J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [53]
Salinger most likely spent the next two weeks advancing through the countryside south of Saint-Lô, helping mop up pockets of resistance and combing French towns along the way. Tiny villages such as Villedieu-les-Poêles, Brécey, and Mortain had suddenly become vital centers of communication and were converged upon by counterintelligence agents ordered to secure local rail, radio, and telegraph stations for the Allies.
Salinger may actually have been stationed just outside Mortain when the neighboring 30th Infantry Division met with especially fierce resistance from what appeared to be a German Panzer division. By the morning of August 7, it became clear that the opposing division had now become four, and had been joined by infantry. The 30th was alone, facing an all-out counteroffensive ordered by Hitler himself. The adjacent 12th Infantry Regiment was quickly attached to the 30th Infantry Division and rushed to the scene, where it again found itself under attack on two fronts against numerically superior forces.* This was the battle now known as “Bloody Mortain,” and accounts portray Salinger’s unit in a state of frenzy, firing wildly at an enemy determined to crush it.14 Salvation arrived in the form of fighter-bombers that blackened the skies over Mortain for five days, bombarding the German lines as they had at Saint-Lô and ending the battle of Bloody Mortain.
After their defeat at Mortain, the Germans were in full retreat from France. The 4th Infantry Division spearheaded the race toward Paris, with the 12th Regiment in the lead. At first, the American command had decided to avoid the capital altogether. After the carnage of Normandy and the breakout, they feared the Germans would defend it to the last man. But to the French, delivering the city from Nazi occupation was a matter of honor; and they successfully campaigned for American help. As the 12th Regiment neared Paris, events occurred that would save many lives. Sensing liberation at hand, on August 18, the citizens of Paris called a general strike. As the day progressed, the strikers threw up barricades and by the next day had begun to battle with the Germans. On August 24, the 12th Infantry Regiment, together with the Free French 2nd Armored Division, took up positions south of the city.
As the Americans had feared, Hitler ordered Paris to be defended to the last man or else be completely destroyed. At this critical moment, deliverance came from the most unlikely quarter. General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, defied Hitler and refused to defend or destroy the city. (Hitler is said to have telephoned Choltitz, demanding, “Is Paris burning?”) At noon on August 25, 1944, Choltitz surrendered the city to the French along with 17,000 German soldiers.
As the Germans were surrendering Paris, Salinger and the 12th were already in the city, the first American troops to enter the capital.15 Some German snipers were still active, but, as Salinger observed, the Parisians did not seem to care. In jubilation, they thronged the boulevards to greet their liberators.
Salinger’s description of the liberation of Paris is filled with delight. As he drove down the boulevards in his jeep, he was mobbed by joyful crowds. Women dressed in their finest held their babies up to be kissed or rushed to be kissed themselves. Men hurried to offer gifts of wine. Such offerings struck him as being especially sweet after the bitter experiences of Utah Beach, Saint-Lô, and Cherbourg.