AFTER THE BATTLE ISSUE 171

AMERICANS ACROSS THE MOSELLE & HITLER’S EASTERNMOST HEADQUARTERS

Of all the various field headquarters built for Adolf Hitler during the war, Führerhauptquartier ‘Wehrwolf’, located outside the town of Vinnitsa in the Ukraine, is probably the least known of all. This in spite of the fact that it is one of just seven of the headquarters that was actually occupied and used by Hitler as an operational command post, and that it is the one where, after the ‘Wolfsschanze’ at Rastenburg in Eastern Prussia, where he stayed 845 days in total, he stayed the longest time: 123 days. 
The easternmost of all the Fuhrer Headquarters, ‘Wehrwolf’ was built by the Organisation Todt from November 1941, primarily to give Hitler a command post closer to the Eastern Front. His first stay there – from July 16 to November 1, 1942 – coincided with what would prove to be the decisive campaign of the war in the East: Heeresgruppe Süd’s offensive towards Stalingrad and the Caucasus oilfields in the summer and autumn of 1942. 
Because of its far-away location, the ‘Wehrwolf’ site has not seen as many visitors from the West nor been the subject of as much on-site research as Hitler’s other headquarters. In our special issue on the Führer Headquarters (After the Battle No. 19), published back in 1977 when the Ukraine was still firmly behind the Iron Curtain, we could only devote little space to it. Now this imbalance is being redressed with an article that we are very proud to present. Our authors, Martin Bogaert from Belgium and Andrew Shvachko from Ukraine, are the first to have systematically surveyed the ‘Wehrwolf’ site, making accurate measurements of all surviving foundations and pinpointing constructions with the help of GPS. This, together with detailed archive research, has enabled them to produce the first reliable description of the headquarters and to illustrate their story with a whole series of accurate comparison photographs. We are sure you will find the story as fascinating as we do.
Issue 171 also has a good mix of other stories. In the opening feature, Jean Paul Pallud describes the American operations in north-eastern France in September 1944, when the southern wing of Patton’s Third Army crossed the Moselle river in a two-pronged offensive designed to capture the city of Nancy. The attack led to heavy fighting for a shallow bridgehead at a place called Dieulouard, where German counter-attacks nearly succeeded in driving the defenders back across the river. Elsewhere, a small task force of the US 4th Armored Division captured a vital bridgehead by having its tanks push right across the muddy bed of a canal emptied by German demolitions – a daring exploit that paid good dividends. The wartime pictures exist and, as usual, Jean Paul has found out where they were taken.

From the Pacific comes the little-known story of the US Pacific Dishonoured Plot in Schofield Barracks on Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands. During the war, over 25 American servicemen were executed for capital crimes committed while serving in the Pacific and China-India-Burma Theatres. Seven of them were buried in a special small ‘dishonoured plot’ in Schofield’s Post Cemetery. Our author, Colonel (ret.) Charles A. Jones, describes the seven crimes in detail and explains how the graves of the culprits came to be concentrated at Schofield.

Finally, Barrie Morris recounts the dramatic story of the accidental explosion of ordnance aboard an Army and RAF ammunition train at Catterick Bridge Station near Richmond in North Yorkshire, England, on February 5, 1944 – a disaster that killed six servicemen and two civilians, wounded over 80 other people, set alight a dozen railway trucks and devastated the area around the station.