The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 (133 page)

“
one of those paintings of Waterloo
”: “The Battle of the Falaise Pocket,”
AB
, no. 8 (1975): 1
+
; Collier,
Fighting Words
, 170 (“
the end of Germany
”);
DOB
, 168 (
escaped seemingly sure destruction at Messina
).

“
All German formations
”: Blumenson,
The Battle of the Generals
, 241–42, 254–57.

After liberating Orléans and Chartres
: “Memoranda for Record,” Aug. 19, 1944, XII AG, NARA RG 407, ML #205;
BP
, 566–70, 574–75; AAR, “Bridging the Seine,” XV Corps, Nov. 1944, NARA RG 498, G-3 OR, box 10; Gerhard Graf von Schwerin, ETHINT 18, Oct. 1945, MHI, 1.

“
inextricable confusion
”: Gerhard Graf von Schwerin, ETHINT 18, Oct. 1945, MHI, 6–7;
AAFinWWII
, 272 (
sixty Seine crossing sites
); Keegan,
Six Armies in Normandy
, 285 (
improvised ferries
);
BP
, 557, 581 (
25,000 vehicles
); Wilmot,
The Struggle for Europe
, 433 (
cider barrels
), 424 (
twelve of fifteen division commanders
); Luck,
Panzer Commander
, 165 (
empty fuel cans
); Hastings,
OVERLORD
, 309 (
dead cow
); Zuckerman,
From Apes to Warlords
, 282 (
95 percent of German troops
);
TSC
, 215. Historian John Prados estimates that 115,000 got away (
Normandy Crucible
, 249, 262).

Yet by any measure the defeat at Falaise
: Weigley,
Eisenhower’s Lieutenants
, 214; diary, D. K. Reimers, “My War,” Aug. 24, 1944, MHI, 157 (“
Life in the cages
”); Beevor,
D-Day
, 460–61;
BP
, 535–36 (“
When you receive these lines
”); Warlimont,
Inside Hitler’s Headquarters
, 454 (“
western thriller
”).

Allied investigators counted
: Ellis,
Brute Force
, 391. Various tallies have been offered. 21st Army Group reported finding 571 German guns, 358 tanks and self-propelled guns, and 4,700 trucks, cars, and armored tracks in the pocket. “The Operations of 21 Army Group,” 1946, CARL, N-133331, 15. Ludewig puts panzer losses at Falaise at more than 400, over half the total fleet. Ludewig,
Rückzug
, 99–100.

No Seine ferry could carry a Tiger
: Lefèvre,
Panzers in Normandy Then and Now
, photo (
charred on the docks
); Westermann,
Flak
, 260; Ellis,
Brute Force
, 391;
VW
, vol. 1, 448 (
twenty-five hundred trucks and cars
); Wilmot,
The Struggle for Europe
, 434 (“
five to ten tanks each
”); Ludewig,
Rückzug
, 164 (
Fifth Panzer Army
); Keegan,
Six Armies in Normandy
, 283–84 (
Army Group Center
); Callahan quoted in Blumenson,
The Battle of the Generals
, 272 (“
remarkable resurgence
”).

Eisenhower took a quick tour
: corr, Thor M. Smith to family, Aug. 28, 1944, HIA, box 1 (“
bloated dead
”); Thompson,
The Imperial War Museum Book of Victory in Europe
, 139 (
paybooks
); “The Battle of the Falaise Pocket,”
AB
, no. 8 (1975): 1
+
(
bulldozed mass grave
); Skibinski,
Pierwsza Pancerna
, 311 (“
coal monuments
”); Hastings,
OVERLORD
, 312 (
evacuate gases
); Saunders,
Royal Air Force, 1939–1945
, vol. 3, 136–37 (
rear seat of a limousine
);
BP
, 558 (“
avenging angel
”).

Troops cleansing the pocket wore gas masks
: Lyall, ed.,
The War in the Air
, 428;
Reporting World War II
, vol. 2, 217 (“
Everything is dead
”); Moorehead,
Eclipse
, 158 (“
waiting to die in the water
”); Stacey,
The Canadian Army, 1939–1945
, 205–6 (
eight thousand slaughtered horses
); Lucas and Barker,
The Killing Ground
, 158–59 (
Not until 1961
).

“
Thank you for liberating us
”: Copp,
Cinderella Army
, 27; Ambrose,
Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952
, vol. 1, 331 (
Many recalled November 1918
); memo, BLM, Aug. 20, 1944, NARA RG 407, ML, box 24143 (“
beginning of the end
”).

The Loveliest Story of Our Time

Warm summer rain
: Marshall,
Battle at Best
, 226 (“
booming like bitterns
”).

Tricolor pennants flew
: Keegan,
Six Armies in Normandy
, 306; Hills,
Phantom Was There
, 217–18 (
white silhouette
); Beevor and Cooper,
Paris After the Liberation
,
1944–1949
, 31; Yeide and Stout,
First to the Rhine
, 201.

Scores of frisky
“
warcos
”: Moorehead,
Eclipse
, 160; Lankford, ed.,
OSS Against the Reich
, 168–69 (
any procession into Paris
), 160–62 (“
Paris/Orléans
”); Baker,
Ernest Hemingway
, 521; Reynolds,
Hemingway: The Final Years
, 105–6; Voss,
Reporting the War
, 185–90 (“le grand capitaine”); Capa,
Slightly Out of Focus
, 179 (“
spitting short sentences
”); Babcock,
War Stories
, 178 (“
just in case
”).

Astride the road outside Limours
: Beevor,
D-Day
, 387; Baker,
Ernest Hemingway
, 525 (“
Like the Scarlet Pimpernel
”); Clayton,
Three Marshals of France
, 39–42 (
child’s toy printing set
); MMB, 310; Porch,
The Path to Victory
, 583–84; OH, SLAM, 1973, George J. Stapleton, MHI, V, 19–24 (“
Have no fear
”); Marshall,
Battle at Best
, 226.

“
a weird assortment of private cars
”: Whitehead, “
Beachhead Don
,” 211–12; Marshall,
Battle at Best
, 226 (
Veterans of the Franco-Prussian War
); Lankford, ed.,
OSS Against the Reich
, 171 (“
wreck one’s constitution
”).

By Thursday evening the spearhead remained five miles
:
BP
, 611–14.

“
advancing on a one-tank front
”: Keegan,
Six Armies in Normandy
, 308; Blumenson, “Politics and the Military in the Liberation of Paris,”
Parameters
(summer 1998): 4
+
(“
slam on in
”); Zaloga,
Liberation of Paris 1944
, 67–68 (“Tenez bon”).

Eisenhower had long planned
: “Crossing of the Seine and Capture of Paris,” Aug. 17, 1944, SHAEF, planning staff, Post-Neptune, NARA RG 331, E 23 (“
eight divisions
”); Wieviorka,
Normandy
, 350–1; Keegan,
Six Armies in Normandy
, 291–92; Beevor and Cooper,
Paris After the Liberation, 1944–1949
, 39 (
convoys were hijacked
); Riding,
And the Show Went On
, 308 (
Jewish deportees
).

“
Paris is worth 200,000 dead
”: Zaloga,
Liberation of Paris 1944
, 34, 24; Keegan,
Six Armies in Normandy
, 296 (“
holier-than-thouery
”).

The moment grew riper
: Beevor and Cooper,
Paris After the Liberation, 1944–1949
, 37 (
foretelling catastrophe
), 40 (
opened their windows
); “Paris,”
AB
, No. 14, 1976, 11
+
; Collins and Lapierre,
Is Paris Burning?
, 149–50 (
four hundred such redoubts
), 133 (“
things are going to get bad
”), 219; Jacques Kim, ed.,
La Libération de Paris
, 1944, no pagination, in HIA, Boris T. Pash papers, box 4, folder 4 (
portraits of Hitler
); Thornton,
The Liberation of Paris
, 165 (“
pictures of Delacroix
”); Aron,
France Reborn
, 262 (
Hèrmes scarves
); Riding,
And the Show Went On
, 309 (“
For every Parisian
”); Collier,
The Freedom Road, 1944–45
, 165 (
Swedish ball-bearing factory manager
).

“
If the enemy tries to hold Paris
”: Chandler, 2088–89.

“
Gestapo small fry
”: Thornton,
The Liberation of Paris
, 127, 121 (
Ash from burning documents
); Joseph R. Darnall, “Hospitalization in European Theater of Operations,” n.d., MHUC, Group 1, box 24, 25 (
clogged the plumbing
); Collins and Lapierre,
Is Paris Burning?
, 72–73 (“
back for Christmas
”); Blumenson,
Liberation
, 13 (“la ville sans regard”); Beevor,
D-Day
, 485 (
toilet brushes
).

With his main thrust delayed by skirmishers
: “Paris,”
AB
, No. 14, 1976, 11
+
(“Les Américains!”;
BP
, 615; Maule,
Out of the Sand
, 214 (“
Rejoice!
”).

From a balcony of the Hôtel Meurice
: MWB, 89–90; Neiburg,
The Blood of Free Men
, 85. Choltitz had been linked to the murder of Jews in the Crimea. Roberts,
The Storm of War
, 495–96.

“
field of ruins
”:
BP
, 598.

“
It has been my fate
”: Collins and Lapierre,
Is Paris Burning?
, 24, 158 (“
Our task is hard
”); Ludewig,
Rückzug
, 138 (
Saxon
), 143 (
eight centuries
).

With only twenty thousand men
:
Germany VII
, 615; Ludewig,
Rückzug
, 144–47; Blumenson, “Politics and the Military in the Liberation of Paris,”
Parameters
(summer 1998): 4
+
(“
Ever since our enemies
”);
BP
, 609 (
told superiors of placing explosives
); Aron,
France Reborn
, 279–80 (“
prudent and intelligent attitude
”), 284–85; Maule,
Out of the Sand
, 214 (“
the Allies are here
”). Choltitz’s role in saving Paris would be vigorously debated for more than sixty years after the war.
http://www.ina.fr/recherche/recherche/search/la+liberation+de+paris
*

Leclerc managed to slide his entire division
: “Paris,”
AB
, No. 14, 1976, 11
+
;
BP
, 615 (
12th Infantry reached Notre Dame
); Keegan,
Six Armies in Normandy
, 309; Beevor and Cooper,
Paris After the Liberation, 1944–1949
, 45 (
women curled their hair
); Aron,
France Reborn
, 286 (
colors flew from the Eiffel Tower
); Thornton,
The Liberation of Paris
, 173 (
Animals set loose
), 187 (
scent of mothballs
).

“
The rip tide of courage
”:
Reporting World War II
, vol. 2, 251, 260 (
Yiddish
); Marshall,
Battle at Best
, 246–47 (“
not less than five thousand bullets
”); Moorehead,
Eclipse
, 168–69 (
from the rumble seats
); chronology, Aug. 25, 1944, 1556 hours, GSP, LOC MS Div, box 53, folder 1 (“
massacred or made prisoners
”); “Paris,”
AB
, no. 14, 1976, 11
+
(
surrendered to a Signal Corps photographer
); Collins and Lapierre,
Is Paris Burning?
, 313, 325 (
weapons in the cloakroom
); Aron,
France Reborn
, 286–87 (
lunch at the usual hour
).

“
Germany’s lost the war
”: Collier,
The Freedom Road, 1944–45
, 170; Collins and Lapierre,
Is Paris Burning?
, 312 (
packed a valise
), 307 (“
our last combat
”); Beevor,
D-Day
, 508 (“
silent from the effort
”); Aron,
France Reborn
, 287–89 (“
particularly not today
”).

Just down the street, fighting swept
: Tillier et al.,
Paris
, 131; Choltitz,
Soldat Unter Soldaten
, 268–69 (“Sprechen deutsch?”).

A furious mob punched and spat
: Beevor,
D-Day
, 510; Aron,
France Reborn
, 291–92 (“
Oh, no
”). Choltitz would be court-martialed in absentia after his capture. Ludewig,
Rückzug
, 148–49.

Teams of French and German officers
: Collins and Lapierre,
Is Paris Burning?
, 338–39;
Germany VII
, 615; Riding,
And the Show Went On
, 313 (
Louvre
).