Supreme Commander (95 page)

By the time the conference at Verdun got under way the next morning, December 19, there was increasing German strength on the attack in the Ardennes. Von Rundstedt had hoped to be across the Meuse by the end of the second day of the attack (December 17), but his forces were nowhere close to achieving that objective. General Middleton’s VIII Corps, although badly battered and overrun, had not been destroyed. Small units continued to fight, often without any direction from above or any idea at all about what was happening around them. Individual acts of heroism abounded. As a result the German timetable was badly off schedule. Adding to Von Rundstedt’s problems, the Sixth Panzer Army on his right wing was under the command of Obergruppenfuehrer “Sepp” Dietrich, who had been hand-picked by Hitler because of his bravery and personal loyalty. These virtues, unfortunately for Von Rundstedt, did not solve the complex problems involved in handling a Panzer army on the attack. Dietrich’s traffic jammed, forces moved in the wrong direction, and confusion reigned. As a result Sixth Panzer Army made only small gains. Seventh Army, on the southern end of the attack, was doing only slightly better. The really spectacular gains had been made by General der Panzertruppen Hasso von Manteuffel’s Fifth Panzer Army, but even it was being delayed on its left by the 101st at Bastogne and on its right by the 7th Armored at St. Vith.

Hitler had wanted to pick up the attack in the north, with Fifteenth Army attacking U. S. Ninth Army. He decided on December 18, however, to reinforce Von Manteuffel’s success and destroy the road blocks at Bastogne and St. Vith. He ordered Von Rundstedt to send all available reinforcements through the gaps created by Von Manteuffel. It was thus clear to Eisenhower, when he opened the conference at Verdun, that the Germans were going to make their supreme effort to reach the Meuse around Namur.
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The Allied high command met in a cold, damp squad room in a Verdun barracks, with only a lone potbellied stove to ease the chill. Eisenhower opened the meeting by declaring, “The present situation is to be regarded as one of opportunity for us and not of disaster. There will be only cheerful faces at this conference table.” Patton quickly picked up the theme. “Hell, let’s have the guts to let the —— — —— go all the way to Paris,” he said, grinning, “Then we’ll really cut ’em off and chew ’em up.”
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But brave words and grinning faces could not stop German Panzers.
As more news on Von Manteuffel’s advance came in, it was obvious that the Allies faced a serious, potentially disastrous situation. If the 101st Airborne at Bastogne and the 7th Armored at St. Vith could not hold out, Von Manteuffel would have full use of the limited roads in the Ardennes. No Allied force of consequence stood between his Fifth Panzer Army and Namur. Acting on Eisenhower’s orders, Bradley and Montgomery were rushing what troops they could to the front, but it would take time to get them there and in any case they did not have many divisions available. Most of the AEF was deeply involved in the various offensives along the front.

Eisenhower’s first priority was to hold the line Namur–Liége–Aachen. He had studied the map with Whiteley, Strong, and Smith to determine how far back the Allies could afford to go, and each time they reviewed the situation the answer became more obvious—the Meuse had to be held. A major reason for this decision was the existence of huge supply dumps across the river at Liége, dumps that contained everything the Germans needed, most importantly gasoline. From the beginning SHAEF had correctly assumed that Von Rundstedt’s key weakness was a shortage of fuel and had rightly guessed that he counted on capturing Allied stocks. Eisenhower was determined that he would not get any gasoline from the Allies.
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Holding at the Meuse was the
sine qua non
of Eisenhower’s plan, but equally important was the other side of the coin—his own counterattack. He was not going to let the Germans get away with emerging from their holes without punishing them. He therefore told Patton to cancel his offensive in the Saar, change directions, take command of VIII Corps, and organize a major counterblow against the German southern flank with a target date of December 23 or 24. Patton protested, but Eisenhower insisted on that plan.

To enable the men to carry out his twin objectives of holding at the Meuse and attacking from the south, Eisenhower decided to convert to a strict defensive policy everywhere except in the Ardennes. He wanted Patton to retreat from his bridgeheads over the Saar and Devers to prepare to shorten his line. His general purpose, he explained, was “to yield ground in order to insure the security of essential areas and to add strength” to Patton’s attack. He also wanted Montgomery to prepare to attack in the north.
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What Eisenhower needed most desperately to insure the success of his plans was men, especially rifle-carrying infantrymen. To obtain them, he sent personal representatives to Com Z units to pick out men who
could fight and start them on their way to the front. He also made an offer to criminals who were under court-martial sentences. Any man who would pick up a rifle and go into the battle could have a pardon and a clean slate. All those who had fifteen years or more at hard labor ahead of them volunteered.
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This helped, but there was still an over-all deficiency of 23,000 riflemen in ETO. Eisenhower talked to Lee, who pointed out that one untapped resource was black troops, most of whom were in Com Z and none of whom were infantrymen. Lee thought they would respond handsomely to an invitation from Eisenhower to volunteer for infantry service, especially if they could fight on an integrated basis. Eisenhower agreed and issued a circular offering the blacks an opportunity to serve in infantry units and promising that they would be assigned “without regard to color or race.”

When Smith saw the circular he blew up. In a stern note to Eisenhower he pointed out that this ran directly against War Department policy. He said it was inevitable that “every negro organization, pressure group and newspaper will take the attitude that, while the War Department segregates colored troops … the Army is perfectly willing to put them in front lines mixed in units with white soldiers, and have them do battle when an emergency arises.” Smith added that “two years ago I would have considered the … statement the most dangerous thing that I had ever seen in regard to negro relations.”

By then the crisis had passed, and Eisenhower—no more ready to promote a social revolution than Smith—gave in. He said he did not want to “run counter to regs in a time like this” and personally rewrote the circular. The upshot was that the blacks who did volunteer—and non-coms had to give up their stripes to do so—were segregated into all-Negro platoons, with white non-coms and officers.
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Since the blacks had to be trained before they could fight, they could offer no immediate help in the Ardennes anyway. Neither could the reserves who were available in the United States, but Eisenhower wanted to use the crisis to get as many men sent over as he could, in order to be at full strength for the final offensive into Germany. On December 19, therefore, he informed Handy that he was sending the G-ls from SHAEF, Twelfth Army Group, and Com Z to Washington to “present an accurate and comprehensive picture of our critical replacement situation.” He hoped they could bring about “a better mutual understanding of the problem.…”
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But the War Department would not change its position. When the G-ls arrived Handy asked a number of pointed questions and made it clear that there was a great contrast between the drastic steps
taken in the United States to recover manpower and the relatively poor performance of ETO in this regard, where Com Z had an exorbitant number of troops.
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The British were more sympathetic to Eisenhower’s cause. Churchill immediately decided to have a new call-up of civilians, one which reached deeply into Britain’s remaining industrial force, to provide Eisenhower with 250,000 more men.
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Smith, contrasting the War Department and the British Ministry of Defence, told a Chief of Staffs’ meeting, “When I was tossing on my bed last night, the thought came to me, ‘Should we not go on record to our Masters in Washington that if they want us to win the war over here they must find us another ten Divisions.’ Look at Britain, about to produce another 250,000 men. If she can do that we should produce another 2,500,000.”
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The search for long-term replacements went on simultaneously with the effort to find men to plug the present gaps. On December 19, late in the evening, Eisenhower told Bradley and Lee to remember “the vital importance of insuring that no repeat no Meuse bridges fall into enemy hands intact.” He wanted Lee to organize service units to protect them.
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The order to protect the bridges was a matter of routine, but to Bradley it seemed to indicate that Eisenhower was getting “an acute case of the shakes.” The Twelfth Army Group chief of staff, Major General Leven C. Allen, read the message and asked, “What the devil do they think we’re doing, starting back for the beaches?”
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Evidence indeed seemed to be mounting that Eisenhower had gone into a panic. There was the frantic effort to find replacements, the most shocking aspect of which, given the era’s social climate, was Eisenhower’s willingness to use black troops alongside whites. In addition, there was his concern about the Meuse bridges. Adding to the impression of panic were the elaborate security precautions taken at SHAEF to protect Eisenhower. But these could quite legitimately be explained. As a part of their over-all plan for the Ardennes offensive, the Germans had organized a special group of English-speaking German soldiers, dressed them in American uniforms, given them American jeeps to drive, and spread them behind the American lines. Their mission was to issue false orders, spread defeatism, and capture bridges and road junctions. Rumor quickly spread, however, that their main intention was to assassinate the Supreme Commander.

Thus everyone at SHAEF became extra conscious of security. Eisenhower was sealed into the Trianon Palace. Guards with machine guns were placed all around the Palace and when Eisenhower went to Verdun
or elsewhere for a meeting, he was led and followed by armed guards in jeeps. Butcher noted that “he is a prisoner of our security police and is thoroughly but helplessly irritated by the restriction on his moves.”
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After two days of being so confined, he came out of his office, grumbled, “Hell’s fire, I’m going out for a walk. If anyone wants to shoot me, he can go right ahead. I’ve got to get out!” Slipping out a back door, he walked around the yard in the deep snow.
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Throughout France and Belgium, the presence of a great number of M.P.s added to the impression of panic. Understandably nervous at the idea of thousands of German soldiers running around in American uniforms, they stopped every passing car and—ignoring rank and credentials—quizzed the occupants on American slang or customs. Who is Minnie Mouse’s husband? was one favorite, while baseball questions in general were popular. Bradley once had to identify the capital of Illinois (the M.P. was dubious, for he thought it was Chicago), the position of the guard in football, and Betty Grable’s spouse.
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Perhaps most serious of all, SHAEF public relations ordered a news blackout, which gave the impression in the United States that the Allies were taking a terrific beating and that Eisenhower did not want to let the American people know about it.
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But Eisenhower had not panicked. Although he was under pressure from all sides, especially from De Gaulle, not to give up any ground, he insisted on following his own plans. The Supreme Commander was not going to lose his chance to beat the exposed Germans by holding to a sterile policy of rigid defense. Late in the evening of December 19, for example, in his first message to Montgomery since the attack began (no British troops were yet engaged), he expressed his offensive approach. Eisenhower asked Montgomery’s appreciation of the situation on the north flank of the penetration, “particularly with reference to the possibility of giving up, if necessary, some ground on the front of the First Army and to the north thereof in order to shorten our line and collect a strong reserve for the purpose of destroying the enemy in Belgium.” Montgomery replied that the 7th Armored Division was holding at St. Vith and he saw “no need at present to give up any of the ground that has been gained in the last few weeks by such hard fighting.”
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On Twenty-first Army Group’s particular front, it turned out, Montgomery was right, and Eisenhower went along with him.

While Eisenhower was dispatching his message to Montgomery, Strong was reporting to Whiteley that the Germans would soon drive a wedge between Bradley’s two forces, making it impossible for Bradley to communicate
with First Army. Whiteley thought that under the circumstances the best thing to do would be to give Montgomery command of all forces north of the Ardennes, with Bradley retaining those to the south. This meant Bradley would keep Third Army, while Montgomery got U. S. First and Ninth Armies. Such a plan was exactly what Montgomery had all along been proposing and Eisenhower refusing, but Whiteley felt the communications problem so serious that this stop had to be taken. He took the proposal to Smith, who called Bradley on the telephone to discuss the proposed shift with him. Bradley said he doubted that it was necessary, and indicated that he feared “coordination between both Army Groups would have to be directed from SHAEF.” (SHAEF thought it had always been co-ordinating the army groups.) Bradley’s strange comment pointed out one long-range significant result of the Bulge. Both Twelfth and Twenty-first Army Groups had come to think of themselves as independent agencies; the Bulge gave Eisenhower the opportunity to assert himself and take full control. Smith brushed aside Bradley’s objection and said, “It seems the logical thing to do. Monty can take care of everything north of the Bulge and you’ll have everything south.” Bradley was concerned that such a move would discredit the American command. “Bedell,” he said, “it’s hard for me to object. Certainly if Monty’s were an American command, I would agree with you entirely.”
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