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

by Rick Atkinson

  The entrenched enemy quickly stiffened: SLC, 420–24, 492, 505 (hot food and burning candles), 416–18 (“house-by-house killing match”); “Further Technical Notes on German Minefields,” March 7, 1945, UK War Office, NARA RG 407, ML #225, appendix J (dozen types of mine). First Division casualties included those of the attached 47th Infantry.

  Thirty days hath November: SLC, 518; “Weather Conditions in the ETO on D-Day and in Nov. 1944,” HQ, Air Weather Service, Sept. 1946, NARA RG 319, CCA background historical files, box 164 (triple the monthly average).

  “Men were forced to discard their overcoats”: SLC, 446, 457, 518; Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 16 (condoms); LSA, vol. 2, 492 (“duck bills”).

  This was “thee or me” combat: Rosengarten, “With Ultra from Omaha Beach to Weimar, Germany,” Military Affairs (Oct. 1978): 127+; Nickell, Red Devil, 79 (“They say cleanliness”), 84–85 (“With every heartbeat”); Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 203 (“‘You ain’t goin’ back’”); Babcock, Taught to Kill, 123 (“pissing your pants”); Linderman, The World Within War, 306 (“One forgets so much”), 311 (Snow White).

  “My heart and soul have been torn”: Sorley, Thunderbolt, 62.

  “War happens inside a man”: Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream, 495.

  Among the empty chairs: AAR, Cannon Company, 16th Inf, and “Jack’s Letters,” Nov. 6, Dec. 8, Dec. 10, 1944, a.p., compiled by Rick Perry.

  As fresh reserves came forward: “Graves Registrations Service,” NARA RG 407, E 427, USFET General Board study no. 107; Ross, 219, 688 (Great pains were taken).

  For the living, small pleasures: diary, Harold S. Frum, Nov. 11, 1944, “The Soldier Must Write,” 1984, GCM Lib (“90 percent boredom”); Nickell, Red Devil, 80 (burrows ten feet square); Tapert, ed., Lines of Battle, 214–15 (“war stands aside”); corr, T. R. Bruskin to wife, Dec. 5, 1944, a.p. (“pulling the chain”).

  “I’ve learned what it means”: McNally, As Ever, John, 52.

  “I can see now”: Blunt, Foot Soldier, V-mail photo, 154.

  Operation QUEEN sputtered and stalled: SLC, 578, 593, 616–17. SHAEF in October had set quotas. The highest awards required authorization from higher headquarters (“Awards and Decorations,” USFET General Board study no. 10, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427, AG WWII operations reports, 97-USF-0.3.0).

  The Roer, already in spate from daily rain: SLC, 598 (nearly two thousand tons), 581, 594; Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, 434–35; AAR, 12th AG, vol. 14, publicity and psychological warfare, NARA RG 331, E-200A, SHAEF records, box 267, 82–83 (censors banned all reference).

  Certainly the enemy had been badly hurt: SLC, 412–14, 583 (even a hundred men), 594, 457 (“numerous frostbites”).

  “It is entirely possible”: Crosswell, Beetle, 798.

  Winter always seemed to catch: Bynell, “Logistical Planning and Operations—Europe,” lecture, March 16, 1945, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, box 207, 13 (Arctic clothing tested at Anzio); LSA, vol. 2, 222–24 (“serious fighting” and “precautionary measure”); “Report of Observers, ETO, 11 March–21 Apr 1945,” Apr. 27, 1945, NARA RG 337, AGF OR #371; Cosmas and Cowdrey, Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations, 490 (“Don’t you know”).

  “General, the weather is getting cold”: Robert M. Littlejohn, “Ports and Transportation,” n.d., chapter 27, PIR, MHI, 9; Andrew T. McNamara, “QM Activities of II Corps … and First Army Through Europe,” 1955, chapter 46, PIR, MHI, 147–48 (delays in opening Antwerp); LSA, vol. 2, 224–26 (850,000 heavy overcoats); “Jack’s Letters,” Feb. 4, 1945, a.p. (“We can’t fight a winter war”).

  “front-line troops fought”: LSA, vol. 2, 227.

  Far less than half of the requested underwear: Ross, 599, 571 (shrinking size 12 pairs); Robert M. Littlejohn, “Helpful Hints to Would-Be Quartermaster Generals,” 1945, PIR, MHI, 3 (“wool is essential to combat”); Erna Risch and Thomas M. Pitkin, “Clothing the Soldier in World War II,” 1946, CMH, 4-10.2 AA 16, 244–51 (seven million new pairs).

  The Army listed seventy different articles: LSA, vol. 2, 233; Morris M. Bryan, “Quartermaster Planning,” n.d., chapter 45, PIR, MHI (“jacket, field, M-43”); Andrus et al., eds., Advances in Military Medicine, vol. 2, 499–500 (the “Clo”); “Blankets,” NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #500.

  The Army was said to believe that every GI: Sherry, In the Shadow of War, 94; “Trench Foot,” n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427, AG WWII operations reports, 97-USF5-0.3.0, no. 94, 4–5 (“none of which”); “Clothing and Footwear,” chapter 56, PIR, 1959, Robert M. Littlejohn papers, HIA (“nothing but a sponge”); Ross, 602–3 (none larger than size 11); Harold M. Florsheim, “Quartermaster Supply,” n.d., chapter 40, PIR, MHI, 27–28; Lawrence B. Sheppard, “Supply of Footwear and Socks in the European Theater,” 1945, chapter 31, PIR, MHI; LSA, vol. 2, 228–29; Cosmas and Cowdrey, Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations, 492–93.

  The first case of trench foot: “Notes Taken at Trench Foot Conference,” Jan. 24, 1945, Office of the Chief Surgeon, Paris, Paul R. Hawley papers, MHI, 1–6; Chandler, 2320 (“We are making some progress”); Cosmas and Cowdrey, Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations, 494; Cowdrey, Fighting for Life, 267; corr, D. G. Gilbert to JT, Jan. 28, 1959, JT, LOC, box 38 (one-quarter of all hospital admissions); Ellis, On the Front Lines, 187 (“long lines of cots”).

  Almost nothing had been learned: The official report on trench foot in Italy, completed in Jan. 1944, took a year to reach the ETO (Cosmas and Cowdrey, Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations, 489).

  Nor had the Americans learned from the British: “Notes Taken at Trench Foot Conference,” Jan. 24, 1945, Office of the Chief Surgeon, Paris, Paul R. Hawley papers, MHI, 6; “German Training on Proper Use of Winter Clothing,” July 21, 1945, NARA RG 337, AGF OR #559; monograph, “Cold Weather Injuries,” n.d., NWWIIM.

  Many GIs were told to lace their boots tighter: Cosmas and Cowdrey, Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations, 490, 496; corr, W. H. Simpson to A. C. Gillem, Jr., Nov. 25, 1944, Alvan Cullom Gillem, Jr., papers, MHI, box 6 (could lose a thousand men); LSA, vol. 2, 229; “Trench Foot,” n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427, 97-USF5-0.30, USFET General Board study no. 94, 1–5 (Purple Heart); Cowdrey, Fighting for Life, 267; “Trench Foot,” XV Corps, Dec. 28, 1944, NARA RG 498, G-3 OR, box 10, 1–2.

  As every buck private knew: Sylvan, 172 (“1 in 1,000”); diary, Harold S. Frum, Oct. 21, 1944, “The Soldier Must Write,” 1984, GCM Lib (“never realized its omnipresence”); Miller, Ike the Soldier, 705 (“trench body”); monograph, “Cold Weather Injuries,” n.d., NWWIIM (wedging newspaper); OH, John Cappell, 8th Inf, 4th ID, NWWIIM (sleeping platforms); Cosmas and Cowdrey, Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations, 492–93 (making their own footwear); diary, Manton Eddy, Nov. 15, 1944, FCP, MHI (“one dead Kraut”).

  The soldiers’ misery contributed to a spike: DOB, 508–9; Sherry, In the Shadow of War, 96 (“ghosted”); “The Execution of Eddie Slovik,” AB, no. 32 (1981): 28+ (“Each moment of combat”).

  Those evacuated from the front: Ewing, 29 Let’s Go!, 88 (“going back to the kitchen”); “SHAEF Censorship Guidance,” No. 11, May 4, 1944, NARA RG 331, E 1, SGS, box 4; Reister, ed., Medical Statistics in World War II, 43 (929,000 men); Cosmas and Cowdrey, Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations, 385–86 (one in four admissions); extract, censorship report, Sept. 1944, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file (“I can’t take much more”).

  In contrast to the Army’s nonchalance: Copp and McAndrew, Battle Exhaustion, 110, 126; “Study of AGF Battle Casualties,” AGF G-3, Sept. 25, 1946, NARA RG 337, E 16A, admin div subject file, box 48, 2–3; Cawthon, Other Clay, 100 (“Blue 88s”); Cosmas and Cowdrey, Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations, 385–87 (ninety returned to duty); “Combat Fatigue,” n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427, 97-USF5-0.30, USFET General Board study no. 91, 1–4; DOB, 509.

  competent treatment and all the Blue 88s: Rush, Hell in Hürtgen Forest, 309 (“Between the physical fear”); C
opp and McAndrew, Battle Exhaustion, 144 (“The only way one could get out”); Fussell, Doing Battle, 31 (“after five months”); Linderman, The World Within War, 356–57 (“I’m not badly injured”); “Study of AGF Battle Casualties,” AGF G-3, Sept. 25, 1946, NARA RG 337, E 16A, admin div subject file, box 48, 3 (200 to 240 days). Ten combat days typically equaled seventeen calendar days.

  “Morale is a darkling plain”: Martin R. R. Goldman, “Morale in the AAF in World War II,” 1953, AFHRA, historical study no. 78, 4.

  The Army’s surgeon general recommended: Palmer et al., The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops, 231–32; “The Execution of Eddie Slovik,” AB, no. 32 (1981): 28+. (“Under present policy”); “Military History of the Second World War: The Corps of Chaplains,” 1946, CMH, 4-3 AA, 86 (“faith in a friendly universe”).

  George Patton had encamped in a villa: Codman, Drive, 202–3; Hirshson, General Patton: A Soldier’s Life, 553 (“impossible bric-a-brac”); John K. Rieth, “We Seek: Patton’s Forward Observers,” 2002, a.p., 101 (German rail guns); PP, 566; diary, Oct. 24, 1944, Hobart Gay papers, MHI, box 2, 539 (broke the windows).

  Patton swanned about Lorraine: D’Este, Patton: A Genius for War, 655, 691, 689; Hirshson, General Patton: A Soldier’s Life, 521 ($250,000 offer); diary, Oct. 28 and 29, 1944, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 3, folder 8; Blumenson, Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1885–1945, 241; PP, 557–58 (“May God rot his guts”).

  “How long, O Lord”: Codman, Drive, 202–3.

  “Send me a couple of bottles”: PP, 567, 570.

  Because of the West Wall’s eastward bow: Allen, Lucky Forward, 113 (removal of XV Corps); LC, 302–3; Wellard, The Man in a Helmet, 169 (scores of manure-stacked Lorraine villages).

  Patton claimed that Metz had not fallen: PP, 576 (Germans had taken it); Hirshson, General Patton: A Soldier’s Life, 544 (Vauban told Louis XIV); John P. Ludwikosky et al., “735th Tank Battalion in the Reduction of Metz,” May 1950, AS, Ft. K, NARA RG 337, 6–7 (forty-three forts); Rickard, Patton at Bay, 123 (modern works faced west); Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 427 (“blood the new divisions”); Bradley Commentaries, CBH, MHI, box 42 (“Leave it alone”); OH, ONB, Dec. 1974–Oct. 1975, Charles Hanson, MHI, VI, 47 (“too many casualties”); PP, 566 (“more daring”).

  Daring had thus far gained nought: Doubler, Closing with the Enemy, 130 (“most formidable”); Meyer A. Edwards, Jr., et al., “Armor in the Attack of a Fortified Position,” May 1950, AS, Ft. K, NARA RG 337, 88–91 (“100 old men and boys”); LC, 264–66 (walls seven feet thick); Wellard, The Man in a Helmet, 173–74 (“medieval fortress”); diary, Oct. 4, 1944, Hobart Gay papers, MHI, box 2, 522 (“could not allow an attack”).

  It failed anyway: Patton, The Pattons, 268 (“or not come back”); LC, 270–75 (first substantial reverse); Wellard, The Man in a Helmet, 174 (bad news out of the papers); Tapert, ed., Lines of Battle, 189–90 (“Those low bastards”).

  “Had a bad case of short breath”: PP, 568–69.

  “tired, aged appearance”: Wellard, The Man in a Helmet, 185; PP, 568–70 (pleaded for a postponement).

  He woke at three A.M. on Wednesday, November 8: PP, 571; LC, 317–19.

  Bradley phoned at 7:45: Codman, Drive, 213 (“almost sorry” and “relaxed and talkative”); PP, 571.

  Doolittle’s air fleets on Thursday: Robert W. Ackerman, “The Employment of Strategic Bombers in a Tactical Role,” 1954, AFHRA, study no. 88, 86–88; “The Effectiveness of Third Phase Tactical Air Operations in the European Theater,” AAF Evaluation Board, Aug. 1945, 4, 162–65; LC, 425.

  The infantry soldiered on, resupplied: AAR, 95th ID, Nov. 1944, AGF OR, CARL, N-6741; Raines, Eyes of Artillery, 227; AAR, 1st Bn, 358th Inf, Nov. 1944, http://www.worldhistorycompass.com/peragimus/358journal.html (scampered across the roof); Colby, War from the Ground Up, 308 (“This fort is ours”); Braim, The Will to Win, 108–11.

  Almost half a mile wide, the Moselle: Rickard, Patton at Bay, 177–79; Nickell, Red Devil, 91 (“The air seemed filled”).

  “Groans, suffering, and pain”: Knight, Would You Remember This?, 128–29.

  “bolts, washers, [and] bushings”: Cowdrey, Fighting for Life, 262–63.

  “getting up where the dead were still warm”: PP, 573–74.

  On November 14, nearly a week: LC, 408–9, 417 (“Halb-soldaten”); Codman, Drive, 213–14 (“very jolly”).

  “If we win now”: PP, 575.

  Hitler had twice rebuffed Rundstedt’s suggestion: LC, 418–32.

  At 10:30 A.M. on November 19: Rickard, Patton at Bay, 193; LC, 447.

  Patton drove into Metz: Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph, 643; PP, 581 (“I will be hard to live with”), 577–78 (“When I am dealing with vipers”); Wellard, The Man in a Helmet, 181–82 (personally interrogated).

  An honor guard played: diary, Nov. 23, 1944, Hobart Gay papers, MHI, box 2, 580; Mansoor, The GI Offensive in Europe, 206 (“one of the epic river crossings”); Nickell, Red Devil, 111 (French soldiers).

  Little mention was made of the outlying forts: John P. Ludwikosky et al., “735th Tank Battalion in the Reduction of Metz,” May 1950, AS, Ft. K, NARA RG 337, 54–55 (French white phosphorus); LC, 448–49.

  “Patton’s bloodiest and least successful campaign”: D’Este, Patton: A Genius for War, 666–69; “Mobility, Unused: Study Based on the Lorraine Campaign,” Oct. 1952, OCMH WWII Europe Interviews, MHI, 5–7 (forfeited the single greatest advantage).

  “this nasty country where it rains”: PP, 588–89.

  “Chaplain, how much praying”: James H. O’Neill, “The True Story of the Patton Prayer,” n.d., chap. 25, PIR, MHI; PP, 591 (“certainly rained less”).

  To the Land of Doom

  Far above the killing fields: AAFinWWII, 280; Miller, Masters of the Air, 278 (“murder business”); Westermann, Flak, 1 (well over one million tons); DOB, 495–97.

  Terrible aircraft losses in the first three months: Jean H. Dubuque and Robert F. Gleckner, “The Development of the Heavy Bomber, 1918–1944,” 1951, AFHRA, historical study no. 6, 114–20 (eight hundred U.S. heavies shot down); Bernard Boyland, “Development of the Long-Range Escort Fighter,” 1955, AFHRA, historical study no. 136, 242–45, 147–61; Kennedy, “History from the Middle: The Case of the Second World War,” JMH (Jan. 2010): 35+; AAFinWWII, 287–88, 303 (another nine hundred bombers went down); Hastings, Armageddon, 301 (Luftwaffe now was in a death spiral), 310 (“Each time I close the canopy”); Muller, “Losing Air Superiority: A Case Study from the Second World War,” Air & Space Power Journal (winter 2003): 55+; Ehlers, Targeting the Reich, 319 (less than thirty flying hours).

  Of necessity, antiaircraft flak: Westermann, Flak, 278, 295 (1.2 million Germans); Friedrich, The Fire, 40 (any plane within two hundred meters); Davis, Bombing the European Axis Powers, 594 (sixteen thousand 88mm shells); Ferguson, All’s Fair, 162 (“evil, hypnotic fascination”); Davis, Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe, 439 (Heavier German guns).

  British bombers, flying mostly at night: Sebald, On the Natural History of Destruction, 21 (“wall of light”); Friedrich, The Fire, 42 (“moving vertex”); “An Evaluation of German Capabilities in 1945,” USSAFE, Jan. 19, 1945, Frederick L. Anderson papers, HIA, box 80, folder 7 (electronic jammers); “Signal Service in ETOUSA,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #299, 24 (effective jamming meant that 25 percent).

  “Six miles from earth”: Randall Jarrell, “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” in Stallworthy, ed., The Oxford Book of War Poetry, 277.

  Air supremacy provided an invaluable advantage: Millett and Murray, Military Effectiveness, vol. 3, The Second World War, 64 (eighty thousand lives); Crane, Bombs, Cities & Civilians, 51 (battle casualty rates for every 1,000 bomber crewmen); Linderman, The World Within War, 39 (barely one in four); “Study of AGF Battle Casualties,” HQ, AGF G-3, Sept. 25, 1946, NARA RG 337, E 16A, admin div subject file, box 48, 4; Cowdrey, Fighting for Life, 233, 237. Some crews permitted to go home after fulfilling the lower quota were orde
red back to Europe when the number increased (Davis, Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe, 439, 446).

  Perhaps less lethal, but hardly less stressful: Tripp, The Eighth Passenger, 4–5; Davis, Bombing the European Axis Powers, 583–88 (two of every five fliers did not live).

  The simplest missions could be fatal: memo, “Bomber Crash at Freckleton,” Office of the Chaplain, USSAFE, Aug. 29, 1944, Carl A. Spaatz papers, LOC MS Div, diary, box 18; Russell Brown and Nick Wotherspoon, “The Freckleton Disaster,” 2007, http://web.ukonline.col.uk/lait/site/B-24%2042-50291.htm*; “Freckleton Air Disaster of 1944,” BBC News, Aug. 7, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/lancashire/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8189000/8189386.stm; “Plane Kills 35 Infants in School,” Daily Telegraph, Aug. 24, 1944, 3; “Crashing Bomber Wipes Out Nearly All a Village’s 4 to 6 Children,” Daily Express, Aug. 24, 1944, 3.

  High though the war’s cost in men and machines: Arnold, Global Missions, 530 (cut by over 70 percent); corr, H. H. Arnold to C. A. Spaatz, Aug. 14, 1944, Carl A. Spaatz papers, LOC MS Div, personal diaries, box 15 (“incipient weaknesses”); AAFinWWII, 306 (rest-and-recuperation program); corr, 319th Bombardment Group, 438th Bombardment Squadron, n.d., NARA RG 492, MTOUSA, office of the surgeon, 1944, 290/54/33/2 (“he spills food at the table”); Brendan Gill, “Young Man Behind Plexiglass,” New Yorker, Aug. 12, 1944, in Reporting World War II, vol. 2, 474–84 (“God, you gotta”).

  In the airman’s world, those afflicted: Crane, Bombs, Cities & Civilians, 54 (“clanks”); Tripp, The Eighth Passenger, 70, 34, 197 (“dead men flying”); Stiles, Serenade to the Big Bird, 159 (“giving birth”); Andrus et al., eds., Advances in Military Medicine, vol. 2, 502–3; Jean H. Dubuque and Robert F. Gleckner, “The Development of the Heavy Bomber, 1918–1944,” 1951, AFHRA, historical study no. 6, 111–13; Fisher, Legacy of Heroes, 16 (tattooed them red).