The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II (55 page)

“I didn’t think”
Court-Martial Transcript, p. 25. File, Homcy, Albert C., CM271489, Office of the Clerk of the Court, U.S. Army Judiciary, 901 North Stuart Street, Suite 1200, Arlington, VA, 22203-1837.

“I really admired”
Steve Weiss, interview with the author, Paris, 17 July 2010.

“The explosion shattered”
WD/Second Draft, p. 67.

Steve Weiss embraced
Steve Weiss, interview with the author, Paris, 17 July 2010.

“A mob?”
Eric Sevareid,
Not So Wild a Dream
, pp. 454–55.

“Of medium height”
WD/First Draft, p. 78.

“I rationalized that”
Ibid., p. 79.

“Stocky, with square”
Ibid.; also WD/Second Draft, p. 69.

“Scruby described it”
WD/Second Draft, p. 70.

Weiss did not know
Ducros,
Montagnes Ardéchoises dans la guerre
, p. 351. Lévy died fighting in the Valensolles quarter of the town hours before it fell.

“She dug her”
WD/First Draft, p. 81.

The American GIs
Weiss, “Infantry Combat: A GI in France,” in Addison and Calder,
Time to Kill
, p. 339.

Ferdinand Mathey
WD/Second Draft, p. 72.

Mathey, outfitted in
Ibid.

“The farm was”
WD/First Draft, p. 72.

“a terrible, eerie”
Weiss, “Infantry Combat: A GI in France,” in Addison and Calder,
Time to Kill
, p. 340.

“We looked at”
Ibid.

TWENTY-ONE

“We were with”
Steve Weiss, interview with the author, Paris, 17 July 2010.

“as if he were”
Weiss, “Infantry Combat: A GI in France,” in Addison and Calder,
Time to Kill
, p. 340.

“was framed like”
WD/First Draft, p. 87.

One team member
John Whiteclay Chambers,
OSS Training in the National Parks and Service Abroad in World War II
, Washington, DC: U.S. National Park Service, 2008, p. 546. See also “OSS Aid to the French Resistance in World War II, Operational Group Command, Office of Strategic Services: Company B—2671st Special Reconnaissance Battalion,” Grenoble, France, 20 September 1944, Archives Nationales de France, Paris, 72 AJ/841/I/Pièce 5.

The atmosphere at
NARA, File H, 350.05.1 (ETO-131), Study No. 131, prepared by Major Ray K. Craft, Chief, Psychological Warfare Section, 1945.

Lieutenants Rickerson and McKenzie
Funk,
Hidden Ally
, p. 220.

“superficial if bloody”
Chambers,
OSS Training in the National Parks and Service Abroad in World War II
, p. 342.

At Chomerac on 31
“OSS Aid to the French Resistance in World War II, Operational Group Command, Office of Strategic Services: Company B—2671st Special Reconnaissance Battalion,” Archives Nationales de France, Paris, 72 AJ/83/II/Pièce 1. The OSS’s report noted that the operational groups with 4,000
résistants
“held off the full strength of 22,000 Germans, including elements of SS infantry and armored divisions, airborne glider troops and mountain infantry, all diverted from the front in Normandy or from defensive positions in the south.”

“unlike Simmons, Rick’s”
WD/Second Draft, p. 76.

TWENTY-TWO

Rickerson’s convoy pushed
Funk,
Hidden Ally
, p. 252.

To Weiss’s delight
WD/Second Draft, pp. 81–82.

Binoche left Lyons
Douglas Johnson, “Obituary: General François Binoche,”
The Independent
, 27 May 1977.

It did not take
WD/Second Draft, p. 82.

“I know that added”
Steve Weiss’s personal papers, London. (Copy provided to the author on 4 August 2010.)

The U.S. Army magazine
Steve Weiss, e-mail to the author, 14 November 2010.

“It never dawned”
WD/Second Draft, p. 100.

The official U.S.
The General Board, United States Forces, European Theater, “Reinforcement System and Reinforcement Procedures in the European Theater of Operations,” Center of Military History, Department of the Army, Washington, DC, File: 200.3/2, Study No. 5, 1945, p. 20.

“froze the Army”
WD/Second Draft, p. 85. Weiss’s figures are accurate, as confirmed by General George C. Marshall in “Biennial Report of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, July 1, 1943, to June 30, 1945, to the Secretary of War,” reprinted in
Yank
magazine, U.S. Army, Washington, DC, 19 October 1945, p. 7. U.S. Army chief of staff Marshall wrote that available American manpower “physically fit for war service lay between 15 and 16 million.” Of that total, some were needed for naval and merchant marine service, as well as in the production of armaments to supply the American forces and the other Allies. Army ground forces numbered 3,186,00 in all theaters (Pacific, European and Mediterranean). American peak mobilization for all services and ancillary military support was, according to Marshall, fourteen million. This compared to the Soviet contribution of twenty-two million, the British Empire’s twelve million and China’s six million. The Germans mobilized seventeen million.

“To me the personnel”
The General Board, European Theater, “Combat Exhaustion,” U.S. Army, Office of the Chief Clerk, Military History, General References Branch, File: R704/11, Study No. 91, 1945, pp. 127–28.

“However, we now find”
Ibid., p. 129.

“I was slow”
WD/Second Draft, p. 85.

“She looked straight”
Ibid., p. 87.

“The relationship I did”
Steve Weiss, interview with the author, Paris, 17 July 2010.

TWENTY-THREE

“This was demonstrated”
“High Officer Reveals: 12,000 Yanks AWOL in Europe, Half of Them in Black Market,”
Washington Post
, 26 January 1945, p. 1.

“The organization of”
Colonel L. A. Ayres and Lieutenant Colonel P. R. David, “Military Rail Service,” The General Board, United States Forces, European Theater of Operations, Center of Military History, Department of the Army, Washington, DC, File R321/7, Study No. 123, p. 7.

Allied use of
Ibid., p. 12.

“They went AWOL”
Allan B. Ecker, “GI Racketeers in the Paris Black Market,”
Yank
magazine, 4 May 1945, p. 2.

“temporarily AWOL from”
Ibid.

In late September
“27 Paris GIs Held in Paris Black Marketing,” Associated Press,
Washington Post
, 22 September 1944, p. 2.

Soon after the Americans
Barkley,
In Death’s Dark Shadow
, p. 216.

“My thoughts went”
Whitehead Diary, p. 128.

Barkley and the rest
Second Battalion Staff, “The Second Battalion, 38th Infantry, in World War II,” p. 41. Although Harold Barkley remembered staying at the hotel near the Eiffel Tower, the battalion history stated that Company G’s billet was the Hôtel “Nouvelle” [probably Nouveau], 20 rue de Paris, in the suburb of Vincennes. Whitehead and the rest of Headquarters Company stayed at 1 avenue Charles Floquet.

“The people there”
Whitehead Diary, p. 130.

“Thugs and AWOL”
Barkley,
In Death’s Dark Shadow
, p. 216.

“French renegades were”
Whitehead Diary, p. 129.

“They knew what”
Second Battalion Staff, “The Second Battalion, 38th Infantry, in World War II,” p. 41.

Whitehead wrote that
Whitehead Diary, p. 132.

“daily staged an”
Second Battalion Staff, “The Second Battalion, 38th Infantry, in World War II,” pp. 41–42.

Yet it was Barkley
Barkley,
In Death’s Dark Shadow
, pp. 229–30.

Al Whitehead rotated
Whitehead Diary, p. 134.

Joyriders used contraband
Robert Sage, “Paris Protests Waste of Gas by Joy Riders,”
Chicago Daily Tribune
, 26 October 1944, p. 5.

On 13 October
“Black Market Deals of U.S. Soldiers Told,” Associated Press,
Chicago Daily Tribune
, 26 December 1944, p. 3. See also, “MP Killed in Fight as Black Market Gang Is Broken Up,” Associated Press,
Washington Post
, 8 January 1945, p. 1.

“cutting thefts down”
Wade Werner, “MPs in France Check U.S. Supply Thefts,”
Washington Post
, 20 December 1944, p. 2. Werner filed his article on 4 December, but it was delayed—presumably to clear military censorship.

“a job superbly done”
Ethell and Caldwell,
The Thirty-Eighth United States Infantry
, pp. 18–19.

Al Whitehead sent
Whitehead Diary, p. 135.

TWENTY-FOUR

The men of
Clarke and Smith,
Riviera to the Rhine, United States Army in World War II
, p. 89.

Despite formidable Wehrmacht
Ibid., p. 196.

Operation Dragoon’s three
Ibid., p. 210.

The 36th alone
Clarke and Smith,
Riviera to the Rhine, United States Army in World War II
, p. 283; Summary of Activities: North African Theater of Operations, U.S. Army, 1 October 1944, Vol. VIII, Copy No. 31, Analysis and Control Section Office C/s NATOUSA, NARA RG 498, UD 1018, Box 1.

“October was upon us”
Eric Sevareid,
Not So Wild a Dream
, pp. 472–73.

Until then, the 36th
Summary of Activities: North African Theater of Operations, U.S. Army, 1 October 1944, Vol. VIII, Copy No. 31, Analysis and Control Section Office C/s NATOUSA, NARA RG 498, UD 1018, Box 1.

“desertions among the line”
Clarke and Smith,
Riviera to the Rhine, United States Army in World War II
, p. 291.