Hemingway at Rambouillet.

Fuller, Robert

This essay examines Hemingway's WW II activities in and around the French town of Rambouillet. Hemingway claimed that he took charge of a group of French resistance fighters to keep the Germans from reoccupying the otherwise undefended town of 7,300, a boast that led to an investigation by the Third Army's Inspector General to determine if the writer's activities were consistent with his status as a war correspondent. The full results of that investigation, found in the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, are consulted here for the first time. The Army's report sheds more light on the writer's activities and the veracity of his claims, clears up some questions about the origins and fate of the investigation, and raises others.

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When Allied armies invaded Normandy in June 1944, Ernest Hemingway accompanied them as an accredited war correspondent for Collier's Magazine. He watched American troops storm the Normandy beaches on D-Day and wrote about it for Collier's after returning to England without ever having set foot on French soil. He rejoined the advancing Allied armies again in July, attaching himself to the U.S. Fourth Infantry Division. Soon afterward, the Fourth Division participated in the great breakout from the Normandy battlefields and Hemingway followed closely behind. On 25 August 1944, he accompanied General Philippe Leclerc's French Second Armored Division into Paris. The writer's spirited participation in these events has been related and analyzed by Hemingway scholars as thoroughly as the thin and sometimes-dubious sources allow. Hemingway left some letters and a thin dossier of writing that describe his participation in the events of the Allied advance from the

English Channel to his celebrated "liberation" of the bar at the Hotel Ritz in Paris. Many Hemingway biographers, among them Carlos Baker (393-418), Kenneth S. Lynn (512-517), James R. Mellow (534-535), James H. Meredith, Jeffrey Meyers (398-411), Michael Reynolds (96-117), and Charles Whiting (passim), have described and commented on Hemingway's wartime exploits, often with justifiable skepticism. In a 2002 article in The Hemingway Review, William Cote discussed Hemingway's undoubtedly exaggerated claims to have killed 122 German soldiers during his time on the battlefields of France and Germany.

My task here is not to rehash all that yet again, but to examine one episode in Hemingway's war: his activities in and around the French town of Rambouillet, southwest of Paris in the days leading up to the capital's liberation. Hemingway claimed that he took charge of a rag-tag group of French resistance fighters on 19 August 1944 to keep the Germans from reoccupying the otherwise undefended town of 7,300, about thirty miles southwest of Paris. He employed his band of maquis (guerrillas) to scout the area and gather intelligence on German positions and mine fields, which he passed along to American military officers, especially Colonel David K. Bruce of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services.) Hemingway wrote about his exploits for Collier's Magazine (30 September 1944) and Colonel Bruce related them in some detail in his wartime diary, published in 1991 as OSS against the Reich. The photographer Robert Capa also made brief mention of Hemingway's band in Rambouillet in his war-time memoirs, Slightly Out of Focus (168-169).

According to Bruce, Capa, and Hemingway himself, the famous writer acted as the coordinator, translator, and interrogator for the band of French maquis, who, along with a handful of OSS officers, held the town while German stragglers and rearguard roamed about the countryside without opposition. As the highest ranking officer in the area, Bruce was overwhelmed trying to play his own role--infiltrating Allied agents behind the German lines to gather information about enemy troops in and around Paris--and handle all the affairs of the nervous French civilians left behind in Rambouillet. So Bruce was happy to have Hemingway serve as his unofficial liaison with the French guerrillas.

Some of Hemingway's biographers accept the writer's versions of events that August with skepticism. Kenneth Lynn (514) downplays or dismisses the intelligence gathered around Rambouillet by French irregulars reporting to Hemingway. James Mellow noted, "The whole question of Hemingway's exploits in World War II is mined with Hemingway's assertions, many of which have some basis in fact but which are sometimes dubious in the telling" (534-535). However, Mellow asserts that Hemingway played down his participation in the war rather than magnifying it. Carlos Baker largely believes Hemingway's version of events around Rambouillet, yet he, too, claims that Hemingway exaggerated the importance of the intelligence gathered by his maquis (408-11). Jeffrey Meyers bases his version of Hemingway's doings in Rambouillet largely on the diaries of OSS agent, David Bruce (406-407). This would seem to be a safe bet as Bruce was there, in close contact with Hemingway, and had little reason to distort the truth. Michael Reynolds also relies heavily on Colonel Bruce's diaries for a believable version of the circumstances at Rambouillet (105-107).

Hemingway's strange doings raised a good many eyebrows among Allied forces and other war correspondents trickling into Rambouillet and ultimately led to an investigation by the Third Army's Inspector General to determine if the writer's claim to have directed French guerrillas was consistent with his status as an accredited war correspondent. A transcript of Hemingway's own testimony in the investigation was saved by the transcriber, Staff Sergeant George Blam, and made available to scholars in 1995. It has been reproduced and can be read in The Dictionary of Literary Biography, volume 210, Ernest Hemingway (256-261).

However, the full results of that investigation, found in the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, have not yet been consulted by any Hemingway scholar. The Army's report sheds more light on the writer's activities and the veracity of his claims, while clearing up questions about the origins and fate of the investigation. But reading it does little to dismiss other questions raised by some Hemingway biographers, principally Cote and Meredith: can the inspector general be trusted any more than the famous storyteller?

Hemingway claimed in post-war letters to have been coached by members of General George Patton's staff as well as by the chief investigator himself, Colonel C.C. Park. According to William Cote, Hemingway wrote after the war to his old friend and Army companion, Colonel Charles T. Lanham, that his interrogator told him what to say during the interview. Cote also cites a 1952 letter from Hemingway to Judge Paul Leahy stating that he had been thoroughly prepped on his testimony the night before by his Inspector General investigator (96). James Meredith asserts that the Inspector General of Patton's Third Army "just wanted the case to go away" (92-93). That may have been true, however the investigation did not "just go away," and the report remains today the principal resource for determining what Hemingway was up to in Rambouillet in the days before the liberation of Paris.

Colonel Bruce and numerous Hemingway biographers who rely on him assume that a formal complaint by some jealous or resentful fellow war correspondent led to the Army investigation. That was not the case. The Public Relations Officer for General George Patton's Third Army, Lieutenant Colonel Kent A. Hunter, had heard rumors and gossip from reporters attached to the Third Army that Hemingway had stripped off his insignia identifying him as a war correspondent and not only taken up arms alongside French resistance fighters but had actually taken command of his own detachment (HI, interviews with Hunter, 2 and 26 Sept. 1944). Hunter's aide, Major James P. Owens, had a drink with Hemingway in the writer's room at the Hotel du Grand Veneur in Rambouillet around 22 August and reported seeing hand grenades, mines, and two submachine guns in the room, as well as large maps tacked to the wall marked with German positions and the route of French resistance patrols (HI, interview with Owens, 2 Sept. 1944). After hearing about what Owens had seen in Hemingway's room and thinking over the rumors he had heard about Hemingway's "guerrillas," Hunter became alarmed and sent telegrams to Colonel R. Ernest Dupuy, Public Relations Officer at General Dwight D. Eisenhower's headquarters (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, SHAEF), and to an unnamed officer attached to the Division of Psychological Warfare. As a result, the Third Army's Office of the Inspector General launched an investigation to look into Hunter's accusations that Hemingway's actions violated the Geneva Convention on the legal status of war correspondents. (1)

Colonel Hunter testified to Colonel C.C. Park, tasked by the Inspector General's office with finding out what was going on, that he had initially discounted rumors about Hemingway as just a lot of talk by reporters maybe jealous of the writer's fame (HI, interview with Hunter, 26 Sept. 1944). But, he said, when he received repeated queries from SHAEF about Hemingway's health, he grew alarmed and feared that headquarters was "sending me a warning of some kind or a request for information that they could not ask for openly, and that maybe they had disquieting thoughts about Hemingway." Why Hunter should have responded with such paranoia to seemingly innocent questions about Hemingway's health--he had suffered a concussion in an automobile accident in London only shortly before his departure for France--can only be guessed at. And Hemingway's reported comment to Owens, "you know, I am not a correspondent any more," evidently haunted Hunter. His report about rumors concerning Hemingway and his request for the Inspector General to open an investigation provoked a response. In early September, the Inspector General's Office of the Third Army began gathering witnesses who had seen Hemingway in Rambouillet.

From 22 to 25 August, Rambouillet filled up with anxious war correspondents from both the First and Third Armies awaiting the imminent liberation of Paris. Captain William A. Drake, who served as a public relations officer with the headquarters of the Third Army, was interviewed by Colonel Park about his knowledge of the Hemingway affair (HI, interview with Drake). In particular, Park wanted to know what reporters in Rambouillet had said to Drake about Hemingway. While in town, Drake had heard a good bit of joking and muttering about Hemingway being "the mayor of Rambouillet" and how anyone coming to town had to check with Hemingway to get a room at the hotel, but he was unable or unwilling to name anyone who made such comments. Not all witnesses were so reticent. A correspondent for the Associated Press, Edward D. Ball, testified that Hemingway's "conduct was very peculiar" (HI, interview with Ball).

   Hemingway was living a role out of one of his plays. I imagine 'For
   Whom the Bell Tolls.' I imagine he was battle happy. He had some
   big maps and on these maps he had some places marked for patrols.
   'I will put a patrol here. Or we better get a patrol out there.' He
   had a bunch of these Free French boys that would come in and salute
   him, and 'have him report to me,' or they would hand Hemingway a
   paper and Hemingway would hand it to somebody and say, 'make three
   copies of that right away.' Instead of violating any rules, I think
   Hemingway was having a good time.

Ball also admitted to Colonel Park that he did not speak or understand French, so could not testify to what was being said most of the time. Ball joined in with other correspondents in ribbing Hemingway about his role in Rambouillet, jokingly telling him that Congress had just voted to give him another star (making him a general), or that the OSS colonels in town (David Bruce and Charles Vanderblue) served as Hemingway's Chief of Staff and G-2 (intelligence).

Another reporter, Pierre J. Huss of the International News Service, who did speak French, testified that he never saw or heard Hemingway giving any orders to any maquis, never saw him armed, nor ever saw him behaving in a way inconsistent with being a war correspondent (HI, interview with Huss). He also testified that during his two-day stay in Rambouillet he saw Hemingway very little and talked to him only a few times and then only briefly, but he did hear the gossip and rumors about Hemingway's antics.

A third correspondent, Norman Clark from the London News Chronicle, testified that Hemingway had told him that he had received reports of German activities from a band of armed French patriots reconnoitering the area (HI, interview with Clark). Clark also told Park that while he had no knowledge of the writer going out on these patrols, he had seen him handle weapons. At one point Clark called up to Hemingway's window asking him to throw down a bottle of booze and the writer responded by appearing at the window with two hand grenades. This was certainly a joke and was perceived by Clark as such, nevertheless it was evidence that Hemingway kept arms in his room. However, Clark also testified that Hemingway had told him and a number of other reporters at Mont St. Michel that he had indeed personally engaged in fighting the Germans during the Fourth Division's bitter fighting in the Norman hedgerows. Colonel Park concluded that this was almost certainly a tall tale by the imaginative Hemingway.

Colonel Park located OSS Colonel Charles S. Vanderblue, who had spent time in Rambouillet in close contact with both the writer and with Colonel Bruce (HI, interview with Vanderblue). Vanderblue was initially dispatched to Rambouillet to deliver arms for the lightly armed OSS agents in town--there were six of them--who along with Hemingway and the local French volunteers, constituted the only Allied presence in the town. Vanderblue testified that when he arrived in town with rifles and grenades, Bruce stored them in Hemingway's hotel room because the room was convenient and seemed to serve as a sort of headquarters for the local resistance fighters. Vanderblue spent three days in Rambouillet. While he saw Hemingway talking to French guerrillas, he did not believe that the writer acted in any ways inconsistent with the duties of a war correspondent. Vanderblue's views about the scope of a correspondent's duties were expansive, to say the least.

Colonel Park also interviewed Colonel Hunter and Major Owens to ascertain just what they knew from personal observation about Hemingway's conduct that might have been inconsistent with his status as a war correspondent. Aside from Owens's meeting in the writer's hotel room, Owens had seen nothing (HI, interview with Owens, 2 Sept. 1944). Colonel Hunter testified that he knew only what he had heard from Owens--who had never made a formal written report on the matter--and the gossip he picked up from other reporters (HI, interview with Hunter, 2 Sept. 1944). Hunter had no firsthand knowledge of Hemingway's actions. Neither did Captain Ernest C. Deane, staff photographer for the Third Army, who had spent time in Rambouillet during Hemingway's stay there and called all the gossip he heard about the writer "mostly just a lot of confab, as far as I was concerned" (HI, interview with Deane).

With those perfunctory interviews with three reporters (Edward Ball, Pierre Huss, and Norman Clark), OSS Colonel Vanderblue, photographer Deane, and Third Army Public Relations Officers Drake, Hunter, and Owens, Colonel Park submitted his report to General Patton, concluding that he had not come across any evidence that Hemingway had broken any rules (HI, memo from Park). Park stated that he had been unable to locate either Colonel Bruce or Ernest Hemingway and thus had not interviewed them. While there was good reason to believe that Hemingway kept arms in his room, that did not appear to break any rules. Park recommended that Colonel Hunter be admonished for making claims against Hemingway that could not be substantiated and that the Inspector General of the Twelfth Army Group take up the investigation if he believed more information was needed. (2)

The Inspector General of the Twelfth Army Group did believe more information was needed and also thought Park was ducking his responsibility by trying to pass the investigation on to General Omar Bradley's command rather than General Patton's. The report was kicked back to Park with orders that he reinterview Hunter and Owens and find Bruce and Hemingway for their version of events (12 AG HI, telegram from F.G.R., 22 Sept. 1944).

Colonel Park then tracked down Hemingway, Colonel Bruce, and numerous other people who had contact with the writer at Rambouillet. He also found several men who had traveled or worked with Hemingway in July and early August and could testify to his comportment earlier in the conflict in France. Park located Hemingway on the eastern frontier of France and had him transported to Nancy to be interviewed on 6 October. Without admitting that he ever carried arms or acted in any way inconsistent with his obligations as a war correspondent, Hemingway confessed his role as an intermediary between the OSS officers in town and the free-lance French guerillas (HI, interview with Hemingway). Hemingway asserted that he had accompanied the French patrols only to see the situation for himself and "to give me necessary information for the writing of my articles. It is perfectly permissible for a correspondent to go on infantry patrols." Yes, there were arms in his room; no, they were not his. He insisted that he did not remove his correspondent's insignia except incidentally, such as when he removed his coat or shirt to cool off. The writer maintained throughout his interview that he had done nothing wrong.

Colonel Bruce was also located and interviewed by Colonel James H. Day at the Inspector General's Office in Paris on 10 October. Pressed by Colonel Day, Bruce maintained that Hemingway served in a capacity unlike any other war correspondent that he knew of, but as gathering information was a correspondent's job, and that is what Hemingway was doing in Rambouillet, he did not violate the Geneva Convention--as he understood it--and did not act in any overtly military capacity (HI, interview with Bruce). Bruce supported Hemingway at every turn and said nothing that contradicted the writer's version of events. And if Hemingway's French irregulars called him "mon capitaine"--and both Hemingway and Bruce agreed that they did--it was only out of affection, or so Hemingway claimed. Although Hemingway's irregulars were armed, they did not seek out clashes with the Germans, and Hemingway passed on Colonel Bruce's request that they avoid fighting with the Germans and act simply as scouts gathering intelligence. According to both Bruce and Hemingway, that is exactly what the forces answering to Hemingway did, even if several of them did become involved in skirmishes with Germans and two lost their lives. Bruce consistently praised Hemingway and expressed his gratitude and great appreciation for the role the author played in guiding the French irregulars and passing along valuable intelligence gathered by them. Bruce insisted that the eventual push into Paris by General Leclerc's French Second Armored Division was entirely planned according to information about German dispositions provided by Hemingway's crews (HI, memo from Bruce).

Much of Bruces's testimony was verified by Major Stacy B. Lloyd, Jr., who was also an OSS agent attached to the Twelfth Army Group (HI, interview with Lloyd). His goal in Rambouillet was to infiltrate Allied propaganda through German lines in order to get it into the hands of German soldiers in Paris. Bruce recommended Hemingway to Lloyd as someone who might be able to help him find French resistance fighters willing to undertake the missions. Lloyd asked Hemingway to help, which he immediately and eagerly agreed to do. The writer sent French maquis to him who would smuggle material through the lines. The Frenchmen successfully completely missions and Lloyd was grateful to them and to Hemingway for his help. Lloyd was unwilling to say anything adverse about Hemingway's conduct in Rambouillet, which, according to Lloyd, was entirely above-board and appropriate for a war correspondent. Captain Jacques H. Beau, OSS liaison with the French resistance attached to the Third Army, also spoke with Hemingway during his brief visit to Rambouillet and when interviewed by Colonel Park could think of nothing helpful to add (HI, interview with Beau.)

The Inspector General's Office also rounded up public relations officer Captain Marcus O. Stevenson and a photographer, Tech/5 Herbert Kimbrough, both from the Fourth Infantry Division, to discuss the time they had spent with Hemingway from 28 July until 15 August when Hemingway had been attached to the Fourth Infantry Division (HI, interview with Kimbrough; interview with Stevenson). Both men testified that the division was continuously slugging away with the Germans the entire time that Hemingway accompanied them; both men had been in more or less continuous contact with the writer, and neither saw Hemingway behave in any way inconsistent with his status as a non-combatant. Although Hemingway may have had a taste for action, he never personally participated in it.

Not surprisingly, Hemingway was the butt of much joking and the object of some muttering not only because of the privileged position he held in Rambouillet, but because many of the war correspondents filtering into Rambouillet did not view him as a correspondent at all. Hemingway was a novelist and short story writer who was granted recognition as a war correspondent because of his celebrity status, which he used as his trump card without reservation. Hemingway could apparently gain access to high-ranking officers simply by asking or even by barging in when others had to wait. His dispatches would have raised many eyebrows among accredited correspondents for the way that Hemingway himself always seemed to be at the center of the story.

There was another reason for much of the resentment and muttering about Hemingway, which was not strictly personal. The liberation of Paris was going to be the big story and every journalist knew it and wanted to get the scoop. Like some of the other reporters hanging around Rambouillet awaiting the big story of the liberation of Paris, Hemingway was accredited to the Third Army. The Fourth Division, with which Hemingway had been traveling since landing in Normandy, was long gone with the rest of Patton's Third Army. Generals Patton and Eisenhower had decided to skirt Paris to the south and head directly for eastern France in an effort to cut off as many German units as possible before they could reach the relative safety of Germany (Bradley 386; Eisenhower 296). General Bradley, commander of the Twelfth Army Group, had also decided that the honor of liberating Paris should be accorded to a French unit, thus General Leclerc's Second Armored Division was tapped to enter Paris. The easiest route seemed to be from the southwest via Rambouillet and Versailles, so Leclerc's division took up positions around Rambouillet accordingly. The French Second Armored Division was not part of Patton's Third Army, but assigned to General Courtney Hodges's First Army.

So, some reporters wanted to know, what are these guys accredited to accompany Patton's Third Army doing hanging around here with the First Army (HI, interview with Huss)? If the First Army was going to liberate Paris, the story should go to correspondents accredited to the First Army. General Bradley even joked to reporters about the impending liberation, "why don't you liberate it yourselves? You've got enough correspondents here to do it" (Bradley 391-392). Hemingway would have been happy to oblige and as he was accredited as a "magazine correspondent" rather than a "newspaper correspondent" he was free to work with any Army he wanted and was under no obligation to remain with the Third Army (HI, interview with Hunter, 2 Sept. 1944). While that privilege was known to the Public Relations Officers shepherding the correspondents, such knowledge may not have reached all the reporters grousing about Hemingway in Rambouillet.

Regardless of resentment against Hemingway percolating amongst war correspondents, none ever filed a formal complaint against the writer. Even Colonel Hunter insisted he never formally complained about Hemingway or requested an investigation, rather he sent "an informal report" to SHAEF and Bradley's Twelfth Army Group informing them that there might be a problem. Colonel Park's sharp questioning of Colonel Hunter in a follow-up interview reveals that the Third Army Public Relations Office had supplanted Hemingway as the center of the Inspector General's investigation (HI, interview with Hunter, 26 Sept. 1944). Hunter told Colonel Park that his request was based on some alarming statements made to him by his assistant, Major Owens, but that Hunter had no first-hand knowledge of misbehavior by Hemingway, only Owens's say so. For his part, Owens too denied that he had any personal knowledge of Hemingway's conduct (HI, interview with Owens, 26 Sept. 1944). He had heard only the same jokes and grumbling that had reached Colonel Hunter's ears.

In the end, the investigation that cleared Hemingway of any wrongdoing focused more on Colonel Hunter and his aide, Major Owens, than on Hemingway (HI, memo from Park). The Adjutant General to Omar Bradley's Twelfth Army Group--effectively the head of personnel--recommended that either Colonel Hunter or Major Owen, or both, be disciplined (HI, memo from Landon). In the end, Major Owens was admonished for reporting hearsay and wasting everybody's time (12 AG HI, Telegram from "F.G.R."). Hemingway was never charged with any violation for his actions at Rambouillet.

Hunter's allegations concerning Hemingway evidently were not the product of any personal enmity: Hunter told Colonel Park that he had expected the worst from Hemingway, but had been pleasantly surprised at how friendly, cooperative, "helpful and 100 percent agreeable" Hemingway had proven to be (HI, interviews with Hunter, 2 and 26 Sept. 1944). "Instead of being a problem child, he was an angel compared to some of the others." On the other hand, Hunter also maintained to Colonel Park that as an old newspaperman himself he seriously doubted any reporter who had seen Hemingway in Rambouillet would say anything to incriminate the writer. "I believe there are fifteen correspondents assigned to the First Army who know from first hand knowledge what Hemingway was doing in Rambouillet because they would make it their business to go and look just on the curiosity of every reporter. I don't believe the Spanish Inquisition would pull it out of them."

Does the investigation shed more light on Hemingway's activities around Rambouillet than his Collier's article? Not much, but perhaps some. Andy Rooney claimed that when he saw Hemingway in the dining room of the Hotel du Grand Veneur, he was in the midst of a crowd of reporters and "had a .45-caliber pistol strapped to his side" (194). That would mean that a lot of reporters saw Hemingway armed and, yet, no one questioned would admit to it and no one else came forward claiming to have seen Hemingway armed. Perhaps Rooney was mistaken or perhaps there really was a conspiracy of silence to protect Hemingway, as suggested by Colonel Hunter. Both conclusions seem possible and there is no way to establish which is correct.

Perhaps it matters little whether Hemingway ever actually carried arms or engaged in fighting. He never claimed to have done any fighting around Rambouillet and almost certainly did not. But he was also almost certainly protected by a number of people interviewed by Colonel Park. Major Edward P. Gaskell, an intelligence officer attached to Third Army Headquarters G-2 and working with David Bruce from 22 August--before waves of reporters and French armored troops flooded into Rambouillet--testified that he had heard the usual stories about Hemingway working with "FFI" (Forces fratifaises de I'lnterieure), but saw nothing personally, a claim that is almost certainly a dissimulation (HI, interview with Gaskell). If Gaskell worked closely with Bruce in Rambouillet--and he did--he certainly would have known that Hemingway served as the principal conduit of intelligence gathered from local French volunteers (Lankford 168).

Experienced and battle-tested FFI (who reported to French General Pierre Koenig in London) did indeed fight in France in the summer of 1944. Around forty such men gathered in Rambouillet while Hemingway was there, but they were separate from Hemingway's crew and answered to Colonel Bruce and not to the writer (HI, interview with Bruce). Instead, it was standard practice for the OSS to accept any French volunteers who presented themselves as FFI. OSS agent Captain William B. Dreux, who was dropped into Brittany in July 1944 to conduct sabotage and gather intelligence about German forces, quickly found himself shepherding a small force of maquis behind German lines (Dreux passim). Although some of them had been resisting the Germans for years and had gained a good deal of fighting experience, most of Dreux's small team were completely untrained teenagers eager for action. Dreux wisely discouraged them from engaging in any fighting and instead exploited their detailed knowledge of the area as valuable intelligence to be passed on to American forces beginning to pour into Brittany. The OSS rightfully recognized the foolishness of French teenagers squandering their lives in futile battles against hardened German regulars.

OSS agent Bruce would almost certainly have employed Hemingway and his band of French irregulars in a parallel fashion: to gather information but not to take on German troops. When a group of officers and men who served in General Leclerc's French Second Armored Division published a history of the division in 1945 as a tribute to their commander, they claimed that while planning the drive from Rambouillet into Paris, "there was no lack of intelligence agents, all volunteers, some of whom turned out to be excellent ..." and that Leclerc relied on their information to plan his drive ("Un Groupe" 45-46).

It certainly stretches the definition of war correspondent to have it cover Hemingway's admitted service as the central gatherer of intelligence on German positions and actions, which was then passed along to the OSS, G-2 (military intelligence), CIC (counter intelligence), and finally to General Leclerc's armored division. Interrogating German prisoners in order to pass information to the Allied military--rather than, say, for a Collier's article on German prisoners--certainly did not fall under the purview of a war correspondent and no doubt German authorities would have thought the same had the writer fallen into German hands. But none of that meant Hemingway was "not a correspondent any more," which, if he did say it, was certainly intended either as a joke or for dramatic effect--probably both. Only Captain Drake, Public Relations Officer attached to the Headquarters of the Third Army, ventured when prodded by Colonel Park, that leading a French guerrilla unit would have been outside the purview of a war correspondent (HI, interview with Drake).

While James H. Meredith and William E. Cote's contentions that the Inspector General's report was not terribly serious should be considered in view of the Twelfth Army Group's demand for further investigation, there is something disquieting about Colonel Park's report (Meredith 92-93). The first two-and-a-half pages of Ernest Hemingway's recorded testimony (HI interview with Hemingway) were taken word for word from Hemingway's account in his Collier's article "The Battle for Paris," which appeared on 30 September 1944--one week before his 6 October 1944 interview by Colonel Park. This supports William E. Cotes contention--based on Hemingway's letters to Charles Lanham and Paul Leahy--that Colonel Park coached Hemingway to give answers that would keep him out of trouble (Cote 94-96). At the very least Park allowed Hemingway to prepare his answers in advance and evidently in writing unless the writer had memorized his article, which is not likely.

The account given by David Bruce in his published diary, OSS Against the Reich, jibes closely with his testimony to Colonel Park, just as Hemingway's account published in Collier's differs not at all from his testimony in the investigation--and for good reason (Lankford 159-170). The principal value of all the testimony gathered by the Inspector General's Office is that it confirms Hemingway's own account of his doings in Rambouillet. While witnesses may have hesitated to say anything that might have gotten Hemingway into trouble, at least their testimony confirms the writer's account in Collier's. He really did lead a French volunteer guerilla force in Rambouillet that contributed to the liberation of Paris. He never claimed to have fought alongside them and most probably did not. He claimed to have stored arms for various fighters--both OSS and French partisans--in his room, while maintaining they were not his weapons, which they almost certainly were not. Even Hemingway's claims in post-war letters to have been coached by the Inspector General's office to provide non-incriminating testimony are substantiated by his obviously preconcerted response to his interrogation.

Hence, while readers will still want to approach Hemingway's version of events with some skepticism, at least he told the truth some of the time--or at least this time. And it is most likely true that information about German dispositions southwest of Paris gathered by Hemingway's maquis was used by General Leclerc's armored forces to plan their route into Paris. Thus, liberating the bars at the Ritz and the Travellers Club was not Ernest Hemingway's only contribution to the liberation of Paris.

APPENDIX

MATERIALS AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES PERTAINING TO THE HEMINGWAY INVESTIGATION

12 AG HI. Twelfth Army Group Hemingway Investigation. Reports of Investigations, May 1944-July 1945, Box 2. Inspector General's Section, Special Staff. Twelfth Army Group. Allied Operations and Occupation HQ WWII, RG 331. National Archives, College Park, MD.

Telegrams from:

"F.G.R." to Inspector General. 12th Army Group. 22 Sept. 1944.

--. 4 Nov. 1944.

HI. Third Army Hemingway Investigation. Reports of Investigations July 1944-Nov. 1944, Box 2. Inspector General's Section. U.S. Army Operational Support Organizations, RG 338. National Archives, College Park, MD. Box 2, U.S. Army Operational Support Organizations

Interviews:

Ball, Edward D. Associated Press war correspondent. 3 Sept. 1944.

Beau, Capt. Jacques H.. OSS. 1 Oct. 1944.

Bruce, Col. David K. OSS. 10 Oct. 1944.

Clark, Norman. London News Chronicle war correspondent. 2 Sept. 1944.

Deane, Capt. Ernest C. Photographer. Public Relations Section Third Army. 2 Sept. 1944.

Drake, William A. Photographer. Public Relations Section Third Army. 2 Sept. 1944.

Gaskell, Maj. Edward P. G-2 [Military Intelligence], Headquarters Third Army. 27 Sept. 1944. Hemingway, Ernest. Colliers Magazine war correspondent. 6 Oct. 1944.

Hunter, Lt. Col. Kent A.. Public Relations Officer. Headquarters Third Army. 2 Sept. 1944.

--. 26 Sept. 1944.

Huss, Pierre J. International News Service war correspondent. 3 Sept. 1944.

Kimbrough, T/5 Herbert. Photographer. Fourth Infantry Division. Interviewed by Col. Henry B. Greisen. 13 Oct. 1944.

Lloyd, Maj. Stacy B. Jr. OSS. Twelfth Army Group. 6 Oct. 1944.

Owens, Maj. James P. Public Relations Section. Headquarters Third Army. 2 Sept. 1944.

--. 26 Sept. 1944.

Stevenson, Captain Marcus O. Public Relations Section. Fourth Infantry Division. Interviewed by Col. Henry B. Greisen. 13 Oct. 1944.

Vanderblue, Col. Charles S. OSS. Headquarters Third Army. 7 Sept. 1944.

Memos from:

Bruce, Col. David K. to Inspector General's Office, Third Army. n.d. [Oct 10. 1944],

Park, Col. C.C., to Commanding General, Third Army [George Patton], 8 Sept. 1944.

Landon, Col. C.R., to Adjutant General, Twelfth Army Group. 24 Sept. 1944.

WORKS CITED

12 AG HI. Twelfth Army Group Hemingway Investigation. Reports of Investigations, May 1944July 1945, Box 2.. Inspector General's Section, Special Staff. 12th Twelfth Army Group. Allied Operations and Occupation HQ: WWII,. RG 331. National Archives, College Park, MD. [See appendix below for details of contents].

Baker, Carlos. Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story. New York: Scribner's, 1969.

Bradley, Omar N. A Soldier's Story. New York: Henry Holt, 1951.

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ROBERT FULLER

Bloomington, Indiana

NOTES

The author wishes to thank Richard Noble of the National Archives Record Administration for his valuable assistance in researching this article and Lynda F. Clendenning for her assistance and encouragement.

(1.) The original telegram sent to the Inspector General by Hunter is not contained in the National Archives file.

(2.) General George Patton, commander of the Third Army, answered to General Omar Bradley, in charge of the Twelfth Army Group.