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

by Rick Atkinson

  Repairs on the Ludendorff continued: corr, Justin Dwight Hillyer to Ken Hechler, Oct. 25, 1959, CEOH, box X-26, folder 1.

  Just before three P.M. on Saturday, March 17: Beck, 510–11; David Pergrin, 291st Engineer Bn, “The Remagen Bridgehead,” 1983, CEOH, box X-26, folder 2, 100–105 (“slow-motion movie”).

  Of those who rode the Ludy down: Hechler, The Bridge at Remagen, 163–64; OH, F. Russell Lyons et al., III Corps engineers, March 21, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, box 19086, folders 339–340 (engineers with axes); “Report of Rhine River Crossings,” May 1945, FUSA, Office of the Engineer, NARA RG 407, Miscl AG records, ML #887, box 19135 (8-inch howitzer battery); “Combat Engineering,” historical report no. 10, Aug. 1945, CEOH, box X-30, 151–60; David Pergrin, 291st Engineer Bn, “The Remagen Bridgehead,” 1983, CEOH, box X-26, folder 2, 107 (“glad the damned thing”). Hodges sacked General Millikin the day the bridge fell for failure to properly organize the bridgehead (Sylvan, 335–37).

  Late Saturday night, seven German frogmen: B. C. Andrus, III Corps, Mar. 24, 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO G-3 OR; LO, 228–30; VW, vol. 2, 283.

  Eisenhower approved shoving: LO, 234; Sylvan, 338 (“The war is over”).

  Two If by Sea

  Field Marshal Kesselring’s buoyant optimism: Macksey, Kesselring: The Making of the Luftwaffe, 6–8; Kesselring, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring, 9, 13–14, 243 (“Hang on”); Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 451 (“I don’t believe”), 506.

  Now Kesselring’s luck: Kesselring, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring, 218–19, 241; MacDonald, The Mighty Endeavor, 457 (quarter-million Germans had vanished), 239 (“one hundred combatants”); Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 506 (Channel Islands garrison); Steinhoff et al., Voices from the Third Reich, 413 (shoot all German corporals).

  Field commanders in mid-March urged Kesselring: LO, 244, 257–58; Kesselring, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring, 249–50 (“bricks without straw”).

  George Patton had taken brief leave: PP, 643; Codman, Drive, 254–57.

  In Trier, for instance: Friedrich, The Fire, 248–49.

  “The desolation is frozen”: Edsel, The Monuments Men, 260–62.

  “smell the sweat of the legions”: PP, 655.

  Rarely, perhaps never, had his generalship: Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, 639; LO, 262 (“Scarcely a man-made thing”); Wandrey, Bedpan Commando, 179 (“hanging onto my hand”); Allen, Lucky Forward, 254 (“Roads don’t matter”); Ayer, Before the Colors Fade, 193 (“blow up the goddamn gun”).

  By Wednesday, March 21: LO, 250–51, 259; Allen, Lucky Forward, 260 (“We’re going to cross the Rhine”).

  He made good his boast: memo, William Sackville, XII Corps, March 26, 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO G-3 OR, box 9; Allen, Lucky Forward, 263; LO, 267–71 (“walking death”); diary, GSP, March 24, 1945, LOC MS Div, box 3, folder 11 (“drove to the river”).

  “Brad, we’re across”: Codman, Drive, 269; LO, 273 (“feeling of rivalry”).

  “I love war”: Semmes, Portrait of Patton, 264.

  Churchill had proposed riding: Roberts, Masters and Commanders, 561; Hastings, Winston’s War, 456 (“I’m an old man”); Colville, Footprints in Time, 184–87; AAR, “Operation Varsity,” First Allied Airborne Army, May 19, 1945 (smoke screen); Saunders, The Red Beret, 287 (“thick black haze”).

  They found Montgomery’s command post: Colville, The Fringes of Power, 575; Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, 411; LO, 303 (“Two if by sea”).

  Under Montgomery’s command: SC, 421; LO, 301 (“pretend to resist”); Callahan, Churchill & His Generals, 222 (thirty-five infantry battalions).

  The plan for PLUNDER: VW, vol. 2, 286–87; AAR, “Activities, Final Phase, European War,” IX Troop Carrier Command, June 1945, MBR papers, MHI, box 62, 56–76; Harris, “The Bigger They Are the Harder They Fall,” FAJ (May–June 1938): 229+ (single 105mm howitzer); Thompson, I Was Churchill’s Shadow, 151 (“Hitler Personally”). Ninth Army had accumulated 138,000 tons of supplies (LO, 297).

  Churchill and Brooke strolled: Danchev, 674.

  “They were slightly bent under their packs”: Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream, 499–502.

  “If you happen to hear”: Arthur, Forgotten Voices of World War II, 405–6.

  “a single hurrying black moth”: Moorehead, Eclipse, 240.

  “A great crimson stain”: Thompson, Men Under Fire, 106–7.

  “more than mortal powers”: Allen, One More River, 241.

  “Burglar-like and in single file”: Moorehead, Eclipse, 240; VW, vol. 2, 288–89.

  A few miles upstream: Allen, One More River, 247 (“shoals of small boats”); “The Rhine Crossing,” Aug. 1945, NARA RG 337, E 15A, AGF OR #608 (a thousand shells a minute); LO, 305–7 (seven hundred assault boats and thirty-one casualties); Albert H. Peyton, XVI Corps, March 31, 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO G-3 OR, box 8 (twenty-ton cranes).

  fishing nets, chicken wire, tar paper: “Chief Engineers Report on Camouflage Activities in the ETO,” Nov. 15, 1945, Howard V. Canan papers, HIA, box 3.

  Rested and exultant: Colville, The Fringes of Power, 576; Colville, Footprints in Time, 184–87; Moorehead, Eclipse, 240–42 (“my armies are too vast”).

  “They’re coming!”: Moorehead, Eclipse, 244.

  Here then was VARSITY: “Narrative of Operation Varsity,” March 31, 1945, First Allied Airborne Army, Floyd Lavinius Parks papers, MHI, box 3; LO, 309; John C. Warren, “Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater,” 1956, AFHRA, historical study no. 97, 192. Various official histories of VARSITY PLUNDER differ markedly on details of the operation. The fighter and fighter-bomber cover included escort, cover, and patrol missions (AAFinWWII, 774).

  Their orders were to seize the high ground: “Visit to ETO,” May 5, 1945, NARA RG 337, E 15A, AGF OR #320; Gander, After These Many Quests, 286 (“loosen up the scrum”).

  In this they would be modestly effectual: “Visit to ETO,” May 5, 1945, NARA RG 337, E 15A, AGF OR #320; “Narrative of Operation Varsity,” March 31, 1945, First Allied Airborne Army, Floyd Lavinius Parks papers, MHI, box 3 (failed to winkle out); corr, Paul M. McGuire, 3rd Bn, 513th PIR, to JT, Sept. 6, 1963, JT, LOC MS Div, LHD, box 3 (“holes started appearing”); A. C. Miller, 2nd Bn, 513th PIR, “Operation VARSITY,” Sept. 1963, JT, LOC MS Div, box 3, LHD (“I looked back”).

  The body of the plane plummeted: Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream, 503.

  “falling like puppets”: Clark, Crossing the Rhine, 319.

  “cracked it open like an egg”: Arthur, Forgotten Voices of World War II, 412.

  Of four hundred 6th Airborne gliders: Ernest M. Layman, Jr., “The Operations of XVIII Airborne Corps in the Crossing of the Rhine River at Wesel,” n.d., JT, LOC MS Div, LHD, box 3, 9; VW, vol. 2, 291; John C. Warren, “Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater,” 1956, AFHRA, historical study no. 97, 176–77; LO, 313.

  “Controls hit by flak”: John C. Warren, “Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater,” 1956, AFHRA, historical study no. 97, 184–87.

  “Stop those Jewish prayers”: Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 219; Richard C. Hottelet, “Big Jump into Germany,” Collier’s, May 5, 1945, in Reporting World War II, vol. 2, 658 (“burning and disabled C-47s”).

  The morning proved even more hazardous: “A Historical Study of Some World War II Airborne Operations,” [1951?], WSEG staff study no. 3, CARL N-17309.1, 136; Eckelmeyer, “The Story of the Self-Sealing Tank,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (Feb. 1946): 205+ (sparks up to five inches); AAR, “Operation Varsity,” 52nd Troop Carrier Wing, n.d., MBR papers, MHI, box 62; memo, Maj. Donald W. Nyrop, “Fuel Tanks C-46 Aircraft,” Sept. 9, 1944, and H. H. Arnold, “Operational and Tactical Suitability of the C-46A Airplane for Troop Carrier Operations,” Aug. 8, 1944, Report of the Army Air Forces Board, both in NARA RG 18, AAF fuel systems, AAF Central Files, 1942–44, file 452.22; Holley, Buying Aircraft, 550–51 (three thousand C-46s); S. D. Heron, “Development of Aviation Fuels,” in
Schlaifer, ed., Development of Aircraft Engines and Fuels, 640

  Two layers of rubber lined the fuel tank: corr, Lt. Col. David N. Laux to Henry L. Stimson, June 1, 1944; memo, Robert Lovett to Henry L. Stimson, July 18, 1944; memo, Brig. Gen. Mervine E. Gross, “Additional Built-in Fuel Capacity for C-46 Airplanes,” Oct. 12, 1944; memo, Lewis H. Brereton, First Allied Airborne Army, Nov. 30, 1944; memo, Col. H. A. Shepard to H. H. Arnold, “Self-Sealing Fuel Cells for C-47 Airplanes,” Dec. 13, 1944; memo, Col. S. F. Giffin, “Self-Sealing Tanks and Armor Plate for Troop Carrier C-46 and C-54 Aircraft,” Feb. 3, 1945; memo, Col. H. G. Bunker, Apr. 16, 1945; Pearson, “Washington Merry-Go-Round,” Apr. 29, 1944, WP, all in NARA RG 18, AAF fuel systems, AAF Central Files, 1942–44, file 452.22; John C. Warren, “Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater,” 1956, AFHRA, historical study no. 97, 194 (some C-47s).

  “I saw pieces”: Allen, One More River, 267.

  “The C-46 seemed to catch on fire”: John C. Warren, “Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater,” 1956, AFHRA, historical study no. 97, 180; AAR, “Activities, Final Phase, European War,” IX Troop Carrier Command, June 1945, MBR papers, MHI, box 62, 80–81 (seventy-three C-46s); AAR, “Operation Varsity,” 52nd Troop Carrier Wing, n.d., MBR papers, MHI, box 62 (“not a suitable troop carrier”).

  One final calamity remained: John C. Warren, “Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater,” 1956, AFHRA, historical study no. 97, 189.

  Among those shot down: corr, John E. Cannon to Emma Cheek, Apr. 3, 1945, Earle C. Cheek collection, USMA Arch; e-mail, http://www.Accident-Report.com to author, Dec. 11, 2009.

  Cheek had survived many harrowing sorties: corr, Earle C. Cheek to Doris, family, Nov. 1944–March 1945, Cheek collection, USMA Arch; “Missing Air Crew Report,” HQ, AAF, March 27, 1945, a.p., www.Accident-Report.com. Other crewmen on the plane had completed eighteen to twenty-eight missions.

  The sole survivor: corr, A. W. Keenen to Emma Cheek, June 25, 1945; Capt. T. G. Brown to Doris, June 12, 1945; Maj. Gen. Edward F. Witsell to Emma Cheek, Apr. 14, 1945, all in Cheek collection, USMA Arch.

  “The German is whipped”: Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 390.

  Churchill entertained the mess: Pawle, The War and Colonel Warden, 373–74.

  Engineers were at work on various spans: “Visit to ETO,” May 5, 1945, NARA RG 337, E 15A, AGF OR #320.

  The utility of VARSITY’s vertical envelopment: VW, vol. 2, 292; AAFinWWII, 774; John C. Warren, “Airborne Operations in World War II, European Theater,” 1956, AFHRA, historical study no. 97, 191–93 (“tremendous success”). The U.S. Army official history is unusually caustic in evaluating VARSITY (LO, 314).

  The two airborne divisions incurred: “Narrative of Operation Varsity,” Mar. 31, 1945, First Allied Airborne Army, Floyd Lavinius Parks papers, MHI, box 3; “Visit to ETO,” May 5, 1945, NARA RG 337, E 15A, AGF OR #320; AAR, “Operation Varsity: First Allied Airborne Army,” May 1945, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, ACT R A-105, box 62 (more than three hundred C-47s); AAR, “Activities, Final Phrase, European War,” IX Troop Carrier Command, June 1945, MBR papers, MHI, box 62, 80–81 (another 357 casualties); Thompson, The Imperial War Museum Book of Victory in Europe, 234 (VARSITY BLUNDER); Clark, Crossing the Rhine, 323 (saws and ladders).

  “an influence, supreme and watchful”: Kessler, The Battle of the Ruhr Pocket, 31.

  Together in the brilliant sunshine: OH, William H. Simpson, 1971, Thomas R. Stone, SOOHP, MHI; Thompson, The Imperial War Museum Book of Victory in Europe, 242 (“Our men muttered”); Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 372 (“Thank God, Ike”); Danchev, 676–77 (“I was misquoted”).

  “I am in command now”: OH, William H. Simpson, 1971, Thomas R. Stone, SOOHP, MHI (“Get him out of here”); Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, 416 (“Why don’t we go across”); “Winston Churchill Visits the Rhine,” AB, no. 16 (1977): 28+ (ears cocked); Davis, Across the Rhine, 85 (“lighting his cigar”).

  “pouting mouth and angry eyes”: Danchev, 677.

  After presenting Montgomery: Colville, The Fringes of Power, 579; Winston S. Churchill, Marlborough: His Life and Times, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 15.

  In short order, seven Allied armies: LO, 320; OH, William H. Simpson, n.d., CJR, box 44, folder 14, 10–12 (Simpson bridled); war diary, Ninth Army, March 27–31, 1945, William H. Simpson papers, “personal calendar,” MHI, box 11 (languid British pace); VW, vol. 2, 294 (twenty miles beyond the Rhine).

  On the right flank, in the south: LO, 285–89; Wyant, Sandy Patch, 189 (fewer than six thousand combat effectives).

  “My dear General, you must cross”: LO, 321–22; De Gaulle, The Complete War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle, 1940–1946, 845–46; De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 421 (“even if they do not want you”), 425 (A solitary company).

  “This is the collapse”: Moorehead, Eclipse, 244; Benjamin A. Dickson, “G-2 Journal: Algiers to the Elbe,” MHI, 203–12 (“The enemy is capable of collapse”).

  “a systematic annihilation”: SC, 429; Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare, 287 (heaviest bombing month); Addison, Churchill, the Unexpected Hero, 196–97 (“stigmatizing a policy”); memoir, Richard D. Hughes, n.d., AFHRA, 520.056-234, 64 (“petering out”).

  “machinery in their souls”: John Steinbeck, Bombs Away: The Story of a Bomber Team, (New York: Penguin, 2009), e-book edition.

  “people accustomed to great spaces”: “Miracle of Supply,” Time (Sept. 25, 1944): 8+.

  The United States in the past year: Wieviorka, Normandy, 43.

  American factories during the war: Gropman, Mobilizing U.S. Industry in World War II, 133. The Allies collectively outproduced Germany in military trucks by a factor of 12 to 1 (Ellis, Brute Force, 348–49).

  with more than 700,000 vehicles on the Continent: “Ordnance Diary,” Dec. 1, 1945, NARA RG 498, ETOUSA HD, UD 602, box 1; Nevins, “How We Felt About the War,” in Goodman, ed., While You Were Gone, 21 (“armed workshop”); Freeman W. Burford, “The Inside Story of Oil in the European War,” Nov. 25, 1946, NARA RG 319, E 97, LSA, vol. 1, background files, box 6 (four million gallons); “Combat Engineering,” CE, ETOUSA report no. 10, Dec. 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #547, 7 (ten bridges a day); LSA, vol. 2, 422–23 (fifty-seven more across the Rhine), 454 (six thousand tanks).

  “one might be able to see the end”: Hastings, Armageddon, 380.

  “Naturally I am immensely pleased”: Chandler, 2544.

  “The Enemy Has Reason to Fear Him”

  No sword was swifter: Three Years, 797 (German houses burned); PP, 660 (“Most of the houses are heaps”), 656–57 (“having so much fun”); Ziemke, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, 1944–1946, 227 (“brick and stone wilderness”); D’Este, Patton: A Genius for War, 725 (“reason to fear him”). The German high command generally was less attentive to Patton individually than Americans liked to believe (Yeide, “The German View of Patton,” World War II [March–Apr. 2012]: 27+).

  “I am very proud of the fact”: PP, 662–63.

  His beloved son-in-law: AAAD, 339–44; OH, John K. Waters, 1980, William C. Parnell, III, SOOHP, MHI, 240–58; OH, Brooks Kleber, June 27, 1989, William A. Young, III, Kleber papers, MHI, 8–9; http://www.oflag64.us/Oflag64/Oflag_64_Association_homepage.html.

  Waters kept a pocket notebook: John K. Waters, “Remembrances,” a.p., courtesy George Patton “Pat” Waters.

  He also maintained a “Wartime Log”: John K. Waters, “A Wartime Log,” a.p., courtesy George Patton “Pat” Waters.

  The great Russian winter offensive: Blatman, The Death Marches, 407; “Sketches from the Lives of the Kriegies of Oflag 64,” 1997, a.p., 34; OH, Brooks Kleber, June 27, 1989, William A. Young, III, Kleber papers, MHI, 8–18 (secret radio).

  On February 26, the column was herded: Margry, “The Hammelburg Raid,” AB, no. 91 (1996): 1+; Baron et al., Raid!, 46–48.

  Conditions at Hammelburg were wretched: Deborah A. Smith, �
��American Prisoners of War in Germany, 1944–45: Hammelburg,” May 10, 1976, and OH, Brooks Kleber, June 27, 1989, William A. Young, III, both in Kleber papers, MHI, 19.

  Patton had hoped to hear: diary, Jan. 18, 1945, GSP, LOC, MS Div, box 3, folder 9; diary, Third Army chief of staff, Feb. 9, 1945, Hobart Gay papers, MHI, box 2, 722 (Soviet intelligence); Blumenson, Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1885–1945, 260–61 (new arrivals at Hammelburg); PP, 667 (“We are headed”); corr, GSP to Beatrice, March 25, 1945, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 13 (“Hope to send an expedition”).

  The dubious honor of rescuing: Baron et al., Raid!, 21–25; “Interview of Major Abraham J. Baum,” Sept. 14, 1945, JT, LOC MS Div, LHD, box 1; Margry, “The Hammelburg Raid,” AB, no. 91 (1996): 1+; Whitaker, “Task Force Baum and the Hammelburg Raid,” Armor (Sept.–Oct. 1996): 20+; diary, Manton Eddy, XII Corp CG, March 26, 1945, FCP, MHI (Patton ordered XII Corps); Alexander C. Stiller, ts, n.d., GSP, LOC MS Div, box 49, folder 13; Blumenson, “The Hammelburg Affair,” Army (Oct. 1965): 16+ (“thrills and laughs”).

  Patton had proposed sending: OH, Abraham Baum, “Interview by Mr. Lake, War Correspondent,” n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427; OH, Abraham J. Baum, Apr. 10, 1945, D. G. Dayton and S. J. Tobin, JT, LOC MS Div, LHD, box 1 (fifteen maps); PP, 668–70; Blumenson, Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1885–1945, 260–61 (east of a corps driving north); Sorley, Thunderbolt, 92–93 (“What the hell”); corr, GSP to Beatrice, March 27, 1945, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 13 (“nervous as a cat”); PP, 666 (“I do not believe”).

  After skirmishes near Aschaffenburg: Baron et al., Raid!, 99–109. A meticulous contemporary effort by Peter Domes to reconstruct the raid can be found under “US Schedule,” http://taskforcebaum.de/schedule/schedule%20us.html.

  American tank and machine-gun fire: Margry, “The Hammelburg Raid,” AB, no. 91 (1996): 1+; Alexander C. Stiller, ts, n.d., GSP, MS Div, box 49, folder 13 (“scattered like quail”); Baron et al., Raid!, 118–19, 133 (“Mazel tov”); “Notes on Task Force Baum, Narrative of Capt. Baum,” n.d., NWWIIM.