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

by Rick Atkinson

  The second discovery was no less portentous: corr, J. R. Oppenheimer and Luis Alvarez to Robert Furman, June 5, 1944, Boris T. Pash papers, HIA, box 3, folder 2; memo, S. A. Goudsmit, “Strassburg [sic] Intelligence on German Nuclear Physics,” Dec. 17, 1944, and “Progress Report #8—Strasbourg Operation, ALSOS Mission,” Dec. 7, 1944, Boris T. Pash papers, HIA, box 2, folders 1 and 3; Pash, The Alsos Mission, 155–57; Groves, Now It Can Be Told, 212–23.

  “most complete, dependable and factual information”: memo, L. R. Groves to Maj. Gen. Clayton Bissell, March 16, 1945, George Bryan Conrad papers, USMA Archives; memo, S. A. Goudsmit, “Strassburg [sic] Intelligence on German Nuclear Physics,” Dec. 17, 1944, Boris T. Pash papers, HIA, box 2, folder 1 (“two slide rules”); “Alsos Mission History,” n.d., and “Report by the Scientific Chief of the ALSOS Mission,” n.d., Boris T. Pash papers, HIA, box 2, folder 8; Pash, The Alsos Mission, 159 (“the Nazis had not progressed”).

  Leclerc and his lieutenants bivouacked: “Capture of Strasbourg,” French 2nd AD, Jan. 28, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder #247 (“its pretentious design”); Gray, The Warriors, 4–5 (switched their storefront signage); Aron, France Reborn, 437–38 (deported to Germany). The French refused to print 6th Army Group guarantees of the Geneva Conventions, forcing Seventh Army to put up its own posters to that effect (Seventh Army war diary, Dec. 6–10, 1944, MHI, 426–35).

  “There is no question that the French hate”: Gray, The Warriors, 200.

  A ceremony near the cathedral: “Capture of Strasbourg,” French 2nd AD, Jan. 28, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder #247; Franklin Louis Gurley, “Policy Versus Strategy: The Defense of Strasbourg in Dec. 1944,” 1992, NARA RG 319, RR background files, FRC 5 (“never give it back”).

  For nearly three months Seventh Army: Seventh Army war diary, Sept. 26, 1944, MHI, 266.

  Eight hundred outboard-motor operators: “The Crossing of the Rhine,” 1945, CEOH, box X-25, folder 2; Seventh Army war diary, Sept. 19, Nov. 7, and Nov. 18, 1944, MHI, 256, 356, 380; corr, Garrison H. Davidson to Hal C. Pattison, CMH, July 23, 1988, NARA RG 319, RR background files, FRC 4 (SHAEF rejected a proposal).

  Even if the bridge from Strasbourg to Kehl: The Seventh United States Army in France and Germany, vol. 2, 419; OH, Reuben Jenkins, Oct. 14, 1970, Thomas E. Griess, JLD, YCHT, box 94, 29–30 (Patrols found few defenders); RR, 439; Colley, Decision at Strasbourg, 150; corr, Garrison H. Davidson, Apr. 21, 1953, CEOH, box X-25 (On Thanksgiving night, Patch’s engineers).

  Eisenhower knew almost nothing: diary, JLD, Nov. 24, 1944, MHI; Colley, Decision at Strasbourg, 135–36 (“happy and boyish” and “impassive Alsatian faces”); http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/lewis_clark/exploring/ch1-1.html (the name “America”); Steidl, Lost Battalions, 126 (St.-Dié’s textile mills); Turner and Jackson, Destination Berchtesgaden, 92 (grenades and dynamite); Marshall, A Ramble Through My War, 168 (“wanton destruction”).

  A final forty-mile drive: Colley, Decision at Strasbourg, 135–36; RR, 439–40 (Heritage Hotel).

  The supreme commander wasted no time: memo, ONB to G-3, 12th AG, Nov. 26, 1944, NARA RG 319, RR background files, FRC 5 (Bradley agreed that the transfer); RR, 439–40.

  “He’s in the mud”: Colley, Decision at Strasbourg, 136–38.

  New reports of a German counterattack: RR, 382–86; Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, 407 (only massed artillery); corr, Robert R. Smith, CMH, to Thomas E. Griess, USMA, Nov. 28, 1978, NARA RG 319, RR background files, FRC 4 (“helluva way to get to Berlin”).

  “Ike, I’m on the Haguenau”: The river at Haguenau is in fact named the Moder, a tributary of the Rhine.

  “I’ve got everything in the woods”: Colley, Decision at Strasbourg, 136–38; RR, 439–42; corr, Hal. C. Pattison, CMH, to Garrison H. Davidson, Aug. 1, 1968, NARA RG 319, RR background files, FRC 4 (Patton’s army should be shifted).

  Devers grew shrill: RR, 439–42, 575; Colley, Decision at Strasbourg, 136–38 (likened it to Patton’s effort in August 1943); DOB, 162–64 (a misbegotten analogy).

  Eisenhower remained immovable: corr, Robert R. Smith, CMH, to Thomas E. Griess, USMA, Nov. 28, 1978, NARA RG 319, RR background files, FRC 4; Three Years, 702–5 (no “definitely decisive area”); RR, 439–42 (“mad as hell”).

  The trio of generals retired for a few hours’ sleep: Seventh Army war diary, MHI, 400–403; LC, 520–21 (“offers the best chance”).

  “The decision not to cross the Rhine”: diary, JLD, Nov. 24 and 26, 1944, MHI.

  Even the Army official history: RR, 563 (“difficult to understand”), 445 (“‘strategy’ of firepower and attrition”); Mansoor, The GI Offensive in Europe, 207 (neither a coherent strategic goal); corr, Robert R. Smith, CMH, to Thomas E. Griess, USMA, Nov. 28, 1978, NARA RG 319, RR background files, FRC 4 (“misusing 6th Army Group”); Friedrich-Wilhelm von Mellenthin, Army Group G chief of staff, ts, March 1946, FMS #A-999, MHI, 100–112 (gave the Germans a respite).

  Surely the supreme commander’s personal distaste: corr, Thomas E. Griess, USMA, to Robert R. Smith, CMH, Dec. 19, 1978, NARA RG 319, RR background files, FRC 4; OH, Reuben Jenkins, Oct. 14, 1970, Thomas E. Griess, JLD, YCHT, box 94, 35–36 (played favorites with Bradley); RR, 439–40 (“member of the same team”); Colley, Decision at Strasbourg, 178, 154 (“bring the war to a quicker end”); diary, JLD, Dec. 19, 1944, MHI (“The tragedy to my mind”).

  Yet Devers made errors of his own: RR, 433, 437; Charles V. von Lüttichau, “The Fall of Strasbourg and the Birth of the Colmar Pocket, n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, R-series, #129, 24–26 (“out of the question”); diary, JLD, Dec. 2, 1944, MHI (“It is hoped that the French Army”).

  “with the help of darkness and fog”: De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 291; memo, Reuben E. Jenkins to JLD, Feb. 24, 1947, Jenkins papers, MHI, box 1, 8 (only a few thousand more troops), 6 (“confusion”).

  Still more disheartening: Clayton, Three Marshals of France, 60–61; Mitchell, Hitler’s Mountain, 124 (“I will not serve”); Porch, The Path to Victory, 588 (his antebellum name); diary, JLD, Dec. 6, 1944, MHI (“Having a great deal of trouble”); Maule, Out of the Sand, 260–62 (“the only failure in command”); John Hixson and Benjamin Franklin Cooling, “Combined Operations in Peace and War,” 1982, MHI, 190–92 (Even when reinforced); OH, Russell L. Vittrup, 1989, Henry E. Fitzgerald, 1989, SOOHP, MHI, 124 (“consternation and ill-feeling”).

  Seventh Army engineers trucked their storm boats: Colley, Decision at Strasbourg, 144; Taggart, ed., History of the Third Infantry Division, 278 (dropped the Kehl bridge); Yeide and Stout, First to the Rhine, 254 (keep the pocket victualed); Peter T. Heffner, Jr., VI Corps, Dec. 29, 1944, G-3 OR, NARA RG 498, box 3 (Loudspeaker broadcasts).

  “SHAEF treats us as bastard children”: corr, T. R. Bruskin to wife, Apr. 15, 1945, a.p.

  CHAPTER 8: A WINTER SHADOW

  “We Are All So Human That It Is Pitiful”

  Nine million Allied propaganda leaflets: “The Psychological Warfare Division,” 1945, CMH, 8-3.6 BA, 45–48; Robert H. Garey, “Leaflet Operations in the Western European Theater,” SHAEF, July 1945, C. D. Jackson papers, DDE Lib, box 9, 1, 19, 25 (one thousand tons); Lerner, Psychological Warfare Against Nazi Germany, 239–40.

  In the early days of this “nickeling”: “The Psychological Warfare Division,” 1945, CMH, 8-3.6 BA, 47; Harris G. Warren, “Special Operations: AAF Aid to European Resistance Movements,” 1947, AFHRA, historical study no. 121, 44–45 (as far afield as Italy); “Psychological Warfare in the ETO,” n.d., USFET General Board study no. 131, NARA RG 407, E 427, 97-USF5-0.30, 32–33 (T-1 Monroe Leaflet Bomb); Robert H. Garey, “Leaflet Operations in the Western European Theater,” SHAEF, July 1945, C. D. Jackson papers, DDE Lib, box 9, 25 (A single B-24). Invented by a bomb squadron armament officer, the munition technically was known as “Bomb, Propaganda, T-1.”

  Psychological warfare teams studied: TSC, 344; “Psychological Warfare in the ETO,” n.d., USFET General Board study no. 131, NARA R
G 407, E 427, 97-USF5-0.30, 8 (“best fed Army”), 43 (“hog calling”); “The Psychological Warfare Division,” 1945, CMH, 8-3.6 BA, 39–42 (Voice of SHAEF). Radio Luxembourg often broadcast damage reports as if they came from a clandestine German station in the Rhineland (AAR, 12th AG, vol. 14, NARA RG 331, E-200A, SHAEF, box 268, 187–91).

  Millions of time-fuze incendiaries: “The Psychological Warfare Division,” 1945, CMH, 8-3.6 BA, 53; OSS, “Simple Sabotage Field Manual,” Field Manual No. 3, Jan. 1944, 5, 11–14 (“Try to commit acts”).

  Still Germany fought on: Murphy, Diplomat Among Warriors, 240 (unconditional surrender); memo, Wallace Carroll, Office of War Information, Mar. 25, 1944, Wallace Carroll papers, LOC MS Div, box 1, folder: day files Mar. 1944, 1 (“nothing to lose”); Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943–1944, 529 (“phrase coined at a conference”), 431 (“I want at all costs”); TSC, 354–55 (“a lawless conspiracy”).

  Eventual Allied victory: McCreedy, “Planning the Peace: Operation Eclipse and the Occupation of Germany,” JMH (July 2001): 713+ (seventy-two studies); Pogue, George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 466 (four in five Americans supported); Ziemke, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, 1944–1946, 86–90 (War Department’s top linguist).

  The victorious Red Army: Mosely, “The Occupation of Germany,” Foreign Affairs (July 1950): 580+.

  “The defeat of Germany will leave Russia”: Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943–1944, 523–24.

  Winston Churchill also perceived: Kimball, Forged in War, 286; Reynolds, In Command of History, 460–63 (“naughty document”). One prominent historian believes Stalin’s confirmational tick mark was intended for Romania only, and that in fact he wanted a 90 percent share in Bulgaria rather than Churchill’s proposed 75 percent (Plokhy, Yalta, 147).

  Although the “percentages agreement”: Hastings, Winston’s War, 415–19; Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography, 759–61.

  That fall, a separate controversy: Kimball, Forged in War, 275 (“two Jeffersonian gentlemen farmers”), 276 (“unnatural, unchristian”); Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945, 474 (“re-creation of an agricultural state”). Churchill’s change of heart may also have been encouraged by a U.S. agreement to continue providing American aid to Britain after the war (Stoler, Allies in War, 170).

  “They brought it on themselves”: Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran, 190–91.

  Others in the Anglo-American braintrust: ibid., 193 (“flew into a rage”); Grayling, Among the Dead Cities, 161 (“blind vengeance”); Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War, 569–71 (“general evils”); Weinberg, A World at Arms, 796–97; Pogue, George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 467 (proposal to summarily shoot).

  “The papers have taken it up”: Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War, 580–81; Ziemke, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, 101–05.

  “a ruined no-man’s land”: Collier, The Freedom Road, 1944–45, 189.

  “A policy which condones or favors chaos”: VW, vol. 2, 147.

  “Henry Morgenthau pulled a boner”: Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War, 580–81; TSC, 342 (“inspired by the Jews”).

  This contretemps cooled Roosevelt’s enthusiasm: Murphy, Diplomat Among Warriors, 228 (“I dislike making detailed plans”); TSC, 342–43 (would not be enslaved), 351; Mosely, “Dismemberment of Germany,” Foreign Affairs (Apr. 1950): 487+ (seven disparate states); Mosely, “The Occupation of Germany,” Foreign Affairs (July 1950): 580+ (three occupation zones); ALH, I-178–79; Weinberg, A World at Arms, 792–95.

  No formal ratification of this plan: Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952, vol. 1, 280 (single Allied commander); Chandler, 1873 (“eastern portion of Germany”); Murphy, Diplomat Among Warriors, 231–32 (“not having any faith”).

  “Something ‘big’ will come out of this war”: Brower, ed., World War II in Europe: The Final Year, 22.

  Montgomery’s promise to Eisenhower: Bryant, Triumph in the West, 252 (“He has never commanded anything”), 254 (“You have always told me”); Hastings, Armageddon, 153 (“feeling of optimism”); Crosswell, Beetle, 778 (“Eisenhower is quite useless”).

  On Tuesday afternoon, November 28: VW, vol. 2 167–68; Bryant, Triumph in the West, 258–59 (“We talked for three hours”).

  “Ike does not agree”: Howarth, ed., Monty at Close Quarters, 16.

  “He thinks Bradley has failed him”: Bryant, Triumph in the West, 258–59.

  “We have achieved none of this”: msg, BLM to DDE, Nov. 30, 1944, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 83; Chandler, 2325.

  On Friday, December 1: Sylvan, 197 (hives); Bradley and Blair, A General’s Life, 346 (“as angry as I had ever seen him”).

  “There are certain things in your letter”: Chandler, 2323–25.

  “such canalized egotism”: Hart-Davis, ed., King’s Counsellor, 265, 311 (“mental unstability”).

  “He had no competence in the fine art”: Ambrose, The Supreme Commander, 512.

  A British official who watched Montgomery: Hamilton, Monty: Final Years of the Field-Marshal, 1944–1976, 117 (“like a little bird”); Danchev, 620 (“goes on harping”).

  But others in the highest British circles: Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, 267 (“We have of course sustained”); VW, vol. 2, 167 (“We have definitely failed”); TSC, 315 (“a decisive break”); Love and Major, eds., The Year of D-Day, xliii (“no prospect of Ike”).

  Some of Montgomery’s partisans were more savage: Danchev, 625, 628.

  The fairways at Reims: Sixsmith, Eisenhower as Military Commander, 178 (never swung a golf club); Danchev, 627–30 (“Eisenhower completely fails”).

  At Montgomery’s request, another high-command conclave: Baedeker, Belgium and Holland, 239–40; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht; www.fortified-places.com/sieges/maastricht1673.html.

  Eisenhower and Tedder spent Wednesday: Bradley and Blair, A General’s Life, 347; Chandler, vol. 5, chronology, 175; Signal Corps footage, http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675070150_General-Eisenhower_Omar-Bradley_Bernard-Montgomery_World-War-II (smartly tailored); “Extracts from report of Maj. Gen. K. W. D. Strong,” Nov. 29, 1944, BLM corr, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 83 (twenty German divisions a month); Hastings, Armageddon, 140 (less than ten miles), 148.

  “The master plan”: “Notes of Meeting at Maastricht on 7.12.1944,” Tedder notes, Sidney H. Negrotto papers, MHI, box 4; copy in Harold R. Bull papers, DDE Lib, box 2. VW, vol. 2, 167–68.

  Round and round they went: Bradley and Blair, A General’s Life, 347 (“tedious affair”); Ambrose, The Supreme Commander, 610.

  “The meeting was affable”: corr, D/SAC to CAS, Nov. 7, 1944, NARA RG 319, SC background files, 2-3.7 CB 8 (“Another balls up”).

  “I personally regard the whole thing”: Bryant, Triumph in the West, 264–65; Hamilton, Monty: Final Years of the Field-Marshal, 1944–1976, 163.

  Bradley a few days later wrote: Hamilton, Monty: Final Years of the Field-Marshal, 1944–1976, 163 (“He refused to admit”); D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life, 635 (“an indication that I had failed”); corr, Everett S. Hughes to wife, Dec. 1, 1944, Hughes papers, LOC MS Div, box II:3, folder 4 (“We are all so human”).

  Staking Everything on One Card

  An iron sky roofed the gray-green Taunus Hills: Alfred Jodl, ETHINT 51, July 31, 1945, MHI, 24.

  To the unschooled eye: Kappes, “Hitler’s Ultra-Secret Adlerhorst,” 2003, http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/adlerhorst.aspx (Interior furnishings); White, Conquerors’ Road, 54–57 (heavy metal doors and peepholes); Raiber, “The Führerhauptquartiere,” AB, no. 19 (1977): 1+ (Artificial trees); “Kransberg-die Perle in Taunus,” www.kransberg.com (centuries of neglect).

  Hitler shuffled into his private chalet: Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, 762; Percy Ernst Schramm, “The Preparations for the German Offensive in the Ardennes,�
�� in Parker, ed., The Battle of the Bulge: The German View, 121–22 (vocal cords); Günther Blumentritt, “Battle of the Bulge,” part 1, n.d., PIR, MHI, 6 (“He seemed near collapse”); Overy, Why the Allies Won, 274–75 (“will-o’-the-wisp”); Germany VII, 680 (“everything on one card”).

  Even a delusional megalomaniac: Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, 345.

  German war production: Ardennes, 4–5 (118,000 military trucks), 8 (holidays abolished); Charles V. P. von Lüttichau, “The Ardennes Offensive: Germany’s Situation in the Fall of 1944,” OCMH, 1953, part II, NARA RG 319, R-series, #25, box 6, 44, 52, 59, 62, 67, 69 [copy also in CMH, 2-3.7]; Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, 595 (“Heroes of National Socialist Labor”), 603, 629 (vitamins); Hitchcock, The Bitter Road to Freedom, 249 (Seven million prisoners-of-war).

  To shore up a military now losing: MEB, “Overall View of Germany’s Economic, Political, and Military Situation at the Beginning of 1945,” May 1950, NARA RG 319, R-series #28, 12; Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, 347; Ardennes, 8 (“rear-area swine”), 15; Steinhoff et al., Voices from the Third Reich, 461 (“out of sheer terror”); TT, 43; Megargee, Inside Hitler’s High Command, 221 (Volkssturm); Evans, The Third Reich at War, 676 (“Closed because of the call-up”); Willmott, The Great Crusade, 416 (robbed German industry); Rush, Hell in Hürtgen Forest, 306 (“bow-and-arrow infantry”).

  Secret weapons always beguilded: Rudolf Lusar, “The German Weapons and Secret Weapons of World War II and Their Subsequent Development,” 1956, CMH, 16–17; Germany VII, 339 (“as if an angel”), 341–48, 353–54; VW, vol. 2, 144 (oddly ineffective); Muller, “Losing Air Superiority: A Case Study from the Second World War,” Air & Space Power Journal (winter 2003): 55+.