Killing Patton Part 10

Trouble soon strikes. The jeep carrying the artillery observer is. .h.i.t before he can give the signal to halt the barrage. The American artillery continues to rain down sh.e.l.ls on a.s.senois, unaware that Abrams and his men are now inside the town. Three hundred and sixty rounds of artillery sh.e.l.ls are fired by the American big guns. Geysers of earth erupt throughout the town as each sh.e.l.l forms its own deep crater. Frantic radio calls from Lt. Charles Boggess, who now leads Abrams's spearhead in his tank, Cobra King, go unheard. Americans and Germans both are killed. The American sh.e.l.ling and the nonstop tank barrage are completely decimating a.s.senois, wiping it off the map as if it never existed. Plumes of fiery smoke and dust turn the daytime sky black. Finally, a spotter plane pilot sees the trouble and orders the artillery to stop.

The Germans lay Teller ant.i.tank mines on the road in a last-ditch effort to stop the American breakthrough. None of the Shermans is. .h.i.t, but an American halftrack explodes when it hits a mine, killing the driver and again bringing the American column to a complete halt. Thinking quickly, Capt. William Dwight, Abrams's operations officer, risks his life by climbing out of his tank and exposing himself to fire as he clears the mines out of the road by hand.

Through the dust and smoke, Pvt. James R. Hendrix, the son of an Arkansas sharecropper, spots two concealed German 88 mm guns. Next to them, hiding in a foxhole, are two Wehrmacht soldiers. Hendrix crouches low and moves toward them through a hedgerow, then presses his body flat in a sh.e.l.l crater as he creeps up on the enemy. Hendrix is just five foot six, and weighs only 125 pounds, but he shows no fear as he prepares to attack the German foxhole alone.

"A feller just figures if it's his time, it's his time, and that's all there is to it," is how he later explains his courage.

Screaming, "Kommen heraus!"-"Come out!" in German-Hendrix runs up to the foxhole with his M-1 aimed squarely at the enemy soldiers.

They don't surrender. Hendrix is forced to shoot one soldier in the head and then smash in the skull of the other with his rifle b.u.t.t.

"I got their guns and got back in my sh.e.l.l hole and started hollering, 'Kommen heraus,' again, and sure enough, them Germans began coming out from around the different foxholes, and 13 gave up," he will later recall, describing the action that will earn him the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Later that night, in fierce, pitch-black fighting that will see few prisoners taken on either side, Hendrix will add to his legacy by personally knocking out two German machine-gun nests and also braving sniper fire to pull a wounded American from a burning halftrack.2 The battle in the forests surrounding a.s.senois will continue long into the night, but by afternoon the Americans have carved a small channel through the German lines. The path is less than four hundred yards wide, and Germans are poised on both sides, prepared to counterattack and once again close the road. But for now, American tanks are advancing toward Bastogne.

Boggess fires on a German pillbox on the outskirts of Bastogne. The smoke clears. First Lieutenant Charles Boggess opens the turret of Cobra King and lifts his torso up through the opening. Soldiers in uniform crouch in foxholes across the road to his right, their guns aimed his way. "Come here! Come on out! This is the Fourth Armored," he shouts. He does not yell in German, hoping to find an American reply.

There is no answer. A tense moment pa.s.ses. With his head and chest completely exposed to rifle fire, Lieutenant Boggess considers his options.

The Sherman 76 mm barrel pivots until it is aimed directly at the foxholes. Pvt. James G. Murphy has already loaded a round, and the gunner, Cpl. Milton d.i.c.kerman, awaits the order to fire.

"Come on out!" Boggess nervously shouts again.

A lone soldier walks forward.

"I'm Lieutenant Webster, of the 326th Engineers, 101st Airborne Division," he said. "Glad to see you."

Bastogne has officially been relieved.

Cobra King rolls into the heart of the town, followed by a convoy of Sherman tanks.

Soon, "Abe" Abrams appears.

"Gee, am I mighty glad to see you," says Tony McAuliffe.

Patton's audacious gamble has succeeded. He awards Abrams with the equivalent of a second Distinguished Service Cross and praises him as America's top tank commander-even saying that Abrams is a better tank commander than he.

The next morning, December 27, 1944, George Patton once again walks to the front of a small Catholic chapel and drops to his knees in prayer.

"Sir, this is Patton again," he begins with an air of contrition. "And I beg to report complete progress. Sir, it seems to me that You have been much better informed about the situation than I was, because it was that awful weather which I cursed You so much which made it possible for the German army to commit suicide. That, Sir, was a brilliant military move,3 and I bow humbly to Your supreme genius."4 * * *

The German advance stalled on Christmas Eve 1944. Basically, the Germans overran their supply lines. And without ammunition and gasoline, they were unable to wage an offensive campaign. The continued progress of Patton and his Third Army eventually spelled doom for Operation Watch on the Rhine. By January 25, 1945, the Germans had retreated back to the same positions they had held at the start of the offensive six weeks earlier. Thus ended the last great German attack on the Western Front. "The relief of Bastogne is the most brilliant operation we have thus far performed, and is in my opinion the outstanding achievement of this war," Patton writes home to his wife, Beatrice.

"Now the enemy must dance to our tune, not we to his."

13.

WHITE HOUSE.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, DC.

JANUARY 20, 19451.

11:55 A.M.

War is never far from the minds of Americans, even on a unique day in the nation's history.

Hope that the Second World War would end by New Year's Day has long been abandoned. Wounded soldiers, many on crutches, are among the seven thousand invited guests tromping through harsh weather to witness Franklin Delano Roosevelt's swearing-in as president of the United States. This will be the first inaugural address during wartime since Abraham Lincoln spoke eighty years ago, in 1865. Also, this is the first inaugural to be held at the White House, in "the president's backyard," as the South Lawn is known. Finally, this is the first and only time an American president will be sworn in for a fourth term.

A light snow dusts the White House on this Sat.u.r.day morning as spectators show their invitations to the security guards, then pa.s.s onto the wintry lawn. It stopped snowing three hours ago, but the skies are threatening yet another storm. No seats await, so the seven thousand guests remain standing-even those soldiers balancing on crutches. Thirteen of Roosevelt's grandchildren pose for a newsreel cameraman atop the stairs of the South Portico, just a few steps from the podium. FDR's chief of staff, Harry Hopkins, stands ground level at the bottom of the stairs, fastidiously overseeing the proceedings.

President Roosevelt speaking at his fourth inauguration ceremony In addition to the veterans and dignitaries,2 a smattering of black faces can be seen in the crowd, reflecting Roosevelt's hope for a more racially integrated nation. The diverse attendees stand side by side in the elements, awaiting the noon start. Wartime shortages of gasoline and lumber mean that the traditional post-inaugural parade will not happen, and the swearing-in ceremony promises to be brisk.

As the seconds tick down, the crowd presses closer and closer to the White House walls. Only a thin barrier of Secret Service agents and Was.h.i.+ngton, DC, police protect the curved outcropping known as the South Portico.

At the stroke of twelve, Rev. Angus Dun steps to the lectern to begin the proceedings. The Right Reverend is bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Was.h.i.+ngton. Dun is a pacifist, which makes him an odd selection to deliver the invocation in a time of all-out war. Even more intriguing, Dun is visibly handicapped. He balances on crutches, having lost one leg to polio. His hands and remaining foot are deformed. Perhaps it can be said that the clergy is the only profession that would embrace a handicapped individual in this day and age, yet the fact remains that Dun has prospered. And unlike President Roosevelt, who would never dare reveal his handicap, Angus Dun3 does not hide who he is. Thus it is fitting that just eighty-three days hence, at a time when such fears will be completely meaningless to FDR, Angus Dun will also lead prayers at the president's funeral service.

Harry S. Truman, the sixty-year-old senator from Missouri, steps to the lectern to be sworn in as vice president. This is a time of austerity in America and around the world, so Truman and Roosevelt have chosen to forgo formal dress, preferring instead to wear dark business suits.

The new vice president places his left hand on a family Bible and raises his right to take the oath of office. He is a small, wiry man with an infectious grin, a man unafraid to cry in public but able to conceal his emotions when a situation turns compet.i.tive. Those unlucky enough to sit across the poker table from Harry S. Truman know this all too well. The S does not stand for anything; that single letter is his actual middle name. It was once Truman's dream to attend West Point, but poor eyesight ended that ambition, making necessary the gla.s.ses he now wears. Truman, however, fought as an officer in the First World War. He aced the vision exam before his induction into the military by memorizing the eye chart.

President Harry S. Truman in 1945 Truman made the leap from a small-time county commissioner to Missouri senator just ten years ago. And at times the power in Was.h.i.+ngton still overwhelms him. Now is such a moment. He and FDR barely know each other, and the president clearly has no interest in asking Truman's advice about how to run the country. It is also widely known that Truman did not campaign for this new job. In fact, he was initially reluctant to accept the vice president's spot on the ticket when it was offered at the Democratic Convention last July. Foreseeing his own death, FDR had sought to replace his current vice president, Iowa native Henry Wallace, with someone less liberal and less inclined to align himself too closely with the labor movement. Roosevelt studied the dossiers of several candidates before settling on the pragmatic Truman.

But it was left to a friend and longtime political aide to convince Harry Truman to take the job. "I think, Senator, that you're going to do it," Edward D. McKim told him one night during the Chicago convention.

Truman got angry. "What makes you think I'm going to do it?"

McKim knows Truman well, and has a deep knowledge of how to push his good friend's emotional b.u.t.tons. "Because there's a little ninety-year-old mother down in Grandview, Missouri, that would like to see her son become president of the United States."

Truman teared up at the image of his mother. He stormed out of the room and refused to speak with McKim.

McKim was unfazed. He was well aware that fear played a part in Truman's reluctance, for there was enormous pressure in accepting the Chicago nomination. "The consensus of opinion at the whole convention was that whoever was nominated for the vice presidency would eventually be president of the United States."

And this does not mean waiting four more years until Roosevelt finishes his term. The president's ill health is now a very poorly kept secret. Even as he swears the oath of office, Truman is quite certain that FDR will soon die-and that he will become the thirty-third president.

That is a notion, in the words of another Truman confidant, "that scares the very devil out of him."

When the ballots were finally cast at the 1944 Democratic Convention, 1,176 delegates were asked to select the party's new vice presidential candidate. Senator Harry Truman garnered 90 percent of the vote. Inc.u.mbent vice president Henry Wallace received just 9 percent.

Now, eleven weeks after the Roosevelt-Truman ticket's landslide victory over Thomas Dewey's Republican ticket, the crowd in Was.h.i.+ngton bears witness as Truman recites the oath. It is an awkward moment, for the man swearing him in is none other than Henry Wallace, the ultraliberal vice president he is now replacing.

Soon it is done. Harry Truman is the vice president of the United States.

Now Franklin Delano Roosevelt is helped to his feet and begins the shuffle of hips and swinging of leg braces that approximates his version of a walk. Supported by the steel bands around his legs and hips that are concealed beneath his dark blue business suit, Roosevelt stands before the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Harlan Stone. His left hand rests on the same Dutch-language Bible as was used in his first three inaugurals. Per FDR's tradition, the Bible is open to 1 Corinthians 13, which teaches that of the three virtues, faith, hope, and love, the greatest trait mankind can display is love.

FDR has six children and is devoted to his thirteen grandchildren, who now watch him from just a few feet away. He also has a wife to whom he has remained married for forty years. In his own way, FDR loves them all.

But Franklin Roosevelt's biggest love is reserved for the American people, whom he has led through twelve daunting years of deprivation and warfare. Roosevelt was first elected president just five weeks before Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, but while Hitler has pursued a course of evil that is destroying his nation, Roosevelt has lifted America up from the lowest point in U.S. history to make it the most powerful nation on earth. He has done the people of America one final great favor by ensuring that his successor will not be an ideological extremist, but a man of the people who will do his best to heal the nation when the war inevitably ends. In this way, FDR does not repeat the mistake of Abraham Lincoln, who selected Andrew Johnson as his second vice president. Johnson's b.u.mbling presidency deepened the rifts and divisions after the Civil War ended and Lincoln was a.s.sa.s.sinated. As FDR well knows, some of the problems Johnson created exist to this day.4 The crowd pressing in on the South Lawn does not know upon which Bible verse Roosevelt's hand rests. But they can hear his love in the timbre of his voice-so confident and a.s.sured, the father figure who will work tirelessly to lead the nation out of danger.

When they draw him, political cartoonists like to accentuate FDR's strong, uplifted chin. This is how FDR actually appears as he recites the oath of office, a symbol of authority and optimism. And despite the heart disease that is slowly killing him, and the bone-thin legs that can barely support him, the president hardly looks ill. His posture is ramrod straight, his complexion a healthy pink, and his voice strong and clear.

The oath of office complete, FDR now turns to the crowd of seven thousand, and to millions of Americans listening on the radio, and prepares to deliver his final inaugural address.

Four thousand miles away, Gen. George S. Patton is not paying attention to the inaugural. Patton, who thinks highly of Roosevelt, and whom the president fondly addresses in person as the "Old Cavalryman" and "Our greatest fighting general-a pure joy," is too busy directing the mop-up to be done on the battlefields of Luxembourg and Belgium, and enduring military politics.

Once again, Dwight Eisenhower is ignoring Patton. Having done the impossible, Patton is once again benched. Rather than having his top general lead the drive into Germany, Eisenhower is putting his strategic weight behind British field marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, who has demanded that he lead the decisive Allied push to the Rhine River. Montgomery cleverly planned for this next wave of combat by withholding most British troops from the Battle of the Bulge. While Patton's Third Army was taking casualties and losing scores of tanks and halftracks, Montgomery was husbanding his resources. Now, fresh and unscathed, the British army and those American units under Montgomery's command are the new tip of the Allied spear. Meanwhile, as the inaugural takes place in Was.h.i.+ngton, Patton and the Third Army are relegated to rooting out the last pockets of German resistance in the Bulge.

Knowing that being bitter and angry will not help his cause in the slightest, Patton tries to put a positive spin on the situation.

"Saw a lot of dead Germans today, frozen in funny att.i.tudes," he writes to his wife, Beatrice. "I got some good pictures, but did not have my color camera, which was a pity.

"They are definitely on the run, and have suffered more than we hoped."

"Wild Bill" Donovan is furious.

He is in Chungking, China, in the last week of a monthlong around-the-world tour that began in Was.h.i.+ngton, DC, at the same time Bastogne was being liberated. As always, he is driven by personal, not ideological, motivations. It is his deep desire that his Office of Strategic Services (OSS) remain the world's most elite clandestine organization. And as with the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin, Donovan has no moral or ethical qualms about dealing with the Communists. He is positioning himself and the OSS for a prominent place in the postwar world. Nothing must stand in his way. And since it is clear to Donovan that Communists will be a powerful global presence once Germany and j.a.pan surrender, he is more than happy to deal with them.

The Chinese Communist rebels want twenty million dollars to purchase arms for themselves to battle China's j.a.panese occupiers. Donovan is not concerned that this angers China's existing national government and its leader Chiang Kai-shek, which rightly fears that the Communists will someday attempt to take over the country. Nor is Donovan concerned that twenty million dollars is far more money than the Communists require for such a task.

"Wild Bill" Donovan during the Nuremberg Trials What concerns Donovan is that his secret slush fund, provided for him by Congress and its War Agencies Appropriations Act of 1944, is just twenty-one million dollars. The terms of the money are that Donovan can spend it any way he likes, without regard to oversight or legality. That money is meant to cover all his far-flung spy operations, from France to Germany to Greece and even into the Vatican. Giving almost all his funds to the Chinese Communists would be ridiculous.

Donovan sends a counteroffer to the Communist Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung,5 hoping he will lower their price.

But today the Chinese are not the source of Donovan's fury. His focus is on Europe. Donovan seethes about the capture of OSS operatives near Patton's headquarters. The event happened in September, and began with a flirtation at the bar of Paris's Ritz Hotel between American socialite Gertrude Sanford Legendre and a U.S. naval commander who doubled as one of Donovan's spies. The pair quickly struck up a romantic friends.h.i.+p, then borrowed a rented Peugeot and left for a joyride to the front. Gertrude, an undercover OSS agent, wanted to pay a visit to the headquarters of her friend George S. Patton.

Soon they made the mistake of unwittingly crossing into Germany, where the n.a.z.is promptly captured them. Legendre quickly became the subject of a ma.s.sive propaganda blast by the Germans, portrayed as the first woman POW on the Western Front.

The story was picked up by the global media. Legendre had the good sense to tell her captors that she was nothing more than a Red Cross employee, but Donovan knows that it is just a matter of time before Gestapo6 interrogators break her. Legendre is privy to an enormous amount of top-secret information that could damage OSS clandestine operations. So while Donovan is concerned about their fates, he is equally outraged that his two spies allowed themselves to be captured in such ridiculous fas.h.i.+on. There will be no forgiveness if they return alive. Wild Bill Donovan is a man who believes in retribution and punishment. Those who run afoul of his agenda will pay a heavy price.

Patton, of course, had nothing to do with their capture. But Donovan is wary of the general, due to Patton's notorious mistrust of the Russians. There is growing sentiment in Was.h.i.+ngton that Patton's soaring popularity must be brought back down to earth. It was no secret in American G-2 (intelligence) circles or the military press that certain politicians and generals did not want George Patton to garner more laurels, a war correspondent who traveled with the Third Army will write after the war.

So Donovan keeps an eye on Patton as he waits for news about his missing spies, and secretly monitors the many situations around the globe that might somehow affect his postwar power.

Meanwhile, as Donovan is set to fly from Chungking to visit his British counterparts7 in Ceylon, the Chinese Communists come back with their counteroffer.

They want more money, not less.

Donovan says he will get back to them.

The president's voice is strong and clear.

"We Americans of today, together with our allies, are pa.s.sing through a period of supreme test. It is a test of our courage, of our resolve, of our wisdom, of our essential democracy," Roosevelt tells the nation.

As he looks out on the crowd standing below him on the South Lawn, he does not make eye contact with anyone in that sea of overcoats, scarves, and fedoras. Indeed, he does not make any attempt to recognize them at all. The president's gaze remains fixed on a line of trees in the far distance. His thoughts are focused on the microphone before him, knowing that his pitch-perfect vocal delivery will have far more impact on the millions listening on the radio.

"Our const.i.tution of 1787 was not a perfect instrument; it is not perfect yet. But it provided a firm base upon which all manner of men, of all races and colors and creeds, could build our solid structure of democracy.

"And so today, in this year of war, 1945, we have learned lessons-at a fearful cost-and we shall profit by them.

"We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of other nations far away. We have learned that we must live as men, not as ostriches, nor as dogs in the manger.

"We can gain no lasting peace if we approach it with suspicion and mistrust or with fear. We can gain it only if we proceed with the understanding, the confidence, and the courage which flow from conviction."

After a few final sentences invoking the blessing of the Almighty, Franklin Delano Roosevelt concludes his fourth inaugural address. It is just 558 words long-only George Was.h.i.+ngton's second inaugural was shorter. Fifteen minutes after the ceremony began, it is over.

The crowd files back out of the White House grounds without commotion or celebration. They have achieved their goal: they have seen history made.

Harry Truman returns to his office in the Senate Building and begins cleaning out his desk.

And Franklin Delano Roosevelt turns his attention to an event even more pivotal than his inauguration: next week's meeting with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin to determine the fate of n.a.z.i Germany.

It will take place in a seaside Soviet resort town known as Yalta.

14.

AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU1.

OWICIM, POLAND JANUARY 26, 1945.

1:00 A.M.

The earth convulses as Krema V explodes. Tongues of flame turn the coal-black winter sky a bright red. n.a.z.i SS guards watch the inferno intently, but only for as long as it takes to know that the destruction is complete, and there will be no need to place another round of dynamite charges. The grisly evidence is now destroyed.

The guards march to the nearby barracks and order the prisoners out into the snow. The skeletal children with their prison tattoos and shaved heads respond immediately, knowing that the punishment for being too slow is a bullet. The prisoners get in line. The SS guards are normally fond of neat, military-style rows, which allow them to take a head count. But on this night they are in a hurry.

The prisoners are ordered to march. Their destination is unclear, but the road soon takes them past the train station where they first entered this h.e.l.lhole, and then on by the commandant's lavish house. They are leaving Birkenau, though they know not why.