 I have been asked to be the spokesman for this Allied Expeditionary Force in saying a word of introduction to what you're about to see. It is a story of the Nazi defeat on the Western Front. So far as possible, the editors have made it an account of the really important men in this campaign. I mean the enlisted soldiers, sailors, and airmen that fought through every obstacle to victory. Of course, to tell the whole story would take years, but the theme would be the same. Teamwork wins wars. I mean teamwork among nations, services, and men. All the way down the line, from the G.I. and the Tommy to us brass hats. Our enemy in this campaign was strong, resourceful, and cunning, but he made a few mistakes. His greatest blunder was this. He thought he could break up our partnership, but we were welded together by fighting for one great cause, into one great team, a team in which you were an indispensable and working member. That spirit of free people, working, fighting, and living together in one great cause, has served us well on the Western Front. We in the field pray that that spirit of comradeship will persist forever among the free peoples of the United Nations. A sense of future in the surrounding air, this testament is offered. Here you may look on the violent fragments of our age and the once thinness of the little friend that made us then the citizens of freedom. What dark was Europe and the face of man when this begins. The nation had gone mad and struck out everywhere the compass knew. The abtide of our honor fell away and left its wreckage on a hundred coasts. The German cast his fires about the globe, his strength drawn from the smoking star and roar, lay in our weakness, and at last his conquests folded behind the barriers of his arms. Along the channel where the sea strikes France, stood the west wall of concrete stone and steel to mock the frail hopes of the petty free. Wounded, hard pressed and wasted on our strength, almost like madmen then, we planned to breach the wall and smash the German spline. But where? We searched the coast of Europe like fierce eagles. Between low flushing and deep harboured Sherbourg, our eyes sought out the place of the assault. Exits and tidal range marked shallow flushing off, sand and the wind canceled the Belgian coast, the North Sain beaches were too small and cliffs barred the approaches. Quotonteur, too narrow. The Pardecali heavily defended. It all resolved unnormative, uncone. There, planes could land upon the carpet ground, the coast defenses were more light and tides had a good range and men were safe from winds. So on five miles of still unblooded sand, the fretful course of fate would be assailed by armoured nations. Now our people bent to the construction of a steel array and took the builders hammer in their hands. It seemed almost as though the sun stood still till our free peoples full of rage and power heaved through the air the ponderous spear of war. This is our people's story, in their words. If the battle of the North Atlantic hadn't gone right, things might have been considerable different. That was an ugly time for all of us, merchant ships, naval escort, air patrol. I guess I had my share of bad luck. I lost three ships and some good friends. We're reading somewhere that when a seagull comes down on a patch of oil, its feathers stick together and it can't get off the water again. There must have been a lot of dead seagulls around the North Atlantic. Of course, we only saw it happening on the war map and yet it was well quite real. When I started there, those markers we used reminded me of toys out of some children's game. But soon they became mule boats and ships carrying cargos, food and supplies and weapons and men to use them. I remember coming over, the worst thing about the trip was you didn't know where you were going. Wherever it was, you'd be a stranger and nobody likes that. That ship was loaded from stem to stern with sad sacks. Around the third day out, things got pally like the fellas that were all in the same boat, the comic. Finally, we got to Liverpool. They had a band to play us in, an English army band full of chimes. I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, they play. To tell you the truth, it was pretty corny. But nobody said anything because, you know, it was a nice gesture. Funny thing, on the way over, you felt like you were the whole works. You couldn't help it. But then all over the UK, you'd see things that made you begin to realize you were just part of a big proposition. All kinds of things. Little something about anatomy. And I say it is scientifically impossible for the human body to stand up to the training we receive. An absolute impossibility. Muscles and tendons and bone structure was not designed to withstand that battering. Don't ask me how it happens that we did stand up to it. I don't know. It has no scientific explanation. For them army pamphlets, to a young man, soldier in the army of today offers exceptional advantages and opportunities, such as physical training, foreign travel, sport, and many other facilities which are normally denied to those engaged in the majority of civilian occupations. The majority of occupations in civil life become monotonous, to say the least. But in the army, life is so varied that there is little or no prospect of a monotonous or irksome time. So men were girded for their highest hour, while they learned the lethal arts of war in small and secret rooms that planners met to watch their work mature. Beyond our view, the German crowd and confidence stood calm in deep emplacements on the armored coast. The war was not yet one of men and blood. The weapons were the factories and the maps and voices speaking in the hidden night. Season by season all our plans advanced and those few men on whom the mass of war rested with all its weight worked ceaselessly. I used to wonder whether the millions of people doing their various jobs realized they were part of it all, paving the way for the invasion. We kept bashing away at German targets, mostly steel and oil, Peru, Hamburg, Battle of Berlin. Things were getting tougher every trip. More ground defenses, more night fighters, more crews not coming back. We got away early in the morning. Sometimes we'd see Lancasters coming back. A lot of times we'd stoke up the same targets they did. We'd beat up aircraft factories too. We'd work with a D-Luke service day and night, 24 hours a day. We dropped agents over France. Must be awful to risk your neck and have to keep it secret. One man submarines torpedo boats commandos. We used them all to bring back cups full of sand from the beaches for analysis. It had to be quick drying with a solid clay foundation. It would have to support 30 ton tanks. I must have photographed nearly every field in France. Real job, of course, was the car area but I didn't know that nor did Jerry. We dropped stuff to the Mackey, armed ammunition, sabotage materials, and so on. Then went over ourselves and taught them how to use it. We built it to specification but we had another least idea of what kind of a gadget it was. The only name it had was Malbury. It was vital to know all about the same bay and the tides and we trained the men to negotiate those tides and landing craft. Wearing down German sea power in preparation for the day. Special study of the weather along the Normandy coast. Miles of wire netting for the beaches. 7 to 200 tons of petrol per day. With an underwater pipeline to carry it to France. A white star as the emblem of liberation. Triple inoculation for all personnel. New ships pouring from the stocks. Old ships adapted. Listening to the German radio output for fresh intelligence. That was just part of the pre-invasion work. By December 43, the plan itself was set and we took it to Teoran for final discussion. The three leaders approved the plan. Our Russian forces advancing from the east and invasion from the west. And then the date was set. A man that's shape with the best all-round team for which a man could ask. Some had already been working for months in England. Others I brought with me from the Mediterranean. We adopted first a master plan and then had to coordinate every last detail of the ground, sea, and airplanes. While this was going on, we let off with an air show designed to make the landing points as soft as possible to batter the German communications and to make certain we'd have control of the air. It was quite a show. The ceremony did a magnificent job. We had Polish friends, Czechs, all sorts in our outfit. They'd natter away in the mess about what they'd been up to. The only way to could ever make out was marshling yards. As bombarders seem to do nothing but look down on French bridges those days. We used to ask each other, have you cut any good bridges lately? Well, finally, there was only one whole railway bridge left over the same between Paris and the sea. Down in the late spring, through the wounded towns of England moved the mass made by our patients. Two precious years of plans were put away. The offices were empty. All the maps were rolled up on the walls. What had been paper at last had come alive. Across the channel, aware of our resolve with cold contempt, a dirty German stood beside their guns and reinforcements rumbled from the Rhine. Their generals were prepared, their might was poised. They looked across the heaving sea and grinned. They would reap harvest of us on the beaches and even death himself would stand amazed. Yet faint across the groaning of the sea came the thin thunder of a mass of power. Born to the great free peoples of the earth, it gathered in the ancient ports of England to crowd upon the steel-encompassed ships. They were marching down to the ships. We'd done it plenty of times before, of course, on the schemes and that kind of thing. They didn't tell us this was the big show. Might have been just another exercise. Some of the chips cracked gags. They wasn't very comic, but we laughed. I think we all guessed. The general feeling was, okay, if this is it, let's get in there and get it over with. Waitin' always got on my nerves. Even waitin' for a bus, never could stand it. Well, after a bit, our ship found its place in the middle of all the rest of the stuff. And there we stayed for days. Gave us the final briefing, man. We knew what to do and how, and they told us where and when. That's a briefing. I listened every word, wrote it down my head like a record and it's gettin' playing over and over again. Piece of beach in the morning. Ever since I became a soldier, they were gettin' me ready for this. Before, there'd been time in front of me protecting me. Now, the time had worn away and there were only a few hours left. The morning, I'd have to face it. I tried to imagine how much fear I would have, you know, to keep me from doing my job. I suppose everybody else was wondering the same thing. Nobody said anything official, but all of a sudden, the ship got much busier. And over the amplifier, the captain said he'd be saying mass at 1830 hours. Funny, I don't think I ever believed, even after the final briefing, that the invasion was gonna come off. And a voice in the loudspeaker said, men who wish to take their anti-sea sick pills should take the first one now. I did it. Well, the glider pilot caught good luck on the radio. Seemed to sort of be an adequate thing. At this point, to say just a word about the Navy. From the moment of embarkation to that of landing, the full burden fell upon the Navy and our merchant fleets. They had to sweep the mines, bombard the coastal batteries, marshal and protective transports along the coastline prepare a choice to land. And finally, man the small boats that carry the soldiers to the beach. On that day, there were more than 8,000 ships and landing craft on the shores of Normandy. It was a most intricate task and a vital one for the success of our plans. The courage, fidelity and skill of the Royal and American Natives have no brighter page in their histories than that of June 6th, 1944. It was a well kept secret. Around daybreak, we correspondence were called until to be at the Ministry of Information about 8, then they told us. I understand Omaha was the roughest spot. We lost some good men, it was a lousy trade. We've been told what to expect, so it wasn't like a surprise or anything. It just, well, one really happens. For a while there we were pinned down, but the lucky thing, the other beaches were going better so we got a little more in our share of the old teamwork. Navy come in, the air guys and finally we got moving good. Now you hear a lot about how long it takes to make battle-hardened soldiers out of green troops. Listen, I got to be a veteran in one day, that day. And so they paved the beaches with their blood and lurched across the dunes and reached the roads. The German parried fiercely. In the depths of which green pastured Normandy, the three airborne divisions, first of all to land, fought lion-like against most grievous odds. And loud across the cratered face of France came German reinforcements. From Berlin, a voice cried out, the Allies must be hurled into the sea before another day had burned its hole in history. Locked in battle, the armies clashed. Our first objective then was to merge all the beachheads into one and 50 miles of men drive on together beyond the red sands through the broken wall. Where I was, it wasn't too bad, getting sure. After that it started with the fight for every bloody field. There was the same each time, you'd crawl in your belly, keeping your backside delicate being told, chuck in a few hand grenades, then rush them. Sometimes they killed us, but we were killing more of them. The trickiest part was the farms. They were regular little Jerry fortresses. If we couldn't manage them on our own, then we'd have to wait while the company commander called back for artillery support. The Navy was still with us too, chucking in the shells ahead of us. In three days we advanced seven miles. Then we were told to stand fast and dig in. Next morning they had the news. We got it from the BBC. Sounded great. We joined up all along the bridgehead. There was a solid line 45 miles of it. We'd got a foothold. We were in. We didn't have to do much navigating to get there. Just followed the convoys. I was doing close support. We waited around and then the ground troops would whistle us out and told us about some hot target they wanted removed and then in we go. We were like taxis on a cab, right? There's something nice about a beach, any beach. You think of a beach and chances are you'll remember something nice. Like a party or a picnic. Powers from the old days, girls and bathing suits. The one I worked, Utah, looked more like a freight yard once we got going. For quite a while we brought more supplies right over the open beach. Like we'd practiced it and like we'd made up as we went along. We worked a 24-hour shift with ducks, lights, rats, robots, all sorts of rogue gobergs. Stuff just kept pouring in. Tanks, trucks, food, ammo, guys, millions of things. Spent 15 days in the same field outside Conn. The wood behind us and the Germans in another wood half a mile in front of us. A little empty valley in between. Each side mortering each other all the time. Just when you had to live in a slit trench, you got into a rude tea. You know, stand through from half past four to half past five, then two hours wait for breakfast. Came up fairly hot. Tin bait and all sausage, tea, of course, biscuits. We've been living on compo food since D-Day. It's good food but, well, you know, you got tired of it. I'd have given a lot for a slice of fresh bread and butter or a cup of fresh tea. 15 days is a long time to stay in one place and be mortared. You'll tell you think everyone's coming straight for you. Remember every case we ever had, especially the first one? The ambulance brought him in late one afternoon. I came over to where he was lying and he looked up and grinned. I asked him how he felt. He said something about the German with a machine pistol using him for a dartboard. He was quiet and patient and a little bewildered. He'd never been hurt before. He asked how the fighting was going when he passed out. The doctor came over and looked at his wounds and swore. Said he had no business to be alive. We put him on the operating table and did what we could. The doctor kept swearing all the time he was operating. We couldn't stop the bleeding. I remember the radio news that night. They said the casualties had been surprisingly late. There were a Winston's idea, a collapsible prefabricated harbour with everything on it except a nappy. Well, I wouldn't put it past him. It's sort of an idea he would have worked in the end. Mulberry, they called it. Well, I felt pretty good about it because I'd watched it grow right from the sinking of the first ships for the out of breakwater. And further along to the west, the Yanks had brought one over too. Then on D plus 13, I think it was, an onshore wind started up. Not much at first, but it got worse. Unloading onto the open beaches got very tricky. We heard it over on the Yanks section. The other harbour had been put right out of action. And when the wind dropped, old Mulberry looked pretty sick. And up to that time, it was the only bleeding harbour we had. At the Green Tip of Normandy, the town of Sherbourg made a harbour for supplies. Our need for forts was vital as our breath. The German knew our lack and swiftly drew his forces into tight defensive groups so to contest the issue. All our plans turned upon Sherbourg, all our strategy waited upon its empty docks and piers. So the Americans sent all across Normandy to the coast, swung toward the north, impatient for the port. Through hedge and field, they carved their heavy way. You remember back now when it seems like we took Sherbourg a couple of days after we hit the beach. Actually, it took 19 days to cover 30 miles. 30 miles and about 92,000 hedgerows. And a battle at every hedgerow. Otherwise, it was nice country, like Connecticut. Pretty trees and orchids, lots of cows, and nice little farmhouses. The apples were too green to eat, I remember. We hit it all fine with the people, farmers, nice people. It got tough when we pulled up on the outskirts of Sherbourg. They had great defenses. And the artillery really carried the ball. For three days, we socked it to them. Sometimes, we were pouring in a point-blank range over open sites. Finally, old von Schlieben, the German commander, tossed in the sponge. That's after telling his men to fight to the death. We took Sherbourg on June 25th. Everything was rosy, except the harbor we come from. The Jerry's had really smeared that harbor. But right away, our guys went to work cleaning it up. And the way they tore into it, you could see that pretty soon it'd be working for us fine. Then? Well, we fought our way up the peninsula. Now we'd have to fight our way out of it. And everywhere inside France, we men of the Mackey were fighting too. I was in the north, myself. We cut telephone and telegraph and high-tension lines. And eventually, when the allies landed, we fought in the open. In the Savoy Mountains, our friends held up German convoy. Well, it was a little easier in the mountains. Bosch reinforcements were delayed for many days. Factories and bridges would frequently disappear. But the price we paid for it was frightful. In the village of Oradour alone, the Germans slaughtered 1,100 out of the 1,200 population. And the place was completely burned. They were accused to have ambushed German troops. Every house was destroyed. Women and children died in flames in the church where they had been locked. Yes, the price we paid was very great. But our job was done. Kau is a town through which the easy on ripples its slow way to the waiting sea, capital of Normandy. And here the British struck a stone wall of Germans. This was no Scherberg advance, a knife thrust through the fields, but rather was the grinding of a drill inch by inch forward. Here it was the German feared a quick breakthrough to the reverse aim. And here it was he massed his army's best, 10 of the 12 divisions of his armor. Paratroops, SS men, the young, the cruel, against the veterans of Alameda. We wanted him to fight here and to hold the battered ground because the future plans depended on him standing where he was. At Kau, the dust was diamond. Every foot of ground was priceless, for by midmost summer, Kau was to be the pivot of the war. A decent sized town we had taken, but there wasn't any celebration because we knew nothing had been settled. Jerry was as strong as ever. One of the men said, God, are we going to have to go right across the world doing this to beat him? Because most of Kau was dust, just plain dust. I wondered what Hamilton back home in Canada would look like after beating like that. Well, anyway, our tanks in the British started massing and moved south out of the city. We knew there was a big dude coming up. We began south at Kau, where the Poles joined up with us. When we began moving forward, I heard a lot of the lads say, Rommel's on the run. But I'd been at Alameda. I knew he wasn't on the run. And I was right. There was nothing lovely about the battle south at Kau. No pincen rumours, no outflanking, no nothing like that. Just an hard, bitter, bloody slogging match. We had to stay there and give as good as we got, even if we couldn't give better. In Kabul, in the dust of Kau, the Empire troops kept up their endless pressure. The Germans did not dare to disengage, but fought with all his cunning and his strength, still unaware of what we planned for him. West, by St. Low, the base of his defense, Americans were poised and bent to fire an armored arrow that would set alight the flame of freedom through the whole France. But till St. Low was seized, the arrow waited. It was quiet with the birds singing. The next men, the columnist Sherman tanks, were coming round the corner, going wide open. My buddy says, where those tanks come from? So I asked the tanker. He yells down there, the third army taking off. Been waiting for three weeks. Prepare somebody, let the rabbit down the hat. Man, what a rabbit, with pearl-handled revolvers. When I think back to the breakthroughs, I don't seem to be able to remember anything but the French people. People beside the road, kids we couldn't stop to give candy to, FFI boys bringing in black trouts from the fields, and farm workers waving as we went by. It was easier to look them in the face and smile and wave back at them than you hadn't had to smash their homes to pieces first. The morning we got in the Wren, boy, that really was liberation. An armor planned to drive east and northeast, and thus surround and take the German corps divisions in the rear. The foe laid plans to stop the arrow dead by cutting its supply route at the point where it stretched narrowest along the coast. Though a great force exploded toward Mortain, hoping at a rush to achieve the sea and drag our hopes down to the smoking ground. A lot of places I'd rather talk about them, Mortain. That's where I got hit. We've been going great up to there. Some of the guys had even been singing, harmonizing. And then that first German artillery caught us. Pretty accurate too, an hour late I was short, 18 men. Well, behold then we hit back with everything we had. They weren't just trying to stop us, see? They want to come right through. And then me, I get a belt in the face left side and I keel. The last thing I remember is looking up and seeing those RAF typhoons. When I heard them screaming up ahead, I thought, geez, I'm glad they're on our side. I was sitting in front of the intelligence office doing a bit of sunbathing when headquarters came through saying the area northwest of Mortain was packed with German armor, heading west. Well, that started it. For six hours the wing kept it up absolutely nonstop. Take off, attack, land, refuel, rearm, and take off again. It was the same when every airfield in Normandy. The only briefing I gave the chaps was, well, you know where they are. The only interrogation when they got back was, well, how many did you get? Three days had lasted. Every kind of soldier was in there and every weapon. For me it was just eating and smoking and loading that 105, no sleeping. Then things quieted down and the word came back. We stopped them cold. Everybody felt like celebrating, but that was a tough order out there. I tried drinking a whole bottle of Kof medicine. It worked fine. I got stiff in a plank. The counterattack, which took us by surprise, still did not hinder our deceptive plans. For down from core, the foe had drawn a force and left his north flank weakened. Now the stage was set. Toward Palais swept the empire troops together with the Poles. The German heard behind his back American armor churned toward Argento. Out general and out fort, he found himself within a closing trap. Throw stiff on their faces by a shell fire. And the plain joes had had too much and ready to tell you that. And their poker faced officers had never lost the poker face look. The SS, the parachute troops, the old soldiers off the Russian front, I've seen them all. The Hitler youth babies looking like they walked out of Lincoln High. Expert killers. Smart aleck with their talk of rights under the Geneva Convention. And asking, when do we go to America? And the other guy who crawled out of a hole with his hands up, all through and talking too much. And ready to swear he hated Hitler all the time. The kids that knew how a machine gun worked and nothing else. Grinning like they were still on top. They could hardly hold that trigger finger still. And the laged guys wanting to tell you about the wife and kids, you've let them. And they were through killing when I saw them and through getting killed too. Some of them thought they were lucky and I listed. The Plaza de la Corcorde and began the battle for the city. After that, it seemed the French flag was hanging from every window. All the flags were made of curtains, old dresses, rags, everything. It didn't matter. Four days later, we heard shouting coming from the Autent de Ville. We started running. Me, my husband, everyone in our house. As we ran, people were screaming. The French army had arrived. When we got to the Plaza de la Corcorde, we saw it was true. I kissed my husband because he was crying. It's funny. We began to realize how unhappy we had been for four years and how lucky we were to be alive on this August evening. Great pursuit was on at last the battle of France was ending, when all suddenly another D-Day had stunned the shaken foes. Two armies struck, American and French, along the broad beached southern coast of France. Then north, the two new armies rolled like waves to join the forces moving on the Reich. Beyond the same, where from 100 sites the Germans launched their flying bombs and brought death and destruction on the English towns, our valiant armies went about the task long since assigned them. Toward the Reich frontiers, Americans advanced. Against the ports hugging the channel, garrisoned in force by desperate foes, Canadians were sent. And in a thunderous sweep, the British armors surged toward a waiting Brussels. People of Brussels laughed and cried and threw flowers in the tank and said, goodbye, Tommy. When they meant to say hello, man, they were happy. I suppose we were no longer afraid. But I remember wondering then, how the first German civilians would react to us. I remember one day we were coming across a big flat field. Didn't look like nothing special. I hopped a barbed wire fence and a guy says to me, guess what? So I says, what? So he says, you're in Germany. There's a sign over there says. Then like a dope, I thought, well, it won't be long now. I want to quit over the fall of Paris and Timbub on Brussels. Nine to five, Ron, it being over by October the 1st. I remember the point system for getting out of the army came out about this time. I began to think of that great shock-striped double breasted suit in the mothball. I was in the 7th Army coming up from the south of France. One day a lieutenant said, take a ride with me. I got some prisoners for you to guard. How many I says? About 20,000, he said. A whole German division had surrendered. We Canadians were advancing in the north. And one day we came across a thing I'd never seen before. I guess it's a flying bomb sight the officer says. Well, that really made me feel good. The prisoner told us the newest Jerry gag. If an aircraft shows up white, it's American. If it shows up dark, it's British. And if it never shows up, it's the Luftwaffe. Every time they sent me along the south of forward the rear switchboard, and I got my earphones on, I found out that the rear switchboard had leapfrogged five miles ahead. I wrote to the old man in St. Louis. He owns a men's store. I told him he'd better cut prices on GI neckties and socks if he didn't want to be stuck with a lot of military apparel. Someone asked the sergeant major what he thought the chances were for a spot of leave. Don't you worry about leave, lads. He says, we've got the Japs to finish yet. Regular soldier, of course. Keen. It was a terrific feeling crossing the German border. We were sure nothing could stop us. Just outside Metz, we ran out of gas. And it just wasn't anything to be had. I looked at my 30 ton Sherman sitting there, a useless hunk of iron. I wanted the bull. I don't know how far we could have gone on, who knows. But I just stopped and sit there in the road. I know then we were in for a rough time. When we took Arkham, the Rassians were short on mostly K-Rassians at that. But we ate. Then we started to run low on ammo. Well, that was serious. You can't kill a man with K-Rassians. At least I never heard such an instance. From Antwerp to the Belfort Gap, our drives came to a stop. We could not then proceed until we had a port through which supplies could reach our armies. Crouched beside the keys, the German suicide garrisons held the port so sorely needed. When the German port strategy became apparent, we had to move swiftly to counteract his plan. We captured Sherberg in a mighty rush. But he hung on to other carvers. And when he couldn't do that, he destroyed them. That was the story of Brest, where American ground, air, and naval forces fought such a long, bitter battle. In Brittany, where we were joined by French resistance forces, at the channel ports of Calais, won by the Canadians, La Havre captured by the British, Dieppe and Bologna, Canadians, and Dunkirk, beat by the Czechs. It takes a lot of freight per day per man to keep an army fighting in the field. The fellows I charged with getting it to the front had a tough nut to crack. We just didn't have enough working ports. That's all. Supplies suffered. Our offensive was slow. And the German was gaining time to consolidate a new defense line. When our supplies pitted out, we'd just reached the Siegfried line. That's as far as we've gotten. We went through the first part easy, dragon's teeth, and stuff like that. Then we hit the pillboxes, forts, obstacles, hidden positions. It was like going into one of those joints in Coney Island where you get lost. Instead of mirrors, they had guns. With supplies, maybe we could have cracked it then. Maybe not. I don't know. Frontal assault upon the Siegfried line was for the moment fatal. There, encased in trench and pillbox, lurked the German power. A hydro 100-headed, still unslamed. And all the cunning of 1,000 years of war had gone to mold its walls of steel. Yet every line must somewhere have an end. In southeast Holland, nothing lay between the British army and the German plane except two rivers and a town. And so we made our plans to send an airborne army down to seize Eindhoven and the bridges at Nijmegen and Arnhem, then to hold them for the force that would sweep up like thunder from the south. Thus, where no line existed, would the Rhine at last be crossed in force? I was to jump last to Arnhem, so I sat right forward by the window. I could see nothing but blue skies in the coasters with the fighters up topside, like midges. One of the boys was reading a newspaper. He showed me a funny piece in it. I couldn't laugh. The coast of Holland came along before I already fired someone yelled, running up now, and he got to action stations. I remember thinking, what a bloody bit of bad luck to be bumped off now when the war's nearly over. We'd come down and go to a place called Eindhoven, Holland. She goes good, get right, dig in, set up a defense perimeter, and wait for the British army to come up. And we'd join them and head out for Nijmegen. The bridge at Nijmegen already had a mark on it. We crossed the river and started out for Arnhem, but we didn't get far. The Han knew as well as we did that we'd got to get through, and he put in everything he'd got. That was the worst eye of us all. Knowing our men were there waiting at Arnhem, and we couldn't get to them. At Arnhem, we got ourselves well-duggy in with us and some of the post. We were short of ammo and food. That was our main worry. I'll never forget those supply-dropping missions, the way Jerry let loose at them and the way they just came straight on into it. Towards the end, we knew the situation was bad. We knew we were hemmed in. We knew it was possible we wouldn't get out. More than anything, I remember the way everyone behaved. I mean, you knew as the toughest fighters became gentle, kind and considerate to each other. I knew a lot more about men after Arnhem. The guns died out in Arnhem. Then we knew the greatest gallantry was not enough to cross the final bridge. And now no choice remained to us. Direct assault against the Siegfried Line would be the only way to carve our corridors into the Reich. The first apport was needed for supplies Antwerp we had, but thundering German guns controlled the 30-cold miles of the Scheldt from Antwerp to the sea. The docks were still, the winches silent, all the ports laid dead, a useless city severed from the sea. It would stay dead until we cut away through the gray Scheldt. So the battle formed to free the estuary for our ships. I covered that battle for the Associated Press. I only wish I could have written the story with the greatness of the men who fought it. It was vicious and fierce and fighting all the way. The Canadians and the Poles clearing the south bank of the river, the Royal Lavian Marines and Norwegians charging knee-deep in blood and water into the mouths of the nine-inch shore guns at West Capell, it was the kind of fighting that makes legends. And the mind-sweeping of the Scheldt afterwards, it was the greatest operation of its kind in history. The cost of that first ship into Antwerp Harbor was the lives of thousands of our bravest men. I reported it as well as I could, but their memory deserves more than words. On the first convoy to Antwerp, I got to the front. I saw more empty supply of dumps than I like to see. The boys wanted to know where the stuff was. You can't fight without stuff. Anybody knows that. I made lots of trips, don't know how many. Driving all day, all night, singing, so as to keep awake. Songs like Milkman, Keep Those Bottles Quiet. My job was to cedar it that they had a new toothbrush and a cot, maybe a book to read when they came over from the east bank to the west bank of the Moselle for a little rest. We brought them over one company at a time because that was all the regiment could spare from the line at any one time. Somebody had tapped them on the shoulder and said, all right, boy, you're going back across the river for 24 hours rest. And here they were where they could rest. They just couldn't believe it. Here they were for just 24 hours without war. Everything was down to essentials, counted out like dollar bills through a teller's window. One night's sleep, one day's hot meals, one clean change of underwear, one clean pair of pants, one shave, one hot shower, one movie. I used to wonder what was the best at that day. Was it a chance for them to write home, a hot shower, or that long-legged girl on the screen? Whatever it was, all of it was over by morning. They were going back with their one clean suit of underwear, the hot shower, the clean shave, and the good night's sleep back across the Moselle that they holds in the ground and the shelves. By that time, we knew we were going to see a winter campaign. There was no way out of it. The Germans were dug in, and they were tough. And it was plain that until we got a lot stronger, we weren't going any place. The squadron was operating whenever it could. There wasn't a lot of flying. We were iced up and fed up. Suppose you're having a swell time in Paris, my cousin wrote me, with all that perfume and silk stockings in that champagne. They called our end of the line south. We were in the Volge mountains with the American 7th Army. But it was very little warmth in the south. I recalled with pleasure the Mediterranean, where we had landed in August. Our button memories do not keep one warm. Before I joined the army, I thought it was certain death to dig a hole in the back garden and living it for the winter, but that's what we did. The sergeant said, well, squirrels do it every year. Yes, I thought, but they don't man machine guns as well. There was no heating in our Brussels office. I put on so much under my uniform, they called me the Bunzel from Britain. I never smoked before, but pretty soon I found myself smoking as high as a pack a day. I worried about that old law of percentages. My company was melting away. You'd look up one day and be fighting alongside a stranger. It was an awesome feeling. Our hunk of the line was the Ardennes. Pretty quiet. A lot of outfits had gone up north. I started a million latrine grounds about to wear in one of our offensive. Then one day I'm standing guard in these shell stuff. Thought for a minute this was it, until I realized these shells weren't out goings, brother. They were in comings. Next thing I knew, German tanks. It was an offensive, all right, but it was going the wrong way. The offensive we were mounting to the north was suddenly forstalled and set aside, as through the rugged, thinly held Ardenne von Rünstedt's truck. He cut a fiery path through the American lines and sent his tanks desperately driving toward the river Merz. The night of fog and pale December frost saw the beginning, none foresaw the end. He aimed for Antwerp's harbor through Liege and all our plans held fire while we bent our strength to curb the Germans in the bulge. That night I was a replacement in England playing shove haypenny in a pub. The next day they shoved me in an aeroplane and that night I was fighting Germans and being kicked around. I don't know about the other outfits, but mine was being cut to ribbons. They were dropping all around me. The thing that still sticks in my head is the medics. The old weapon they had was a needle, but they were around right where it was the hottest. You'd hear that yell, medic, medic, me there. The old division got a presidential citation for what happened up at Baston. Even me, just a cook. I'll never forget that old lieutenant running into the field kitchen and hollering at me if and I had any idea how to operate a bazooka. I said no and he said, well, you're gonna learn now, son. I did and hope the dog gone if in the first shot out the foul I didn't get me a jerry tank. Got interviewed later by stars and stripes. They said it was a cracker jack story. I'll tell it at the drop of a hat. We'd been up north where things were a bit static so we were quite glad to be moved down to the top side of this ballroom. Coming down through Belgium, we noticed how scared some of the civilians looked. Naturalized earth. We were held in reserve for a week and then they sent us into action. On account of the fog, we couldn't get any air coordination. You sure miss it bad when you've gotten used to it all the way since D-Day and then on December 24th, like a Christmas present, that sun come up and after a while we was giving him the old one, two again. We stopped them dead finally. It cost us plenty of member. We stopped them and we started moving ahead again. The rest of us. In spring, his great attempt was over and his armies that had devoured such a wealth of blood sagged, soddened towards the Rhine. At Yalta then, while dire explosions shook the German fronts, the three great architects of freedom met to fix the final blow and plot the peace. And even as they met, we moved to act upon our strategy. We wished the foe to stand and fight upon the western bank of the gray Rhine. But there we could destroy him outside his fortress, open, unprotected by any bridgeless river. Down we cast the gauntlet, challenging him, stand and fight. They nicknamed our army commander Admiral Krill. I put up some very stiff opposition. But actually, this was just what we'd hoped for. It showed that Jerry's emotions about fighting for every foot of his beloved fatherland were getting the better of his sense of strategy. And every German killed on our side of the Rhine was to make it easier for us on the further bank. And a lot of the Bosch were killed, I can tell you. Reichsvold was the bloodiest show I've seen in this war. It was one of the push, the cap who told me eight divisions. He usually knows, he follows things like that. I was with the outfit that took Munchen Gladbach, I think you say it. There weren't many civilians in the streets and even the ones that were there, we weren't supposed to talk to unless we had to. There was a $65 rat for fraternization. I wonder how they happened to figure out that number. I mean, why $65? We could see the Cologne Cathedral a long time before we got there. That tower was our objective, it was on the Rhine River. We went fast and by the time we got in the town, there wasn't too much fight left in them. Cologne was mangled all right, but there were still a few buildings standing. I was sorry. I thought of those French cities flattened. Anyway, we got our objective. Now we had to cross that river. I thought they must be very short of men when they put a sailor's in a battle dress, lugged the assault boats on the trucks and sent us across Belgium by road, who talked about silent service. I'd never been sick at sea, but I was sick as a dog on the road. When we reached our destination, I was feeling lousy, longing for a breath of sea air, and found a whole bloody landscape under a stinking smoke screen. It looked like London it was. The next day we got up to the Rhine. It was good to get a glimpse of the war again. Our Air Force is giving the old lumps on the east bank of the Rhine, but I was still nervous. The Germans had blown the bridges and we knew the crossing would be in fib. When I'm nervous, I get off my feet. For two days before that crossing, I couldn't eat nothing but a couple of milky waybars. It was gonna beat the day all over again. Dangerous. A miracle. There it was sitting there big and black. I'm no architect, but to me that remarking bridge was the most beautiful bridge in the world. In the army when things go as per plan, that's wonderful. But when they go better than planned, then you figure the chaplain's working overtime. It was a break at that bridge and we cashed in on it. And the first guys over the river were over in style. The watch on the Rhine was finished, washed up, what a kind of phrase, kaput. It's going fine, but suddenly I get stee-toe to guard some German prisoners. I'll never forget their faces when their airborne bloke started to come over. They just stood there looking up at them. And then after about half an hour, one of them looks at me, looks up at the sky and says, eh, propaganda. They sealed it off and the ground forces wrapped it up. After that, they exploded it in all directions. Cut the gerry armies up in pockets then take them one by one. That was the program. The third wreck was being carved up like a Christmas turkey. The chase in the barge was getting a little bit monotonous. We hardly ever saw him, only burning houses, a few shells and occasional sniper's rifle shot. There's a silly kind of defiance, I thought. And then one day the routine was broken. We came across a prisoner of war camp, other ranks, yanks mostly, and they went mad when they saw us, screeched red Indian war cries, pummeled one another and asked what the news was. It seemed a shame to tell them when they were so happy. Well, there's nothing for it. I told them. The boys in Roosevelt died yesterday afternoon, is it? We should have held them quiet and down. For once in this campaign, they all felt as though they'd suffered a major defeat. I'd have likely stayed there, talking to them, trying to cheer them up, but we had no time to lose. Jerry only had a few hundred square miles of earth left to scorch. Our job was either to hurry him up or scorch it for him. We were on the home stretch cutting deeper all the time when we ran into these displaced persons, slave workers. They were sick and hungry from all over Europe. The roads were jammed with them, but they kept out of the way and didn't give us any trouble. Like a fellow said, there's a lot more than towns gonna have to be reconstructed. I wonder what was up when all R.A.M.C. personnel in our lot down to stretch their bed is what we urgently called for? I soon found out we'd taken the Belson concentration camp. Well, I'm not squeamish. I've seen amputations, operations, deaths, long before I went to the Army in 41. I was a warden. I lost count of all the arms and legs I pulled out of the wreckage down in Croydon. I got quite used to it. But this was different, very different. I don't know any words big enough to make you understand what we all felt. All I can say and I'm proud of this is that I had to fall out and be quickly sick in the courtyard. As I say, I'm not squeamish, but, well, I'm human and thank God for it. The government sent a few of us congressmen over to see those camps. And if there's anybody left who wonders if this war was worth fighting, well, I wish they could have been along. There it was, right in front of us, fascism and what it's bound to lead to, wherever it crops up. I talked to some of the prisoners, the ones that had the strength to talk. There are fences with the usual Nazi crimes, you know, wrong religion or wrong race, belonging to a union or the wrong political party. In Germany, it led to over 400 camps, like the ones I saw. It was the worst thing I ever saw in my life and I wouldn't have missed it for anything. When an army gets to moving in a hurry, that's where air transport comes in. We'd been flying in the stuff along with the British transport command since D-Day. Towards the end, they seemed to be moving faster on the ground than we were in the air. As pocket after pocket of the flow fell, our hopes rose higher than the soaring flames that marked the broken towns of Germany. In Italy, a million prisoners came in, as with a single sudden blow, the German power was smashed. Then our tanks drove through the southern mountains, where the foe had hoped to make his furious final stand. The Russians took Berlin and cut the heart from Hitler's empire. And he himself will plan to rule the earth from pole to pole, vanished like smoke among the falling walls. Upon the green banks of the river Elbe, we waited for the east and west to meet. He's at the Elbe River. I hung around for a couple of days with a Tommy gunner named Connie Cobb. He didn't know any English, so I taught him to say my aching back. He taught me to varish. That means comrade. We drank toast to Len Lieson, had a million laughs. Then ol' Connie Cobb found an interpreter and gives a toast to the great American soldier. That stopped me. We did all right, but I don't like to think where we'd have been without them. We were going towards the Danish frontier. Bravenfeld in Hamburg. The rot was setting in. A million and a half surrendered in the north. The fighting was nearly over and our job was beginning. We'd been training a long time for the administration of Germany and we were prepared for plenty of trouble, sabotage, passive resistance, or perhaps something more violent. You know, werewolves and sheep's clothing. But as it turned out, most of them were docile and did what they were told. They seemed healthy, well-fed. Their disease was in their minds. A German woman, looking at what was left of her town, said to me, if only you'd given up in 1940, none of those need have happened. D plus 337. Now it's the holy arguments about who won the war. Well, here's what I say. That no country on earth could have won it alone. So what does that mean? That anybody who wants to take a bow by himself is not only boasting, but nuts. I spent four years in the infantry and I saw my share. And during that time, I only met three men that liked to fight and they were a little cracked. But it had to be done. Now that it's over, I feel good, except for one thing. All this talk about World War III, these big pessimists that talked so easy about another war just didn't see this one. Or enough of it. We watched them bringing in some high-up prisoners. Quite ready to be friendless, however. I was thinking of fellas I'd known who'd bought it. Crash, shot down, missing. Right through from the Battle of Britain, I remembered their faces or some joke they'd played or... Maybe just the way they laughed or something. There seemed to be such a lot of them I remembered. To the victor belongs the spoils. That's what they say. Well, what are the spoils? Only this. A chance to build a free world better than before. Maybe the last chance. Remember that. Now the time has come to put our victory to the tests of peace. In company with men of many lands to sift from ashes what the struggle taught. In the rebuilding of a broken earth, may we keep in our hearts this ancient prayer. O Lord God, may now give us to thy servants to endeavor any great matter. Grant to us also to know that it is not the beginning, but the continuing of the same until it be thoroughly finished, which yieldeth the true glory.