Armageddon - Max Hastings [166]
Yet on 22 December the field-marshal wrote to Brooke in terms which reflected the conceit and self-delusion which he would soon afterwards expose in public: “I think I see daylight now on the northern front, and we have tidied up the mess and got two American armies properly organised. But I can see rocks ahead and no grounds for the optimism Ike seems to feel. Rundstedt is fighting a good battle.” The following day, Montgomery reported: “I do not think Third U.S. Army will be strong enough to do what is needed. If my forecast proves true, then I shall have to deal unaided with both Fifth and Sixth Panzer Armies. I think I can manage them, but it will be a bit of a party.”
Patton had been deputed to restore the southern front of the German penetration. He responded with a feat of command and staff work which won the admiration of history, by wheeling three divisions of Third Army through ninety degrees in seventy-two hours, to launch a drive north to Bastogne and beyond. Montgomery did not have to “deal unaided” with Fifth and Sixth SS Panzer Armies, nor was it ever likely that he would. By 22 December, the crisis of the Ardennes battle was over, though plenty of hard fighting still lay ahead. The field-marshal displayed admirable professionalism in reorganizing the northern front. But he did nothing then or later in the battle which suggested brilliance.
Moreover, his rhetoric deprived him of gratitude even from those who might otherwise have been willing to offer it. On 28 December, he reported smugly to Brooke about a meeting with Eisenhower:
I said he would probably find it somewhat difficult to explain away the true reasons for the “bloody nose” we had just received from the Germans, but this would be as nothing compared to the difficulty we would have in explaining away another failure to reach the Rhine . . . [Eisenhower] was definitely in a somewhat humble frame of mind, and clearly realised that present trouble would not have occurred if he had accepted British advice and not that of American generals.
Even after the initial crisis of the battle had passed, some American units continued to suffer pain from the Germans’ furious, frustrated thrashings. “Our outfit broke,” Private John Capano of the 30th Division’s 120th Infantry said frankly. His unit’s first inkling that the Germans were moving came from Belgian civilian women, who trickled into their positions around the Lingueville–Malmédy road early on 21 December and volubly proclaimed that the enemy was close. “When the trouble started, we had no foxholes dug. Suddenly, there was the Luftwaffe bombing us. We’d been told the Luftwaffe was washed up. When we heard tanks, we all started to run for cover. We didn’t know which way to go. We were firing into the trees. We figured that we just ought to make as much noise as we could. We thought: ‘Somebody’s fouled up.’ The armored guys were our saviors. We rode out on top of their tanks.” In reality, it should be said, although the 120th was badly mauled by the 150th Panzer Brigade—led by some of Otto Skorzeny’s men in American vehicles and uniforms—the regiment later rallied.
Lieutenant William Devitt of the 330th Infantry was hit one night by mortar fragments which also brought down his platoon sergeant. “My first reaction was fear. I was afraid I was going to die. Concurrent