War as I Knew It

by George S. Patton

  The 90th Division which we visited last had, as usual, done well and was on its objective.

  The other three corps were still holding defensively and reorganizing.

  Eddy proposed starting his attack on Bitburg on the sixth. I told him he must attack on the fourth. He complained very bitterly that I never appreciated time and space factors. I told him that, had I done so with him or any other corps commander, we would still be west of the Seine River.

  After talking with Eddy, I called the Twelfth Army Group to see if I could get the 9th Armored Division and an infantry division to relieve the 17th Airborne, which was low in strength. When General Allen called back, he not only told me I could get nothing, but could not make any move until I got further orders. As a result of this, I had to tell Eddy to stop his plans for attacking on the fourth of February.

  I drove to Thionville, had lunch with the XX Corps, and then visited the 94th Division, where I talked very plainly to the Division Commander because the non-battle casualties in that division were the highest in the Army, as were also the prisoners of war the division had lost. I had all the officers, and as many non-commissioned officers and privates as possible, assembled, and repeated my statements to them, telling them frankly that they had lost too many prisoners and must correct the poor impression the division had given.

  On returning to Headquarters, I had a message from Bradley that we were to lose the 95th Division to the Ninth Army. As usual I kicked, but was informed that the order came from the Combined Chiefs of Staff in Washington. He also told me to be at Spa, in Belgium, the next day for an Army conference relative to a new attack.

  On the second of February, Colonel Harkins, Codman, and I drove to Spa via Bastogne and Houffalize. The latter town was very completely removed, even more so than St. Vith.

  Spa is a watering-place which, in 1918, was Hindenburg’s Headquarters; the Headquarters of our First Army occupied the same room. From the windows of this office one could see the lake around which the Kaiser walked while waiting for Hindenburg to decide whether or not the war could be continued.

  At the meeting we were informed that General Eisenhower had been directed by the Combined Chiefs of Staff to assign the Ninth Army to the British Twenty-First Army Group, all under Montgomery. Could this be an attempt on the part of General Marshall to secure the services of the fourteen British divisions which had been doing very little for some time?

  The purpose of the attack was alleged to be the securing of a large stretch of the Rhine River, so that, in the event of Germany collapsing, we could get across quickly.

  I believed at the time that, since the British attack could not start until the tenth of February, the attack of the First and Third Armies then under way would go farther and faster. As a sop to our pride, we were told that we could continue to attack until the tenth and thereafter, providing casualties and ammunition expenditure were not excessive.

  I heard also that the Sixth Army Group would not take over the Moselle—Saar Triangle. As a matter of fact, one of the luckiest things that ever happened to me was the failure of the Sixth Army Group to do this, because through the retention of the Moselle—Saar Triangle, the Third Army was subsequently able to capture Trier and start the attack through the Palatinate. At the time, however, I was very bitter. This is another example of the many I have encountered in life where great disappointments have proved to be the road to future successes.

  We were all much upset because we felt it ignoble for the American armies to finish the war on the defensive. Another point which made us angry was the information that SHAEF was collecting a theatre reserve. This seemed like locking the barn door after the' horse was stolen. Certainly at this period of the war no reserve was needed—simply violent attacks everywhere with everything.

  On the third, I had all corps commanders in to discuss how we could continue the attack. General Middleton stated that, while he was reluctant to lose the 95th Division to the Ninth Army, he still believed he could attack with the three infantry divisions he had left, particularly in view of the fact that the road conditions in his area were so bad that the maintenance of the 95th Division was becoming a serious problem. In view of this, Eddy could still make his Bitburg attack, so I told him to jump off on the night of February 6-7.

  All that happened as a result of the Spa conference was the loss of two days in the time of starting the attack. My plans were based on the assumption that the Germans were not in a position to make a serious counterattack. This proved to be correct.

  I attempted also, without success, to secure the 9th or 10th Armored Division in order to permit the XX Corps to clean up the Saar—Moselle Triangle.

  On the fourth, I visited the hospitals and found a surprisingly small number of wounded, but did run on to three self-inflicted wounds: two shot through the left foot and one through the left hand. It is my experience that any time a soldier is shot through either of these extremities there is a high probability that the wound is self-inflicted. I got out an order that, from then on, soldiers so wounded would be tried, first for carelessness, and then for self-inflicted wounds. It is almost impossible to convict a man for self-inflicted wounds, but it is easy to convict him for carelessness, for which he can get up to six months. After the soldiers had thought this over for about two months, they began to get their friends to shoot them; however, since the friends were frequently inaccurate and took off too many toes, the practice was never highly developed.

  As I was trying to keep the impending Bitburg offensive a secret so it would not be stopped from above, I was quite perturbed when I received a telephone call directing me to report to General Eisenhower at Bastogne. When I got there, I was relieved to find it was simply a photographic mission, so to speak. It was rather amusing, though perhaps not flattering, to note that General Eisenhower never mentioned the Bastogne offensive, although this was the first time I had seen him since the nineteenth df December, when he seemed much pleased to have me at the critical point.

  This meeting was momentous in one respect, namely, that of relieving a corps commander. General Bradley stated that Middleton should go back to the First Army, as he had come from it. I stated that I preferred to keep Middleton rather than Millikin, because, while Millikin had done a good job in the Bastogne offensive, he was inexperienced as compared to Middleton. General Eisenhower told me I could keep Middleton. All during the meeting I kept thinking about Nelson the night before the attack on Calvi in Corsica, when he had discovered the French were twice as numerous as he thought they were, but failed to report it to his chief for fear the attack would be called off.

  On the way back from Bastogne, I drove to the Trois Vierges, the new Command Post of the VIII Corps. Their attack was going better than had been expected. The 4th Division was only three kilometers from Prum. This was the night that the 11th Armored Division was supposed to attack past the 4th Infantry to take the high ground east of the river, and failed to do so.

  I awoke at 0300 on the morning of the sixth with the complete plan for a break-through by the Vm and XII Corps in my head, and the conviction that, when this break-through took place, we could use two, and possibly three, armored divisions for a re-enacting of the Brest Peninsula campaign. Whether these tactical thoughts of mine are the result of inspiration or insomnia, I have never been able to determine, but nearly every tactical idea I have ever had has come into my head full-bom, much after the manner of Minerva from the head of Jupiter.

  General Eddy came in, full of confidence as to the success of his opening attack.

  The 5th Division jumped off on the morning of the seventh at 0100 and crossed the Sauer River. Due to the rapid current and flood conditions, there were a great many boat casualties and probably more than sixty men drowned.

  One combat team of the 76th Division (417th, commanded by Colonel George E. Bruner), attacking on the right of the 5th Infantry Division, did a better job than the 5th in getting across the river because they did not realize how
dangerous it was. After they got across, they did very little for about three days—probably recovering from the shock of their own heroism.

  ^ The 80th Division, attacking west of Wallensdorf, which is west of the junction of the Our and Sauer Rivers, had less difficulty and succeeded in getting two battalions across. In this case an artillery preparation of thirty minutes was used and the attack took place just at dawn.

  The crossing of the three divisions over these rivers was a magnificent feat of arms. The rivers were in flood to such an extent that the barbed wire along the Siegfried Line, which abutted on the rivers, was under water, and, when the men disembarked from the boats, they were caught in it. The whole hillside was covered with German pillboxes and barbed wire. A civilian observer told me afterward that he did not see how human beings could be brave enough to succeed in such an attack. Actually the audacity of the attack and the strength of the position materially aided in our success. However, weather conditions made progress at the time seem unnecessarily slow and both Eddy and I were considerably perturbed.

  The remaining Corps (XX) of the Army did nothing of importance on this day.

  In the afternoon I visited the section of the Moselle River covered by the 2d Cavalry Group under Colonel Hank Reed (Charles H. Reed) and was very much pleased with the methods he had used on this line. We succeeded in getting up on the bank and could look right down into the German positions at a surprisingly short range. In fact, not being used to such immediate , proximity to the enemy, I was worried. However, no one fired at us.

  The situation on the eighth had not improved. We still did not have a single bridge over either the Our or the Sauer River and the attack was very sticky. I made an unsuccessful attempt to delay the withdrawal of the 17th Airborne Division. I believe that a good deal of my success and a great deal of my unpopularity is due to the fact that I fought every order to take troops away from me, and frequently succeeded in holding on to them or in getting others to replace them.

  The situation in the VIII Corps got so bad that Middleton suggested stopping the attack, but I told him to go ahead and take Prum, then I would try to supply him along the so-called “Skyline Drive.”1 This was under direct fire by the Germans, but I believed we could use it at night. We subsequently did.

  General Muller (G-4) was making herculean efforts to get the railway running in the vicinity of St. Vith. We had to replace the 17th Airborne Division in the III Corps with two untried engineer battalions, so I visited Millikin to see how he was going to handle the situation, and found his solution entirely satisfactory.

  1National Route 16—running north from Diekirch to St. Vith.

  On the ninth, I drove via Wiltz to the Trois Vierges to see Middleton. The road situation beggared description, but Middleton, with his usual tenacity, was doing his damnedest to get things moving.

  General Keyes1 arrived for a few days’ leave. He had been fighting continuously since the tenth of July, 1943, so when he got a leave, instead of going to a quiet sector to rest, he came to visit me to see more war.

  On the tenth, Bradley called up to ask me how soon I could go on the defensive. I told him I was the oldest leader in age and in combat experience in the United States Army in Europe, and that if I had to go on the defensive I would ask to be relieved. He stated I owed too much to the troops and would have to stay on. I replied that a great deal was owed to me, and unless I could continue attacking I would have to be relieved. I further suggested that it would be a good thing if some of his Staff visited the front to find out how the other half lived. Bradley himself came up a great deal, but his Staff did not. He referred to Montgomery’s attack, using the Ninth Army, as the biggest mistake SHAEF had yet made. I was not sure it was the biggest, because I had always felt that that was made when General Eisenhower turned the First Army north to help Montgomery, toward the end of August, and, as a result, the supplies to the Third Army stopped.

  On the eleventh, the situation in the Vm Corps got so bad that General Weyland arranged to drop supplies to the 87th and 4th Infantry Divisions by air when and if it became necessary.

  Also, the two engineer battalions which were guarding the old III Corps front (the III Corps had gone to the First Army at that date) were withdrawn, so I told Middleton, who had taken over that portion of the front, that, if necessary, he was to dismount elements of the 6th Armored Division and use them as infantry, but that he must hold the bridge over the Our River which that division had just secured.

  1Lieutenant General Geoffrey Keyes was Deputy Commander under General Patton in the Western Task Force and Seventh Army. He commanded a provisional corps in Sicily and left the Seventh Army to command the II Corps in Italy. He later commanded the Fifth, Seventh, and Third Armies.

  The XII Corps, on the other hand, finally got bridges across the Our and Sauer Rivers and was making good progress.

  On the twelfth, General Keyes and I drove to the VIII Corps via Arlon, Bastogne, and Wiltz, passing through the forest which we had attacked so heavily with artillery during the Bastogne operation. The effect of the use of proximity fuse on the forest was very remarkable. You could see the exact angle of impact of all the projectiles, which had burst about thirty feet above the highest treetops. After bursting, they cut the trees at an angle of about forty degrees down near the ground. However, it seemed to me then, and was later brought out by a talk with General Grow, that, in heavy woods, the proximity fuse is not efficient, as the timber absorbs the fragments. For such woods the delayed-action fuse, which bursts only on hitting heavy trees close to the ground, is preferable. One continues to learn about war by practicing war.

  We also passed hundreds of dead horses from German artillery and transport teams, and a great many human bodies. There were several Royal Tiger Tanks along the road which seemed to have been abandoned by their crews and blown up. We inspected several of these.

  The road from Trois Vierges to St. Vith was actually impassable to vehicles, but everybody in the VIII Corps not actually fighting was engaged in corduroying it. This was done by laying stringers lengthwise along the road about four feet apart, then spiking cross-pieces on them. The engineers did a remarkable job, as they always did.

  The weather was so bad that I gave General Eddy permission to stop the attack, which immediately induced him to attack more vigorously. Such is the nature of man.

  During the whole of the Bastogne operation, I spent five or six hours almost every day in an open car and had practically no trouble. I never had a cold, and my face, though sometimes slightly blistered, did not hurt me much nor did I wear very heavy clothes. I did, however, have a blanket around my legs, which was exceedingly valuable

  in keeping me from freezing. Codman and Stiller, who sat in the back seat, suffered a great deal more than I did.

  On the thirteenth, the Troop Carrier Command (commanded by Major General P. L. Williams) dropped ammunition and supplies from eighty-three planes to the 4th and 87th Divisions.

  Eddy and I crossed the Sauer River in the area of the 5th Division, and then drove along the northeastern bank in a peep, which we found on the far side. I think this is the origin of the story of my swimming the river. We crossed on a partly submerged assault bridge under a smoke screen, so, when we arrived on the far side, an excited soldier could believe that we had swum. Neither of us did. However, crossing the assault bridge in the smoke, where we could not see more than a foot, ahead and there were no guard rails, was a very interesting operation. The men were glad to see us.

  There were quite a number of pillboxes on the far side of the river. One, I remember, was camouflaged like a bam, and a wooden bam at that. When you opened the door through which the hay was supposed to be put, you came to a concrete wall nine feet thick with an 88 mm. gun sticking out. Another was completely built inside an old house, the outer walls of which were knocked down when it became necessary for the pillbox to go into action. The amazing thing about all these defenses is that they produced no results.

&
nbsp; During the course of these operations, the 90th Division alone put out one hundred and twenty pillboxes in about forty-eight hours, with the loss of less than one hundred and twenty men. This feat was accomplished by careful reconnaissance, then smothering the embrasures with machine-gun and rifle fire, and using dynamite charges against the back door, or else by using self-propelled 155 mm. guns at short range. At three hundred yards the 155 shell will remove a pillbox for every round fired.

  In the initial assault across the Sauer, we had guns on our bank firing at the enemy pillboxes across the river at ranges of from four hundred to six hundred yards. Without their assistance, the crossing would probably have been less successful.

  Captain Krass, a noted German counter-attack artist and head of what was called Krass’s Circus, walked in and surrendered to one of our divisions. He gave his name and said he had done his best to make himself well known to the Americans. When asked why he surrendered, he said he had done all a man could do, had received all the medals for valor issued by the German Army, and was not a fool. Therefore, he proposed to live so he could teach after the war—presumably how to fight the next one.

  155 mm. Self-propelled Gun

  On the fourteenth, the Troop Carrier Command made a second drop with 103 plane-loads of supplies for the 4th and 87th Infantry Divisions. For the next few days things were fairly slow.

  On the nineteenth, I wrote General Bradley a letter saying that all the United States troops except the Third Army were doing nothing at all, and that while I was still attacking, I could do better with more divisions. I asked for from one to three additional. I believe this is the only letter I ever wrote for the record, but I felt very keenly at that time that history would criticize us for not having been more energetic.