy on June 6,

40:35

1944, June 4, two days before Rome had

40:40

fallen, the first capital of one of

40:42

the enemy states to fall.

40:45

And it was all of a sudden it's off the front page of

40:47

the newspapers. It's gone. And

40:50

once they started developing the

40:52

plans for overlord, they started

40:54

pulling troops out of divisions

40:56

out of the Italian campaign and

40:59

also pulled forces out into

41:01

the invasion of southern France.

41:04

Nonetheless, they held

41:06

the Allied Army in

41:08

Italy, held down 20-some

41:11

battle-hardened German divisions that if

41:13

they hadn't been held there,

41:16

would have been available to deal with

41:18

the invasion of Normandy. So they

41:21

played a significant role

41:23

in being able to tie

41:26

up German forces. It was the

41:28

whole sense of the Italian

41:30

campaign as it's just a hard,

41:33

tough slog up with the peninsula

41:35

in very, very rugged country. And

41:39

the ability to move and

41:41

to keep moving and keep tying

41:43

down German forces, I think, made a major

41:46

impact on the capability of

41:48

the Allied forces in Normandy and

41:50

southern France to be successful. Well,

41:54

thank you for sharing all this with us, Jim.

41:56

And for listeners who want to check out his

41:58

book, the name of it is Patton's Tactician. the

42:00

War Diary of Lieutenant General Jeffrey Keyes.

42:03

Jim, thank you for joining us. All

42:08

right, that is all for today's episode.

42:10

If you'd like to see show notes

42:12

for this and all my other episodes

42:14

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42:16

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