359: Battle of the Bulge with Robert B. O’Connor

Dan LeFebvre  03:15

Most of the movies we talk about here on the podcast are with some sort of variation on those five words: Based on a true story. But today’s movie is a little different, because it’s not until the very end of the movie that we get this text. So here is a quote of what the movie says at the very end. This picture is dedicated to the 1 million men who fought in this great battle of World War Two to encompass the whole of the heroic contributions of all the participants, places, names and characters have been generalized, and action has been synthesized in order to convey the spirit and essence of the battle. So that suggests to me that the filmmakers admit a lot of the movie is fictionalized. So let’s start by looking at the movie from an overall perspective. And if you were to give a letter grade for how? Well, 1965 Battle of the Bulge captured the spirit and essence of the battle. What would it get?

Robert B. O’Connor  04:08

I’d give it a c minus Dan. I can take down a few reasons, if you like.

Dan LeFebvre  04:16

Yeah, by all means! We’ll get into some more details later, but if you have a few right now, yeah!

Robert B. O’Connor  04:20

I think the the overall criticism is the movie points to the shortage of gasoline on the German among the German attackers as their Major tactical motivation, and among the American defenders as keeping American supplies of gasoline away from them. It was actually time. That was the major thing fought over. The Germans had a very tight, unrealistic schedule to get to their eventual objective, which was Antwerp. Believe it. Or not, and the Americans, basically, even though they were surprised and somewhat overwhelmed, fought a series of successful delaying actions, roadblocks, some counter attacks and then resistance in small cities, particularly bastone. So my criticism is they they mention, you know, are you on schedule once or twice, but it’s all about gasoline, and that’s a terrific oversimplification.

Dan LeFebvre  05:37

I do remember a few times in the movie where they talk about being on schedule and things like that. But you’re right. That was that it almost seemed like an afterthought in the movie. It didn’t really seem like that was the main driver behind a lot of it.

Robert B. O’Connor  05:50

That was the driver. Because the, you know, when the skies cleared, the Allied air superiority would would foil German, you know, armor movements. And, you know, cloudy skies aren’t going to last forever. And secondly, Patton’s Army, the whole Third Army, was coming up from the south, getting ready to cross into Germany when the attack began. And thus pivoted and headed towards Luxembourg and Belgium. So the that was all about time and from the Americans, the great success was heroic delaying actions by smaller surrounded forces at at great cost.

Dan LeFebvre  06:35

Now that text at the beginning, or I guess, at the end, that we talked about here at the beginning, also makes me think that none of the characters that we see in the movie are real people. I know. On the American side, there’s the ranking officer in the movie is Robert Ryan’s character, general gray. We see Henri Fonda’s character, Lieutenant Colonel Kiley. On the German side, the ranking officer is Vernon Peters character, general Kohler. And then we see a lot of Robert Shaw’s character, the Tank Commander, Colonel Hessler. Are any of the main characters from the movie based on real people?

Robert B. O’Connor  07:04

One One of them is Tank Commander, Colonel Martin Hessler, played by Robert Shaw of Jaws fame, later on in his career, is based on a SS officer, an SS tank commander named Joachim Piper. And Joachim Piper was actually as they as Shaw, as Colonel Martin Hessler is Piper was the tip of the spear. And actually his tank, his tankers, advanced farther than any other, any other of the German forces. So, very much, you know, a representation of that German SS officer. You know, are they? Were they alike in disposition or looks? No, but, but very much a match there. And none of the other characters are, in my opinion, remotely representative of of any specific soldiers or officers? Okay,

Dan LeFebvre  08:08

well, I guess, as is often the case in movies, you have that one little nugget, and at least have one person that based on and everybody else is just kind of a generalization.

Robert B. O’Connor  08:16

I was just going to add on, on Piper, he was an SS officer. He was tried as a war criminal after the war based on massacres of soldiers and civilians, he was eventually let off and he was assassinated by French resistance or French ex resistance fighters in the 50s. Interesting character was

Dan LeFebvre  08:47

that because of things that he did during the Battle of the Bulge, or throughout the war, over throughout

Robert B. O’Connor  08:51

the war, throughout the war, during the Battle of the Bulge, his soldiers did carry out the massacre at Malmedy, which we’ll talk about. He escaped being convicted for that because he was not present at the massacre. But that is your one. That is your one match with a historical figure. And quite, quite a historical figure.

Dan LeFebvre  09:18

Well, you did mention Patton and the movie set up for the Battle of the Bulge. Tells us that in December of 1944 the British and American armies are gearing up for the final assault on Germany with Montgomery’s Eighth Army to the north, Patton’s Third Army to the south. And the movie focuses on the American troops in the center along an 88 mile front. Then the Germans want to break through the American lines to the port of Antwerp and Belgium, as you mentioned earlier, and according to the movie, that’s going to split the Allied Forces delay them by at least 18 months, thereby giving the Germans enough time to ramp up production on new technology that’s going to help them win the war. How well does the movie do setting up the overall strategy and reasons behind the Battle of the Bulge? Well. I

Robert B. O’Connor  10:00

think the film does reasonably well in that that it is exactly correct that Hitler’s plan, and this was Hitler’s plan, and his top generals did not care for it. They in fact, I think one of the top generals said that plan has about an 8% chance of success so but it does set up. Hitler’s plan was to divide the Allies forces into get to Antwerp, and then he was hoping for kind of a separate peace, actually a negotiated peace with that so he could turn his troops to the east, where the Russians were making tremendous gains towards Germany. So there was no 18 months. The German super weapons were essentially terrorism weapons and ineffective. If they waited 18 months, they probably would have and and were still a significant enemy, Truman probably would have dropped an atomic bomb on Berlin. They They avoided that fate by surrendering in May, rather than in September, as the Japanese did so the 18 months is, is, I think, not, not historically accurate. But the idea, the audacious and doomed idea of attacking and splitting the allied forces in the West, is historically accurate.

Dan LeFebvre  11:35

The movie doesn’t really mention this, I guess. But is there any significance to why Antwerp was the goal, or was it more that it was just splitting? Was the goal and Antwerp was just the port at the end,

Robert B. O’Connor  11:48

it’s a little bit of both. Antwerp was a critical port for getting supplies to the allied armies. The allied armies had been a little bit stuck in France AFTER D DAY for, oh, a couple of months. But then they advanced much further and much faster than Eisenhower General Marshall, you know, the commanders thought they would, so they were on the German border by early September, and yet the Germans had ruined every port that they had retreated from. They were brilliant demolition, really. Germans were brilliant at retreating, brilliant at demolition, brilliant at demo and quite good at attacking, but brilliant at demolition. So here were our the allied armies, literally on the German border in September, and we’re trying to get their supplies through on the beaches of Normandy and trucked by the the famous Red Ball Express, all the way all the way to just about the borders of Germany. So Antwerp was crucial and and the Germans resisted at Antwerp a long, long time. So the capture of Antwerp would have not only split the armies in two, but also deprived the northern allied forces of of a reliable source of supply. So very strategic choice.

Dan LeFebvre  13:18

The movie doesn’t really mention anything that I recall about that, although it gave me the impression it was splitting was the main thing, and Antwerp was the end of where the split would be. Basically,

Robert B. O’Connor  13:30

I think the the capture of Antwerp would make the split, you know, more decisive. Throughout

Dan LeFebvre  13:35

the movie, we get a glimpse at kind of the state of mind for troops on both sides before the battle itself begins, and on the American side, the war is basically over. As far as they’re concerned, they’re hopeful to be shipped home in time for Christmas. But then, for the Germans, they’ve made up. They’re made up of a bunch of young soldiers without experience. The veteran. Soldiers seem to be traumatized, as evidenced by the Conrad character running for cover from a recon plane at the beginning of the movie, but their hope seems to ride entirely on kind of what I touched on before new technology. There’s a 70 ton King Tiger tank, a new jet airplane and v2 rocket. How well did the movie do capturing the mindset for the Americans and Germans leading up to the Battle of the Polk

Robert B. O’Connor  14:18

in my research, I did not find any evidence that the Americans thought that they at that point here in mid December, 1944 I did not find any evidence that the American troops thought they would be home by Christmas, which, of course, was only 11 days later at that point so and in fact, one of the characters in the book, Mickey Rooney, tells a joke in one of his performances and says, at the rate we’re going, we’ll be getting home in 1949 so there was a sense that we had gotten, we had gotten to the German border, and then we were very stalled. It that that did not apply to Patton’s Army coming up from the south that and Patton was planning to attack into Germany on December 19. But of course, the the German attack began on the 16th. So from the American side, I don’t think the movie was accurate. On the German side, there was, I read accounts that, you know, there was some elation among German soldiers that finally they were getting back on the offensive. But in Germany, the German command had had to calm soldiers to get enough soldiers to do this attack and even to stay in the war. They were combing people out of the population that were had not been drafted before. So there was a whole army called folks grenadiers. You know the folks grenadiers that were made up of grandfathers, teenage boys, Luftwaffe, mechanics that were no longer needed, sailors that were no longer required, because there basically was no German Navy at any at any point. So I think it’s accurate to say that many of the German soldiers were not properly trained, were not physically up to what they were passed to do. But there were plenty of SS forces. One of the German armies that attacked during the Battle of the Bulge, I think, on the northern shoulder, was an SS Panzer Army, and they were in fine fighting shape, and, you know, plenty competitive. So it’s, it’s a little mixed on the German side. I think they got it wrong on the American side.

Dan LeFebvre  16:49

Okay, okay, well, I guess too. In the movie, they’re really focusing on Colonel hessler’s His outfit, pretty much, is all we really see much of. And so when they allude to he’s he’s got a bunch of new tank commanders that are all young and have never seen experience before. It sounds like that could be true, even if Hessler himself was only based on somebody too. So there’s still that fictional side.

Robert B. O’Connor  17:14

It’s a little inaccurate in the hessler’s tank tanker commanders would be, ss, uh, tank commanders, and they would not be young new recruits. The the new recruits were in the volksgrenaders, which were infantry for the most part. So yes, I think it was important that the movie said, look at these young kids, because they were throwing young kids and granddads into the fight at that point, but the details aren’t are right?

Dan LeFebvre  17:44

Something else we see in the movie, before the Germans even start their offensive we see something called Operation transit, and as the movie explains it, Operation transit, it consists of Germans parachuting a team of English speaking soldiers dressed in American MP uniforms behind American lines, and then over the course of the movie, they play a pivotal role in the movie, in helping the Germans offensive. By doing things like that. They cut communication lines. They’re switching the road signs to send retreating American troops the wrong way. They pretend to blow up a main bridge at the our river, but then, instead of actually blowing it up, they leave it intact for the German tanks to cross. Was operation transit, an actual thing.

Robert B. O’Connor  18:23

There it is, based on something called Operation grief, G, R, e, i, f and, and operation grief was a commando operation. They did para troop, uh, basically spies dressed in American uniforms behind American lines, and also, I think, infiltrated some. It was not strategically successful. Many were rounded up. They were not as good English speakers as you would, you know, as they needed to be. What was successful is the word got out, and there was widespread paranoia on among the American and British forces. So there were many roadblocks set up, and, and, and, you know, even even, you know, colonels in generals would be stopped and questioned, you know, in great detail. So it wasn’t strategically effective, but it it caused some problems. I’ve got a I’ve got a little part of the book where the protagonist, who is escaping in front of the Germans, reaches a century outside of Clairvaux, one of the cities involved, and the century says, okay, Private tanzer, you say, who don’t know the code word? Don’t have no dog tags. Don’t know Danny litweiler plays for the Phillies, nor wiz means wiz onions. And tanzer Jim says, I know Rick Sewell and Paul Wayner. Nobody cares about them. Pirates. Handy, keep your hand. So the centuries are very nervous, and they are reaching deep into their knowledge of Major League Baseball or the movies, because the German spies all know the Pledge of Allegiance and you know who the president is, okay.

Dan LeFebvre  20:21

So it almost seems like, even though it may not have been a major strategical thing, that the concept in the movie again, kind of going back to what it’s talking about, capturing the essence in the spirit like there, there, there was something there, at least, that it’s pulling from to sow chaos, if nothing else. So chaos,

Robert B. O’Connor  20:38

so paranoia, they didn’t, they didn’t keep any bridges intact, and they certainly didn’t get to any fuel depots, but, but they did create widespread worry and paranoia, okay, okay. And of course, they got the ones that were captured were shot immediately, because, oh yes, because, oh yes, because if you’re in, if you’re in the uniform of your enemy, you are a spy, and you are not protected by the Geneva Convention. So they were, they were shot immediately, the ones that were captured, and most of them were captured,

Dan LeFebvre  21:18

that makes sense, I guess. And also with the paranoia aspect of it. That then makes me wonder if I want to make 100% sure that you actually got it right before you execute somebody right away. One

Robert B. O’Connor  21:31

thing they, they, you know, under questioning, they, these spies could not hold up. So, you know, it was very apparent. They also were mostly wearing German issue underwear, and that that also gave them away.

Dan LeFebvre  21:45

Was there, like, an, almost a counter intelligence unit on the American side that would that focused on this? Or was it like the centuries, like you’re talking about in your book, like that, they were the ones that made that determination on the front lines? Well, there wasn’t

Robert B. O’Connor  21:58

a specific counter intelligence like, you know, the CIA would be, or this, but SS, special services, but, but each, you know, each division had, each unit had its intelligence officer. So there would be these, these, there would be intelligence officers gathering information, making reports and recommendations, and then, you know, getting the word out to the field. Okay,

Dan LeFebvre  22:25

okay, so it was just a little bit more than just this entry saying, Do you know this player on the Phillies? And, Nope, okay, okay, okay, it makes sense. Well, we’re at the point in the movie where the offensive itself begins, and we see Colonel hessler’s Panzers start moving, and it seems to take the Americans off guard. In the movie, there’s actually a line of dialog where we find out that General Patton is about to launch an offensive in a couple days, and HQ wouldn’t commit to an offensive if they thought the Germans were going to attack. So there only seems to be really one move, one person in the movie, Henri Fonda’s character, Colonel Kiley, that thinks that the Germans are going to launch an attack. But of course, as is the case in movies, nobody believes him, and so we see the American troops just shocked when they hear and then see the German tanks rolling towards them. Were the Americans taken completely by surprise, like the movie seems to suggest,

Robert B. O’Connor  23:18

they were taken by surprise. And there was a a massive intelligence failure that the build up of German troops was not detected. They Eisenhower, the overall commander, and general Bradley, the commander of these forces, knew that they were taking a risk by spreading their forces in the Ardennes area very thinly. They knew that it was risky. They accepted the risk. They did not think the Germans would attack, because it was a stupid plan to do that 8% right? That’s Hasting the end of the war by probably six or nine months. And so they took the risk frontline commanders, captains of companies and that kind of thing, were aware. They were hearing motor noises. They were getting, you know, locals telling them, You know, I just passed through a bunch of soldiers, and they were making their own preparations in the book, in the chapter on that set the day before December 16, a captain of a company on right on the front lines, moves his mortar section after dark because he is concerned that spy, you know, locals may have seen it and reported it to Germans that he hears but cannot see. So we weren’t taken. It wasn’t a total shock, in that they, the commanders, knew it was a little risky, but it was a surprise. And. And the frontline officers were not as surprised, probably, and certainly people were not sleeping. You know, the people on the front lines were not sleeping and reading magazines in the the frontline little village called Host engine that features in the book Captain Flynn basically has half his men of the company in their foxholes all night in front of the town and the and then they get relieved. You know, halfway through the night, he’s not putting everybody out there. He’s, you know, but, but he is very much. He is not complacent at all. And I think that reflects the more that that reflects how it was on the very front big picture, strategically, we were surprised, but, but it was not considered to be an impossibility.

Dan LeFebvre  25:57

Okay, okay, I guess it kind of goes back to something we talked about earlier with, like, in the movie, they’re saying, Oh, we might be home by Christmas. And so everybody, like you mentioned, they’re sleeping in their really guard is let down. And so seems like much more of a surprise in the movie than it would have been in real life, it seems like.

Robert B. O’Connor  26:15

And just to repeat, nobody in hosting Jen Luxemburg, you know, in the 28th division thinks on December 15 they’re going to be home for Christmas.

Dan LeFebvre  26:24

Yeah, right.

Robert B. O’Connor  26:27

Take you 10 days and get for sheriffs. Probably

Dan LeFebvre  26:32

even, even if there was no more, I mean, just, just traveling back in the 1940s probably would have taken that amount of time. Oh,

Robert B. O’Connor  26:38

absolutely. It took us two years. My father, who was over in in overseas in World War Two, he didn’t get home for 18 months after the war end, because they were watching enough transit. And he was just a kid, and he didn’t have enough you know, he didn’t have enough points. So, yeah, absolutely.

Dan LeFebvre  26:58

Well, if we go back to the movies version of events, the Germans pretending to be American. MPs, they turn around road signs, as I talked about earlier, they send a bunch of American soldiers to mama D where they are captured, and then we see the American soldiers get rounded up into a field and massacred by the SS, the only American to escape is James MacArthur’s character, Lieutenant Weaver in the movie, and he manages to make it into some woods. Nearby was the massacre at Mamadi that we see in the movie, something that actually happened that

Robert B. O’Connor  27:26

is factually accurate. Again, we talked about Piper York, and Piper the the the the real officer who was represented in the movie, his again, these were, ss, so, ss, were generally kind of fanatical. They were. They captured a group of artillery spotters and related soldiers. Piper was not present, but yes, they did machine gun them. More than one soldier escaped by running into the woods. But I would, I would give that, I would say that is a historically accurate scene, the the colonel, the act, let’s see the the the SS Panzer leader, as you know, gets on the phone and complains to his general that, you know, I’ve been trying to ruin the Americans morale, and now this will stiffen the Americans morale. There were not a lot of prisoners taken that the word got out very quickly to the American soldiers throughout the Ardennes, and there were not a lot of German prisoners taken, you know, especially if an officer wasn’t present. So there was the word got out. That is accurate, the word got out and there was retribution. One thing that that you have to remember about the SS and murdering prisoners is these guys had been fighting on the Russian front, on the Eastern Front, for a couple of years, and this was standard practice. The Russians savage the German Germans and the Germans savage the Russians. The the war on the Eastern Front was a bloodier, deadlier battle. In general, there’s plenty of blood, blood and wounds and death all around but when you were fighting the Russians in World War Two, you may have become comfortable with tactics that are abhorrent to civilized people, and certainly that happened at Malmedy,

Dan LeFebvre  29:45

okay, and your mention of that being an SS unit that seems like they would have more experience with that than the youthful type of I don’t remember the unit that you mentioned there. Was mostly, you know, younger and elderly people, yeah, the

Robert B. O’Connor  30:03

folks, credit dear, yeah, yeah, the SS were more more fanatic. You know, more fanatical. They weren’t all fanatics, but they were more fanatical. The SS was trusted by Hitler, whereas the general army was not at that point. And yes, the less experienced soldiers, the the teenagers, the sailors pressed into infantry duty, would not have reacted the way the SS did at Malmedy.

Dan LeFebvre  30:32

Do we know? Since you mentioned the the idea of the offensive in the Battle of the Bulge was Hitler’s idea that his generals didn’t really like, and then you mentioned Hitler trusting the SS was not taking prisoners, almost in order. I mean, maybe not an official order, but something that was, you know, we’re not taking prisoners of war anymore if they’re already spread thin and they maybe they can’t handle it or or was it more just what you’re talking about with the SS being just more phenomenal?

Robert B. O’Connor  30:59

That’s a very useful question, because Hitler did send a general message, you know, to the troops before, you know, the day before, or whatever. And I don’t remember the exact quote, but it was essentially, be ruthless. You know, you will have to be, you will have to be ruthless to achieve our objectives be ruthless. So, yes, that’s a very good point. Dan, there was a blessing from the top, almost, that that would excuse inhumane treatment of prisoners. By the way, on the Vogue spaniers and some of the you know, the less, much less trained, much less prepared German soldiers. There was a joke going around that if you wanted to stop them, you would leave food. You would leave your K rations around, because they weren’t well supplied. And they would whatever they were doing. They would stop to eat

Dan LeFebvre  32:02

food. Matters more

Robert B. O’Connor  32:04

when you’re when you’re starving, you know, and, and there’s guns and and battles ahead and there’s food. Yes, so a big difference between the SS panzer divisions and and the rest of the German army at that point. Well, in

Dan LeFebvre  32:19

the movie, one of the major engagements that we see takes place in the town of and believe and we see Colonel hessler’s column of Panzers are bombarding the town all day and into the night before they start to move toward the town and inside the town, general Gray, the general gray character, initially tries to hold the town, but the artillery that he asked for by rail gets destroyed along the way by German tanks. So ultimately, the Americans are forced to retreat as the Germans take the town. How well did the movie do showing this bombardment and then capture of ambly Well,

Robert B. O’Connor  32:53

terribly terrible. The whole thing was, there is no, there is no town called and believe so they just made up a place. Secondly, that kind of bombardment by tanks would not have been affected. The Germans would have been using artillery, specifically the much beard, 88 and that would have been coming from several miles. You know, the artillery men couldn’t even see the town. They just go on coordinates. So that was that was quite unrealistic. And in general, the producers of the movie, or the screenwriters, really over emphasized the role of the tanks. And first of all, the Ardennes is terrible tag country. It’s wooded, it’s hilly, it’s muddy. You know, there’s that the tags are too heavy to go on anything on other than on the roads. And you don’t really want to be on the roads. You know, when you’re when you’re going to be attacked. So the movie very much over emphasized tanks. And they that a movie acted like every German tank was a Tiger tank. One thing that did happen is many American many more American soldiers reported seeing a Tiger tank than actually did. There were very few Tiger tanks in the battle the boats. They were, you know, an elite weapon. They were huge. They were too heavy to get across bridges. You know, the Germans are, are and were remarkable craftsmen. But they broke, you know, they were complicated. They broke down. So the battle for am believe was, you know, really highly fictionalized, what, what is not, what is representative is, there were many hamlets and villages in in the Ardennes area and. These were scenes of bitter fighting, where the Americans would resist from inside a hamlet. So you instead of the tank, the German tanks holding off 1000 yards or 2000 yards and just firing shots, they’re having to go through the streets of these hamlets in these little towns. And thus they are subject to bazooka shots from, you know, windows, they’re subject to things being dropped on them by soldiers in upper windows. There was a very stubborn American defense of these hamlets and towns, and the Germans had to get right in, as you know, from urban warfare, you can’t just hold, you know, even I think the Russians are attempting this, and I don’t think it’s successful now, but you can’t just stay back and and, you know, fire, you got to get in The town. So that was, that was also misrepresented, misrepresented in the movie. But the idea that the Americans resisted bitterly in Hamlet one after another in small towns was is accurate.

Dan LeFebvre  36:16

You mentioned earlier, and I didn’t think about this until you were talking about it. But when the colonel Hessler character in the movie, I think it was Charles Bronson’s character that talks about how you know that all you know that’s going the massacre al Malmedy is going to undo the morale and everything. And then there is a point I remember the exact dialog, but I think it was hessler’s Commander, the general, the German General, who’s like, why don’t you just go around the town? And he’s like, we need to, you know, crush the morale. But then earlier, you’re talking about how they’re on a time time schedule, like they’re they need to be fast. And so they wouldn’t necessarily to do this whole battle. And believe that we see in the movie not only did not happen, but even the concept behind it in the movie sounds like it would just be they’re on a time crunch. They wouldn’t spend this extra time bombarding a town that they didn’t really have to. That’s

Robert B. O’Connor  37:07

exactly right. In fact, in the book, where my character is in hosting Jen with a company, 28 company of the 28th division, they hold off the initial, this is historically accurate. They hold off the initial infantry attack, but they just get bypassed, and you know, and then they’re surrounded, and eventually they are killed or taken captive. So you’re absolutely right. Joachim Piper, the SS tank commander, would have bypassed that town. And in fact, the famous town, Bastogne, while Bastogne was indeed surrounded, most of the German forces bypassed it, heading towards the Meuse river and theoretically Antwerp. So you’re absolutely right, they wouldn’t have stopped, because the timetable was everything. And by the way, they were behind on the timetable within the first four or five hours of the attack, because the one thing they don’t they don’t talk about in the movie at all, but there are many, many rivers and streams in the Arden and if you don’t have a bridge across it, you have to build. Your engineers have to build a bridge. And the very first river is on the German border of Luxembourg and and had to, they had to build bridges. And they took much longer than the schedule allowed to build the bridges, because the engineers were depleted by that time in the war. So they it was all about the schedule and timing, and the Germans were behind, literally, from the initial hours of the attack. You mentioned

Dan LeFebvre  38:47

Bastogne, and there was a very brief sequence that we see in the movie with Bastogne. It talks about, there’s the Germans mentioned that they’re surrendered, or they’re surrounded, I should say. And so the people at Bastogne should surrender, or else they’re going to be annihilated. And we never see the American commander in the movie, but we see the Germans receiving a message from the American commander. So the Germans, they send a messenger, send a message, you need to surrender. You’re going to be annihilated. And then we get the German side and the response, and the message reads from the American commander of Bastogne to the German commander nuts, the Germans seem very confused by this response. They don’t really know what’s going on with it. Was that really the American response at Bastogne, and how did the Germans respond to it? This

Robert B. O’Connor  39:30

is completely accurate. General McCollough was the general left behind in Bastogne. His superiors had, under orders, evacuated further west. General McAuliffe led a brilliant defensive best, covered himself in glory, and, of course, 100 and first airborne, you know, Band of Brothers. He was, you know, working around the clock. He was actually the Germans, actually. Did deliver this note asking for a surrender the German General von montufel, who is theoretically played by one of the actors in the movie The commander, although very different attributes, but monteval was furious when he found out about this note being passed in by the German commander on the spot. McAuliffe was napping at the time, I think he’d been up all night. He was napping, and what his aide woke him up and handed in this note, and he was half asleep, and he read things, what the hell is this? And they told him what it was, and he said, on nuts. And and then I think his aide said, you know, what, what? What do you want to answer? And he said, Just, just what I you know, just answer that. So, so it was that was quite historically accurate. And again, the German forces, because much of the forces had moved on from Bastogne, they did not have enough force to penetrate the to penetrate the outer defenses of Bastogne. There was bloody fighting in the 100 and first, did brilliantly, as did a little known group of telephone operators, bakers, you know, clerks, survivors of overrun infantry companies who had made it to bastone and and my character, who is a enlisted entertainer, they were organized into a team called Team snafu. And Team snafu, basically, their job was to fill it was to was to fill in the gaps between the division, the 100 and first divisions, regiments there. Therefore in airborne, there are four regiments. So they made four sides of a square around Bastogne. But this little heralded group of rear Echelon soldiers, you know, did heroic did heroic service. And of course, they were not combat hardened veterans like the 100 and first airborne so fascinating at Bastogne, but to repeat my main point, the Germans did not have enough force surrounding Bastogne to make the breakthrough that they wanted to make, because it had been bypassed by much of the German forces.

Dan LeFebvre  42:40

That makes me wonder, since time was of the essence, and so they’re wanting to push, was there a plan in the German strategy to to bypass those cities and then come back afterwards, or once they bypass, got to Antwerp and they kind of split? Was that enough? And, you know, they didn’t really need to capture them at all.

Robert B. O’Connor  43:01

Well, if, yes, I think if they had one of the reasons they had the they really needed Bastogne was, Bastogne was a road hub. So there were seven or eight roads radiating out of Bastogne. And again, remember this, the German tanks could not travel except on roads, because they were so heavy. So they were because they couldn’t get Bastogne, they were limited again. It put them off schedule. They could not get those roads. Had they made it to Antwerp? Which was never going to happen, you know, by some odd chance, had they made it to Antwerp? Yes, then Bastogne would not have been strategically significant. We we would have been fighting in Holland. That would have been very heavy fighting in Holland, but it was all about the road hubs at Bastogne.

Dan LeFebvre  43:57

Well, you might have already answered my next question, but at this point in the movie, we get to where General gray American commander figures out that the German tanks must be running out of gas. So his plan is to commit all his tanks to engage hessler’s Panzer Panzers and try to get them to chase the American takes until they run out of fuel. All this is before the Germans can capture a nearby allied fuel depot that just conveniently happens to be nearby. And then in the movie, we see a major engagement between the American and German tanks. There’s this fighting going on, and the German tanks just seem to be more powerful. They have no trouble destroying the American tanks. And before long, though, Colonel Hessler figures out that the Americans are sacrificing themselves to get the German tanks to run out of gas. Was there any truth at all to this tactic that we see in the movie of the Germans basically, or the Americans basically trying to force the German tanks to run out of gas?

Robert B. O’Connor  44:50

No, the Americans were aware that the Germans would have to capture gasoline to continue. To, you know, if they were going to get even halfway to Antwerp. And so there was a concerted and successful effort to remove gasoline dumps and also ammo dumps out of the way of German forces. And that was successful. And but there was no strategy of, like, let’s engage them in a battle and make them chase us and burn up gasoline. And again, I want to, you know, I want to comment on the over emphasis of tank. There was no grand tank battle. There were on the on the steps of Russia. There were grand tank battles, because that was tank country. But, and in fact, one of the criticisms of this movie I read about a reviewer at the time was the tank the tank battle was filmed in Spain on on brilliant tank country. And the Arden, the Arden’s is very poor tank country. And again, the tanks had to be on roads in single file and and so there was no grand tank battle and no grand strategy to make them run out of gasoline. We did know that we needed to deprive them of any and supplies that they might be able to capture and gasoline and would have been the first one one detail, though, I will say, is correct. The Sherman tank was not a one on one match for the German panzer. The German panzer normally had an 88 gun, which was had a much longer range than the Sherman’s gun, and also was able to fire a much more heavy duty round. So and and the Sherman tank was never designed to be in tank battles. It was designed to be an infantry support so we did indeed lose many Shermans to German Panzers in the war. And but we, you know, for everyone we lost, we would replace it with three new ones. And you know, for every tank the Germans lost, they by that point, they might not get another. So in typical American fashion, we out manufactured them, out, inventoried them out, supplied them. And then, yes, the American tankers, did, you know, did superior service, but not in the Ardennes, not

Dan LeFebvre  47:34

in the Arden I mean, and it makes, I mean, it almost seems like that would be a normal strategy when the enemy is advancing to remove any fuel and ammo dumps that you might have, I feel like that’s just would be a universal across the entire war as much as possible. I mean, obviously there’s going to be times when you can’t do that, but

Robert B. O’Connor  47:52

Well, you have to have standards. You have have the trucks and transport to do it. And again, the American the American army was so much better equipped than any of the other armies in the war. You know, whether it was our allies or the Germans or the Japanese, we were so much better equipped that we could do things that involved transportation and gasoline and airplanes that no one else could do. There is a fascinating little scene in the movie where the German tank commander is holding a chocolate cake, and he says, this is when he’s a bit pessimistic. He says, Well, the Americans are able to fly chocolate cake over to Europe in time for it to be fresh, how are we, you know, how are we going to compete with them? And that’s a good hint at the American superiority of material was overwhelming. And the Germans at the time would tell you, that’s why we defeated that was, you know, that we just had more of everything. And we did have more of everything, so that that also, I thought that was a that was a nice, what do we call that Easter egg? You know, that was a nice drag for World War Two buffs.

Dan LeFebvre  49:16

Yes, yes, even if it specifics may not be accurate, but the idea of it, yes. Well, at the very end of the movie, all the different storylines start to come together. We get Colonel hessler’s tanks. They’re headed for the ally fuel depot, the German soldiers that have been masquerading as American MPs this whole time that they’ve already taken the depot. So when General gray calls in the order to destroy the fuel. They make it seem like it’s going to happen, but of course, they’re not going to do that. So then we see Lieutenant weaver who survived the malbeeep massacre. He recognizes the German lieutenant in charge of the pretend American MPs, and orders his men to open fire that then they take out all those fake American MPs. And so hessler’s column, they’re just about to get to the fuel depot. But then, coincidentally, Lieutenant Colonel Kylie Henri Fonda’s character was shot down and injured a little bit earlier, and he happened to be taken to the fuel depot where he was recovering from his wounds. He wakes up to help Lieutenant Weaver’s men destroy the fuel depot, keep it from falling into German hands, and in the process, they roll the fuel drums down the road, set them on fire. Some of the German takes explode. Some of them catch on fire, force them in, inside to escape, and then that makes them easy targets for the American soldiers. And then, of course, the final tank to be destroyed is Colonel hessler’s own tank himself. It takes a couple drums of fuel to get his but eventually it blows up as well, and then a couple seconds later, general gray arrives. His entourage shows up, and one of the officers announces that the Germans have abandoned their tanks and are walking back to Germany. Is that really how the Battle of the Bulge ended?

Robert B. O’Connor  50:52

Well, no, the Battle of the Bulge, first of all, first of all, did not end until January 25 so it actually, it went on that probably happened, that that that particular representation probably happened in very early January. So the Battle of the Bulge went on. The Germans, basically, after early January, were trying to pull out in good order, you know, to rescue anything they could rescue. So no, but I will say again in the movies, Colonel Hessler, representing Joachim Piper, the SS tank commander, his particular point of the spear. They did run out of gas, and they did. They did this was, you know, one, one small, important place, but one small place in a giant 80 Mile, as you say, battle going on. But the very tip of the spear that got the farthest, I think they got within three or four miles of the Meuse river, which was the big, you know, the first big landmark to cross at which, by the way, the British were waiting for them. Had, you know, had they made it there, they would have been annihilated by the British forces under Montgomery. But yes, York and Piper’s men, the cert who survived, had to get out and walk away. Now, they probably got a ride. You know, they don’t think they walked back to Germany. They but, but yes, that is true. It’s just that was not the end of the battle of bows, by any means. And that was one small action again. There wasn’t some giant tank battle going on. So, so Piper, you know, probably had one small action after another, and then ran out of gas. And yes, his men did some. His men did walk. Have to walk away. Are you

Dan LeFebvre  52:42

open to maybe doing a hypothetical what if question from the movie? I’d love to Yeah. So we talked a little bit here and there, but since the movie started by implying that the entire war rests on the outcome of the battle of the bulge, by talking about how the Germans need this 18 month delay so that they can produce new high tech jet planes, that King Tiger tank, the v2 rockets and so on. What if the Germans had been successful in capturing Antwerp? Do you think that would have turned the war in the favor of the Germans? Like the movie suggests, it

Robert B. O’Connor  53:16

would have been a big setback for the allies, but the allies the overwhelming superiority at that point by the allies. And then remember the Russian the vast Russian army is steadily chewing up German divisions and moving forward, you know, towards Berlin, and they would not have been stopped. I don’t know, theoretically, you know, Hitler’s, you know, you capture Antwerp, and then you can send a bunch of soldiers East against the Russians. But there weren’t many soldiers going to be left, you know, in the Battle of the Bulge, if you get to antwerf. So, no, I don’t think so. And again, if the Germans had held out another six months to a year, we would have dropped an atom bomb on Berlin that probably would have ended things. The German super weapons. How far they could have gotten in 18 months, I think the only one that would have been strategically decisive or even important would be the Jets. You know, if they could have, they did get a couple of jets up in the sky, but, you know, there weren’t enough of them, and they were new and but perhaps, if they could have manufactured, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of jet fighters, they could have taken away the Allies advantage in the air. I doubt it. But so, no, it was a it, you know, it was a. Harebrained scheme from the get go, and even if it had succeeded, it was very unlikely to have the results that Hitler thought they would.

Dan LeFebvre  55:11

You make a great point about the Russians too, where, if they’re relying so heavily on production to fight this, the battle on the west, well, in the East. I mean, again, this is hypothetical. And, you know, if they had gotten there, but then you still have the Russians coming that are going to be targeting a lot of those production facilities and things to that’s just going to hamper their ability to create these new super weapons as they’re, you know, the movie implies the Allies

Robert B. O’Connor  55:36

much more than Russia, even, because we had more, many more planes, we were doing strategic bombing of Germany, starting in really, 1940 early, 43 I think. But by this time, it was becoming quite devastating. So I don’t think even if that scheme that had, you know, against all odds succeeded, it would not have changed the ending of the war. And again, the German people might have been devastated by an atomic bomb by that point, because we were they would not have developed. The Germans would not have developed an atomic bomb in 18 months, we were the only country with enough industrial prowess and and and money and and scientists, some of them German scientists, to make the atomic bomb. And you know that the atomic bomb could have been a game changer, but no one else was even close to the US in terms of developing that weapon. Well, you’ve

Dan LeFebvre  56:40

talked about a little bit here and there, and there’s been a lot of things we’ve talked about from history today the movie doesn’t show and that leads me right into the topic of your historical novel called Jeep show a trooper at the Battle of the Bulge. And Jeep shows aren’t something that we see in the movie, but they were a real thing during World War Two, although I’m guessing not many people know much about them. So my final question for you is a two parter. First, can you explain what Jeep shows were? And secondly, can you give us an overview of your

Robert B. O’Connor  57:06

book that would be my pleasure. The Army drafted entertainers, people with show business experience, and put them in a group called the morale Corps. The army was very concerned with the morale of its soldiers. It had many programs to to try to keep the morale up. These these enlisted entertainers were put in. Basically, as we talked earlier, the army had moved very quickly to the German border after the summer of 44 and they were out of the soldiers at the front were out of the reach of the USO and the Red Cross for entertainment or other services. So the army took these morale soldiers and put them in groups of three and assigned them to Jeep shows. They had a driver, and they would go to literally just behind the front lines. Combat soldiers would be pulled back for a hot meal, perhaps a shower and a uniform exchange, but this was within artillery range, and they would do a small, essentially, variety show, you know, they they’d sing some songs, they tell some jokes, they do a little dance. They’d pull a soldier out of the audience who, you know, could do ever G Robinson impression or something like that. And these squads, they would do upwards of 11 shows a day they would go up and down the front lines and also in the South, in France and other places. But and a real, a real enlisted entertainer was Mickey Rooney. Mickey Rooney was Mickey Rooney did cheap shows. And in fact, the protagonist of my novel is based on or inspired by a real soldier that was in Mickey Rooney’s Jeep show squad. So they were entertainers. It was all part of the morale building effort of the US Army. But they did, they did real service and and it was dangerous. It was dangerous. So that’s the that’s the thing. It’s interesting. Dan, I have talked with many World War Two buffs after I wrote this book, and none of them knows about, knows about Jeep show and with what these guys did. So. So when I found out about that, I knew I had to write about it. The book follows, as I said, It is inspired by a real soldier, enlisted entertainer, military occupation, specialty, 442, and it follows him with. When he enlists, which he’s a little old. He’s 29 years old, and his wife is not thrilled that he is enlisting, since they have a dog, young daughter, and it follows him through training camp, over to England, into Paris, and then doing Jeep shows. And he gets they Mickey Rooney, he and their their third, their third, do a Jeep show in hosting Jen a right on the German border on December 15. There is a bit of a cock up, and Jim gets left behind in hostage in the evening of the 15th. He thinks, you know, on the morning of the 16th, he’ll get a ride back in a supply truck, but he wakes up to the bombardment, the artillery bombardment that started the Battle of the Bulge, which, by the way, the movie does not show you know, the movie has tanks moving in, but the battle started with about a two hour artillery barrage starting at about 5am so I think that was also an oversight. So he is caught in hosing Jen he is given a captured German map and sent back. And basically his journey to bastone, he stops at five historically accurate places where there were battles with the Germans, with the advancing Germans. And each time, he survives and then gets set back with this captured map, and he ends up in Bastogne, and is in Bastogne for five days is able to provide some entertainment for it’s one of my favorite parts of the book, is the show they are able to put on in Bastogne under siege, and then follows him after that in the liberation of A German concentration camp, a performance for the German generals after the after VE Day, and then coming back home.

Dan LeFebvre  1:02:09

I’m assuming it’s the Mickey Rooney, right? Not just somebody else with

Robert B. O’Connor  1:02:12

this is the Mickey Rooney, yeah, this is the Mickey Rooney and and the man that inspired my novel really did work? Really did do Jeep shows with Mickey Rooney, yeah, would

Dan LeFebvre  1:02:25

they enlist specifically for the Jeep shows to do? To do that? Or did they enlist and then decide that that was a route that they wanted to take? Or was it? I’m just curious because, yeah, I don’t know anything about the Jeep shows. So how they get in,

Robert B. O’Connor  1:02:38

they would enlist or be drafted. I’m sure many of them were drafted, and the and so if they enlisted, my character wants to be a paratrooper, but a, he’s to Paul, and B, the, you know, after he there was a classification test, and basically the you’d answer a bunch of questions, and the army would decide where to send you, you know, if they might send you where you wanted to go, but, but probably not so, because of all these folks. And by the way, Mickey Rooney was obviously a big star at that point. But there were others that became stars. Mel Brooks was a MOS 442, an entertainment soldier. Red Skelton, who was a famous comedian in the 60s, was unknown. You know, in night he was a he was a enter to enlisted entertainer. Sammy Davis Jr was an enlisted entertainer. And basically, once the Army found out that they had show business background, which my character does, did they? They put them into morale corps to do shows, to do shows for soldiers. Interestingly, in the rear echelons, they would put on amateur shows featuring a cast of soldiers, and soldiers in the crew and all that. That was to give soldiers something to do. In the rear echelons. The combat soldiers had plenty to do. So they did not need that, but they needed, they needed the fact that the entertainers would physically come to the Combat Zones was very meaningful to the soldiers that saw the shows, because they felt very isolated. A lot of supplies didn’t, you know, plenty of ammunition made it to the front, but a lot of the other supplies didn’t. And the concept of just being present, you know, yeah, you’re put on a show, but then afterwards you’re going to sit around and smoke and have a cup of coffee and talk, just talk, you know, was, was indeed a morale boost.

Dan LeFebvre  1:04:43

And I’m sure, especially for like with your character being in Bastogne, where they’re surrounded. I mean, it’s even, even more important, I would imagine, yeah,

Robert B. O’Connor  1:04:52

there were, there were a lot of wounded, many, many wounded soldiers. In the basements of various places in Bastogne and in the book. And of course, this is fiction, but General McAuliffe orders my character, who’s the only entertainment soldier stuck in Bastogne, and he’s been doing, he’s been in combat and doing other things, orders him to put on a Christmas Day show. And the show gets a little out of hand. There’s a very insulting in imitation of General Patton, and my character ends up in a lot of trouble the next day, which he gets. He gets out of because he the the siege is relieved, and he just leaves his unit. But, yeah, the the idea of putting on a simple show and being present with people under under duress, it it means a lot. Well,

Dan LeFebvre  1:05:53

make sure to add a link to that in the show notes so everybody can pick up their own copy. Thank you again. So much for your time. Robert, it’s

Robert B. O’Connor  1:05:59

really been my pleasure to talk to you and your audience.