Killing Patton Part 7

American newspapers are simply calling it "the Bulge."

McAuliffe is a kind, plainspoken man. He is that rare West Point graduate and general army officer who doesn't sprinkle his conversation with swearing. And he is pragmatic. These shattered soldiers are clear evidence that the Krauts, as American soldiers call their Wehrmacht opponents, are hardly defeated. They have already slaughtered thousands of Americans in just four days.

The Krauts will be striving mightily to slaughter the 101st, as well.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. The 101st had been pulled back to rest after months of hard fighting. They were quartered in Reims, one hundred miles behind the lines, where they were awarded leave in nearby Paris and allowed to catch up on their sleep. There was no hurry to supply them with winter underwear, galoshes to keep their boots dry, or even extra ammunition. The 101st didn't need it. They were not expecting to see action until after the winter.

But that was then. Now they are on the move. They are supposed to be enjoying some well-earned rest after being dropped behind the Normandy beaches back in June, and then again at Operation Market Garden in late September. But Dwight Eisenhower desperately needs them on the front lines. Some were resting in their barracks when their orders arrived. Others were actually pulled, drunk or hungover, out of Paris's bra.s.series by military police. They travel in a special caravan made up of almost four hundred vehicles. Many drive with headlights blazing. This is normally forbidden in a combat zone, but now allows them to travel at a quicker speed. The downside is that if German planes are flying overhead, any member of the 101st would be butchered from the air, their silhouettes standing out in the snowy fields beside the roads, completely visible to the n.a.z.i pilots.

But the calculated gamble is paying off. The skies are leaden with clouds and fog. The Luftwaffe is not flying tonight.3 Freezing, the American soldiers are lined up "nut to b.u.t.t" for hour after hour in the swaying trucks. When the ma.s.s of retreating men slow their caravan, members of the 101st call down to them, asking for supplies. Ammunition is hurled up to them. Helmets. K-rations. Even rifles.

But not heavy winter coats. Not wool socks. And certainly not long underwear. Those in retreat will not part with them.

"What's going on up there?" a chorus of men yell. "How many Krauts are there? How close are they? Do they have tanks?"

To which one of the retreating men simply replies, "You'll all be killed!"

Undaunted, the 101st moves ahead. Any man can break. But the advancing Americans know they don't have that luxury. Just like the Roman legions who once fought off the Germanic hordes on this same stretch of land, they hold the fate of Europe in their hands.

Despite the last-minute call to arms, General McAuliffe and the 101st are more than ready to fight. When a captain in the command of one column of defeated men inexplicably blocks the road and refuses to move his trucks so that the 101st can pa.s.s, the paratroopers reach for their fighting knives.

An airborne officer promptly defuses the situation by unholstering his pistol and promising to put a bullet through the captain's head.

Thankfully, the captain sees "the wisdom in prompt obedience," in the words of a unit chaplain.

"No one would have missed him," chimes in a paratrooper.

And so the 101st rolls on.

But Brig. Gen. Tony McAuliffe, West Point Cla.s.s of 1918, never makes it to Werbomont. Nor does the 101st Airborne.

Instead, they are diverted to a tiny hamlet that is no more than a speck on the Ardennes map. The Germans call the village a "road octopus" because seven different highways sprout in seven different directions from its center. The key to success in Operation Watch on the Rhine means controlling the local roads, which allow heavy tanks to travel more quickly. Thus, the Germans covet this town.

The road octopus is more commonly known as Bastogne.

Until a few days ago, McAuliffe had never heard of it. But now, for better or worse, he is here. As his jeep roars into the town center, he finds a miserable scenario. There is little natural charm or beauty to Bastogne under the best of circ.u.mstances. But now it is a scene of utter devastation. There is no power, and the centre ville is choked with refugees and dray carts piled high with the possessions of the fleeing. Ongoing German sh.e.l.ling has reduced most of Bastogne to rubble.

Yet McAuliffe must defend this horrible little burg at all costs. He sets up his command post in the bas.e.m.e.nt of a hotel across the street from the train station and impatiently awaits the arrival of his troops. A quick glance at the situation map boards erected along the compound walls show how desperately the Germans want to capture Bastogne: they have committed three divisions and parts of four more. McAuliffe's eleven thousand paratroopers and Combat Command B of the Tenth Armored Division numbering three thousand tanks and soldiers are on the verge of being surrounded by a force numbering fifty-five thousand Wehrmacht fighters and Panzers.4 Once the Germans close the noose, there will be no way for the Americans to escape. Their only hope to survive is for Gen. George Patton and his Third Army to break through and rescue them.

"Now, Tony, you're going to be surrounded here before too long," says Maj. Gen. Troy Middleton, briefing McAuliffe before hightailing it out of Bastogne. Middleton is commander of the U.S. Army's VIII Corps, and McAuliffe's immediate superior. He is pulling his headquarters back to the safety of a town named Neuchteau. McAuliffe can't help but notice that VIII Corps is so eager to pull out that they are leaving behind their ample liquor stores.

"But don't worry," Middleton emphasizes. "Help is on the way from Patton."

With that, Middleton hurries to his staff car and quickly drives out of town, knowing the Germans are just two miles away. He has performed admirably since December 16, but the arrival of the 101st means that it no longer serves any purpose for him and his headquarters staff to remain in Bastogne and potentially become captured.

Soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division marching in Bastogne, Belgium McAuliffe now a.s.sumes the full weight of command. He is distinctly aware that many might see the situation as the 101st's version of Custer's Last Stand.

But McAuliffe does not believe this will be the case.

Or as a medic in Bastogne's field hospital sums up the situation, "They've got us surrounded. The poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

Meanwhile, fifty miles northeast of Bastogne, as the sun rises over the Elsenborn Ridge, the Germans attack.

Firing from a forest, they zero in on the frozen American force dug in on the ridge, almost two thousand feet above sea level. Members of the Ninety-Ninth Infantry Division hear the thunderclap of a single 88 mm sh.e.l.l being fired. Its flight is short and intense, screaming louder and louder as it finds an American foxhole. Dirt, snow, blood, and body parts erupt into the sky. Instant death. The men of the Ninety-Ninth press their frostbitten bodies deeper into their fighting holes. For the better part of a week, the Ninety-Ninth have held the Elsenborn Ridge, knowing that sooner or later the Germans would attempt the frontal a.s.sault. Now it has begun.

That lone sh.e.l.l is the first of hundreds. The Germans barrage the Americans for over an hour. There is no pattern to where the sh.e.l.ls fall. Some American soldiers become nauseated when the sh.e.l.ls explode close by. Their ears ring. Some wet themselves without knowing it, and quietly revel in the brief sensation of warmth on this subzero day.

And then silence.

But only for a short time.

At 9:00 a.m. the German army's Third Panzergrenadier Division emerges from the tree line near the Schwalm Creek Valley. The hardened n.a.z.i soldiers sprint toward the American foxholes.

They should know better.

It is impossible to run through fresh snow. The Germans sink up to their knees. They quickly lose their breath. Instead of running, they wade through the snow, making great postholes with each step.

This is when the machine gunners of the Ninety-Ninth take aim. It is now their turn to inflict death.

And they do.

For the first time all morning, the Americans poke their heads up above the rims of their foxholes and fire back. Machine gunners on the front of the slope make use of their un.o.bstructed fields of fire, each man slowly pivoting his gun barrel from left to right, and then back again, fingers firmly squeezing triggers. The hillside is pocked with craters where German sh.e.l.ls have fallen short, but otherwise there is no place for the Krauts to hide on this vast expanse of white.

The American-made automatic weapons fire at a slower clip than the German models. But the Browning water-cooled .30-caliber machine gun more than gets the job done, firing off seven two-inch-long bullets every second. It is especially lethal in a setting such as Elsenborn Ridge, which has the wide-open feel of a shooting range. In fact, finding targets to kill is not a problem for the machine gunners of the Ninety-Ninth. The real trick in aiming downhill is not firing too high, lest the bullets whiz above the enemy's head.

So as the foot soldiers of the Third Panzergrenadier Division lumber up the long and empty half mile between their lines and those of the dug-in Ninety-Ninth, they are, in reality, sealing their own doom.

Some Germans wear winter white. Others are clad in n.a.z.i battle gray. But the color red soon carpets the snow as American bullets mercilessly mow them down.

The soldiers of the Ninety-Ninth cannot remember a moment in their lives when they have felt so wretched. Their units are broken from the relentless bombardment. They are beyond exhausted. Many are battling pneumonia and dysentery. Some are not even riflemen, but rear echelon cooks and clerks who have never learned simple infantry tactics.

But that does not stop them from fighting. And with every German who falls dead in the snow, they feel just that much more hopeful that they will live to see another sunrise.

The clatter of rifle shots and automatic weapons from the Ninety-Ninth continues, and thick swarms of Germans crumple atop one another. Soon the Germans have no choice but to retreat.

Two hours later, they attack again.

Once again, they fail.

Finally, as night falls, the German soldiers of the Third Panzergrenadier attempt one more a.s.sault of Elsenborn Ridge.5 But the Ninety-Ninth Division repels them a third time. As the Americans hunker down in their foxholes for their fifth straight subzero and sleepless night, they hear the moans of the dying German troops who now litter the snowy slopes below the ridge fill the air. They are crying out for relief. But none will be forthcoming.

The Ninety-Ninth has held the line for five consecutive days. Even as Americans almost everywhere else are retreating en ma.s.se, they are holding. But for how long? They continue to take enormous casualties, and are still outnumbered five to one. A fifteen-mile-long caravan of Panzer tanks and halftracks is backed up in the valley below, waiting with growing impatience for the Ninety-Ninth to be killed to the last man so that they might obtain those vital roads through the Ardennes.

Should the Ninety-Ninth fail to hold their lines, the Germans will be able to quickly redirect their attack toward the Meuse and toward Bastogne. If this should happen, George Patton's hopes of relieving Bastogne will not come to pa.s.s.

So the question remains: How much longer can the Ninety-Ninth hang on?

"Ike and Bull are getting jittery about my attacking too soon," Patton writes in his diary, referring to Eisenhower's G-3, Maj. Gen. Harold Bull. His army is racing to Bastogne, encountering stiff German resistance along the way. "I have all I can get. If I wait, I will lose surprise.

"The First Army could, in my opinion, attack on the 22nd if they wanted (or if they were pushed), but they seem to have no ambition in that line.

"I had all my staffs, except for VIII Corps, in for a conference. As usual on the verge of an attack, they were full of doubt. I seemed always to be the ray of suns.h.i.+ne, and by G.o.d, I always am. We can and will win, G.o.d helping."

The Germans also inch toward the city, unaware that they are racing Patton and the Third Army for control of this vital crossroads. Now, five miles from the center of Bastogne, the n.a.z.is are trying to overrun a town called Noville.

Blocking the way is a tall and determined young major named William Desobry and his ridiculously small band of soldiers and tanks known as Team Desobry.

They make their headquarters in the village schoolhouse. The village church is across the street. When the battle is over, the SS will enter the same church and shoot the village priest for offering comfort to the Americans. For good measure, they will also shoot six other residents of this otherwise sleepy town.

But that is all to come.

Desobry is twenty-six and has been in the army just four years. Though he chose to attend Georgetown University instead of West Point, his quick thinking and sound judgment have already seen him promoted over men a dozen years his senior. With that kind of talent come great expectations. The scarecrow-thin Desobry has been ordered to place his small team of defenders between the German advance and the heart of Bastogne. For while a quick map study shows Desobry that Noville is utterly indefensible, the town is also tactically vital-of the three roads leading out of Noville, one aims straight into downtown Bastogne. The road is paved and wide, the closest thing the Ardennes has to a superhighway leading directly to Bastogne.

"If this situation gets to the point where I think it necessary to withdraw," Desobry nervously asked his commanding officer when first given the order to defend Noville, "can I do that on my own, or do I need permission from you, sir?"

Desobry's superior, and commander of CCB of the Tenth Armored Division, is Col. William Roberts. The two are so close that Desobry considers Roberts to be his second father. He listens intently to the colonel's response, determined to follow it to the letter, for fear of letting the older man down.

Roberts is kind-yet direct. "You will probably get nervous tomorrow morning and want to withdraw, so you had better wait for any withdrawal order from me."

That order has not yet arrived.

Armed with just fifteen Sherman tanks and four M-18 h.e.l.lcat tank destroyers, Desobry holds Noville long enough for an element of the 101st Airborne to reinforce his small command. The battalion of paratroopers works with Team Desobry to thwart several German attempts to capture Noville. Panzers and Sherman tanks soon burn alongside the road. Wounded soldiers are trapped inside many of these. The heat from the flames is too intense for rescue, and so they roast to death in their steel coffins.

The town is burning as well. At times the smoke from burning buildings mixes with the thick fog to give Noville an otherworldly appearance. Men fire their guns into the mora.s.s, unsure of where they're aiming or what they've hit. German sh.e.l.ls from the ridgelines outside town fall on the Americans at the rate of two dozen every ten minutes. The schoolhouse is destroyed, and Major Desobry is forced to find a new command post. Not even night stops the German sh.e.l.ling.

As the evening descends, Desobry hunkers down with his airborne counterpart to discuss strategy. He has no problem ceding command of the situation to Lt. Col. James LaPrade, a Texan who graduated from West Point in 1939. LaPrade is the rare man who not only is Desobry's superior officer and near equal in height, at just under six-four, but who has a career arc even more accelerated than Desobry's. At the young age of thirty, LaPrade is just two promotions away from making general.

But unbeknownst to the two officers, one of Desobry's men has just made a fatal mistake. With dusk not yet complete, an American maintenance officer parked his vehicle directly in front of the command post, rather than a few hundred yards down the road. A German tank crew on a distant ridgeline spotted the vehicle through binoculars. Now they waste no time zeroing in on this choice target. Within seconds of estimating distance and trajectory, their big 88 mm gun belches its trademark green fire, and a sh.e.l.l races toward Desobry and LaPrade.

The two men sit in the quiet of the command post. A clerk writes in his journal. The careless maintenance officer enters the cramped room, with its wall-to-wall collection of maps, chairs, and telephones, to report that he is back from towing broken tanks into Bastogne. An armoire has been pulled across one window as protection from snipers.

The 88 mm lets out its trademark scream before impact-an impact that absolutely no one in the command post is expecting.

The armoire explodes into a thousand splinters. The roof collapses, as do the stone walls. Desobry is buried under a pile of rubble, his body shot through with pine wood. His left eye is nearly ripped from its socket, and his head is slashed and punctured by metal, wood, stone, and gla.s.s.

But he is alive.

Lt. Col. James LaPrade lies beside Desobry, all but unrecognizable. Tony McAuliffe thinks he's the best battalion commander in the 101st. His wife's name is Marcy. His brother, Robert, a marine, won the Navy Cross and had a s.h.i.+p named after him for his heroism on Guadalca.n.a.l, where he was killed in action.

"LaPrade," reads the name on the dead commander's dog tags.

If not for that, his shattered body could belong to anyone, on either side of the war. Not even his wife would be able to recognize the man she loves.

A medic quickly attends to Desobry, and helps lift his stretcher into an ambulance. The driver guns the engine and races for the tents of the field hospital, on the outskirts of Bastogne. But a German patrol intercepts the ambulance. For some reason, they take pity on Desobry, perhaps thinking he will die soon anyway, and do not shoot him.

For Major Desobry, the war is over. He is taken to a German prisoner camp in the Fatherland.

But he has done his job in Noville. By delaying the Germans' advance and resisting the urge to withdraw, he has given the 101st Airborne the precious time they need to form a tight perimeter around Bastogne.

Gen. Tony McAuliffe receives the bad news. The Americans have taken two hundred and seventy-five casualties in Noville. Team Desobry lost eleven of its fifteen Sherman tanks. Under cover of fog and darkness, the 101st Airborne and Tenth Armored, along with what is left of Team Desobry, fall back into Bastogne's inner defenses, soon to make their last stand.

McAuliffe is exhausted. He barely slept last night because the German air force bombed Bastogne, with one bomb almost destroying his command post in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Htel de Commerce. He moves his headquarters to the bas.e.m.e.nt of a Belgian army barracks. Just before noon he steals away to a small, quiet room, zips himself into his sleeping bag, and naps. His staff knows to wake him if anything of importance occurs.

Meanwhile, in the meadows and forests ringing Bastogne, the men of the 101st have managed to turn the problem of being surrounded into a tactically positive situation. They keep their perimeter tight, facing outward, waiting for the German attack. Despite the light snow that now falls on their positions, they even feel secure enough to climb out of their foxholes for a few minutes to shave and use the slit latrine.6 General Anthony McAuliffe (right) conferring with General George Patton (left) With a break in the action, rumors and innuendo spread up and down the line, and the men are now hearing that George S. Patton is sending an armored division to bail them out. Maybe two. They can't be sure of this-any more than they could believe the rumor that C-47s were going to airdrop precious supplies of food and bullets into Bastogne last night. That never came to pa.s.s. What confuses the men of the 101st is that the weather seems to be too rough for American planes to fly a vital aid mission, and yet the Luftwaffe has no problem dropping bombs on Bastogne.7 A depressing (and true) rumor also spreads that the Germans overran Bastogne's field hospital last night. The wounded were taken prisoner, as were the doctors and surgical staff. All the medical supplies, including surgical instruments and doses of the antibiotic penicillin, were captured. This will become a life-or-death issue when the fighting resumes, because that penicillin is vital to the survival of the severely wounded.

At noon on December 22, 1944, the situation on the American front lines is tense-but quiet enough for some of the men of the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment to actually stand outside their foxholes on the Kessler family farm south of Bastogne, making small talk.

A most odd sight then presents itself. Marching toward them from the direction of Arlon, carrying a white flag as large as a bedsheet, are four German soldiers. They walk into the American lines fearlessly, even strolling past a bazooka team on the outer perimeter without hesitation. The men of F Company shoulder their M-1 carbines, but the Germans keep coming. "This doesn't make sense," says one American, wondering why the Germans appear to be surrendering.

Three American soldiers walk cautiously up the road to greet the Germans. They soon stand face-to-face with two officers and two enlisted men. The officers wear polished black boots and long, warm overcoats. One of them, the short and stocky captain, carries a briefcase.

The Americans never take their fingers off the triggers of their M-1 rifles, unsure if this is a trick.

It is not.

In fact, it is a gesture on the part of the German general Heinrich Lttwitz, commander of the forces surrounding Bastogne, that is both gallant and arrogant. He thinks it absurd to needlessly slaughter so many brave American soldiers. Instead, Lttwitz is offering Tony McAuliffe and the 101st a chance to save their own lives by surrendering. War being war, however, should the Americans refuse to throw down their weapons, Lttwitz will order that Bastogne be leveled, and every American soldier annihilated. There will be no prisoners.

"We are parlementaires," says the short, stocky German junior officer. His name is h.e.l.lmuth Henke, and his English is perfect. "We would like to speak to your officers."

The major wearing the uniform of a Panzer commander says something in German to Henke, who quickly corrects himself: "We want to talk to the American commander of the surrounded city of Bastogne."

Henke motions to his briefcase, in which he carries a note for McAuliffe.

The Germans have brought their own blindfolds, suspecting that the Americans will not let them see their defensive locations. Eyes covered, they are soon marched on a roundabout tour of the American front lines. n.o.body, it seems, knows quite what to do with them.

Finally, Maj. Alvin Jones gets the radio message that "Four Krauts have just come up the Arlon road under a white flag to our Company F, and they're calling themselves parlementaires. What do we do with them?"

Jones has no idea; nor does anyone know exactly what it means to be a parlementaire.8 But he retrieves the note, leaving the Germans sitting impatiently in the large foxhole that serves as F Company's forward command post, awaiting a response.

Soon enough, word of the note is pa.s.sed up the chain of command. Within an hour, Tony McAuliffe is being awakened to the news that a German surrender demand is making its way to his headquarters.

"Nuts," he mutters, still half asleep.

Jones soon arrives with the note. There are two, actually: one typed in German and the other in English.

"They want to surrender?" McAuliffe asks, taking the note from Lt. Col. Ned Moore, his chief of staff.

"No," Moore corrects him. "They want us to surrender."