The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945

by Rick Atkinson

  It will be my cross: Carroll, Behind the Lines, 69–73.

  “It is summer”: Stiles, Serenade to the Big Bird, 215.

  A final gesture of American arms: Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 316 (“show of force”); Huie, The Execution of Private Slovik, 106–7 (Benjamin Franklin).

  Hurriedly trucked to Versailles: Miller, Division Commander, 100; Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 396 (“Khaki Bill”); Ent, ed., The First Century, 165 (three-cent postage stamp).

  CHAPTER 4: PURSUIT

  “The Huntsman Is Hungry”

  Naples in August 1944 still carried scars: Taylor and Taylor, eds., The War Diaries, 128 (carved from the bones of saints); Kennett, G.I.: The American Soldier in World War II, 204–5 (one-third of all arriving cargo); Lewis, Naples ’44, 134–35 (civilian suits); Richler, ed., Writers on World War II, 477 (“kingdom come”).

  The city was “colorful”: Fairbanks, A Hell of a War, 224; Taylor and Taylor, eds., The War Diaries, 448 (touch their testicles); Lewis, Naples ’44, 93 (“romantic frustration”); Vining, ed., American Diaries of World War II, 114 (prices had jumped thirtyfold); diary, Cyrus C. Aydlett, July 15, 1944, NWWIIM (“Piece ass!”).

  More than ever Naples was a military town: Fisher, Cassino to the Alps, 292–99.

  under Plan 4-44: Hewitt, “Planning Operation Anvil-Dragoon,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (July–Aug. 1954): 731+; “Southern France,” n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH background files, chapter 10 (nine hundred vessels); IFG, 238–39.

  By August 13, the 36th and 45th Infantry Divisions: “Southern France,” n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH background files, chapter 10; Mauldin, Up Front, 198–99 (moldering corpses); Even, The Tenth Engineers, 38 (makeshift aircraft carrier); Wyant, Sandy Patch, 114–15 (“Many a New Day”); Taggart, ed., History of the Third Infantry Division, 202 (never glanced up).

  Pacing the bridge of the flagship: OH, “The Reminiscences of Admiral H. Kent Hewitt,” Col U OHRO, 1962, 6: 1–3; AAAD, 21–23; DOB, 30–32.

  DRAGOON had begun dreadfully: Hewitt, “Planning Operation Anvil-Dragoon,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (July–Aug. 1954): 731ff.; John A. Moreno, “The Death of Admiral Moon,” n.d., a.p., 225+; Alter and Crouch, eds., “My Dear Moon,” no pagination; OH, “The Reminiscences of Admiral H. Kent Hewitt,” Col U OHRO, 1962, 24: 33–35 (“I don’t think it’s as bad”).

  At seven the next morning: Alter and Crouch, eds., “My Dear Moon,” no pagination (“I am sick”); Individual Deceased Personnel File, Don P. Moon, a.p., obtained under FOIA, 2008 (“Cause: suicide”); corr, JLC to Mrs. Don P. Moon, Aug. 17, 1944, JLC papers, DDE Lib, box 3, 201 file (“a casualty of this war”).

  At two P.M. on August 13, under clear skies: Hewitt, “Planning Operation Anvil-Dragoon,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (July–Aug. 1954): 731+; Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran, 179 (“All that they felt”).

  Vesuvius had begun to recede: Hewitt, “Planning Operation Anvil-Dragoon,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (July–Aug. 1954): 731+; Pawle, The War and Colonel Warden, 315–16 (light tropical suit); Taggart, ed., History of the Third Infantry Division, 202 (“It’s Churchill!”); Reitan, Riflemen, 41.

  Colonel Kent: Jackson, The Mediterranean and the Middle East, vol. 6, part 2, 174.

  on a fortnight’s bathing holiday: Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography, 752–53; Reynolds, In Command of History, 3 (“benevolent hippo”); Macmillan, War Diaries, 502 (portable map room).

  DRAGOON, originally called ANVIL: A recent history on the German retreat from France states that the two Wehrmacht armies in Army Group G together numbered sixteen divisions on June 6, 1944. Ludewig, Rückzug, 48.

  Shipping shortages and delays in capturing Rome: Charles V. von Lüttichau, “Army Group G Prepares to Meet the Invasion,” 1957, OCMH, NARA RG 319, R-series #103, box 16; H. Maitland Wilson, “Dispatch, Invasion of Southern France,” 1944, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #108, 4–31; CCA, 76n, 100; “The Invasion of Southern France, Operation Dragoon,” ETOUSA, 1944, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #314; TSC, 220–21 (“decisive theater”); Howard, The Mediterranean Strategy in World War II, 61; Ambrose, The Supreme Commander, 338; OH, Charles de Gaulle, Jan. 14, 1947, FCP, MHI; De Gaulle, The Complete Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle, 613–14.

  The British disagreed, politely at first: TSC, 221–22 (“bleak and sterile”); IFG, 229–30 (“great hazards”); Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 301 (would take three months); memo, British chiefs, June 26, 1944, NARA RG 165, E 422, OPD, history unit, box 12 (“unacceptable to us”); H. Maitland Wilson, “Dispatch, Invasion of Southern France,” 1944, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #108, 31; Macmillan, War Diaries, 470 (“eliminate the German forces”); Kennedy, The Business of War, 333 (“dagger under the armpit”).

  “We need big ports”: Chandler, 1938; Howard, The Mediterranean Strategy in World War II, 67 (threading the gap); Pogue, George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 408 (“Austrians held off the Italians”); OH, John E. Hull, 1974, James W. Wurman, SOOHP, MHI, III-54, V-26 (“not more than seven divisions”); Barker, “The Ljubljana Gap Strategy,” JMH (Jan. 1992): 57+ (dash to Vienna); Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran, 233 (“Winston is a gambler”); Danchev, 561–65 (“damned fools”).

  The prime minister would have none of it: Kimball, ed., Churchill & Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence, vol. 3, 523 (forestall Soviet domination), 214–23 (“complete ruin”).

  Still Churchill persisted: diary, CBH, Aug. 7, 1944, MHI, box 4 (“beautifully colored speech”); dispatch, Henry Maitland Wilson to CCS, n.d., CMH, UH 0-1, 23 (“greatest secrecy”); msg, U.S. JCS, Aug. 5, 1944, NARA RG 331, AFHQ micro, R-323-A (“extremely unwise”); Jackson, The Mediterranean and the Middle East, vol. 6, part 2, 174 (“utmost confusion”); IFG, 231 (insufficiently seaworthy); Chandler, 2057 (no major Breton port would open), 2066–67; Three Years, 635 (“Ike said no”), 639 (“lay down the mantle”), 644; Strong, Intelligence at the Top, 197 (wept copiously); Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, 68–71 (“no more to be done”).

  Denouncing the “sheer folly”: Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran, 173.

  “strong and dominating partner”: TSC, 226.

  “We have been ill-treated”: Pogue, George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 412–13; Roberts, Masters and Commanders, 501 (“lying down”), 500 (“Winston is very bitter”); Hastings, Armageddon, 232 (“one of the stupidest strategic teams”); Wilson, ed., D-Day 1944, 38 (“The only times I ever quarrel”).

  “an Englishman’s idea of cooperation”: Brower, ed., World War II in Europe: The Final Year, 59; Pogue, George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 491 (“always a disperser”); Howard, The Mediterranean Strategy in World War II, 67 (incoherent); Brower, ed., World War II in Europe, 42 (“slogan not a strategy”); VW, vol. 2, 19; TSC, 246–47 (“tearing the guts out”).

  Certainly the fraught imperatives: Powers, “The Battle of Normandy,” JMH (July 1992): 455+; Roberts, Masters and Commanders, 505 (“full-blown professionals”); pamphlet, “Beachheads and Mountains,” MTO, U.S. Army, June 1945, Theodore J. Conway papers, MHI, box 2 (one in every ten).

  “He must always be right”: Roberts, Masters and Commanders, 500.

  “He was literally frothing”: Danchev, 571; Colville, The Fringes of Power, 564 (“corrective sneering”), 522 (black bristles of the hair brushes); Hastings, Winston’s War, 411 (“his own vivid world”); Buhite, Decisions at Yalta, 15 (“Of course I am an egotist”).

  “that unresting genius”: Fraser, Alanbrooke, 22.

  “The P.M. is very tired”: Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran, 194; Macmillan, War Diaries, 474 (“old and weary”); Foreman, “Winston Churchill, Distilled,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 10, 2009, D6 (“economy of effort”).

  Already this Mediterranean sojourn had revived him: Addison, Churchill, the Unexpected Hero, 184 (Champagne lunches); Kimball, Forged in War, 22 (Churchill was no alcoholic); msg, U.S. JCS, Aug. 5, 1944, NARA RG 331, A
FHQ micro, R-323-A (“DRAGOON will be successful”).

  In the smallest hours of Tuesday, August 15: “Invasion of Southern France,” n.d., Office of the Theater Historian, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #607, 11–12; IFG, 255–57 (one hundred fathoms); Robichon, The Second D-Day, 163 (“deluge of metal”).

  “Nancy has a stiff neck”: De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 64. In southern France, the OSS had twenty-eight agent networks radioing reports on German defenses and troop movements. Waller, Wild Bill Donovan, 264.

  Each soldier aboard the combat loaders: Stephen J. Weiss, “Operation ANVIL-DRAGOON: The Allied Invasion of Southern France,” n.d., a.p.; Garland, Unknown Soldiers, 277 (“Swilled coffee”), 309 (“sunstorms”); Langan W. Swent, “Personal Diary,” Aug. 14, 1944, HIA, box 1 (“things are so quiet”).

  Catoctin’s malfunctioning ventilation system: Will Lang, draft cable to Life, Aug. 1, 1944, LKT Jr. papers, GCM Lib, box 21 (“predatory” face); corr, Don E. Carleton to Sarah Truscott, July 1944, LKT Jr. papers, GCM Lib, box 1 (silver nitrate); Mauldin, The Brass Ring, 241 (“one of the really tough generals”).

  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).