The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 (178 page)

Calling for a map
: Moorehead,
Eclipse
, 284; Hamilton,
Monty: Final Years of the Field-Marshal, 1944–1976
, 501–4 (
tongue-lashing
); Francis de Guingand, “Notes for the Chief of Staff,” May 3, 1945, LHC, 2/4/2 (“
delighted to continue
”); De Guingand,
Operation Victory
, 453–55.

At five
P.M.
on a rainy Friday
: Thompson,
Men Under Fire
, 148–51; John Keegan, “The German Surrender,” in Hollinshead and Rabb, eds.,
I Wish I’d Been There
, vol. 2, 311 (“
with the doings
”); Moorehead,
Eclipse
, 285–86 (“
We will go and see
”).

The answer was yes
: diary entry, May 7, 1945, Harold S. Frum, “The Soldier Must Write,” 1984, GCM Lib (
Donuts
); Moorehead,
Montgomery
, 223 (“
a good likeness
”).

“
It was a grey evening
”: Moorehead,
Eclipse
, 286–87.

Friedeburg and his comrades rose
: Hamilton,
Monty: Final Years of the Field-Marshal, 1944–1976
, 512–13.

Once all German signatures
: Moorehead,
Eclipse
, 288–89; “Surrender Negotiations,” n.d., UK NA, CAB 101/330, 6–7; Thompson,
Men Under Fire
, 152–53 (“
concludes
”).

“
The tent flaps
”: “German Surrenders,”
AB
, no. 48 (1985): 1
+
;
VW
, vol. 2, 340 (“
It looks as if
”).

Foul weather on Saturday
:
SC
, 486–87; Strong,
Intelligence at the Top
, 273 (
fresh collar
);
Three Years
, 825–26 (
twenty minutes
).

Smith and Major General Strong
: Crosswell,
Beetle
, 918.

Smith walked down the hall
:
Three Years
, 825–28, 834; Summersby,
Eisenhower Was My Boss
, 237 (“
let-down
”).

“
I really expected
”: Eisenhower,
Letters to Mamie
, 250.

A new negotiator arrived
: Doenitz,
Memoirs
, 462–63; OH, Kenneth Strong, May 15, 1963, CJR, box 95, folder 5, 2 (“
fight the Russians
”).

“
You tell them
”:
Three Years
, 830–31. Dönitz’s stalling was credited with allowing 1.8 million German soldiers to surrender to the Western Allies rather than the Soviets. A substantial majority of the 10 million total German prisoners-of-war ended up being held by the West (Bessel,
Germany 1945
, 124–25).

“
Eisenhower insists that we sign
”: Doenitz,
Memoirs
, 462–63;
SC
, 487 (“
Full power
”).

SHAEF typists for days
: Crosswell,
Beetle
, 921–22.

In the absence of firm instructions
: ibid., 916–17; Mosely, “Dismemberment of Germany,”
Foreign Affairs
(Apr. 1950): 487
+
; OH, Philip E. Mosely, n.d., CJR, box 43, folder 10, 3–4. The diplomat Robert Murphy asserted that Smith had simply forgotten about the EAC version (
Diplomat Among Warriors
, 240–41).

He opted instead for a third, abridged document
: Counsell,
Counsell’s Opinion
, 149–50, 151–53 (
pecking at a typewriter
); memoir, John Counsell, n.d., CJR, box 43, folder 3, 110–16; Ziemke,
The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, 1944–1946
, 257–58; Mosely, “Dismemberment of Germany,”
Foreign Affairs
(Apr. 1950): 487
+
(“
enabling clause
”).

“
Get ready, gentlemen
”: White,
Conquerors’ Road
, 115.

“
The effect of make-believe
”: Crosswell,
Beetle
, 922. Some of the nameplates can be found in the Sidney H. Negrotto papers, MHI.

Strong laid a copy
:
SC
, 488.

Purple circles rimmed his eyes
: White,
Conquerors’ Road
, 115; Summersby,
Eisenhower Was My Boss
, 240 (“Ja. Ja”); Strong,
Intelligence at the Top
, 282 (“
You will officially
”).

“
I suppose this calls
”: Ambrose,
Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952
, vol. 1, 407.

“
The mission of this Allied force
”: Chandler, 2696.

The sharp odors of soap
: narrative, end of war, CBH, n.d., and diary, May 7, 1945, CBH, MHI.

Bradley climbed from the bed
: Bradley,
A Soldier’s Story
, 554 (“
D
+
335”); narrative, end of war, CBH, n.d., and diary, May 7, 1945, CBH, MHI (“
our troubles
”).

“
For the first time
”: “Reports by U.S. Army Ultra Representatives with Army Field Commands in the European Theater of Operations,” NARA RG 457, E 9002, NSA, SRH-023, box 14; Wheeler,
The Big Red One
, 381–82 (
21,000 Purple Hearts
); Clay,
Blood and Sacrifice
, 238 (“
It’s about goddamn time
”);
PP
, 696 (
Peace still held
); Allen,
Lucky Forward
, 394 (“
rivers in Japan
”); Codman,
Drive
, 299 (
strode from the command post
).

As word spread
: Linderman,
The World Within War
, 231 (“
mad, dangerous
”); Mitchell,
Hitler’s Mountain
, 135 (“
like a hailstorm
”); “Personal Diary,” May 6, 1945, JMG, MHI, box 10 (“
This is it
”); Heinz,
When We Were One
, 152 (
drank a toast
).

“
curiously flat
”: Moorehead,
Eclipse
, 305.

“
I should be completely joyous
”: Christen T. Jonassen, “Letter Written on V-E Day 1945,” n.d., Columbus WWII Round Table collection, MHI, box 1.

“
I am in a let-down mood
”: diary, JLD, May 5, 1945, MHI.

“
We did not know
”: Heinz,
When We Were One
, 150, 157.

“
Lights scintillated
”: Robert E. Walker, “With the Stonewallers,” n.d., MMD, 118.

Darkness enfolded
: Forrest Pogue wrote, “We knew the war in Europe was over … because the lights came on in Pilzen and in every village near us” (
Pogue’s War
, 381).

E
PILOGUE

The
Daily Mail
in London
: Gilbert,
The Day the War Ended
, 88.

No matter that word of the Reims ceremony
: “Infractions of Press Censorship,” telephone transcript, SHAEF and WD, May 7, 1945, 4
P.M.
, NARA RG 331, E 1, SGS, file 000.73, box 4 (
ticker tape
);
SC
, 527–28; Voss,
Reporting the War
, 193–96.

But Stalin remained adamant
: Gilbert,
The Day the War Ended
, 92–98;
SC
, 491–92 (
Eisenhower dispatched
); OH, Arthur Tedder, Feb. 13, 1947, FCP, MHI (
noisy haggling
); Summersby,
Eisenhower Was My Boss
, 250–52; De Lattre de Tassigny,
The History of the French First Army
, 518; Clayton,
Three Marshals of France
, 119; author visits, Karlshorst, Nov. 1995 and Sept. 2009;
Three Years
, 836 (“
easier to start
”).

Notwithstanding a BBC announcement
: Botting,
From the Ruins of the Reich
, 94; Gilbert,
The Day the War Ended
, 98 (“
Move along
”).

In Paris, a celebration
: Beevor and Cooper,
Paris After the Liberation, 1944–1949
, 195–97, (
Garde Républicaine
); Helen Van Zonneveld, “A Time to Every Purpose,” n.d., HIA, 401–2 (“Salut!”); Cooper,
Old Men Forget
, 352 (
all clear
); Gilbert,
The Day the War Ended
, 220–22 (“
anywhere to anywhere
”); corr, P. B. Rogers to family, May 10, 1945, Pleas B. Rogers papers, MHI (“
Battle Hymn
”); OH, Richard Collins, 1976, Donald Bowman, SOOHP, MHI, III-26 (
Avenue de Paris
).

The rest of the world
: Sulzberger,
A Long Row of Candles
, 259 (
U.S. embassy
); Dobbs,
Six Months in 1945
, 203 (
tossed into the air
); Brinkley,
Washington Goes to War
, 275 (
lights bathed the Capitol
); Gilbert,
The Day the War Ended
, 293–94 (“
treacherous Japanese
”).

V-E Day dawned in London
: Ziegler,
London at War, 1939–1945
, 324 (“
Wagnerian rain
”), 325 (
cymbals
), 328 (“
Not to Be Sold
”); Mollie Panter-Downes, “Letter from London,” May 19, 1945, in
The New Yorker Book of War Pieces
, 472–76; Gilbert,
The Day the War Ended
, 211 (“
We want the king!
”); Lewis,
The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness World War II
, 461 (
Hitler effigy
).

Early in the afternoon Churchill left
: D’Este,
Warlord
, 692–93; Pawle,
The War and Colonel Warden
, 381; Mollie Panter-Downes, “Letter from London,” May 19, 1945, in
The New Yorker Book of War Pieces
, 472–76; Gilbert,
The Day the War Ended
, 199 (“
roared ourselves
”); Thompson,
I Was Churchill’s Shadow
, 157–58 (“
They expect it
”).

Searchlights at dusk
: Ziegler,
London at War, 1939–1945
, 327; Gilbert,
The Day the War Ended
, 211 (“
your hour
”); D’Este,
Warlord
, 692–93 (“
ancient land
”); Taylor and Taylor, eds.,
The War Diaries
, 195 (“
Hope and Glory
”). Churchill would be turned from office less than two months later when his Conservatives took a drubbing at the polls; in 1951, he again became prime minister for nearly four years.

By the time Japan surrendered
: Weinberg,
A World at Arms
, 894 (
Sixty million had died
); Hitchcock,
The Bitter Road to Freedom
, 131 (
one-third of them soldiers
); Snyder, “Walter Bedell Smith: Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff,”
Military Affairs
(Jan. 1984): 6
+
(“
great and terrible
”); Rosenbaum, “Explaining Hitler,”
New Yorker
(May 1, 1995): 50
+
(“
genocide
”); Fussell,
Wartime
, 132, 139 (“
unmitigated misfortune
”), 268 (“
tragic and ironic
”).

“
a God all-powerful
”: Danchev, 689.

In Europe, the Western Allies
: Battle Itinerary Study, USFET G-3, Aug. 1946, NARA RG 498, UD 583, box 4017, 5; Gerhard L. Weinberg, “D-Day: Analysis of Costs and Benefits,” in Wilson, ed.,
D-Day 1944
, 337.

A British military maxim
: Weigley,
Eisenhower’s Lieutenants
, 730; Overy,
Why the Allies Won
, 281 (“
centralized, unified
”).

Allied leadership included checks
: Overy,
Why the Allies Won
, 278–81; Roberts,
Masters and Commanders
, 580–81; Biddle, “Leveraging Strength: The Pillars of American Grand Strategy in World War II,”
Orbis
(winter 2011): 4
+
.

“
Our resolution to preserve
”: Overy,
Why the Allies Won
, 324;
LO
, 477–78; Mansoor,
The GI Offensive in Europe
, 4–6, 252; “Report of Activities: Army Ground Forces, World War II,” Jan. 1946, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, AGF RTC, box 150;
http://www.minneapolisfed.org/
(
roughly $4 trillion
); Stephen Daggett, “Cost of Major U.S. Wars,” June 29, 2010, Congressional Research Service, 2; Montgomery, “The Cost of War, Unnoticed,”
WP
, May 8, 2007, D1 (
42 million
); Millett and Murray,
Military Effectiveness
, vol. 3,
The Second World War
, 47, 62; Bynell, “Logistical Planning and Operations—Europe,” lecture, March 16, 1945, NARA RG 334, E 315, ANSCOL, box 207, 14 (“
digging the Panama Canal
”).

“
prodigy of organization
”: Weigley,
History of the United States Army
, 475; “Supply and Maintenance on the European Continent,” n.d., NARA RG 407, E 427, USFET General Board, AG WWII operations reports, 97-USF5-0.30, no. 130, 42 (
18 million tons
); “Ordnance Diary,” Dec. 1, 1945, NARA RG 498, ETOUSA HD, UD 586, box 1 (
vehicles
); “Clothing and Footwear,” chapter 56, PIR, Robert M. Littlejohn papers, HIA, 2 (
footwear
); “U.S. Army in WWII,” 1952, CMH, cited in “Statistical Review,” RefBib, MHI (
munitions plants
); “Statistical Review,” RefBib, MHI, citing
Cavalry Journal
, March–Apr. 1946, 21
+
(
500 million machine-gun bullets
); Goodman, ed.,
While You Were Gone
, 23 (“
American taxpayer
”); Ambrose,
Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945
, 63 (
two-thirds of all ships
).