The bare stone walls and small windows set deep within them did little to add any sense of warmth to the room, heated by a rusty potbelly stove that burned damp chunks of scrap lumber and struggled to throw off any real heat. Easels displaying maps had been set up around the perimeter of the room, though that was somewhat unnecessary, considering that most of the men here spent several hours daily studying maps and could have drawn these from memory. The tobacco smoke hugging the ceiling continued to thicken like an approaching storm front.
Outside the room, the guard had been doubled as a precaution, with at least two burly MPs standing beside each doorway. They were doing a thorough job of questioning anyone who wasn’t wearing a general’s stars.
Present for the meeting were all the key players in Allied military operations, including Air Marshal Arthur Tedder, General Omar Bradley, General George Patton, Lieutenant General Jacob Devers, and Field Marshal Montgomery’s deputy, Freddie de Guingand. Conspicuously absent was Montgomery himself, who preferred not to meet personally with those he deemed of lower rank — such as Eisenhower. Nonetheless, it was Eisenhower who was in charge — and who would be blamed if the German offensive proved successful.
Accompanying these men were several staff members. Most prominent among them was the recently promoted Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith, who served as Eisenhower’s chief of staff. He was known to all by his nickname, Beetle, which not only was a play on his actual name, but which also reflected his hard-shelled personality. With so many demands for the general’s time and attention, he guarded access to the busy general like an armor-plated sentry.
On smaller matters that weren’t worthy of Eisenhower’s scrutiny, his decisions carried all the weight of the Supreme Allied Commander. Consequently, he was not a man to be trifled with. This morning he looked even more worried than usual, which for Beetle Smith was definitely saying something.
The room filled with high-ranking officers was unusually quiet. The matter of the German counteroffensive was serious business. They all watched Ike expectantly.
It was clear that the Supreme Allied Commander was disgruntled. To start with, Ike disliked the name that the press had given this defensive fight, having dubbed it the Battle of the Bulge. It was an apt description, considering that on the map, the German offensive had created a deep bubble through the Allied lines.
However, Ike thought that “Battle of the Bulge” sounded like a diet plan or, worse yet, a hernia repair operation.
Ike was determined not to turn this meeting into a blame game. He looked around at the room filled with anxious officers. However it had come about, they now had to deal with the situation.
The colonel returned with the coffee, and Ike nodded his thanks.
“Gentlemen, let’s get started. We have some business to discuss,” he said. He nodded toward a young officer, who hurried to close the double doors to the meeting room. “The Germans are apparently headed for Antwerp. Maybe even back to Paris, if they can. The question is, What are we going to do about it?”
“I say we should open the gate and let them come all the way in,” Patton said, jumping right into the fray. Out of all the officers in the room, he was the most immaculately dressed, from his tailored tunic right down to his gleaming riding boots. He somehow managed to have more stars on his uniform than the rest of the generals combined. “Once the Germans are really spread out, we hit them with a meat grinder. I’ll be happy to work the handle.”
For emphasis, he used his right hand to slowly make a cranking motion, showing how he would turn those panzer divisions into sausage.
“That’s not going to happen, George,” Ike said. He agreed that letting the Germans get strung out and then pulverizing them wasn’t a bad military strategy, but the American public might not see it that way. “We can’t let the Germans get that far. The question is, How do we stop them, right now?”
“If the weather wasn’t so bad, our planes wouldn’t be grounded, and this would be a different story,” an officer pointed out.
“We can wish all we want to, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s foggy, snowy, and goddamn cold,” Patton said. He snorted gruffly. “Our planes can’t fly. My tanks don’t give a damn what the weather is like.”
Ike fixed Patton with a baleful glare. He knew that he should have welcomed Patton’s can-do attitude — it was what won wars. The trouble was that, coming from Patton, such words always sounded more like a taunt — as if everybody else had their heads up their asses and it was up to Patton to save the day.
Ike poured more coffee to allow himself a moment to rein in his temper and gather his thoughts.
