Armageddon - Max Hastings [114]
A FEW MILES behind the lines stood the thickets of camouflage-netted tents and vehicles which marked formation headquarters. Every Allied divisional HQ required the services of some 150 men, a corps slightly more, and their German counterparts significantly less. Those who served generals in the rear areas incurred little physical risk, save from the road accidents which took an appalling toll in the theatre of operations. Bradley’s 12th Army Group HQ somehow found employment for 5,000 men, and Eisenhower’s notoriously bloated staff was three times larger. There were many idle and useless mouths among the “pen-pushers.” Yet, for the men at the heart of directing operations, the strain was daunting. There is a myth cherished by some front-line soldiers and amateur students of war that staff officers enjoyed a “cushy” life. Yet those doing the vital operational planning and organization of logistics worked far harder than any peacetime civilian. There were no weekends or holidays, only relentless labour until the small hours of morning, underpinned by awareness that the welfare and indeed survival of hundreds of thousands of men were in their hands.
More than a few senior staff officers succumbed to exhaustion or nervous collapse. Montgomery’s Chief of Staff, the highly respected Freddie de Guingand, had to spend several weeks in an English hospital bed in the autumn of 1944. The health of General Sir John Kennedy, British Director of Military Operations, broke down after four years in his post. Most senior commanders worked punishing schedules. Guderian complained that he was sometimes unable to go to bed until 0500 if Hitler was in talkative mood. The German Chief of Staff, a man of fifty-six, had to be at his headquarters again three hours later. Sir Alan Brooke found Churchill’s midnight monologues an acute strain. The CIGS was unable to take the afternoon naps favoured by the British prime minister. Most of the men making the vital decisions of the Second World War had been born in the nineteenth century. They were now in their fifties at least, yet obliged to work at a pitch of intensity few civilians of their age could tolerate. “Every day I feel older, more tired, less inclined to face difficulties,” Brooke wrote gloomily in his diary. Montgomery, usually among commanders, adhered to a rigorous personal routine which allowed him to go to bed each night at 9:30 p.m. His immediate subordinates were not so fortunate. Chronic exhaustion was as normal a state for generals and staff officers as it was for the young soldiers who did their bidding in waterlogged foxholes.
The horizons of fighting soldiers of all nationalities became entirely bordered by their own company, the view discernible from the parapet of a foxhole. Most knew the name of the unit’s colonel, but few generals registered upon their consciousness. The thoughts of even intelligent and educated men were dominated by tiny matters such as whether the day’s rations would contain canned stew, whether the unit might get to a mobile shower unit. “The outside world didn’t seem to matter much,” observed Bill Deedes. “Every soldier was overwhelmingly preoccupied with getting through the day, and avoiding being killed or wounded. I never remember being very frightened, because I was so preoccupied with doing whatever job I had been given—getting my company to wherever they were supposed to be on time.” Opinion was divided over whether family ties at home were a help or an impediment in supporting the strains of battle. Some men believed that it was better to be unattached, but “Dim” Robbins thought that being married with a small daughter helped him a little as a soldier: “There was always someone who was interested in you—somebody you could feel that you were doing this for.”
It was a curiosity of the campaign that British newspapers reached men in the front lines, often within forty-eight hours. Many fighting formations published their own modest newssheets, to provide a minimum of information about events outside