A Day with Patton in the Battle of the Bulge, 1944
You Are There: A Graphic History Series
You Are There… The Graphic History Guide.
Historical Backdrop
On December 16, 1944, Hitler launched a massive surprise offensive through the snowy Ardennes forest, smashing a 50-mile bulge into American lines. Over 200,000 German troops with 1,000 tanks caught the Allies off guard. Within three days, the 101st Airborne was surrounded at Bastogne, entire American divisions were shattered, and Eisenhower called an emergency meeting at Verdun for December 19, 1944.
General George S. Patton Jr., commanding the Third U.S. Army in Lorraine, had already foreseen the crisis and quietly prepared his staff to pivot north. What he promised that morning at Verdun — to attack with three divisions within 48 hours — stunned the room and became one of the most famous logistical feats in military history. Our subject is Lieutenant Colonel Charles R. Codman, 51, Harvard-educated Bostonian, decorated WWI aviator, peacetime wine merchant, and personal aide-de-camp to Patton. Refined, observant, and devoted to his chief, Codman kept a diary that later became the memoir Drive.
05:12 — Caserne Molifor, Third Army Forward HQ, Nancy, France
You wake up to a frost-laced window and the sound of a four-star general whistling in the hallway. You swing your feet onto an icy plank floor and feel the cold bite up through your wool socks. Your breath rises in white plumes above the narrow iron cot. Outside the cracked window a sentry’s boots crunch on frozen gravel and somewhere a field telephone rings twice and cuts off. You strike a match for the paraffin lamp, splash yesterday’s basin water on your face, and scrape a safety razor across two days of stubble. The mirror shows the hollow eyes of a man who has slept four hours. From the hallway you hear the Old Man still whistling, already dressed, already ahead of you.
05:45 — Officers’ Mess, Caserne Molifor, Nancy
You sit across from General Patton as an orderly pours black coffee into thick white china. Powdered eggs, bacon, and a slice of stale bread sit on your plate. The General is already on his second cup and tapping a pencil against a folded situation map. He does not small-talk. He tells you the Germans are running out of gas and will be stopped, and that by noon you will both be in Verdun standing in front of Ike. He says it like a weather report. You notice the ivory grip of his revolver is already at his hip, even at breakfast.
06:30 — Chapel annex, Third Army HQ, Nancy
You stop by the chaplain’s office on the General’s orders to pick up the last bundles of the prayer cards. Chaplain O’Neill hands you a string-tied stack, the ink still faintly smelling of mimeograph solvent. The card asks God for fair weather so the bombers can fly. You tuck them inside your tunic against your chest. Outside in the courtyard, snow has begun again, fat and wet, muffling the engine of the idling staff car. The General’s driver is wiping fog from the windshield with a rag.
07:10 — Third Army War Room, Nancy
You follow Patton into the map room. The air is blue with cigarette smoke, and a wood stove in the corner ticks and hisses. Red grease-pencil arrows on the acetate overlay show the Germans pouring west. Colonel Koch, the G-2, is waiting with a pointer. He says three enemy armies, possibly a quarter million men. The General stares at the map for maybe twenty seconds. Then he turns to you and General Gay and says just move the 4th Armored, the 80th, and the 26th — turn them ninety degrees and head them north. No one argues. Telephones start ringing.
08:40 — Dodge WC-57 Command Car, Route Nationale to Verdun
