The Bitter Road to Freedom: The Human Cost of Allied Victory in World War II Europe (66 page)

1. ADC, 21 W 17, le Commissaire Central à M. le Prefet du Calvados, April 20, 1945; 21 W 17, le Commissaire Central à M. le Prefet du Calvados, June 19, 1945.
   

2. In August 1944, there were 1.9 million soldiers in the entire ETO; 154,000 were black. Ruppenthal, Logis- tical Support, 288; Lee, Negro Troops, 623. Although many more U.S. soldiers would arrive in Europe before the end of the war, black troops never exceeded 10 per- cent of the total, and the huge majority were assigned to service or rear areas.
   

3. U.S. Army, History Branch Office of the Judge Advo- cate General, 18 July 1942–1 November 1945, vol. 1, 241.
   

4. U.S. Army, History Branch Office, Vol 1, 10–12; 235.
   

5. Details of the cases can be followed in U.S. Army, Holdings and Opinions, Board of Review, Branch Office of the Judge Advocate General, European Theater of Operations, vols. 1–34. In particular, the following cases reflect upon the racially charged nature of the Ameri- can presence in France—and the racially charged qual- ity of American military justice: ETO 3141, U.S. v. Whit- field; ETO 370, U.S. v. Sanders et al.; ETO 3933, U.S. v. Ferguson and Rorie; ETO 4172, U.S. v. Freeman Davis et al.; ETO 4444, U.S. v. Hudson et al.; ETO 5584, U.S.
   

   v. Yancy; ETO 7702, U.S. v. Shropshire; ETO 8166, U.S.
   

   v. Williams; ETO 8450, U.S. v. Garries et al.; ETO 8451,
   

   U.S. v. Skipper.
   

6. U.S. Army, History Branch Office, Vol 1, 337–38.
   

7. Holdings and Opinions, Board of Review, vol. 11, ETO 3933, U.S. v. Ferguson and Rorie, 129–41; “Histori- cal Report of the Provost Marshall,” December 31, 1944, selection, in NARA, RG 498, European Theater of Op- erations, Historical Division, Administrative File, Cher- bourg Notes, box 115.
   

8. ADC, Liberté de Normandie, August 31, 1944, “Les rations alimentaires de Septembre”; August 5, 1944, “La vente du pain et des biscuits”; ADC, 9 W 45, le Prefet du Calvados au Commissaire regional de la République à
   

   Rouen, December 9, 1944; and Liberté de Normandie, February 18–19, 1945; ADC, 21 W 15/2, Sous-prefecture de Bayeux, “Rapport bi-mensuel,” December 20, 1944; ADC, Liberté de Normandie, July 28, 1944, “ Tribunal Correctionnel”; 9 W 45, le Prefet du Calvados au Com- missaire regional de la République à Rouen, November 23, 1944, and January 24, 1945; on prostitution and ve- nereal disease, PRO, WO 219/3728, “ The Army and VD Control in France.”
   

9. ADC, Liberté de Normandie, September 6, 1944.
   

10. ADC, Liberté de Normandie, October 10, 1944; ADC, 9 W 45, le Prefet du Calvados au Commissaire regional de la République à Rouen, December 9, 1944; ADC, 21 W 6, Le directeur départemental du service des ref- ugiés et sinistrés à M. le Préfet du Calvados, January 26, 1945. This document gives the figure 125,000 as the number of sinistrés [war victims] in the department.
    

11. Adam Sage, “Museum to D-Day Fails to Mention the War,” Times (London), January 27, 2006.
    

2: Blood on the Snow

1. IWM, 95/19/1, Richard Trevor Greenwood, 9th Bat- talion, Royal Tank Regiment; IWM, 99/61/1, Major Ed- ward Elliot, 2nd Battalion, Glasgow Highlanders; IWM,
   

   03/28/1, Major Maurice Herbert Cooke, B Company, 8th Battalion, Royal Scots.
   

2. Captain Lord Carrington of the Guards Armoured Di- vision, cited in Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944–45 (New York: Knopf, 2004), 7; Peter Schrijvers, The Crash of Ruin: American Combat Sol- diers in World War II (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 132.
   

3. On labor numbers, see Centre d’Études et de Docu- mentation Guerre et Sociétés contemporaines [hereaf- ter CEGES], Brussels, Haut Commissariat à la Sécurité de l’État, AA 1311, no. 114, summary by London-based Belgian government, March 13, 1944; for quotation about slavery, see CEGES, AA1311, no. 459, “L’opinion publique en Belgique après 44 mois d’occupation,” February 1, 1944; on Jews, Etienne Verhoeyen, La Bel- gique occupée: De l’an 40 à la liberation (Brussels: De Boeck, 1994), 573–79, and Werner Warmbrunn, The German Occupation of Belgium, 1940–1944 (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 169–71.
   

4. The details of these events and many others like them were gathered by Belgian officials immediately follow- ing the German retreat, and relied upon sworn testi- mony of numerous witnesses. They were gathered by
   

   the Commission des Crimes de Guerre of the Belgian government, and the reports are conserved in CEGES, AA 120, VII, 1 and 1bis.
   

5. PRO, FO 371/38896, Francis Aveling, chargé d’affaires, telegram to London, September 9, 1944; for ambas- sador’s description of Pierlot, PRO, FO 371/48974, Sir
   

   1. Knatchbull-Hugessen to Anthony Eden, January 22, 1945; F. S. V. Donnison, Civil Affairs and Military Government: Northwest Europe, 1944–1946 (London: HMSO, 1961), 115–17.
      

6. PRO, FO 371/38899, SHAEF Fortnightly Report, pe- riod ending November 28, 1944; FO 371/48974, SHAEF Weekly Summary by Gen. Erskine, period ending De- cember 12, 1944; see also FO 371/38899, observations by Charles Peake, “Personal and Confidential,” sent to Frank Roberts of the Foreign Office, December 8, 1944.
   

7. PRO, FO 371/38896, Major D. Morton, “Conditions in France and Belgium,” Report to the War Cabinet, Octo- ber 3, 1944; and PRO, FO 371/48974, “Survey of the Gen- eral Situation in Belgium,” report by Mr. Nand Geers- ens, Flemish Programme Organizer, of Radio Belgie and the BBC, December 20, 1944.
   

8. PRO, FO 371/38896, Francis Aveling, chargé d’affaires,
   

   to Anthony Eden, September 28, 1944.
   

9. PRO, FO 371/38896, “Order of the Day,” October 2, 1944, General Dwight Eisenhower, “ To the Officers and Men in all Belgian Resistance Organizations.”
   

10. PRO, FO 371/48974, Sir H. Knatchbull-Hugessen to Anthony Eden, January 22, 1945; Harry L. Coles and Al- bert K. Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Gover- nors (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1964), 805–9.
    

11. Pierre Sulbout, Les troupes américaines à Liège (septembre 1944–décembre 1945): De l’enthousiasme aux réalités (Ph.D. dissertation, Université de Liège, 1989), 39, 53, 69–70; and see report by J. S. Patterson of UNRRA, January 9, 1945, which claims that 543 people in Liège were killed in V-rocket attacks between No- vember 20 and December 30, 1944. NARA, RG 331, Al- lied Operational and Occupation Headquarters, World War II, SHAEF, G-5 Division, Entry 47, box 31.
    

12. PRO, FO 371/38898, SHAEF Weekly Summary, Gen. Erskine, period ending October 31, 1944; and PRO, WO 205/835, “Effect of V-1s and V-2s on the Morale of the Antwerp Population,” reports of November 6 and 16, 1944.
    

13. Koen Palinckx, Antwerpen onder de V-bommen, 1944–45 (Antwerp: Pandora, 2004), 80–84. Palinckx provides a chart (135), showing that Antwerp took 5,960 hits from V-1s and V-2s.
    

14. PRO, FO 371/48974, Nand Geersens report; PRO, FO 371/38897, and 48974, Erskine weekly summaries of October 25 and December 12, 1944.
    

15. Omar Bradley, A Soldier’s Story (New York: Henry Holt, 1951), 407. Eisenhower gives the number of fif- ty-four allied divisions on the continent by October 1, 1944, with six more in England. Crusade in Europe (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1948), 322.
    

16. For the logistics headaches, see Russell Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants (Bloomington: Indiana Uni- versity Press, 1981), 268–83.
    

17. Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 416–25. The recriminations over the Antwerp episode may be followed in James L. Moulton, Battle for Antwerp: The Liberation of the City and the Opening of the Scheldt, 1944 (London: I. Allan, 1978).
    

18. The relevant official U.S. histories are Charles B. MacDonald, The Siegfried Line Campaign (Washing- ton, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1963);
    

    Hugh M. Cole, The Lorraine Campaign (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1950). Wei- gley has appraised this period of the war with a criti- cal eye on American performance; for a more positive view, see Peter Mansoor, The GI Offensive in Europe: The Triumph of American Infantry Divisions, 1941–1945 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999).
    

19. Roland G. Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies, vol. 2, September 1944–May 1945 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1995), 317.
    

20. Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 444.
    

21. Danny S. Parker, Battle of the Bulge: Hitler’s Ar- dennes Offensive, 1944–1945 (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo, 2004), 334–35. For narrative power and techni- cal detail, the best account of this tumultuous month- long battle remains Charles B. MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge (New York: Bantam, 1985).
    

22. Martha Gellhorn, “ The Battle of the Bulge,” January 1945, reprinted in The Face of War (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1988), 152; Charles B. MacDonald, Com- pany Commander (1947; rept. Short Hills, N. J.: Burford Books, 1999), ix. On the brutalization of war in the east,
    

    see Omer Bartov, Hitler’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
    

23. MacDonald, Company Commander, 5; Donald Bur- gett, Seven Roads to Hell: A Screaming Eagle at Bas- togne (New York: Dell, 1999), 9; Spencer F. Wurst and Gayle Wurst, Descending From the Clouds (Havertown, Penn.: Casemate, 2004), 228; John Babcock, Taught to Kill (Dulles, Va.: Potomac Books, 2005), 54. On atti- tudes toward the war, see Samuel A. Stouffer et al., The American Soldier, vol. 1, Adjustment During Army Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949), 433.
    

24. Marvin D. Kays, “ Weather Effects during the Battle of the Bulge,” August 1982, prepared for U.S. Army At- mospheric Sciences Laboratory, USAMHI, Kaplan Pa- pers, box 2.
    

25. George Neill, Infantry Soldier: Holding the Line at the Battle of the Bulge (Norman: University of Okla- homa Press, 2000), 80, 85, 91, 95–97; George Wilson, If You Survive (New York: Random House, 1987), 205.
    

26. Roscoe C. Blunt, Jr., Foot Soldier: A Combat Infan- tryman’s War in Europe (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo, 2002), 122–23; Babcock, Taught to Kill, 59.
    

27. Burgett, Seven Roads, 1; MacDonald, Company Commander, 60; Neill, Infantry Soldier, 112–13; Blunt, Foot Soldier, 117; Wilson, If You Survive, 206.
    

28. John Dollard, Fear in Battle (Washington, D.C.: In- stitute of Human Relations, Yale University and The In- fantry Journal, 1944; rept. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977), 4; Samuel A. Stouffer et al., American Sol- dier, vol. 2, 201–23; Burgett, Seven Roads to Hell, 51; MacDonald, Company Commander, 45; Burgett, Seven Roads, 240.
    

29. MacDonald, Company Commander, 14, 30.
    

30. Burgett, Seven Roads, 243; Blunt, Foot Soldier, 86; Babcock, Taught to Kill, 86; Blunt, Foot Soldier, 81.
    

31. Burgett, Seven Roads, 9, 19; Babcock, Taught to Kill, 54, 67, 138–39.
    

32. Neill, Infantry Soldier, 129, 228.
    

33. Burgett, Seven Roads, 163.
    

34. Blunt, Foot Soldier, 138, 145; Neill, Infantry Soldier, 145, 247; David Kenyon Webster, Parachute Infantry (New York: Dell, 2002), 57; MacDonald, Company Com- mander, 126, 157.
    

35. Babcock, Taught to Kill, 43; Blunt, Foot Soldier, 138.
    

36. The precise numbers of civilian casualties are dif- ficult to pin down. The excellent National Museum of Military History at Diekirch, Luxembourg, under the direction of M. Roland Gaul, has concluded that 3,800 people were killed or wounded in Belgium and Luxem- bourg during the battle.
    

37. Laurent Lombard, Stavelot, cité héroique et mar- tyre, selection in USAMHI, Kaplan papers, box 1.
    

38. Hugh M. Cole, The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military His- tory, 1965), 262–63.
    

39. The precise number of Americans killed, and their precise location when they were killed, has been the subject of dispute for many years. For a reliable ac- count, see MacDonald, Time for Trumpets, 213–23; and Cole, The Ardennes, 260–64. The Malmédy massacre was the subject of a special congressional investigation: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, 81st Cong., 1st session (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Congress, 1949). Also see James Weingartner, Crossroads of Death: The Story of the Malmédy Massacre and Trial (Berkeley: Univer-
    

    sity of California Press, 1979).
    

40. The evidence presented here comes from the de- tailed investigation carried out by the Belgian Com- mission des Crimes de Guerre, published as Les Crimes de Guerre commis pendant la contre-offensive de von Rundstedt dans les Ardennes, décembre 1944–janvier 1945, Stavelot (Liège: Georges Thone, 1945). See also CEGES AA 1311, no. 710, report by mayor, Arnold Godin, “ Ville de Stavelot,” January 8, 1945.
    

41. The slaughter of civilians in Bande is detailed in re- ports for the Commission des Crimes de Guerre, CE- GES AA 120/ VII/1 bis. The shootings were allegedly in retribution for the attacks carried out by the resistance in the town against the retreating Germans in Septem- ber 1944. For further detail on these and other atroci- ties, see Mathieu Longue, Massacres en Ardennes: Hiv- er, 1944–45 (Brussels: Editions Racine, 2006), 67–83, 178–83; and Joss Heintz, In the Perimeter of Bastogne December 1944–January 1945 (Omnia: Ostend, 1965).
    

42. Cole, The Ardennes, 393–422. It is worth quoting the conclusion of Hugh Cole on the military value of the stout defense at Saint Vith: “ The losses sustained by the defenders of St. Vith must be measured against their accomplishments. They had met an entire Ger-
    

    man corps flushed with easy victory and halted it in its tracks. They had firmly choked one of the main enemy lines of communication and forced days of delay on the westward movement of troops, guns, tanks, and sup- plies belonging to two German armies. They had given the XVIII Airborne Corps badly needed time to gather for a coordinated and effective defense. Finally, these units had carried out a successful withdrawal under the most difficult conditions and would return again to the battle” (Cole, 422).
    

43. Mme. Meurer in Rivet and Sevenans, eds., La Ba- taille des Ardennes, 27–29; CEGES, AA 1311, no. 758, “Situation à St. Vith,” two reports of February 3 and 5, 1945. See also Schrijvers, Unknown Dead, 87–92 and 167–87.
    

44. Alfred Dubru, L’offensive von Rundstedt à Houffal- ize (Houffalize: Editions Haut-Pays, 1993), 49–50.
    

45. CEGES, “Houffalize: son martyre,” pamphlet self- published by town of Houffalize. Dubru also provides a detailed list of the victims, L’offensive, 99–110.
    

46. CEGES, AA1311, no. 715, “Houffalize, 19 Janvier 1945”; AA 1311, no. 758, two reports titled “Situation à Houffalize,” January 31 and February 12, 1945. For an
    

    account by one reporter, see “Houffalize, vision dan- tésque,” Les Nouvelles, February 7, 1945, news clipping in CEGES, AA 1311, no. 758.
    

47. Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, 492.
    

48. 1944: Un Noël en enfer: Des Malmédiens racontent (Malmédy: Royal Syndicat d’Initiative et de Tourisme, 1994).
    

49. CEGES, AA 1311, no. 1009, “Extrait Rapport Gendar- merie,” January 23, 1945, and letter to the Auditor Gen- eral, dated December 30, 1944, AA1311, no. 713.
    

50. L. Didier-Robert, La Mémoire de Sainlez: L’offensive von Rundstedt vécue au village (Bastogne: Cercle d’histoire de Bastogne, n.d.).
    

51. Report by Major Edward O’Donnell, January 29, 1945, “Report on Public Health Conditions in La Roche, Belgium,” NARA, RG 331, Allied Operations and Occu- pation Headquarters, SHAEF G-5 Division, Box 47. For similar assessments that stressed the scale of the phys- ical destruction, see Lt. Anspach report on La Roche of January 22, 1945, CEGES, AA 1311, no. 704, and report of January 14, 1945, by Office of Military Auditor, CEG- ES, AA 1311, no. 714. First Army Civil Affairs activities in Liège, Verviers, and the Eupen-Malmédy area provid-
    

    ed medical supplies, food, sanitation, transportation of wounded, shelter for refugees, and repairs to water mains. Medical Department, United States Army, Pre- ventive Medicine in World War II, vol. 8, Civil Affairs/ Military Government Public Health Activities (Wash- ington, D.C., 1976), 451–52.
    

52. Ganshof to Erskine, January 25, 1945, CEGES, AA 1311, no. 528.