The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 (116 page)

OCMH
Office of the Chief of Military History

OCNO
Office of the Chief of Naval Operations

OCS
Office of the Chief of Staff

OH
oral history

ONB
Omar N. Bradley, including papers

OPD
Operations Division, War Department

OR
observer report

OSS
Office of Strategic Services

PIR
Robert M. Littlejohn, ed., “Passing in Review,” MHI

Para
parachute

PP
Martin Blumenson,
The Patton Papers, 1940–1945

PP-pres
Papers, Pre-presidential

Proceedings
U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings

qm
quartermaster

regt
regiment

RG
record group

RN
Royal Navy

ROHA
Rutgers University Oral History Archives of World War II, New Brunswick, N.J.

Ross
William F. Ross and Charles F. Romanus,
The Quartermaster Corps: Operations in the War Against Germany, USAWWII

RR
Jeffrey J. Clarke and Robert Ross Smith,
Riviera to the Rhine
,
USAWWII

s.p.
self-published

SC
Signal Corps

SEM
Samuel Eliot Morison Office Files

SGS
Secretary General Staff

SLAM
S.L.A. Marshall, including papers, MHI

SLC
Charles B. MacDonald,
The Siegfried Line Campaign, USAWWII

SMH
Society for Military History

SOOHP
Senior Officer Oral History Program

SOS
Services of Supply

STM
Sidney T. Mathews

Sylvan
William C. Sylan and Francis G. Smith, Jr.,
Normandy to Victory

td
tank destroyer

Texas MFM
Texas Military Forces Museum, Austin

Three Years
Harry C. Butcher,
My Three Years with Eisenhower

TR
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., including papers, LOC MS Div

ts
typescript

TSC
Forrest C. Pogue,
The Supreme Command
,
USAWWII

TT
Charles B. MacDonald,
A Time for Trumpets

UK NA
National Archive, Kew, U.K. (formerly Public Record Office)

USAF HRC
U.S. Air Force Historical Research Center

USAF
U.S. Air Force

USAREUR
U.S. Army, Europe

USAWWII
United States Army in World War II

USFET
U.S. Forces, European Theater

USHMM
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

USMA Arch
U.S. Military Academy Special Collections and Archives, West Point, N.Y.

USMC
U.S. Marine Corps

USN
U.S. Navy

USNAd
“U.S. Naval Administration in World War II”

USNI OHD
U.S. Naval Institute, Oral History Department, Annapolis, Md.

USSAFE
U.S. Strategic Air Forces Europe

UTEP
University of Texas at El Paso

UT-K
University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Center for the Study of War and Society

VC
C. P. Stacey,
The Victory Campaign
, vol. 3,
Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War

VHP
Veterans’ History Project, National Folklife Center, Library of Congress

VW
L. F. Ellis,
Victory in the West

WaS
S. W. Roskill,
The War at Sea, 1939–1945
, vol. 3, part 2

WD
War Department

WP
Washington Post

WSC
Winston S. Churchill

WWII
World War II

XO
executive officer

YCHT
York County Heritage Trust, York, Pa.

YU
Yale University Library, Manuscripts and Archives

P
ROLOGUE

A killing frost
:
The New Yorker Book of War Pieces
, 308–9; Peckham and Snyder, eds.,
Letters from Fighting Hoosiers
, vol. 2, 95 (“
Three inches
”).

Nearly five years
: Settle,
All the Brave Promises
, 13, 84; Ziegler,
London at War, 1939–1945
, 243–45 (
zinc phosphate
).

Privation lay on the land
: Fussell,
Wartime
, 200, 203; “A Yank in Britain,” ts, n.d., Thor M. Smith Papers, HIA, box 2, 31 (“
Squander Bug
”);
Times
(London), May 15, 1944, 1 (“
artificial teeth
”); Stafford,
Ten Days to D-Day
, 203–4 (“
bombed upholstery
”).

Other government placards
: Fussell,
Wartime
, 201; Calder,
The People’s War
, 380–81 (
two ounces
and
roast cormorant
); Essame,
Patton: A Study in Command
, 128 (“
Woolton pie”
).

More than fifty thousand
:
VW
, vol. 1, 29; Joseph R. Darnall, “Powdered Eggs and Purple Hearts,” ts, 1946, MHUC, MHI, box 24, 72–74 (
parachute flares
); Moynihan, ed.,
People at War, 1939–45
, 169 (“
searchlights
”); Ackroyd,
London Under
, e-book, chapter 12 (“
slave ship
”); Ziegler,
London at War, 1939–1945
, 277, 270–71 (
own beds
).

Even during these short summer nights
:
Times
(London), May 15, 1944, 5; Simpson,
Selected Prose
, 117 (“
profoundly dark
”); Reynolds,
Rich Relations
, 414 (“
battlefield of sex
”); Longmate,
The G.I.’s
, 276 (“
Marble Arch style
”); Eustis,
War Letters of Morton Eustis to His Mother
, 191 (“
madhouse after dark
”).

Proud Britain soldiered on
: Joseph R. Darnall, “Powdered Eggs and Purple Hearts,” ts, 1946, MHUC, MHI, box 24, 92;
Daily Mail
(London), May 15, 1944, 3 (
pedaled their bicycles
);
Times
(London), May 15, 1944, 2 (“
colt of the first class
”), 5, 8; Stafford,
Ten Days to D-Day
, 17; Brown,
Many a Watchful Night
, 78.

“
French sailors with their red pompoms
”: Calder,
The People’s War
, 307.

Savile Row tailors
: Taylor,
Swords and Plowshares
, 86; Capa,
Slightly Out of Focus
, 132 (
pocket flask
); Bradley,
A Soldier’s Story
, 181 (
pumpkin hue
).

Nowhere were the uniforms
: Forrest Pogue refers to American MPs as Snowballs. Pogue,
Pogue’s War
, 15. More common was the British term, Snowdrop. Mollo,
The Armed Forces of World War II
, 235; “History of SHAEF, Feb. 13–June 6, 1944,” July 1944, NARA RG 319, 2-3.7 CB 8, appendix 3 (
146 engraved invitations
); Middleton,
Our Share of Night
, 308 (“
big men
”); Naval Guns, 19 (
hard, narrow benches
);
http://www.oldpaulinelodge.org.uk/School.htm
;
http://www.stpaulsschool.org.uk/page.aspx?id=8362
;
http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofstpaul00uoft
.

Top secret charts and maps
: Kennedy,
The Business of War
, 328 (
blankets
); D’Este,
Decision in Normandy
, 82–83 (
frock coat
); “Presentation of OVERLORD Plans,” May 15 1944, PP-pres, DDE Lib, series VI, box 1 (
King George VI
); D’Este,
Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life
, 500 (
Churchill bowed
).

these big men
:
IFG
, 223 (“
Mediterraneanites
”); Chandler, 1901 (“
in my blood
”).

The Anglo-Americans pounced
: see
AAAD
and
DOB.

Elsewhere in this global conflagration
: Weinberg,
A World at Arms
, 651, 656–57; Liddell Hart,
History of the Second World War
, 513, 520; Gilbert,
The Second World War
, 519, 615–17; Mansoor,
The GI Offensive in Europe
, 11 (
six Marine Corps divisions
).

The collapse of Berlin’s vast empire
: Charles V. P. von Lüttichau, “Germany’s Strategic Situation,” n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, R-93, box 15 (
German casualties
); Kimball,
Forged in War
, 257;
GS
V, 279 (
193 divisions
);
Germany VII
, 522 (
almost two thousand tanks
); Webster and Frankland,
The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany
, vol. 4, appendix 44, 456 (
seventy thousand tons
). No two estimates of German troop dispositions precisely agree.

In 1941, when Britain
: Wilson, ed.,
D-Day 1944
, 280; Maurice Matloff, “Wilmot Revisited,” in
D-Day: The Normandy Invasion in Retrospect
, 114–15 (“
iron-mongering
”).

Cometh the hour
: D’Este,
Decision in Normandy
, 83; Bradley and Blair,
A General’s Life
, 240–41; Eisenhower,
Eisenhower at War, 1943–1945
, 231–32; Powers, “The Battle of Normandy,”
JMH
(July 1992): 455
+
(
skid-proof socks
).

“
at peace with his soul
”: Naval Guns, 19;
CCA
, 269 (
June 5
); Hamilton,
Master of the Battlefield
, 581 (“
I consider it
”); Miller,
Ike the Soldier
, 599–600 (“
I have no sympathy
”).

A wiry, elfin figure
: Eisenhower,
Eisenhower at War, 1943–1945
, 231–32 (
padded shoes)
; Chalmers,
Full Cycle
, 187; D’Este,
Patton: A Genius for War
, 595 (
sharp rap
); Liebling,
Mollie & Other War Pieces
, 128 (
ruddy, truculent
);
PP
, 411–12 (
bespoke overcoat
); CBH, June 1 and 2, 1944, box 4; Allen,
Lucky Forward
, 23 (“
son-of-bitchery
”); GSP to Beatrice, Feb. 3, 1944, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 11, folder 15 (“
bad for the soul
”).

With a curt swish
: Hamilton,
Master of the Battlefield
, 577–78 (
salmon
); Moorehead,
Montgomery
, 36 (“
pointed flint
”);
http://www.stpaulsschool.org.uk/page.aspx?id=8362
;
http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofstpaul00uoft
;
The Pauline
, March 1946, 50–52; Montgomery,
A Field-Marshal in the Family
, 306–8 (
prayers in Latin
).

Glancing at his notes
: “Address on 15 May 1944: Brief Presentation of Plans Before the King,” IWM, PP/MCR, C46, Lt. Col. Christopher “Kit” Dawnay Collection, micro R-1.

The Bay of the Seine
: “Strategy of the Campaign in Western Europe, 1944–1945,” USFET General Board study no. 1, n.d., 6–8, 14; “The Planning and Tactical Background of the Invasion of the Continent of Europe,” n.d., Numa A Watson Collection, MHI;
CCA
, 72–73 (“
strategically unsound
”); ALH, I-183;
WaS
, 15 (“
impudent reconnaissance
”); George E. Creasy, OH, Feb. 4, 1947, FCP, MHI; Mason, ed.,
The Atlantic War Remembered
, 345;
www.msubmus.co.uk
*
.

Upon returning from Italy
:
GS
V, 283;
CCA
, 165;
LSA
, vol. 1, 185 (
230 additional support ships
);
WaS
, 8.

As he unfolded his plan
: Moorehead,
Montgomery
, 192–93; James,
The Counterfeit General Montgomery
, 53; Howarth, ed.,
Monty at Close Quarters
, 62, 66 (“
essentially didactic
”); Hamilton,
Master of the Battlefield
, 591 (
two thousand clerks
).

Montgomery pressed ahead
: Hinsley, 439–40, 459–60; “Address on 15 May 1944: Brief Presentation of Plans Before the King,” IWM, PP/MCR, C46, Lt. Col. Christopher “Kit” Dawnay Collection, micro R-1 (“
Last February
”). The German high command in the west at the time of the invasion had forty-eight infantry and ten panzer divisions. Ludewig,
Rückzug
, 31–42.

Some officers in SHAEF
: ALH, I-201;
WaS
, 13 (
one and one-third divisions
).

Montgomery envisioned
: Cirillo, “The Allied High Command,” lecture to British Army Doctrine and Development Directorate, n.d., a.p.; Crosswell,
Beetle
, 607, 633;
CCA
, 188;
GS
V, 284 (
Paris
).