Killing Patton The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General (44 page)

Chapter 8

1
Mims served as Patton’s driver from September 1940 until May 1945.

2
Though several British officers were in attendance—and laughed out loud at Patton’s plan—Montgomery chose to skip the meeting. This act of grandstanding at such a crucial moment did not get him punished for insubordination. Quite the opposite. The next day, Eisenhower reassigned large chunks of Bradley’s forces to Montgomery’s command. This led many in the British press to claim that the U.S. forces were helpless without the field marshal’s tactical expertise. Understandably, this infuriated many American soldiers.

3
The German air force once dominated the skies over Europe. But the Battle of Britain cost the Luftwaffe almost 1,900 fighters and bombers, as well as 3,500 air crew killed and another 967 captured. The Luftwaffe never recovered. The buildup of Allied forces in Europe before and after D-day was complemented by an increasing reliance on airpower to assist ground forces in close combat support and to pummel enemy installations and cities. Though the Luftwaffe was still mounting coordinated strikes in late 1944, the Allies had almost complete air superiority.

4
The Mark IV Panzer formed the backbone of the German army’s tank corps, with more than seventeen thousand seeing service during the war. But when the invasion of Russia revealed that the Soviet T-34 had thicker armor and more powerful armament, the Panther tank was designed and built. Its 75 mm gun and sloped armor (to deflect shells) proved highly effective on the Russian front and was considered the best German tank of the war. The Tiger, designed in 1942, was originally supposed to be named the Panzer VI, but Adolf Hitler ordered that a new name be used. Both the Tiger I and the Tiger II were formidable heavy tanks, easily the equal of any other armored weapon on the battlefield. But the Panzer II, in particular, was rushed into service, and suffered from mechanical issues that limited its effectiveness.

5
Precise German casualties are not known. All told, the Americans lost five thousand, either dead or missing, and the incidence of death was disproportionately high among the fifty-six thousand attacking Germans, who also lost more than one hundred tanks and armored vehicles.

6
A slit latrine was a long, narrow trench just wide enough for a man to straddle while relieving himself. Dirt was thrown over the hole afterward to eliminate odor.

7
A desperate Hitler had ordered the Germans to fly in all circumstances, while the Americans would not take that risk, which infuriated Patton.

8
An archaic French term meaning a diplomatic go-between who is free from punishment or persecution while performing his duties.

9
Shit.

Chapter 10

1
Hitler is fifty-five years old. There is speculation that his shaking left hand and wobbly walk are caused by Parkinson’s disease. There is also a theory that he suffered from an advanced stage of syphilis. He referred to it as “the Jewish disease” in his treatise
Mein Kampf
. He reportedly had sex with a Jewish prostitute in Vienna in 1908, and perhaps contracted the disease at that time. What is known for certain is that Hitler’s fondness for sugar causes him myriad dental problems, and may explain why he never smiles in public. He is also addicted to cocaine and methamphetamines, suffers from irritable bowel syndrome, has an irregular heartbeat, and has long had a problem with skin lesions on his legs, believed to have been caused by what is known as “neurosyphilis,” a late-phase version of the disease that brings on madness. Early in the war, Wild Bill Donovan and the OSS published a report stating that Hitler enjoyed having women urinate and defecate on him, though this appears to be disinformation intended to malign the Führer. However, what is most surely a fact is that by Christmas 1944 Hitler had become impotent.

2
A baked treat much like a gingerbread cookie.

3
Among the many Allied fighter-bombers patrolling the skies over Europe, the single-engine P-47 stood out for its size (ten tons fully loaded, with two one-thousand-pound bombs) and ability to provide close support for ground troops, thanks to the four .50-caliber machine guns in each wing. Patton considered coordinated attacks by the P-47, Sherman tanks, and infantry a vital part of his tactics.

4
Peiper is multilingual, so no translator is needed. After the war, he was captured by the Americans and served almost twelve years in prison for war crimes. He moved his family to France, where he made his living as a writer. In 1976, French Communists assaulted Peiper’s home, setting it on fire. As Peiper tried to flee the house, he was shot to death.

5
A rank available only to members of the SS. The name translates to “senior storm leader,” and the rank is equivalent to a lieutenant colonel in the Wehrmacht.

6
Hitler was raised Catholic. His parents, Alois and Klara, were devout. The Führer’s father died in 1903, at the age of sixty-five, and his mother from breast cancer four years later, at forty-seven. Of Hitler’s five siblings, only his youngest sister, Paula, lived to adulthood. She was taken into U.S. custody at the end of the war, but was released when it became clear that she had not been a party to her brother’s actions. She relocated from Austria to Germany after the war, where she lived in seclusion. Paula Hitler died in 1960 at the age of sixty-four. Like her brother, she had no children. Her death ended the Hitler bloodline.

7
Maj. Hal McCown was not among them. He managed to run off and escape during a brief skirmish with forces of the American Eighty-Second Airborne Division. It is worth noting that the Eighty-Second was originally supposed to be the force defending Bastogne, but they were routed to other positions at the last minute, leaving it to the 101st to defend the town.

Chapter 11

1
Stalin had a roving eye, and was especially fond of ballet dancers, opera singers, and actresses. He had many trysts, including a dalliance with a female Georgian test pilot and a thirteen-year-old Siberian girl that produced a child out of wedlock. His relationship with Valentina Istomina began when she came to work for him in 1934, when she was nineteen. Their relationship continued until his death in 1953.

2
Stalin spoke Georgian as a child. This language of the Black Sea region also has its own alphabet.

3
The celebration featured scores of British officers, and the whisky and champagne flowed freely.

4
There is evidence that she may have been murdered. Natasha Alliluyeva was right-handed. The bullet wound appeared in her left temple, which would imply that she used her left hand. In addition, the doctor who did the autopsy reported that there were no powder marks on her skin and that the gunshot took place from at least three feet away. That doctor was later executed.

5
The Christmas story is perhaps apocryphal, an invention of Soviet propaganda.

6
Long after Stalin’s death and the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the Christmastime celebration in Russia is still commemorated on January 1 with the ceremonial New Year’s tree.

Chapter 12

1
So named because this is when British nobility presented their servants with a present known as the “Christmas box.” It was understood that they would not receive this present on Christmas Day because they were busy at work, helping their employers with their Yuletide celebration.

2
Hendrix seemed to have been born under a lucky star. A few years later, in September 1949, during parachute maneuvers at Fort Benning, Georgia, he survived a thousand-foot free fall when his primary and reserve parachutes failed to open. He landed on his back, in the soft earth of a freshly plowed field. He suffered minor bruises but no broken bones.

3
Another stumbling block was the American Ninety-Ninth Division. They held the northern shoulder of the Bulge assault, inflicting tremendous casualties on the Germans in the Battle of Elsenborn Ridge. Despite the fact that the Wehrmacht offensive had sputtered, the Germans did not give much ground until Patton was able to relieve Bastogne. In fact, on January 1, the Germans launched Operation Baseplate (Unternehmen Bodenplatte), a last-gasp aerial bombardment on Allied airfields by the Luftwaffe. It was a success, resulting in the destruction of 465 American and British aircraft. However, the sorely depleted Luftwaffe also lost nearly 300 planes, which pretty much finished it as a fighting force.

4
The citation for Abrams’s Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster (awarded in lieu of a second Distinguished Service Cross) concludes by describing the final moments of the Bastogne breakthrough: “Heedless of approaching darkness and strong enemy defenses, he brilliantly led his battalion on to a further objective. Lieutenant Colonel Abrams’ intrepid actions, personal bravery and zealous devotion to duty exemplify the highest traditions of the military forces of the United States and reflect great credit upon himself, the 4th Armored Division and the United States Army.”

Chapter 13

1
The Twentieth Amendment officially moved the inaugural date from March 4 to January 20. The reason for this change was that the pace of modern communications meant that news of a president’s election no longer took several months to travel around the country; nor did it take months for the president to travel to Washington, DC, to take office. The new amendment was ratified in 1933, and took effect for FDR’s second inaugural in 1937. The Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1947, makes it unlawful for a president to be elected to more than two terms.

2
Gen. George C. Marshall, Adm. Ernest King, Secretary of War Harold Stimson.

3
The practice of a presidential invocation did not begin until 1937. Chaplain of the Senate ZeBarney Thorne Phillips delivered the prayer then, and again in 1941. He died in 1942, whereupon FDR selected Dun to replace him. With the exception of Billy Graham in 1989, 1993, and 1997, Phillips is the only cleric to perform the invocation more than once. A minor footnote is that Angus Dun’s father was cofounder of the credit rating firm Dun and Bradstreet.

4
Andrew Johnson was the senator and military governor of Tennessee chosen by Lincoln to serve as vice president during his second term. Johnson showed up severely hungover for his inaugural on March 4, 1865—and then proceeded to take two stiff shots of whisky before delivering a rambling address to the Senate. On the day that Lincoln was assassinated, Johnson was also targeted for murder but was spared when his killer lost his nerve. Upon his ascension to the presidency, Johnson was divisive and inept. Many of the so-called red states and blue states that exist in American politics today can trace their roots back to Johnson’s lack of leadership at a time in the country’s history when healing instead of settling scores should have been foremost. He was impeached by the House of Representatives but avoided conviction by the Senate by just one vote. He was charged with violating the now-repealed Tenure of Office Act, which was passed the previous year specifically to restrict the powers of his presidency. Johnson managed to fight the charges over the course of the ensuing three-month trial and served out the rest of his term. He actually tried to run for the presidency once again that summer, but his lack of popularity made that impossible. Johnson was so bitter about not getting the chance to serve four more years that he refused to attend the inaugural of his successor, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

5
The fifty-one-year-old Mao Tse-tung led China’s revolutionary Communist regime. After the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, the Chinese Communists overthrew the ruling Nationalist Party government led by Chiang Kai-shek. From 1949 onward, Mao Tse-tung ruled China with a despotic grasp that rivaled that of Hitler and Stalin. Mao died in 1976 at age eighty-two.

6
The Gestapo was Nazi Germany’s official secret police. Under the supervision of Heinrich Himmler, this branch of the SS terrorized and murdered anyone who might represent a threat to the Nazi Party. Even law-abiding Germans lived in fear of a visit from the Gestapo, who were often clad in civilian clothing. The Gestapo headquarters, on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse in Berlin, featured underground cells where prisoners were held and tortured. The remains of those cells can be seen today at the Topography of Terror Museum in Berlin, which is built upon the large city block that was once home to the Gestapo. The buildings comprising Himmler’s headquarters have all been demolished. All traces of that awful legacy have been replaced by a stark landscape of gray stones, and no vegetation. The entire city block will never again be developed.

7
There is some evidence that Donovan, a well-known Anglophile, was a double agent working for the British. But that has never been proven.