I cannot believe he really said “Nuts!”.
Was his response sanitized for 1940s public sensibilities?
This is from Delivered From Evil, The Saga of World War II by Robert Leckie:
May have been sanitized, but I doubt it. Nothing I’ve ever read on the topic implies that something different was said. The book goes on to say that the Germans didn’t understand the reply, so Go to Hell was sent back, with a promise to kill every German that attacked.
In addition, here’s what Wikipedia has to say:
Here is an interview with Lt. General Harry Kinnard who was the 101st Airborne Divisions G3 and was present at the time.
His report is that McAuliffe said, “Us surrender? Aw nuts.”
Here is the applicable part of the interview.
However, it’s a losing battle. People won’t be happy without McAuliffe turning the air blue for a hundred yards in all direction.
David is a bit older than I, but it’s my sense of the matter that courser profanity wasn’t nearly as common back then as it is today. That would be especially true of more mature, responsible men. “Nuts” would have been a pretty strong epithet in the 40’s, even though it sounds very mild today.
This incident is somewhat reminiscent of Cambronne at Waterloo, who is reputed to have answered ‘merde’ to the British request for his surrender. There’s some dispute about whether it really happened, but the story has stuck (when you start slinging merde…)
… and in any case, what passes onto history is not what he may have thought/blurted out upon hearing the challenge to surrender, but what he wrote down onto the piece of paper delivered back to the Germans, which was “NUTS”… as **A. R. Cane ** mentions, in that particular age it would be considered strong enough for an exchange between commanding officers (…wonder if a Brit commander would have answered “Bollocks!”).
As I said in another thread, I didn’t hear much swearing, if any, from our group’s commanders. “Nuts” wouldn’t have been particulary strong language even in i944. It was more like a disgusted comment to what was regarded by McAuliffe as a frivolous demand.
…um, ‘nuts’ would explain why the response had to be explained to the Germans… who should have been able to figure out what ‘shit’ meant…
Historian John Toland gives a more complete account in his book Battle: Story of the Bulge.
The German party came with the message which was finally given to McAuliffe eliciting his comment. He then returned to other, pressing business regarding the disposition of the troops, getting defences, living quarters, etc. organized. The 101st division had only been in Bastogne a few days and hadn’t been surrounded until 21 December. The German message was ignored.
Some time later the Germans said they wanted an answer and Toland’s account continues as in General Kinnard’s
Do we know for sure that “nuts” was intended as a profanity at all? I’ve seen and heard it used all the time as a mild imprecation like “rats.” I think I’ve even seen it Charlie Brown comics.
I think the answer to the OP is that the original response was, indeed, “NUTS”, just as it’s recorded in history, and an appropriate American response it was, for the era.
Nuts was not, in that context, in any way associated with testicles, but was an expression of mild frustration with a hint of insanity or madness.
Never mind that. When Cambronne was asked to surrender at Waterloo, did he reply “The Guard dies, but never surrenders,” or simply, “merde”?
I have heard that McAuliffe actually said “Balls!” and it got bowdlerized in the press, but that makes no sense; “balls” is simply equivalent Brit slang, and not a word a Yank would have chosen.
As long as we’re straightening things out about “Nuts” we might as well point out that the 101st Airborne Division wasn’t alone at Bastogne and give credit to the others.
This site gives as complete a listing of all those engaged there as can be had.
Combat Command B, 10th Armored Division, probably a tank regiment with supporting infantry.
Survivors of the 110 infantry, a mechanized infantry regiment a part of the 28th Infantry Division.
An unknown number of engineers from an unknown command.
Combat Command R of the 9th Armored Division.
Three 155 mm artillery battalions and an armored field artillery battalion from the Ninth Army.
705th Tank Destroyer battalion, also from the Ninth Army.
The US forces were encircled in Bastogne for 4 days. The defense of the town forced the advancing Germans northward where the roads were clear and allowed strong defenses to be established on the sourther flank so that a breakout into the US rear in the south was denied.
There is little evidence that he actually said “merde.” Later in life, he personally denied he said it.
"I was always under the impression that back then, saying “Nuts” was roughly the equivalent of “Go screw yourself”. or at least, “Not a chance, bub.” “Nuts to you” was a common phrase later, but did it predate the war? Or did it become a common phrase because of what McCauliffe said?
Random House Word Maven on Nuts.
The Word Detective on Nuts.
The Oxford English Dictionary traces the usage “Nuts” to 1931,
This definition is placed beneath
with related definitions connected to a lack of mental competence and not connected to definition I. 1. f. which refers to testicles.
(In fairness, Partridge does associate it with testicles, although he uses later citations and, I would say, has a tendency to look for the prurient, although he does do a decent (not perfect) job of supporting his claims. Still, the Random House, American Heritage, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries all follow the lead of the O.E.D. in relating the meaning to mental instability rather than to the testicles.)
I actually got the impression that Gen. McCauliffe said “fuck” but I don’t remember where I read that. The poster who stated that profanity wasn’t as common then as now was indeed correct. I’m 43, and the “f word” wasn’t anywhere near as commonly heard when I was a kid as it is now.