ABSTRACT

On 19 December, Eisenhower and Tedder began a long, cold, and anxious journey in an armoured, heavily guarded Packard motor car from Versailles to Verdun. There they met Bradley, Patton and Devers. Tedder agreed with Eisenhower that the German offensive should be regarded ‘as one of opportunity for us and not disaster’; consequently, the Supreme Commander demanded only ‘cheerful faces’ at this meeting.2 The grins on those faces would have been less fixed had the Allied commanders known that Speer expected the offensive to fail. ‘I saw the switching yards east of the Rhine jammed with freight cars’, he recalled, in words which would have delighted Tedder, because ‘enemy bombers had prevented the movement of supplies for the offensive’. On 23 December, the skies cleared. Against fully alerted forces, enjoying total

air superiority, and far superior in numbers, arms and supplies, the result was certain. Speer returned disconsolately to Hitler’s headquarters, convinced now that the war was lost.3