The Steel Wave

by Jeff Shaara

  “Do what now?” Manfred moved closer to his mother, put a hand on her shoulder.

  “I must go with those men.” He saw the fear in his boy’s eyes, the questions, the anger. Rommel moved closer to them both, said in a low voice, “I knew my life would end because of this war. I always knew. I have survived many times when I should have been killed. But there is nothing else that can be done now. To die by the hand of one’s own people is…difficult. But you have seen it yourself. The house is surrounded, and those men are here for one reason.”

  “We can fight them, Father! I have the pistol—”

  “It is of no use. We would be killed in seconds. I will not have you harmed, either of you. Obey me now.”

  The boy began to cry now, soft sobs, and Rommel put his hand on the back of the boy’s neck, gripped him hard. He leaned low, Lucie looking up at him, and kissed her, tasted her tears. He stepped back, took a long breath, and fought for calm.

  “I must go now.”

  The car rolled slowly, Burgdorf in the backseat beside him, Maisel in front beside the driver. Rommel had seen Burgdorf’s pistol, knew that both men were prepared for him to resist, and that somewhere behind them the men in civilian clothes had their orders and would certainly obey them.

  The car moved out through the garden gate, and Rommel stared out into darkening trees, hearing every sound: the crunch of gravel beneath the wheels, the breathing of the man beside him.

  “May I inquire…where we are going?”

  Burgdorf pointed ahead, spoke to the driver.

  “Up the hill. Through those woods. There is an open field, enclosed by thick trees. It is very secluded there.”

  How do you know that? But then Rommel thought, Of course. Every detail has been planned.

  The car rolled past the narrow stretch of woods, the trees giving way to open ground, the wide field Burgdorf had described. It was familiar, a place Rommel had taught Manfred to shoot.

  Burgdorf said, “This is far enough. Halt the car.”

  The car stopped abruptly.

  Burgdorf looked at Rommel. “This is the best way, you know. It will take only three seconds.”

  Rommel saw him glance downward, saw the small capsule in Burgdorf’s hand. The hand opened wider, and Rommel took the capsule, rolled it over between his fingers. Burgdorf looked toward the front of the car.

  “You may leave us now.”

  The front doors opened, and the driver and Maisel left the car, another well-rehearsed detail.

  Rommel watched them moving away, no talking, their backs to the car. He felt a shiver, fought the fear, and said, “I am a loyal German, Wilhelm.”

  “So are we all, Field Marshal.”

  Rommel stared at the capsule in his hand. “You have given me your word that no harm will come to my family.”

  “I have. There is nothing to be gained by harming them. They will not be disgraced. You will always be a hero, Field Marshal.”

  Rommel felt his breathing in short bursts, cold thunder in his chest, thought of Lucie, her tears. There is nothing else I can do. His jaw clenched, his only protest, and he forced himself to relax, opened his mouth, slapped the capsule inside, a brief burst of bitterness, forced himself to swallow. He stared ahead, his throat tightening, no air in his lungs, a cold hard claw curling through his chest, the car swirling, his mind holding to a brief glow of sky, sand and tanks, and Africa.

  * * *

  AFTERWORD

  * * *

  The fact that your husband, Field Marshal Rommel, has died a hero’s death as a result of his wounds…has deeply touched me. I send you, my dear Frau Rommel, the heartfelt sympathy of myself and the German Luftwaffe. In silent compassion, yours,

  REICHSMARSCHALL HERMANN GÖRING

  LETTER TO LUCIE ROMMEL, OCTOBER 1944

  Of course Rommel, ultimately, was beaten. He lost. But, although what must matter in war is to win, that truism cannot provide the sole criterion for judgment of military talent. War may be considered as a business, open to audit, but its conduct is also an art. Napoleon was beaten. So was Montrose. So was Lee. Few could deny their genius. With all his imperfections, as a leader of men in battle, Erwin Rommel stands in their company.

  BRITISH GENERAL AND HISTORIAN DAVID FRASER

  God deliver us from our friends. We can handle the enemy.

  GEORGE PATTON

  THE GERMANS

  HANS SPEIDEL

  Rommel’s most valued aide testifies before two separate courts of inquiry and confounds the Gestapo prosecutors with his carefully conceived explanations. Ultimately, he cannot be linked specifically to any of the conspirators. Unable to justify his execution, the Gestapo holds him in prison for seven months. Days before the war’s end, he escapes captivity near Lake Constance, close to the German-Swiss border, and evades capture until Allied troops liberate the area. Speidel is the most closely involved participant in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler to survive the war.

  Speidel is never implicated in war crimes and thus is not included in the Allied prosecution of Germany’s elite generals. After the war, he returns to academia and enjoys several years as a professor of history at Tübingen University. He continues to be active in political affairs, works vigorously to have (West) Germany included in the unified front that becomes NATO, and believes—as did Rommel—that the Soviets will continue to be the greatest threat to a peaceful Europe.

  He writes often of Rommel and his campaigns and in 1950 publishes Invasion, 1944—Rommel and the Normandy Campaign, considered by military historians to be a prime resource for insight on Rommel and his command. He takes temporary leave of academia and returns to the military, rising to the rank of full general in Germany’s NATO command. In 1957, Speidel is named commander-in-chief of NATO ground forces in central Europe. He retires in 1964 and returns again to teaching at Tübingen. Speidel dies in Bad Honnef, Germany, in 1984, at age eighty-seven.

  LEO GEYR VON SCHWEPPENBERG

  The panzer commander who was so often Rommel’s nemesis is best known for his stubborn unwillingness to agree with Rommel’s tactics against the Allied invasion, at a time when cooperation might have turned the tide of the entire campaign. After the Allied bombing raid on June 10, which causes the near-total loss of his staff and headquarters, a wounded and demoralized Geyr begins to accept that the Allies cannot be turned back. He infuriates Hitler with what the German High Command labels the “mimicry” of Rommel’s defeatist attitudes, so his July 2 dismissal is inevitable.

  Geyr is captured by the Americans at the end of the war and is imprisoned for two years. Upon his release, he writes several articles on military tactics and strategy, repeatedly engaging in a one-sided argument against Rommel’s tactics in Normandy, for which he receives little attention. Geyr dies near Munich in 1974, at age eighty-eight.

  MANFRED ROMMEL

  The field marshal’s only child surrenders to the French in 1945, and with the war at an end he is allowed to return to his mother’s home in Herrlingen. Within two years, he enrolls at the University of Tübingen, where he maintains a close acquaintance with Hans Speidel, but Manfred chooses a different field of study and earns a law degree. As his father’s son and by his own abilities, Manfred quickly establishes prominence in the legal profession. He pursues a career as well in politics, serves in several municipal-level offices, including a term as mayor of Stuttgart. In 1995, he is appointed by German chancellor Helmut Kohl to the prestigious (and somewhat ironic) post of supervisor of Franco-German affairs. He retires from public life in 1996 and lives today in Stuttgart. His first-person account of Erwin Rommel’s final days is arguably the most reliable and the most oft-quoted perspective on the extraordinary drama of his father’s death.

  FRIEDRICH RUGE

  Erwin Rommel’s closest friend during the Normandy campaign, the German admiral survives the war and writes of his experiences in a number of books and articles, most notably Rommel and the Invasion. He continues his service in the now-downsize
d German navy and serves as chief inspector of the Bundesmarine for six years, retiring in 1961. Like Hans Speidel, his reputation as an excellent officer and markedly intelligent man lands him a teaching post at the University of Tübingen. Admiral Ruge serves as president of the most prominent organization of German war veterans, the League of the Veterans of the Bundeswehr.

  As a much-sought-after lecturer on naval strategies and applications, Ruge is a frequent visitor to the United States, lecturing often at the U.S. Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island. He dies in 1985, at age ninety-one. A collection of his papers is housed today at the Citadel, in Charleston, South Carolina.

  THE BRITISH

  SIR ARTHUR TEDDER

  Throughout his tenure as Eisenhower’s second-in-command for Operation Overlord, the British air marshal continues to serve with admirable restraint through the tumultuous weeks of controversy between the ground commanders Montgomery, Bradley, and Patton. In October 1944, he returns to a more hands-on role over his beloved tactical air force, when he is named to replace the abrasive and universally disliked Trafford Leigh-Mallory. As senior air commander in Europe, Tedder continues to impress Eisenhower and is widely regarded as the finest British air force officer of the war. As Germany becomes pressed between the advances of the Allies and the Russians, tactical coordination with the Russian air force becomes essential, and Tedder assumes he will move into that role. But he is considered “too American” for some British tastes, notably including Alan Brooke and Bernard Montgomery, and in early 1945, pressure mounts to replace him with Harold Alexander. But Eisenhower lobbies against that change, for despite Eisenhower’s affection and respect for Alexander, he knows Tedder is better qualified for the job. It is one more controversy of ego and personality that Eisenhower must wrestle with, and his loyalty to Tedder ensures a lasting friendship between the two men.

  At the war’s end, in May 1945, Tedder serves as senior Allied delegate to accept Germany’s surrender in Berlin.

  After the war, Tedder accepts the position of chief of staff of the Royal Air Force. He retires in 1950, to assume the post of chairman of the British Joint Services Commission in the United States, and steps down from that role in 1951 to become chancellor of Cambridge University. In 1966, he writes his memoirs and dies a year later in Surrey, England, at age seventy-six.

  TRAFFORD LEIGH-MALLORY

  For reasons that frustrate and perplex only him, Leigh-Mallory is never given credit for his positive accomplishments in command of the Allied tactical air forces throughout the invasion of Normandy. Seen as petty, vindictive, and generally ineffective, he is widely ignored by the men he allegedly commands. Eisenhower never warms to the man and, in October 1944, welcomes the opportunity to replace him with Arthur Tedder. But Leigh-Mallory has earned respect for his longevity of service to the air command and thus receives appointment as commander in chief of air services in southeast Asia, under the overall command of Lord Louis Mountbatten. In November 1944, Leigh-Mallory and his wife begin the arduous airplane journey to his new command in Burma. The plane crashes en route, and both are killed. He is fifty-two.

  SIR FREDERICK MORGAN

  The officer responsible for the plan that becomes Operation Overlord is for the most part a forgotten footnote to the history of that event. Morgan’s extraordinary efforts produce the blueprint for the Normandy invasion, and though it is changed considerably by the addition of more troops and a wider invasion landscape, it is Morgan’s concept to drive the assault into Normandy, rather than the more obvious point of attack at Calais. Perhaps Morgan’s greatest accomplishment is assembling a team of British and American planners who manage to maintain a cohesive and productive working relationship, something Eisenhower struggles with throughout his entire command.

  Morgan serves under Eisenhower at SHAEF for the remainder of the war and goes to Germany at the war’s end to assist in coordinating the fledgling United Nations’ support efforts for the devastated German economy. He retires from the British army in 1951 and is appointed controller of the British Atomic Energy agency. For three years in the mid-1950s, he is Britain’s senior controller of atomic weapons.

  He writes his memoirs and dies in 1967, at age seventy-three.

  THE AMERICANS

  JESSE ADAMS

  In late August 1944, while the Eighty-second Airborne’s newest first sergeant awaits his unit’s next assignment, Adams is seriously injured during a training jump. He breaks an ankle and both arms when his parachute tangles with another trooper, who does not survive the fall. Thus, Adams misses the Eighty-second Airborne’s involvement in Operation Market-Garden in Holland in September 1944. He never fully recovers from the injury, and is again offered an opportunity to return to Fort Benning, Georgia. Knowing his combat days are likely past, Adams considers the transfer, though, despite James Gavin’s support, Adams’s proposed commission as second lieutenant is never approved. Adams swallows the slight and returns to Fort Benning in January 1945, but his enthusiasm for training new recruits cannot match the passion he feels for the fight that he is missing in Europe. While on a brief leave in Columbus, Georgia, his injuries are aggravated by a serious jeep accident, and he will never jump again. In June 1945, Adams is discharged from the army and begins the journey home by train to New Mexico. The end of the war affects Adams as it does a great many who served in the most grueling fights, and he has no enthusiasm for the life he expects to find in peacetime. However, on the journey home, he meets Nancy Forbes, a former army nurse, who is returning to her home in Los Angeles. Over the course of the three-day journey, Adams finds a new direction for his passion. They marry in September 1945, after a two-month engagement, and he fathers four boys, two of whom will enlist to fight in the Vietnam War, both serving in the Eighty-second Airborne Division.

  The family settles in Santa Barbara, California, and Adams pursues a career in real estate, surprising himself with his talent for deal-making in the fledging boom market of 1950s California. He is enormously successful and enjoys traveling with his family, including his mother, whom he brings into their home upon the death of his father. Though they sail the Pacific and vacation in Hawaii and Asia, he will not return to Europe.

  He frequently attends the airborne’s reunions and in 1954 is reunited for the first time with the one man who eventually becomes his closest friend, Wallace Unger. Because the men will rarely talk with others about their shared experiences, their time together is most often a closed-door affair, both men accepting that few can understand their need to release the memories. They also share a common bond, provided by the army and the efforts of Jim Gavin. Both men are awarded the Bronze Star, Adams for his gallantry in Sicily, Unger for his actions in the Cotentin Peninsula.

  Adams retires in 1990, a wealthy landowner, and lives with his wife in Montecito, California.

  Hell, I’m not a hero. I just liked to jump out of airplanes. It didn’t much matter that along the way I had to kill Germans. They shot at me, and missed. I shot back. And didn’t.

  JESSE ADAMS

  TOM THORNE

  The young soldier who survives the 116th Regiment’s disastrous landing at Omaha Beach returns to the states in August 1944, after a lengthy stay at a hospital in England. The loss of his legs confines him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Thorne will not accept repeated efforts from his family or various veterans’ groups to furnish him with artificial legs. He is awarded a Bronze Star for his actions on Omaha Beach, will not display it, and never attends reunions of the 116th Regiment, the men who embellish their nickname as the Stonewall Brigade. Despite many invitations from local civic groups in and around his hometown of Fredericksburg, Virginia, Thorne will not speak publicly of his experiences during the war. Thorne’s marriage fails after ten difficult years. His daughter, Ella, remains as close to her father as he will allow, and he never parts with the photograph of her as an infant, which he somehow managed to retrieve from his helmet liner on the day of his wounding. But he never accep
ts his fate and dies in 1958 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at age thirty-six.

  EDWIN SCOFIELD

  Major Scofield jumps into combat yet again during Operation Market-Garden in Holland in September 1944 and, as in Sicily and Normandy, he leads his company with considerable gallantry. But like so many of the paratroopers who witnessed the birth of the Eighty-second Airborne, Scofield cannot survive so many tests of his own luck. On September 20, 1944, he is seriously wounded at Nijmegen, Holland. He spends four months in a British hospital and then returns to the States. An unwilling participant in the army’s downsizing after the war, Scofield suffers lingering effects of his wounds and retires in 1947. He returns to college, graduates with an accounting degree from Penn State University, and lives a peaceful life as a bank examiner until his retirement in 1977. He regularly attends reunions of the Eighty-second Airborne, writes several articles about his experiences, and is always quick to mention his respect for the men in his command, notably his favorite noncom, Jesse Adams. He dies in Austin, Texas, in 2005, at age eighty.

  JAMES GAVIN

  “Slim Jim” succeeds Matthew Ridgway as commander of the Eighty-second Airborne Division in August 1944, and thus, at only thirty-seven years old and still a brigadier general, he becomes the youngest division commander in the American army since the Civil War. He receives his second star in October 1944, which also makes him the youngest major general in the army. Gavin not only earns the respect of his men but is singled out repeatedly for his actions on the battlefield and is awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the Silver Star, as well as a Purple Heart for having been wounded in combat. He is also awarded the British Distinguished Service Order, only rarely awarded to soldiers who serve outside the armed forces of the British Commonwealth.