He and I then drove out to see Wood. We met him right up with Bruce Clark’s Combat Command, which had just destroyed twenty tanks. Since crossing the Moselle, Clark had killed seven hundred, taken fourteen hundred prisoners, and destroyed seventy tanks and twenty-seven guns. It was very apparent that Wood’s division was spread pretty thin, but I still believed we should continue the attack. This I felt was particularly true against Germans, because as long as you attack them they cannot find the time to plan how to attack you.
On the twentieth, at Bradley’s Headquarters, I saw a map study which completely confirmed the line of advance which Bradley and I had favored since the beginning, namely, to drive through with two corps abreast and the third one echeloned to the right rear on the general axis, Nancy—Chateau Salins—Saarguemines—Mainz or Worms, then northeast through Frankfurt. It was evident that the Third Army should have an increase of at least two infantry divisions and retain four armored divisions. I was convinced then, and have since discovered I was right, there were no Germans ahead of us except those we were actually fighting. In other words, they had no depth. It was on this day that I definitely decided not to waste capturing Metz, but to contain it with as few troops as possible and drive for the Rhine.
On the twenty-first, things picked up so far as fighting was concerned, but one of my staff, who had been with General Devers’ Sixth Army Group, had heard Dev-ers remark that he was going to take a lot of troops from the Third Army, so I flew to Paris to argue against it with General Eisenhower. Events proved my trip useless, but at the time I thought I had done something.
The next day Codman, Stiller, and I visited the 90th Division and the 358th Infantry, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Christian Clark, who had been General Drum’s Aide in 1936. We then picked up Colonel Polk of the 3d Cavalry Group and went to the far left of our line, where we were the only thing between the flank and the Germans. During this drive we passed some alleged French soldiers who were undisciplined and unarmed and solely interested in eating American rations. I decided to get rid of them.
The twenty-third was one of the bad days of my military career. Bradley called me to say that higher authority had decided that I would have to give up the 6th Armored and also assume a defensive attitude, owing to lack of supplies. General Devers had told General Eisenhower that he could supply the XV Corps via Dijon by October 1, and therefore demanded it. But Bradley and I felt that he would eventually get it, which he did. When I told my sorrows to General Gay, he said, “What price glory?” meaning that after the Moroccan victory, the Tunisian victory, the Sicilian victory, and finally now in France, we had always been whittled down. However, I had the optimism to remember that all through my life, every time I had been bitterly disappointed, it worked for the best. It did in this case, although at the time I didn’t know it.
On the twenty-fourth, Gaffey, Maddox,5 and I met the three Corps Commanders, Eddy, Haislip, and Walker, at Nancy (Headquarters, Third Army), and arranged a definite defensive front east of the Moselle. We also also selected successive points along this front at which we would attack on the “rock soup” plan, ostensibly for the purpose of securing a jump-off line—actually hoping for a break-through. General Haislip was depressed at the prospect of leaving the Third Army and we were depressed at the thought of losing him.
A very fine feat of air co-operation occurred on the twenty-fourth. Five tanks of the 4th Armored were being attacked by some twenty-five German tanks, and the only thing we could send to their help was air. The weather was unflyable according to all standards, but General Weyland ordered two squadrons to attack. This they did, being vectored in by radar at a height of not over fifteen feet from the ground. Having located the enemy, they skip-bombed and also strafed him. While this fighting was going on, the pilots had no idea that they could ever land and yet carried out their job magnificently. Actually they did land successfully far back in France, where they found a hole in the clouds. One of the officers who led this attack was named Cole, and I subsequently heard that he had received the Medal of Honor. He deserved it.
The casualty report as of September 24 was:
—————
1
Lieutenant Colonel Charles Odom, on Medical Staff of Third Army Headquarters.
2
These and other sets of figures in following chapters are taken from figures posted daily on the “situation map” kept at Third Army Headquarters. They were as accurate as the reports at the time could indicate.
3
Lieutenant General A. Juin, Chief of Staff of the -National Defense of France.
4
Colonel O. L. Davidson, Commanding Officer of the 319th Infantry Regiment, 80th Infantry Division.
5
Colonel H. G. Maddox, G-3, Third Army, with General Patton throughout the war.
2 FORCING THE LINE OF THE MOSELLE
25 September to 7 November, 1944
The period of Third Army activities covered within the dates of this campaign was the most unproductive and uncompensatory in its history. Weather and restrain-ing directives seemed to join hands in impeding the progress of its troops. After two months of rapid advances and offensive warfare, units were called upon to take limited objectives and to fight the elements.
In spite of the above, and with the future in mind, the front improved from the insecure bridgeheads of September 25 to secure bridgeheads, well established, with sufficient area taken, and from which successful attacks could be launched. (See Map, 138.)
During this period, German resistance increased on other European fronts. General Montgomery's Twenty-First Army Group spent the period clearing enemy troops from the port of Antwerp and the Walcheren Islands. The First Army, after clearing Aachen, continued to buck increasing resistance in the Siegfried Line. In the Vosges Mountains, the going was rugged and slow for General Devers* Sixth Army Group (American Seventh and French First Armies). The Russians entered Czechoslovakia and cleared Budapest. In Italy, the advance to the Po Valley proceeded slowly. The air forces continued to pound German airfields and industrial centers.
P.D.H.
The Flood
The period from September 25 to November 7, was a difficult one for the Third Army. For the first time in our experience we were not advancing rapidly, if at all. We were fighting, with inadequate means, against equal or superior forces in excellent defensive positions, and the weather was against us. On September 25, I received from General Bradley a Top Secret document reiterating the fact that we were to assume the defensive. It was nothing but a written restatement of the information I had received some days before. In order to make it a matter of record, .1 drew up and gave to General Bradley my plan for occupying a defensive position and enlarging the bridgehead over the Moselle River. The whole plan was based, as stated in the last chapter, on maintaining the offensive spirit of the troops by attacking at various points whenever my means permitted it.
On the twenty-sixth, Colonel Codman, Colonel Campanole, and I drove to Gondrecourt for the purpose of locating a Madame Jouatte, who had been General Marshall’s landlady in 1917. Gondrecourt had not changed at all since I had last seen it, but the family we were in search of had gone to Southern France. However, the mayor, who had two charming daughters, gave us some wine, and one of the girls played the piano.
From Gondrecourt we drove, via Neufchateau, to Chaumont and had lunch at the Hotel de France, where General Pershing, General Harbord, de Chambrun,1 and I lunched in the fall of 1917 when we visited Chaumont for the first time and selected it as Headquarters for the AEF. The same people were running the hotel—only one generation younger. They offered us some of the same kind of meat we had had in 1917. After lunch we visited General Pershing’s house in town and also the barracks which had housed our Headquarters for two years.
Some fifteen days before, the XV Corps, Third Army, recaptured Chaumont, our Air Force had attacked and ruined the barracks. However, my little office by the gate was intact. I rathe
r like it, as it was the seat of my first considerable command as Commandant of General Pershing’s Headquarters, American Expeditionary Force.
While at the barracks, Colonel Campanole received a horrible shock. All the way down he had been telling us of a beautiful French girl he had known, in 1917 and 1918, and whom he had high hopes of again meeting. This lady was connected with the police in some manner, so at the barracks I asked a policeman if he knew her, explaining that she was a great friend of Colonel Campanole’s. The policeman, with more candor than politeness, turned to Campy and said, “Oh, yes, I know her well, but she is too old even for you.”
After receiving this shock, we drove to Val des Ecoliers, where General Pershing lived during the latter part of the war and where I was Aide to the Prince of Wales, danced with him and taught him to shoot craps. Unfortunately, the place had been very much looted.
We then drove through Langres, where we had no time to stop, and on to Bourg, my Tank Brigade Headquarters in 1918. The first man I saw in the street was standing on the same manure pile whereon I am sure he had perched in 1918. I asked if he had been there during the last war, to which he replied, “Oh, yes, General Patton, and you were here then as a Colonel.” He then formed a triumphal procession of all the village armed with pitchforks, scythes, and rakes, and we proceeded to rediscover my old haunts, including my office, and my billet in the chateau of Madame de Vaux.
The grave of that national hero, “Abandoned Rear,” was still maintained by the natives. It originated in this manner. In 1917, the mayor, who lived in the “new house” at Bourg, bearing the date 1760, came to me, weeping copiously, to say that we had failed to tell him of the death of one of my soldiers. Being unaware of this sad fact and not liking to admit it to a stranger, I stalled until I found out that no one was dead. However, he insisted that we visit the “grave,” so we went together and found a newly closed latrine pit with the earth properly banked and a stick at one end to which was affixed crosswise a sign saying, “Abandoned Rear.” This the French had taken for a cross. I never told them the truth.
On the way back to Etain, we passed the airfield from which Codman had done a great deal of his flying in World War I, and from which they operated to bomb Conflans.
The twenty-seventh was a big day for visiting firemen. We had ten generals altogether, of whom Generals Hughes and Spaatz were very pleasant. We also got definite news that we would lose the XV Corps, consisting of the 2d French Armored and the 79th Division. However, we were promised the infantry elements of the 26th Division, Major General Willard S. Paul, and as much more of it as we could move. I could always move any troops given me, but I had difficulty in moving those taken away.
This shortage of troops lasted for some time and was scandalous. We apparently had to provide eleven infantry battalions to act as stevedores, and we also had to use the motor transport of all newly arrived divisions to haul supplies.
I planned to relieve elements of the 80th and all of the 4th Armored with the 26th when it came up. The two former divisions had had very hard fighting, and the 80th had been occupying particularly difficult terrain. The 4th Armored Division repelled three attacks, but a regiment of the 35th Infantry Division was kicked off a hill north of Chateau Salins. I used to get disgusted with, and still deprecate, the way our troops had of being kicked off places.
Stiller and I drove to Pont-à-Mousson via St. Benoit and Thiaucourt, at which latter place is a huge United States Cemetery—a monument to the pacifists who produced the last war. We visited a forward Observation Post of the 80th Division in company with General McBride. They certainly were not holding a secure bridgehead, as there were three hills looking straight down the valley to the bridge. It was down this valley, as mentioned in the last chapter, that the 80th received a violent counter-attack. In order to take the hills, we would have to let one combat team of the 80th rest. I planned to do this by relieving it with a combat team of the 26th when it arrived.
On the way back, I decorated several soldiers at a Regimental Headquarters, and also had the chance of making three battlefield promotions from Sergeant to Lieutenant.
I then picked up General Irwin of the 5th Division and we drove to visit a forward battalion of the 2d Infantry. To reach this, there was a choice of going over a high mountain in the mud on foot, or driving down a road . which was under direct enemy observation and fire for about a mile. I selected the road. On the way down, they missed us quite widely, but shelled the Battalion Headquarters while I was there. They must have practiced on the road, because driving back they dropped a salvo of four 150 mm. shells; the first was well beyond us, the second near enough to be uncomfortable, the third threw mud and rocks all over us, and the fourth lit about two feet from the left-hand running-board of my jeep—it was a dud.
On the twenty-ninth of September, east of Nancy, I was present when the 35th Division was attacked by portions of one or two German divisions and lost more ground. The 4th Armored Division was also being attacked. I told Eddy to use the rest of the 6th Armored to help out the 35th. He demurred, saying if it failed, he would have nothing left. I told him that was a very good reason why it should not fail, and reminded him that Cortez burned his ships. We sent for Combat Command “B” (Colonel, later Brigadier General G. W. Read) of the 6th Armored, which was with the XX Corps. It moved in fifteen minutes.
General Eisenhower and General Bradley came to lunch and we had a new drink we called the 170. It was half brandy and half champagne. Most people thought it was all champagne, so the results were exceptionally good.
General Eisenhower explained the situation in a very lucid and convincing manner. He stated that the Sixth Army Group (Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers’ Headquarters) was not to exceed sixteen divisions and that the Twenty-First Army Group (Field Marshal Montgomery’s Headquarters) was limited to seventeen divisions, owing to shortage of manpower. It actually dwindled much below this before the end of the war. Therefore, all the remaining divisions arriving in France would come to the First, Third, and Ninth Armies
At that time it was his plan to have the Ninth Army come in between the First and Third Armies, and take over Metz when we resumed our drive to the east.
After he had finished, I made the suggestion that somebody, either himself or a very high ranking officer, be designated to arbitrate between the Twelfth Army Group (General Bradley’s Headquarters), the Com Z, and the Air Corps on the question of supplies. At that time the Com Z provided the supplies and also said where they were to go. Furthermore, I stated that they were too inflexible in their methods. If fighting troops had been equally inflexible, the war would have been already lost.
I also persuaded General Eisenhower to release the names of officers to the press to include regimental commanders. The names of junior officers had already been released.
As I visualized it at that time, the Germans wanted both Metz and Nancy, but, since they possessed Metz and we were not bothering them, they would be quiet there and expend all their efforts on the recapture of Nancy, because it was very apparent that Nancy, and more particularly Chateau Safins, was the doorway to the invasion of Germany. I explained this in my Letter of Instruction Number 4.1
On the thirtieth of September, I decided to take a rest, but sent General Gaffey to the XII Corps. At 1500 he called me on the radio-telephone to say I had best come to Nancy at once. When I got there, I found that the 35th Division had been permitted to withdraw from the woods west of Chateau Safins, and that the 6th Armored had not been put into the fight as I had directed. Apparently the 15th and 539th German Divisions were attacking the 35th. As a result of a somewhat heated conference, the 6th Armored went in and, attacking at dawn the next day, recaptured the hill and killed a large number of Germans. This could have been done the day before had my instructions been carried out. It was very fortunate that General Gaffey arrived in Nancy when he did.
1See Appendix D.
The situation, however, did not look well, and I had one c
ombat command of the 90th Division, XX Corps, assemble with trucks ready to move on half an hour’s notice. I think one explanation for the failure of the troops to stay on the hill was that three of the generals concerned had escaped death by nothing flat that same day. They were standing in a gateway when a shell came through killing two MP’s and fatally wounding three others not two feet from them.
Once, in Sicily, I told a general, who was somewhat reluctant to attack, that I had perfect confidence in him, and that, to show it, I was going home. I tried the same thing that day, and it worked again.
Flying back to Headquarters, we just made it, and we actually landed in blackness. This was not too remarkable, because Major Bennett was a skillful flier.
I called the Chief of Staff of the XII Corps (Brigadier General Ralph J. Canine) at midnight and on being informed that he was asleep, I too went to bed, as I knew the situation must be all right.
Casualties for October 1:
On the second of October I decorated the Commanding Officers of two regiments which had retaken the hill, and then had a look over the country the 4th Armored, Major General J. S. Wood, was defending. As usual with that division the dispositions were excellent. I then visited Baade, who commanded the 35th Division and had been wounded in the fight the day before. He is the quietest man under fire I have ever seen.
For about ten days, we had been contemplating trying out the defensive qualities of the German forts covering Metz west of the Moselle. The 5th Division believed that Driant, one of these forts, could be taken with a battalion. On the third of October, they put their plan into execution and had considerable initial success. However, after about seven days of it we decided to quit, as the operation was too costly.
War as I Knew It Page 14