Suddenly liberated and newly armed, two of the Frenchmen decided—somewhat inexplicably, given their still-precarious situation—that their first free act would be to stroll the 150 yards into Itter village. Paul Reynaud and Michel Clemenceau walked calmly through the castle’s now unmanned front gate, past the small inn at the foot of the access road and, further on, the building housing the offices of St. Joseph’s Church, before reaching the small square in front of the church itself. While the two men saw Austrian and white flags flying from many windows, they were surprised and alarmed to see German troops and vehicles on the roads to the northeast of the village. Though a quick glance through the binoculars he’d “liberated” from the arms room showed Reynaud that many of the retreating soldiers were just “boys in uniform, who seemed to be hardly more than 10 years old,”33 the sight of so many troops—and the weapons they carried—convinced the Frenchman that while he and his fellow ex-prisoners might be free, they were certainly not yet safe.
Reynaud and Clemenceau hurried back to Schloss Itter and called the French VIPs together to tell them what they’d seen. Putting their personal and political differences aside for the moment, they all agreed that the continuing presence of German military units in the area meant that no one in the castle would be truly safe until Allied troops arrived in strength. Given that Zvonko Čučković had not been heard from since his departure the day before, and that his perilous ride toward Innsbruck had so far not resulted in the appearance of an Allied rescue force, the gathered VIPs debated their next move. The discussion was surprisingly brief and unusually free of acrimony, and the former prisoners unanimously agreed on three courses of action.
First, they would fashion a huge French tricolor banner from whatever materials they could find and then suspend it from the top windows of the keep to prevent attacks on the castle by Allied aircraft and let advancing friendly forces know of the VIPs’ presence. Second, they would summon Kurt-Siegfried Schrader from the village and formally ask him to take responsibility for their safety—not because Sebastian Wimmer had indicated that the decorated Waffen-SS man was his choice to be the VIPs’ guardian, but because the French themselves had come to know and trust Schrader over the course of his many visits to the castle. And third, realizing that it was more than likely that Čučković had been captured or killed trying to reach Innsbruck, they decided to send another bicycle-borne emissary out to contact the nearest American unit. As they were debating who that messenger should be, Andreas Krobot stepped forward. He and several other number prisoners had been listening to the discussion from the sidelines, and he calmly explained that it would make no sense for one of the VIPs to attempt the trip, only to be caught and executed on the spot. Far better for him, a mere cook, to undertake the potentially hazardous ride. Though Jean Borotra insisted that he should be the one to make the attempt, the logic of Krobot’s argument carried the day.
The first task, summoning Schrader to the castle, was carried out by Léon Jouhaux and Augusta Bruchlen, at their insistence. The labor leader and his German-speaking companion had spent perhaps the most time with the Waffen-SS man and his family during their visits to Schloss Itter, and Jouhaux apparently felt that he and Bruchlen would be able to relieve any last-minute qualms Schrader might have about throwing in his lot with the French. Despite his still-frail health, Jouhaux insisted the walk into the village would do him good. The couple covered the short distance at a steady pace, hand in hand and with Jouhaux carrying an MP-40 submachine gun slung over his shoulder. Schrader, dressed in civilian clothes, answered their knock immediately and agreed to accompany them back to Schloss Itter. When the trio returned to the castle at about one PM, they found most of the French VIPs gathered in the front courtyard waiting for them. Clemenceau, speaking in German, formally asked Schrader to accept responsibility for ensuring the safety of the former prisoners until American troops arrived. Though the Waffen-SS officer knew beyond doubt that his presence would do nothing to prevent German troops from taking the castle if they decided to do so, he believed that in the case of an attack he might be able to negotiate some sort of deal that would save the VIPs’ lives. Schrader thus accepted “command” of Schloss Itter, with the proviso that his wife and daughters be allowed to join him within its walls.34
At the same time Jouhaux and Bruchlen set out to summon Schrader, Krobot had embarked on his own journey. Provided with an English-language plea for help—again penned by Christiane Mabire—and riding a bicycle that had formerly belonged to one of the castle’s now-vanished guards, the Czech had set out for Wörgl. The French VIPs felt the town must surely have already been captured by the Americans; Krobot wasn’t so sure, and his reservations were quickly borne out. Cycling into Wörgl along the same route Čučković had traveled the day before, and, barely thirty minutes after leaving Schloss Itter, the Czech saw Waffen-SS troops in the streets. The soldiers were firing at any window from which a white or Austrian flag fluttered. Turning down a narrow side street, Krobot encountered a man in civilian clothes standing in a doorway, peering carefully in the opposite direction as though on lookout duty. Taking a huge chance, the Czech asked the man for help. After looking searchingly into Krobot’s eyes, the man pulled the end of a small red-and-white Austrian flag from his pocket and smiled.35
Minutes later, the Czech cook was talking to Sepp Gangl.
ANDREAS KROBOT’S SUDDEN appearance in Wörgl with the letter from the French VIPs put Gangl in something of a predicament.
The Wehrmacht major had intended for several days to mount a Schloss Itter rescue operation, of course, but had hesitated because he hadn’t wanted to fight a pitched battle against Sebastian Wimmer and his guard force. While Krobot’s news that the commandant and his minions had fled was welcome, Gangl knew that, even if he and his dozen or so men were able to reach the castle without running into Waffen-SS units, they would almost certainly not be able to hold it against a determined attack by troops wielding machine guns and shoulder-launched panzerfaust antitank rockets. And if those troops were backed by artillery or armor, defending Schloss Itter and its VIPs would be virtually suicidal.
Moreover, as the new head of the Wörgl resistance, Gangl had to worry about protecting the town—and his troops—from the continuing depredations of the Waffen-SS soldiers still active in the area. The threat was demonstrated all too clearly shortly after Krobot’s arrival. As Second Lieutenant Blechschmidt36—one of Gangl’s trusted compatriots—was meeting with Alois Mayr about the need to protect Wörgl’s warehoused food supplies from marauding bands of deserters and the thousands of refugees choking the roads of north Tyrol, firing broke out inside the Neue Post Inn. A platoon of Waffen-SS troops had somehow discovered the resistance group’s arsenal in the building’s basement; though the resisters guarding the structure had fled, an SS officer wildly fired his MP-40 in the building’s main room and threatened to kill Frau Lenk, the proprietor, and several other women who had been drinking tea in the guesthouse dining room. As the Waffen-SS troops carted off the weapons they’d discovered, Blechschmidt could do little more than watch from a safe distance and send one of Mayr’s men to let Gangl know what was happening.
The news convinced the Wehrmacht major that the only way he’d be able to ensure the safety of both the townspeople and the VIPs at Schloss Itter would be to speed the arrival of American forces. And since the Americans might not pay sufficient attention to a note-bearing civilian on a bicycle, the best way to accomplish the task, Gangl decided, was to go in search of them himself. He was, in effect, the German military commander of Wörgl, and, as such, he could officially surrender to the Americans all remaining Wehrmacht troops in the town.
Having made his decision, Gangl huddled with his deputy, Captain Dietrich, and Mayr’s deputy, Rupert Hagleitner. Dietrich would be in command until he returned, Gangl said, assisted by First Lieutenant Höckel and second lieutenants Blechschmidt and Wegscheider. Knowing that American units had reached the outskirts of Kufstein the previou
s evening, the men agreed that Gangl should head there instead of attempting the longer and potentially more dangerous drive west toward Innsbruck. He would make the roughly seven-mile trip in a kübelwagen, accompanied only by his enlisted driver, Corporal Keblitsch. They would take a white flag with them, but, given the number of Waffen-SS troops still in the area, they would not raise the banner until they were relatively close to the American lines.
With plans made and assignments given, just before three o’clock Gangl shoved the letter Krobot had brought from the castle into the pocket of his tunic, grabbed his MP-40, and strode to his vehicle. As Keblitsch started the kübelwagen moving, Gangl turned in his seat to shout some last-minute instruction to Dietrich, who was standing with Höckel, Blechschmidt, and Wegscheider. The sentence died in the Wehrmacht major’s throat when he realized that all four men were standing at attention, saluting him.
While we don’t know how Gangl and Keblitsch felt about their chances of actually making it to the American front line, we can safely assume that both men well understood the extreme risk they were taking. The seven miles separating Wörgl from the leading U.S. units were crawling with bands of Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht troops still loyal to the now-dead führer, and they had thrown up hastily constructed roadblocks at several points on the main Wörgl-Kufstein road. Though Gangl would have tried to bluff his way through on the strength of his rank and the combat decorations adorning his tunic, or possibly by producing Battle Group Forster documents and declaring he was on his way to rally the defense against the oncoming Americans, the discovery of the letter in his pocket or the white flag concealed somewhere in the vehicle would have been enough to get him and Keblitsch executed on the spot. Nor were die-hard German troops the only danger: There were also groups of Austrian resistance fighters in the area who might well open fire on the kübelwagen without bothering to determine if the men it carried were friend or foe. And, of course, there were all the other common World War II perils: random mortar or artillery barrages, attack by enemy aircraft, and land mines laid on unpaved side roads.
Whether Gangl and Keblitsch stuck to the main road and bluffed their way through roadblocks or avoided them by going cross-country on forest tracks is unclear. All we know is that despite the myriad potential dangers of their journey, the two men made it to the outskirts of Kufstein unscathed. But then they faced a hazard of a different kind. They would be driving into a city newly occupied by American troops—soldiers wary of ambush, of snipers, and of all the other hazards common to warfare in built-up areas. And Gangl was likely aware of recent events that made their approach to the American lines even more risky, despite the large white flag now flying from the kübelwagen’s antenna: For several days the Allied radio stations to which Gangl’s resistance colleagues listened had been reporting the unspeakable horrors discovered by the American units that liberated Dachau and other concentration camps near Munich. As a seasoned combat veteran who had undoubtedly seen his share of horror on the Russian Front, Gangl would have realized that if the GIs moving into Kufstein had been among those who had witnessed the gruesome conditions inside the camps, they might not be in any mood to accept the surrender of two Germans, white flag or not.37
Some forty-five minutes after leaving Wörgl, Gangl and Keblitsch rolled into the southern end of Kufstein and found … no one. The streets were deserted, and white bedsheets and red-white-red Austrian flags hung from shuttered windows. Driving slowly toward the center of town with their own white flag flying high, the two men rounded a corner and found themselves barely thirty feet from four American M4 Sherman tanks, two parked on either side of the street. Keblitsch stopped the kübelwagen immediately, and both men slowly and carefully raised their hands in the air. GIs wearing padded tanker helmets appeared from behind the armored vehicles and moved forward, their M3 submachine guns pointed at the Germans. Dropping to their knees in response to yelled commands from the advancing Americans, Gangl and Keblitsch—their hands still in the air—must have wondered if they were about to be gunned down in the street. Instead, both men were quickly frisked, told to stand, and with their hands still in the air hustled toward the rear of the nearest Sherman. Waiting there was a squat, powerfully built man wearing a wrinkled khaki uniform and a .45-caliber automatic pistol in a shoulder holster, his teeth clenching a well-chewed but unlit cigar.
Assuming the man to be in charge, Gangl introduced himself in passable English, said he wished to surrender the German garrison in Wörgl, and added that he had information about important French prisoners. After motioning toward his tunic pocket and getting a nod from the officer in return, Gangl carefully retrieved Christiane Mabire’s letter and proffered it to the American. The man unceremoniously ripped the envelope open and quickly scanned the letter, then hoisted himself aboard the Sherman, and dropped into the turret. Minutes later he reappeared and climbed onto the tank’s rear engine deck, a wide smile on his face.
Looking down at the German major, the American said his name was Lee and that it looked like they were all going on a rescue mission.38
CHAPTER 6
TANKERS ON THE MARCH
THAT JACK LEE WAS SMILING at the thought of roaring off behind German lines on what might well have been the last day of World War II in Europe gives a fair insight into the then twenty-seven-year-old tanker’s personality. The five-foot-ten, 190-pound former high school and college football star from New York was by all accounts a rough-talking, hard-drinking, and hard-charging bull of a man who’d found his niche in war. And, as with many men—in many wars—to whom that description has applied, Lee’s early life gave clear indications of the warrior he would eventually become.
JOHN CAREY LEE JR. WAS BORN in Nebraska on March 12, 1918, the first of four children of Dr. John C. Lee Sr. and Mary Agnes (Fleming) Lee. Both parents were natives of rural New York and had moved to Nebraska a year before Jack’s birth, apparently so the elder Lee could accept his first position after graduating from medical school. The young couple returned to New York sometime in the mid-1920s and settled in Norwich, a small town in the south-central part of the state, where Dr. Lee established what soon became a thriving private practice. Jack and his three younger siblings—brothers William and David and sister Mary—grew up in solidly upper-middle-class comfort. The family was Roman Catholic, though it seems Jack didn’t let the church’s precepts unduly cramp his style. He grew up adventurous and independent, with a quick grin and a devil-may-care attitude that made him increasingly popular with girls but occasionally got him in minor trouble both at home and at school.
Bright and inquisitive, Jack was a better-than-average student who also excelled in athletics. Football became his game of choice, and he was a star player during his four years at Norwich High School. He took those gridiron skills with him when he entered Vermont’s Norwich University in 1938, earning letters in the sport each of the four years he spent there. Far more important, however, was the new skill the brash young man from New York mastered at Norwich: he became a cavalryman.
Founded by Captain Alden Partridge1 in 1819 as the American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy, by the time of Lee’s arrival Norwich had evolved into one of the nation’s premier private military colleges, combining a traditional four-year civilian education in such fields as engineering and the social sciences with training in military subjects that prepared graduates for service as reserve officers.2 Among the martial skills to which the student-cadets were exposed were those of traditional cavalry: horsemanship, saber drill, and mounted tactics. As the soldiers-to-be wheeled and galloped and surged across the training fields, many of them discovered within themselves an innate affinity for the spirit of cavalry: a delight in the lightning advance, the rapid encirclement, and the chance to ruthlessly exploit any weakness in an enemy’s defenses. It comes as no great revelation that Jack Lee, who so obviously loved the team spirit, intricate maneuvering, and broken-field running of football, took to cavalry training with almost obsessive enthusiasm.
Nor is it a surprise that his enthusiasm was more than matched by his mastery of every facet of the training—a mastery rooted in the same athleticism, intelligence, competitiveness, and self-confidence that stood him in such good stead on the football field. Indeed, the cavalry so well suited Lee’s temperament and capabilities—and, we can safely assume, ideally complemented what many who knew him called his “swashbuckling” personality—that during his last year at Norwich he listed “Cavalry” as the army branch to which he wanted to be assigned following his postgraduation commissioning.3 Lee understood, of course, that the cavalry in which he would actually serve would be mechanized rather than hoofed, but he obviously felt that a tank was a perfectly acceptable substitution for a horse.4
The United States’ December 1941 entry into World War II ensured that Jack Lee and his fellow Norwich graduates were called to active duty shortly after their May 11, 1942, graduation. To his immense delight, the newly commissioned Second Lieutenant Lee received orders directing him to report to the Armored Force School at Fort Knox, Kentucky, to attend the basic armor officer course. He lingered in New York state only long enough to marry a woman named Virginia5 and then headed south by train. During the ninety-day program Lee soaked up the fundamentals of tank gunnery, armor tactics, communications, and vehicle maintenance, and during the concluding three-day field exercise he demonstrated what one of his instructors called “a natural talent” for armored warfare.
Upon completion of the Fort Knox course, Lee received orders assigning him to the 12th Armored Division, which was then forming at Camp Campbell, Kentucky, a newly established installation6 straddling the Kentucky-Tennessee border. The 12th AD was initially constituted as a heavy armored division consisting of six tank battalions, three armored-infantry battalions, three armored-artillery battalions, and supporting engineer, reconnaissance, medical, and supply units. However, the initial combat experience of U.S. armored units in North Africa and Sicily showed the heavy armored division structure to be unwieldy and overly complex, and in November 1943 the 12th began reorganizing on the light armored division model then being adopted army-wide. This structure was built around three combat commands—A, B, and R (reserve), each of which had a tank battalion, an armored-infantry battalion, and an armored-artillery battalion, plus support units. The 12th AD undertook this metamorphosis even as it was moving to a new post: Camp Barkley, near Abilene, Texas.7 By the time the reorganization was completed, Lee—now a first lieutenant—was the executive officer (second in command) and leader of the five-tank 1st Platoon in Captain Donald Cowan’s Company B, 23rd Tank Battalion.
The Last Battle: When U.S. And German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe Page 14