The Liberation Trilogy Box Set

by Rick Atkinson

  Truscott’s was an unorthodox path: biographical material, LKT Jr. papers, GCM Lib, box 21, folder 7; Jeffers, Command of Honor, 215 (unlucky dabbler); Heefner, Dogface Soldier, 9–13 (renounced strong drink).

  “willpower, decision, and drive”: description by Ernest Harmon in Layne Van Arsdale, ed., “Allied Biographies,” USAREUR staff ride, Alsace, May 2009; Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952, vol. 1, 296 (lamented his inability to get Truscott released); Will Lang, draft cable to Life, Aug. 1, 1944, LKT Jr. papers, GCM Lib, box 21 (“Bullshit”); Jeffers, Command of Honor, 215 (“hunters by instinct”).

  “far removed from the softening touch”: LKT Jr. to Sarah, July 19 and Aug. 14, 1944, LKT Jr. papers, GCM Lib, box 1; DOB, 586.

  The enemy never had a chance: IFG, 251; OH, Paul D. Adams, 1975, Irving Monclova and Marlin Lang, SOOHP, MHI (Quaker guns); signals report, appendix H, “Airborne Diversion in Support of Operation Dragoon,” NARA RG 331, AFHQ micro, R-69 Spec, box 294; John C. Warren, “Airborne Missions in the Mediterranean, 1942–1945,” 1955, AFHRA, study no. 74, 92–93; Holt, The Deceivers, 619–20 (attack at Genoa).

  The usual anarchy and intrepidity: “Report on Airborne Operations in Dragoon,” Oct. 30, 1944, Allied Force HQ, HIA, 10; RR, 104; John C. Warren, “Airborne Missions in the Mediterranean, 1942–1945,” 1955, AFHRA, study no. 74, 99–102; “The Night Landing in Provence, Aug. 1944,” n.d., SEM, NHHC, box 87, file 97, 2–3.

  At eight A.M., eleven American assault battalions: “Invasion of Southern France,” n.d., WD HD, CMH, 8-3 SF, 50; “Operation Dragoon,” Dec. 1944, COHQ, bulletin Y/42, CARL, N-6530.20.

  Among those at the point of the spear: certificate of service, ALM; Simpson, Audie Murphy, American Soldier, 1 (“greatest folk hero”); Graham, No Name on the Bullet, 16–17 (“can’t remember”); Audie L. Murphy Memorial Website, http://www.audiemurphy.com/biography.htm (eighteen); Arlington National Cemetery website, http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/History/Military/HF_AudieMurphy.aspx; Hubler, “He Doesn’t Want to Be a Star,” Saturday Evening Post (Apr. 18, 1953): 34+ (fainted).

  Sharpshooting now served him well: Simpson, Audie Murphy, American Soldier, 121–22; Murphy, To Hell and Back, 176–77 (“My whole being”).

  Only on the invasion right flank: WaS, 97; IFG, 267–68; RR, 115–18; Swent, “Personal Diary,” Aug. 9, 1944, HIA, box 1 (radio-controlled landing craft); Greear, “Operation Neptune and Landing on Coast of Southern France,” lecture, Nov. 1944, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, box 199, 12–13 (same frequencies); LKT Jr., “Comments on ‘Dragoon Secondary Attack Against Fortress Europe,’” n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7 CC2, 2–3 (“milled around at high speed”); OH, Herbert A. Peterson, Oct. 1, 1944, NARA RG 38, E 11, U.S. Navy WWII Oral Histories, 5 (“As a general proposition”).

  “All ships and craft reached their final assault”: msg, HKH, Aug. 15, 1944, NARA RG 331, AFHQ micro, R-323-A.

  “quietest beachhead I have ever seen”: Langan W. Swent, “Personal Diary,” Aug. 15, 1944, HIA, box 1.

  By the close of this D-Day: “Invasion of Southern France,” n.d., WD HD, CMH, 8-3 SF, 56; RR, 123–24, 63, 70 (less than 300,000); “Operation Dragoon,” Dec. 1944, COHQ, bulletin Y/42, ANSCOL, NARA 334, E 315, box 465 (preferred to surrender); Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 451 (“worst day of my life”); MMB, 45; Bonn, When the Odds Were Even, 68 (SS atrocities in Poland); Pallud, “The Riviera Landings, AB, no. 110 (2000): 2+ (one-quarter of his infantry divisions); Charles V. von Lüttichau, “The Invasion,” 1957, NARA RG 319, OCMH, R-series # 104, box 16, 12–13; Jackson, The Mediterranean and the Middle East, vol. 6, part 2, 189; Ludewig, Rückzug, 57–61 (“Russians in France”). Demands from the Normandy front had reduced the 11th Panzer Division to barely one hundred tanks and assault guns.

  By twilight on Tuesday: Le Victorieux, n.d., translation, Robert T. Frederick papers, HIA, box 4; Seventh Army war diary, Aug. 16, 1944, MHI (“weak at most points”); Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream, 432 (“faintly sourish smell”); “The Night Landing in Provence, Aug. 1944,” n.d., SEM, NHHC, box 87, file 97, 1 (“What happiness”); OH, Theodore J. Conway, 1978, Robert F. Ensslin, SOOHP, MHI, III-21 (VI Corps crystal); Conway, “Operation Anvil,” lecture, n.d., Norfolk, Theodore J. Conway papers, MHI, box 2, 16 (“best invasion I ever attended”).

  “frog blackmoors”: Orange, Tedder: Quietly in Command, 273.

  the Kimberly ventured no closer: Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, 94–95; Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran, 180 (“a querulous mood”); Pawle, The War and Colonel Warden, 315–16 (“a lot more exciting”).

  The Avenue of Stenches

  The immediate objective of DRAGOON: memo, Joint Security Council, July 4, 1944, NARA RG 165, E 422, WD OPD, history unit, box 39; RR, 137; IFG, 282; The Seventh United States Army in France and Germany, vol. 1, 151 (three more divisions).

  Known for now as Army B: Yeide and Stout, First to the Rhine, 23; De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 67 (New Caledonians, Tahitians); Porch, The Path to Victory, 596 (boots tied around their necks); Vigneras, Rearming the French, 229, 245, 248, 258, 264–66; memo, Charles L. Kades, “Allied Civil Affairs Administration in Southeastern France,” Oct. 30, 1944, CARL, N-3972, 14–17 (cherished wine transports).

  The gimlet-eyed commander of this force: Salisbury-Jones, So Full a Glory, 16; Aron, France Reborn, 317–18 (“animal of action”); Clayton, Three Marshals of France, 26–27 (“jupiterien”), 22–23 (“greatest soldier to serve France”); OH, “The Reminiscences of Admiral H. Kent Hewitt,” Col U OHRO, 1962 copy at NHHC, 24:28 (“very volatile”); Truscott, Command Missions, 403 (“thin hair graying”); Yeide and Stout, First to the Rhine, 25 (“What have you done”).

  De Lattre sprang from minor gentry: Clayton, Three Marshals of France, 22–33.

  Loyal to Vichy for more than two years: Codman, Drive, 220–21 (outside his office door), 222 (“a nocturnal”); Porch, The Path to Victory, 594–95 (“lived on stage”); Clayton, Three Marshalls of France, 117–18 (might sit for days).

  The DRAGOON landing plan for Army B: Aron, France Reborn, 314 (“the price we must pay”); OH, JLD, 1968, Thomas E. Griess, YCHT, box 110 (torrent of French); Porch, The Path to Victory, 594–96 (“ardent to the point of effervescence”).

  The Germans waited, too: RR, 138–40; Charles V. von Lüttichau, “Army Group G Prepares to Meet the Invasion,” 1957, NARA RG 319, OCMH, R-series #103, 24 (fortifications at Toulon); Wilt, The French Riviera Campaign of August 1944, 121 (both garrisons reinforced); Jackson, The Mediterranean and the Middle East, vol. 6, part 2, 191

  Toulon was the greatest naval base: The Seventh United States Army in France and Germany, vol. 1, 155–59; de Belot, The Struggle for the Mediterranean, 1939–1945, 260 (range of twenty-two miles); Hewitt, “Planning Operation Anvil-Dragoon,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (July–Aug. 1954): 731+; IFG, 290–91; AR, U.S.S. Quincy, Sept. 6, 1944, NARA RG 38, CNO, 57 (chasing the interlopers back into their smoke); OH, John F. Latimer, n.d., NARA RG 38, E 11, U.S. Navy WWII Oral Histories, 23; OH, Glynn Markham, n.d., WWII Oral History Collection, Samuel F. Proctor Archive, Department of History, University of Florida (“spitting against the wall”).

  De Lattre had assumed as much: Yeide and Stout, First to the Rhine, 111; “Invasion of Southern France,” Office of the Theater Historian, n.d., NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #607, 145–50; The Seventh United States Army in France and Germany, vol. 1, 154.

  By last light on Monday, August 21: Salisbury-Jones, So Full a Glory, 144 (Monks from a local monastery); De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 77–78 (borrowed policeman’s uniform), 92–94 (“Three hours later”); The Seventh United States Army in France and Germany, vol. 1, 158–59; “Invasion of Southern France,” Office of the Theater Historian, n.d., NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #607, 160–62 (blew up their remaining ammunition); Hewitt, “Planning Operation Anvil-Dragoon,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (July
–Aug. 1954): 731+ (more than a thousand shells).

  Marseille fell at almost the same moment: LSA, vol. 1, 163–64; De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 99–102; Robichon, The Second D-Day, 292–93 (“figures from another world”), 289–90 (civilians in nightclothes); Salisbury-Jones, So Full a Glory, 147 (city soon grew indefensible); Aron, France Reborn, 335 (spread his maps).

  “It would be purposeless”: Aron, France Reborn, 342; RR, 80.

  Thirty-seven thousand prisoners: Wilt, The French Riviera Campaign of August 1944, 130–31; “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. Toulon received its first Liberty ship on Sept. 20. LSA, vol. 2, 122.

  Marseille was devastated even beyond Allied fears: H. H. Dunham, “U.S. Army Transportation in the ETO,” 1946, CMH, 4-13.1 AA 29, 283–84 (“German masterpiece” and five thousand mines); Aron, France Reborn, 343 (“chaos of steel”); OH, HKH, June 26, 1945, NARA RG 38, E 11, U.S. Navy WWII Oral Histories, 21 (blimps).

  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.