Supreme Commander (105 page)

While Eisenhower sat down to dinner with his corps commanders on March 7, Bradley had been talking with Bull about a SHAEF proposal to shift four divisions from Twelfth Army Group to Sixth Army Group in the south. Bull wanted to give the divisions to Patch to assist his attack south of the Moselle, on Patton’s right flank. Bradley was furious. He told Bull the proposal was “larcenous.” Bull shouted back, “By gosh, but you people are difficult to get along with, and I might add that you are getting more difficult every day.”

“But SHAEF has had experience,” Bradley replied, “in getting along with difficult people.” Bull glared, then snapped, “The Twelfth Army Group is no harder to get along with than Twenty-first Group. But you can take it from me, it’s no easier either.”

It was at that point that Hodges called to tell Bradley that one of First Army’s divisions had captured the Ludendorff Railroad Bridge, at Remagen, intact. “Hot dog, Courtney,” Bradley shouted, and told him to get as much material over the river as he could. After hanging up, Bradley turned on Bull, grinned, thumped him on the back, and laughed. “There goes your ball game, Pink. Courtney’s gotten across the Rhine on a bridge.” Bull shrugged and said that did not make any difference, because nobody was going anywhere from Remagen. “It just doesn’t fit into
the
plan.” Bull explained to Bradley, “Ike’s heart is in your sector, but right now his mind is up north.”
¹

Bradley would not be put off. He could not believe that Eisenhower was so rigid that he would ignore a bridgehead over the Rhine, even though it did not fit into previous plans and was in an area ill suited to offensive operations. It was then that he decided to call the Supreme Commander on the telephone.

Eisenhower left the dining room to go into an adjacent office to take the call. Bradley told him about Remagen. “Brad, that’s wonderful,” Eisenhower replied. Bradley said he wanted to push all the force he had in the vicinity over to the east bank of the Rhine. “Sure,” Eisenhower responded, “get right on across with everything you’ve got. It’s the best break we’ve had.…” Bradley, grinning at Bull, then said that Eisenhower’s own G-3 was opposed to such a move because Remagen did not fit into the over-all accepted plan. “To hell with the planners,” Eisenhower replied. “Sure, go on, Brad, and I’ll give you everything we got to hold that bridgehead. We’ll make good use of it even if the terrain isn’t too good.”
²

Over the next two weeks Hodges fought to extend his bridgehead. On March 11 he installed pontoon bridges and had ferries and landing craft bringing material across the river. The Germans made determined efforts to wreck the bridge, using air attacks, artillery fire, V-2 missiles, floating mines, and frogmen, but Hodges’ elaborate defenses thwarted their efforts. By the time the big railroad bridge finally collapsed, the bridgehead was twenty miles long and eight miles deep, with six pontoon bridges across the river. It constituted a threat to the entire German defense of the Rhine, and the Wehrmacht—as in Normandy—counterattacked with whatever units were handy. All that the piecemeal attacks accomplished, however, was to use up the remaining German armor and to weaken the Germans defending the Rhine north and south of Remagen. Eisenhower had recognized these possibilities immediately; the morning after his telephone conversation with Bradley he informed the CCS that he was rushing troops to Remagen “with the idea that this will constitute greatest possible threat” to the enemy.
³

To the south of Remagen, meanwhile, Patton had launched Operation LUMBERJACK, an attack toward the Rhine along the north bank of the Moselle. Once he broke through the initial defenses (March 6–8), his Third Army raced forward, closing to the Rhine on March 10. LUMBERJACK had been designed as a preliminary action to UNDERTONE, the advance to the Rhine by Sixth Army Group, but because of Patton’s unexpected success Eisenhower changed the plan slightly and Patton now crossed the Moselle to attack south in support of Patch’s Seventh Army. With Patch attacking from the front and Patton from the right flank, the German First and Seventh Armies were surrounded. By March 21 most of the German Seventh Army had been destroyed, the German First Army was caught in a salient along a short stretch of the Rhine, and Patton had closed to the river from Mannheim to Koblenz.
⁴

Eisenhower now prepared to set his whole front in motion. On March 13 he told Montgomery to begin Operation PLUNDER, the crossing of the Rhine north of the Ruhr, on March 24. To assist Montgomery, Eisenhower assigned the First Allied Airborne Army to participate in the operation and directed the air forces to give PLUNDER highest priority. In the center, he directed Hodges to be ready to launch a thrust from Remagen toward Frankfurt, which meant that Remagen had now become more than a threat—it could act as a springboard for a major advance to the east. The advance from Remagen would take place after Devers closed to the Rhine and Patton got across the river, and would be designed to link up with Patton for the drive into Germany. In order to keep his options open, however, Eisenhower also told Hodges to be prepared to send as many as ten divisions to Montgomery to be used north of the Ruhr. If Montgomery got across without undue difficulty, and if he could get a railroad bridge built and operating over the Rhine, SHAEF would be able to support more than the thirty-five divisions allotted to Montgomery in the advance along the north German plain. If the railroad bridge was completed in time, Eisenhower wanted to be able to send Hodges to join Simpson in support of Montgomery. The use of First Army east of the Rhine, in other words, depended on forthcoming developments—Eisenhower was keeping an open mind and was prepared to reinforce success.
⁵

Eisenhower’s spirits were soaring. He felt so good that for practically the only time in the war he engaged in a little banter with the Chief of Staff. Marshall had told the Supreme Commander that he was having an argument with Senator Robert A. Taft, who objected to the use of eighteen-year-olds in combat. “I was impressed yesterday with the difficulties of my position,” Marshall said, because he had simultaneously to answer attacks on the use of the young men and demands from MacArthur for more replacements. In addition, field commanders were protesting against the conversion of their specialists to infantry replacements. “The combined circumstances could hardly present a more illogical pressure.” Eisenhower said Marshall’s complaints gave him the “pleasant feeling of ‘misery loves company.’ ” He explained that “sometimes when I get tired of trying to arrange the blankets smoothly over the several prima donnas in the same bed I think no one person in the world can have so many illogical problems.” But after he read of Marshall’s troubles, Eisenhower said, he “went right back to work with a grin.”
⁶

The smell of victory was in the air, and Marshall began to be concerned about how the credit for it should be apportioned. He thought it only
just that the Army divisions that spearheaded the AEF attacks should receive the honor due them, and he was also concerned about the postwar situation, when the services would have to present their case for appropriations to congressmen anxious to cut the budget. A little publicity for the Army would help its financial cause. Many American divisions had done outstanding work in the Rhineland campaign, but practically none of them were known in the United States. “What I am interested in,” Marshall told Eisenhower, referring to the 3d Division at the Colmar pocket, “is the result and I go back to my usual comparison, that had it been a Marine Division every phase of a rather dramatic incident would have been spread throughout the United States. They get the result, we do not. Our technique therefore must be faulty.”

On March 12 Eisenhower explained to Marshall that he was doing the best he could, but the problem of getting publicity for any one division was almost impossible because there were so many American divisions in Europe and because so many of them were doing well. He named ten that could match the achievements of any Marine division, but obviously, he said, once publicity was spread that widely it lost its impact. Eisenhower threw the problem back to Marshall by saying that the Army might get more attention with the fact that it had fifty divisions engaged in combat in Europe: “I believe the War Department … might emphasize the number of divisions the Army has deployed and fighting all over the world,” Eisenhower said.
⁷

In his own theater, Eisenhower told Devers and Bradley to do what they could to publicize their divisions. “These matters may not seem very weighty,” he admitted, and he did not want his subordinates to think “that we are fighting this war for headlines,” but proper publicity did improve troop morale. “Moreover, it will have an enduring effect on the future of American defense forces and I hope that you and your staffs … will give to the matter some imaginative thought.”
⁸

Eisenhower’s involvement with publicity continued. Marshall had sent Roosevelt’s press secretary, Steve Early, to ETO to help the public relations experts, and SHAEF got a number of suggestions from Early that Eisenhower implemented. He loosened censorship controls so that more information could be released about individual divisions and their commanders.
⁹
He was also concerned about his more senior commanders. On March 30 he sent Marshall a long and glowing description of Hodges’ achievements to date, made it clear that he thought Hodges had done more to bring about the victory than any other army commander, and declared, “I should like very much to see Hodges get credit in the
United States for his great work.” Eisenhower could do little to achieve this within ETO, because if he singled out one commander for praise the others would be miffed, “but it occurs to me that as a purely United States proposition” the War Department could promote Hodges in the press.

Eisenhower also thought Bradley should get additional credit for his role throughout the European campaign. “Never once has he held back in attempting any maneuver, no matter how bold in conception.…” Bradley’s handling of his army commanders had been “superb.… His energy, common sense, tactical skill and complete loyalty have made him a great lieutenant on whom I always rely with the greatest confidence.” In trying to get either Hodges or Bradley publicized, however, Eisenhower was fighting a losing battle. Headlines in the United States continued to refer to First Army or Twelfth Army Group. Only Patton was identified by name; when Third Army took a town, the headlines inevitably proclaimed “Patton captures …”
¹⁰

Marshall too was worried about the publicity individual commanders were receiving, although he liked Patton and had no objection in that specific case. What did bother him was all the attention Montgomery was getting, and he urged Eisenhower to praise Hodges and Bradley in a press conference “as a possible antidote for an overdose of Montgomery which is now coming into the country.” Eisenhower, in reply, said he could not understand why Montgomery should be “getting a big play at this time,” and added that he suspected “there is some influence at work that insists on giving Montgomery credit that belongs to other field commanders.” He would, he promised, try to set the newsmen straight.
¹¹

The scramble for publicity and Eisenhower’s readiness to take a bantering tone with Marshall illustrated only one side of the mood at SHAEF in early March. The Allies could hardly suppress the feeling that they had finished the war, but—and it was an important qualification—they recalled that they had felt the same way in September 1944. The Germans at that time had recovered. The Wehrmacht was still an impressively efficient machine and the individual German soldier still commanded respect. In addition to general worries, there was the specific, hard fact that the great Russian winter offensive had faltered badly. On February 15 the Red Army reached the Oder-Neisse line, some thirty-five miles from Berlin. Then it stopped. For the next month there was little activity on the Oder-Neisse front. The Russians did make further gains in Hungary, to the south, but all eyes were centered on Berlin,
where no progress was being made. Perhaps, just perhaps, the Germans might achieve another miracle.

There was also the possibility of extensive enemy guerrilla activity. In September Eisenhower had been concerned about how he would handle the situation if the organized German resistance collapsed, the AEF moved into Germany, and then guerrilla warfare began. Guerrilla warfare was not a new phenomenon, but it had reached impressive new heights of efficiency during World War II. SHAEF believed that the Germans were organizing an underground army of “Werewolves,” youngsters who were being trained for murder and terrorism. The SS provided them with leadership, weapons, and fanaticism. If the Germans had time enough to perfect the organization and training of these forces, they might make the occupation so costly that the conquerers would be glad to get out. “The evidence was clear that the Nazi intended to make the attempt and I decided to give him no opportunity to carry it out,” Eisenhower later declared. “The way to stop this project … was to overrun the entire national territory before its organization could be effected.”
¹²

Connected to this fear of guerrilla activity was the idea, widespread in the Allied camp, that the Nazis intended to set up a mountain retreat in the Bavarian Alps, from which Hitler would direct the continued resistance. This area was easily the best natural defensive region the Germans could occupy, and from his mountain stronghold around Berchtesgaden Hitler could—it was feared—combine what remained of the fighting forces in Germany and Italy and hold out indefinitely. SHAEF intelligence reported that Germany’s best SS divisions were moving toward Berchtesgaden, and stories were circulating about prepared positions. The natural defensive strength of the area was excellent. The persistently bad weather, the mountainous terrain, and the altitude would cut down on or eliminate the use of Allied air forces; the Germans had convincingly demonstrated in Italy how well they could fight in mountains; the Allies’ most potent weapon, their mobility, would count for little in the area.