The Guns at Last Light

Matters discussed here are all part of the historical record. Those who have not studied the history of WW#2 may find them spoilers. This is not the first history of WW#2 but it does have the advantage of using records recently declassified.

First comment from a Canadian, of course, is to highlight the fact that this History of WW#2 is written from an American point of view. The Yanks maintained their isolationist stance until December 7, 1941 when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbour at which point it took another two years for them to ramp up their efforts and make any significant contribution to the war effort. Therefore the Liberation Trilogy of which this is book 3 begins in 1943, four years into the war. What the rest of us were doing until that point hardly seems to matter.

Three things stand out over and over again:

Military Intelligence. Planning depends on it and the best laid plans can fall apart when the unexpected happens and in war it usually does.

Fraticide. Before GPS finding a precise location from the air, by sea, and even on land was a tenuous process. Bombs were dropped on allied positions. Airborne troops were dropped over open ocean or miles from their intended drop zones. Fire missions hit wrong targets. Troops got lost or advanced into friendly fire and were landed by boat on the wrong beachhead.

Transport. An army marches on its belly. Landing troops is one thing. Keeping them fed and in ammunition quite another; motorized equipment cannot run without fuel. Air fields and ports become critical for materiel transport. Battles were won or lost by Quartermasters. Soldiers can't fight once they run out of bullets.

Of concern to the supreme commander, Eisenhower, was the need to mollify the egos of the generals who held command of the armies of the various combatants: Britain, France, Canada, and the US. Each wanted their opportunity to win glory and felt slighted when deprived.

The author continues to give historical background to the locations where engagements occur and to introduce new personalities as they appear. Attention is paid to both the Allied forces and the German leadership.

With the liberation of Paris High Command and Logistics move there. High Command balloons to 24,000 staff. With that many they could well have transported Gerry Cans of fuel across Europe by bucket brigade. To keep equipment fueled it took 1.5 gallons of aviation fuel to fly 1 gallon of truck or tank fuel. Supplies involved 800,000 separate items ordered from half way round the world for troops ever on the move that took up to 4 months to arrive. Imagine keeping several million men fed and in toilet paper. Americans are noted for prodigal wastage, they lost their guns, their ammo, their grenade launchers at ridiculous rates. Tires were shredded on tossed ration cans. Not only did they bomb Europe, they trashed it as well.

After Monty's Market Garden design fails he continues to be an exasperating egotistical little peacock planning pushes into Germany while neglecting to clear the approaches to Atwerp. While troops are forced to stand fast for lack of supplies ships lay anchored offshore for lack of berths to unload and supplies lay waiting in America for lack of transport. Meanwhile Monty fumes that sufficient resources are not being allocated to his schemes. Attacking Germany is sexier than clearing ports so his troops can have supplies.

Given Hitler's decrees that German soil be defended to the last man to the last bullet cities such as Aachen were pulverized building by building right down to their basement foundations.

In Band of Brothers a general is quoted as saying: “Flies spread disease, keep yours closed.” Venereal Disease is one of the dirty little secrets of war. The lack of proper clothing, malnutrition, and the spread of disease among men in close quarters lacking clean water and proper sanitation created more casualties than the actual fighting. Maladies of neglect such as trench foot invalided hundreds of thousands. None of this touches the psychological affects of endless warfare.

My pacifist leanings will become apparent. When the state sanctions the killing of their own citizens they call it capital punishment. When the state sanctions the mass-murder of the citizens of another country they call it war. Whatever jingoistic terms are used to pretty it up soldiers kill other human beings. Once that taboo is broken putting limits on the means used to do it seems specious. Until the American Civil War soldiers lined up on the battlefield and shot at one another. When labelling another the enemy makes killing him legitimate how do you define atrocity? Can there be gentleman's agreements as to the limits of barbarism.

Canadian Documentary Film Makers named McKenna were vilified by Veterans for portraying the Canadian War Effort in less than glowing lights. This author describes Bomber Harris and his bombing of German Civilian Targets in similar fashion. Some people seem to get a charge out of killing their fellow creatures. Military training instills that killer instinct for the murder of their fellow human beings. What the military has yet to deal with is deprogramming for a return to civilian life. How do you turn that off?

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The decisions generals make gets their own men killed as well as the enemy. When generals make bad decisions their own men die needlessly and/or without accomplishing any useful objective. The exercise of that kind of power requires a certain amount of ego, some are better at keeping their egos in check than others.

In the end the Allies won the war because the Germans ran out of cannon fodder first. Wars are lost not won and in a war of attrition the loser is he who runs out of men and materiel first. This history makes it plain that this war was not lost because the Allies possessed such superior military skills. One of its strengths is the fact that it makes no effort to hide the blunders made by both sides.

One such blunder is known to history as the Battle of the Bulge. Allied intelligence believed that only a madman would initiate an all-out offensive in December 1944 but they discounted the fact that the orders were given by Hitler, not his generals. When their leaders make mistakes, soldiers die.

As portrayed Monty was an egomaniac who refused to follow orders and kept insisting that he be put in charge of all troops in the European Theatre. Problem being that this was Ike's job and the Generals in his fellow Allied Countries found Monty impossible to work with and assumed an either he or I stance. Once more Monty dithered and failed to act in time prevent German Troops from retreating when the “Bulge” failed them. His public statements antagonized British Allies. The writer is an American. It would be interesting to see how a British Historian would interpret the same set of facts. It is also obvious that the subject of this “History” is dead. To quote Churchill: “There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.” Lovers quarrels are part of Love.

The final sections of this book dealing with the discovery of the Concentration Camps is not reading for the faint of heart. Reading these books will have you reaching for your dictionary more than once. New words were coined to describe this war and new meanings given to old ones. The author uses some rather arcane language at times.