The Liberation Trilogy Box Set

by Rick Atkinson

  Between mortar barrages, called “hate” by the British: Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 208 (“In the Mood”); By Air to Battle, 124–25 (notched their rifle butts); Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 240 (“room to room”); Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 344–46 (“You have no idea”); Baynes, Urquhart of Arnhem, 147 (kept the 9th SS Panzer at bay).

  Of nearly 9,000 British soldiers inserted: Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 39, 339, 398–400. Urquhart cited eighty-four supply planes lost (AAR, “Airborne Division Report on Operation Market,” 1st Airborne Division, Jan. 10, 1945, CARL, N-5647, 34).

  “Thou shalt not be afraid”: By Air to Battle, 125; http://www.pegasusarchive.org/arnhem/jimmy_cleminson.htm.

  “Our casualties heavy”: Urquhart, Arnhem, 132.

  Relief came, though far too little: Sosabowski, Freely I Served, 152, 156, 164; John C. Warren, “Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater,” 1956, AFHRA, historical study no. 97, 138–39 (forced many befuddled pilots); Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 410–11, 341–43 (narrowing Urquhart’s river frontage); SLC, 186–86; Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 2, 588–89.

  A night passed, then another: Chmielewska-Szymańska, Życie i działalność Stanisława Sosabowskiego, 144–45; Sosabowski, Najkrótszą Drogą, 247; Peszke, “The Polish Parachute Brigade in World War II,” Military Affairs (Oct. 1984): 188ff.

  A battalion from the Dorsetshire Regiment: “Pegasus and the Wyvern,” Royal Engineers Journal (March 1946): 22ff.; SLC, 196–97; Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 215 (“quite useless”); Swiecicki, With the Red Devils at Arnhem, 82 (“Everything would seem to point”).

  When the end came, it came quickly: Horrocks, A Full Life, 230–32; Urquhart, Arnhem, 170–77 (trundled the lightly injured); Badsey, Arnhem 1944, 76 (medical truces).

  “The night was made for clandestine exits”: Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 221; author visit, May 24, 2009; Badsey, Arnhem 1944, 83 (shuffled through the mud flats); Urquhart, Arnhem, 170–77 (“Let’s be having you”); By Air to Battle, 130 (Cointreau and mugs of tea); Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 2, 684.

  Dawn caught the division: “Pegasus and the Wyvern,” Royal Engineers Journal (March 1946): 22+; Tucholski, Spadochronowa opowieść, czyli o żołnierzach gen. Sosabowskiego i cichociemnych, 72–73 (flailed for the southern bank); Waddy, A Tour of the Arnhem Battlefields, 177 (only four of twenty-five aboard).

  Urquhart was among those: Urquhart, Arnhem, 179–80.

  “You did all you could”: Baynes, Urquhart of Arnhem, 151. Historian Max Hastings concluded that Browning “displayed shameful incompetence and merited dismissal with ignominy” (Inferno, 561).

  In the small hours of Friday, September 29: “Germans Use Expert Swimmers to Mine Dutch Bridges,” Military Intelligence Service, no. 25, Jan. 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #494L, 61+; Margry, ed., Operation Market-Garden Then and Now, vol. 2, 706–7 (air cylinders); “Forced Crossing of the Rhine, 1945,” Aug. 1945, CE, Historical Report No. 20, CEOH, box X-32, folder 20, 14; Randal, A Short History of 30 Corps in the European Campaign, 38.

  This rude gesture hardly dampened: Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 232 (“decided victory”); Brereton, The Brereton Diaries, 360–61 (“brilliant success”); Hart-Davis, ed., King’s Counsellor, 258 (“well pleased with the gross result”); AAR, Operation Market Garden, 21st AG, n.d., CARL, R-13333, 115 (“90 percent successful”); Orange, Tedder: Quietly in Command, 279 (“one jumps off a cliff”); OH, F.A.M. Browning, Feb. 1955, NARA RG 319, SLC background papers, 2-3.7 CB 3 (“Who was to tell”); SLC, 198 (“We have no regrets”).

  Brave words from a division commander: Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 445; SLC, 200 (losses in MARKET approached 12,000); VW, vol. 2, 54 (in 17,000 air sorties); Ryan, A Bridge Too Far, 523; Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 311 (total German losses); De Slag Om Arnhem, 24 (went on finding skeletons). A recent German study puts Model’s losses around Arnhem alone at 3,300 (Ludewig, Rückzug, 278).

  Even decided victories and brilliant successes: AAR, Operation Market Garden, 21st AG, n.d., CARL, R-13333, 115 (Montgomery blamed the weather); AAR, “Operations in Holland,” First Allied Airborne Army, Dec. 1944, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, Act R A-104, box 62; Brereton, The Brereton Diaries, 360–61.

  Browning blamed Sosabowski: In 2006, Queen Beatrix awarded the Bronze Lion to Sosabowski, who died in 1967 (Dreel ferry signage, author visit, May 24, 2009. www.ww2awards.com/person/34944).

  “too busy fighting Eisenhower”: Baynes, Urquhart of Arnhem, 160, 167 (“a bit more constructive criticism”).

  “a single controlling mind”: ibid., 159.

  Horrocks at least had the grace: Horrocks, A Full Life, 231; Keegan, ed., Churchill’s Generals, 236–38 (had failed to keep a senior Dutch officer).

  Several hundred fugitive Allied troops: brochure, “Airborne Museum ‘Hartenstein,’” Oosterbeek, author visit, May 2009, 12–13; Badsey, Arnhem 1944, 83–85; Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944, 439 (more than six thousand others); Hastings, Armageddon, 56 (“Green grow the rushes”); Arthur, Forgotten Voices of World War II, 364 (“show these bastards”).

  The Dutch too would tramp away: “Freedom Trail Arnhem,” n.d., city of Arnhem, author visit, May 24, 2009; Powell, The Devil’s Birthday, 229 (plundered the city and eating dogs and tulip bulbs); Saunders, The Red Beret, 262 (execution of fifty resistance members); VW, vol. 2, 416–17 (rail strike); Nijmegen signage, author visit, May 22, 2009 (five thousand buildings); Hitchcock, The Bitter Road to Freedom, 122 (sixteen thousand died of starvation); Urquhart, A Life in Peace and War, 75 (“can never again afford”).

  21st Army Group had nearly doubled the perimeter: SLC, 204–5.

  That task would entangle most of Second Army: Rapport and Northwood, Rendezvous with Destiny, 381 (oxtail soup); Arthur, Forgotten Voices of World War II, 368 (empty oil drums); Fauntleroy, The General and His Daughter, 134–35 (“I’d be mortified”); SLC, 206 (another 3,600 casualties); corr, JMG to MBR, Oct. 3, 1944, MBR papers, MHI, box 21 (“much more vicious”); T. G. Lindsay, “Operation Overlord Plus,” n.d., LHC, 54–55 (which they stalked on ice skates).

  “an epic cock-up”: Arthur, Forgotten Voices of World War II, 346–47.

  Eisenhower offered Montgomery a fistful: corr, DDE to BLM, Oct. 11, 1944, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 83.

  Montgomery shifted his command post: Biographer Nigel Hamilton considered MARKET GARDEN to be “Monty’s worst mistake of the war” (Monty: Final Years of the Field-Marshal, 1944–1976, 56, 97, 115).

  “will not affect operations eastward”: Fraser, And We Shall Shock Them, 348.

  “the last occasion of the war”: Hastings, Armageddon, 60–61.

  “The opening of the port”: BLM, M-527, Sept. 27, 1944, National Archives of Canada, RG 24, vol. 1054 2, file 215A21.016(9).

  “There was a change of mood after Arnhem”: Hastings, Armageddon, 141.

  “The picture is not very good”: diary, Sept. 24, 1944, Raymond G. Moses papers, MHI, box 1.

  “I am not looking forward to the winter”: Fauntleroy, The General and His Daughter, 57.

  CHAPTER 6: THE IMPLICATED WOODS

  Charlemagne’s Tomb

  For the most loyal Germans: “Concise Guide to Aachen Cathedral,” n.d., Europäische Stiftung für den Aachener Dom, www.aachendom.de; “Aachen at a Glance,” Aachen Tourist Service, author visit, Sept. 25–27, 2009.

  It was said that the fearless burghers: Friedrich, The Fire, 116–17, 246–47.

  Now smoke rose from Aachen again: SLC, 252 (First Army had narrowed its front), 281–84 (eighteen thousand German troops); “Aachen: Military Operations in Urban Terrain,” 26th Infantry Regiment Association, 49 (Seventy-four American gun batteries); Middleton, Our Share of Night, 345 (“gray and brown mass”).

  To help VII Corps complete Aachen’s encirclement: “Breaching the Siegfried Line,” XIX Corps, Oct. 2, 1944, Charles H. Corlett papers, MHI, box 1, 9–15 (Napalm fizzled); SLC, 260–61, 279–80
(“We have a hole”), 294 (“job is finished”).

  Hobbs was dead wrong: “German Reaction to XIX Corps Breakthrough Siegfried Line, 2–16 Oct., 1944,” n.d., NARA RG 407, ML, box 24130; SLC, 287 (huge white cross); “Battle of Aachen, 18th Infantry Regiment,” n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI (gobbled down the breakfast).

  Field Marshal Rundstedt warned Berlin: SLC, 299n; Wheeler, The Big Red One, 337 (hardly a mile separated); “The Fall of Aachen,” n.d., Stanhope Mason papers, MRC FDM, 1994.126 (“no middle course”).

  Lest the Germans miss the message: “The Fall of Aachen,” n.d., Stanhope Mason papers, MRC FDM, 1994.126; “Aachen: Military Operations in Urban Terrain,” 26th Infantry Regiment Association, 17–18.

  Aachen’s dismemberment began in earnest: “Aachen: Military Operations in Urban Terrain,” 26th Infantry Regiment Association, 17–18; Daniel, “The Capture of Aachen,” lecture, CO, 2nd Bn, 26th Inf, n.d., Quantico, Va., 8–11 (tossed one thousand grenades).

  They found a “sterile sea of rubble”: SLC, 308, 289; Daniel, “The Capture of Aachen,” lecture, CO, 2nd Bn, 26th Inf, n.d., Quantico, Va., 5 (“Knock ’em all down!”).

  Street by street, building by building: “Aachen: Military Operations in Urban Terrain,” 26th Infantry Regiment Association, 29–30; “Battle Experiences,” Apr. 15, 1945, NARA RG 407, ML #248, box 24148 (perforated each building); Beck, 384 (beehive charges); Wheeler, The Big Red One, 339 (bulldozers piled rubble); “Battle Experiences, Twelfth Army Group,” Dec. 5, 1944, NARA RG 337, AGF OR, no. 173 (No. 2 green bean can).

  Three captured German streetcars: “1106th Engineer Group South of Aachen,” n.d., Stanhope Mason papers, MRC FDM, 1994.126; “Aachen: Military Operations in Urban Terrain,” 26th Infantry Regiment Association, 6; Daniel, “The Capture of Aachen,” lecture, CO, 2nd Bn, 26th Inf, n.d., Quantico, Va., 15–16 (“Surrender or get fried”); “1st Division World War II Combat Achievements Report,” chapter XXV, “Aachen,” 2nd Bn, 26th Inf, Oct. 14, 1944, MRC FDM; Stanhope B. Mason, “Reminiscences and Anecdotes of World War II,” 1988, MRC FDM, 1994.126, 226 (collect mattresses).

  Another lethal legacy from the Italian campaign: Mayo, The Ordnance Department, 301 (capable of keeping pace); author visit, Sept. 25–27, 2009; “Clearing the Area South of the Railroad Tracks,” n.d., Stanhope Mason papers, MRC FDM, 1994.126 (seven rounds down Hindenburgstrasse).

  Across the city the Americans crept: Middleton, Our Share of Night, 349, 354 (“fucking bastards”).

  As the house-to-house ruination proceeded: “1st Division World War II Combat Achievements Report,” chapter XXV, “Aachen,” 2nd Bn, 26th Inf, Oct. 8–9, 1944, MRC FDM; Marshall, ed., Proud Americans, 224 (Not even a radio antenna); SLC, 302 (“have to close that gap”).

  Hodges also castigated the XIX Corps commander: Farrington, ed., Cowboy Pete, 9, 13, 21, 103.

  “Every hour seems interminable”: Kingseed, From Omaha Beach to Dawson’s Ridge, 209–10.

  “I’ve calloused my emotions”: corr, Joseph T. Dawson to sister, Sept. 19, 1944, MRC FDM, 1991.65.

  “His face is bony”: Heinz, When We Were One, 39 (“large ears”), 20 (“Just move the ones”).

  Bruno and the Swinging Tigers: Alosi, War Birds, 91.

  “We could hear them singing”: Wheeler, The Big Red One, 340.

  By ten A.M. several Tigers had churned uphill: “Attack on G and I Companies,” 16th Infantry, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI; Clay, Blood and Sacrifice, 216.

  “Situation very critical”: Kingseed, From Omaha Beach to Dawson’s Ridge, 212–15; Heinz, When We Were One, 49 (“thrown against the door” and Judy Garland sang); Clay, Blood and Sacrifice, 216 (P-47 fighters).

  “Much moaning and groaning”: “Attack on G and I Companies of the 16th Infantry Regiment,” n.d., Stanhope Mason papers, MRC FDM, 1994.126.

  “If higher authority decides”: OH, James K. Woolnough, 1971, W. D. Macmillan and William M. Stevenson, SOOHP, MHI, 18.

  As the enemy attacks grew feebler: “Attack on G and I Companies of the 16th Infantry Regiment,” n.d., Stanhope Mason papers, MRC FDM, 1994.126; Heinz, When We Were One, 223, 41–42 (“He doesn’t know why”).

  At 4:15 P.M. on Monday, October 16: SLC, 306; Marshall, ed., Proud Americans, 241 (sixty-three of ninety panzers).

  The tally for G Company: Kingseed, From Omaha Beach to Dawson’s Ridge, 219–20 (“somewhat shattered”); Heinz, When We Were One, 223 (“We died right here”).

  In keeping with the Führer’s wishes: “Aachen: Military Operations in Urban Terrain,” 26th Infantry Regiment Association, 40 (“We shall fight”); “Clearing Area South of the Rail Road Tracks,” 26th Inf, n.d., and blueprint, map, Palast Hotel, “Aachener Quellenhof,” NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI; Register of Graduates, U.S. Military Academy, class of 1938 (John T. Corley).

  At seven A.M., as mortars pummeled: “1st Division World War II Combat Achievements Report,” chapter XXVI, “Farwick Park, Aachen,” 3rd Bn, 26th Inf, Oct. 14, 1944, MRC FDM; “Clearing Area South of the Rail Road Tracks,” 26th Inf, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI (exchange of grenades); Robert G. Botsford, “The City of Aachen,” in Stanhope B. Mason, “Reminiscences and Anecdotes of World War II,” 1988, MRC FDM, 1994.126 (hunting-scene oils); SLC, 316 (ten thousand marks).

  The colonel instead had packed his bags: SLC, 316; Whitehead, “Beachhead Don,” 273–74 (“They marched smartly”); “Aachen: Military Operations in Urban Terrain,” 26th Infantry Regiment Association, 42 (“do it in our hearts”); Knickerbocker et al., Danger Forward, 266 (“I don’t believe in miracles”).

  Nearly twelve thousand Germans had been captured: SLC, 317–18; Wheeler, The Big Red One, 342.

  “These bitter tragic months”: Wheeler, The Big Red One, 342–43. Promoted to major, Dawson would return to Europe to work with the OSS. An oil industry geologist after the war, he died in 1998.

  Also sent home was General Corlett: corr, ONB to DDE, Oct. 19, 1944, Charles H. Corlett papers, MHI, box 1 (failing health); Farrington, ed., Cowboy Pete, 104–5 (“plain heartbreak”); OH, George I. Forsythe, 1974, Frank L. Henry, SOOHP, MHI, 212 (“sasses the army commander”); Berlin, U.S. Army World War II Corps Commanders, 6 (Oklahoma National Guard soldier); http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/M/MC033.html.

  No one would take the waters in Aachen: Robert G. Botsford, “The City of Aachen,” in Stanhope B. Mason, “Reminiscences and Anecdotes of World War II,” 1988, MRC FDM, 1994.126 (“none of the grace”); Carpenter, No Woman’s World, 165 (“dead as yesterday” and “the dead from my house”); Heinz, When We Were One, 226 (83 percent); Reporting World War II, vol. 2, 546–47 (“These ruins”).

  A plump, sooty man wandering the streets: Whiting, The Home Front: Germany, 178–79 (“Gebt mir fünf Jahre”); Robert G. Botsford, “The City of Aachen,” in Stanhope B. Mason, “Reminiscences and Anecdotes of World War II,” 1988, MRC FDM, 1994.126 (graveyard uprooted); Edsel, The Monuments Men, 142–44 (formed a fire brigade).

  “We can force the Boche to their knees”: corr, JLC to M. S. Eddy, Oct. 24, 1944, JLC papers, DDE Lib, box 3, 201 file; “U.S. Military Government in Germany: Operations During the Rhineland Campaign,” 1950, CMH, 8-3.1 DA5, 34–35, 138; Whiting, The Home Front: Germany, 178–79 (curfew was imposed); Alosi, War Birds, 134 (“clipping details”); “Pigeon Report,” AFHQ G-2 to SHAEF G-2, March 12, 1945, NARA RG 331, SGS, Entry 15, box 112 (“falconry unit”).

  “We come as conquerers”: “U.S. Military Government in Germany: Operations During the Rhineland Campaign,” 1950, CMH, 8-3.1 DA5, 34–39, 55a, 57, 105–6; TSC, 356–57 (“not as oppressors”).

  An Army study also concluded: Lerner, Psychological Warfare Against Nazi Germany, 276–79.

  “first German city to be taken”: Knickerbocker et al., Danger Forward, 402.

  “Do Not Let Us Pretend We Are All Right”

  The autumnal struggles at Arnhem and Aachen: ALH, 142; Cundiff, 45th Infantry CP, 207 (“We have them licked”); Royce L. Thompson, “Proposed CCS Directive to
Eisenhower to End ETO War in 1944,” Jan. 19, 1950, Historical Section, CMH, 2-3.7 AE.P-9 (“playing everything for a conclusion”); OH, W. B. Smith, Sept. 14, 1945, OCMH WWII Europe Interviews, MHI (fight in the Pacific).

  “We have facing us now”: Chandler, 2208.

  “Most people that write to me”: ibid., 2288.

  Eisenhower now commanded fifty-eight divisions: SLC, 378, 388, 390; Chandler, 2168 (“in a bad state”); TSC, 296 (insufficient means to support them); LSA, vol. 2, 13 (no more than twenty divisions).

  To further explain his plight: Chandler, 2281–85; “G-4 History,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #553A-C, 82; Cooper, Death Traps, 239 (enemy depot in Liège).

  The most desperate need was for ammunition: Chandler, 2281 (two tons every minute), 2311n; “Ammunition Supply for Field Artillery,” n.d., USFET General Board study no. 58, NARA RG 407, E 427, 97-USF-0.3.0, 8–9 (incessant rationing), 24–27 (“complete collapse”); LSA, vol. 2, 247–48, 255–56 (Patton wanted sixty); Waddell, United States Army Logistics, 45 (“silence policy”).

  The shortfall partly reflected an inability: LSA, vol. 2, 269, 274, 255–56 (largely on the defensive); “Ammunition Supply and Operations, European Campaign,” USFET General Board study no. 100, NARA RG 407, E 427, 97USF-0.3.0 (25,000 man-hours); Eiler, Mobilizing America, 410 (“Firepower for Eisenhower”).

  One senior American general believed: “Ammunition Supply for Field Artillery,” n.d., USFET General Board study no 58, NARA RG 407, E 427, 97-USF-0.3.0, 28–29 (“saved many lives”); corr, Brig. Gen. John H. Hinds to Maj. Gen. Orlando Ward, July 6, 1951, NARA RG 319, E 97, background papers, LSA, vol. 1, box 6 (thousands of tons were stacked); Charles K. MacDermut and Adolph P. Gratiot, “History of G-4 Com Z ETO,” 1946, CMH, 8-3.4 AA, 86–87 (actual number was less than 100); “G-4 History,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #553A-C, 56, 87–88 (246 cargo vessels); LSA, vol. 2, 128 (floating warehouses).

  The War Department, trying to supply a global war: Charles K. MacDermut and Adolph P. Gratiot, “History of G-4 Com Z ETO,” 1946, CMH, 8-3.4 AA, 87–89 (“no further commodity-loaded ships”); “G-4 History,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #553A-C, 92 (Bronze Stars).