“In mid-December 1944, just before von Rundstedt’s great attack through the Ardennes which produced the so-called Battle of the Bulge, the Allied Forces were lined up, from north to south, as follows: Montgomery’s Twenty-first Army Group was on the west bank of the Meuse; Simpsons Ninth Army on the Roer, a few miles across the German border; Hodges’s First Army, having captured Aachen and traversed the Hürtgen Forest, extended south to a point east of the city of Luxembourg; Third Army was preparing its own attach on Germany from the Saar. (Ninth, First, and Third U. S. Armies constituted Bradley’s Twelfth Army Group.) Devers’s Sixth Army Group, consisting of Patch’s Seventh Army and de Lattre’s First French Army, was on the Rhine from Strasbourg to the Vosges. The brunt of the initial German attack was sustained by First Army’s VIII Corps, General Middleton commanding.
“The Third Army was engaged in the bitter and disappointing attack against the Siegfried Line and across the Sauer River. On the morning of 16 December, the Army Commander, accompanied by his G-2, his Chief of Staff, and Deputy Chief of Staff, as was customary, attended a special secret briefing at 6:30 A.M. At this briefing, the then Captain Heifers of the G-2 Section told the Army Commander that they had listened to German radio messages in code, which code they could break, and that the concentration of troops near Trier was breaking up and on the move. Colonel Koch, the G-2, stated he thought this was an attack. General Patton immediately said, ‘We’ll have to help the First Army out because they will get it right on the nose,’ and started his staff making plans for pulling the Third Army out of its eastward attack (across the Sauer), changing directions ninety degrees, moving to Luxembourg, and attaching north. Thus, when he was asked by General Eisenhower three days later when he could make an attack, he told him ‘on the twenty-second of December.’ General Eisenhower said, ‘Don’t be fatuous.’ General Patton said, ‘Never mind dates.’ He knew then he would make the attack on the morning of the twenty-first of December.”
December 18, 1944. Day before yesterday the General visited both General Eddy and General Haislip. After dinner that evening, General Allen telephoned from Army Group to say they wanted to remove one of our Armored divisions to reinforce VIII Corps, which was attempting to ward off a German attack. The General called General Bradley to protest, but the latter said he could not discuss the matter over the phone.
“I guess they are having trouble up there,” the General said. “I thought they would.”
At yesterday morning’s briefing, it was apparent that the Germans were not only continuing their attack on VIII Corps but moving in additional units in front of our XX Corps.
“One of these is a feint; one is the real thing,” the General said. “If they attack us, I’m ready for them, but I’m inclined to think the party will be up north. Eighth Corps has been sitting still—a sure invitation to trouble.”
Today has been quite a day and we are now back at Rue Auxerre after a wild night ride from Luxembourg, where the General, together with Maddox, Koch, and Muller, attended a conference called by General Bradley. As usual the General was right. The attack on VIII Corps is no feint.
It is now almost midnight. General Bradley telephoned to direct the General to come to Verdun tomorrow morning, the nineteenth, at II A.M. to meet General Eisenhower and the high brass. Something is cooking all right. The General is now summoning the whole Third Army Staff, together with General Weyland’s staff, to a meeting in the G-3 office set for 8 A.M. tomorrow.
Christmas, 1944 A Christmas no one around here is likely to forget. The General and General Bradley and some very tired members of their staffs are still celebrating it downstairs in the dining room of our present living quarters, the Hotel Alpha in Luxembourg. Sandwiches, coffee, and a small Christmas tree. Not exactly festive. But everything considered, we are lucky to be here. How long we remain is anyone’s guess. Am now in my room, in bed, writing this letter. My last letter, I think, was that of December 18. So much has happened since then, I hardly know where to begin.
In the last week the General has been making History, with a capital. At the special 8 A.M. staff session at Nancy on the nineteenth, the General, in one hour, evolved three possible plans for meeting the critical situation in the Ardennes—assigning code names to each. A few minutes after nine, he and Paul Harkins and I took off by peep for Verdun. Arriving there shortly before eleven, we found assembled at Group Headquarters, General Eisenhower, Air Marshal Tedder, Generals Bradley, Devers, Strong, and assorted SHAEF and Group staff officers. I have seldom seen longer faces. General Strong got up before a situation map and gave a short exposé of the picture. It was grim. When he sat down, General Eisenhower spoke.
“George,” he said to General Patton, “I want you to go to Luxembourg and take charge.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When can you start up there?”
“Now.”
“You mean today?”
“I mean as soon as you have finished with me here.”
There was a pause.
“When will you be able to attack?” General Eisenhower said.
“The morning of December twenty-second,” the General said, “with three divisions.”
Less than seventy hours. There was a stir, a shuffling of feet, as those present straightened up in their chairs. In some faces, skepticism. But through the room the current of excitement leaped like a flame. To disengage three divisions actually in combat and launch them over more than a hundred miles of icy roads straight into the heart of a major attack of unprecedented violence presented problems which few Commanders would have undertaken to resolve in that length of time.
And now specific questions were asked. To all of them, the General had specific answers. Within an hour everything had been thrashed out—the divisions to be employed, objectives, new Army boundaries, the amount of our own front in the Saar to be taken over by Sixth Army Group, and other matters—and virtually all of them settled on General Patton’s terms.
As the meeting broke up, the General turned to Harkins. “Telephone Gay,” he said. “Give him the code number, tell him to get started. Then get back to Nancy yourself as soon as you can. You know what to do.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Codman, you come with me. Tell Mims we start in five minutes—for Luxembourg.”
“Telephone General Walker,” he added, “and tell him I will stop and see him in Thionville on the way.”
As General Eisenhower was leaving he stopped and pointed to the five stars on his shoulder strap. “Funny thing, George,” he said, “every time I get promoted I get attacked.”
“Yes,” the General said genially, “and every time you get attacked I bail you out.”
During the long fast drive, the General was silent. It was late afternoon when we clattered into the main square of Thionville, where General Walker was waiting in his peep to guide us to his headquarters. There the General filled him in on the picture to date and gave him his instructions for the immediate future. It was already dark when the General spoke of pushing on to Luxembourg. General Walker dissuaded him. The road is bad at night. Furthermore, Prince Felix was momentarily expected in Thionville and would have news as to conditions in the city of Luxembourg.
“All right,” the General said. “If you will lend me pajamas and a toothbrush I will spend the night and make an early start in the morning.”
“Codman,” he added, “you had better go back to Nancy and get the household moving. Tell Meeks to pack all my things. You and Stiller and he bring my trailer up to Luxembourg as soon as possible.”
In a peep furnished by General Walker I set out for Nancy. For the first ten miles or so we made good time. The next twenty, occupied in dodging the hurtling columns of the 4th Armored speeding north, were hectic in the extreme. Occasionally my driver, to avoid being overrun, would in desperation momentarily flash on his headlights, an unpopular move, greeted each time by bellows and curses from the exasperated tankers, and once by a short but happily inaccurate burst of machine-gun fire. I did not learn until the following day that the Germans had been reported to have infiltrated our rear areas with agents dressed in U.S. uniforms and equipped with captured small arms and peeps.
Next day, December 20, was spent packing and loading, and the following morning, December 21, Al and Sergeant Meeks and I rolled out through the grilled gateway of 10 Rue Auxerre, Nancy, for the last time.
The road was jammed worse than ever with our own vehicles hurrying north, and evening had fallen when we lumbered over the broad bridge into Luxembourg. The quaint little city’s appearance was transformed. Gone were the American flags, the welcoming banners, the “English Spoken” signs in the shop windows. Groups of silent, anxious Luxembourgeois thronged the street corners and sidewalks; listening to the enemy artillery only six or seven miles distant and making mental count of our tanks and trucks rumbling through their smooth paved streets, the burning question in their harassed eyes was plain. Too little and too late? Their fears were not unreasonable. All had experienced the German occupation; most had suffered the wrench of separation from loved ones deported to slave labor. Some at this very street crossing may well be thinking of the triumphal German entry and the stain there on the paving stones—a spreading stain, a single shoe lying in the reddened gutter—all that remained of the little old lady wantonly pushed from the sidewalk by a drunken storm trooper directly into the path of the oncoming column of German tanks.
At the Hotel Alpha, where we are sharing billets with members of the Group Staff, there is noticeable tenseness. Papers collected, ready to be destroyed. Personal effects packed. Vehicles gassed up and ready to go. And, boy, are they glad to see us—or at least our units. For once a Third Army shoulder patch appears to be a sight for the sore eyes of higher headquarters.
The General himself is the best of tonics. His mere presence has already begun to dissipate the prevailing miasma of dismay. For the last forty-eight hours he and Sergeant Mims, without benefit of staff, baggage, or even a toothbrush, have been charging up and down the fluid lines visiting corps and division commanders, pushing, pulling, relocating, cannibalizing, galvanizing.{51} He greeted Al and me with abroad grin. “Mims claims the government is wasting a lot of money hiring staff officers,” the General remarked. “‘You and me, General,’ he says, ‘have been running Third Army all by ourselves for the last two days and doing a better job than they do.’”
Half an hour later at supper, General Bradley was himself commenting on Third Army’s spectacular move. “All the credit,” the General said, and it was characteristic, “all of it, one hundred per cent, goes to Third Army Staff, and in particular to Hap Gay, Maud Muller, Nixon, and Busch.”
After supper on his way to his room the General said, “Be ready for an early start tomorrow. We attack with Third Corps at six.”
December 22. The attack is on.{52}
We drove to General Middleton’s headquarters at Arlon (Belgium) and a short distance up the road to Bastogne, in which the 101st Air-borne is cut off but holding. This key town is now surrounded by five German divisions.
The weather has been no good for flying and the results of this first day are somewhat uncertain. The city of Luxembourg is not yet out of danger.
On the twenty-third the weather improved and our Air did a magnificent job on the enemy. So did the Artillery. Our advances, however, were slight. On the twenty-fourth the Germans counterattacked all along the line. These attacks were contained and we were able to air-drop supplies to the 101st at Bastogne.
Partly for purposes of boosting civilian morale the General attended Christmas Eve services at the Protestant Church in the center of the city, occupying the pew formerly reserved for the Kaiser on his official visits to Luxembourg. The church was packed, hence not quite as cold as it might have been, but frigid nevertheless.
Christmas morning. Cold as hell. Up most of the night with what I hope is not dysentery again, but merely a bad piece of salmon. Al and I accompanied the General on his Christmas calls to Generals
Paul of the 26th, McBride of the 80th, Irwin of the 5th, and, of course, General Gaffey and both combat commands of the 4th Armored. Am glad to say they all had easily accessible latrines. While at Combat Command A with General Earnest a couple of German planes strafed the road where we were standing. They must have been very poor shots, as we were not a bad target, yet no one was hit.
Well, that’s about all for the moment except to say that (1) there will probably not be much time for letter writing in the foreseeable future, and (2) if anyone at home is inclined to take this attack lightly, you can refer him or her to anyone spending the Christmas holidays in Luxembourg.
January 18, 1945. By now you probably have a fairly clear picture of what is happening, and realize—though many of the home folks apparently do not—what a close call it has been! Over twenty German divisions—two Panzer armies—attacked on a forty-to fifty-mile front from Monchau to Echternach. The primary objectives were Liège and Namur. They damn near made them. If they had, we could have kissed good-by to Antwerp and Brussels, and hello to a couple more years of war. It was much too close for comfort. At one point, having chased First Army Headquarters out of Spa—the old Hindenburg headquarters of World War I—the Germans were practically on the Meuse. This is no criticism of First Army. If the Ardennes attack failed, it was due primarily to three factors: (1) the dogged, unbelievable, courageous resistance of those hopelessly outnumbered First Army units in the direct path of the German drive—their heroism gained the necessary, the essential time; (2) the lightning move and subsequent attacks of Third Army on the southern flank of the Bulge; (3) the five-day weather-break, beginning just before Christmas, which enabled our Air, and particularly Opie Weyland’s XIX TAC, to go to town on the German units, supply columns, and rear areas in a manner which outdid even their own superb performance of the recent past. In the absence or dilution of any one of these three factors all of us here—if not in remoter and higher places—believe the Allied Armies in Europe would have taken a bad, bad licking. As it is, the casualties and the suffering, not only from the continuous action but from the bitter cold, have been cruel.
The General is indefatigable and I don’t think he has missed a day in getting out to see the divisions. The entire countryside is white with hard-packed snow and the cold is terrific. The day after Christmas General Gaffey told the General he thought that Colonel Blanchard’s combat command (4th Armored) could break through to Bastogne if authorized then and there to move, and move fast.
“Go to it,” the General said. As you know, they did.
The Germans are still counterattacking and the party is by no means over, but they do seem to be slowing up. Al and I drove with the General to Bastogne on December 30. The corridor is still uncomfortably narrow. He got an enthusiastic reception and also very real pleasure out of pinning the D.S.C. on General Tony “Nuts” McAuliffe and Lieutenant Colonel Chappuis.{53} Incidentally, the General himself received a second oak-leaf cluster for his D.S.M. a day or two before.
New Year’s Day. The cold and the counterattacks continue un-abated. We are making headway, but the going, like the terrain, is tough.
The last two weeks have been an unremitting grind for all the units, which, in spite of repeated German counterattacks and the stubbornest kind of resistance, have advanced steadily. Yesterday (January 17, 1945), accompanied the General and General Hughes, who is visiting us, to Arlon, where General Patton formally congratulated General Middleton and General Milliken on the successful join-up with First Army, finally accomplished by the capture of Houffalize. First Army, which at the beginning of the Ardennes attack was put under Monty’s command, now reverts to General Bradley and the Twelfth Army Group.
From Arlon we then went to 6th Armored, the 26th and the 90th Divisions. The General decorated General Van Fleet, who was damn near killed by mortar fire during the attack. By near I mean that the two men standing on either side of him were killed.
For the moment, the pressure on the General, and therefore on all the rest of us, is a little less than it has been. In other words, a normal workday, instead of starting at around 6 A.M. and going late into the night, now occasionally allows for a relatively quiet evening. To afford the General a bit of relaxation, it seemed like a good idea, at the time, to show a movie after supper. Special Services came up with Laura starring Clifton Webb. To establish the orchidaceous character of Laura’s interior-decorator “hero,” there is a scene early in the picture in which Clifton is revealed in a bubble bath massaging himself with a long-handled rubber brush, while a valet hands him successive jars of bath salts, unguents, and assorted toiletries. The fact that the General had spent a good part of the day up near Bastogne arranging for the relief of frost-bite cases may have been a contributing factor; anyway, as Clifton stepped out of the bubbles into the valet-held folds of an enormous heated bath towel, the General’s voice reverberated in the darkness.
“What wouldn’t I give to have that so-and-so up here for just twenty-four hours as a replacement,” he said.
Since then we have had no movies.
If you run into Clifton do tell him that the impact of his performance on Third Army was terrific, and in all our minds he will forever be indelibly associated with the Battle of the Bulge.
The acquiring of the house which the General mentioned in his letter to you came about as follows: When we first arrived in Luxembourg, Prince Felix very kindly offered the General his house. Too big, too far away from our headquarters—a large institutional building on the edge of town—and no time to think about it anyway. As things stabilized, and it seemed more likely that we would really stay in Luxembourg for a while, the General suggested that I look around for something other than his noisy hotel room opposite the railroad station.
There was a grapevine rumor that Prince Felix himself had an eye on an attractive house overlooking the valley not far from our headquarters. It belonged to a Madame Brasseur, an elderly lady who also owns the Hotel Brasseur, the Number One hostelry in the center of town, which, incidentally, we had requisitioned in its entirety to billet the staff. In the early afternoon of the day the matter came up, I rang Madame Brasseur’s doorbell. A nice old servante ushered me into the drawing room, where Madame Brasseur and her daughter were having their after-lunch coffee. Both were charming. Madame faintly reminiscent of Eugénie Leontovich as a mère noble, Mademoiselle suggesting, to coin a paradox, a contained, rather shy Judith Anderson.
The house itself is lovely and ideal for the purpose. Not too large, easy to protect, assured privacy. Contents and furnishings perfect, including the kind of glazed wallpaper you and I have been dreaming about all our married life.
“Would you, madame, consider making a beautiful gesture on behalf of the American Army?”
“Why, yes, certainly. We are deeply indebted to you. Furthermore, I like Americans. We in Luxembourg used to dance with the Americans during the last war. Now, alas, I am too old to dance, but I am glad you are occupying my hotel. When would General Patton like to move in here? In the spring when we move to the country? In May? Perhaps even in April if he is in a great hurry?”
“Well, to tell you the truth,” I said, “the date we have in mind is tomorrow.”
Silence, broken at last by Mademoiselle.
“Impossible,” she said.
Madame Brasseur carefully put down her coffee cup. She was pale but perfectly composed.
“Nothing is impossible,” she said. “My house will be at General Patton’s disposal tomorrow.”
By this time I had made up my mind to go back and report that the house was plague-struck, or haunted, or in any event completely uninhabitable.
“Your generous offer will be deeply appreciated,” I said. “I shall be back in an hour. Please don’t do anything until I return.”
Quiet talk with General Gay. He got the picture at once and within thirty seconds came up with the perfect solution. I hurried back to the Brasseur house. Madame and her daughter had lost no time. In the front hall two ancient trunks already packed and strapped. Upstairs you could hear the old servante moving from room to room. In the drawing room, Madame Brasseur and her daughter sat waiting, Mademoiselle turning the pages of the book she was not reading, Madame gazing through the window across the valley. Outside on the small grass terrace the gardener was nailing down the covers of two packing cases. The sound of his hammer had the finality of the ax blows in The Cherry Orchard.
“Madame Brasseur,” I said, “the General would like to extend an invitation to you and Mademoiselle.”
“Yes?” Madame Brasseur looked up with a half-smile.
“That you should be the guests of himself and Third Army at the Hotel Brasseur. The Royal Suite has been readied and I have a car outside, as well as a truck to take care of your personal effects.” Their faces lit up. “I hope you will accept,” I went on. “If you do, it will give great pleasure not only to the General but to all the members of the staff who are living there.”
“We accept with pleasure,” she said.
Within a quarter of an hour their goods and chattels were on their way across town in an Army truck, and I was handing Madame and Mademoiselle into the General’s limousine.
“Ah, I forgot,” Madame exclaimed. “Do you mind if I go back a moment?”
In the hall she extricated from the closet a small green watering pot, filled it in the adjoining cabinet de toilette, and proceeding from room to room, carefully watered each plant. Back in the car. “Can someone care for them while we are away?” she asked anxiously.
“Have no fear,” I said. “It shall be done. I will personally see to it. O.K., Mims. Go ahead.”
An exclamation from Mademoiselle Brasseur. “What about the rabbits?” she said. “En effet; va vite” her mother said.
The same hall closet. This time a paper bag of meal and a bunch of carrots. We went into the garden, where she raised the covers of two rabbit hutches. “The little one is still growing and must have more than the big one,” she said.
“Have no fear. I will see to it personally.”
As we came out again to the car, three or four of our trucks swirled into the driveway. M.P. guards, telephone linesmen, engineers with wire detectors, and expert searchers from Security. Since our experience at Saint-Avold and the present threat of Sturmbannführer Skorzeny’s infiltrations, whose alleged mission was to “get” Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton, Hodges, et al., the technique of search and delousing had supposedly been stepped up to a fine art.
“Who are they?” Madame Brasseur said.
I had hoped this wouldn’t come up, but the rabbits had dislocated what otherwise would have been perfect timing.
“They must be First Army trucks who have lost their way,” I said rather lamely. “O.K., Mims. Go ahead.”
In the lobby of the Hotel Brasseur, Paul Harkins had assembled an M.P. guard of honor and a reception committee who escorted our guests to their suite in a manner usually reserved for only the V.V.V.I.P.’s.
That evening the General himself called at the hotel to pay his respects. Madame and Mademoiselle, at the largest of the dining-room tables, completely surrounded by admiring members of the staff, were having the time of their lives.
“If only the orchestra were still here,” she said, “we could once again dance with the Americans.”
“Have no fear, madame,” the General said. “I will see to that personally.”
We are all delighted with the house. The General and Willie have Madame Brasseur’s room on the second floor overlooking the gorge, and General Gay, the daughter’s room in front. The rest of us, Al, George, Charley Odom, and Ed Creed, are on the floor above. Judging from her boudoir-library, which I am occupying, Mademoiselle Brasseur would seem to be a rather independent bachelor girl with a commendable taste in literature, since her shelves are filled almost exclusively with Cocteau, Rémy de Gourmont, Colette, Giraudoux, Proust, and, en plus, the plays of Shakespeare in French. Thus when it is too noisy for sleep, which it has been at times, as the Germans have our range with a pair of annoyingly accurate long-distance railway guns, I have been occupying myself trying to imagine the reaction of a French audience to Hamlet’s needling of his father’s ghost in terms of “Holà, vieille taupe, pourquoi avance-tu si rapidement sous-sol?” The elder Pitoeff, you remember, did a passable job with “Être ou ne pas être, voilà le problème,” which after all does convey the words if not the music, but I can’t help feeling that to successfully convey the bitter essence of “Wormwood, wormwood,” by simply murmuring, “Absinthe, absinthe”—that’s what it says in the French text—would tax the virtuosity even of a Gallic Jack Barrymore liberally fortified with double Pernods.
Thank God, and you, for those wonderful long drawers just arrived. They will be life-savers. Compared to the back seat of a back-seat peep rider in the Ardennes, a polar bear’s arse is an oven.
Went into Al’s room just now to see if he would like a pair. Al was asleep; and since the Skorzeny scare, he sleeps with his fingers on the special light-action trigger of his 45. I had put on your knitted wool helmet, also just arrived, and for which many thanks—though in passing I might mention that in appearance it is far from réglementaire, has in fact something of a Teutonic flavor about it, and damn near got me shot.