After nine days of slaughter, the airborne units were ordered to save themselves if they could. Of the original force of ten thousand men, only about two thousand escaped, some by swimming the wide expanse of the Rhine. The rest were killed or taken prisoners.
The setback of Market Garden proved that the German armies, instead of deteriorating after their hard knocks in Normandy and in southern France, were still capable of mounting a surprisingly strong resistance to Allied advances. Still, the Allied generals were obsessed by their desire to bring the war to a quick end, to finish off the Wehrmacht and be in Berlin by Christmas. Their overconfidence that Allied troops could bring this about led to another horrific bloodletting.
This was the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest. A dense tangle of woods, ridges and ravines south of the German city of Aachen, it lay in the way of the plans being developed by Eisenhower, Bradley, Courtney Hodges and their staffs. They had decided that the quickest way for a breakthrough into the Ruhr industrial sector lay in the relatively flat terrain of the Aachen valley, where armor could roll in full force. They saw the forest as a double obstacle. German troops hidden there could spring a flank attack on the Ruhrward push. Also, they could open dam gates on the forest's streams to flood the valley and any Allied armor in it. Hürtgen Forest, the Allied commanders decided, must be taken.
Believing in the power of their troops to overcome weakened Nazi garrisons, the generals were sure the Hürtgen threat could be overcome in a matter of days. The taking required more than a month—a month in which division after division was fed into the German meat chopper. U.S. general James Gavin reported later that American casualties amounted to thirty-three thousand men—twenty-four thousand battle casualties and nine thousand cases of trench foot and respiratory diseases resulting from the miserable weather. Hardly mentioned, barely remembered, the battle nonetheless chewed up more men by far than Market Garden, with little more to show for their sacrifice.
The failure to open the port of Antwerp, the defeat at Arnhem and the grim details of the Hürtgen Forest offense were major contributors to the deceleration of the Allied drive toward Germany. Stung by Arnhem, Monty reverted to his usual caution and stopped to recuperate. The U.S. First Army captured the German city of Aachen but then came up against what Ultra decrypts recognized as two reinforced panzer divisions and settled into a stalemate. In the south, Patton's gasoline-starved armor was frustrated by its inability to subdue the stubborn fortress at Metz. Any hope of ending the war that winter evaporated.
And after being duped time and again by Allied deceptions, Hitler was about to have his turn.
The Bulge: When Ultra Missed the Main Point
On a bitterly cold night in late December 1944, my group of "cryptographers" sat over the dregs of our coffee at Hall Place in Bexley, Kent. We had finished our evening shift and our midnight snack. Our mood was one of despair, for we had just learned the news of what was to become known as the Battle of the Bulge. The German counteroffensive through the Ardennes forest had come as a stunning surprise. The lines of raw, newly arrived, half-trained GIs, and of battle-weary troops sent there for R and R, spread out over too wide a front, were being overrun by giant panzer tanks and waves of German infantry.
Our question was, how could this be happening? How had the Allies been caught so completely off guard? How, if Station X was breaking these endless streams of code we were so diligently processing, could some message have failed to warn of this vicious counterstrike by the Germans? Was our whole war effort an empty charade? Were those masses of message forms we'd intercepted and processed just piling up in some Limey warehouse hopefully awaiting the day when someone somehow would find the key to them?
Never had the limitations of the "need to know" been so galling to us, so frustrating. We longed to hear that the work we were doing, this activity in lieu of bleeding and dying, did make some worthwhile contribution, did have some meaning. Reassurance seemed essential if we were to pick ourselves up on the morrow and continue to do our job.
But we were common soldiers, below that broad dividing line of the military caste system separating enlisted men from officers, the system that ruled that we were there merely to do and not to know. There was nothing for it but to overcome our doubts, crawl into our frigid bunks and get the sleep that would let us, out of deference to those poor guys across there on the continent, keep plugging away with the same care as before.
Most of us didn't learn the truth until years later, until the walls of secrecy came tumbling down.
It may have been, we learned, that the Germans had become aware that their Enigma systems had been compromised. As a result, Hitler directed that none of his orders, or those of his generals, relating to his surprise attack were to be sent by wireless. A counterintelligence report prepared by SHAEF in November 1944 stated that a Dutchman, Christiann Antonius Lindemans, recruited as an agent by the German secret service, had wormed his way into the confidence of Dutch authorities and betrayed both the Allied plans for the Arnhem landings and the secrets of Ultra. Lindemans's disclosures, the report asserted, convinced the Germans to limit their use of the Enigma, even though the task of completely replacing its far-flung dispersion could only partially be met by the end of the war.
Whatever the truth of the Lindemans story, the Germans achieved a definite drop-off in the volume of Enigma traffic. BP decrypted messages ordering units to avoid the use of radio. Selmer Norland has recalled seeing a message that read, "Fuer Alle SS Einheiten funkstille" or "For all SS units, radio silence." Winterbotham has told of orders being delivered to the front "by hand by motor-cyclists."
This decline in traffic was in itself viewed by BP analysts as a warning of something big brewing. Norland recognized the importance of the SS message: "It was what we called a five-Zed message, five Zs for 'top priority.' It was a clear indicator of what was going to happen."
Hinsley's history has detailed scores of messages portending a major action by the Germans. As early as August, Baron Oshima was reporting on a "very thorough" mobilization by which Hitler was expecting to form 110 to 125 new divisions and to rebuild the German air force so that it would be able to stand up to the Allies. In September, Oshima used his Magic machine to tell of his latest interview with Hitler, in which the führer confided that a million new troops were ready, together with units withdrawn from other fronts, to undertake a great offensive in the West.
Enigma decrypts showed panzer divisions being withdrawn east of the Rhine for rest and refitting. Their places in the defensive line were taken by new "Volksgrenadier" divisions made up of reassigned air force and navy troops, overage men and Hitler Youth teenagers. Other decrypts revealed the formation of a new Sixth Army and of the reorganization of the Fifth Panzer Army. Decoded railway Enigma messages reported train after train of men and supplies being conveyed to the western front. Luftwaffe decrypts told of Goring energetically gathering together aircraft to replace the close-support operations that had been all but eliminated during the fighting in Normandy, and of preparing the new formations for a "lightning blow."
BP analysts noted the skillful resistance against the Allies being conducted by Rundstedt and wondered, in view of this sensible use of the army, whether Hitler might be "unwell," allowing Rundstedt to function "without higher intuition."
Available at Britain's Public Record Office is Bletchley Park's own twenty-seven-page analysis of what went wrong, written as the crisis was ending. Having by then substantiated "Source" rather than Boniface as the supplier of its information, BP said in its summary, "Source gave clear warning that a counteroffensive was coming. He also gave warning, though at short notice, of when it was coming." The trouble was that "he did not give by any means unmistakable indications of where it was coming, nor . . . of its full scale."
There was the catch. Because of "new and elaborate deceptions staged by German security," the word Ardennes never appeared in the decrypts. Although the Ardennes was where Hitler had achieved his gre
at success in 1940, it was now in 1944 regarded as the least likely point of a German attack.
As Hinsley observed, the generals of both the Allied and German armies agreed what the Germans should do in the waning months of 1944. They should husband their depleted forces to wage a stubborn withdrawal west of the Rhine and then use that great natural barrier for a last-ditch stand to protect the Reich. They lacked the troops, ammunition and fuel for a counteroffensive other than a minor "spoiling" action to blunt the coming Allied advances.
All of this sensible military prognosis figured without Hitler. Living more and more in his fantasy world, he refused to accept the reports of inadequate resources. As the Allies thinned out their Ardennes defense lines to strengthen their offensives north and south, he saw the opportunity for another grand coup. He would confuse any spies of Allied intelligence by giving his armies new names: the Fifth would become the "Gruppe von Manteuffel," after a young and able general whom Hitler trusted, while the Sixth would be designated, in English translation, the "Rest and Refitting Staff 16." He would further befuddle observers by shifting his troops back and forth across the entry to the Ardennes, moving three divisions one way and two back while holding the extra one for the offensive's buildup. Then, with his Volksgrenadier divisions holding the line, his Fifth and Sixth Panzer Armies would file through to launch the attack.
His delusional idea was that his panzers would smash through the weak American lines, turn north into Belgium, drive to Antwerp, split off the British divisions in the north, force them into another Dunkirk and so dishearten the British people—who were already suffering the demoralizing effects of the V-2 rockets being rained on England—that they would drop out of the war.
Hitler's generals, knowing they were far short of the men and materiel to carry out so grandiose a scheme, tried to persuade him to accept a lesser plan such as a drive toward Liege that stood a chance of encircling large numbers of British troops. He remained adamant. They must carry out the counteroffensive exactly as he had envisioned it.
Despite the partial wireless blackout, the codebreakers at Bletchley Park knew a great deal about these developments. Decrypts told of Luftwaffe pilot aircraft being brought up to guide fighters and fighter-bombers to their targets, as well as the pulling together of a paratroop division. The formation of Volksgrenadier divisions and their dispatch to the front were also amply reported. BP read Hitler's orders for a special operation to be made up of volunteers fluent in English and American idioms and for "captured U.S. clothing, equipment, weapons and vehicles" to be collected for these troops.
All that was missing was where these forces would head once the offensive began.
Partly, Hitler succeeded because he kept his secret even from his own generals for so long. Not until November did Rundstedt and the other top officers learn of the plan. The lower-echelon generals were given only a few days' notice, so short a time that they could not do adequate planning.
Tragically, the earlier tip-offs by Ultra and Magic had bred among Allied commanders a dependence on their output. Without having German plans and intentions verified by the codebreakers, Allied leaders discounted warnings from other sources. From the Ardennes sector came GI reports of hearing the muffled roar of powerful engines, POWs' confessions that a great attack was in the offing and local residents' accounts of seeing armor and men massed behind the front. All was ignored. As the BP analysis put it, "There is a risk of relying too much on Source. His very successes in the past constituted a danger."
Allied commanders were so convinced the war was in its midwinter doldrums that when the blow fell Montgomery was playing golf in Belgium and had received Eisenhower's permission to go back to England to celebrate Christmas with his family. Eisenhower was attending his valet's wedding, and other officers were on R and R in Paris. While some Allied intelligence officers expressed concern about the buildup, none felt sure enough to counter their generals' prevailing expectations.
Before dawn on December 16, the area that German messages had referred to as "the quiet sector" erupted. Artillery blasted the green or tired GIs crouched in their frozen foxholes. Searchlights bouncing their beams off low-lying clouds provided light for the "storm battalions," made up of the most battle-experienced officers and men, to infiltrate the American lines. A special operation of English-speaking Germans, dressed in U.S. uniforms and driving jeeps, slipped through to create confusion and near panic among the rear echelons. The big tanks of the Sixth Panzer Army, followed by those of the Fifth, rolled over the defenders. SS troops once again followed the fighting legions to perpetrate such atrocities as the massacre of American prisoners at Malmédy.
Hitler's new version of an Ardennes surprise had its moment of success. But in the end the counteroffensive went as his generals had predicted. The Germans simply lacked the strength to push through to Antwerp. Even though the American troops' shock was great, they put up a defense stubborn enough to throw the offensive off schedule on its very first day. The Germans' drive to capture Allied fuel dumps to replenish their fast-waning supplies came within a quarter mile of the huge reserve at Stavelot in Belgium but could advance no closer. Similarly, the push to gain control of the road and communications hub of Bastogne and make the Americans there surrender was frustrated. The Germans sent to negotiate the capitulation received General Anthony McAuliffe's famous single-word reply, "Nuts," which had to be translated for the Germans as "Go to hell." When the bad weather ended, the GAF's efforts to support the army were overwhelmed by masses of Allied planes swarming over the German columns. As soon as the drive started and full use of wireless was resumed, BP was decoding every phase of the attack. According to Hinsley, "Thanks to the exceptionally prompt decryption of copious high-grade Sigint, the Allies encountered no surprises once they had overcome the initial shock." Eisenhower and his generals, reading the German commands' operational and reconnaissance orders for each day, knew when the Sixth Panzer Army changed its course from trying to reach Antwerp to trying to take Liege, when the Luftwaffe reached its peak and began its precipitous decline and when the attack finally stalled.
Hitler's dream soon became a nightmare. Pummeled by Allied aircraft, pounded from the south by Patton's divisions and from the north by Americans temporarily assigned to Montgomery, hamstrung by Hitler's refusal to countenance withdrawals, the German armies suffered losses far greater than those of the Allies.
Bradley later wrote in his memoir that he and other U.S. generals foresaw, as GIs grimly slowed down the German drive, the opportunity to turn from defensive to offensive operations and cut the German salient at the waist, entrapping the fuel-starved German armies. But as at Falaise, Montgomery foiled the plan by having to "tidy up" his lines before launching his attack, a full five days after Patton had begun his assault. Monty's caution, combined with foul weather that held up both offensives, permitted the bulk of German forces and equipment to escape.
Nevertheless, the battle left the Wehrmacht badly wounded. As Churchill summed up, "This was the final German offensive of the war. It cost us no little anxiety and postponed our own advance, but we benefited in the end. The Germans could not replace their losses, and our subsequent battles on the Rhine, though severe, were undoubtedly eased."
Rundstedt, who never favored the offensive and left much of its conduct to subordinate commanders, called it "Stalingrad No. 2."
Montgomery gave the final benediction, in a blessed reversal of his earlier opinions: "The battle of the Ardennes was won primarily by the staunch fighting qualities of the American soldier."
And all those years after, we in whom the Bulge had planted seeds of doubt were assured that our efforts had not been in vain.
18
Closing In on the Empire
As the Japanese were forced to surrender island after island, further rich treasures in captured documents fell into Allied hands. They included codebooks, copies of strategic plans, and manuals relating to such equipment as radar and underwater sonar gear.
On Makin the captures amounted to basketfuls; on Kwajalein they rose to more than a ton; on Saipan they soared to more than fifty tons. This tremendous inflow pressed new cadres of translators back at Pearl Harbor and in Australia to the limit.
One especially useful trove of information came in a single recovered briefcase. On the night of March 31, 1943, Admirals Mineichi Koga and Shigeru Fukudome were inspecting defenses in the Palau islands. When a patrol plane reported, mistakenly as it turned out, that a U.S. fleet was approaching, the two admirals decided to leave for a safe haven at Davao, in the Philippines. They took off in planes that became separated from each other in a storm. The plane bearing Koga, commander in chief of Japan's Combined Fleet, was never seen again. When strong head winds made Fukudome's plane run short of fuel it made a crash landing off the Philippine island of Cebu. The admiral survived by clinging to a seat cushion for eight and a half hours. He was rescued, but not by Japanese troops. His captors were native fishermen loyal to Allied guerrillas on the island. All this time Fukudome had held on to his briefcase, which the fishermen recovered and turned over to the guerrillas. Soon an American submarine was carrying it to the Allied Translation and Interpretation Section in Melbourne. The contents included Koga's Decisive Battle plan for the approaching phase of the war as well as a highly informative study of carrier fleet operations.
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