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

by Rick Atkinson

  Yet the Allies had their port: LSA, vol. 2, 122; The Seventh United States Army in France and Germany, vol. 2, 331 (12,500 tons of cargo); De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 115 (“no German not dead or captive”).

  Following his abdication and removal to Elba: Young, Napoleon in Exile: Elba, 136, 229, 283, 292–93, 304–18; Norwich, The Middle Sea, 456.

  The Route Napoléon led, indirectly, to Waterloo: Conway, “Operation Anvil,” lecture, n.d., Norfolk, Theodore J. Conway papers, MHI, box 2, 18–24; memo, LKT Jr. to A. Patch, July 21, 1944, NARA RG 319, OCMH 2-3.7 CC2, Hamilton mss.

  To command this scratch assemblage: OH, Frederic B. Bates, Oct. 6, 1967, Raymond Henle, HIA, http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/oralhistories/detail/2000,1*; Layne Van Arsdale, ed., “Allied Biographies,” USAREUR staff ride, Alsace, May 2009.

  An order radioed from the German high command: Hinsley, 509 (deciphered by British cryptologists); Jackson, The Mediterranean and the Middle East, vol. 6, part 2, 193–93. Historian Joachim Ludewig writes that Blaskowitz did not receive the withdrawal order until the morning of August 18, and that Nineteenth Army got it that afternoon (Rückzug, 82). David T. Zabecki points out that “Army Group B and Army Group G were not quite the same,” in that the former was designated an Armeegruppe, tantamount to an oversized army in Allied terms, and the latter a Heeresgruppe, the equivalent of an Allied army group (Corr. to author, May 9, 2012).

  Now the U.S. Seventh Army could speed north: Donald S. Bussey, “Ultra and the U.S. Seventh Army,” May 12, 1945, NARA RG 457, E 9002, NSA, SRH-022; Arthur L. Funk, “General Patch, Ultra, and the Alpine Passes, 1944,” n.d., University of Florida, a.p., 3–8 (NOVOCAINE); Beavan, Operation Jedburgh, 258–59.

  Truscott put the spurs to Butler: Butler, “Task Force Butler,” Armored Cavalry Journal, part 1 (Jan.–Feb.): 12+ (“dignified weep”), and part 2 (March–Apr. 1948): 30+; memo, F. B. Butler, March 3, 1947, NARA RG 319, OCMH background files, Hamilton mss, box 7.

  Task Force Butler covered forty-five miles: John A. Hixson, “Analysis of Deep Attack Operations: U.S. VI Corps, Task Force Butler, Aug. 1944,” March 1987, CSI, 27–33; Yeide and Stout, First to the Rhine, 69; Butler, “Task Force Butler,” Armored Cavalry Journal, part 1 (Jan.–Feb. 1948): ff. (formed a fire brigade); OH, 2nd Bn, 143rd Inf and 117th Cavalry Recon Squadron, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder 117; Jackson, The Mediterranean and the Middle East, vol. 6, part 2, 197.

  Across folded limestone hills: “Invasion of Southern France,” n.d., WD HD, CMH, 8-3 SF, 109; Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream, 440–42 (“through civilized, settled Provence”).

  In Gap, nearly a hundred miles from the sea: Arthur L. Funk, “Allies and Maquis,” n.d., NARA RG 319, RR background files, FRC 5; Butler, “Task Force Butler,” Armored Cavalry Journal, part 2 (Mar.–Apr. 1948): 30. (sixty B-17s); OH, 117th Cavalry Recon Squadron, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder 117 (wearing full packs).

  “You will move at first light”: “Invasion of Southern France,” n.d., WD HD, CMH, 8-3 SF, 199–200; John A. Hixson, “Analysis of Deep Attack Operations: U.S. VI Corps, Task Force Butler, Aug. 1944,” March 1987, CSI, 27–33; Truscott, Command Missions, 437; Jackson, The Mediterranean and the Middle East, vol. 6, part 2, 197; RR, 147 (dash toward the river).

  By now supply shortages threatened to undermine: “Supply and Maintenance on the European Continent,” n.d., USFET General Board, NARA RG 407, E 427, 97-USF5-0.3.0, no. 130, 50; The Seventh United States Army in France and Germany, vol. 1, 218–20 (three hundred-mile round-trip); Leo J. Meyer, “Moving Men and Supplies in Southern France,” n.d., NARA RG 319, E 99, OCMH background files, 314.7, box 1, 14-17a (only eleven thousand gallons); “History of Ordnance Service in the MTO,” n.d., vol. 2, CMH, 8-4 JA, 188–89 (tire patches).

  Even so, by late Monday afternoon the vanguard: Yeide and Stout, First to the Rhine, 74–75; RR, 149 (Fifty Wehrmacht vehicles).

  VI Corps had severed the enemy escape route: Yeide and Stout, First to the Rhine, 75–78; RR, 149 (full-throated attack).

  “Everything has gone better”: LKT Jr. to Sarah, Aug. 17, 21, 29, Sept. 1, 3, 13, 1944, GCM Lib, box 1.

  His opponent felt dreadful: Yeide and Stout, First to the Rhine, 80 (“pre-technical days”); Charles V. von Lüttichau, “Breakout and Withdrawal to the Dijon Salient,” Sept. 1958, OCMH, NARA RG 319, R-series #106, 5 (save itself by fleeing); Ganz, “The 11th Panzers in the Defense, 1944,” Armor (Mar.–Apr. 1944): 26+; Giziowski, The Enigma of General Blaskowitz, 323–24 (dangled ropes).

  Truscott took the German feint: De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 356–57 (“carved out with an axe”); OH, “The Invasion of Southern France,” Seventh Army, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder #368, 160–62 (“Tell General O’Daniel”); RR, 164.

  At Montélimar, Task Force Butler struggled: RR, 144–50; “Operation Dragoon,” Dec. 1944, COHQ, bulletin Y/42, CARL, N-6530.20 (Army’s swift advance had outrun P-47s).

  This pleased Truscott not at all: Truscott, Command Missions, 426–27; msg, LKT Jr. to J. Dahlquist, Aug. 22, 1944, LKT Jr. papers, GCM Lib, box 12, folder 6 (“Don’t you understand”).

  In truth, Dahlquist was overmatched: photos, biographical notes, John E. Dahlquist papers, MHI; Steidl, Lost Battalions, 24, 57, 142–46 (given to brooding); corr, John E. Dahlquist to Ruth, Oct. 29, 1944, Dahlquist papers, MHI (“I get winded”); corr, John E. Dahlquist to Homer Case, June 5, 1945, Dahlquist papers, MHI (Half his transport had yet to be unloaded); Yeide and Stout, First to the Rhine, 76 (Spanish consul’s car); LKT Jr., “Comments on ‘Dragoon Secondary Attack Against Fortress Europe,’” n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7 CC2, Hamilton mss, 3 (carrying three dozen men); “Invasion of Southern France,” n.d., WD HD, CMH, 8-3 SF, 237 (“Your primary mission”).

  The battalion withdrew “at night from a hill”: Yeide and Stout, First to the Rhine, 85.

  The German capture of a 36th Division battle plan: “Invasion of Southern France,” n.d., WD HD, CMH, 8-3 SF, appendix B, v–xii; Yeide and Stout, First to the Rhine, 92 (“Come on, you bastards”).

  “John, I have come here”: Truscott, Command Missions, 430–31.

  More than eight battalions—some one hundred guns: “Invasion of Southern France,” n.d., WD HD, CMH, 8-3 SF, 243; Holt, The Deceivers, 621 (asphalt caught fire); OH, 3rd Bn, 143rd Inf, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder 117 (2,500 mortar rounds); Lucian Heichler, “German Defense of the Gateway to Antwerp,” Dec. 1953, NARA RG 319, R-series #23, 21–27; Turner and Jackson, Destination Berchtesgaden, 62; Giziowski, The Enigma of General Blaskowitz, 330–31 (splashed across the Drôme).

  In a confused mêlée: RR, 166.

  Task Force Butler, reduced to hardly more than a battalion: OH, 3rd Bn, 36th ID, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder 117.

  “That’s the first time I ever saw a Texan”: Murphy, To Hell and Back, 188–89.

  The battle of Montélimar was over: Conway, “Operation Anvil,” lecture, n.d., Norfolk, Theodore J. Conway papers, MHI, box 2, 22–24 (“concept was daring”); “Invasion of Southern France,” n.d., WD HD, CMH, 8-3 SF, 245 (sixty thousand U.S. artillery shells); Wilt, The French Riviera Campaign of August 1944, 141 (“I fumbled it badly”); RR, 167–68 (Blaskowitz’s losses exceeded ten thousand); Lucian Heichler, “German Defense of the Gateway to Antwerp,” Dec. 1953, NARA RG 319, R-series #23, 31–32; Charles V. von Lüttichau, “Breakout and Withdrawal to the Dijon Salient,” Sept. 1958, OCMH, NARA RG 319, R-series #106, 16–17 (338th Division mustered barely one thousand); Ludewig, Rückzug, 178–79 (“almost a miracle”).

  “carnage compounded”: Truscott, Command Missions, 432–33; Taggart, ed., History of the Third Infantry Division, 222 (Avenue of Stenches); Simpson, Audie Murphy, American Soldier, 125 (gas masks).

  “some degree of satisfaction”: Truscott, Command Missions, 432–33; OH, “The Invasion of Southern France,” Seventh Army, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder #368, 176–77 (ten thousand square miles); RR,
167 (captured 23,000 Germans).

  Two field-gray torrents streamed: Dean H. Krasomil, “German Operations in Southern France: The Withdrawal of the LXIV Corps,” March 1954, NARA RG 319, R-series #47, 4–18; Germany VII, 650–61 (“improper remarks”); Ludewig, Rückzug, 80 (kidnapped whenever possible).

  Allied air strikes and FFI marauders: Steidl, Lost Battalions, 20 (8 million francs); “German Surrenders,” AB, no. 48 (1985): 1+ (making bonfires).

  The other retreating gaggle: Wilhelm Heinrich Scheidt, “German Operations in the West,” Sept. 1945, OKW Historical Section, NARA RG 407, ML #874, VI, 13–15 (“trekking Wehrmacht”); Germany VII, 657–61 (138,000 men); Marshall, A Ramble Through My War, 131 (“moving bushes”); The Seventh United States Army in France and Germany, vol. 1, 220–21 (Field Order No. 4); OH, Viscount Portal, Feb. 7, 1947, FCP (“swine”); Wilt, The French Riviera Campaign of August 1944, 157 (shot up a train). Stalin renewed his suggestion in October 1944. TSC, 406.

  By early September, almost 200,000 Allied soldiers: IFG, 276; Garland, Unknown Soldiers, 282 (“liberation, libation”); Collier, Fighting Words, 177 (“festooned with humanity”); Marshall, A Ramble Through My War, 151 (“hand out British flags”); Pallud, “The Riviera Landings,” AB, no. 110 (2000): 2+ (cakes of butter).

  “Sometimes the sheets on the hotel beds”: Gray, The Warriors, 155; Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream, 457–59 (painted by Picasso); corr, Gertrude Stein to A. M. Patch, Jr., n.d. and Nov. 15, 1944, Alexander M. Patch, Jr., papers, USMA Arch, box 1; Wyant, Sandy Patch, 141 (“a lot of repetitions”).

  In Grenoble the fleeing Germans: Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream, 454; Mauldin, The Brass Ring, 227–28 (pistol shot in the ear).

  A 36th Division patrol entered Lyon: Truscott, Command Missions, 434; Higgins, Soft Underbelly, 220 (“British opposed to the end”).

  “In the shops one could buy”: Garland, Unknown Soldiers, 312; Aron, France Reborn, 354 (“capital of repression”); diary, Sept. 19, 1944, Kingsley Andersson papers, HIA, box 1 (“Too much gunfire”).

  Tracers fired into a city hospital: Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream, 462; Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs, 768–69 (spans over the Rhône). One recent German account asserts that all thirty-three bridges around Lyon were blown (Ludewig, Rückzug, 192).

  Precisely where those convoys should go: A. M. Patch, Jr., to Julia, Sept. 14, 1944, Patch papers, USMA Arch, box 1 (“temporary notoriety”).

  Sandy Patch was tall, gangly: Truscott, Command Missions, 383 (“expressing himself”); Colley, Decision at Strasbourg, 27 (“mystic turn of mind”); “Patch of Provence,” Time (Aug. 28, 1944), 22+ (“devil before dawn”); Strobridge and Nalty, “From the South Pacific to the Brenner Pass: General Alexander M. Patch,” Military Review (June 1981): 41+ (Apache country); memo, J. N. Wenger, June 17, 1943; memo, E. J. King “for Gen. Marshall only,” June 21, 1943; memo, A. M. Patch, Jr., June 29, 1943; “eyes only,” GCM to A. M. Patch, Jr., June 29, 1943; memo, GCM to E. J. King, July 28, 1943, GCM Lib, box 78, folder 49 (“I am puzzled”).

  “It feels as though it was three months ago”: A. M. Patch, Jr., to Julia, Sept. 14, 1944, Patch papers, USMA Arch, box 1; Giziowski, The Enigma of General Blaskowitz, 355 (Blaskowitz halted the Nineteenth Army); Yeide and Stout, First to the Rhine, 168–70 (scaling ladders); RR, 189; Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream, 466 (stolen bicycles); Wilt, The French Riviera Campaign of August 1944, 154 (“never saw such confusion”).

  The captured booty included: Wilt, The French Riviera Campaign of August 1944, 150–51 (“fleeting opportunity”); The Seventh United States Army in France and Germany, vol. 2, 399; Salisbury-Jones, So Full a Glory, 161 (irked De Lattre); RR, 182–83, 223 (Patch agreed to permit); Truscott, Command Missions, 443 (“gateway to Germany”).

  Then the ground shifted: RR, 228–29; Chandler, 2146–47 (supreme commander in mid-September); Mansoor, The GI Offensive in Europe, 207 (making the U.S. armies contiguous).

  “surprised and disappointed”: diary, VI Corps, Sept. 14–15, 1944, Don E. Carleton papers, HIA, box 1.

  “The assault on the Belfort Gap”: LKT Jr. to A. M. Patch, Jr., Sept. 15, 1955, LKT Jr. papers, GCM Lib, box 12, folder 6; Truscott, Command Missions, 443–44; Wyant, Sandy Patch, 138 (Lons-le-Saunier).

  Patch phoned at 6:30 P.M.: “Telephone Conversation Between Gen. Patch and Gen. Truscott,” 1830 hrs, Sept 16, 1944, NARA RG 319, OCMH 2-3.7 CC2, Hamilton mss.

  So ended DRAGOON: RR, 563 (“just one day’s supplies”), 237 (barely two dozen tanks left); John W. Mosenthal, “The Establishment of a Continuous Defensive Front by Army Group G,” Nov. 1955, NARA RG 319, OCMH, R-series, #68, 3–11 (“still able to fight”), 13–15 (Blaskowitz was sacked); Ludewig, Rückzug, 180 (His greatest fear); Charles V. von Lüttichau, “Army Group G Operations in Southern France,” Aug. 1956, NARA RG 319, OCMH, R-series #87, 36 (130,000 had escaped); Charles V. von Lüttichau, “Breakout and Withdrawal to the Dijon Salient,” Sept 1958, NARA RG 319, OCMH, R-series #112, 28 (only 165 of 1,600 artillery pieces); Giziowski, The Enigma of General Blaskowitz, 361 (“planting cabbage”). Ludewig estimates that at least 160,000 Germans from southern and southwestern France reached Dijon (Rückzug, 267–68).

  On the same Tuesday that Blaskowitz was relieved: Pogue, George C. Marshall, 415. The official Army history acknowledges that “it is impossible to ascertain with any degree of accuracy” the casualties in Army Group G for late summer 1944. RR, 197.

  But ahead lay the granite and gneiss uplands: author visit, May 24–28, 2009; Taggart, ed., History of the Third Infantry Division, 237–38; Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream, 473 (“long again for home”); diary, VI Corps, Sept. 28, 1944, Don E. Carleton papers, HIA, box 1 (“Looking for skis”); LKT Jr. to Sarah, Sept. 16, Oct. 18, 1944, LKT Jr. papers, GCM Lib, box 1.

  “Harden the Heart and Let Fly”

  A world away: Robb, The Discovery of France, 42; Roach, The 8.15 to War, 170 (waved with one hand).

  By the end of August the front stretched: BP, 667; Gilmore, ed., U.S. Army Atlas of the European Theater in World War II, 65; LC, 2–3 (more than two million Allied soldiers); AAFinWWII, 596 (7,500 bombers and 4,300 fighters); “Strategy of the Campaign in Western Europe, 1944–1945,” n.d., USFET General Board study no. 1, 50 (Montgomery’s fifteen divisions); King and Kutta, Impact, 221–23; Hinsley, 570 (Luftwaffe aircraft); Howard, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 5, Strategic Deception, 177; Germany VII, 434; Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, 48 (“battle of London is won”); corr, WSC to A. Eden, Sept. 2, 1944, “Strategy and Operations, vol. II,” UK NA, CAB 120/421 (“fall out of temper”).

  In 12th Army Group, Bradley commanded: LC, 4–5; Balkoski, From Beachhead to Brittany, 316–17; Mitcham, Retreat to the Reich, 214 (fishing tackle).

  Under this onslaught the Wehrmacht: Alfred Jodl, ETHINT 52, Aug. 2, 1945, MHI, 6 (“planless flight”); Mitcham, Retreat to the Reich, 222 (OB West listed eighteen divisions); Ludewig, Rückzug, 191 (“We have lost a battle”); “Penetration of Siegfried Line,” 4th ID, n.d., CARL, N-12159.1 (“Americans will be here”); Germany VII, 624 (“ignominious rout”); Boesch, Road to Huertgen, 110 (waving chickens).

  “Any Boches today?”: Knickerbocker et al., Danger Forward, 272.

  By truck and by foot the pursuers pursued: Blue Spaders, 69; Horrocks, Corps Commander, 71–72 (“harden the heart”); Pyle, Brave Men, 310 (gray lace of burned powder); SLC, 15 (among a half-million killed).

  “We blew up everything”: Will Thornton, “World War II ‘M’ Co. History as Told by the Survivors,” n.d., a.p.

  At Braine, near Reims: Wellard, The Man in a Helmet, 158 (Patton’s vanguard); White, Conqueror’s Road, 10 (“ecstatic agony”), 25 (“tits”); Kershaw, “It Never Snows in September,” 19 (“west front has collapsed”).

  Fuel shortages, nettlesome since early August: Waddell, United States Army Logistics, 63 (tripled from six gallons); LC, 24–25 (100,000 gallons and Patton’s fuel dumps), 117–18 (tanks sent to capture a Meuse bridge); OH, Lt. Gen. S
ir Humphrey Gale, Jan. 27, 1947, FCP; VW, vol. 2, 72 (battleships); Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, 332 (stalled for four days); diary, Sept. 6, 1944, CBH, MHI, box 4 (corps commanders cadged cans); “G-4 Periodic Report,” Third Army, Sept. 5, 1944, Walter J. Muller papers, HIA, box 6 (“extremely critical”); Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 402 (“Damn it, Brad”).

  Onward they pushed, on foot: Heinz, When We Were One, 220 (polka-dot stars); Kennett, G.I.: The American Soldier in World War II, 194 (“Vote for Dewey”); Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 131 (“If that was the only mistake”).

  Giddy rumors swirled: Hastings, Armageddon, 14 (fled to Spain); Sylvan, 133–34 (insurrection in Cologne); OH, A. F. Kibler, 12th AG, May 29, 1946, NARA RG 407, ML #501, box 24155 (river crossing sites); diary, CBH, Sept. 1, 1944, MHI, box 4 (“‘If the war lasts’”); diary, Raymond G. Moses, Sept. 4, 1944, MHI, box 1.

  “End the war in ‘44”: Perret, There’s a War to Be Won, 359; “Ready for V-Day?,” Time (Sept. 4, 1944): 17 (“first newsboy”); Hamilton, Monty: Final Years of the Field-Marshal, 1944–1976, 12 (spare an extra army headquarters); memo, E. E. MacMorland to H. B. Sayler, July 29, 1944, Henry B. Sayler papers, DDE Lib, box 4 (Pentagon drafted plans).

  “There is a feeling of elation”: Colville, The Fringes of Power, 507.

  “Militarily the war is won”: Three Years, 657; Ferrell, ed., The Eisenhower Diaries, 127 (“advance almost at will”).

  The Allied juggernaut aimed vaguely for Berlin: OH, W. B. Smith and H. R. Bull, Sept. 14, 1945, OCMH WWII Europe Interviews, MHI; SLC, 28; LO, 294 (Two-thirds of German steel); “Industrial Value of the Ruhr to the German War Effort,” Oct. 30, 1944, British Brief and Action Report, JIC, NARA RG 331, E 3, box 132 (40 percent drop in artillery ammunition); VW, vol. 1, 82 (“every chance of bringing to battle”).