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

  Two generations later, Yalta can be seen: Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945, 519, 533 (“military and political glacis”); Forrest C. Pogue, “Yalta in Retrospect,” in Snell, ed., The Meaning of Yalta, 191; Plokhy, Yalta, 228, 287, 401 (“saved two million Americans”). James MacGregor Burns later wrote that Roosevelt had “reached the limit of his bargaining power” (“FDR: The Untold Story of His Last Year,” Saturday Review [Apr. 11, 1970]: 12+).

  War had held the Big Three together: Addison, Churchill, the Unexpected Hero, 200 (met on nine occasions); transcript, 992nd press conference, Quincy, Feb. 23, 1945, Anna Roosevelt Halsted papers, FDR Lib, box 84 (“mid-Victorian”); Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran, 245 (“seems to upset him”); Eden, The Reckoning, 593 (“dependent upon the United States”).

  “We have moved a long way”: Hastings, Winston’s War, 459; Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, 401 (“a world of imponderables”).

  “The Americans pitch their song”: Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran, 249.

  “Only Our Eyes Are Alive”

  From the Swiss border: Bonn, When the Odds Were Even, 177–78 (“Stay Alive”); L. D. Docken, “My Recollections of the Battle of Phillipsburg in Jan. 1945,” 1981, NARA RG 319, RR background files, FRC 5 (“My mind is absolutely stripped”).

  The harshest winter in decades: Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 21 (“tuning forks”); Blunt, Foot Soldier, 122 (“block of ice”); Fussell, Doing Battle, 130 (“hands in the crotch”); Murphy, To Hell and Back, 233 (patches of hair); Blair, Ridgway’s Paratroopers, 424 (igloos); Blue Spaders, 117 (quarter-pound TNT block); Fussell, The Boys’ Crusade, 41 (“Austin White, Chicago, Ill.”).

  A SHAEF plan to cut one million cords: LSA, vol. 2, 213; 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; OH, Philip Carlquist, 1978, Emory University, http://sage.library.emory.edu/collection-0608.html; Cowdrey, Fighting for Life, 278 (Sled dogs).

  “To date, I’ve slept”: Richard Henry Byers, “Battle of the Bulge,” 1983, a.p.

  “I tried to knock him out”: McManus, The Deadly Brotherhood, 141.

  “Everywhere we searched”: Blunt, Foot Soldier, 156.

  “Tell ’em it’s rough”: CBM, Company Commander, quoted in Ellis, On the Front Lines, 332; Wandrey, Bedpan Commando, 163 (“nice cowboy boots”); Hauser, “Shock Nurse,” Saturday Evening Post (March 10, 1945): 12+ (“their mothers can’t see them”).

  Prison-camp guards opened: memo, Theater IG to CG, Advance COMZ, Apr. 1, 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO IG, box 19; DDE to GCM, March 18, 1945, memos, NARA RG 498, ETO SGS classified gen’l corr, 383.6, box 51 (“I certainly loathe”).

  “Will you tell me what the hell”: Heinz, When We Were One, 231; memoir, Ralph M. Morales, 254th Inf, 1964, NARA RG 319, RR background files, FRC 4 (“a thousand deaths”); L. D. Docken, “My Recollections of a Raiding Party into Lixing, Feb. 1945,” n.d., NARA RG 319, RR background files, FRC 5 (“Things didn’t go exactly as planned”); Fussell, Doing Battle, 140 (“accident and contingency”).

  “How hard I have become”: Vining, ed., American Diaries of World War II, 106; Blunt, Foot Soldier, 138, 86 (“I sat and ate”); Gray, The Warriors, 233–34 (“‘Tis bitter cold’”).

  A survey of four thousand GIs: “Attitudes of Soldiers in the European Theater,” Apr.–May 1945, report no. ETO 85, NARA RG 330, E 94, 6; Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 76 (“A hatred such as I have never seen”); Ellis, On the Front Lines, 286 (“The question of killing”).

  “Slowly it is beginning to dawn”: Peckham and Snyder, eds., Letters from Fighting Hoosiers, vol. 2, 165; Christen T. Jonassen, “Living Conditions in the E.T.O.,” 1987, Columbus WWII Round Table, MHI, box 1, 4 (“Screw the bastards”); Ellis, On the Front Lines, 286 (“When the Jerries come in”); Toole, Battle Diary, 57 (“Some of our best men”).

  “Their visible wish to surrender”: Fussell, Doing Battle, 124.

  “Killing is an obsession”: corr, Waldo Heinrichs, Jr., to parents, Apr. 30, 1945, MHI, box 1.

  At 7:30 A.M. on Wednesday: Huie, The Execution of Private Slovik, 22–25, 34, 60; “The Execution of Eddie Slovik,” AB, no. 32 (1981): 28+.

  Indiscipline had become a nagging worry: “Military Justice Administration in Theater of Operations,” n.d., USFET General Board study no. 83, NARA RG 407, E 427, AG WWII operations reports, 97-USF5-0.30, 1–2 (11,000 general courts-martial); desk calendar, Nov. 5, 1944, DDE Lib, Barbara Wyden papers, box 1 (“Disciplinary conditions”); memo, DDE, Dec. 13, 1944, NARA RG 331, E 1, SHAEF SGS, box 11 (“The large incidence of crimes”); Wieviorka, Normandy, 328 (“liberators have turned into looters”); “Alleged Lawlessness of American Troops in Normandy Area,” Nov. 18, 1944, NARA RG 498, ETO inspection file #40 (“fear of being accosted”); Ellis, On the Front Lines, 200 (less than one-half of one percent); memo, SHAEF G-2 to SHAEF G-1, Jan. 24, 1945, NARA RG 331, E 1, SHAEF SGS, box 11 (“a considerable percentage”). Beetle Smith subsequently complained to commanders on March 20, 1945, that “large scale looting is being practiced by both U.S. and British troops in Holland and Germany.”

  Severe punishment had a fitful deterrent effect: “The Military Offender in the Theater of Operations,” n.d., USFET General Board study no. 84, NARA RG 407, E 427, AG WWII operations reports, 97-USF5-0.30, 1–2 (“mental ages” and dishonorable discharge); “Military Justice Administration in Theater of Operations,” n.d., USFET General Board study no. 83, NARA RG 407, E 427, AG WWII operations reports, 97-USF5-0.30, 7–9.

  Four hundred and forty-three death penalties: “Normandy Executions,” AB, no. 85 (1994). At least one author subsequently claimed that fourteen thousand European women were raped by U.S. soldiers. John H. Morrow, Jr., review of J. Robert Lilly, Taken by Force, JMH (Oct. 2008): 1324. See also Davies, No Simple Victory, 339. SHAEF and Army figures suggest that the numbers, though appalling, were far lower. See AAR, 12th AG, vol. 10, NARA RG 331, E 200A, SHAEF, box 267; Ziemke, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, 1944–1946, 220; and Wieviorka, Normandy, 328.

  Seventy executions took place in Europe: corr, Theodore Wyman, Jr., to OCMH, May 5, 1954, NARA RG 319, E 97, LSA, vol. 1, background files, box 4,14; Lilly, “U.S. Military Executions,” AB, no. 90 (1995): 50+; “Normandy Executions,” AB, no. 85 (1994) (“manila hemp”).

  Desertion, defined by the U.S. military: “The Execution of Eddie Slovik,” AB, no. 32 (1981): 28+; Laffin, Combat Surgeons, 197–98 (more than three thousand death sentences).

  The German military issued: Geoffrey P. Megargee, World War II panel, SMH conference, May 22, 2004, Bethesda, Md.; Rush, Hell in Hürtgen Forest, 336; Horst Boog, “Invasion to Surrender: The Defense of Germany,” in Brower, ed., World War II in Europe: The Final Year, 129. Boog estimates that “somewhat less than half” of the fifty thousand condemned were executed.

  Twenty-one thousand soldiers would desert: DOB, 508; Fussell, The Boys’ Crusade, 108 (less than half had been caught).

  Of nearly two thousand deserters convicted in Europe: “Military Justice Administration in Theater of Operations,” n.d., USFET General Board study no. 83, NARA RG 407, E 427, AG WWII operations reports, 97-USF5-0.30, 4. Several dozen others were condemned for mutiny, sedition, or misbehavior before the enemy, i.e., fleeing from battle.

  since 1864: Huie, The Execution of Private Slovik, 146.

  Slovik was arrested in October: ibid., 121–22, 150–51 (“in a little trouble”), 174, 179–80; Carroll, “A Deserter Begs Eisenhower to Spare His Life,” World War II (Jan.–Feb. 2012): 21+ (“How can I tell you”); Morgan, Eisenhower Was My Boss, 134 (“Hanging Hour”); “The Execution of Eddie Slovik,” AB, no. 32 (1981): 28+.

  The MP guards had lost the handcuff key: Huie, The Execution of Private Slovik, 203–11, 217–21, 227.

  Gray overcast roofed the garden: “The Execution of Eddie Slovik,” AB, no. 32 (1981):
28+; Miller, Division Commander, 160–62. In a letter to author William Bradford Huie in 1953, General Cota said, “I regret that Private Slovik had to be a product of our replacement system. This was a cruel system … and I never liked it.” Corr, Dec. 13, 1953, Norman D. Cota papers, DDE Lib, 201 file, box 1.

  A priest anointed the body: L. R. Talbot, “Graves Registration in the European Theater of Operations,” 1955, chapter 26 PIR, MHI; Lilly, “U.S. Military Executions,” AB, no. 90 (1995): 50+.

  “the one sore on the whole front”: diary, JLD, Jan. 27, 1945, MHI; Tedder, With Prejudice, 657 (“we must get cleaned up”).

  In this he would be further frustrated: RR, 533, 538 (Iron Cross); OH, 3rd ID, Colmar Pocket, RG 407, E 427-A, CI, 270/65/5/1, folder 26 (converted into fortresses); MEB, “The Colmar Pockets, 20 Jan–9 Feb 45,” Oct. 1954, NARA RG 319, R-56, 11 (ten ferry sites); “Reduction of the Colmar Pocket,” Sixth AG, n.d., CARL, N-11980.3, 5 (floating contact mines).

  General Devers’s initial effort: Seaman, “Reduction of the Colmar Pocket,” Military Review (Oct. 1951): 37+; The Seventh United States Army in France and Germany, vol. 2, 627; “History of Ordnance Service in the Mediterranean Theater,” vol. 2, n.d., CMH, 8-4 JA, 196–97; Turner and Jackson, Destination Berchtesgaden, 120–21; De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 345–48 (“polished ice terrain”); memo, Reuben E. Jenkins to JLD, Feb. 24, 1947, Jenkins papers, MHI, box 1 (French II Corps); Yeide and Stout, First to the Rhine, 307 (“Elsass bleibt deutsch”).

  “Having gained surprise”: diary, JLD, Jan. 24–26, 1945, and Feb. 1, 1945 (“he would be shot”), MHI; RR, 537 (“willingness to go all out”); OH, Henry Cabot Lodge, Aug. 16, 1973, Thomas E. Griess, JLD, YCHT, box 94, 11–12 (“Goddamn it!”); Tedder, With Prejudice, 657 (“let down by the French”).

  American units had their own difficulties: The Seventh United States Army in France and Germany, vol. 2, 629 (“exhausted and depleted”); William A. Sutton, “Operation Grandslam, 30th Regiment,” 3rd ID, June 2, 1945, Seventh Army Combat Narratives, MHI, 5 (improvised nightshirts), 38 (“Civil War days”); Taggart, ed., History of the Third Infantry Division, 305–9 (350 men); Even, The Tenth Engineers, 45 (Maison Rouge); Melvin J. Lasky, “La Maison Rouge,” March 3, 1945, Seventh Army Combat Narratives, MHI, 2–28 (“flight and panic”); RR, 544–47; memoir, James T. Cooper, 30th Inf, ts, n.d., Audie Murphy papers, USMA Arch (“rattled like paper”).

  Audie Murphy helped redeem: Simpson, Audie Murphy, American Soldier, 130–37, 153–60; Taggart, ed., History of the Third Infantry Division, 310–11; Murphy, To Hell and Back, 240–43 (“huddled like partridges”); Graham, No Name on the Bullet, 90 (“Things seemed to slow down”); De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 361 (“bravest thing”).

  At last an Allied preponderance: MEB, “The Colmar Pockets, 20 Jan–9 Feb 45,” Oct. 1954, NARA RG 319, R-56, 18–19; De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 375 (“God be praised!”); RR, 551.

  By February 5, columns from north and south: Statements collected from GIs by Army historians shortly after the battle included, “We shot the wounded Germans because we only had twenty men and couldn’t fool with them.” OH, 3rd ID, Colmar Pocket, RG 407, E 427-A, CI, 270/65/5/1, folder 26.

  A French patriot showed GIs: Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, 598–99.

  “My dear French comrades”: Seaman, “Reduction of the Colmar Pocket,” Military Review (Oct. 1951): 37+ (“national event”); De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 397; LO, 238 (corner of northeastern Alsace); memo, Reuben E. Jenkins to JLD, Feb. 24, 1947, Jenkins papers, MHI, box 1 (three times longer); Graham, No Name on the Bullet, 94 (“frozen, dead chickens”).

  Colmar had cost: De Lattre de Tassigny, The History of the French First Army, 398–99. U.S. casualties were put at eight thousand, although only five hundred killed in action (RR, 556–57).

  “sacrificed for no appreciable gain”: RR, 558. Russell F. Weigley asserts that one Volksgrenadier unit, the first evacuated across the Rhine, escaped reasonably intact (Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, 598–99).

  Pulverizing the Reich from above: Willmott, The Great Crusade, 414; Webster and Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany, vol. 3, Victory, part 5, 204 (“earthquake bomb”); Green et al., The Ordnance Department, 470–71 (only by the atomic bomb); “Tactical Air Operations in Europe,” XIX TAC, May 1945, Frederick L. Anderson papers, HIA, box 83, folder 1, 8–9 (“antipersonnel incendiary”); Miller, Masters of the Air, 4 (“horrible as possible”); “Preservation of Historical Monuments, Art Objects, etc.,” Sept. 1944; memo, DDE, June 1, 1944, NARA RG 331, E 1, SHAEF SGS, box 1 (“symbolizing to the world”); Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin, 201 (“Stonehenge”); Sebald, On the Natural History of Destruction, 47 (“lifeless life”).

  British air strategists considered: memo, L. S. Kuter to H. H. Arnold, Aug. 9, 1944, Frederick L. Anderson papers, HIA, box 96; corr, F. L. Anderson to C. A. Spaatz, Feb. 2, 1945, in “Operation ARGONAUT,” n.d., Frederick L. Anderson papers, HIA, box 95, folder 14; AAFinWWII, 724–26; Webster and Noble Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany, vol. 3, Victory, part 5, 116 (“ceases to beat”); Davis, Bombing the European Axis Powers, 490–95 (“already shaky morale”).

  Skeptics objected: THUNDERCLAP originally was planned in Aug. 1944 only to be postponed six months and revived in truncated form (Transcript, phone conversation, J. Doolittle and F. L. Anderson, Aug. 21, 1944, in “Operation Thunderclap: Attack on German Civilian Morale,” Frederick L. Anderson papers, HIA, box 96, folder 2); Ehlers, Targeting the Reich, 335 (“extremely remote”).

  “Big B is no good”: “Survey of Combat Crews in Heavy Bombardment Groups in ETO,” June 1944, Research Branch, Eighth AF, Carl A. Spaatz papers, LOC MS Div, box 18.

  “I agree the project”: DDE, marginalia on “Air Attack on German Civilian Morale,” U.K. Chief of Staff Brief and Action Report, Aug. 7, 1944, NARA RG 331, E 3, SGS conferences and briefings, box 129.

  THUNDERCLAP, as the “project”: Davis, Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe, 552–53; Davis, Bombing the European Axis Powers, 496–500, 515n; AAFinWWII, 724–26; Miller, Masters of the Air, 265 (sixth largest city).

  Even so, bombs smashed: AAFinWWII, 724–26. Among those killed was Roland Freisler, the notorious state secretary in the Reich Justice Ministry and a Wannsee Conference participant (Author visit, Wannsee Conference villa, Berlin, Sept. 30, 2009).

  “It was a sunny, beautiful morning”: “Vor Fünfzig Jahren: Ein Tagebuch,” Frankfurter Allgemeine, 1994, a.p.; Friedrich, The Fire, 352 (“people literally ripped clothes”); Miller, Masters of the Air, 478 (“deer in a storm”); Whiting, The Home Front: Germany, 144–45 (“flaming rivers”), 422–26 (120,000 Germans homeless); Anonymous, A Woman in Berlin, 5, 10 (“Only our eyes”).

  Other elaborate air missions: Davis, Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe, 571; Schaffer, “American Miltary Ethics in World War II: The Bombing of German Civilians,” Journal of American History (Sept. 1980): 318+ (“virgin areas”); Juliette Hennessy, “Tactical Operations of the Eighth Air Force,” 1952, AFHRA, historical study no. 70, 119–21, 126 (civilian will); AAFinWWII, 735 (“no morale”).

  Most infamous of the winter raids: Webster and Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany, vol. 3, Victory, part 5, 108–9; Biddle, “Dresden 1945: Reality, History, and Memory,” JMH (Apr. 2008): 413+ (uprooting trees); Arthur, Forgotten Voices of World War II, 404 (“Chimney stacks fell”); Colville, The Fringes of Power, 562–63 (“Dresden?”); “Death Toll in Second World War Dresden Bombing,” Daily Mail (U.K.), Oct. 3, 2008, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1067489/Death-toll-Second-World-War-Dresden-bombing-25-000-commission-finds.html; Germany IX, 390; Sebald, On the Natural History of Destruction, 98 (Treblinka).

  “We were put to work”: Carroll, Behind the Lines, 318–20.

  Each night and each day, bombing: Davis, Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Eur
ope, 588. The German fatality number of 406,000, calculated in 1990, included Austrians, forced laborers, and prisoners of war (Germany IX, 475–76). Max Hastings and W. G. Sebald put the number closer to 600,000. See, respectively, Armageddon, 299, and On the Natural History of Destruction, 3–4.

  Devastation scorched seventy cities: Hitchcock, The Bitter Road to Freedom, 183, 191 (“burned like torches”); Collier, Fighting Words, 180 (“a hairpin”).

  Yet still the lifeless life: Crane, Bombs, Cities & Civilians, 105 (“chimera”).

  Field Marshal Montgomery had a conqueror’s glint: The Canadian First Army offensive also became known as the Battle of the Reichswald (VW, vol. 2, 253–57; LO, 136–37).

  But no crossing could be made on the Roer: OH, 78th ID, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folders 145–149.

  The Urft fell easily: Hogan, A Command Post at War, 243; OH, 78th ID, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folders 145–149 (booby-trapped corpses); Gavin, On to Berlin, 262–63; Sylvan, 293 (forty battalions); Lightning: The History of the 78th Infantry Division, 110.

  At eight P.M. on Friday, February 9: OH, 78th ID, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folders 145–149; Sylvan, 296–97 (forty thousand U.S. shells); Mittelman, Eight Stars to Victory, 309–12; Lightning: The History of the 78th Infantry Division, 118–20; Miller, A Dark and Bloody Ground, 201 (ominous rumble); OH, 303rd Engineer Bn and 78th ID, 1945, NARA RG 407, E 427-A, CI, folders 145–149 (“tunnel under the sea”).

  But mortal wounds had already: LO, 81–82; VW, vol. 2, 264 (100 million tons).