The Longest Winter

Roster of the 394th I&R Platoon at the Battle of the Bulge

MAPS

The Western Front, December 1944

394th I&R Platoon’s Area of Operations, December 1944

The Battle of Lanzerath, December 16, 1944

German POW Camps

PART ONE Watch on the Rhine

1. The Wolf’s Lair

2. Camp Maxey

3. Wacht am Rhein

4. The Ghost Front

5. Shadow Soldiers

PART TWO The Battle of Lanzerath

6. Sturm!

7. The Last Sunset

8. The Café Scholzen

9. Terror

PART THREE War Behind Wire

10. Guests of the Reich

11. The Stalags

12. The River

13. Task Force Baum

14. Last Days of the Reich

PART FOUR Last Battles

15. Moosberg

16. Summer of ’45

17. Justice

18. Reunion

Notes

List of Awards: Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon, 394th Infantry Division, 99th Infantry Division, and 394th I&R Presidential Unit Citation

Source

Acknowledgments

Follow Penguin

Acknowledgments

Thanks must first go to my astute and hugely supportive editor at Da Capo Press, Robert L. Pigeon, who wondered whether I would be interested in writing a book that focused on a small unit but that also gave a broad overview of the Battle of the Bulge – the greatest battle in U.S. history. A call to longtime supporter Michael Edwards at the Eisenhower Center led to my discovery of the Intelligence and Reconnaissance platoon of the 394th Infantry Regiment of the 99th Division. Edwards outlined a fantastic story and said that the commanding officer was still alive, as were others from what is thought to be the most decorated platoon of the entire Second World War.

The commanding officer, Lyle Bouck Jr., was indeed still alive – very much so. An author could not have hoped for a better relationship with the main character in his book. I would like to thank Lyle – a true American officer and gentleman – and his wife, Lucy, for their hospitality on several occasions. Without Lyle Bouck’s assistance, this book would have been impossible. I was especially lucky because Lyle also handed over years of careful documentation, press clippings, and many remarkable written accounts by platoon members who were deceased.

The following platoon members also provided generous help, and some suffered many hours of questioning: Vernon Leopold, who spent days checking over the manuscript and directing me toward new information; James Fort; Louis Kalil; Risto Milosevich; Samuel L. Jenkins; Robert Lambert, who sadly passed away during the writing of this book; Joseph McConnell; James Silvola; and Robert Preston.

Helga Druxes, a professor at Williams College, did an outstanding job of translating colloquial German from the 1940s into pristine English. Once more, Lindsay Sterling provided crucial advice and help with the manuscript. She has no equal.

The following relatives, experts, and veterans also helped a great deal: John Creger Jr., Delfina Fernandez, the Silvola family, Kurt Vonnegut, James Fort Jr., Bill Meyer, Will Cavanagh, Peter Gacki, Emma Sue Creger, Lt. Warren Springer, Hans J. Wijers, Bob Thompson, William H. Merricken, Paul Tsakanikas, Larry McBreyer, Abe Baum, William Nutto, Barbara Anderson, Bill Slape Jr., Mike Slape, John Lambert Jr., Ward Silvola, Roberta Catlett, Jean Silvola, Jim Price, Agnes McGehee, and Anna Tsakanikas.

My wife, Robin Loerch, acted as researcher, picture editor, technician, and transcriber. The book would have taken twice as long to complete without her amazingly good-natured help. She and my son Felix have allowed me to pursue my fascinations far more than most writers could hope for.

My agent, Derek Johns, and his colleagues at AP Watt again provided all the assistance they could. The superb team at Da Capo Press was yet again also a delight to work with. And without the late Peter Burchard, there would have been little joy in endless weeks of library research at Williams College.

Roster of the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division at the Battle of the Bulge

At the village of Lanzerath, Belgium

First Lieutenant Lyle Bouck, commanding

Private Robert Adams

Private Robert Baasch

Private John Creger

Sergeant William Dustman

Private Clifford Fansher

Technician Fourth Class James Fort

Private Bill James

Corporal Sam Jenkins

Private Louis Kalil

Private Joseph McConnell

Corporal Aubrey ‘Schnoz’ McGehee

Private First Class Risto ‘Milo’ Milosevich

Private First Class Robert ‘Mop’ Preston

Sergeant George ‘Pappy’ Redmond

Private First Class Jordan ‘Pop’ Robinson

Private James ‘Siv’ Silvola

Sergeant Bill Slape

At regimental headquarters in Hünningen, Belgium

Private Vic Adams

Private First Class Carlos Fernandez

Private First Class John Frankovitch

Technician Fifth Class Robert Lambert

Private Vernon Leopold

Private First Class Elmer Nowacki

Private Sam Oakley

1. The Wolf’s Lair

The Wolf’s Lair, East Prussia, Nazi Germany – July 20, 1944

Count Klaus von Stauffenberg, chief of staff to General Friedrich Fromm, commander of the Army of the Interior, tried to keep his nerve as he stood alone, holding open a briefcase, in a bathroom deep inside Adolf Hitler’s Prussian headquarters – the so-called Wolf’s Lair. Stauffenberg carefully grasped a fuse with the remaining three fingers on his only hand and began to stuff it into a bomb. He had lost the other two fingers, an eye, and an arm in fierce fighting at the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia in 1942.

Stauffenberg gingerly placed the bomb in the open briefcase and activated it. A small glass capsule inside the fuse device broke, allowing burning acid to drip onto a thin wire. It was 12:26 P.M. He had exactly fifteen minutes before the wire burned through and the bomb exploded. Quickly, Stauffenberg left the bathroom and walked down a long corridor toward a conference room. If he succeeded in blowing up Hitler, the Germany he had once loved would be saved and millions of lives would be spared; the hell of the Third Reich would soon be history.²

The meeting with senior generals had already started when Stauffenberg slipped unnoticed into Hitler’s tea house, constructed of wood rather than reinforced concrete like the usual conference room in a nearby bunker. The windows had been opened in the stuffy room; outside, it was a sweltering summer day.

The generals examined maps spread out on a long oak table. Hitler sat behind the table toying with a powerful magnifying glass, his spectacles lying on a map. His face was gaunt and deeply lined. Rumor had it that his latest personal physician was overprescribing cocaine and other stimulants.

Other generals looked intensely at areas where millions of Red Army soldiers threatened to engulf several German divisions like some vast red tide. Since early June, the Russians had broken through virtually the entire eastern front. More than thirty German divisions languished in Stalin’s POW camps.

In France, the Allies had finally broken out of Normandy after several weeks of fierce fighting and were now eliminating tens of thousands of Hitler’s best troops in the Falaise Pocket.

Only the Führer among the assembled group believed that the war could still be won. His much-vaunted miracle weapons, including the atomic bomb, could not now be developed or brought into the field in sufficient numbers to stop the Allied onslaught from east and west.

Stauffenberg placed his brown leather briefcase under the table, a mere six feet from Hitler, then excused himself, mumbling that he had to take an urgent phone call. He slipped out of the room unnoticed and hurried down a corridor to make his escape.

At 12:42 P.M., there was a massive explosion. Smoke filled the room as splinters and plaster flew everywhere. Stauffenberg heard the explosion as he made his way through a security perimeter. Surely, this time, it was all over.

Back inside the Wolf’s Lair, one of the generals scrambled out of the conference room and lay bleeding in the corridor. Suddenly, he saw a ghostly figure emerge from the plaster dust and smoke. The man’s face was blackened by the smoke, and his trousers were shredded.

The ghostly figure was Adolf Hitler. Miraculously, the Führer was still alive. In a daze, he stumbled out of the destroyed tearoom. The force of the explosion had been dissipated because of the open windows and the adjoining corridor, which had acted as a vacuum, sucking away the blast.

Aides rushed to the Führer and led him toward a bunker.

‘Was ist los?’ (What is wrong?) they asked Hitler.

Someone suggested that it was a Soviet bomb dropped from a passing plane. However, it was soon clear that Hitler had not survived an attack by Stalin’s air force but an assassination plot by his own senior Wehrmacht officers.

Once he had regained his senses, Hitler allowed himself to be treated by his personal doctor, Dr. Hanskarl von Hasselbach. Hitler had a bad cut on his head and had lost the hearing in one ear. But he looked ecstatic. ‘Now I have those fellows!’ he shouted. ‘Now I can take steps!’ He had long suspected a conspiracy among senior officers. Now he would wipe them out, purge German society of other subversives, and reassert his power.

Another doctor arrived, gave Hitler an injection, and examined his heart. Hitler’s pulse was normal.

‘Think of it,’ said Hitler. ‘Nothing has happened to me. Just think of it!’

Hitler’s three secretaries rushed into the bunker. His plaster-dusted hair stood on end as he held out his left hand. The women clasped it carefully.

‘Well, my ladies,’ Hitler grinned, ‘once again everything has turned out well for me. More proof that Fate has selected me for my mission. Otherwise I wouldn’t be alive.’

Meanwhile, Stauffenberg was on a plane headed for Berlin. He arrived later that afternoon and immediately set about ordering his co-conspirators to secure Berlin. Rumors flew across Germany: some reported that Hitler was dead, others that he had survived.

Stauffenberg manned a telephone at his office in the Bendlerstrasse headquarters of the Army of the Interior, answering calls from fellow plotters wanting confirmation that the assassination attempt had indeed succeeded.

By coincidence, thirty-six-year-old SS Major Otto Skorzeny was also in Berlin that afternoon. A six-foot-four-inch blond Viennese with a large scar across his face from a duel over a ballerina, Skorzeny carried himself with the élan and confidence of a man who had yet to experience failure or defeat and was considered by British intelligence to be the most dangerous of all Hitler’s elite SS Kommandos. In late 1943, supported by a small unit of parachutists, he had pulled off one of the most daring raids of the war – rescuing Mussolini from under the nose of the Allies.

‘On 20 July, I was preparing to leave for Vienna,’ recalled Skorzeny. ‘At six o’clock I arrived at the Anhalt Station and settled down in a reserved compartment and prepared for the night. But at the Lichterfelde Station, the last within the city limits of Berlin, I heard my name called: “Major Skorzeny! Major Skorzeny!” On the platform an officer was running alongside the train, shouting at the top of his lungs. I opened the window and beckoned to him; completely out of breath, he rushed forward: “Major, you must return immediately. Higher orders. The attempt on the Führer was intended to start a putsch!” ’

The young officer drove Skorzeny back into Berlin and then toward the central office of the Waffen SS, where he learned that the chief plotters were holed up at the Bendlerstrasse. Before long, he received a call from the Wolf’s Lair: ‘Orders for Major Skorzeny to report with all troops at his disposal to the Bendlerstrasse in order to support the action of Major Remer, commander of the Greater Germany Guard Battalion.’ Major Remer has already begun the encirclement of the ministry.

In his office, Stauffenberg was suddenly seized by several Luger-waving loyalists who had decided to save their necks by turning against the plotters. Stauffenberg was quickly placed under guard with other conspirators. His superior, the obese General Fromm, soon arrived and pulled out his Luger: ‘I am now going to treat you as you treated me.’ (Earlier that day, Fromm had been imprisoned by some of Stauffenberg’s supporters when they thought the assassination plot had succeeded and then later released as news spread that the attempt had failed.)

One of Stauffenberg’s co-conspirators, General Ludwig Beck, asked to be allowed to shoot himself. Fromm nodded his agreement.

Beck placed his pistol to his head and fired, but the bullet merely wounded him. He slumped back in his chair, blood pouring from his head.

Fromm looked at Beck with contempt and then turned to Stauffenberg and the others. ‘Now, gentlemen … if you have any letters to write you may have a few minutes to do so.’

Fromm returned five minutes later. In the name of the Führer, he announced, they were to be executed.

A German sergeant dragged the unconscious Beck from the room. A shot rang out. Beck was now dead – killed by a bullet through the neck. A few minutes later, Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators were lined up in front of a pile of sand in a courtyard. It was midnight, less than twelve hours since his bomb had exploded in Hitler’s tearoom.

‘Long live our sacred Germany!’ shouted Stauffenberg as the firing squad took aim. A few seconds later, Stauffenberg’s riddled body slumped to the ground.

Fromm reviewed the firing squad. Satisfied with their work, he shouted ‘Heil Hitler!’ and left the courtyard.

Thirty minutes later, Otto Skorzeny arrived with his men and confirmed with Gestapo officials that the Bendlerstrasse headquarters were secure.

It was a few seconds before 1:00 A.M. on July 21, 1944, when a loud blast of military music interrupted all broadcasts on German radio.

‘I was spared a fate which held no horror for me, but would have had terrible consequences for the German people,’ Adolf Hitler solemnly declared. ‘I see in it a sign from Providence that I must, and therefore shall, continue my work.’

On July 25, 1944, the BBC announced that only Germany’s total and unconditional surrender would end the war. For Hitler there was no option now but to continue the fight, even to the bitter end. And so, as he recuperated that late July, Hitler began to develop the most audacious military plan of his career – a last, desperate gamble to defeat the Allies in the West.

Alex Kershaw