Epilogue
“The 2nd Armored Cavalry Group performed admirably many more difficult and dangerous operations in the European Campaigns. However, all of our members recall with especial pride their contribution to Austrian culture and happiness.”
Colonel Hank Reed
Two hundred and nineteen Lipizzaner horses were returned to Colonel Podhajsky and the Spanish Riding School. Colonel Reed and the 2nd Cavalry Group were left with around a hundred Thoroughbreds, Arabians, and a few non-Austrian Lipizzaners that were considered important enough to continue under American protection. With these horses moved to an old German Army stud farm at Mansbach, two hundred miles northwest of Kötzting, it was only a matter of time before Reed’s men would be reassigned. Reed was worried that the horses that they had expended so much time, effort and blood to save might yet end up being sold off piecemeal, and their important bloodlines lost in the mess that was postwar Germany.
The 2nd Cavalry Group was reduced in size, with drafts of men being sent home to the States, and it was renamed the 2nd Constabulary Regiment and assigned guard and patrol duties along the German–Czechoslovak frontier, which had become very tense following the return of the Beneš government from exile in Britain. Over 2 million German and Hungarian citizens were dispossessed and violently expelled from Czechoslovakia. The Communist Party was extremely popular in the Czech area of the country, which included the border region with Bavaria. Reed organized a mounted unit to patrol the forests, trying to demonstrate to the US Army that horses still had a role to play in modern warfare.
First Lieutenant Bill Quinlivan remained in command of the very small number of 2nd Cavalry soldiers who continued to watch over the liberated horses at Mansbach. The horses continued to be guarded by 3rd Squad, 3rd Platoon, Troop A. Running the squad was Sergeant Vito Spadafino.
In June 1945, Colonel Reed, Captain Stewart, and former Colonel Rudofsky were called to testify before Third Army headquarters staff concerning the ownership of the horses. Hungary and Czechoslovakia had lodged formal complaints. The three officers all gave clear-cut evidence that the horses moved from Hostau were lawful war prizes. This became the official position of the US Government.
General Patton, on leave in the States, met with the incoming head of the US Army’s Remount Service, Colonel Fred Hamilton, to discuss what to do with them. Hamilton headed for Europe with a small staff and inspected all captured German Army horse depots and studs, beginning with Mansbach. He was so impressed by the fine collection of Thoroughbreds, Lipizzaners, and Arabians at Mansbach that he arranged to have them shipped to the States to join the Army’s remount program.
The summer months of 1945 at Mansbach were something of an idyll for Quinlivan and his men. They rode almost every day, and were joined by Dr. Lessing, who had become a close friend of Quinlivan’s. They hacked through the quiet countryside or practiced in the stud’s arena. The American soldiers made some friends among the local farmers, and Colonel Reed visited often to ride. Prince Amassov and his Cossacks stayed at Mansbach too, helping to care for the rescued horses as well as their own Panje horses, and they put on riding shows for visiting American troops.1
Mansbach received a steady stream of important and curious visitors, including Gustav Rau, now a civilian. Colonel Reed tried to find useful employment for the horses, even having a pair of Lipizzaner coach horses shuttle him around in an old carriage. But the discharges of men continued, and some familiar faces left Europe for home. On September 1, Captain Stewart—after Reed, the man most responsible for saving and protecting the precious Hostau horses—took his final leave and returned home. Eventually, only Quinlivan, now promoted to captain, remained as the sole representative of the 2nd Cavalry still involved with the horses.
Later in September, Colonel Hamilton and his group of “horse detectives” made a selection of the best horses across the four main German studs for shipment to America. In total, 150 horses were selected, including the Arabian stallion Lotnik, ridden by Quinlivan during Operation Cowboy, and Witez II, the most famous Polish racehorse. Veterinarians would be required during the transit across the Atlantic, and Colonel Reed offered berths to Lessing and Dr. Kroll. Kroll, who wasn’t married, accepted the opportunity of beginning a new life in America without hesitation, but Lessing declined when he realized that because of space considerations aboard ship, his wife and children would not be permitted to travel with him. Though Reed tried to assure Lessing that his family could follow a few months later, Lessing declined and decided to remain in Germany.
On October 12, 1945, the horses set sail aboard the Liberty ship Stephen F. Austin from Bremerhaven. Quinlivan and Kroll accompanied them, alongside Colonel Hamilton’s team. The crossing was stormy and extremely rough, and it was only through Quinlivan’s resourcefulness and Kroll’s veterinary skills that none of the horses died. In fact, a foal was born while at sea. They all arrived, exhausted but intact, at Newport News, Virginia, on October 28 after sixteen days at sea.
The horses were transferred to the Aleshire Depot at Front Royal, Virginia but then dispersed to five different horse-breeding centers. The Thoroughbreds remained at Aleshire; Witez II was moved
to Pomona, California. Bill Quinlivan, meanwhile, was transferred to
Fort Robinson, Nebraska.
For Colonel Podhajsky and the Spanish Riding School, the great period of uncertainty came to an end in April 1946, when the mares and their young were transferred from Reichersberg Airfield to an old dragoon barracks at Wels, Austria. Though run-down and damaged, the stabling and facilities were excellent, and Podhajsky and his men worked hard to put the barracks back into good order. The horses were happy and content. Podhajsky’s only sorrow was that he could not return to the Spanish Riding School’s home inside the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, for the city was in the Soviet Zone of occupation in Austria. The Soviets tried on many occasions to lure both Podhajsky and his stallions back to the Hofburg, but he knew deep down that any such move, after so much effort had been expended to keep the Lipizzaners out of Russian hands, would have doomed the School once again.
A second shipment of horses was made from Germany to the States, bringing the total number of animals to 231. But US Army interest in horses in the age of atomic warfare was, despite Reed and Hamilton’s best efforts, lukewarm at best. Hamilton was forced to auction off the sixty-four Thoroughbreds at Front Royal in late 1946. Most ended up in the hands of ordinary horse owners, and remained unregistered by the American Jockey Club. In July 1948 President Truman ordered the Department of Defense to transfer all remount depots to the Department of Agriculture, ending the military’s link with horses. Most horses were promptly sold off. An attempt was made in October 1948 to auction off the most valuable horses brought back from Europe, including Witez II, but public sentiment stopped this from occurring and they were kept together. But the Agriculture Department moved them to Fort Reno, Nevada, where they were declared surplus government property. In spring 1949, the remaining horses were auctioned off. In the strange circular way of history, Colonel Podhajsky and his Spanish Riding School arrived in New York City less than a year later, in 1950, to begin a tour of the United States. His performances introduced Americans to the wonders of haute école, and the Baroque splendor of the Spanish Riding School and its incredible white horses. In sell-out performances, the Lipizzaners thrilled and impressed wherever they went, gaining legions of new fans and wide media coverage. The United States could take pride that it was their men who had risked life and limb to save this ancient but fragile jewel of European culture from the fires of war, and Podhajsky never forgot the debt of gratitude that he and Austria owed to General Patton’s “ghost riders.”
Finally, in 1955, the stallions went home to Vienna following the Soviet withdrawal from the city, and they have remained there ever since.
Each of the men involved with the saving of the Spanish Riding School horses survived the war and had different experiences in the peace that followed. Here are a few of their stories (in alphabetical order):
Carter Catlett
Captain Catlett finished World War II with the Silver and Bronze Stars, but due to wartime injuries he was unable to return to competitive sport. After he returned from the war he was a successful baseball coach for his two sons’ many teams, and supported his daughter’s horse-riding competitions.
Catlett worked as an engineer for NASA at Langley, Virginia, for thirty-eight years. After retiring, he lived in Poquoson, Virginia, and loved to crab, enjoy his boat and play ball with his children and grandchildren. He was inducted into the VMI Sports Hall of Fame and the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame. Carter Catlett died in 1998 at the age of 81. In 2017, the 2nd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, based at Vilseck, Germany, dedicated their conference room to Catlett’s memory.
Dr. Kroll didn’t remain in the United States for long after accompanying Captain Quinlivan and the horses to Virginia. He went back to Germany, where he worked as a vet in a traveling circus. After obtaining a letter of commendation from General Patton, Kroll returned to the States and found a job as a veterinarian at San Diego Zoo. He later worked for the Department of Agriculture in Chicago as an inspector in a meat-packing plant.
Rudolf Lessing
The war was not kind to Lessing. His family estate ended up on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, the land and house being seized by the East German authorities. Lessing worked hard trying to find homes for the horses that the Americans left behind in Bavaria, particularly the Cossack ponies. Afterwards, he worked in the German horse-breeding industry. In 1985 he was, along with Colonel Rudofsky, a guest of honor at a special performance at the Spanish Riding School and also received a medal from the Austrian authorities. Lessing did eventually travel to America to attend a 2nd Cavalry reunion. Dr. Lessing featured in Arnold Dietbest’s book Talks With a Horse Husband (1995).
Robert McCaleb
After successfully commanding Troop C during the horse rescue operation, McCaleb served on in Germany until 1947 with the 2nd Constabulary Regiment. A keen horseman, he bought a horse in Germany that he named “Aces High” and managed to ship him back to the States. Awarded a Purple Heart for wounds received in France in 1944, McCaleb stayed in the army, serving in Korea, where he was wounded twice more, the last time by Chinese mortar shrapnel during operations on the Pusan Perimeter, which led to his medical evacuation. After Korea, McCaleb served in Alaska, Utah, and Texas, retiring a lieutenant colonel from the 2nd Armored Division in 1961.
Robert McCaleb died in June 2012, age 95.
Patton went back to the States for a rest in June 1945, and was mobbed by huge crowds wherever he appeared. Denied a command in the Pacific, and with his behavior increasingly erratic, he returned to Germany in July as Military Governor of Bavaria. General Eisenhower removed Patton from his post in September 1945 after unfavorable press concerning his running of the province, and he was removed from command of the Third Army in October. Patton was given a new command, Fifteenth Army, headquartered at Bad Nauheim, but its only job was to write the official history of the European campaign. Bored, Patton traveled around Europe and tried to find ways to entertain himself. On December 8, 1945, he accepted an invitation to hunt pheasant near Speyer. While traveling on roads still littered with wartime debris, his staff car collided with a US Army truck. Patton suffered a broken neck and was left paralyzed.
General George S. Patton died in a hospital in Luxembourg on December 21, 1945, of pulmonary edema and congestive heart failure at the age of sixty. As per his request, he was buried alongside casualties of the Third Army.
Alois Podhajsky
Colonel Podhajsky would remain as director of the Spanish Riding School until his retirement in 1965, touring all over the world to huge audiences. He oversaw the transfer of the School and its stallions back to the Hofburg Palace in Vienna in 1955. After retirement, Podhajsky continued to teach classical horsemanship and wrote a series of successful books, including The White Stallions of Vienna (1963), My Dancing White Horses (1964), and The Complete Training of Horse and Rider (1967). The story of Podhajsky and Operation Cowboy were fictionalized in the 1963 Walt Disney movie Miracle of the White Stallions, with Robert Taylor playing Podhajsky. He was honored several times, including receiving Order of Isabel la Católica from General Franco in 1954, and the Grand Service Order of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Alois Podhajsky died in Vienna in May 1973, age 75.
William Quinlivan
Bill Quinlivan stayed with the Hostau horses the longest of any of the 2nd Cavalry Group soldiers, only being transferred from Front Royal, Virginia to Fort Robinson, Nebraska in 1946. Quinlivan returned to Germany in 1947, meeting his future wife on the voyage over. He was discharged a major in 1949 and settled in Los Angeles. In 1964 he was part of a delegation of 2nd Cavalry veterans of the Hostau rescue who, led by Colonel Reed, visited Philadelphia to meet Colonel Podhajsky and watch the white stallions perform. It was an emotional event for all concerned.
William Quinlivan died in 1985. As a mark of the high regard in which his wartime activities were held, the Austrian Military Attaché to the United States attended his funeral.
Charles Reed
Hank Reed ended World War II with a Distinguished Service Cross, Purple Heart, two Silver Stars and a Bronze Star. France honored him with the Légion d’Honneur and the Croix de Guerre. Even though Reed was responsible for keeping the Red Army out of Hostau until the horses had been evacuated, the USSR decorated him with the Order of the Patriotic War 2nd Class on June 12, 1945, presented to him by Lieutenant General Tihonov of the 39th Guards Rifle Corps.
Reed’s command of the 2nd Constabulary Regiment came to a close in 1947, and he transferred to Fort Monroe, Virginia, bringing home an Arabian mare from Germany. In February 1949, though nominated for promotion to brigadier general, Reed left the army to help his ailing father run the family business. He and his wife Janice built “Foundry Place” on Reed family land, where he rode his Arabian each morning.
Reed was heavily involved in state life, serving as Rector of Radford College, was on the board of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, was a director of five Richmond-area firms, President of the National Association of Textile and Apparel Wholesalers, Vice-President of the National Association of Wholesalers, Director of the Bank of Virginia, and he was, most appropriately, President of the 2nd Cavalry Association for twenty-five years. He also appeared as a character in the 1963 Disney movie Miracle of the White Stallions, portrayed on screen by Philip Abbott.
Hank Reed died in April 1980 at age seventy-nine. He was carried to his final resting place by twenty 2nd Cavalry combat veterans, the chief pallbearer being former Sergeant Jim O’Leary, who had been Reed’s wartime driver.
Hubert Rudofsky
Following his arrest by the Czechoslovak Police, Lieutenant Colonel Rudofsky was sent to an internment camp for Nazi collaborators established at Taus/Domažlice, where he experienced difficult times. His mother died in the camp. Released in early 1946, he was deported to Germany, his dream of remaining in the Sudetenland finally crushed. His sister-in-law and young nephew immigrated to the United States, Ulli ironically later serving in the US Army.
Rudofsky found work on a horse stud in Bavaria, where his expertise as a breeder of Arabians was much respected. In later life he lived in a small flat surrounded by paintings and photographs of horses. Eventually, his role in preserving the Spanish Riding School was finally recognized by both Austria and Germany. In 1985 Rudofsky received a special certificate from the Austrian government and was guest of honor at a performance at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. It was his first Austrian honor since receiving the Silver Medal of Courage from the old Emperor Franz Josef during the First World War. In 1986, it was the turn of the Federal Republic of Germany to honor Rudofsky, awarding him the Adalbert-Stifler Medal for special contribution to the cultural life of the Sudeten-German national group.
Hubert Rudofsky died in 1986, age 89.
Ferdinand Sperl
Promoted major, Sperl was awarded the Silver Star for his two hazardous trips behind enemy lines to negotiate the surrender of Colonel Holters and his Dienststelle Ost intelligence outfit. He also received a Bronze Star for his other wartime heroics. He remained in the reserves after the war, but returned to the industry that had dominated the lives of four generations of his family—hotels. He was one of the men responsible for developing Aspen as a resort in 1946, and worked for the Boss Hotels Company in Des Moines and Peoria, eventually as Executive Vice-President of the Boss Hotel Chain.
In 1978 Sperl became Vice-President of Shearson Lehman Bros. brokerage firm before eventually retiring in 1987. He was a member of the Reserve Officers’ Association, and a major in the Honorary Squadron, 2nd Dragoons.
Ferdinand Sperl died in May 2006, age 87.
Thomas Stewart
Awarded the Bronze Star in May 1945 for his adventures rescuing and protecting the horses at Hostau, Stewart attempted to put some of his more troubling wartime experiences behind him by working his way across the American West. The senator’s son toiled as a day laborer or pumped gas when he needed money. He turned up at Fort Reno, Nevada, in May 1949 to witness the auction of Witez II, the world-famous Polish racehorse that he had helped save back at Hostau in May 1945. Returning home, Stewart became an investigator for Dupont at their Savannah River plant, and there met his wife, a young widow from Georgia, Anne Evans Scott. They lived in Tennessee, where Stewart worked for the state for thirty-three years, fifteen as director of motor vehicles. He was also an administrative law judge in the Department of Revenue, and a Sunday school teacher. In 2001, Austria honored him for his part in saving the Spanish Riding School.
Tom Stewart passed away in January 2011, age 95, the father of three children, grandfather to six, and great-grandfather to five.
Karl Weisenberger
General Weisenberger remained in command of Wehrkreis XIII right up to the final end of the Third Reich on May 7, 1945, when the district was dissolved by Germany’s surrender, and his surviving troops made prisoners-of-war. Weisenberger was detained by US forces for questioning. He later, in common with all senior surviving German officers in American captivity, was asked to write a detailed report of his command’s activities.2 This report survives in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and provides invaluable insights into the collapse of the German defenses in Czechoslovakia in April–May 1945, and his part in permitting the rescue of the horses at Hostau. Karl Weisenberger died in Kempten, Germany, in March 1952, age 61.