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

by Rick Atkinson

  a B-17 pilot sat in the five-foot cube: Stiles, Serenade to the Big Bird, 133 (“oxygen mask” and “dead things”); Miller, Masters of the Air, 316 (“Land of Doom”); Crane, Bombs, Cities & Civilians, 54 (“I would not grieve”).

  How best to destroy the Land of Doom: “Target Priorities of the Eighth Air Force,” May 15, 1945, Carl A. Spaatz papers, LOC MS Div, box 326, folder VIII A.F., 20 (“progressive destruction”); Earle, “Selection of Strategic Bombing Targets,” lecture, Apr. 23, 1946, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, box 235, 4–12 (“instructive hints”).

  But Germany did have an Achilles heel: Overy, Why the Allies Won, 228–31 (whereas the Axis share was 3 percent); “German Petroleum Situation,” OSS, R&A no. 2340, July 13, 1944, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, box 919, 3 (Soviet oil fields and “rapid and drastic effects”); Rostow, Concept and Controversy, 45–47 (wood-burning engines); Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 3, part 2, 57–58 (British intelligence by late May); Hinsley, 580 (“Germany’s problem”).

  No one believed that more: Carver, ed., The War Lords, 568–69 (Taciturn and unpretentious); Middleton, “Boss of the Heavyweights,” Saturday Evening Post (May 20, 1944), 18+ (fishing and cribbage); James, A Time for Giants, 98–100 (aviation pioneer); MMB, 518; “The Man Who Paved the Way,” Time (June 12, 1944): 23+ (“finest poker table”); Davis, Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe, 552 (inside straight); Three Years, 629 (played with a kitten); Miller, Masters of the Air, 290 (mid-May attack by nine hundred bombers).

  No sooner had OVERLORD forces come ashore: “Target Priorities of the Eighth Air Force,” May 15, 1945, Carl A. Spaatz papers, LOC MS Div, box 326, folder VIII A.F., 22; Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 3, part 2, 58.

  That estimate was too rosy: TSC, 308; AAFinWWII (only three were at full production).

  Not everyone subscribed to the oil strategy: VW, vol. 2, 150–51 (But Bomber Command resisted the edict); Germany VII, 367 (Lübeck and Rostock); Germany IX, 385 (firestorm that incinerated Hamburg); Friedrich, The Fire, 9 (“fire-raising”), 16–17 (eighty million incendiary sticks), 167 (“the atmosphere of another planet”).

  Air Chief Marshal Arthur T. Harris, the Bomber Command chief: Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare, 229–32 (“between 40 percent and 50 percent”); Davies, No Simple Victory, 69 (“like pulling teeth”); Germany IX, 387 (lime pits).

  “no grounds for supposing”: Hinsley, 582–83.

  “internal collapse certainly will not be brought about”: Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 3, part 2, 304.

  Harris believed otherwise: Tripp, The Eighth Passenger, 18; Hastings, Armageddon, 304–5 (“a certain coarseness”); Grayling, Among the Dead Cities, 192 (“tiger with no mercy”); Zuckerman, From Apes to Warlords, 218; Hastings, Bomber Command, 278–79 (ulcers), 282–83 (“I’m sick of these raids”); Probert, Bomber Harris, 154–58 (black Bentley).

  “He had a tendency to confuse advice”: Webster and Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany, vol. 3, part 5, 80.

  Harris believed that bombers: Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare, 249 (“If the Germans were asked”); Davis, Bombing the European Axis Powers, 566 (more than half of Bomber Command’s payloads); Hastings, Bomber Command, 282–84 (The Hole), 386–87 (“If I knew you”); Webster and Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany, vol. 3, 44 (“in order to destroy anything”), 82 (“virtually destroyed”); Probert, Bomber Harris, 309 (“city programme”).

  Harris’s resolve to crack the enemy’s will: Probert, Bomber Harris, 336 (“proved to be totally unsound”); Miller, Masters of the Air, 473 (“bombing seriously depressed”); Germany IX, 458 (two thousand Allied aircraft); Randall Jarrell, “Losses,” http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/losses/.

  While British Bomber Command believed in leveling: Earle, “Selection of Strategic Bombing Targets,” lecture, Apr. 23, 1946, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, box 235, 18; Hugh Odishaw, “Radar Bombing in the Eighth Air Force,” 1946, Carl A. Spaatz papers, LOC MS Div, box 80, 88, 93, 94–97 (as few as one out of ten bombs); Davis, Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe, 504 (one sortie of seven); Crane, Bombs, Cities & Civilians, 63–67 (“not a literal sense”); Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare, 243–45, 258 (frequent diversions), 280 (Such attacks on transportation targets); Schaffer, “American Military Ethics in World War II: The Bombing of German Civilians,” Journal of American History (Sept. 1980): 318+ (“The way to stop the killing”); Davis, Bombing the European Axis Powers, 574 (20 percent of its payloads).

  The Americans were no less intent: Miller, Masters of the Air, 455; Kleber and Birdsell, The Chemical Warfare Service, 622 (M-76 Block Burner), 614 (“as much death and destruction”).

  Air Chief Marshal Harris never believed: Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare, 252 (“I am not only not a convert”); Davis, Bombing the European Axis Powers, 569 (oil targets in August and September), 570 (flew more than twice as many missions as Eighth Air Force); Ehlers, Targeting the Reich, 287–88 (British attacked to greater effect); AAFinWWII, 795 (faulty fuzes).

  The inclement fall weather gave Germany: Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 3, part 2, 58; AAFinWWII, 283–87, 641 (350,000 workers); Westermann, Flak, 263–64; Doolittle, I Could Never Be So Lucky Again, 433 (most heavily defended).

  But the die had been cast: Ehlers, Targeting the Reich, 266, 279 (1,200 gallons of gasoline and oxen); Willmott, The Great Crusade, 418–19 (had dropped to a quarter of the May level); Westermann, Flak, 270; Weigley, The American Way of War, 356–57; Miller, Masters of the Air, 312–14 (synthetic rubber).

  No industrial disparity: Zetterling, Normandy 1944, 47; Weigley, The American Way of War, 356–57 (decline to 12 percent). Air commanders at the end of the war put German motor and aviation production at 2 percent of the earlier peak. “Joint Statement on Strategic Bombing by Air Ministry and U.S. Strategic Air Forces in Europe,” Apr. 30, 1945, UK NA, AIR 2/5737, 4.

  “They are sowing the wind”: Daglish, Operation Goodwood, 96; Sebald, On the Natural History of Destruction, 3–4 (131 German cities and towns); Germany IX, 475–76 (400,000 dead).

  For those on the ground, the ordeal: Hastings, Armageddon, 328; Germany IX, 390 (“People alongside us”); Friedrich, The Fire, 363 (phosphorescent paint).

  Three thousand municipal air raid shelters: Foedrowitz, “Air Raid Shelters in Hannover,” AB, no. 124 (2004): 2+; Germany IX, 391 (“filth and disorder”); Whiting, The Home Front: Germany, 144–45 (opening their mouths); Friedrich, The Fire, 356 (“Children with scarlet fever”).

  “In Cologne life is no longer possible”: Friedrich, The Fire, 258, 45.

  The iron and steel center of Duisburg: Webster and Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany, vol. 3, Victory, part 5, 66; Friedrich, The Fire, 201 (“The night had done its work”), 176–77, 294–95 (carbon monoxide); Germany IX, 461 (Heilbronn), 462 (“a hideous sight”); Whiting, The Home Front: Germany, 140 (“Politeness Week”).

  Even from the Dutch coast: Sebald, On the Natural History of Destruction, 22–23; Friedrich, The Fire, 382 (210 Reichmarks); Steinhoff et al., Voices from the Third Reich, 488 (“blue faces”); Wilhelm von Grolmann, “The Collapse of the German Reich as Seen from Leipzig,” n.d., FMS, #B-478, MHI, 14–15 (fortified with alcohol); corr, “Annemarie,” Dec. 29, 1944, Norman D. King papers, HIA, box 1 (“Do you still remember”). Friedrich Schiller’s “The Song of the Bell” was published in 1798.

  On and on it went, high explosives: Sebald, On the Natural History of Destruction, 22–29 (Deranged mothers); Friedrich, The Fire, 213 (“The heat was so great”), 447 (“a man dragging a sack”); Hastings, Bomber Command, 361–78.

  “The destruction will go on”: Lubrich, ed., Travels in the Third Reich, 1933–1945, 299.

  “Providence Decrees and We Must Obey”

  After advancing nearly four hundred miles: Yeide and Stout, Fir
st to the Rhine, 227; RR, 335 (Nine weak enemy divisions); “A History of the Headquarters Sixth Army Group,” vol. 1, NARA RG 331, E 242A, box 157, from James Scott Wheeler (nearly half a million men); William K. Wyant, “Seventh Army History,” n.d., NARA RG 319, RR background files, FRC 4 (“first crossing of the Vosges”).

  Few could feel optimistic: RR, 240–42, 245, 291–93 (“mental and physical lethargy”); Steidl, Lost Battalions, 121–22 (“Mountains, woods, and rain”).

  The season had been marked by straggling: RR, 291–93 (“inept”); Taggart, ed., History of the Third Infantry Division, 257; Pete T. Heffner, Jr., “Lessons Learned in the Vosges Mountains Campaign,” Dec. 12, 1944, NARA RG 407, ETO G-3 OR, box 3 (bear traps); Aron, France Reborn, 445 (first snow); The Seventh United States Army in France and Germany, vol. 1, 323 (emergency shipments); “The Invasion of Southern France, Operation DRAGOON,” ETOUSA, G-4, 1944, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #314 (Six hundred thousand men); Gilland, “Logistical Support for the Combat Zone,” lecture, 1948, Engineer Officers Advance Course, NARA RG 319, LSA background file, 2-3.7 CB 6 (various miscalculations); Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs, 752 (20 percent of the cargo); “Supply and Maintenance on the European Continent,” NARA RG 407, E 427, USFET General Board study no. 130, 97-USF5-0.30, 50–54 (shortages of food, ammunition, and fuel).

  “Dear Family”: Wandrey, Bedpan Commando, 141, 144, 190.

  The season also had been marked: diary, Oct. 29, 1944, John E. Dahlquist papers, MHI, box 3; Steidl, Lost Battalions, 140–41.

  Killed the same week: corr, Frank McCarthy to Julia Littell Patch, Oct. 22, 1944, GCM Lib, box 78, folder 50; Wyant, Sandy Patch, 149–51 (“So long, son”); obit, Alexander McC. Patch, Jr., Assembly, July 1946, 12 (“cold and wet and hungry”).

  “I’ve been dreading my first letter”: corr, A. M. Patch to Julia, Nov. 6, 10, 14, 1944, Alexander M. Patch, Jr., papers, USMA Arch, box 1.

  “I cannot and must not allow”: Wyant, Sandy Patch, 149–50.

  “the psychological effect on Patch”: “Allied Biographies,” USAREUR staff ride, May 2009, compiled by Layne Van Arsdale.

  “It is almost beyond comprehension”: Steidl, Lost Battalions, 92–95.

  The town of Baccarat had been liberated: Maule, Out of the Sand, 242; corr, John E. Dahlquist to Ruth, Nov. 2 and 5, 1944, Dahlquist papers, MHI (“Rain has started again”).

  Perpetual friction with the French: De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 167–71 (“Our African soldiers”), 179; OH, Albert Kenner, SHAEF chief medical officer, May 27, 1948, FCP, MHI (susceptible to trench foot); AAR, “Supply of Petroleum Products in Southern France,” June 1945, CARL, N-15081, 3 (wooden shoes); Porch, The Path to Victory, 565, 591–92, 601–4 (blanchiment); Yeide and Stout, First to the Rhine, 179–83 (137,000 maquis).

  Base 901, the French supply organization: Vigneras, Rearming the French, 187–88, 270 ($6.67 per day); “The Service Forces in Southern France,” n.d., NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file 314, 13-14 (crushed oats).

  Franco-American frictions intensified: Vigneras, Rearming the French, 325–26; Ross, 122, 205 (“forced to withdraw”); Seventh Army war diary, Oct. 1, 1944, MHI, 277–78 (received less than a third); De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 162 (“asphyxiation of the front line”).

  U.S. quartermasters bitterly denied: The U.S. quartermaster official history contends that the French First Army received twice as much clothing and equipment as Seventh Army (Ross, 205).

  countered that reckless French troops had ruined three thousand: memo, “Housing Tentage Used by French in N. Africa,” Nov. 17, 1944, NARA RG 331, E 34, SHAEF, box 60; diary, JLD, Oct. 8, 1944, MHI, original in YCHT (“He goes into these tirades”); Pogue, George C. Marshall, 476 (“You celebrated”).

  “It was our duty”: De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 162.

  Now Truscott was gone: Truscott, Command Missions, 446; OH, Theodore J. Conway, 1978, Robert F. Ensslin, SOOHP, MHI, III-26 (tears streamed).

  With Truscott’s departure, the dominant figure: Markey, Jake: The General from West York Avenue, 16 (grandson of a blacksmith); Martin Weil, “Gen. Jacob Devers Dies; Leader in World War II,” WP, Oct. 1979 (classmate of Patton’s and five hundred more senior colonels); Colley, Decision at Strasbourg, 10 (“exceedingly earnest youth”), 155 (“I made a lot of mistakes today”); Franklin L. Gurley, “The Relationship Between Jean de Lattre de Tassigny and Jacob L. Devers,” March 26, 1994, Sorbonne, NARA RG 319, RR background files, FRC 4; MMB, 129–30.

  Capable and decisive, he had a knack: “Battlebook,” USAREUR Senior Leader Staff Ride, Alsace, May 2009; OH, Field Marshal Harold Alexander, Jan. 10-15, 1949, SM, CMH, Geographic Files (“a boy who hasn’t grown up”); DOB, 506 (detested each other); diary, GSP, Feb. 29, 1944, LOC MS Div, box 3, folder 5 (“very small caliber”); notes, Daniel Noce, Dec. 4, 1944, NARA RG 319, RR background papers, FRC 5 (“Devers talks too much”); Bradley and Blair, A General’s Life, 210 (“overly garrulous”).

  “Ike hates him”: PP, 552.

  The supreme commander evidently nursed old resentments: msg, DDE to JLD, Jan. 16, 1944, and JLD to DDE, Jan. 18, 1944, “Eyes Only, General Devers, Incoming,” NARA RG 492, MTOUSA, SGS, box 135; Colley, Decision at Strasbourg, 86; diary, Kay Summersby, Oct. 20, 1944, DDE Lib, PP-pres, box 140 (“talks a lot”); corr, DDE to GCM, July 12, 1944, GCM Lib, box 67, folder 10 (“I have nothing in the world”). Eisenhower had advised Marshall that “Devers would be a good bet” to command an army group in southern France. DDE to GCM, July 15, 1944, NARA RG 165, E 422, WD, operations division, history unit, box 55.

  “Enthusiastic but often inaccurate”: Chandler, 2466–69.

  Eisenhower sold Devers short: OH, Ira C. Eaker, Aug. 1, 1975, Thomas E. Griess, JLD, YCHT, box 81 (“ablest commander I saw”); diary, JLD, Nov. 7 and 18, 1944, MHI (“very difficult man to handle” and “inspirational leader”); Franklin L. Gurley, “The Relationship Between Jean de Lattre de Tassigny and Jacob L. Devers,” March 26, 1994, Sorbonne, NARA RG 319, RR background files, FRC 4 (“never did learn to pronounce”); OH, JLD, 1968, Thomas E. Griess, YCHT, box 110, 20 (“gesture and the smile”).

  “the same fine character as always”: diary, JLD, Nov. 5, 1944, MHI.

  “the undercutting that goes on”: corr, JLD to wife, Sept. 23, 1944, NARA RG 319, RR background papers, FRC 5; OH, Reuben Jenkins, Oct. 14, 1970, JLD, YCHT, box 94, 18–20 (“lonely as the devil”).

  SHAEF’s orders called for 6th Army Group: RR, 351–53.

  Devers had grander ambitions: The Seventh United States Army in France and Germany, vol. 2, 402; RR, 352–53; OH, JLD, Aug. 1971, Thomas E. Griess, YCHT, 16. (“Don’t get stuck”).

  De Lattre made the first move: De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 225–30; John W. Price, “Forcing the Belfort Gap,” n.d., NARA RG 319, RR background files, FRC 5 (Various deceptions); RR, 414–18; author visit, Belfort, May 2009.

  By Thursday, French tanks were “decisive everywhere”: De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 233–36; RR, 410.

  Having forsaken a substantial wedge: Friedrich-Wilhelm von Mellenthin, Army Group G chief of staff, ts, March 1946, FMS #A-999, MHI, 79; Seaman, “Reduction of the Colmar Pocket,” Military Review (Oct. 1951): 37+ (Confusion in the French ranks); De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 253–62 (German Feldpost workers); RR, 431 (a spent force).

  Hope for a decisive breakthrough: Seventh Army war diary, Nov. 20, 1944, MHI, 393; Robb, The Discovery of France, 227 (“one of the masterpieces of man”); Bonn, When the Odds Were Even, 111–16 (“ersatz morale”).

  On November 19, the weight of metal: OH, 79th ID, Saverne Gap, n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder 156; RR, 368–71 (44th Division rambled for nine miles); The Seventh United States Army in France and Germany, vol. 2, 411 (broke through to Sarrebourg); Aron, France Reborn, 440–41 (French policemen pulled on uniforms); diary, JLD, Nov. 20
, 1944, MHI (“as hard as I have ever seen it rain”).

  Into the breach pried open: Porch, The Path to Victory, 538 (“We swear”); Maule, Out of the Sand, 249 (“Beat the devil”).

  “The brave horses were galloping”: “Capture of Strasbourg,” French 2nd AD, Jan. 28, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder #247.

  Tout au contraire: De Gaulle, The Complete War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle, 824 (five columns); Colley, Decision at Strasbourg, 123–24 (“We went roaring” and “sent windowpanes tinkling”); The Seventh United States Army in France and Germany, vol. 2, 413–16 (Sixteen strongholds); Yeide and Stout, First to the Rhine, 243–44 (tanks spilled into downtown Strasbourg).

  As rain drummed off his kepi: Maule, Out of the Sand, 252–54; “Capture of Strasbourg,” French 2nd AD, Jan. 28, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder #247; Susan Bernstein, “Goethe’s Architectonic Bildung and Buildings in Classical Weimar,” 2000, Johns Hopkins University Press, http://www2.winchester.ac.uk/edstudies/courses/level%20two%20sem%20two/114.5bernstein.html (“tree of God”); Porch, The Path to Victory, 606 (“Now we can die”).

  A captured German engineer was persuaded: Charles V. von Lüttichau, “The Fall of Strasbourg and the Birth of the Colmar Pocket,” n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, R-series, #129, 2–3, 13–14; RR, 380–81; AAR, XV Corps, Jan. 23, 1945, Wade H. Haislip papers, MHI, box 2; “Capture of Strasbourg,” French 2nd AD, Jan. 28, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder #247 (“solid artillery argument”).

  “Lots of dead civilians”: diary, Nov. 25, 1944, Kingsley Andersson papers, HIA, box 1; “Capture of Strasbourg,” French 2nd AD, Jan. 28, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folder #247 (“One by one”).

  Strasbourg’s emancipation: “Natzweiler-Struthof,” USHMM, http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007260. British troops had overrun the Breendonk internment camp near Antwerp in September (http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005423).

  Built in 1941, Natzweiler had housed: Turner and Jackson, Destination Berchtesgaden, 97 (socially unfit); Yurka N. Galitzine, “Investigation Report on the Life in a German Extermination Camp (KZ Natzweiler),” n.d., C. D. Jackson papers, DDE Lib, box 2 (sweets and cakes and urn of ashes); J. M. Barnes, Royal Army Medical Corps, “Report on a Third Visit to France,” Feb. 1945, Boris T. Pash papers, HIA, box 2, folder 1; Evans, The Third Reich at War, 607 (mustard gas).