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

by Rick Atkinson

  Little profit had been found in frontal assaults: Ardennes, 321; Jacobsen and Rohwer, eds., Decisive Battles of World War II: The German View, 405–6.

  Among the few heartening reports: AAR, Albert J. Crandall, First Airborne Surgical Team, June 8, 1945, “Medical Department Activities in ETO,” NARA; Rapport and Northwood, Rendezvous with Destiny, 468 (“bullets were so close”); “Bastogne,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETOUSA HD, UD 584 (division surgeon).

  “Above all,” Middleton had instructed: “Bastogne,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETOUSA HD, UD 584; “Report on Allied Air Forces Operations,” SHAEF, May 21, 1945, CARL, N-9371 (twenty-nine sorties in Europe); Jacobsen and Rohwer, eds., Decisive Battles of World War II: The German View, 407–9 (Resurgent optimism).

  At 11:30 on Friday morning: Rapport and Northwood, Rendezvous with Destiny, 510–11.

  “The fortune of war is changing”: Devlin, Paratrooper!, 529–30.

  At 12:25 P.M. the ultimatum reached McAuliffe: “The Battle of Bastogne, 19–28 Dec. 44,” n.d., Battle Studies, CMH, Geog Belgium 370.2, 3; “Bastogne,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETOUSA HD, UD 584; corr, Eugene A. Watts to CBM, Feb. 28, 1985, CBM, MHI, box 1; Ardennes, 459 (only five battalions among the four regiments); OH, William L. Roberts, CCB, 10th AD, Jan. 12, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, folder #305 (mimeographed useful tips and two meals a day); Marshall, Bastogne, 133–34 (“whites of their eyes”); Ardennes, 460–61 (flapjacks).

  Perhaps inspired by the legendary epithet: John Glendower Westover, “Selected Memories,” vol. 3, MHI, 56, 89–90; OH, Harry W. O. Kinnard, May 2004, author, Arlington, Va.

  “We will kill many Americans”: “Bastogne,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETOUSA HD, UD 584.

  “This is crazy”: OH, Hasso von Manteuffel, Oct. 12, 1966, John S. D. Eisenhower, CBM, MHI, box 6, 21.

  The town had been named for Saint Vitus: http://saintvitus.com/SaintVitus/Catholic_Encyclopedia.html; http://www.catholic-saints.info/patron-saints/saint-vitus.htm; author visit, St.-Vith, June 2, 2009, signage (Various unpleasantries); http://st.vith.be/touristinfo/?Geschichtliches; Manteuffel assessment, 1964, in terrain study, Northern Army Group, June 1976, MHI, 11 (German plan to occupy St.-Vith).

  Gunfights had erupted around the town: AAR, 106th ID, Jan. 6, 1945, Alan W. Jones papers, MHI, box 1; Morelock, Generals of the Ardennes, 306–7 (easternmost U.S. redoubt); Ardennes, 292–93 (“German tide”).

  With supply lines cut: Ardennes, 399 (seven rounds); AAR, 442nd FA Group, March 18, 1946, Robert W. Hasbrouck papers, MHI, box 1 (“old propaganda shells”); Donald P. Boyer, Jr., “Narrative Account of Action of 38th Armored Infantry Battalion,” n.d., Robert W. Hasbrouck papers, MHI, box 1 (“for every round fired”); Schrijvers, The Unknown Dead, 169–70 (burning slaughterhouse); “Engineer Memoirs: General William M. Hoge,” 1993, CEOH, 134 (gobbled amphetamines); Lauer, Battle Babies, 83 (greasy smoke); Ellis, On the Front Lines, 97 (“cold, plodding, unwilling”); memoir, Archie Ross, n.d., 424th Inf, NWWIIM (“grow into an old man”).

  Manteuffel on December 20: “The Defense of St. Vith, Belgium,” n.d., AS, Ft. K, NARA RG 407, E 427, Miscl AG Records, #2280, 25; Ardennes, 404–6 (flat-trajectory flares); Donald P. Boyer, Jr., “Narrative Account of Action of 38th Armored Infantry Battalion,” n.d., Robert W. Hasbrouck papers, MHI, box 1 (“They’re blasting my men”); “The Defense of St. Vith, Belgium,” n.d., Ft. K, AS, NARA RG 407, E 427, Miscl AG Records, #2280, 29 (ordered his troops to fall back); Blair, Ridgway’s Paratroopers, 385; TT, 481 (twenty thousand others).

  General Hodges had given XVIII Airborne Corps: war diary, XVIII Airborne Corps, Dec. 19, 1944, MBR papers, MHI, box 59; Ardennes, 401 (twenty-five miles to eighty-five), 410–13 (battalion staff at Neubrück); Morelock, Generals of the Ardennes, 308–10, 326 (lost half its strength).

  “This terrain is not worth a nickel”: Bruce C. Clarke, “The Battle of St. Vith: A Concept in Defensive Tactics,” n.d., CARL, N-8467.297; msg, R. Hasbrouck to MBR, Dec. 22, 1944, Robert W. Hasbrouck papers, MHI, box 1; corr, MBR to JMG, Oct. 6, 1978, Maurice Delaval papers, MHI, box 9; Ridgway, Soldier, 120 (“We’re not going to leave you”).

  Reluctantly, Ridgway in midafternoon: Ardennes, 412–13; corr, MBR to JMG, Oct. 6, 1978, Maurice Delaval papers, MHI, box 9; Morelock, Generals of the Ardennes, 308–10 (“They can come back”).

  Fourteen hours of December darkness: Goolrick and Tanner, The Battle of the Bulge, 124 (“Go west”); memoir, Roger W. Cresswell, 7th AD, Sept. 23, 1979, Maurice Delaval collection, MHI, box 7 (each man gripping the belt and “only their eyes showing” and “Stay right where you are”); “The Defense of St. Vith, Belgium,” n.d., AS, Ft. K, NARA RG 407, E 427, Miscl AG Records, #2280, 36 (prodigal counterfire); TT, 481, 487 (Hasbrouck stood on a road).

  Ridgway estimated that fifteen thousand troops: Blair, Ridgway’s Paratroopers, 389; Ardennes, 422 (casualties east of the Salm); TT, 487 (would long resent Ridgway); Soffer, General Matthew B. Ridgway, 71 (“Nobody is worried”).

  German troops ransacked St.-Vith: Ardennes, 412–13.

  “Model himself directs traffic”: Baldwin, Battles Lost and Won, 338.

  Looting was best done quickly: “Allied Air Power and the Ardennes Offensive,” n.d., director of intelligence, USSAFE, NARA RG 498, ETOUSA HD, UD 584, box 1 (seventeen hundred tons); author visit, June 2, 2009, signage, tourist brochure; Schrijvers, The Unknown Dead, 183–84; Hastings, Armageddon, 211 (“big-mouthed apes”).

  A GI shivering in an Ardennes foxhole: Blunt, Foot Soldier, 119 (“How come we don’t”); Baxter, Scientists Against Time, 222 (“most remarkable scientific achievement”).

  The new weapon’s origin dated to 1940: “Employment of VT Fuzes in the Ardennes Campaign,” n.d., CMH, 3–6 (2,500 antiaircraft artillery shells); Baxter, Scientists Against Time, 223–24 (ice cream cone).

  The resulting device, eventually known: Baxter, Scientists Against Time, 223–24, 235; Green et al., The Ordnance Department, 363–66 (used only over open water); Appleman et al., Okinawa: The Last Battle, 257; “Employment of VT Fuzes in the Ardennes Campaign,” n.d., CMH, 3–6, 17; Morton, “The VT Fuze,” Army Ordnance (Jan.–Feb. 1946): 43+ (five times more effective); Baldwin, The Deadly Fuze, 275–76 (Lancaster bombers had flown).

  Pozit variants had been developed: Cooper, Death Traps, 206; corr, Ben Lear to GCM, n.d. (fall 1944), Henry B. Sayler papers, DDE Lib, box 9 (“most important new development”); Morton, “The VT Fuze,” Army Ordnance (Jan.–Feb. 1946): 43+.

  With approval from the Charlie-Charlies: “Employment of VT Fuzes in the Ardennes Campaign,” n.d., CMH, 9–11, 21–24 (“slaughter of enemy concentrations” and “terror weapon”); Richard Henry Byers, “Battle of the Bulge,” 1983, a.p., 39 (“piles of shells”); “Operational Use of VT Artillery Fuzes,” OPD Information Bulletin, Feb. 23, 1945, vol. 4, #2, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, box 1164; Green et al., The Ordnance Department, 363–66 (“severely upset”).

  Three hundred American companies: Baxter, Scientists Against Time, 233, 236 (“The other night we caught”); Ardennes, 655–56; “VT Fuzes,” March 29, 1945, NARA RG 337, AGF OR #282 (exaggerations); “Employment of VT Fuzes in the Ardennes Campaign,” n.d., CMH, 3 (the Army’s heaviest shells); Green et al., The Ordnance Department, 366; Chester C. Hough, “Effectiveness of VT Fuze,” Apr. 18, 1945, NARA RG 337, AGF OR #305.

  Yet the pozit would prove as demoralizing: Baldwin, The Deadly Fuze, 284; Carpenter, No Woman’s World, 232 (“It hangs in the air”); memo, “Results of Use of Pozit Fuses,” Jan. 10, 1945, V Corps to First Army, NARA RG 498, G-3 OR, box 1 (single 155mm airburst); “Effect of Pozit Fuze,” Jan. 6, 1945, XV Corps, NARA RG 498, G-3 OR, box 10 (“The devil himself”).

  But what of the devil’s henchmen?: Guns of the 30th ID first used pozit shells on December 19, and gunners estimated that one-quarter of all rounds fired around La Gleize were so fuzed (“VT Fuzes,” March 29, 1945, NARA RG 337, AGF OR #282).

  Peiper’s drive toward the Meuse: corr, J. Peiper to John S. D. Eisenhower, Apr. 4, 1967,
CBM, MHI, box 6; TT, 239–40 (blew all three bridges); “An Interview with Obst Joachim Peiper,” ETHINT 10, Sept. 7, 1945, MHI, 21 (Peiper swung north); Reynolds, Men of Steel, 95; Ardennes, 337–39 (cans of water).

  More spans were demolished: Royce L. Thompson, “The ETO Ardennes Campaign: Operations of the Combat Group Peiper,” July 24, 1952, CMH; Toland, Battle, 176 (fuel cans into the Amblève); Weingartner, Crossroads of Death, 58–60; Ardennes, 349–50, 364–65; Schrijvers, The Unknown Dead, 54–56 (priest gave general absolution); TT, 445.

  Peiper had traveled some sixty miles: Royce L. Thompson, “The ETO Ardennes Campaign: Operations of the Combat Group Peiper,” July 24, 1952, CMH; Reynolds, Men of Steel, 125 (fifteen hundred survivors); “Kampfgruppe Peiper,” n.d., FMS, #C-004, MHI, 12–13 (a hundred American prisoners); Hal D. McCown, CO, 2nd Bn, 119th Inf, “Observations of an American Field Officer,” n.d., MHI; TT, 459 (“communist menace”); Schrijvers, The Unknown Dead, 42–48; Moriss, “The Defense of Stavelot,” Yank, Feb. 9, 1945, 8+; Hitchcock, The Bitter Road to Freedom, 84–85; “Malmédy Massacre Investigation,” Senate Armed Services Committee, Oct. 1949, 2.

  By late Friday, American machine guns: TT, 459; Royce L. Thompson, “The ETO Ardennes Campaign: Operations of the Combat Group Peiper,” July 24, 1952, CMH (burned secrets in the cellar); Reynolds, Men of Steel, 126; Ardennes, 374–77; TT, 457–59 (Luger pistols), 465 (hit Malmédy instead).

  “Position considerably worsened”: H. Priess, “Commitment of the I SS Panzer Corps During the Ardennes Offensive,” March 1946, FMS, #A-877, MHI, 40–43; Reynolds, Men of Steel, 133 (coded message); Reynolds, The Devil’s Adjutant, 225–35 (shot for desertion); Ardennes, 376–77 (last twenty-eight panzers).

  At two A.M. on Sunday, December 24: Ardennes, 376–77. Other accounts cite fewer German wounded and more American prisoners left behind (Reynolds, Men of Steel, 133).

  During a brief firefight with an American patrol: Hal D. McCown, CO, 2nd Bn, 119th Inf, “Observations of an American Field Officer,” n.d., MHI; TT, 462–63 (“Yankee Doodle”).

  At a ford in the frigid Salm: Reynolds, Men of Steel, 134–35 (human chain); Royce L. Thompson, “The ETO Ardennes Campaign: Operations of the Combat Group Peiper,” July 24, 1952, CMH (German line at Wanne); TT, 462–63; Reynolds, Men of Steel, 134–35 (770 remained); “Malmédy Massacre Investigation,” Senate Armed Services Committee, Oct. 1949, 2; Ardennes, 262; Royce L. Thompson, “Bibliography of the Malmédy Massacre Case,” Dec. 9, 1954, CMH, Geog Belgium, 370.2.

  Across the Ardennes, heavy snow: Royce L. Thompson, “Weather of the Ardennes Campaign,” Oct. 2, 1953, CMH, 29; Ardennes, 470; Moorehead, Eclipse, 228 (a “radiant world”); William A. Carter, “Carter’s War,” 1983, CEOH, box V-14, XII, 22 (stacked like sandbags); Wellard, The Man in a Helmet, 209 (women’s dresses); Lewis, ed., The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness World War II, 441 (“Everyone seems about the same age”).

  Troops fashioned sleds: “Ardennes, Supply Installations, Withdraw of,” FUSA, Apr. 29, 1945, NARA RG 498, ETOUSA HD, UD 584; “Chief Engineers Report on Camouflage Activities in the ETO,” Nov. 15, 1945, Howard V. Canan papers, HIA, box 3 (lime wash and salt); Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 208 (Belgian lace); “Third U.S. Army After Action Report,” n.d., chapter 21, CMH (mattress covers); “Unit History, 93rd Evacuation Hospital, 1944,” Donald E. Currier papers, MHI, box 1, 42–43 (gloves dipped in paint); Simpson, Selected Prose, 138 (“out like a match”); Mary Ferrell, 101st Evacuation Hospital, ts, March 1970, NWWIIM (“like an untuned radio”).

  Clumsy skirmishes and pitched battles: Ardennes, 438–39; “Engineer Troops in Ardennes Breakthrough,” NARA RG 498, ETOUSA HD, UD 584, box 2, 2 (impeded the north shoulder); Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill, 463 (exposed Manteuffel’s left flank); Horst Stumpff, OB West chief armored officer, Aug. 11, 1945, ETHINT 61, MHI, 61 (new panzers in the Rhine valley).

  But west of St.-Vith in the German center: Gilmore, ed., U.S. Army Atlas of the European Theater in World War II, 142–43; Cirillo, “Ardennes-Alsace,” 33 (twenty-five-mile battlefront).

  New anxiety beset First Army headquarters: Sylvan, 231; war diary, Dec. 24, 1944, 0615 hrs, MBR papers, MHI, box 59 (“The situation is normal”).

  Others were far less sanguine: “Report on Allied Air Force Operations,” May 21, 1945, SHAEF, A-3, CARL, N-9371; AAFinWWII, 773 (“processing the terrain”); Royce L. Thompson, “Weather of the Ardennes Campaign,” Oct. 2, 1953, CMH, 29–30 (GIs craned their necks); Davis, Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe, 532–33 (heaviest attacks of the war); Richard Henry Byers, “Battle of the Bulge,” 1983, a.p., 36 (“The bombers have fine, feathery”); Ardennes, 649–50 (horse-drawn plows); Quesada, “Operations of the Ninth Tactical Air Command,” lecture, May 29, 1945, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, L-10-45, 13; diary, Martin Opitz, 295th VG Div, Dec. 25, 1944, NARA RG 407, ETO G-3 OR, box 8 (“The American Jabos”).

  Clear skies also permitted resupply of Bastogne: “Report on Air Resupply to 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne,” Jan. 11, 1945, in “Battle of the Bulge,” and OH, Carl W. Kohls, G-4, et al., NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folders #229 and 230. Of 900 sorties to Bastogne, 23 planes would be lost (Royce L. Thompson, “Air Resupply to Isolated Units, Ardennes Campaign,” Feb. 1951, CMH, 2-3.7 AE P, 73).

  General McAuliffe also had the invaluable services: OH, James E. Parker, “Air Support Part at Bastogne,” Jan. 1, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder #230; Marshall, Bastogne, 134–56; “Bastogne,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETOUSA HD, UD 584 (Tracks in the snow).

  Bastogne was reprieved: OH, William L. Roberts, CCB, 10th AD, Jan. 12, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, folder #305; “Bastogne,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETOUSA HD, UD 584 (rationed to ten rounds); Ardennes, 474 (sixteen miles in circumference); Ingersoll, Top Secret, 250 (“steel filings”).

  More than three thousand civilians remained trapped: Toland, Battle, 255–57; “Medical Evacuation and Supply, Bastogne,” n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder 230 (Several hundred wounded); Cowdrey, Fighting for Life, 265–66 (“their faces were old”); Rapport and Northwood, Rendezvous with Destiny, 469–70 (toiled by flashlight and rifle range); Cosmas and Cowdrey, Medical Services in the European Theater of Operations, 418 (the moribund lay along a wall and cognac); “Bastogne,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETOUSA HD, UD 584 (coffee and Ovaltine); Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 166–67.

  Napalm fires ringed the town: Ardennes, 475.

  “Do not plan, for God’s will”: Weintraub, 11 Days in December, 137; Simpson, Selected Prose, 140 (“Those who are attacking you”); Toland, Battle, 255–57 (“Santa Claus Is Coming”); Ardennes, 475 (“Xmas eve present”); Marshall, Bastogne, 169 (“We have been let down”).

  At 5:10 P.M. an intrepid pilot: “Medical Evacuation and Supply, Bastogne,” n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder 230; author visit, Bastogne, June 3, 2009, signage; OH, William L. Roberts, CCB, 10th AD, Jan. 12, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, folder #305 (civilian nurse); Rapport and Northwood, Rendezvous with Destiny, 471; “The Battle of Bastogne, 19–28 Dec. 44,” n.d., CMH, Geog Belgium 370.2, 4.

  Patton attended a candlelight communion: PP, 606; corr, GSP to Bea, Dec. 25, 1944, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 12; D’Este, Patton: A Genius for War, 691 (enthroned with Bradley); Codman, Drive, 235 (crowded, frigid).

  “brick-red face”: PP, 852–53.

  Scanning the starry sky outside: Allen, Lucky Forward, 184 (“Noel, noel”); Wellard, The Man in a Helmet, 210 (personally challenged sentries); Allen, Lucky Forward, 184 (“root-hog or die”); D’Este, Patton: A Genius for War, 682–83 (“war in the raw”); Blumenson, Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1885–1945, 251 (asked God for fair weather); PP, 606 (“clear cold Christmas”).

  Patton had made good on his brash promise: H. P. Hudson, “The Intervention of the Third Army: III Corps in the Attack,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETOUSA HD, UD 584, box 3 (feat was prodigious and “Drive like hell”); Allen, Lucky Forward, 180 (108 artillery battalions); Rickard, Advance and Destroy, 167 (No SS prisoners were to be take
n alive); Baily, Faint Praise, 120 (“Jumbo” tanks).

  Both commander and commanded had also made missteps: Albret Praun, Wehrmacht signal chief, “German Radio Intelligence,” n.d., FMS, #P-038, CMH, 84–85; Holt, The Deceivers, 647–48, 658–59; Cirillo, “Ardennes-Alsace,” 36 (plodding frontal assault); Robert R. Summers et al., “Armor at Bastogne,” May 1949, AS, CARL, N-2146.71-2, 123 (first time since October); Ardennes, 526 (perilous night attack); Fox, Patton’s Vanguard, 388 (just fourteen Shermans), 382–84 (“manure-strewn hell of a village”); “The Intervention of the Third Army: III Corps in the Attack,” n.d., CMH, 8-3.1 AR, II, 12–13; Taylor, General Maxwell Taylor, 130 (“The troops built little fires”).

  “This was probably my fault”: PP, 605.

  “it takes a long time to learn war”: Rickard, Advance and Destroy, 172; Fox, Patton’s Vanguard, 388; Robert R. Summers et al., “Armor at Bastogne,” May 1949, AS, CARL, N-2146.71-2, 128–31 (German paratroopers kept infiltrating); notes, Dec. 26, 1944, SHAEF main, James M. Robb corr, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 98 (Patton twice phoned); “The Intervention of the Third Army: III Corps in the Attack,” n.d., CMH, 8-3.1 AR, II, 12–13 (“I am unhappy”).

  In search of a seam: Sorley, Thunderbolt, 22, 55 (eating aspirin); Fox, Patton’s Vanguard, 399.

  “shooting, clubbing, stabbing melee”: Ardennes, 552–55; “The Intervention of the Third Army: III Corps in the Attack,” n.d., CMH, 8-3.1 AR, VIII, 10 (“They are through Assenois”).

  Five Shermans and a half-track: Sorley, Thunderbolt, 80–81; Toland, Battle, 282–83 (“Come here!”); Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 212 (“It’s good to see you”).

  “Kilroy Was Stuck Here”: Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 212; Ardennes, 607–9 (seven hundred enemy prisoners), 480–81 (two thousand American casualties); Hastings, Armageddon, 234 (smashing his rifle butt); “Bastogne,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETOUSA HD, UD 584 (division’s tank strength); “Answers to Questions Asked General Westphal,” 1954, FMS #A-896, MHI, 11 (“failure to conquer Bastogne”).