The Victors: Eisenhower and His Boys

by Stephen E. Ambrose

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  When Eisenhower took command, the Luftwaffe had been driven back into Germany to fight a defensive action, giving the Allies command of the air over France. Britain and America had put a tremendous effort into building their air fleets, including fighters but most of all medium and heavy bombers. The expense was staggering. One reason for the shortage of landing craft, for example, was the amount of steel, engines, and production capacity in general that had gone into building bombers. In addition, the air forces got first call on personnel, at the expense of the armies, where junior officer and noncom leadership suffered as a result. Building the air armadas, in short, had been a gamble in technology and technique. The armadas gave the Allies command of the air and thousands of planes to exploit it. Those two facts gave the AEF a great asset, unique in the history of war. Was it worth the effort? That was a question no longer worth asking; the asset existed. But it left an outstanding question: How to use it.

  There was no dispute about how to use it on D-Day. Everyone agreed that just before H-Hour and through D-Day, every Allied bomber that could fly would participate in the attack on the Normandy coastal defenses. But there was intense dispute over the role of the bombers in the two months preceding the invasion.

  Gen. Carl Spaatz of the U.S. Eighth Air Force and Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris of RAF Bomber Command were wedded to the theory that bombers, by themselves, could win the war. Gen. J. F. M. Whiteley, a British officer who had served as Eisenhower’s deputy chief of staff in the Mediterranean, had gone to the Churchill-Roosevelt-CCS conference in Quebec in September 1943. Whiteley reported that there was much discussion in Quebec about Overlord. His impression was that within the RAF and U.S. Army Air Forces (AAF, commanded by Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold) there were powerful groups “who hoped Overlord would meet with every success, but who were sorry that they could not give direct assistance because, of course, they were more than fully occupied on the really important war against Germany.”3

  Reduced to its essentials, the dispute between the airmen and the ground soldiers was simply put. Spaatz and Harris believed that the further behind the front lines their bombers operated—that is, within Germany itself, attacking strategic targets—the more effective they could be. Eisenhower and the SHAEF staff believed that the closer to the front lines the bombers operated—that is, within France, attacking tactical targets—the more they could contribute to Overlord.

  There was in addition a dispute between the bomber commanders. Although they agreed that Overlord was not really necessary, Harris and Spaatz had their own strategies. Harris felt RAF Bomber Command could bring about a German capitulation through terror bombing of German cities; Spaatz felt the Eighth Air Force could bring about a German surrender through the selective destruction of certain key industries, especially oil and synthetic-fuel production facilities.

  The army commanders, most of all Eisenhower, believed that the only way to bring about a German surrender was to overrun Germany on the ground, and that to do so required first of all a successful Overlord. They further believed that only air superiority made Overlord feasible.

  As so often happens with the military, the dispute was fought out not over the straightforward question of targeting but rather over the more complex question of organization and command structure. Here things were well muddled. Although Eisenhower was the supreme commander, in fact he commanded only those forces assigned to him by the CCS, and these did not include the Eighth Air Force or Bomber Command. The only air power SHAEF possessed was the British tactical air force and the American tactical air force (Ninth Air Force), under the immediate command of Air Vice Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory. Leigh-Mallory’s experience had been solely with fighters; he was a cautious, pessimistic sort; Harris and Spaatz neither trusted nor liked him; they refused to serve under him, or SHAEF.

  In January, Eisenhower argued with Marshall and Arnold about command. He insisted that Harris and Spaatz should be under SHAEF for a period of several weeks before the invasion so that SHAEF could pick the targets. He told Arnold he had “strong views” on the subject. To his surprise and relief, Arnold said he agreed that the bombers “should be placed under your direct command for the impending operations.”4

  Eisenhower intended to use the bombers to paralyze the French railway system. He believed it could be done and that once accomplished it would hamper German movement of reinforcements to lower Normandy. The program, called the Transportation Plan, would take time—it could not be accomplished with a two- or three-day blitz on the eve of Overlord. The strategic air force commanders were offering to participate in an interdiction program that would begin shortly before D-Day and would concentrate on line-cutting, strafing, bridge-breaking, and the destruction of a few railroad focal points. The Transportation Plan called for a prolonged attack on rail yards, sidings, stations, sheds, repair shops, roundhouses, turntables, signal systems, switches, locomotives, and rolling stock.

  Forrest Pogue, the official historian of SHAEF, writes that “in getting the[ir] proposal adopted, Eisenhower, Tedder, and Leigh-Mallory were vigorously opposed, on both strategic and political grounds, by most of the bomber commanders, by members of the 21 Army Group staff, and by the Prime Minister and most of the War Cabinet.”5

  Harris and Spaatz led the protest. Harris argued that Bomber Command, built for night raids and area bombing, could not achieve the accuracy required to hit marshaling yards, repair facilities, bridges, and other pinpoint railroad targets. Tedder, the strongest advocate at SHAEF of the Transportation Plan, indeed the man who had convinced Eisenhower of its necessity, even accused Harris of juggling figures to prove that his bombers could not hit the proposed targets. Spaatz insisted that the continuing success of operations against German oil refineries would assure the greatest support for Overlord; he convinced Arnold to change his mind and support him. Spaatz argued that his Oil Plan would in the long run immobilize the Germans much more effectively than the Transportation Plan.

  Eisenhower replied that the Oil Plan would have no immediate effect. The Germans had accumulated stocks of oil and gasoline in France in scattered and camouflaged depots. Only when those supplies were used up—that is, well after D-Day—would a stoppage of oil production affect German military operations in France. Spaatz shrugged off this point by saying that the Transportation Plan would be only of slight help in isolating the battlefield, while the Oil Plan would be of major help later. This was the crux of the matter: Spaatz assumed that it would be easy to get ashore and stay there; Eisenhower did not.

  The Oil Plan would also allow Eighth Air Force to retain its independence from SHAEF, a point on which Spaatz insisted because of Leigh-Mallory. Eisenhower was embarrassed by Spaatz’s open hostility to Leigh-Mallory and tried to reassure Spaatz that Tedder would personally supervise the air campaign. Further, as Spaatz noted in his diary, Eisenhower “tried subtly to sell Leigh-Mallory [to me], saying that . . . he felt that maybe proper credit had not been given to the man’s intelligence. I told him that my views had not and would not change.”6

  Unable to persuade the air commanders, Eisenhower turned to his superiors. He convinced Churchill that Tedder could act as the “aviation lobe” of Eisenhower’s brain—thus bypassing Leigh-Mallory so far as the bombers were concerned—but he could not persuade Churchill on the key point. The prime minister ruled that “there can be no question of handing over the British Bomber . . . Command as a whole to the Supreme Commander and his Deputy.” Further, Churchill insisted that SHAEF air plans should be subject to CCS approval. Eisenhower objected to submitting his plans to the CCS and “demurred at anything short of complete operation control of the whole of Bomber Command and the American Strategic Forces.” He felt so strongly that he told Churchill unless he was given command of the bombers he would “simply have to go home.”7

  This extreme threat—all but unique in the history of war; it evidently never occurred to Rommel to tell Hitler that unless he got control
of the panzers he would “go home”—brought the British around. The War Cabinet drew up a directive that gave Eisenhower “supervision” of the bombers. Marshall suggested the word be changed to “command.” The British refused, leaving Eisenhower “astonished.” On March 22 he wrote in his diary, “If a satisfactory answer is not reached, I am going to take drastic action and inform the CCS that unless the matter is settled at once I will request relief from this Command.” That same morning the British chiefs were meeting. When Eisenhower heard the results of their deliberations he added a postscript to his diary entry: “I was told the word ‘direction’ was acceptable. . . . Amen!”8

  Tedder prepared a list of more than seventy railroad targets in France and Belgium (for the obvious reason that it would give away the invasion site, the bombing could not be concentrated around lower Normandy). On April 3 it went before the War Cabinet for approval. The British had previously forbidden air attacks on occupied countries if there was risk of high civilian casualties, and now they drew back from the Transportation Plan for that reason. “The argument for concentration on these particular targets,” Churchill wrote Eisenhower, “is very nicely balanced on military grounds.” He added that the Cabinet took “rather a grave and on the whole an adverse view of the proposal.” Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden was especially adamant. He pointed out that after the war Britain would have to live in a Europe that was already looking to Russia “more than he would wish.” He did not want the French people to regard the British and Americans with hatred.9

  Eisenhower replied that he was convinced the Transportation Plan was necessary to the success of Overlord, “and unless this could be proved to be an erroneous conclusion, I do not see how we can fail to proceed with the program.” He reminded Churchill that the French people were “slaves” and that they would benefit most from Overlord. “We must never forget,” Eisenhower added in his strongest argument, “that one of the fundamental factors leading to the decision for undertaking Overlord was the conviction that our overpowering air force would make feasible an operation which might otherwise be considered extremely hazardous, if not foolhardy.” He said it would be “sheer folly” to refuse approval to the Transportation Plan.10

  Churchill put Eisenhower’s views before the War Cabinet. He spoke eloquently of Eisenhower’s onerous responsibilities. Care should be taken, he said, not to add unnecessarily to his burdens. Still, he complained that he had never realized that air power would assume so cruel and remorseless a form. The Transportation Plan, he feared, “will smear the good name of the Royal Air Forces across the world.”11

  Churchill wanted the French consulted. Eisenhower’s chief of staff, Gen. Walter B. Smith, then talked to Gen. Pierre-Joseph Koenig, the representative of Gen. Charles de Gaulle’s Algiers-based French Committee of National Liberation. “To my surprise,” Smith reported, “Koenig takes a much more cold-blooded view than we do. His remark was, ‘This is war, and it must be expected that people will be killed. We would take the anticipated loss to be rid of the Germans.’ ”12

  Churchill was almost, but not quite, beaten down. He decided to take the issue to Roosevelt and thus force the Americans to take their share of the responsibility for approval of the plan. He told Roosevelt of the War Cabinet’s anxiety about “these French slaughters” and of the British doubts “as to whether almost as good military results could not be produced by other methods.” Roosevelt must decide. Roosevelt replied that the military considerations must dominate. The Transportation Plan had won.13

  SHAEF put the bombers to work on the French railway system. By D-Day the Allies had dropped 76,000 tons of bombs (seventy-six kilotons, or about seven times the explosive power of the atomic bomb used against Hiroshima) on railway targets. The Seine River bridges west of Paris were virtually destroyed. Based on an index of 100 for January-February 1944, railway traffic dropped from 69 in mid-May to 38 by D-Day.

  But by no means was this accomplished exclusively by the bombers—the French Resistance played a major role. There was some French resentment, although not so much as Eden feared. Casualties were lighter than the pessimists in the War Cabinet had predicted.

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  On June 3, in “Weekly Intelligence Summary No. 11,” SHAEF G-2 assessed the results to date. The report began, “The enemy controlled railway system in the West has undergone and continues to undergo an attack such as no transport system has hitherto experienced either in intensity or duration.” Some 1,700 locomotives and 25,000 wagons had been destroyed or put out of action, which sounded impressive, but which constituted only 13 percent and 8 percent respectively of the preraid figures. Worse, the Germans were able to replace rolling stock by taking it from French civilian needs. As the summary noted, “The prime sufferers have been the French people. French traffic has invariably been curtailed at the expense of German requirements and an already greatly strangled French economy has experienced further setbacks.” Consequently, the losses “are not such that the enemy will be prevented from moving up supplies and reinforcements as required, although such movement will be less efficiently operated.”

  Beyond rolling stock, the Transportation Plan was directed against depots, turntables, and bridges. Some 58,000 tons of bombs had been dropped on ninety targets, inflicting great damage, but unfortunately the Germans were adept at repairs: “In many cases [the damage] has been cleared and the lines reopened within 24 hours, and in many more within 48 hours.” More encouraging was the report on railway bridges across the Seine from Paris to the sea; eight of the nine had been destroyed. Of the nine highway bridges attacked, seven had been destroyed or partially damaged.

  On the eve of D-Day, the SHAEF G-2 conclusion was ominous: “Evidence as to the effect on German troop movements remains unsatisfactory, but the effects till now do not appear to have been very serious.”14

  That judgment cast doubts on the wisdom of the Transportation Plan. The bomber commanders were never convinced that it was wise or effective; after the war, the official U.S. Army Air Force historians wrote, “Long after D-Day, there remained the sobering question as to whether the results of the plan were commensurate with the cost in air effort and the ruin inflicted on French and Belgian cities.”15

  But those in the best position to know, the German generals, were “strong in their belief that the various air attacks were ruinous to their counter-offensive plans.”16

  The plane that did the most damage was the B-26 Marauder, developed by the Glenn L. Martin Company. A medium bomber, it flew at low altitudes and could be extremely accurate, so it was the principal attacker of the railroad bridges and rail yards. After the war, Rommel’s chief of staff, Hans Speidel, said, “Destruction of railways was making regulated railway supply impossible as early as mid-May 1944. . . . Lack of fuel paralyzed all movement. The Seine bridges below Paris and the Loire bridges below Orléans were destroyed from the air before 6 June 1944.” (Speidel’s statement is inscribed on the B-26 Memorial at the USAF Air Museum in Dayton, Ohio.)

  In a 1946 interview, General Jodl said that “the complete construction of the coastal defenses was not yet finished and never would have been because the necessary sand and cement could no longer be brought up.”17 Gordon Harrison, the official historian of the cross-Channel attack, concluded that by D-Day the “transportation system [in France] was on the point of total collapse,” and this was “to prove critical in the battle for Normandy.”18

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  There was more involved in the disruption of the transportation system than just the bombers. The French Resistance played a part that was perhaps as important and that certainly was more efficient per pound of explosive.

  The Resistance had grown from practically nothing in the dark days of 1940 to a considerable force by early 1944. Like all successful clandestine operations, its organization was complex and fragmented, divided regionally and politically. Its acknowledged head was Charles de Gaulle, but he was in Algiers, far from the scene and incapable of exercising any
thing like rigid control. Liaison was provided by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) established by the British in late 1940 (the first agents parachuted into France in the spring of 1941) and the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS), modeled on SOE. OSS began operating in 1943.

  The Resistance had many significant weaknesses. It was always subject to German penetration. It was inadequately armed; in many cases totally unarmed. Lines of authority tended to be unclear. Communication within units was poor, between units almost nonexistent. It was mistrusted by the bulk of the population, as most French people wanted no trouble with the Germans and feared the consequences of stirring them up.

  The Resistance had assets, including bravery, a willingness to make personal sacrifices for the goal of liberation, and fierce patriotism. Most of all, it was behind enemy lines. It could provide intelligence of the most accurate kind (“I saw it with my own eyes”), it could sabotage rail lines, bridges, and the like, and it could provide an underground army in the German rear areas that might be able to delay the movement of German forces toward the battle.

  With regard to intelligence gathering, the Resistance was the best possible source on the Atlantic Wall because most of that wall was built by Frenchmen. M. Clement Marie of Port-en-Bessin in Calvados was one of many who in June 1942 was forced by the Germans to work on the construction of a major fortress at Pointe-du-Hoc (just west of what came to be called Omaha Beach). There was no heavy equipment; everything was done by shovel, by handcart, by horsepower, and manpower. The fortification was dug twenty-three feet deep into the ground. All the works, tunnels, trenches, and so on were covered; bunkers above soil level were also covered with topsoil and sod. Marie helped to pile earth on the sides of the bunkers, so that it gently sloped from the top to natural ground level.