“General Clay sent for me just before I went back to Washington,” Mattingly explained. “When I reported to him, he told me, in confidence, that as of January first, 1946, he was going to be relieved as Eisenhower’s deputy and appointed military governor of the American Zone of Occupied Germany.
“Then he said he was sure that I would understand that as military governor he didn’t want the Russians—he said ‘our esteemed allies the Soviets’—coming to him with some wild accusation that we were hiding Nazis in a monastery in Bavaria. He said that I would also understand that as military governor he would be very interested in German industrial development.
“General Clay then asked me why I still had a reinforced company of Second Armored Division soldiers guarding ‘God only knew what’ in my monastery and why the compound at Pullach, which was being built for the South German Industrial Development Organization, wasn’t finished.
“At this point I decided that someone had made General Clay privy to Operation Ost. I told him the reason the South German Industrial Development Organization was not up and running in Pullach was because the Engineer battalion assigned to Munich Military Post had other projects that were apparently more important than the Pullach compound. I told General Clay I had been reluctant to press the issue because, if I did, Munich Military Post would ask questions about the South German Industrial Development Organizati
on I would not want to answer.
“General Clay then reached for his telephone and asked to be connected with the commanding officer of Munich Military Post. When he came on the line, General Clay said it had come to his attention that the Pullach project was running a little behind schedule and he had been wondering why.
“The post commander apparently replied to the effect that the Pullach compound project was lower on his list of priorities than a gymnasium and a Special Services library that the Engineers were building.
“General Clay replied—and this is just about verbatim—‘Screw your goddamned gymnasium and your goddamned library. Get a goddamned Engineer battalion over to Pullach today and get that goddamned compound built yesterday.’”
“Ouch,” General Greene said.
“General Clay then concluded the conversation by saying something to the effect that ‘the next time the deputy commander of European Command tells you he wants something built, it would behoove you to build it immediately, rather than when you can conveniently fit it into your schedule.’”
“Ouch, again,” General Greene said.
Mattingly turned to Bristol. “Colonel, can you pick up this narrative?”
“Yes, sir. I was at the gymnasium site when the post commander showed up and relayed General Clay’s orders to me. I said, ‘Yes, sir. I’ll go out there first thing in the morning.’
“He said, ‘You will go out there now, Colonel. And I suggest you take a cot and a sleeping bag with you, because you’re not going to leave that site until the project is completed.’ I called my wife, told her I would be out of town for a few days, went by my office and picked up the plans—your plans, I believe, Colonel . . . ?”
Mattingly nodded.
“. . . and came out here with a handful of my people. By the time we got here, it was too dark to do much of anything but set up the cots, although I did call my headquarters and told them to start moving equipment out here. Then I went to bed.
“I got up at first light and walked around the area, making up my mind what had to be done and when. Then a puddle jumper flew over, twice, and landed on that road out there.” He pointed. “I went out to ask the pilot what the hell he thought he was doing.
“General Clay got out of the L-4, greeted me cheerfully, and said he hoped I had coffee and a couple of doughnuts, as he hadn’t had any breakfast. As we walked here, he said, ‘One of the first things you’re going to have to do is extend that runway. My pilot wasn’t sure he could land on it.’
“I said, ‘Sir, that isn’t a runway.’
“‘It will be,’ he said. ‘And I have a few other little changes to make to Colonel Mattingly’s plans for this place.’ It took him about an hour. I’d forgotten, if I ever knew, that he was Corps of Engineers—you don’t think of general officers as having a branch of service—but he quickly showed he was one hell of an engineer. Anyway, he said, ‘Get me a sheet of plywood. We’ll use it as a plat.’
“And then he sketched the village, freehand, on this”—he pointed to the sheet of plywood—“with a grease pencil, and showed me where he wanted the fences to be, the barracks for the American guards, and the tent city for the Poles . . . the Polish.”
“Those men in the dyed fatigues?” General Greene asked.
“Yes, sir. They’re former Polish soldiers. They’d been German POWs. He said they didn’t want to go home because the Russians were now running Poland, so Ike had decided he wasn’t going to make them go home. He said they’d make good guards around our installations and to put them to work. General Clay said if you wanted to keep them on, after the compound is open, we could start building barracks for them.”
“Start building, Colonel,” Mattingly said. He turned to Cronley. “What do you think, Cronley?”
“I’m like you, Colonel. I didn’t expect anything like this.”
“Well, I suggest you’d better get used to it. It looks to me as if this place is just about ready for you to move into it, and that’s what you’re going to do, the minute it’s ready.”
“I’d estimate a week, sir, to complete everything,” Colonel Bristol said.
“Colonel,” Major McClung said, “have you been told we’re going to put an ASA listening station in here?”
“No,” Bristol said simply.
“Well, we are,” General Greene said. “Is that going to be a problem?”