The Liberation Trilogy Box Set

by Rick Atkinson

  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. Sir 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”).

  Four paths led to the Ruhr: “Strategy of the Campaign in Western Europe, 1944–1945,” n.d., USFET General Board study no. 1, 42–50; BP, 658–59 (Eisenhower’s planners had proposed).

  Montgomery would have none of it: BP, 658–59; VW, vol. 1, 459–61; OH, David Belchem, Feb. 20, 1947, FCP, MHI (preponderance in armor).

  Bradley most certainly did not agree: Bradley and Blair, A General’s Life, 314; De Guingand, Operation Victory, 411; OH, Lord Tedder, Feb. 13, 1947, FCP, MHI (“better to use both hands”); VW, vol. 1, 461 (Smith was excluded); Wilmot, The Struggle for Europe, 468 (“Victories win wars”).

  Montgomery emerged from the caravan: Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952, vol. 1, 340–41; BP, 659–60 (First Army would swing largely north); draft memo, W. B. Smith, “Command and organization after D-day ‘Overlord,’” May 23, 1944, Raymond G. Moses papers, MHI, box 1 (some SHAEF planners had long considered).

  Eisenhower also agreed that a single commander: Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952, vol. 1, 340–41; “General Eisenhower’s Comments on Command,” May 18, 1944, Arthur S. Nevins papers, MHI (“nothing must be said”).

  Churchill, “as a solace”: Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran, 254; Roberts, Masters and Commanders, 512 (“proper perspective”); Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952, vol. 1, 345 (“close and warm friend”).

  “Damn stupid”: Love and Major, eds., The Year of D-Day, 129; PP, 535 (“made us sick”); Hamilton, Master of the Battlefield, 799 (“almost a disaster”).

  Late in the morning of Saturday, September 2: Chandler, vol. 5, chronology, 165; diary, CBH, Sept. 2, 12, 15, 21, 1944, MHI, box 4.

  A message from Beetle Smith: Williams, “Supreme Headquarters for D-Day,” AB, no. 84 (1994): 1+; Baedeker, Northern France, 179.

  Eisenhower slipped in the sand: Thomas W. Mattingly and Olive F. G. Marsh, “A Compilation of the General Health System of Dwight D. Eisenhower,” n.d., DDE Lib, Thomas W. Mattingly papers, box 1; Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 326; Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952, vol. 1, 347–48 (refused to allow his blood pressure).

  For more than a fortnight: Chandler, vol. 5, chronology, 165–67; Three Years, 661 (Two resident cows); Eisenhower, Letters to Mamie, 195 (“off-key”), 210–11 (dead son); Chandler, 2141 (“Who is going to buy the plane?”).

  Even for an ambulatory commander: D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life, 593; Crosswell, Beetle, 700 (through the RAF); BP, 686 (reaffirm his commitment to a multipronged advance); Love and Major, eds., The Year of D-Day, 132 (“Monty-like”).

  On Monday, September 4: LSA, vol. 1, 492; TSC, 253 (“now as never before”).

  An exasperated Montgomery: Roberts, Masters and Commanders, 531 (“curious idea”); “Notes on Conversation with Monty, 18.5.46,” R. W. W. “Chester” Wilmot papers, LHC, LH 15/15/127 (first call on supplies).

  “We have now reached a stage”: BLM to DDE, Sept. 4, 1944, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 83; Chandler, 2120–21.

  Eisenhower replied on Tuesday: Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, 278–79; OH, Arthur Coningham, Feb. 14, 1947, FCP, MHI (“‘The war is lost’”).

  The misdirected signal was entirely apt: corr, DDE to H. L. Ismay, Jan. 14, 1959, LHC, 4/12/131 (“preposterous proposal”); Crosswell, Beetle, 687 (“balderdash”); Bradley Commentaries, CBH, MHI, box 41 (“arrogant and egotistical”).

  Montgomery’s vision had the military virtue of mass: Strong, Intelligence at the Top, 199–201 (counter to SHAEF calculations); LSA, vol. 2, 10–11 (nearly five hundred truck companies and “wholesale grounding”); LSA, vol. 1, 487–88. A three-corps drive to Berlin in late September even under optimal conditions would require grounding five corps, according to SHAEF (TSC, 253–54).

  Moreover, the need to protect long open flanks: TSC, 260; Frank A. Osmanski, “Critical Analysis of the Planning and Execution of the Logistic Support of the Normandy Invasion,” Dec. 1949, Armed Forces Staff College, Osmanski papers, MHI (“easy prey for the German mobile reserves”); OH, E. J. Foord, Dec. 12, 1946, R. W. W. “Chester” Wilmot papers, LHC, LH 15/15/27 (“overbidding his hand”); De Guingand, Operation Victory, 412 (Hitler’s eventual defeat).

  Most strategists would come to similar conclusions:: Dan van der Vat, obituary, “Field Marshal Lord Carver,” The Guardian, Dec. 12, 2001 (youngest brigadier); Keegan, ed., Churchill’s Generals, 162–63 (In both world wars).

  Two-fisted punching: Weigley, The American Way of War, 352; Wilson, ed., D-Day 1944, 334 (“Whatever Montgomery’s talents”).

  “political factors can sometimes have the same weight”: Lewin, Montgomery as Military Commander, 298.

  Eisenhower’s “ignorance”: Hamilton, Master of the Battlefield, 799; Danchev, 575 (“quite unsuited”), 585 (“3 to 6 months”).

  “extremely susceptible to the personality”: “Notes on Conversation with Monty, 18.5.46,” R. W. W. “Chester” Wilmot papers, LHC, LH 15/15/127.

  “Ike is all for caution”: diary, Sept. 2, 1944, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 3, folder 7.

  “the trouble with Ike”: Crosswell, Beetle, 696, 702, 708, 722.

  “hardly decisive in the way he communicated”: Stephen E. Ambrose, “Eisenhower as Commander: Single Thrust Versus Broad Front,” in Chandler, vol. 5, 47.

  “There is never a moment”: Eisenhower, Letters to Mamie, 195, 217; Chandler, 2158 (“team is working well”).

  The armies fought on, largely unaware: LC, 52 (first five days of September); LSA, vol. 1, 513; war diary, Leroy Irwin, Sept. 6, 1944, 5th ID, Hugh Cole papers, MHI (“Frankfort”); AAFinWWII, 277 (flying gas stations); Semmes, Portrait of Patton, 205 (bounties of cognac and confiscated champagne); “G-4 Periodic Report,” Third Army, Sept. 5, 1944, Walter J. Muller papers, HIA, box 6 (army shortages); Allen, Lucky Forward, 41, 101–2; PP, 549 (fifty thousand cases of champagne).

  “a goddam army commander”: PP, 542; Blumenson, Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1885–1945, 240–41 (“shit through a goose”).

  To his northwest, Courtney Hodges’s First Army: BP, 694–95 (“pretty girls”); Blue Spaders, 71–72 (“heterogeneous mass”).

  Bounding from the south, the 1st Division: Stanhope B. Mason, “Reminiscences and Anecdotes of World War II,” 1988, MRC FDM, 1994.126, 87, 206–10; OH, C. A. Wollmer, 83rd Armored Reconnaissance Bn, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427, HI; Heinz, When We Were One, 197, 213 (rake the German columns); Knickerbocker et al., Danger Forward, 274 (“Belgian horses”); George W. Williams et al., “Exploitation by the 3rd Armored Division—Seine River to Germany,” AS, Ft. K, 1949, NARA RG 337, 44–45 (“You only want to slaughter us”).

  In addition to some 3,500 enemy dead: Wheeler, The Big Red One, 311–12; Pallud, “The Battle of the Mons Pocket,” AB, no. 115 (2002): 2+ (steaks); AAR, 1st ID, Oct. 31, 1944, a.p., 1–6; Heinz, When We Were One, 200–204 (“You will not love”).

  Thirty miles to the north, the British Second Army: BP, 686; VW, vol. 2, 15 (surrender in his pajamas), 6; Wilmot, The Struggle for Europe, 471 (fleeing in a Volkswage
n); Taurus Pursuant, 67 (“what used to be”).

  At eight P.M. on Sunday, September 3: VW, vol. 2, 5; “Advance of 30 Corps Across R. Seine to Brussels and Antwerp,” War Office, n.d., NARA RG 407, ML #226; Moorehead, Eclipse, 191 (“a pallid thing”); Collier, Fighting Words, 177 (“a flambeau”); Fitzgerald, History of the Irish Guards in the Second World War, 450–53 (“Goodbye, Tommy”).

  Local worthies appeared in sashes: Daniell, The Royal Hampshire Regiment, vol. 3, 231; Fitzgerald, History of the Irish Guards in the Second World War, 450–53 (Bistros sent waiters); Hastings, Armageddon, 7 (“eating their way”); Moorehead, Eclipse, 191 (“a remarkable claret”).

  On Monday at noon British tanks: J. B. Churcher, “A Soldier’s Story,” 159th Inf Bde, LHC, 52–54 (houses for belonging to alleged collaborators and search for a cinema); Collier, Fighting Words, 177–79 (still sipping beer); VW, vol. 2, 5, 10–11, 414–15 (two million barrels); Freeman W. Burford, “The Inside Story of Oil in the European War,” Nov. 25, 1946, NARA RG 319, 2-37 CB 6; “Advance of 30 Corps Across R. Seine to Brussels and Antwerp,” War Office, n.d., NARA RG 407, ML #226 (petered out by 9:30 P.M.); Moorehead, Eclipse, 192–93 (cages in the lion house); Moorehead, Gellhorn, 227 (“sat on the straw”).

  With Brittany’s ports soon to be forsaken: Baedeker, Belgium and Holland, 150–52 (“at least a year to reduce it”); Lucian Heichler, “German Defense of the Gateway to Antwerp,” Dec. 1953, OCMH, NARA RG 319, R-series #22, 2; LSA, vol. 2, 104 (thousand ships each month).

  The capture of Antwerp and exploitation: Weinberg, A World at Arms, 700; Chandler, 2090, 2100, 2116; msg, Montgomery, Aug. 26, 1944, M-520, National Archives of Canada, RG 24, vol. 1054 2, file 215A21.016 (9) (“destroy all enemy forces”).

  Having sailed these waters: WaS, 142–43; Fergusson, The Watery Maze, 352 (campaign in 1809); Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography, 248–50 (rushed to Antwerp); VW, vol. 2, 10–11; Love and Major, eds., The Year of D-Day, 131; Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, 245 (“Timbuctoo”).