“All that is necessary now is to take chances.”
AT THE AIRSTRIP near Omaha Beach where Patton landed,
a great many people seemed to know me and wanted to take photographs, mostly soldiers with $5.00 Leicas, but there were some professionals present whom I warned off by assuring them I was still a secret.
News of his arrival in France spread like wildfire, and Army and Navy personnel rushed to see him. He was wearing a single pistol, no brightly polished boots, no gold helmet, no Buck Rogers uniform. When his jeep was ready, he entered the vehicle, remained standing, and delivered a short, impromptu speech to quite a few men who had gathered:
I’m proud to be here to fight beside you. Now let’s cut the guts out of those Krauts and get the hell on to Berlin. And when we get to Berlin, I am going to personally shoot that paper-hanging goddammed son of a bitch just like I would a snake.
The troops cheered.
He drove along the beaches for several miles and saw the effects of the storm that had struck in the latter days of June and destroyed one of the two prefabricated harbors towed across the Channel. There was a “tremendous pile of shipping” impressive and appalling, the “terrible sight” of “hundreds of wrecked ships,” that would “certainly have shocked all honest and God-fearing taxpayers in America or England.”
Also impressive was the “character of the defensive works.” Some very strong pillboxes “had been taken by American infantry” – which “proves that good American troops can capture anything and that no beach can be defended if seriously attacked.”
This, he was sure, was due in large measure to
the psychological effect of concrete defenses on the defenders. If a man gets inside a concrete pillbox, ten feet thick, his first reaction is that: “The enemy must be very strong or I wouldn’t have to hide.” And when the line he is defending is pierced, he immediately has a creeping feeling in his spine, knowing that he is surrounded and not knowing from where an attack is coming. He must feel very much like a turtle who has been picked up on the road by small boys; and like the turtle, he is very apt to experience a fire on his back, but from a flamethrower rather than from matches.
Patton and his party drove to Bradley’s headquarters south of Isigny. He was glad to find it well forward, “within 7,000 yards of the front line.”
“Bradley could not have been more polite, and we had a long talk until supper.” Collins of the VII Corps
came in and showed his plans for an attack in the morning . . . It struck me as a well worked out plan, but I feel that Collins does go too far in telling divisions where to put their battalions. I told him this, but he does not agree. Bradley is required by [Montgomery’s] 21 Army Group to show the positions of each battalion each day. He feels, as I do, that this is stupid.
The advance elements of the Third Army headquarters debarked and were moving into a bivouac area at Nehou, near Valognes and Cherbourg. Patton spent the night with Bradley. It was
extremely noisy, possibly I had forgotten about war. In any case the tent shook practically all night from the discharge of our corps and Army guns, whose firing positions were all around us.
He later told Beatrice: “Willie did not like it at all and went out of the tent several times to have a look. As a matter of fact, so did I.”
At St. Sauveur le Vicomte he saw
a sad sight, an old feudal chateau, a very large one [which] had been nearly flattened by bombs. Too bad . . . It was a good example of a feudal defensive building.
He was in the Cotentin, sometimes called the Cherbourg peninsula, a region of vast marshy meadows, lush vegetation, tiny fields, and hedgerows everywhere.
Diary, July 7
I had lunch with Bradley, Montgomery, and DeGuingand. After lunch, Montgomery, Bradley, and I went to the war tent. Here Montgomery went to great length explaining why the British had done nothing. Caen was their D day objective, and they have not taken it yet.
He tried to get Bradley to state that the Third Army would not become operational until the VIII Corps had taken Avranches. Bradley refused to bite because he is using me as a means of getting out from under the 21 Army Group. I hope he succeeds.
Avranches seemed terribly distant.
According to Bradley, I will clear the Brest Peninsula with one corps and then be on the outer southern flank in the advance to the east, with most of the [Third] Army . . . He says ten infantry divisions. I doubt if I get that much ...
Collins and Bradley are too prone to cut off heads. This will make division commanders lose their confidence. A man should not be damned for an initial failure with a new division. Had I done this with Eddy of the 9th Division in Africa, the army would have lost a potential corps commander . . . I shall be more conservative in the removal of officers and have told the corps commanders so orally.
Letter, GSP, Jr., to Beatrice, July 8, 1944
The whole country looks very normal and quite prosperous, lots of cattle, chickens, horses, and ducks. All the fields are cultivated . . .
The sleeping truck is realy too comfortable. I fear I will get soft.
You need not get worried about me yet, but when I do start, I will, if current plans hold, have a swell chance ...
If you guess where I am, keep it dark as I am supposed to be some where else.
His toe hurt, and he thought it might be infected.
Diary, July 10
It was infected, so I had the nail pulled off after breakfast . . . It hurt like hell. I can’t wear a shoe yet.
Letter, GSP, Jr., to Beatrice, July 10, 1944
Sunday I went to a field mass. It was quite impressive. All the men with rifles and helmets, the alter the back of a jeep. Planes on combat missions flying over and the sound of the guns all the while...
There is nothing to do at the moment but be a secret weapon.
Since McNair was about to arrive in London to take Patton’s place at the head of the fictitious 1st U.S. Army Group, Eisenhower was preparing to leak a story to German intelligence – that Patton had lost that high command because of “displeasure at some of his indiscretions” and was now “reduced to Army command,” and that the main invasion to be launched by McNair’s nonexistent Army Group had been delayed by the Channel storm.
Diary, July 11
Stayed in the truck all day resting my toe.
Letter, GSP, Jr., to Beatrice, July 12, 1944
My toe is much better and I can wear a shoe.
As there is nothing I can talk about, I drew you . . . plans of the truck . . . It is quite roomy and has lots of storage space.
Diary, July 12
Neither Ike or Brad has the stuff. Ike is bound hand and foot by the British and does not know it. Poor fool. We actually have no Supreme Commander —no one who can take hold and say that this shall be done and that shall not be done. It is a very unfortunate situation to which I see no solution.
Toe nearly well. No pain.
Letter, GSP, Jr., to Beatrice, July 13, 1944
Teddy R[oosevelt] died in his sleep last night. He had made three landings with the leading wave – such is fate. I am going to the funeral tomorrow night. He was one of the bravest men I ever knew.
Diary, July 13
Saw hundreds of men of the First Army doing nothing. I issued orders that we keep a close check on our men and see that they are gainfully employed.
Visited the chateau at Bricquebec near here. It . . . is alleged to have originally belonged to one of Julius Caesar’s officers. The tower is a transition between a square keep and a round keep, having 11 sides.
Letter, Beatrice to GSP, Jr., July 14, 1944
Darling Georgie, Night before last I went to Chilly’s to dinner, and as I entered the room three people came up to me and cried: “He’s on the way – we just heard it on N.B.C., who says that Patton’s army is invading.”
I listened [to the news] at 11, then at 12, and heard the same thing, without giving any location, simply quoted as a German rumor – since then, nothing. Can you imagine? I don’t remember much about the dinner.
Diary, July 14
Went to Teddy Roosevelt’s funeral at 2100. Bradley, Hodges, Collins, Barton, Huebner, and I were pall bearers. All the photographers tried to take me so I got in the rear rank.
The funeral, which should have been impressive, was a flop. Instead of the regular funeral service, two preachers of uncertain denomination made orations which they concealed under the form of prayers. The guard of honor was held far back and in column instead of in line. Towards the end of the service, our antiaircraft guns near Coutances opened on some German planes and gave an appropriate requiem to the funeral of a really gallant man.
Brad says he will put me in as soon as he can. He could do it now with much benefit to himself, if he had any backbone. Of course, Monty does not want me as he fears I will steal the show, which I will.
Bradley asked me if I objected to the 4th Armored going in on a defensive sector. I favor it – the sooner we get troops blooded the better.
The reason why Bradley asked – and it was a courtesy to Patton’— was that American armored doctrine stressed the use of tanks in an offensive role, not in a defensive and static situation. Patton was right about blooding Wood’s division. When it went into offensive action, it would perform brilliantly.
Sometimes I get desperate over the future. Bradley and Hodges are such nothings. Their one virtue is that they get along by doing nothing. I could break through [the enemy defenses] in three days if I commanded. They try to push all along the front and have no power anywhere. All that is necessary now is to take chances by leading with armored divisions and covering their advance with air bursts. Such an attack would have to be made on a narrow sector, whereas at present we are trying to attack all along the line. I keep worrying for fear the war will be over before I get a chance to fight.
Letter, GSP, Jr., to Beatrice, July 15, 1944
Paddy [Flint] is clearly nuts but fights well...
Hap [Gay] is not a world beater but much better than many Lt Gens and far more loyal...
Willie is crazy about me and almost has a fit when I come back to camp. He snores too and is company at night? ...
Some times I think that I will go mad waiting when I know I could do a better job.
Diary, July 16
Half of July gone and no progress, but only casualties. The British are doing nothing in a big way, not even holding the German divisions in front of them, as two have left their front and come to ours.
On the morning of July 17, Patton drove to Cherbourg to meet Secretary Stimson who arrived accompanied by Lee, Surles, and Mr. Harvey Bundy. Stimson “told me not to criticize anyone, but let my actions speak for me.”
Spending most of the day with Stimson and his party, “I let Omar do most of the talking but think that none the less it was a profitable occasion.”
While Patton was out, Gay heard disturbing news. The secrecy of Bradley’s Cobra plan, which was being prepared, seemed to have been compromised. Devised to punch a hole in the enemy defenses by using the combined power of air and armor, Cobra was very hush-hush because it depended for success in large part on surprise.
William Kean, Bradley’s chief of staff, telephoned to tell Gay that the newspaper correspondents assigned to First Army had complained that they had never even heard of Cobra while the reporters at Third Army appeared to know all about it.
Gay discovered that the Third Army Public Relations Officer, despite explicit instructions, had violated orders and had briefed some of the journalists, who had apparently informed some of their colleagues at First Army.
According to Patton’s diary,
On Sunday, after the usual staff conference, we had dismissed all officers and enlisted men except the heads of the staff sections and then had Colonel Maddox explain Cobra. Gay warned all present that this was Top Secret and not to be discussed. At the close, I said, “Nothing of this is to be discussed outside this tent. You are not to mention this even to other members of your sections.”
Thus, the revelation was doubly serious, and when Patton returned to his headquarters at 9:30, Bradley called up and “was quite upset and so was I, as this is a very dangerous breach of security.” How his Public Relations Officer could have told the journalists “after such a warning is beyond me. He will have to be relieved and probably tried.”
It was 10 P.M., but Patton immediately went
to the correspondents’ camp and called them all together and told them how dangerous this slip was, and that they had violated my trust in them by divulging the fact that they had been briefed to the other correspondents who were stationed with the First Army.
According to stenographic notes, Patton said:
I don’t know whether I am more shocked or disgusted at what has happened. The transmittal to you of information on a very secret operation was a violation of orders. This is a military offense, but an offense also adheres to you because having been informed of ecret information and told that it was secret, you have violated the trust reposed in you, because within twelve hours of the time you were told, other correspondents knew that you had been so informed.
I haven’t got words to express the danger which this violation of orders and of trust may have on the lives of soldiers ...
The evil has been done, but the evil must go no further. None of you must . . . mention this thing again. I want you all to understand that. I am not threatening because it is not necessary – it is foolish to threaten – but as patriotic citizens . . . you must realize the terrible crime which has been committed.
We have tried in this Army to keep the correspondents informed. We have done it on the assumption that you would respect the trust and confidence reposed in you, yet in this case you blabbed.
The only charitable view I can take is that some of you do not realize your tremendous responsibility . . . I shall continue to trust you, but you must realize that you must not – I repeat – not, never, never, never talk about anything that you are told unless it is specifically told you that you can mention it. The information you get is for coloring, for background.
Is there anybody here who does not understand what I have just said?
All signified their understanding, a group of nearly 40 correspondents.
Patton concluded the meeting by saying:
Nothing like this can ever happen again if we are to carry on. If anybody asks you whether you have been briefed on the operation, you must stand mute. I am trusting you, gentlemen.
In his diary Patton wrote: “I do not think they divulged the plan to the other correspondents, but like little boys boasted that they knew something.”
On the following day he called the Public Relations Officer in
and asked him why he had told the correspondents about Operation Cobra. Apparently he did it from dumbness and from a misplaced sence of loyalty to me. I think he is honest but stupid. It would be unfortunate if I have to try him, but I may be forced to do so by Bradley. But I will have to relieve him – I will not do it until Cobra is over, as it might cause a leak if I did it now.
Letter, GSP, Jr., to Beatrice, July 18, 1944
I am still waiting but it cant last for ever, and I have a lot of time in which to think...
There is nothing else I can write except that Bob Grow has come and so has P. [Wood]. The clans are gathering.
Cook, the XII Corps commander, was forwarding the final Third Army units from England to France and “doing a good job.”
On July 20, in East Prussia at Hitler’s command post near Rastenberg, Colonel Count von Stauffenberg, member of a small conspiratorial group of military officers, left a bomb in a briefcase under the table where Hitler was conferring. The blast killed several staff officers but only injured the Fuehrer, whose escape from death was regarded as miraculous. The putsch – to do away with Hitler and make peace with the Western Allies – failed. Hitler gathered even more firmly into his own hands the control and direction of civilian and military affairs in Germany. The war continued.
News of the attempted assassination was quickly picked up and disseminated in the Allied camp. It must have brought a shuddering wave of terror to Patton. Was Germany at the point of collapse? Would the war last long enough for him to get into action again?
Patton was quick to ask Stimson for the “opportunity of fighting the Japanese.”
Diary, July 22
During the two hours trip I saluted 163 times, and people say that soldiers have a hard time saluting officers.
Put Jimmy Polk in command of the 3d Cavalry Group. He is 32 years old and seems awfully young, but I was a colonel at 31 in command of a much larger force.
To Beatrice: “Of course I was a Col. at 31, but I am sure I did not look so young as he does.”
When I start, I am going to employ tanks to get the show rolling. I know it can be done if we only show guts, and select one point of attack instead of being all along the front. Fear of a flank attack is an obsession. As long as you are in depth, there is no danger, and in this congested country, you have to stay in depth.
If necessary, Gaffey and I will lead the leading companies.
Letter, GSP, Jr., to Beatrice, July 22, 1944
It is three weeks yesterday since I got here and still no war. But since there is nothing to do about it but look on the bright side, it may have some advantages. The troops are getting over being gun shy and other things. [They] will be better later . . .
Raining like any thing.
The rain was holding up Cobra.
Diary, July 23
Went to see Bradley and Hodges about operations after Cobra. Simpson was there too. Cobra . . . is really a very timid operation, but Bradley and Hodges consider themselves regular devils for having thought of it. At least it is the best operation which has been planned so far, and I hope it works.
After the Cobra operation . . . Bradley has a thought that I may utilize the XIX Corps . . . for a further advance to the southwest . . .
I am sometimes appalled at the density of human beings. I am also nauseated by the fact that Hodges and Bradley state that all human virtue depends on knowing infantry tactics. I know that no general officer and practically no colonel needs to know any tactics. The tactics belong to battalion commanders. If generals knew less tactics, they would interfere less.
A battalion of the 90th Division behaved very shamefully today . . . I talked this over with Middleton and it will be necessary to relieve the present division commander and put in [Raymond] Mc-Lain and [William G.] Weaver, as they have sufficient personality to make a go of it.
Letter, GSP, Jr., to Beatrice, July 24, 1944
I am awfully fed up with waiting. A year ago we started along the north coast for Messina. God what a long interlude.
Cobra, delayed for more than a week because of the rainy weather, was an effort to use heavy or strategic bombers —. those normally employed to strike deep in the enemy rear – in direct and close support of the ground troops. Bradley designated a target area just south of the Periers-St. Lo road for the bombers. He hoped that a saturation or carpet bombing, as it was called, by more than 2000 aircraft attacking in waves for about two hours, would obliterate the German defenders. This would open a hole for Collins’ VII Corps. Three infantry divisions were to pour through the opening and press back the sides in order to allow three mobile divisions to roll through. They would head for Coutances, on the west coast of the Cotentin, and cut off the Germans opposing the VIII Corps.
When the weather forecasters predicted a clear day for July 24, thus making it possible for aircraft to operate, the go signal was given. During the night before the scheduled bombardment, Collins pulled his men back from the Periers-St. Lo road to provide a better margin of safety against the bombs.
The planes came, but the sky was overcast. Because the pilots, navigators, and bombardiers in the initial waves had great difficulty identifying the ground features that delimited their target, Leigh-Mallory halted the bombing soon after it started. Some bombs fell north of the Periers-St. Lo road and among American soldiers, killing 25 and wounding 131.
Patton was heartsick when he learned that American soldiers had been hurt by American bombers.
To regain the ground he had given up north of the road and re-establish the front, Collins attacked after the aborted bombing. In that advance, Patton’s friend Paddy Flint was killed.
Letter, GSP, Jr., to Beatrice, July 25, 1944
Paddy was hit in the left side of the helmet by an automatic pistol bullet . . . It must have been short range. It gouged some bone out of his head and a piece entered his brain . . . He never regained consciousness and did not suffer.
We are burying him at 10:30 tomorrow ...
He was about at the end of his strength and would have been sent home for a rest soon. I guess it was the best end he could have had. I will write Lady [his wife] after the funeral.
A lot more will go before this show is over. Those who go as well and as bravely will be fortunate.
P. has been in several fights and has done well. He and Bob [Grow] will go in with me “if and when.”
His long period of inactivity, he told Beatrice,
has been a terrible waste of brains. But things are looking up and some where between 48 hours and ten days the curtain may lift. God knows I hope it does. A big show is on at the moment but I am not in it.
The weather having improved, the bombers came again on July 25. More than 2400 planes dropped 4000 tons of high explosive, fragmentation, and napalm bombs. Several fell in error among the Americans and killed 111 men and wounded 490. Despite some disorganization among the leading units because of the casualties, Collins attacked on the heels of the bombardment. The infantrymen had great trouble moving forward. The Germans continued to resist.
“Some Germans must have survived,” Patton noted in his diary. “The bombing was not a success.”
Initial estimates of the effect of the bombardment were, like Patton’s, pessimistic. The bombs had apparently done little to the German defenses.
That afternoon Patton was discussing plans for getting the Third Army into the battle. He proposed to enter the campaign by sending the VIII Corps to St. Malo and Brest, the XV Corps to Quiberon Bay. The Allies planned to construct a large port and supply complex at Quiberon, but the capture of other ports closer to the battlefield would later make the project unnecessary. Following the two corps initially committed to the west and southwest would be the XX Corps, which was to stop at Rennes. If additional forces were unnecessary in Brittany, the corps would head eastward toward the Seine.
On the morning of July 26, the second day of Cobra, although the German opposition seemed to be strong, Collins gambled and sent his mobile divisions forward. They discovered a hole in the German defenses. The bombing had done more good than the Americans had at first believed. Through the gap in the German front poured three divisions.
Several days later Patton flew over the battlefield in a light plane and saw where the Cobra bombs had landed. He was surprised, not at the extent of the damage but at the mildness of it. The craters were “not anywhere as great” as those in 1918.
One of the innocent sufferers . . . was the cow. The whole countryside is covered with enormously distended cows, which will eventually be buried. Pending interment, they smell to high heaven, or at least to 300 feet high, as that was my altitude.
On July 26, Bradley phoned and asked Patton to come to dinner at 6 P.M.
and to wear good clothes. I always do. On getting there I found that Lt. General L. J. McNair had been killed by our bombs. We buried him . . . No band. A sad ending and a useless sacrifice. He was a great friend.
Bradley, Hodges, Major General Ralph Royce, Major General Elwood Quesada, McNair’s aide-de-camp, and Patton were the only ones present at the funeral.
McNair had come to the theater to perpetuate the myth that the Allies were about to make their main invasion at the Pas de Calais. Interested always in being with the combat troops – also to judge whether the training program and methods he had instituted at home were effective, he had come from London to the Cotentin to observe the Cobra attack.
Letter, GSP, Jr., to Eisenhower, July 28, 1944
Bradley certainly has done a wonderful job. My only kick is that he will win the war before I get in. However, nothing can be done about that.
Operation Cobra went so well that Bradley issued new orders at noon, July 27. Instead of letting the mobile forces of the VII Corps go to Cou-tances and cut across the routes of advance of the VIII Corps, Bradley sent both corps down the Cotentin toward Avranches. Since the result of Cobra was a clean breakthrough of the German defenses, Bradley anticipated the relatively quick capture of Avranches, which was the doorway to Brittany.
Early that afternoon Bradley telephoned Gaffey and told him that he wished Patton to take control of the VIII Corps. Officially the Third Army would become operational four days later, at noon, August 1. Until then, Bradley wanted Patton to direct Middleton’s corps unofficially and move toward the entrance into Brittany.
Gaffey immediately sent a young officer out to find Patton. He located Patton at 3:30
at the jgas dump and told me to get back to headquarters at once. I arrived at 1645 and learned that we are to take over the VIII Corps and put in the XV Corps at the left . . .
I immediately visited the VIII Corps with Haislip, Gaffey, Harkins, and Hammond to arrange to take over the corps, but conducted everything very casually so as to not get people excited at the change . . .
Felt much happier over the war. May get in it yet.
In the interest of continuing the cover and deception plans, Eisenhower decided to make no public announcement of Patton and his Army for the time being. “The best good luck to you,” he cabled Patton. “I don’t have to urge you to keep them fighting – that is one thing I know you will do.”
In accordance with Patton’s desire, Middleton moved Wood’s 4th and Grow’s 6th Armored Divisions through the infantry and to the front of the corps. In the lead and side by side, Wood and Grow drove forward. On the evening of July 28, Wood took Coutances, the objective that Middleton had been trying to get since the beginning of the month. But Coutances now had little value, and Middleton looked 30 miles beyond to Avranches.
Patton thus appeared actively on the scene when the static warfare of June and July was dissolving into the exciting and mobile warfare of what would be known as the breakout and pursuit. The beginning of that was the advance to Avranches, which lay between the See and Selune rivers. Once there, American troops would have to capture several dams on the Selune to prevent the Germans from flooding the valley; they would also have to cross the Selune near Pontaubault. That would put them into position for a plunge into Brittany.
On July 29, Patton drove through Coutances and followed in the wake of the 6th Armored Division to see how Grow was doing. On the way, he was appalled to find an infantry battalion miles behind the front digging “tomb-like slit trenches. I told them to stop it, as it was stupid to be afraid of a beaten enemy.”
He caught up with the 6th Armored Division and found its advance held up by some German fire at a small stream.
Grow was not showing any life so I built a fire under him. He was sitting on the side of the road and General Taylor, his assistant, had a large group of officers studying a map.
I asked Grow what he was doing, and he said that Taylor was in charge of the advance guard and that he, personally, was doing nothing.
Grow was conforming to American doctrine – a commander told his subordinate what to do, not how. Patton accepted that, but if no results occurred in a reasonable time, something else had to be done.
I asked him whether he had been down to look at the river, and he said, “No.”
So I told him that unless he did do something, he would be out of a job.
I then went down and looked at the river and was not fired at, although you could see a few Germans on a hill . . . where there was a church tower or a windmill. So I directed the division to advance and cross the river. The fact that the bridge was out [destroyed] didn’t matter as the river was not over a foot deep.
The division was soon rolling forward.
Patton went to church with the colored troops of a quartermaster truck battalion. The dignity of the service and the music by the choir were impressive. “The colored preacher preached the best sermon I have heard during this war.”
Bradley came up . . . at 1400 and told me his plans. They are getting more ambitious but are just what I wanted to do, as I set down the other day, so I am very happy . . . I think we can clear the Brest peninsula very fast. The thing to do is to rush them off their feet before they get set.
Speed, audacity, even recklessness were what he wanted, not meticulous advances from one set point to another. Shake up the enemy, rough him up, tear the campaign wide open. “To hell with compromises.”
GSP, Jr., Poem, July, 1944
Absolute War
Now in war we are confronted with conditions which are strange
If we accept them we will never win.
Since by being realistic, as in mundane combats fistic
We will get a bloody nose and that’s a sin.
To avoid such fell disaster; the result of fighting faster
We resort to fighting carefully and slow
We fill up terrestrial spaces with secure expensive bases
To keep our tax rate high and death rate low.
But with sadness and with sorrow we discover to our horror
That while we build the enemy gets set.
So despite our fine intentions to produce extensive pensions
We haven’t licked the dirty bastard yet.
For in war just as in loving you must always keep on shoving
Or you’ll never get your just reward.
For if you are dilatory in the search for lust or glory
You are up shitcreek and that’s the truth, Oh! Lord.
So let us do real fighting, boring in and gouging, biting.
Let’s take a chance now that we have the ball.
Let’s forget those fine firm bases in the dreary shell raked spaces,
Let’s shoot the works and win! yes win it all.
On the evening of July 30, a small unit of the 4th Armored Division entered Avranches and clung precariously to the town as Germans withdrawing from the Cotentin buffeted and threatened to overrun them. On the following day, Wood hurried additional elements to Avranches to make the town secure.
Letter, GSP, Jr., to Beatrice, July 31, 1944
I spent a gloomy evening last night arranging [Paddy Flint’s papers]. It is strange how little of moment there is left to send [home]. I got the helmet, a few letters, and a map, that’s about all.
Things are realy moving this morning and so am I at long last. However you wont hear of it in the papers for a while as it is supposed to be secret...
P [Wood] . . . has done well. Brad has realy pulled a great show and should get credit for it.
Diary, July 31
I thanked the staff for their long endurance during non-employment and said I knew they would be just as good when the fighting started, and to always be audacious ...
After supper drove to the command post of the VIII Corps . . . Middleton said he was glad to see us as he did not know what to do next and could not get hold of Bradley. His orders were to secure the line of the Selune River, which he had done, but he did not cross it. I told him that throughout history it had always been fatal not to cross a river, and that while I did not officially take over until tomorrow noon, I had actually taken over on the 28th, and therefore he was to get over now.
While we were talking about how to bridge the river at Pontau-bault, a message came in saying that while the bridge had been damaged, it was still passable. This seemed to be a good omen, so I told him to get the 6th Armored Division across it. The 4th Armored Division had just captured the dams.
Wood also took the bridge at Pontaubault. There, the single road coming south from Avranches split. From there one could go west toward Brest, south toward Rennes and beyond to the Loire River, and east toward the Seine.
“On getting this news, I told Middleton to head for Brest and Rennes.” Patton wanted the 6th Armored and 79th Divisions going for Brest, the 4th Armored and 8th Divisions for Rennes. “I believe that this little kick I gave him was worthwhile.”
He would insert the XV Corps to head for the Seine.
The German defensive line in Normandy had been pierced, its anchor on the west coast of the Cotentin unhinged. Bradley’s Operation Cobra had dislocated the Germans, and Patton was ready to exploit the victory. He was about to show the Germans —and the world— his version of blitzkrieg.
“Got to bed about 1:00 o’clock August 1st.”