The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945
Page 88
Over the years, Effects Bureau inspectors had found tapestries, enemy swords, a German machine gun, an Italian accordion, a tobacco sack full of diamonds, walrus tusks, a shrunken head, a Japanese life raft. Among thousands of diaries also received in Kansas City was a small notebook that had belonged to Lieutenant Hershel G. Horton, a twenty-nine-year-old Army officer from Aurora, Illinois. Shot in the right leg and hip during a firefight with the Japanese in New Guinea, Horton had dragged himself into a grass shanty and, over the several days that it took for him to die, he had scribbled a final letter in the notebook. “My dear, sweet father, mother, and sister,” he wrote. “I lay here in this terrible place, wondering not why God has forsaken me, but rather why He is making me suffer.”
* * *
This, the profoundest of all mysteries, would be left for the living to ponder. Soldiers who survived also would struggle to reconcile the greatest catastrophe in human history with what the philosopher and Army officer J. Glenn Gray called “the one great lyric passage in their lives.” The war’s intensity, camaraderie, and sense of high purpose left many with “a deplorable nostalgia,” in the phrase of A. J. Liebling. “The times were full of certainty,” Liebling later wrote. “I have seldom been sure I was right since.” An AAF crewman who completed fifty bomber missions observed, “Never did I feel so much alive. Never did the earth and all of the surroundings look so bright and sharp.” And a combat engineer mused, “What we had together was something awfully damned good, something I don’t think we’ll ever have again as long as we live.”
They had been annealed, touched with fire. “We are certainly no smaller men than our forefathers,” Gavin wrote his daughter. Alan Moorehead, who watched the scarlet calamity from beginning to end, believed that “here and there a man found greatness in himself.”
The anti-aircraft gunner in a raid and the boy in a landing barge really did feel at moments that the thing they were doing was a clear and definite good, the best they could do. And at those moments there was a surpassing satisfaction, a sense of exactly and entirely fulfilling one’s life.… This thing, the brief ennoblement, kept recurring again and again up to the end, and it refreshed and lighted the whole heroic and sordid story.
In Moorehead’s view, the soldier to whom this grace was granted became, “for a moment, a complete man, and he had his sublimity in him.” For those destined to outlive the war and die abed as old men half a century hence, the din of battle grew fainter without ever fading entirely. They knew, as Osmar White knew, that “the living have the cause of the dead in trust.” This too was part of the sublimity.
“No war is really over until the last veteran is dead,” a rifleman in the 26th Division would conclude. Of the 16,112,566 Americans in uniform during the Second World War, the number still living was expected to decline to one million by late 2014, and, a decade later, in 2024, to dip below a hundred thousand. By the year 2036, U.S. government demographers estimated, fewer than four hundred veterans would remain alive, less than half the strength of an infantry battalion.
Yet the war and all that the war contained—nobility, villainy, immeasurable sorrow—is certain to live on even after the last old soldier has gone to his grave. May the earth lie lightly on his bones.
NOTES
The following abbreviations appear in the endnotes and bibliography. Some stack locations and box numbers change as archivists reconfigure their collections. A list of additional manuscripts, monographs, and unpublished documents used in this book appears online at www.liberationtrilogy.com.
a.p. author’s possession
AAAD Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn
AAF Army Air Forces
AAFinWWII W. F. Craven and J. L. Cate, eds., The Army Air Forces in World War II, vol. 3
AAR after action report
AB After the Battle
AB Div airborne division
AD armored division
admin administration
AF air force
AFHQ micro Allied Forces Headquarters microfilm, NARA RG 331
AFHRA Air Force Historical Research Agency
AFIA American Forces in Action publications and background papers
AG Army Group
ag adjutant general
AGF Army Ground Forces
ALH Howard L. Gleck et al., “The Administrative and Logistical History of the ETO,” part 5, WD, May 1946, a.p.
ALM Audie Leon Murphy papers, USMA Special Collections, West Point, N.Y.
ANSCOL Army-Navy Staff College Collection, NWC Lib, U.S. National Archives
AR action report
Ardennes Hugh M. Cole, The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge, USAWWII
AS Armored School
ASEQ Army Service Experiences Questionnaire, MHI
ASF Army Service Forces
AU Air University
bde brigade
Beck Alfred M. Beck et al., The Corps of Engineers: The War Against Germany, USAWWII
BLM Bernard Law Montgomery
bn battalion
BP Martin Blumenson, Breakout and Pursuit, USAWWII
CARL Combined Arms Research Library, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.
CBH Chester B. Hansen, including papers, diary, MHI
CBM Charles B. MacDonald, including papers, MHI
CCA Gordon A. Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack, USAWWII
CCS Combined Chiefs of Staff
CE U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
CEOH U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Office of History
Chandler Alfred Chandler, ed., The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower: The War Years
CI Combat Interview, ETO
CINCLANT Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet
CJB Clay and Joan Blair collection, MHI
CJR Cornelius J. Ryan, including papers, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio
CMH U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort McNair, Washington, D.C.
CNO Chief of Naval Operations
co company
Coakley Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, Global Logistics and Strategy 1943–1945, USAWWII
COHQ Combined Operations Headquarters, U.K.
Col U OHRO Columbia University Oral History Research Office, N.Y.
corr correspondence
COS chief of staff
CSI U.S. Army Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.
DA Department of the Army
Danchev Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman, eds., War Diaries, 1939–1945: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke
DDE Dwight David Eisenhower
DDE Lib Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, Kans.
diss dissertation
div division
DOB Rick Atkinson, The Day of Battle
DTL Donovan Technical Library, Fort Benning, Ga.
E entry
ET Exercise Tiger collection, MHI
ETO European Theater of Operations
FA field artillery
FAJ Field Artillery Journal
FCP Forrest C. Pogue, including background material for The Supreme Command, MHI
FDR Lib Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.
FMS Foreign Military Studies
FOIA Freedom of Information Act
FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States: The Conferences at Malta and Yalta
Ft. K Ft. Knox, Ky.
Ft. L Ft. Leavenworth, Kans.
FUSA First U.S. Army
GCM Lib George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Va.
Germany VII Horst Boog et al., Germany and the Second World War, vol. 7, The Strategic Air War in Europe and the War in the West and East Asia, 1943–1944/45
Germany IX Ralf Blank et al., Germany and the Second World War, vol. 9, part 1, German Wartime Society, 1939–1945
GS V John Ehrman, Grand Strategy, vol. 5
GS VI John Ehrman, Grand Strategy, vol. 6
GSP George S. Patton, Jr., including papers, Library of Congress
HCB Harry C. But
cher, including papers
HD Historical Division
HI “Hospital Interviews,” NARA RG 407 E 427, ML #2233
HIA Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.
Hinsley F. H. Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War, abridged
HKH Henry Kent Hewitt papers
Hq headquarters
ID infantry division
IFG Samuel Eliot Morison, The Invasion of France and Germany, 1944–1945
IG inspector general
IJ Infantry Journal
inf infantry
intel intelligence
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”).