The Longest Winter

[Walt's Daughter]

Article thanks to James Hennessey:

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December 7, 2004

 

The Longest Winter

Sixty years ago, a puzzled enemy met America's "quiz kids."

BY VICTORINO MATUS

Tuesday, December 7, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST

 

It all has a familiar ring to it. The enemy believes that it takes only a taste of real war, followed by a few casualties, to send Americans running home with their tails between their legs. The American president, weighed down by public opinion, will then be forced to make concessions and abandon the field.

 

Sixty years ago, Adolf Hitler had exactly such thoughts. He launched a devastating offensive in Western Europe in the hope that he could weaken America's willingness to fight and thus splinter the Allies, leaving him free to deal with the Soviet Union. In retrospect, such a strategy seems mere wishful thinking. But in December 1944 it had a plausible logic to it. With the future of his Reich at stake, Hitler saw an all-out strike against the massing U.S. and British forces as his last chance to force them into making a separate peace.

 

What the Fuehrer did not count on was the stubborn resistance of largely untested American GIs. This fierce opposition, particularly from one platoon, is the subject of Alex Kershaw's "The Longest Winter." In his previous history, "The Bedford Boys," Mr. Kershaw followed a group of soldiers from Bedford, Va., to the beaches of Normandy, where 19 of them were cut to pieces in the first terrible minutes of D-Day. "The Longest Winter" picks up where "The Bedford Boys" left off, following another platoon's journey through liberated France into Belgium on the eve of the Battle of the Bulge.

 

Most of the 26 men who composed the 394th Regiment's Intelligence and Reconnaissance platoon came from college programs, meant to replenish the military's badly depleted ranks. Derisively called "quiz kids," they proved themselves as physically adept as they were academically proficient. But not even rigorous Camp Maxey, Texas, in the sweltering heat of July 1944 could prepare them for their mission in Europe later that year.

 

On Dec. 10, the platoon was ordered into the village of Lanzareth, Belgium, to fill a gap between Allied divisions along the Western front. The leader, First Lt. Lyle Bouck, was told that the move would be temporary--after all, as Mr. Kershaw explains, "I&R platoons were not intended to be frontline riflemen. The highly mobile platoon did not have sufficient firepower to hold such a position in the event of a strong German attack."

 

Little did the Allies know (thanks to one of the greatest intelligence blunders of the entire war) that a strong German attack was indeed heading their way. Hitler's counteroffensive, launched on Dec. 16, involved almost a half-million men and thousands of tanks and artillery pieces, all aimed at slicing through the Ardennes forest, recapturing Antwerp and leaving the Allied forces in disarray. As Hitler saw it, "this battle is to decide whether we shall live or die. The enemy must be beaten--now or never! Thus lives our Germany!"

 

The enemy's advance just happened to go through tiny Lanzareth. But after Lt. Bouck confirmed that a massive force was approaching, headquarters ordered his men "to hold at all costs." The Germans, meanwhile, were commanded to charge up the hill where the platoon was positioned. "They advanced like they were out for a Sunday stroll," recalled Pvt. Risto Milosevich. "I figured we were going to get it, so I was going to take all the Germans with me I could." And he did. Hundreds of Germans were mowed down in what Lt. Bouck described as "a lot of human waste." And yet the sheer number of enemy troops would ultimately spell the platoon's doom, exhausting their supply of ammunition and leaving them no choice but to surrender.

 

The remainder of "The Longest Winter" follows the I&R platoon scattered throughout some of the most notorious POW camps inside the Third Reich. According to Mr. Kershaw, "it was a lucky man who did not at some point suffer from dysentery. In most barracks and wards, there were just two latrine pails left by the Germans each night. Both were always overflowing each morning." Malnutrition was rampant. Cpl. Aubrey McGehee, who served under Lt. Bouck, went to 120 pounds from 205.

 

Despite such conditions, the 394th's I&R platoon survived. "Only a miracle," writes Mr. Kershaw, "could explain why every one of Lyle Bouck's men got home that summer when so many other units had been decimated." According to Charles B. MacDonald, author of the monumental "A Time for Trumpets," some 19,000 Americans died at the Battle of the Bulge.

 

The Nazis at first perceived the American soldier to be "a gum-chewing spoiled brat." Instead they faced an adversary willing to stand his ground. The 394th's I&R platoon played a pivotal role in slowing the German advance--a delay that would prove costly. "We knew it weren't no little thing," said Sgt. George Redmond. "But I figured if I'd gotten that far, I'd get the rest of the way. You only have to go when your time comes." America's enemies would do well not to underestimate this sense of courage and duty.

 

Mr. Matus is an assistant managing editor at The Weekly Standard. You can buy "The Longest Winter from the OpinionJournal bookstore.