The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 (179 page)

The enemy was crushed by logistical brilliance
: At its peak, the war accounted for 35.8 percent of GDP (Stephen Daggett, “Cost of Major U.S. Wars,” June 29, 2010, Congressional Research Service, 2); Gropman,
Mobilizing U.S. Industry in World War II
, 107 (
smaller proportion
), 133; Ellis,
Brute Force
, 348–49.

“
Warfare like yours is easy
”: German POW survey, Dec. 7, 1944, SHAEF, Psychological Warfare Division, RG 331, E 87, 23 782.

There was nothing easy
: Stoler,
Allies in War
, 227; Willmott,
The Great Crusade
, 352 (“
European supremacy
”); Larrabee,
Commander in Chief
, 631 (“
American century
”); Brower, ed.,
World War II in Europe: The Final Year
, 63 (“
great soul
”).

The war was a potent catalyst
: Weinberg,
A World at Arms
, 915; Weinberg, “The Place of World War II in History,” lecture, 1995, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Spring, Colo., 11 (
GI Bill
); Kennedy,
Freedom from Fear
, 779 (
antebellum roles
); MacGregor,
Integration of the Armed Forces
, 51–53, 56; “The Utilization of Negro Infantry Platoons in White Companies,” NARA RG 330, E 94, soldier surveys, report no. ETO 82, 4–12.

“
Glad to be home
”: Reynolds,
Rich Relations
, 444.

In battered Europe, enormous tasks
: Pyle,
Brave Men
, 320 (“
broken world
”);
SC
, 508–10 (
Norway
), 499; Margry, “The Flensburg Government,”
AB
, no. 128 (2005): 2
+
; J. B. Churcher, “A Soldier’s Story,” n.d., LHC, 80–81 (“
Any word
”);
SC
, 512–15; “Activities and Organization of COMZ,” U.S. Senate hearing, May 28, 1945, NARA RG 498, ETO HD, admin file #89, 29 (
three million strong
); Brig. Gen. Alden H. Waitt, “Summary Report of Situation in ETO,” July 5, 1945, NARA RG 337, E 16, GHQ AGF G-3, OR, 210.684, box 2 (
poisonous gas munitions
).

“
On the continent of Europe
”: Churchill,
Triumph and Tragedy
, 549–50.

Part of that cleansing
: Gill,
The Journey Back from Hell
, 24; pamphlets, “The Courthouse in Nuremberg” and “The International Military Tribunal,” Oberlandgericht, Nuremberg, author visit, Feb. 13, 1996; Lewis, ed.,
The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness World War II
, 561–66.

Individual Allied governments
: Weingartner, “Otto Skorzeny and the Laws of War,”
JMH
(Apr. 1991): 207
+
; Tooze,
The Wages of Destruction
, 674 (
200,000 suspected culprits
); “Bergen Belsen,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, USHMM,
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005224
. Additional Bergen-Belsen defendants were tried subsequently (Margry, “Bergen-Belsen,”
AB
, no. 89 [1995]: 1
+)
.

From 1945 to 1948
: James J. Weingartner, “Early War Crimes Trials,” in
Liberation 1945
, 84.

The path to justice often proved
: “Malmedy Massacre Investigation,” Senate Armed Services Committee, Oct. 1949, 4–16, 22–32; memo, judge advocate, European Command, March 28, 1949, CMH, LAW 2–7, 1, 26–30. During Senate hearings into the Malmédy prosecutions, Senator Joseph McCarthy accused the Army of using “Gestapo tactics” (
TT
, 623).

Released from Landsberg prison
: Weingartner,
Crossroads of Death
, 238–50, 262–63; “The Death of Joachim Peiper,”
AB
, no. 40 (1983): 47
+
; Bauserman,
The Malmédy Massacre
, 32 (
slashed the hoses
).

Eisenhower’s avowed
“
number 1 plan
”:
Three Years
, 820; Wilmot,
The Struggle for Europe
, 573n (“
I owe much
”).

“
You have completed your mission
”: Pogue,
George C. Marshall
, 583; Ferrell, ed.,
The Eisenhower Diaries
, 221.

Ahead lay fifteen more years
: Lyon,
Eisenhower: Portrait of the Hero
, 23 (“
Ike!
”); Summersby,
Eisenhower Was My Boss
, 254–59 (“
almost speak
”).

On Tuesday, June 12
: Miller,
Ike the Soldier
, 780; Striner, “Eisenhower’s Triumph: The Guildhall Address of 1945,” American Veterans Center,
http://www.americanveteranscenter.org/magazine/avq/issue-vi-springsummer-2009/eisenhower%e2%80%99s-triumph-the-guildhall-address-of-1945/
*
; Fraser,
Alanbrooke
, 468 (“
I had never realized
”);
http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/education/bsa/citizenship_merit_badge/speeches_national_historical_importance/guildhall_address.pdf
.

Blood there had surely been
:
VW
, vol. 2, 407;
LO
, 478; “The Normandy Invasion,” statistical appendix, June 10, 1945, SHAEF, Harold R. Bull papers, DDE Lib, box 1 (
12,000 Allied planes
). Official casualty figures from various governments rarely agree.

British, Canadian, Polish
: “The Operations of 21 Army Group,” 1946, CARL, N-133331.

French battle casualties
:
SC
, 544. During the occupation and liberation, more than six hundred thousand French men were killed (Aron,
France Reborn
, 464).

Of all German boys
: Tooze,
The Wages of Destruction
, 672. The number of German military deaths has long remained in dispute. John Ellis puts the dead and missing at 3.25 million, a widely cited figure (Ellis,
World War II: A Statistical Survey
, 253). Another recent analysis puts the number at 5.3 million (Rüdiger Overmans,
Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg
, cited in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#cite_note-R.C5.B1diger_Overmans_2000-4
).

Some 14 percent of the Soviet population
: Hitchcock,
The Bitter Road to Freedom
, 131; Stoler, “The Second World War in U.S. History and Memory,” International Historical Congress, Oslo, Aug. 12, 2000; Hastings,
Inferno
, 427 (
killed roughly nine times more Germans
). Seventeen hundred Soviet towns were destroyed, plus seventy thousand villages (Dobbs,
Six Months in 1945
, 225).

American soldiers bore the brunt
:
LO
, 478;
SC
, 543; Hynes,
The Soldier’s Tale
, 281 (“
left index finger
”); Reister, ed.,
Medical Statistics in World War II
, 23 (
1,700 left blind
); Fisher,
Legacy of Heroes
, 8–10 (
18,000 amputations
), 20 (“
their stump
”); Cowdrey,
Fighting for Life
, 321 (
hospital in Michigan
).

Seventy-five thousand Americans had been listed
:
VW
, vol. 2, 543; Steere and Boardman,
Final Disposition of World War II Dead, 1945–51
, 120–21 (
isolated graves
); Litoff and Smith, eds.,
Since You Went Away
, 236–37 (“
Darling, come to me
”); Myra Strachner Gershkoff Papers, New York State Library, manuscripts and special collections, SC 20575,
http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/msscfa/sc20575.htm
.

No sooner had the ink dried
: Steere and Boardman,
Final Disposition of World War II Dead, 1945–51
, 178–79; L. R. Talbot, “Graves Registration in the European Theater of Operations,” 1955, chapter 26, PIR, MHI. A total of seventy-eight thousand American dead were never recovered; of remains recovered, less than 4 percent could not be identified (Risch and Kieffer,
The Quartermaster Corps
, vol. 2, 404).

Within weeks, seven hundred bodies
: Steere and Boardman,
Final Disposition of World War II Dead, 1945–51
, 175, 186–204, 247.

Even as this search began
: L. R. Talbot, “Graves Registration in the European Theater of Operations,” 1955, chapter 26, PIR, MHI; Joseph T. Layne and Glenn D. Barquest, “Margraten: U.S. Ninth Army Military Cemetery,” 1994, 172nd Engineer Combat Bn, NWWIIM, 9 (
Dutch citizens
).

“
I cried for the joy
”: Babcock,
War Stories
, 212; “4ID Update,” vol. 5, no. 47, June 6, 2011,
http://parentsofdeployed.homestead.com/2011Jun06.html
.

In 1947, the next of kin
: Joseph T. Layne and Glenn D. Barquest, “Margraten: U.S. Ninth Army Military Cemetery,” 1994, 172nd Engineer Combat Bn, NWWIIM, 11–12. Congress appropriated $191 million for the task, which resulted in 279,869 interments overseas and at home; just under 110,000 of those remained in cemeteries abroad (Risch and Kieffer,
The Quartermaster Corps
, vol. 2, 404).

In Europe the exhumations
: Joseph T. Layne and Glenn D. Barquest, “Margraten: U.S. Ninth Army Military Cemetery,” 1994, 172nd Engineer Combat Bn, NWWIIM, 13.

Labor strikes in the United States
: Risch and Kieffer,
The Quartermaster Corps
, vol. 2, 402; Steere and Boardman,
Final Disposition of World War II Dead, 1945–51
, 351–54 (“
tombs
”). More than one thousand additional bodies were loaded aboard
Connolly
in subsequent European ports before she crossed the Atlantic (L. R. Talbot, “Graves Registration in the European Theater of Operations,” 1955, chapter 26, PIR, MHI, 42–43).

Among those waiting was Henry A. Wright
: Steere and Boardman,
Final Disposition of World War II Dead, 1945–51
, 682.

Thus did the fallen return
: L. R. Talbot, “Graves Registration in the European Theater of Operations,” 1955, chapter 26, PIR, MHI, 42–43; Schuyler Dean Hoslett, “The Army Effects Bureau of the Kansas City Quartermaster Depot,” 1946, CMH, 4-10.8 AA.

Hour after hour, day after day
: Eddy, “Treasure of Our Heroes,”
American Magazine
(Apr. 1944): 44
+
, in Schuyler Dean Hoslett, “The Army Effects Bureau of the Kansas City Quartermaster Depot,” 1946, CMH, 4-10.8 AA, appendix, 268–70; “Honoring Those Fallen Who Served,” Aurora (Ill.)
Beacon News
, Apr. 12, 2005, B2. Horton, in the 32nd Infantry Division, died in December 1942. After reading his final words, his mother, Odessa J. Horton, wrote, “To me the war can never be over and you may know, this letter to us is Gethsemane” (
Congressional Record
, Nov. 24, 1943, A 5114).

“
The times were full of certainty
”: Liebling,
Mollie & Other War Pieces
, foreword.

“
Never did I feel
”: Fussell,
Doing Battle
, 174.

“
What we had together
”: Linderman,
The World Within War
, 264.

“
We are certainly no smaller
”: Fauntleroy,
The General and His Daughter
, 151–52.

“
The anti-aircraft gunner in a raid
”: Moorehead,
Eclipse
, 305.

“
the living have the cause
”: White,
Conquerors’ Road
, ix.

“
No war is really over
”: Kotlowitz,
Before Their Time
, 192; Atkinson, “What Is Lost?”
World War II
(Nov. 2009): 32
+
(
By the year 2036
).

S
ELECTED
S
OURCES

B
OOKS

Abram, David, et al.
The Rough Guide to France
. New York: Rough Guides, 2007.

Abrams, Leonard N.
Our Secret Little War
. Bethesda, Md.: International Geographic Information Foundation, 1991.

Ackroyd, Peter.
London Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets
. London: Chatto & Windus, 2011 (e-book edition).

Addison, Paul.
Churchill, the Unexpected Hero
. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Airborne Forces.
London: Air Ministry, 1951.

Allen, Peter.
One More River
. New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1980.

Allen, Robert S.
Lucky Forward
. New York: Vanguard Press, 1947.

Alosi, John, Jr.
War Birds: A History of the 282nd Signal Pigeon Company
. Shippensburg, Pa.: S.p., 2010.

Alter, Jonathan P., and Daniel Crouch, eds.
“My Dear Moon.”
S.p., 2005.

Ambrose, Stephen E.
Band of Brothers
. New York: Touchstone, 2001.

_____
.
Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952.
Vol. 1. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983.

_____
.
Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945
. New York: W. W. Norton, 1967.

_____
.
Pegasus Bridge
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985.

_____
.
The Supreme Commander: The War Years of General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1971.

Andrus, E. C., et al., eds.
Advances in Military Medicine.
Vols. 1 and 2. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1948.

Anonymous.
A Woman in Berlin
. Trans. Philip Boehm. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2005.