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

by Rick Atkinson

  Here trouble awaited them: Alexander C. Stiller, ts, n.d., GSP, MS Div, box 49, folder 13; Margry, “The Hammelburg Raid,” AB, no. 91 (1996): 1+.

  Drumfire and coiling black smoke: Herndon Inge, Jr., untitled memoir, n.d., MHI, 711–17; LHD, 292 (offered absolution), 294 (“No smoking”).

  With consent from a German commandant: corr, John K. Waters to Harry H. Semmes, Sept. 15, 1953, JT, LOC MS Div, LHD, box 1; OH, John K. Waters, 1980, William C. Parnell, III, 277–79; Baron et al., Raid!, 156–57 (coccyx); Margry, “The Hammelburg Raid,” AB, no. 91 (1996): 1+ (paper bandages).

  Baum’s tanks meanwhile: Alexander C. Stiller, ts, n.d., GSP, MS Div, box 49, folder 13; Herndon Inge, Jr., untitled memoir, n.d., MHI, 711–17; OH, Col. Paul R. Goode, May 17, 1945, JT, LOC MS Div, LHD, box 2 (he confronted 1,291).

  It was now 6:30 P.M.: Baron et al., Raid!, 162–64.

  Evening’s first stars glittered: OH, Col. Paul R. Goode, May 17, 1945, JT, LOC MS Div, LHD, box 2; OH, R. S. Garner, 707th Tank Bn, 28th ID, May 4, 1945, NARA RG 407, Miscl AG records, ML 857, box 19133 (a few compasses).

  Scouts reported ambushes and roadblocks: “Notes on Task Force Baum,” 4th AD, Apr. 10, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427, file 604-0.3.0, box 12337; OH, R. S. Gardner, 28th ID, May 4, 1945, 707th Tank Bn, 28th ID, May 4, 1945, NARA RG 407, Miscl AG records, ML 857, box 19133.

  “A sheet of hell”: Baron et al., Raid!, 202–3; Alexander C. Stiller, ts, n.d., GSP, MS Div, box 49, folder 13 (“they destroyed us”).

  “Every man for himself”: Baron et al., Raid!, 202–3; Margry, “The Hammelburg Raid,” AB, no. 91 (1996): 1+; OH, Brooks Kleber, June 27, 1989, William A. Young, III, Kleber papers, MHI, 21–22 (“Get a good sleep”).

  “March 27: ‘Shot’”: John K. Waters, “Remembrances,” a.p., courtesy George Patton “Pat” Waters.

  Not for some days: Baron et al., Raid!, 250.

  Patton both evaded responsibility: Phillips, The Making of a Professional, 184 (undersized force); PP, 667 (“I felt by hazarding”); D’Este, Patton: A Genius for War, 717 (long after the raid).

  “I had known of the camp”: corr, GSP to Beatrice, March 31, 1945, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 13.

  “They are trying to make an incident”: corr, GSP to Beatrice, Apr. 13, 1945, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 13.

  Ten days after the raid: Margry, “The Hammelburg Raid,” AB, no. 91 (1996): 1+; Baron et al., Raid!, 244–49 (“courageous devotion”).

  Patton had abused his authority: Hirshson, General Patton: A Soldier’s Life, 623; Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 542–43 (“Failure itself”); Chandler, 2616–17 (“crackpot actions”).

  Lovers’ Quarrels Are a Part of Love

  Eisenhower’s office in Reims: Williams, “Supreme Headquarters for D-Day,” AB, no. 84 (1994): 1+; Kessler, The Battle of the Ruhr Pocket, 49 (Military convoys crawled); SC, 420 (more than five thousand); Joseph R. Darnall, “Powdered Eggs and Purple Hearts,” 1946, MHUC, group 1, box 24, 180 (jitterbugging soldiers).

  “France smells wonderful”: corr, Howard J. Silbar to family, Apr. 15, 1945, Silbar papers, MHI, box 1.

  Eisenhower “looked terrible”: Bradley and Blair, A General’s Life, 410; Morgan, Past Forgetting, 216–17 (“physical and mental condition”); Crosswell, Beetle, 878–89 (“Ike shouts and rants”).

  The supreme commander needed rest: Morgan, Past Forgetting, 217–18; Thomas W. Mattingly and Olive F. G. Marsh, “A Compilation of the General Health System of Dwight D. Eisenhower,” Mattingly papers, DDE Lib, box 1; D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life, 679–81 (“Those of us”).

  “Ike has learnt his lesson”: Roberts, Masters and Commanders, 560.

  “As soon as you have joined hands”: Chandler, 2552, 2593 (“simplicity itself”).

  “I get tired of trying to arrange”: ibid., 2521; “Strategy of the Campaign in Western Europe, 1944–1945,” n.d., USFET, General Board study no. 1, 97 (ten thousand German soldiers); OH, John Whiteley, May 15, 1963, CJR, box 44, folder 3 (“if anything was to be done”).

  Montgomery was gobsmacked: VW, vol. 2, 299–301; Crosswell, Beetle, 887 (“blow from Ike”); Hamilton, Monty: Final Years of the Field-Marshal, 1944–1976, 446 (“violent, pro-American”), 458 (“prolong the war”); Roberts, Masters and Commanders, 564 (“only himself to blame”).

  Allied planners had presumed that Berlin: Chandler, 2561, 2568 (“In none of this do I mention Berlin”).

  The Red Army was thirty miles from Berlin: LO, 340–41; GS VI, 132–33; Murphy, Diplomat Among Warriors, 229; OH, Arthur Nevins, Aug. 15, 1972, Maclyn P. Burg and John E. Wickman, Nevins papers, DDE Lib, 60; SC, 445; Chandler, 2553n (“unfortunate incidents”).

  On a single day in early April: That aircraft incident occurred on April 2 (Chandler, 2602).

  Postwar occupation zones already: Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, 387; Kershaw, Hitler, 1936–45: Nemesis, 786 (“Destructive Measures”); Ambrose, Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945, 29–30, 42; OH, John Whiteley, May 15, 1963, CJR, box 44, folder 3; OH, DDE, n.d., CJR, box 43, file 7, 26 (“What would you have done”).

  None of this went down easily: Kimball, ed., Churchill & Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence, vol. 3, 604; SC, 442 (“The commander in the field”).

  “We might be condemned”: Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, 380.

  “Berlin remains”: Kimball, ed., Churchill & Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence, vol. 3, 604–5.

  “very logical objectives”: ibid., 608.

  “I shall not attempt any move”: SC, 468.

  The Allied juggernaut in the west had grown: More than two-thirds of the divisions were American (LO, 322).

  They faced a tatterdemalion enemy: 12th AG, G-2 summary no. 43, March 25, 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, UD 603, box 3.

  Gasoline had grown precious: German gasoline production was less than one-tenth what it had been a year earlier (“Target Priorities of the Eighth Air Force,” May 15, 1945, Carl A. Spaatz papers, LOC MS Div, box 326, folder VIII A.F., 23); Robert J. C. Osborne et al., “The 9th Armored Division in the Exploitation of Remagen Bridgehead,” March 1950, AS, Ft. K, 9 (“fifty-man panzer crew”).

  Montgomery had not quite yielded: Chandler, 2594; SC, 446 (“It is quite clear”).

  Lovers’ quarrels: War Department translation. Kimball, ed., Churchill & Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence, vol. 3, 604, 612.

  With Armed Forces Radio playing: Knickerbocker et al., Danger Forward, 380 (“Last Round-up”); Robert J. C. Osborne et al., “The 9th Armored Division in the Exploitation of Remagen Bridgehead,” March 1950, AS, Ft. K, 30; Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 141 (“dream roads”); Triplet, A Colonel in the Armored Regiments, 232–33 (cloverleaf ramps); Jack A. Marshall, “Once Upon a War,” 2009, a.p., 131–32 (“Onward, Christian Soldiers”); OH, Andrew J. Boyle, 1971, Frank Walton, SOOHP, MHI, 11–14 (mobile microfilm teams).

  Towns fell quickly: Sylvan, 351 (box of cigars); corr, Gerald Ritchie, 6th Airborne Div, to Elspeth, Apr. 10, 1945, IWM, P. 182 (“Alice in Wonderland”); Patton, War as I Knew It, 282; LO, 350 (false rumors); Graham, No Name on the Bullet, 95 (“How I want”).

  The hour had come to cinch: LO, 351–52; Friedrich, The Fire, 139 (the very air had first turned yellow); Zumbro, Battle for the Ruhr, 225–26 (motley brigade).

  General Collins’s VII Corps: Ossad and Marsh, Major General Maurice Rose, 22–23, 33–34; Cooper, Death Traps, 277–79 (roadside ditch).

  Flame, smoke, and percussive gunfire: OH, JLC, Jan. 25, 1954, CBM, NARA RG 319, OCMH, 2-3.7, SLC background files, box 184; OH, JLC, 1972, Charles C. Sperow, SOOHP, MHI, 202; Cooper, Death Traps, 191 (nearly four hundred tanks); Ossad and Marsh, Major General Maurice Rose, 38, 46, 49; memo, Col. E. V. Freeman, memorial division, Office of the Quartermaster General, Nov. 16, 1949, M. Rose individual deceased personnel file, obtained under FOIA, U.S. Army Human Resources Command, July 2008 (repeatedly declared himself); Heinz, When We Were One, 154 (“I have a son”).

  “We’re in a hell of a fix”: corr, George G. Garton
, CO, 391st Armored FA Bn, to JT, Apr. 13, 1963, JT, LOC MS Div, box 2 (“they have us”); Ossad and Marsh, Major General Maurice Rose, 28–35, 312–24, 343.

  “It can’t be him”: Heinz, When We Were One, 154.

  Rose would be interred: memo to Brig. Gen. J. R. Ranck, QM, COMZ, Orleans, France, Dec. 4, 1959, M. Rose individual deceased personnel file, obtained under FOIA, U.S. Army Human Resources Command, July 2008; Palmer and Zaid, eds., The GI’s Rabbi, 162 (Kaddish).

  A war-crimes investigation: Ossad and Marsh, Major General Maurice Rose, 339; Zumbro, Battle for the Ruhr, 227 (Feral American troops).

  Fanatical resistance in Paderborn: Albert R. Cupello et al., “Armored Encirclement of the Ruhr,” May 1949, AS, Ft. K, NARA RG 337, 78–79; Kessler, The Battle of the Ruhr Pocket, 107–8, 117–18; Zumbro, Battle for the Ruhr, 249–58 (blood group tattoos).

  Easter Sunday dawned: corr, Paul M. McGuire to JT, Sept. 6, 1963, JT, LOC MS Div, LHD, box 3 (“Every time a battery”); Kessler, The Battle of the Ruhr Pocket, 107; Zumbro, Battle for the Ruhr, 251–54 (bicycles).

  At noon, observation planes: LO, 359; Kessler, The Battle of the Ruhr Pocket, 118 (Werner Osthelmer).

  Shortly after four P.M. the columns met: The official Army history put the rendezvous at one P.M., but that appears to be several hours too early (Albert R. Cupello et al., “Armored Encirclement of the Ruhr,” May 1949, AS, Ft. K, NARA RG 337, 78–79); Zumbro, Battle for the Ruhr, 260; Kessler, The Battle of the Ruhr Pocket, 119 (hundred-mark notes).

  “largest double envelopment”: SC, 438; Zumbro, Battle for the Ruhr, 260; LO, 353 (Hitler forbade withdrawal); Francis Daugherty et al., “7th Armored Division’s Part in the Reduction of the Ruhr Pocket,” May 1950, AS, Ft. K, NARA RG 337, 63–66 (imaginary Twelfth Army); Kessler, The Battle of the Ruhr Pocket, 114–15 (“All fear comes”).

  To bring that day closer: LO, 363–66; AAR, “Operations in the Ruhr Valley,” 75th ID, n.d., CARL, N-13095 (thermite grenades); OH, “Crushing the Rose Pocket,” 97th ID, Apr. 7–19, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, box 19066, folder 208 (fifty flamethrowers); corr, Robert W. Hasbrouck to wife, Apr. 16, 1945, Maurice Delaval papers, MHI, box 9 (“so many interruptions”); Francis Daugherty et al., “7th Armored Division’s Part in the Reduction of the Ruhr Pocket,” May 1950, AS, Ft. K, NARA RG 337, 85.

  “What is there left?”: Carl Wagener, “Army Group B,” n.d., FMS, #B-593, MHI, 34–47.

  “Eighty years ago this month”: Ridgway, Soldier, 139–40.

  Moscow had accused Model: Barnett, ed., Hitler’s Generals, 329; LO, 369–72 (“Have we done everything”).

  “I sincerely believe”: A decade later, Model’s son exhumed his remains in a moldering field marshal’s uniform; he was reburied in the German cemetery at Vossenack (Zumbro, Battle for the Ruhr, 375–79, 412; Kessler, The Battle of the Ruhr Pocket, 3, 206–10); Barnett, ed., Hitler’s Generals, 329 (Walther service revolver).

  “a dark plowed field”: Hastings, Armageddon, 419.

  Allied intelligence originally estimated: Frank A. Osmanski, “Critical Analysis of the Planning and Execution of the Logistic Support of the Normandy Invasion,” Dec. 1949, Armed Forces Staff College, Osmanski papers, MHI, 45; Benjamin A. Dickson, “G-2 Journal: Algiers to the Elbe,” MHI, 203–12 (125,000); Chandler, 2587 (“at least 100,000”).

  Those figures proved far too modest: “Consumption Rates U.S. Forces from the Rhine to the Elbe,” May 11, 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin history #27; LO, 359 (seven corps and nineteen divisions), 372 (Stalingrad or Tunis); SC, 440 (dry-shod admiral); Spayd, Bayerlein, 222–23 (“I had some nice days”).

  “We have prisoners like some people”: Fauntleroy, The General and His Daughter, 181; LO, 370; Spayd, Bayerlein, 218 (groomed their teams).

  “Young men, old men”: LO, 370–71.

  GI sentries cradled their carbines: OH, “Crushing the Rose Pocket,” 97th ID, Apr. 7–19, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, box 19066, folder 208.

  CHAPTER 12: VICTORY

  Mark of the Beast

  For the final destruction: Stars and Stripes, March 27, 1945, CBH letters, MHI (“Omar the Warmaker”); Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 539 (Eisenhower joined him); diary, Third Army chief of staff, Feb. 9, 1945, Hobart Gay papers, MHI, box 2, 866–69; Hirshson, General Patton: A Soldier’s Life, 627–28 (five-star rank insignia); Ziemke, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, 1944–1946, 228–29 (GIs had made a discovery). Patton’s official date of rank as a four-star was April 14.

  A photograph of the Führer: Stafford, Endgame 1945, 74; White, Conquerors’ Road, 68 (“Thy Strength”); Codman, Drive, 281 (“If that clothesline”); Ziemke, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, 1944–1946, 229–31 (“Jesus Christ!”); Bradsher, “Nazi Gold: The Merkers Mine Treasure,” Prologue 31, no. 1 (spring 1999): 7+ (“meeting payrolls”).

  Treasures already had been discovered: “Civil Affairs and Military Government Activities in Connection with Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives,” NARA RG 407, E 427, USFET General Board study no. 36, 97-USF5-0.3.0, 27–29; Edsel, The Monuments Men, 281–83.

  Here in “Room No. 8”: Bradsher, “Nazi Gold: The Merkers Mine Treasure,” Prologue 31, no. 1 (spring 1999): 7+ (concentration-camp victims and “richest man in the world”); Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, 654 (double-decker buses); Nicholas, The Rape of Europa, 312, 333–36; Holland and Rothbart, “The Merkers and Buchenwald Treasure Troves,” AB, no. 93 (1996): 1+; Ziemke, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, 1944–1946, 231 (each sack worth $25,000); Slany, U.S. and Allied Efforts to Recover and Restore Gold and Other Assets Stolen or Hidden by Germany During World War II, 159–61; memo, Col. B. Bernstein to Brig. Gen. F. J. McSherry, “Contents of Mines in Merkers Area,” Apr. 18, 1945, Frank J. McSherry papers, MHI, box 53 (galleries and shafts nearby).

  Patton facetiously proposed: memo, Brig. Gen. Frank J. McSherry to DDE, “Gold and Art Treasure Found at Meikers [sic],” Apr. 10, 1945, McSherry papers, MHI, box 53 (250 tons); Crosswell, Beetle, 899 (“every son of a bitch”).

  Eventually valued by SHAEF: Bradsher, “Nazi Gold: The Merkers Mine Treasure,” Prologue 37, no. 1 (spring 1999): 7+; Ziemke, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, 1944–1946, 229–31 (ten-ton trucks).

  Similar removals were under way: William F. Heimlich, “The Eagle and the Bear: Berlin, 1945–1950,” n.d., HIA, 46–52 (AIRMAIL); OH, Andrew J. Boyle, 1971, Frank Walton, SOOHP, MHI, 13–17; corr, DDE to Harry S. Truman, Aug. 8 and Sept. 24, 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO, secretary general staff, 333.5, box 35. In response to a Soviet protest, Eisenhower told Truman in a top-secret note, “I believe it may be granted that the Russian report is correct. Actually, equipment, documents and personnel exceeding the claims made were evacuated.”

  Other swag included ground-to-air missile: William F. Heimlich, “The Eagle and the Bear: Berlin, 1945–1950,” n.d., HIA, 46–52; Rudolf Lusar, “The German Weapons and Secret Weapons of World War II and Their Subsequent Development,” 1956, CMH (patents); Longmate, Hitler’s Rockets, 375–76 (seventy-five rockets). For details of Soviet removals see Dobbs, Six Months in 1945, 242–47.

  Patton had one more discovery: diary, Third Army chief of staff, Feb. 9, 1945, Hobart Gay papers, MHI, box 2, 866–69; LO, 375–78; Allen, Lucky Forward, 279 (flush toilets).

  the Americans liberated a concentration camp: Robert H. Abzug, “The Liberation of the Concentration Camps,” in Liberation 1945, 33; case file, Buchenwald KZ, n.d., Donald McClure papers, HIA, box 1 (eighty satellite camps).

  “We passed through the stockade”: Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 539.

  An inmate pointed out a gallows: Ziemke, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, 1944–1946, 231; PP, 684 (“mammoth griddle”); James J. Weingartner, “Early War Crimes Trials,” in Liberation 1945, 82–83 (vengeful inmates); Thompson, Men Under Fire, 138 (“mark of the beast”); White, Conquerors’ Road, 91–92 (“ash and human debris”); Schudel, “General Witnessed History at Nazi camp, Panama Canal,” WP, Aug. 7, 2012, B
6.

  “Still having trouble”: Codman, Drive, 282–83.

  Eisenhower and Bradley agreed to spend: Ziemke, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, 1944–1946, 232–33 (125 miles); MacDonald, The Mighty Endeavor, 476–77; LO, 380.

  Despite great bounds: Ryan, The Last Battle, 314 (226 miles); LO, 384.

  “Ike, I don’t know”: diary, Third Army chief of staff, Feb. 9, 1945, Hobart Gay papers, MHI, box 2, 866–69; Weintraub, 15 Stars, 331 (hordes of refugees).

  Another anxiety weighed: LO, 407.

  How did a police state perish?: Timothy Naftali, “Creating the Myth of the Alpenfestung,” in Bischof and Pelinka, eds., Austrian Memory & National Identity, 203–46.

  As early as the fall of 1943: Jenkins, “The Battle of the National Redoubt,” Military Review (Dec. 1946): 3+; Crosswell, Beetle, 883 (“bitter guerrilla warfare”); memo, DDE to ONB, “Security of Troops,” Feb. 20, 1945, NARA RG 331, E 1, SHAEF SGS, file 371.2, box 65 (“nests of guerrillas”); Hinsley, 613; Timothy Naftali, “Creating the Myth of the Alpenfestung,” in Bischof and Pelinka, eds., Austrian Memory & National Identity, 213, 236n (quarter-million Ultra intercepts); Pogue, George C. Marshall, 557 (“no indications”).

  Far more credulous: Strong, Intelligence at the Top, 255 (“no more chances”); OH, Kenneth Strong, May 15, 1963, CJR, box 95, folder 5, 1–2 (“die together”); VW, vol. 2, 302–4 (“most important ministries”); Minott, The Fortress That Never Was, 29, 88–94 (more obdurate than Cassino).

  An OSS psychological portrait: Walter C. Langer, “A Psychological Analysis of Adolf Hitler—His Life and Legend,” n.d., OSS, NARA RG 226, 190/3/6/01, box 1, 244–49; OSS, “Report from Switzerland,” March 1, 1945, NARA RG 226, M 1642, R-83, frame 333 (150 trucks); memo, R&A London to Chandler Morse, Harold Barger, “Subject: Pickaninny—Economic Capabilities of the Alpine Area,” March 29, 1945, OSS, NARA RG 226, E 73, box 3 (“absence of sugar”); OSS Berne to OSS director, “Official Dispatch,” March 16, 1945, NARA RG 226, M 142, R-30, frames 99–100 (antitank guns); memo, William J. Donovan to FDR, March 26, 1945, NARA RG 226, M-1642, R-25, frames 441–42 (“go underground”).