Read The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 Online

Authors: Rick Atkinson

Tags: #Non-Fiction, #War, #History

The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945

BOOK: The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945
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To those who knew neither thee nor me, yet suffered for us anyway

 

But pardon, gentles all,

The flat unraisèd spirits that hath dared

On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth

So great an object. Can this cockpit hold

The vasty fields of France?

Shakespeare,
Henry V,
Prologue

 

C
ONTENTS

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

DEDICATION

EPIGRAPH

LIST OF MAPS

MAP LEGEND

ALLIED CHAIN OF COMMAND

P
ROLOGUE

PART ONE

1.
   I
NVASION

      
The Far Shore

      
First Tide

      
Hell’s Beach

      
A Conqueror’s Paradise

2.
   L
ODGEMENT

      
“This Long Thin Line of Personal Anguish”

      
A Gunman’s World

      
Terror Is Broken by Terror

      
How Easy It Is to Make a Ghost

3.
   L
IBERATION

      
A Monstrous Blood-Mill

      
The Bright Day Grew Dark

      
Ministers of Thy Chastisement

      
The Loveliest Story of Our Time

PART TWO

4.
   P
URSUIT

      
“The Huntsman Is Hungry”

      
The Avenue of Stenches

      
“Harden the Heart and Let Fly”

5.
   A
GAINST THE
W
EST
W
ALL

      
“Five Barley Loaves and Three Small Fishes”

      
Every Village a Fortress

      
A Market and a Garden

      
The Arrow That Flieth by Day

6.
   T
HE
I
MPLICATED
W
OODS

      
Charlemagne’s Tomb

      
“Do Not Let Us Pretend We Are All Right”

      
The Worst Place of Any

PART THREE

7.
   T
HE
F
LUTTER OF
W
INGS

      
A Town Too Small for the Tragedy

      
Faith in a Friendly Universe

      
To the Land of Doom

      
“Providence Decrees and We Must Obey”

8.
   A W
INTER
S
HADOW

      
“We Are All So Human That It Is Pitiful”

      
Staking Everything on One Card

      
The Light Line

      
“Go Easy, Boys. There’s Danger Ahead”

9.
   T
HE
B
ULGE

      
A Rendezvous in Some Flaming Town

      
“Why Are You Not Packing?”

      
War in the Raw

      
Glory Has Its Price

      
The Agony Grapevine

PART FOUR

10.
A
RGONAUTS

      
Citizens of the World

      
A Fateful Conference

      
“Only Our Eyes Are Alive”

11.
C
ROSSINGS

      
The Inner Door to Germany

      
Two If by Sea

      
“The Enemy Has Reason to Fear Him”

      
Lovers’ Quarrels Are a Part of Love

12.
V
ICTORY

      
Mark of the Beast

      
Dragon Country

      
“God, Where Are You?”

      
A Great Silence

      
E
PILOGUE

NOTES

SELECTED SOURCES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INDEX

PHOTOGRAPHS

ALSO BY RICK ATKINSON

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

COPYRIGHT

 

M
APS

  
1. Mediterranean and European Theaters in World War II

  
2. Assault on Normandy, June 1944

  
3. Final
OVERLORD
Plan, June 6, 1944

  
4. Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944

  
5. The Advance Inland, June 6–30, 1944

  
6. Operation
GOODWOOD
, July 18–20, 1944

  
7. Operation
COBRA
Breakthrough, July 24–27, 1944

  
8. German Attack at Mortain, August 7, 1944

  
9. The Falaise Pocket, August 16–21, 1944

10. The Liberation of Paris, August 23–25, 1944

11. Operation
DRAGOON
, August 1944

12. Pursuit Up the Rhône, August 29–September 14, 1944

13. Pursuit to the German Border, August 26–September 11, 1944

14. Operation
MARKET GARDEN
, September 17–26, 1944

15. Battle for Aachen, October 7–21, 1944

16. Fight in the Hürtgen Forest, November 2–9, 1944

17. Third Army at Metz, November 8–December 2, 1944

18. Capture of Strasbourg and Stalemate in Alsace, November 26, 1944

19. The Siegfried Line Campaign, September 11–December 15, 1944

20. The Bulge: Sixth Panzer Army Attack, December 16–21, 1944

21. The Bulge: Fifth Panzer Army Attack, December 16–19, 1944

22. Bastogne, December 21–26, 1944

23. The Western Front, January 3, 1945

24. The Colmar Pocket, January 20–February 5, 1945

25. Over the Roer: Operations
VERITABLE
and
GRENADE
, February–March 1945

26. Crossing the Rhine, March 1945

27. Operation
VARSITY PLUNDER
, March 24–28, 1945

28. Encircling the Ruhr, March 28–April 14, 1945

29. Victory in Europe, May 8, 1945

 

P
ROLOGUE

A
KILLING
frost struck England in the middle of May 1944, stunting the plum trees and the berry crops. Stranger still was a persistent drought. Hotels posted admonitions above their bathtubs: “The Eighth Army crossed the desert on a pint a day. Three inches only, please.” British newspapers reported that even the king kept “quite clean with one bath a week in a tub filled only to a line which he had painted on it.” Gale winds from the north grounded most Allied bombers flying from East Anglia and the Midlands, although occasional fleets of Flying Fortresses still could be seen sweeping toward the Continent, their contrails spreading like ostrich plumes.

Nearly five years of war had left British cities as “bedraggled, unkempt and neglected as rotten teeth,” according to an American visitor, who found that “people referred to ‘before the war’ as if it were a place, not a time.” The country was steeped in heavy smells, of old smoke and cheap coal and fatigue. Wildflowers took root in bombed-out lots from Birmingham to Plymouth—sow-whistle, Oxford ragwort, and rosebay willow herb, a tall flower with purple petals that seemed partial to catastrophe. Less bucolic were the millions of rats swarming through three thousand miles of London sewers; exterminators scattered sixty tons of sausage poisoned with zinc phosphate, and stale bread dipped in barium carbonate.

Privation lay on the land like another odor. British men could buy a new shirt every twenty months. Housewives twisted pipe cleaners into hair clips. Iron railings and grillwork had long been scrapped for the war effort; even cemeteries stood unfenced. Few shoppers could find a fountain pen or a wedding ring, or bedsheets, vegetable peelers, shoelaces. Posters discouraged profligacy with depictions of the “Squander Bug,” a cartoon rodent with swastika pockmarks. Classified advertisements included pleas in the
Times
of London for “unwanted artificial teeth” and cash donations to help wounded Russian war horses. An ad for Chez-Vous household services promised “bombed upholstery and carpets cleaned.”

Other government placards advised, “Food is a munition. Don’t waste it.” Rationing had begun in June 1940 and would not end completely until 1954. The monthly cheese allowance now stood at two ounces per citizen. Many children had never seen a lemon; vitamin C came from “turnip water.” The Ministry of Food promoted “austerity bread,” with a whisper of sawdust, and “victory coffee,” brewed from acorns. “Woolton pie,” a concoction of carrots, potatoes, onions, and flour, was said to lie “like cement upon the chest.” For those with strong palates, no ration limits applied to sheep’s head, or to eels caught in local reservoirs, or to roast cormorant, a stringy substitute for poultry.

BOOK: The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945
13.95Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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