Book Read Free

The Liberation Trilogy Box Set

Page 304

by Rick Atkinson


  IS Infantry School, Ft. Benning, Ga.

  IWM Imperial War Museum, London

  JAG U.S. Army judge advocate general

  JB Joseph Balkoski

  JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff

  JLC J. Lawton Collins

  JLD Jacob L. Devers, including papers

  JMG James M. Gavin, including papers

  JMH Journal of Military History

  JT John Toland, including papers

  LC Hugh M. Cole, The Lorraine Campaign, USAWWII

  LHC Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, London

  LHD John Toland, The Last Hundred Days

  lib library

  LKT Jr. Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., including papers

  LO Charles B. MacDonald, The Last Offensive, USAWWII

  LOC MS Div Library of Congress Manuscript Division

  LSA Roland G. Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies, vols. 1 and 2, USAWWII

  MB Martin Blumenson

  MBR Matthew B. Ridgway

  MEB Magna E. Bauer

  MHI U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pa.

  MHUC Medical Historical Unit Collection, MHI

  micro microfilm

  ML miscellaneous AG records, ETO

  MMB Mark M. Boatner III, The Biographical Dictionary of World War II

  MMD 29th Infantry Division Archives, Maryland Military Department, Fifth Regiment Armory, Baltimore

  MP military police

  MRC FDM McCormick Research Center, First Division Museum, Cantigny, Ill.

  msg message

  mss manuscript

  MTOUSA Mediterranean Theater of Operations, United States Army

  n.d. no date

  NARA National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md.

  NATOUSA North African Theater of Operations, United States Army

  Naval Guns Morton L. Deyo, “Naval Guns at Normandy,” ts, n.d., SEM, NHHC, box 87

  NHHC Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington, D.C.

  NSA National Security Agency

  NWC Lib National War College Library

  NWWIIM National World War II Museum archives, New Orleans

  NYT New York Times

  obit obituary

  OCMH Office of the Chief of Military History

  OCNO Office of the Chief of Naval Operations

  OCS Office of the Chief of Staff

  OH oral history

  ONB Omar N. Bradley, including papers

  OPD Operations Division, War Department

  OR observer report

  OSS Office of Strategic Services

  PIR Robert M. Littlejohn, ed., “Passing in Review,” MHI

  Para parachute

  PP Martin Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 1940–1945

  PP-pres Papers, Pre-presidential

  Proceedings U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings

  qm quartermaster

  regt regiment

  RG record group

  RN Royal Navy

  ROHA Rutgers University Oral History Archives of World War II, New Brunswick, N.J.

  Ross William F. Ross and Charles F. Romanus, The Quartermaster Corps: Operations in the War Against Germany, USAWWII

  RR Jeffrey J. Clarke and Robert Ross Smith, Riviera to the Rhine, USAWWII

  s.p. self-published

  SC Signal Corps

  SEM Samuel Eliot Morison Office Files

  SGS Secretary General Staff

  SLAM S.L.A. Marshall, including papers, MHI

  SLC Charles B. MacDonald, The Siegfried Line Campaign, USAWWII

  SMH Society for Military History

  SOOHP Senior Officer Oral History Program

  SOS Services of Supply

  STM Sidney T. Mathews

  Sylvan William C. Sylan and Francis G. Smith, Jr., Normandy to Victory

  td tank destroyer

  Texas MFM Texas Military Forces Museum, Austin

  Three Years Harry C. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower

  TR Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., including papers, LOC MS Div

  ts typescript

  TSC Forrest C. Pogue, The Supreme Command, USAWWII

  TT Charles B. MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets

  UK NA National Archive, Kew, U.K. (formerly Public Record Office)

  USAF HRC U.S. Air Force Historical Research Center

  USAF U.S. Air Force

  USAREUR U.S. Army, Europe

  USAWWII United States Army in World War II

  USFET U.S. Forces, European Theater

  USHMM U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

  USMA Arch U.S. Military Academy Special Collections and Archives, West Point, N.Y.

  USMC U.S. Marine Corps

  USN U.S. Navy

  USNAd “U.S. Naval Administration in World War II”

  USNI OHD U.S. Naval Institute, Oral History Department, Annapolis, Md.

  USSAFE U.S. Strategic Air Forces Europe

  UTEP University of Texas at El Paso

  UT-K University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Center for the Study of War and Society

  VC C. P. Stacey, The Victory Campaign, vol. 3, Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War

  VHP Veterans’ History Project, National Folklife Center, Library of Congress

  VW L. F. Ellis, Victory in the West

  WaS S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea, 1939–1945, vol. 3, part 2

  WD War Department

  WP Washington Post

  WSC Winston S. Churchill

  WWII World War II

  XO executive officer

  YCHT York County Heritage Trust, York, Pa.

  YU Yale University Library, Manuscripts and Archives

  PROLOGUE

  A killing frost: The New Yorker Book of War Pieces, 308–9; Peckham and Snyder, eds., Letters from Fighting Hoosiers, vol. 2, 95 (“Three inches”).

  Nearly five years: Settle, All the Brave Promises, 13, 84; Ziegler, London at War, 1939–1945, 243–45 (zinc phosphate).

  Privation lay on the land: Fussell, Wartime, 200, 203; “A Yank in Britain,” ts, n.d., Thor M. Smith Papers, HIA, box 2, 31 (“Squander Bug”); Times (London), May 15, 1944, 1 (“artificial teeth”); Stafford, Ten Days to D-Day, 203–4 (“bombed upholstery”).

  Other government placards: Fussell, Wartime, 201; Calder, The People’s War, 380–81 (two ounces and roast cormorant); Essame, Patton: A Study in Command, 128 (“Woolton pie”).

  More than fifty thousand: VW, vol. 1, 29; Joseph R. Darnall, “Powdered Eggs and Purple Hearts,” ts, 1946, MHUC, MHI, box 24, 72–74 (parachute flares); Moynihan, ed., People at War, 1939–45, 169 (“searchlights”); Ackroyd, London Under, e-book, chapter 12 (“slave ship”); Ziegler, London at War, 1939–1945, 277, 270–71 (own beds).

  Even during these short summer nights: Times (London), May 15, 1944, 5; Simpson, Selected Prose, 117 (“profoundly dark”); Reynolds, Rich Relations, 414 (“battlefield of sex”); Longmate, The G.I.’s, 276 (“Marble Arch style”); Eustis, War Letters of Morton Eustis to His Mother, 191 (“madhouse after dark”).

  Proud Britain soldiered on: Joseph R. Darnall, “Powdered Eggs and Purple Hearts,” ts, 1946, MHUC, MHI, box 24, 92; Daily Mail (London), May 15, 1944, 3 (pedaled their bicycles); Times (London), May 15, 1944, 2 (“colt of the first class”), 5, 8; Stafford, Ten Days to D-Day, 17; Brown, Many a Watchful Night, 78.

  “French sailors with their red pompoms”: Calder, The People’s War, 307.

  Savile Row tailors: Taylor, Swords and Plowshares, 86; Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 132 (pocket flask); Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 181 (pumpkin hue).

  Nowhere were the uniforms: Forrest Pogue refers to American MPs as Snowballs. Pogue, Pogue’s War, 15. More common was the British term, Snowdrop. Mollo, The Armed Forces of World War II, 235; “History of SHAEF, Feb. 13–June 6, 1944,” July 1944, NARA RG 319, 2-3.7 CB 8, appendix 3 (146 engraved invitations); Middleton, Our Share of Night, 308 (“big men”); Naval Guns, 19 (hard, narrow benches); http://www
.oldpaulinelodge.org.uk/School.htm; http://www.stpaulsschool.org.uk/page.aspx?id=8362; http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofstpaul00uoft.

  Top secret charts and maps: Kennedy, The Business of War, 328 (blankets); D’Este, Decision in Normandy, 82–83 (frock coat); “Presentation of OVERLORD Plans,” May 15 1944, PP-pres, DDE Lib, series VI, box 1 (King George VI); D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life, 500 (Churchill bowed).

  these big men: IFG, 223 (“Mediterraneanites”); Chandler, 1901 (“in my blood”).

  The Anglo-Americans pounced: see AAAD and DOB.

  Elsewhere in this global conflagration: Weinberg, A World at Arms, 651, 656–57; Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War, 513, 520; Gilbert, The Second World War, 519, 615–17; Mansoor, The GI Offensive in Europe, 11 (six Marine Corps divisions).

  The collapse of Berlin’s vast empire: Charles V. P. von Lüttichau, “Germany’s Strategic Situation,” n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, R-93, box 15 (German casualties); Kimball, Forged in War, 257; GS V, 279 (193 divisions); Germany VII, 522 (almost two thousand tanks); Webster and Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany, vol. 4, appendix 44, 456 (seventy thousand tons). No two estimates of German troop dispositions precisely agree.

  In 1941, when Britain: Wilson, ed., D-Day 1944, 280; Maurice Matloff, “Wilmot Revisited,” in D-Day: The Normandy Invasion in Retrospect, 114–15 (“iron-mongering”).

  Cometh the hour: D’Este, Decision in Normandy, 83; Bradley and Blair, A General’s Life, 240–41; Eisenhower, Eisenhower at War, 1943–1945, 231–32; Powers, “The Battle of Normandy,” JMH (July 1992): 455+ (skid-proof socks).

  “at peace with his soul”: Naval Guns, 19; CCA, 269 (June 5); Hamilton, Master of the Battlefield, 581 (“I consider it”); Miller, Ike the Soldier, 599–600 (“I have no sympathy”).

  A wiry, elfin figure: Eisenhower, Eisenhower at War, 1943–1945, 231–32 (padded shoes); Chalmers, Full Cycle, 187; D’Este, Patton: A Genius for War, 595 (sharp rap); Liebling, Mollie & Other War Pieces, 128 (ruddy, truculent); PP, 411–12 (bespoke overcoat); CBH, June 1 and 2, 1944, box 4; Allen, Lucky Forward, 23 (“son-of-bitchery”); GSP to Beatrice, Feb. 3, 1944, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 11, folder 15 (“bad for the soul”).

  With a curt swish: Hamilton, Master of the Battlefield, 577–78 (salmon); Moorehead, Montgomery, 36 (“pointed flint”); http://www.stpaulsschool.org.uk/page.aspx?id=8362; http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofstpaul00uoft; The Pauline, March 1946, 50–52; Montgomery, A Field-Marshal in the Family, 306–8 (prayers in Latin).

  Glancing at his notes: “Address on 15 May 1944: Brief Presentation of Plans Before the King,” IWM, PP/MCR, C46, Lt. Col. Christopher “Kit” Dawnay Collection, micro R-1.

  The Bay of the Seine: “Strategy of the Campaign in Western Europe, 1944–1945,” USFET General Board study no. 1, n.d., 6–8, 14; “The Planning and Tactical Background of the Invasion of the Continent of Europe,” n.d., Numa A Watson Collection, MHI; CCA, 72–73 (“strategically unsound”); ALH, I-183; WaS, 15 (“impudent reconnaissance”); George E. Creasy, OH, Feb. 4, 1947, FCP, MHI; Mason, ed., The Atlantic War Remembered, 345; www.msubmus.co.uk*.

  Upon returning from Italy: GS V, 283; CCA, 165; LSA, vol. 1, 185 (230 additional support ships); WaS, 8.

  As he unfolded his plan: Moorehead, Montgomery, 192–93; James, The Counterfeit General Montgomery, 53; Howarth, ed., Monty at Close Quarters, 62, 66 (“essentially didactic”); Hamilton, Master of the Battlefield, 591 (two thousand clerks).

  Montgomery pressed ahead: Hinsley, 439–40, 459–60; “Address on 15 May 1944: Brief Presentation of Plans Before the King,” IWM, PP/MCR, C46, Lt. Col. Christopher “Kit” Dawnay Collection, micro R-1 (“Last February”). The German high command in the west at the time of the invasion had forty-eight infantry and ten panzer divisions. Ludewig, Rückzug, 31–42.

  Some officers in SHAEF: ALH, I-201; WaS, 13 (one and one-third divisions).

  Montgomery envisioned: Cirillo, “The Allied High Command,” lecture to British Army Doctrine and Development Directorate, n.d., a.p.; Crosswell, Beetle, 607, 633; CCA, 188; GS V, 284 (Paris).

  Precisely how that titanic: ALH, II-73–87.

  But that lay: “History of COSSAC,” May 1944, file #95, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, 7; CCA, 10 (“ugly piece of water”); Smith, The English Channel, 12; Room, Placenames of the World, 6; www.jpmaps.co.uk/map/id.22553*; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Channel; Benjamin A. Dickson, “G-2 Journal: Algiers to the Elbe,” MHI, 104 (“already assaulted”); memo, Aug. 21, 1942, NARA RG 165, E 421, JPS studies, box 603 (tunneling).

  “Nothing must stop them”: “Address on 15 May 1944: Brief Presentation of Plans Before the King,” IWM, PP/MCR, C46, Lt. Col. Christopher “Kit” Dawnay Collection, micro R-1; Ismay, The Memoirs of General Lord Ismay, 351.

  None departed: “Instructions for Visitors,” SHAEF, May 4, 1944, NARA RG 331; PP, 456 (tumbler of whiskey); memo, W. H. S. Wright to Henry Stimson, July 25, 1944, NARA RG 337, E 54, AGF top secret general corr, folder 319.1 (“biding his time”); GSP to Bea, Apr. 9, 1944, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 11, folder 16.

  At 2:30: D’Este, Warlord, 665 (“Risks must be taken”); D’Este, Decision in Normandy, 87–88 (“I am hardening”); Thompson, The Imperial War Museum Book of Victory in Europe, 2 (most prodigious undertaking).

  Shortly after six P.M.: Thomas W. Mattingly and Olive F. G. Marsh, “A Compilation of the General Health Status of Dwight D. Eisenhower,” Mattingly Collection, DDE Lib, n.d., box 1, 53; Three Years, 550 (ringing), 538–39 (“The strain is telling”).

  As the drear suburbs: Eisenhower in 1946 described Churchill’s statement as “shocking.” OH, DDE, June 3, 1946, SLAM, A. S. Nevins Papers, MHI. Churchill had used the phrase to George Marshall three months earlier. Reynolds, In Command of History, 395.

  “You will enter”: “History of SHAEF, Feb. 13–June 6, 1944,” July 1944, NARA RG 319, 2-3.7 CB 8, 14–17. Technically, the naval portion of the invasion was code-named NEPTUNE; for simplicity, OVERLORD—code for the overall invasion plan—has been used for all facets of the operation. Ambrose, The Supreme Commander, 338 (“feet in the stirrups”).

  For years he had pondered: Wilson, ed., D-Day 1944, 314–15, 324–25.

  Planners had even coined: Gilbert, D-Day, 28–29 (PINWE); Chandler, 1869 (“Film Planning Commission”); memos, SHAEF, Apr. 4 and 23, 1944, NARA RG 331, E 6, box 9, “leave and furlough,” 210.7-12 (CIRCON); Three Years, 526 (“fog dispeller”); Blair, Ridgway’s Paratroopers, 200 (gliders).

  For every PINWE item: Richard Collins, SOOHP, 1976, Donald Bowman, MHI, II, 14–15 (“what parts would burn”); memos, Apr. 27, May 12, 26, 27, 1944, NARA RG 331, E 1, “Liquidation of German Personalities,” box 1.

  As the invasion drew nearer: John W. Castles, Jr., memoir, ts, n.d., USMA Arch (biological warfare and Geiger counters); Chandler, 1860 (“radioactive poisons”); Groves, Now It Can Be Told, 199–202 (“unknown etiology”).

  Perhaps less far-fetched: memo, “Gas Intelligence,” Maj. Gen. P. G. Whitefoord [sic], Jan. 20, 1944, NARA RG 331, E 27, SHAEF, box 83; DOB, 272; Kleber and Birdsell, The Chemical Warfare Service, 5, 655 (two dozen kinds of gas).

  Fifteen hundred British civilians: “Historical Report of G-1 Section,” June 19, 1944, XIX District, NARA RG 407, E 427, pre-invasion planning file 100, box 19231; Brig. Gen. Alden H. Waitt, “Summary Report of Situation in ETO,” July 5, 1945, NARA RG 337, AGF OR, box 2 (160,000 tons); “Chemical Warfare Plan,” June 2, 1944, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, box 89 (secret SHAEF plan).

  “Everybody gets more”: Miller, Ike the Soldier, 588.

  Thirty minutes after leaving: Williams, “Supreme Headquarters for D-Day,” AB, no. 84 (1994): 1+; “Chief Engineer’s Report on Camouflage Activities in the ETO,” Nov. 15, 1945, Howard V. Canan Papers, HIA, box 3 (garnished nets).

  Here hundreds of staff officers: Three Years, 531 (“oldish”); Eisenhower, Eisenhower at War, 1943–1945, 157 (double socks); Raymond H. Croll, ts, 1974, MHI, 240–55 (language classes).
<
br />   Eisenhower’s office: Summersby, Eisenhower Was My Boss, 129–32; Davis, Soldier of Democracy, 466; D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life, 490 (golf ball).

  Vernal twilight lingered: Eisenhower, Eisenhower at War, 1943–1945, 197; Eisenhower, Strictly Personal, 57 (bomb shelter); Chandler, 1852; Summersby, Eisenhower Was My Boss, 138, 162 (“Bad Woman”); Larrabee, Commander in Chief, 448 (“don’t have to think”).

  “A man must develop”: Miller, Ike the Soldier, 598; Eisenhower, Eisenhower at War, 1943–1945, 213 (last troop reserves); “Notes on the Planning of Operation Overlord,” 21st AG, n.d., UK NA, WO 216/139, 29–30 (Double Intense); “Casualties and Effects of Fire Support on the British Beaches in Normandy,” Army Operational Research Group, Report No. 261, n.d., UK NA, CAB 106/967 (above 40 percent).

  Love’s Tables: “A Moving Army,” SOS, ts, n.d., NARA RG 498, UD 602, ETO HD; Cosmas and Cowdrey, Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations, 202 (12 percent); “The United States Navy Medical Department at War, 1941–1945,” vol. 1, part 3, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, 1946, 719; Field Order No. 35, 1st ID, Apr. 16, 1944, NARA RG 407, E 427, 301-3.9 (gas warfare); Naval Guns, 21 (“one-third to one-half”); “Report of Operations,” 12th AG, vol. 2, G-1 section, n.d., CARL (combat drownings); Casualty Division History, n.d., NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #4 (punch cards).

  Recent exercises and rehearsals: Thompson, The Imperial War Museum Book of Victory in Europe, 9 (“hopping about”); Waugh, Men at Arms, 140; “Comments on Exercise TIGER,” NARA RG 407, E 427, FUSA, n.d., file 455 (DUCK, OTTER); Yung, Gators of Neptune, 160 (“got confused”); “Rough Draft of Gen. Maxwell Taylor’s Report,” with jumpmaster reports, 101st AB Div, July 1, 1944, GCM Lib.

  The imaginary biffing turned: Lewis, Exercise Tiger, 20; Bradbeer, The Land Changed Its Face, 37–47; “A History of the United States Naval Bases in the United Kingdom,” 1944, NARA RG 498, HD, admin file #217; Fergusson, The Watery Maze, 324. All in ET: “Report of Enemy Navy Action,” Apr. 30, 1944, HQ, Sub Area V; “Exercise Tiger News Letter,” Jan. 1996; Arthur D. Clamp, “The American Assault Exercises at Slapton Sands, Devon, in 1944,” n.d., AR, Twelfth Fleet, May 3, 1944, including reports from LST-511, LST-496, LST-58, LST-499, LST-289, LST-531, LST-507, Task Force 125, H.M.S. Saladin; German E-boat logs; also, corr and transcripts. Also, “Notes on Utah Beach and the 1st Engineer Special Brigade,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #359a.

 

‹ Prev