No Less Than Victory
Page 54
Patton remains awake and cognizant for the next several days, though his paralysis improves only slightly. When the two men are alone, Patton requests that Dr. Spurling give him an assessment of his chances for survival. Patton demands honesty, and Spurling provides it. Patton’s responds to the grim diagnosis, “I’ll try to be a good patient.”
During Patton’s stay, the hospital is deluged with letters from around the world, most notably from President Truman and, of course, Eisenhower. Though Dr. Spurling maintains a glimmer of optimism, Patton’s condition does not improve, and his breathing difficulties begin to worsen. During the evening of December 20, Patton’s breathing nearly stops, the effects of a pulmonary embolism. He manages to survive until the following afternoon. The official cause of death is pulmonary edema and congestive heart failure. He is sixty years old.
Patton is buried at the American Military Cemetery in Hamm, Luxembourg. Two years later, his body is moved so that Patton is placed at the head of his troops also buried there, who lie before him.
There is no doubt that Patton’s viewpoints are more often than not controversial, creating severe disadvantages for his own career and severely straining the patience of those he serves, but his legacy cannot be overlooked. He is often charged with racist attitudes, and yet it was Patton who agreed to deploy a black unit, the 761st Tank Battalion, into combat alongside white troops. To them, Patton said,
Men, you’re the first Negro tankers to ever fight in the American army. I would never have asked for you if you weren’t good. I have nothing but the best in my army. I don’t care what color you are as long as you go up there and kill those Kraut sons of bitches. Everyone has their eyes on you, and is expecting great things from you. Most of all, your race is looking forward to you. Don’t let them down, and damn you, don’t let me down!
His attitude toward the Soviets made him unpalatable to those among the Allies who were trying to forge the uneasy alliance that divided postwar Europe. He referred to the Russians as “Mongols” and said publicly, “They have no regard for human life, and they are all-out sons of bitches, barbarians and chronic drunks.” Despite the unwise bluntness of his words, his distrust of the Soviets spreads throughout the western world, a distrust that is very mutual, which results in four decades of Cold War.
The German attitude toward Patton was perhaps summed up by Lieutenant Colonel Freiherr von Wangenheim in spring 1945:
The greatest threat … was the whereabouts of the feared US Third Army. General Patton is always the main topic of military discussion. Where is he? When will he attack? Where? How? With what? Those are the questions that raced through the head of every German general. General Patton is the most feared general on all fronts. He is the most modern general and the best commander of armored and infantry troops combined.
Another war has ended and with it my usefulness to the world. It is for me personally a very sad thought.
—PATTON’S DIARY, AUGUST 10, 1945
THE BOMBARDIER
Sergeant John Buckley is taken by his German captors to Stalag Luft III, near Sagan, Poland, a prisoner-of-war camp designated specifically for downed fliers, though by 1944 the camp houses a variety of Allied prisoners. In early 1945, as the Russians press forward across the Polish countryside, the camp is vacated by the Germans, who force their prisoners to march westward. Buckley is eventually housed at Stalag VII-A at Moosburg, Germany, until the camp is liberated by the American Fourteenth Armored Division in late April 1945.
After a brief hospital stay, primarily for rehabilitation, Buckley returns to the States and is discharged from the air service. He returns home, near Kansas City, then settles in Chicago, where he works for a radio parts manufacturer. He eventually acquires considerable skill as an industrial electrician. He marries Galinda Jessup in early 1948, and they have four children.
He retires in 1991, and lives today with his wife in Bradenton, Florida.
EDWARD BENSON
The train that carries him to the French coast arrives near the port of Le Havre, but instead of boarding an ocean liner, Benson is ordered to Camp Lucky Strike, one of several “cigarette camps” (so called because of their names) that serve as clearing grounds and rehabilitation sites for various American military units as they prepare to leave Europe. Like those who serve with him, Benson is victimized by a steady flood of rumors, especially those involving his unit’s imminent departure to the Pacific. But as is so often the case, the rumors are fiction. Benson receives his orders in September 1945, and gratefully boards a troopship bound for the States.
He returns to his family’s home in Sullivan, Missouri, but cannot settle into the quiet rural life. Benson applies to the University of Missouri, in Columbia, where he begins the study of journalism and broadcasting, and graduates with a degree in communications. He secures a job in St. Louis at a radio station, but is drawn to the new adventure called television. In 1954, he joins the staff of fledgling KWK-TV and becomes an on-air newscaster. When the station becomes a CBS affiliate, Benson pursues a climb up the corporate ladder, and moves to New York. He becomes producer of several locally broadcast programs on WCBS-TV, and during the 1960s is awarded two Peabody Awards for stories that follow the unfortunate lives of Vietnam veterans who cannot make the adjustment to civilian life.
In 1960, he meets and marries New York writer Roslyn Baker, but the fast-paced life in the city takes a toll, and they divorce in 1966. In 1970, he marries Suzanne Gilder. They have no children. Suzanne dies of cancer in 1997, and Eddie settles into life as a widower. He lives today in a retirement community in New Jersey.
KENNETH MITCHELL
The man who seems reluctant to befriend anyone leaves Europe as Eddie Benson’s best friend. Though Benson returns home, Mitchell fights the army’s efforts to discharge him, and when that fails, he attempts to enlist in the navy. But the armed services are downsizing significantly, and Mitchell struggles to find his calling as a civilian. He has no interest in his father’s grain mill in Ohio, and moves periodically to new cities, including Detroit and Cleveland, seeking some inspiration for a career. Helped financially by his friend Benson, Mitchell is finally rescued by the start of the Korean War. With the army seeking recruits, Mitchell enlists and is sent first to the Philippines. He then participates in Douglas MacArthur’s extraordinary landing at Inchon, which rescues UN forces hemmed into a desperate situation at the nearby Pusan Perimeter.
Since he has combat infantry experience, Mitchell is quickly promoted to sergeant. From September to November 1950, he leads his squad into several difficult fights against North Korean forces. Fulfilling Eddie Benson’s predictions that Mitchell is likely to do “something crazy,” Mitchell is killed on November 28, 1950, leading an attack on a well-defended North Korean position. Mitchell is posthumously awarded a Silver Star. He is twenty-six.
BRUCE HIGGINS
The sergeant who is ultimately responsible for saving the lives of both Benson and Mitchell serves out the final weeks of the war, and several weeks after, as a prison guard. The army is caught totally unprepared for the massive influx of German POWs, and Higgins assists in managing a compound where fifteen thousand German soldiers are housed, a facility meant for a tenth that number.
He returns home in October 1945, to Camp Shanks, New York, where the 106th Division is inactivated. Higgins seeks to continue his army career, but is thwarted until July 1947, when he is allowed to reenlist and assigned to the Twelfth Regiment, Fourth Infantry Division in Fort Ord, California. He is quickly promoted to first sergeant, and is encouraged to enter Officer Candidate School. He emerges in March 1948 as a second lieutenant, and within two years reaches the rank of captain. Throughout the 1950s, Higgins serves as a company commander with his unit in Germany, as part of NATO forces. In 1963, the regiment is reassigned to Fort Carson, Colorado, but the Vietnam War reenergizes the army’s emphasis on combat infantry, and in August 1966, Higgins is deployed to Dau Tieng, Vietnam. His unit receives the Presidential Unit Ci
tation and participates in ten major engagements. He returns home in October 1970 and retires a lieutenant colonel, settling in Vancouver, Washington.
His marriage to Louise Barrett Higgins endures throughout his many years of overseas assignments, and he fathers two children. He dies of lung cancer in 1994, at age seventy-three. His widow lives today in San Diego.
OMAR BRADLEY
Demonstrating that he is well deserving of the title “the soldier’s general,” Bradley returns home in June 1945 to head up the Veterans Administration. He serves in that post until 1948, when he is named to succeed Eisenhower as army chief of staff. A year later, President Truman selects Bradley to become the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs. In 1950, at age fifty-seven, he is the youngest general in American history to be awarded his fifth star, a rank reserved for a very select few. No one since has been promoted to that rank.
In 1951, his memoir is published. A Soldier’s Story is widely regarded as one of the most self-effacing and accurate accounts of the command decisions of World War Two, and is to this day a highly regarded reference on the subject.
During the Korean War, Bradley is an outspoken opponent of the strategic views of Douglas MacArthur, and has a role in President Truman’s decision to remove MacArthur from command in Korea, a decision that continues to invite controversy.
Bradley retires from the service in 1953 and settles into civilian life as an executive with the Bulova Watch Company. By 1958, he is that company’s chairman of the board, a position he holds for twenty-five years. During the 1960s, he serves as a civilian adviser to President Lyndon Johnson.
His first wife, Mary, dies in 1965, and a year later he raises some eyebrows in Washington by marrying Kitty Buhler, who is thirty years his junior. He dies in 1981, at age eighty-eight, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
COURTNEY HODGES
In May 1945, Hodges is transferred to the Pacific theater to command those forces who will embark on the planned invasion of the Japanese mainland. The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki preempts the need for that invasion.
Hodges continues in command of the American First Army until 1949, when he retires from active service. He spends most of his career overshadowed by George Patton, and often receives unfair condemnation for his lack of preparedness, which allowed German success during the Battle of the Bulge. But Hodges is highly regarded by Eisenhower and Bradley, and his reputation was likely damaged by the positioning of his First Army in the one area along the Ardennes Forest where no one in the Allied command expected any sort of offensive action by the enemy.
He dies in San Antonio in 1966, at age seventy-nine.
We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead. Japan, with all her treachery and greed, remains unsubdued. The injury she has inflicted on Great Britain, the United States, and other countries, and her detestable cruelties, call for justice and retribution. We must now devote all our strength and resources to the completion of our task.
—WINSTON CHURCHILL, MAY 8, 1945
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JEFF SHAARA is the New York Times bestselling author of The Steel Wave, The Rising Tide, To the Last Man, The Glorious Cause, Rise to Rebellion, and Gone for Soldiers, as well as Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure—two novels that complete the Civil War trilogy that began with his father’s Pulitzer Prize-winning classic The Killer Angels. Jeff was born into a family of Italian immigrants in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He grew up in Tallahassee, Florida, and graduated from Florida State University. He lives in Sarasota. Visit the author online at www.jeffshaara.com.
No Less Than Victory is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Jeffrey M. Shaara, Inc.
Maps copyright © 2009 by David Lindroth
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books,
an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Shaara, Jeff
No less than victory: a novel of World War II / Jeff Shaara.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51661-9
1. World War, 1939 –1945—Europe, Western—Fiction.
2. Ardennes, Battle of the, 1944–1945—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3569.H18N6 2009
813′.54—dc22 2009035940
www.ballantinebooks.com
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