The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945

by Rick Atkinson

  one of the worst June gales in eighty years: Woodward, Ramsay at War, 164–65; log, H.M.S. Despatch, June 19, 1944, UK NA, WO 32/12211; “Construction Battalions in the Invasion of Normandy,” Nov. 30, 1944, SEM, NHHC, box 81, folder 28, 39–40 (Anchors dragged and fouled); Thompson, The Imperial War Museum Book of Victory in Europe, 96 (“Storm continues”).

  Swept away they were, pier by pier: “Task Force 128: Report on Installation of Mulberry A,” n.d., DDE Lib, A. Dayton Clark papers, box 2; IFG, 177 (gunshots from sailors); Buffetaut, D-Day Ships, 140–42; CCA, 423–26; Karig, Battle Report: The Atlantic War, 352–56 (Distress calls jammed); Love and Major, eds., The Year of D-Day, 93 (“a damnable spell”).

  After eighty hours, the spell broke: WaS, 64 (“a rent in the sky”); log, H.M.S. Despatch, June 19, 1944, UK NA, WO 32/12211 (Force seven gusts); OH, Byron S. Huie, Jr., Aug. 18, 1944, NARA RG 38, E 11, U.S. Navy WWII Oral Histories, 5–6 (“Not even a thousand-bomber raid”); Belfield and Essame, The Battle for Normandy, 102–3; Fergusson, The Watery Maze, 346–47 (small tanker deep in the dunes); AAR, 21st Weather Squadron, AAF, 1944, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #493-A (sea wrack); VW, vol. 1, 272–73 (two miles of articulated steel pier).

  Mulberry A was a total loss: R. W. Crawford, “Guns, Gas and Rations,” June 1945, SHAEF G-4, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #145; Chalmers, Full Cycle, 238–39 (Gooseberries were positioned); Mason, ed., The Atlantic War Remembered, 377 (“formidable abortion”).

  Mulberry B ultimately did prove: Buffetaut, D-Day Ships, 136 (completed in mid-July); Hickling and Mackillop, “The OVERLORD Artificial Harbors,” lecture, Nov. 6, 1944, CARL, N-12217; Charles C. Bates, “Sea, Swell and Surf Forecasting for D-Day and Beyond: The Anglo-American Effort, 1943–1945,” 2010, a.p., 20 (Port Winston); H. D. Crerar, “Notes on Conference Given by C-in-C 21 Army Group,” June 22, 1944, National Archives of Canada, RG 24, vol. 1054 2, file 215A21.016 (9) (“at least six days behind”); WaS, 65–66 (until late July); VW, vol. 1, 274 (Rommel had exploited the bad weather); “Supply and Evacuation by Air,” n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427, AG WWII Operations Reports, 97-USF5-0.3.0, no. 26 (hand grenades were flown); LSA, vol. 1, 407 (eight coasters deliberately beached).

  With the beaches again in disarray: memo, R. C. Partridge and C. H. Bonesteel III, Dec. 31, 1943, NARA RG 407, ETO ML, #205, box 24143 (“overwhelm us”); “Official Study of Port of Cherbourg,” 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #492 (supplying up to thirty divisions); Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs, 721 (“most important port”).

  Great misfortune had befallen Cherbourg: “Official Study of Port of Cherbourg,” 1945, RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #492 (pillage by the heriditary enemy); Baedeker, Northern France, 158–61; “Cherbourg, Gateway to France: Rehabilitation and Operation of the First Major Port,” 1945, NARA RG 319, ETO HD, 8-3.1 AE (financed with German reparations).

  Now Cherbourg was again besieged: CCA, 420–22; Whitehead, “Beachhead Don,” 146–47 (French farmers tossed roses); Pyle, Brave Men, 273–75 (“terribly pathetic”); Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 308 (Strauss waltzes); Three Years, 596–97 (hog calling); Fussell, Wartime, 255 (“bumf”); Lasky, “Military History Stood on Its Head,” Berlin Journal 14 (spring 2007), American Academy of Berlin: 20+ (“Ei sörrender”).

  An American ultimatum: Ruppenthal, Utah Beach to Cherbourg, 172–77, 189; Whitehead, World War II: An Ex-Sergeant Remembers, 79 (“All you sons-a-bitches”).

  In radio messages decrypted by Ultra: CCA, 431–34 (“bunker paralysis”); Sunset 604, June 25, 1944, NARA RG 457, E 9026, SRS-1869 (“greatly worn out”); Reardon, ed., Defending Fortress Europe, mss, 165 (five thousand cows); Saunders, Royal Air Force, 1939–1945, vol. 3, 123 (four U-boats); CCA, 434 (“You will continue to fight”).

  Schlieben’s miseries multiplied: “The Reminiscences of Alan Goodrich Kirk,” 1962, John Mason, Col U OHRO, NHHC, 349–50 (bombardment force split); Karig, Battle Report: The Atlantic War, 362–65.

  Great salvos soon arced: OH, John F. Latimer, n.d., NARA RG 38, E 11, U.S. Navy WWII Oral Histories, 19–20 (“more concentrated firing”); Morton L. Deyo, “Cherbourg,” Feb. 1956, SEM, NHHC, box 81, file 33; IFG, 198–205 (most pugnacious German battery).

  Six miles east of Cherbourg: Buffetaut, D-Day Ships, 151–52; AR, U.S.S. Texas, July 12, 1944, NARA RG 38, CNO, 370/45/3/1, box 1470, 3–5; IFG, 205–12 (eight hundred rounds dumped on Battery Hamburg).

  In this General Collins was ready to oblige: memo, Cleave A. Jones, June 22, 1944, SHAEF, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, UD 603, SLAM 201 file, box 1; Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment in World War II, 111 (four hundred feet above); Collins, Lightning Joe, 221 (“The view of Cherbourg”).

  “you can make the other fellow conform”: OH, JLC, Jan. 21, 1954, CBM, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7 CB 3; CBH, July 15, 1944, MHI, box 4 (gift for persuasion); Keegan, Six Armies in Normandy, 159 (nonchalance about casualties); Berlin, U.S. Army World War II Corps Commanders, 3–5 (youngest of the thirty-four), 16 (“concentration and decision”); diary, JMG, May 16, 1944, MHI, box 10 (“runty, cocky”); Collins, Lightning Joe, 2–3 (New Orleans emporium); OH, JLC, 1972, Charles C. Sperow, SOOHP, MHI, 6 (malarial shakes); Arlington National Cemetery website, http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/josephla.htm; corr, JLC to Brentano’s, Oct. 24, 1944, JLC papers, DDE Lib, box 3, 201 file (Moby Dick); Carafano, After D-Day, 186 (“An order is but an aspiration”).

  Now Cherbourg was nearly his: Ruppenthal, Utah Beach to Cherbourg, 193; Wertenbaker, Invasion!, 150–52 (GIs fought to the docks); Johnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment in World War II, 112.

  General von Schlieben had by now retreated: Carell, Invasion—They’re Coming!, 177 (“swing a cat”); CCA, 438 (“Documents burned”); memo, Cleave A. Jones, June 26, 1944, SHAEF, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, UD 603, SLAM 201 file, box 1 (“It was good”).

  Within minutes a German soldier: Wertenbaker, Invasion!, 158–59; Breuer, Hitler’s Fortress Cherbourg, 232; Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 313 (a printed menu); Mittelman, ed., Hold Fast!, 17 (“I too am tired”).

  a “looter’s heaven”: corr, Thor M. Smith to family, July 5, 1944, Smith papers, HIA; Whitehead, “Beachhead Don,” 159–60 (“shaving cream”); OH, Albert Mumma, July 22, 1944, NARA RG 38, E 11, U.S. Navy WWII Oral Histories, 11 (Hôtel Atlantique); memo, Cleave A. Jones, June 26, 1944, SHAEF, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, UD 603, SLAM 201 file, box 1 (canned octopus); “Cherbourg, Gateway to France: Rehabilitation and Operation of the First Major Port,” 1945, NARA RG 319, ETO HD, 8-3.1 AE; Andrew T. McNamara, “QM Activities of II Corps,” 1955, PIR, MHI, 136 (two bottles of wine and three of liquor); Mason, ed., The Atlantic War Remembered, 411–15 (“one big drunk”); Wertenbaker, Invasion!, 162–63. Capture of the oil tanks “ranked with the seizure of the Remagen bridge” across the Rhine nine months later, in one logistian’s analysis. LSA, vol. 1, 500.

  Those who had inspected the port: Frank A. Osmanski, “Critical Analysis of the Planning and Execution of the Logistic Support of the Normandy Invasion,” Dec. 1949, Armed Forces Staff College, Osmanski papers, MHI; CCA, 441–42 (“a masterful job”); “Official Study of Port of Cherbourg,” 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #492 (“completely wrecked”); “Port Plans, Pre-Invasion,” n.d., NARA RG 319, LSA background files, 2-3.7 CB 6 (Trainloads of explosives); F. K. Newcomer, Jr., “Analytical Study of the Rehabilitation of the Port of Cherbourg,” n.d., NARA RG 334, E 315, NWC, ANSCOL, box 234, 14–18; Beck, 352.

  Countless booby traps seeded the ruins: “Cherbourg Port Reconstruction,” Office of the Chief Engineer, ETO, March 1945, NARA RG 334, E 315, NWC, ANSCOL, USA ETO Z-2, box 1128, 30–32; Mason, ed., The Atlantic War Remembered, 410 (four hundred mines); IFG, 217 (eight magnetic and eight acoustical sweeps); Harlan D. Bynell, “Logistical Planning and Operations—Europe,” lecture, Oct. 31, 1944, NARA RG 334, E 315, NWC, ANSCOL, L-7-44, box 199, 9 (tedious, dangerous reconstruction); LSA, vol. 2, 71–75; “Official Study of Port of Cherbourg,” 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #492 (not until mid-Jul
y); Beck, 355 (deepwater basins); “Port Plans, Pre-Invasion,” n.d., NARA RG 319, LSA background files, 2-3.7 CB 6 (“One cannot avoid noticing”).

  “this most pregnant victory”: WSC to J. Stalin, June 29, 1944, “Strategy and Operations, vol. 2,” UK NA, CAB 120/421.

  22,000 VII Corps casualties: Ruppenthal, Utah Beach to Cherbourg, 199; Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs, 731 (sewn from American parachutes), 735 (firearms and pigeons); Wertenbaker, Invasion!, 162–63 (“the fucking generals”).

  Prisoners by the acre: Wertenbaker, Invasion!, 153; Moorehead, Eclipse, 138 (“lines of invective”); OH, Albert Mumma, July 22, 1944, NARA RG 38, E 11, U.S. Navy WWII Oral Histories, 7 (floatable conveyance); memo, W. H. S. Wright, July 25, 1944, NARA RG 337, E 54, AGF Top Secret Gen’l Corr, box 2, folder 319.1 (ballads from the Seven Years’ War); Blumentritt, Von Rundstedt, 238–39; MMB, 138; Keegan, Six Armies in Normandy, 160–61.

  “To Alton C. Bright”: Babcock, War Stories, 213–16.

  In a nearby nineteenth-century French naval hospital: Cosmas and Cowdrey, Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations, 261–63; Joseph R. Darnall, “Powdered Eggs and Purple Hearts,” 1946, MHUC, Professional Papers, Group 1, box 24, 133 (“stinking in their blood-soaked dressings”); Sforza, A Nurse Remembers, no pagination (“dirty instruments everywhere”); Wertenbaker, Invasion!, 164 (“Perhaps more men should know”), 159.

  Two bordellos promptly opened: “Official Study of Port of Cherbourg,” 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #492; Hitchcock, The Bitter Road to Freedom, 49 (“Collaborators’ Wagon”), 382n; Beevor, D-Day, 449 (smelled for miles), 516.

  “cosmoline gun-metal preservative”: Babcock, Taught to Kill, 84.

  CHAPTER 3: LIBERATION

  A Monstrous Blood-Mill

  One million Allied soldiers: The millionth soldier landed on July 5. Dispatch, Bertram H. Ramsay, London Gazette, Oct. 30, 1947, CMH, 5109+.

  the invasion increasingly resembled the deadlock at Anzio: OH, ONB, June 7, 1956, CBM, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7, 270/19/5/4, box 184; Sylvan, 31 (labyrinthine burrows); Faubus, In This Faraway Land, 157 (“They keep lobbing mortars”); Thompson, The Imperial War Museum Book of Victory in Europe, 137 (daily casualties in Normandy); msg, Dietrich von Choltitz, July 15, 1944, in James Hodgson, “The Battle of the Hedgerows,” Aug. 1954, NARA RG 319, OCMH, R-54, box 8, IV-27 (“a monstrous blood-mill”); Zuckerman, From Apes to Warlords, 280 (“I can’t afford to stay here”).

  “concentrate all available air”: ALH, vol. 2, 104.

  The supreme commander’s jitters: Crosswell, Beetle, 657 (Chesterfields); Miller, Ike the Soldier, 662 (“slow-up medicine”); Three Years, 584, 602 (sucking panes); diary, June 30 and July 8, 1944, Barbara Wyden papers, DDE Lib, box 1 (“How I suffer!”); Eisenhower, Eisenhower at War, 1943–1945, 348 (back of a P-51 Mustang); Davis, Soldier of Democracy, 501 (“Marshall would raise hell”); diary, CBH, July 2, 1944, MHI, box 4 (“Shoot the bastard”).

  “the Dogfight”: Jackson, Overlord, 174.

  “I am familiar with your plan”: DDE to BLM, July 7, 1944, NARA RG 331, E 1, SHAEF SGS, 381.

  Montgomery’s reply a day later: Copp and McAndrew, Battle Exhaustion, 116–17 (Canadian 3rd Division); BLM to DDE, July 8, 1944, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 83 (“I am, myself, quite happy”); BLM to DDE, July 8, 1944, NARA RG 331, E 1, SHAEF SGS, 381 (“the battle is going very well”).

  “I like him very much”: D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life, 564; Hamilton, Monty: Final Years of the Field-Marshal, 1944–1976, 273 (“making sure I’m not sacked”).

  “Chief Big Wind”: Crosswell, Beetle, 659; Kingston McCloughry, Direction of War, 144 (“something of a dictator”); Tedder, With Prejudice, 556 (told Churchill in late June); “Excerpts from Diary, D/SAC,” kept by Wing Commander Leslie Scarman, July 8, 1944, NARA RG 319, Supreme Command background files, 2-3.7 CB 8 (“The problem is Monty”); Trafford Leigh-Mallory, “Daily Reflections on the Course of the Battle,” June 15, 19, 27, July 17, 1944, UK NA, AIR 37/784 (“egg-bound”).

  Churchill too grew waspish: WSC to A. Brooke, June 18, 1944, and WSC to H. Ismay, July 16, 1944, “Strategy and Operations, vol. II,” UK NA, CAB 120/421; Parkinson, A Day’s March Nearer Home, 334–41 (anthrax looked promising); Addison, Churchill, the Unexpected Hero, 194–95 (“one by one by bombing attack”).

  “a cold-blooded calculation”: Addison, Churchill, the Unexpected Hero, 194–95.

  whether Allied poison gas would shorten: Eisenhower had reiterated SHAEF’s no-first-use policy in late June 1944. ALH, vol. 2, 116.

  “It would be absurd”: Addison, Churchill, the Unexpected Hero, 194–95; Parkinson, A Day’s March Nearer Home, 334–41 (“harassing effect”); margin note, SHAEF chief of staff meeting minutes, July 5, 1944, NARA RG 331, E 3, SGS, 290/7/4/4-5, box 128 (“I will not be party”).

  Montgomery’s battle plan required: Hogan, A Command Post at War, 91–95 (little imagination); Blumenson, The Battle of the Generals, 113 (three corps abreast); BP, 125–27 (“more or less confused”).

  Beyond Omaha Beach, on the left flank: BP, 109–14 (congestion, fratricide), 82–84 (“That is exactly what I don’t want”); Baker, Ernest Hemingway, 511 (“the deads”); Hogan, A Command Post at War, 100 (nine generals); Belfield and Essame, The Battle for Normandy, 187 (“the sadness of it”).

  “too softhearted to take a division”: Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 333.

  Roosevelt had been frantically busy: Jeffers, In the Rough Rider’s Shadow, 261; BP, 86, 131; corr, TR to Eleanor, June 17, 24, July 3, 7, 1944, TR, LOC MS Div, box 10; Renehan, The Lion’s Pride, 239 (“a desperate weariness”); Michael David Pearlman, “To Make Democracy Safe for the World,” Ph.D. diss, University of Illinois, 1978, 603 (“Maybe my feet hurt”).

  After a conference with Collins: “Official Statement of the Military Service and Death of Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.,” Aug. 29, 1958, TR, LOC MS Div, box 39; corr, R. O. Barton to Eleanor Roosevelt, July 13, 1944, TR, LOC MS Div, box 32 (“The show goes on”).

  An Army half-track bore Roosevelt: Liebling, Mollie & Other War Pieces, 220 (“Libérateurs”).

  Roosevelt never knew: Medal of Honor recommendation, R. O. Barton, June 27, 1944, TR, LOC MS Div, box 39; Wheeler, The Big Red One, 300–301 (Marshall made certain); corr, Elizabeth Beston Henry to Eleanor Roosevelt, July 25, 1944, TR, LOC MS Div, box 26 (“Elizabethan quality”).

  “a very ancient place”: Baedeker, Northern France, 162–63.

  Although sacked by Vikings: Balkoski, Beyond the Beachhead, 268; Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, 138 (Calvinist apostates); BP, 146 (bombers returned every day); Aron, France Reborn, 104 (ten living inhabitants).

  Eight roads and a rail line: Mansoor, The GI Offensive in Europe, 153; Doubler, Busting the Bocage, 15; Whitehead, “Beachhead Don,” 190 (fifty-mile front); Reporting World War II, vol. 2, 541 (“big-stuff bombs”); BP, 150–51 (“moth-eaten”), 140 (“on their last legs”); Mayo, The Ordnance Department, 250 (Civil War battlefields); Daglish, Operation Goodwood, 27 (five hundred yards a day); St.-Lô, 51 (29th Infantry Division).

  “Everything about him was explosive”: Cawthon, Other Clay, 27–28, 34 (“Twenty-nine, let’s go!”); Cawthon, “Pursuit: Normandy, 1944,” American Heritage (Feb. 1978): 80+ (“eradicator of lethargy”); “Memoirs of Charles Hunter Gerhardt,” July 1964, MHI; Gerhardt biographical material, MMD; Miller, Division Commander, 71 (“Loose Reins”); e-mail, Roy Livengood to author, Nov. 8, 2008 (“General Chickenshit”); OH, Charles L. Bolte, Maclyn Burg, Jan. 29, 1975, MHI, 172–77 (“describe the resuscitation” and “dashing Indian fighter”); Ewing, 29 Let’s Go!, 283 (“hard, exacting, aggressive”); Balkoski, Beyond the Beachhead, 253–54 (a corps of three divisions).

  By late afternoon on July 15: BP, 154; OH, 2nd ID, July 13–18, 1944, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder 12 (slabs of TNT); Cawthon, “July, 1944: St. Lô,” American Heritage (June 1974): 4+ (“jerked with a rope”); Linderman, The World Within War, 346 (“the end of everything�
��).

  Before dawn on Monday, July 17: Balkoski, Beyond the Beachhead, 262; memoir, William Puntenney, ts, n.d., MMD, 59–63 (killing the new commander); St.-Lô, 110–11 (undershirts); BP, 167 (plasma bags); Robert E. Walker, “With the Stonewallers,” ts, n.d., MMD, 65 (“unbearably sorry scene”).

  But German defenses were melting: BP, 170–71; Johns, The Clay Pigeons of St. Lo, 198, 233–34 (stone sarcophagus); Whitehead, “Beachhead Don,” 195 (“Here among the dead”); Miller, Division Commander, 90 (slashed his arm); St.-Lô, 117–19 (seventeen strongpoints); Balkoski, Beyond the Beachhead, 278 (Howie’s body arrived by jeep).

  “You couldn’t identify anything”: “Between Collaboration and Resistance: French Literary Life Under Nazi Occupation,” New York Public Library, exhibition, June 2009; Carpenter, No Woman’s World, 59 (“On this lake”); Blumenson, Liberation, 28 (“liberated the hell”); Bair, Samuel Beckett: A Biography, 242–44; Perloff, “In Love with Hiding,” Iowa Review (2005): 82 (“capital of ruins”); Linderman, The World Within War, 117 (“fence posts, teacups, doorbells”); AAR, George V. Bleier, Jr., graves registration, 11th Inf, n.d., NARA RG 407, ETO G-3 OR, 290/56/5/1-3, box 11 (booby-trapped German bodies); “Graves Registration Service,” NARA RG 407, E 427, AG WWII operations reports, 97-USF5-0.3.0, no. 107, 10 (“jerked by a rope”).

  “If there was a world beyond”: Cawthon, “Pursuit: Normandy, 1944,” American Heritage (Feb. 1978): 80+.

  “eaten the guts out”: OH, 2nd ID, July 13–18, 1944, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder 12.

  “Here!”: Whitehead, “Beachhead Don,” 198; Balkoski, Beyond the Beachhead, 278. Many bodies of the division dead had yet to be recovered.

  Rommel rose with the sun: Irving, The Trail of the Fox, 372–74; Liddell Hart, The Rommel Papers, 463–64 (“can take your mind off”).