Replies

Form Atkinson’s The Guns at Last Light

.....continued from yesterday

By Wednesday morning, when Eisenhower called personally to confirm the reconfiguration, Bradley had worked himself into a seething distemper. “By God, Ike, I cannot be responsible to the American people if you do this. I resign.” General Strong, who had begrudgingly been pardoned by Smith and was listening to the phone conversation in Eisenhower’s office, watched a deep flush creep up the supreme commander’s neck. “Brad, I - not you - am responsible to the American people. Your resignation therefore means absolutely nothing.” Bradley continued to protest, if in a lower key, until Eisenhower ended the conversation with a peremptory, “Well Brad, those are my orders.” He than phoned Montgomery at his command post in Zonhoven. “We’ve now got two battles, two separate battles.” Eisenhower said, bellowing into the receiver. “I think you’d better take charge of the northern one, and leave Bradley to deal with the southern one.”

At 12:52 p.m., a SHAEF log entry confirmed that “Field Marshal Montgomery has been placed in charge of the northern flank.” He would command the U.S. First and Ninth Armies, as well as his own army group; Twelfth Army Group was left with only Patton;s Third Army. An officer in Bradley’s headquarters reported that he was “absolutely livid. Walked up and down and cursed Monty.”

Schadenfreude, as Montgomery now demonstrated, was by no means an exclusively German trait. Amid the dogs, goldfish, and signing canaries in his Zonhoven encampment, he had written Brooke just before midnight on Tuesday that, “it looks as if we may now have to pay the price for the policy of drift and lack of proper control.”

(Monty)
“There is great confusion and all signs of a full scale withdrawal. There is a definite lack of grip and control, and no one has a clear picture... Everyone know something has gone wrong and no one knows what or why... The general situation is ugly as the American forces have been cut clean in half and the Germans can reach the Meuse at Namur without any opposition.”

Little of this was true. The Americans had not been cut in half, no full scale withdrawal had begun, and no German was near Namur, except perhaps a few lost paratroopers. But First Army surely needed help, and once given the opportunity the field marshal threw himself into battle with, as one writer later observed, “the energy and verve that were as characteristic as his peacockery.” Having been alerted to the impending command change at 2:30 Wednesday morning, he had dispatched a major to Chaudfontaine for a “bedside conference” with Hodges, who was roused from sleep to learn that four British divisions were moving toward the Meuse to secure the riverbanks and bridges, Roadblocks also had been built on the Brussels highway with vehicles and piled carts.

The field marshal himself arrived at Chaudfontaine at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday in a green Rolls-Royce flying a Union Jack and five-starred pennant from the front fenders, accompanied by outrider jeeps with red capped MPs. As usual he was dressed without orthodoxy in fur-lined boots, baggy corduroy trousers, and as many as eight pullovers. “Unwrapping the bearskin in which he was enveloped,” Iris Carpenter reported, “he picked up his box of sandwiches, his thermos jug of tea, and his situation map all chalked over with his grease pencil, and marched inside.” An American officer described him as a “monkey on a stick jumping up and down....a pompous conquering hero.” but as he stalked into the Hotel des Bain, he seemed to a British officer “like Christ come to cleanse the temple.” Neither image did Montgomery justice. Politely declining Hodge’s offer of lunch-”Oh no, I’ve got my own”-he propped his map on a chair and said calmly, “Now let’s review this situation....The first thing we must do is tidy up the battlefield.”

Three hours later they had both a plan and an understanding. Hodges and his staff appeared tired and dispirited, British officers later reported, but determined to hold fast. Although Hodges feared that two First Army divisions had been surrounded-in fact, only two-thirds of the star-crossed 106th was lost-he stoutly resisted Montgomery’s proposal to withdraw the north shoulder, perhaps as far as the Meuse. The field marshal for now relented: First Army would dig in where it could and, with help from General Simpson’s Ninth Army, assemble a strike force to counterattack the Germans from the north, complementing General Patton’s blow from the south. Dempsey’s Second Army would continue to feed forces down from Holland and British stocks would help make good American looses, including 100 25-pounder guns with 300,000 rounds of ammunition; 20,000 snow suits; 2,000 trip flares; and 350 Sherman tanks with duck-bill cleats for better traction. By nine o’clock that evening, all Meuse bridges would be rigged for demolition, and as the British XXX Corps soon reported, “the enemy hopes of bouncing the Meuse crossings have almost vanished.”

As he returned to Zonhoven, Montgomery considered relieving Hodges; but whatever ailed the First Army commander appeared to have passed. “Hodges is not the man I would pick,” Montgomery reported, “but he is much better.” Eisenhower concurred in a private cable to the field marshal: “Hodges is the quiet reticent type and does not appear as aggressive as he really is. Unless he becomes exhausted he will always wage a good fight.”

SHAEF ordered the new command arrangement to remain secret. Censorship, already tightened to prevent full disclosure of the Herbstnebel reverses, also ensured that Americans at home would be spared knowing that much of the U.S. Army in Europe now was lead by a wee Brit in a black beret. “They seemed delighted to have someone to give them orders,” Montgomery told Brooke, with some justification. Brooke warned him not to gloat, but the field marshal could not help himself. “The Americans have taken a 1st Class bloody nose,” he wrote a friend in London. “I am busy sorting out the mess.”

As for Bradley, Eisenhower proposed awarding him a Bronze Star as a sop for losing two-thirds of his command. He also asked Marshall to consider giving him a fourth star. “I retain all my former confidence in him,” Eisenhower wrote the chief. “It would have a fine effect generally.”