Divided on D-Day

by Edward E. Gordon

  It was not until December 5 in Tehran that the president, hating confrontation, finally talked to Marshall about the possibility of staying in Washington. Only the day before, Marshall had told Hopkins that he would “wholeheartedly” accept whatever decision Roosevelt made. A greatly relieved president finally told Marshall, “Well I didn't feel I could sleep at ease with you out of Washington.”14

  DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

  With both Marshall and Brooke out of the running as supreme commander, there was little doubt about who would be appointed. The British high command was impressed with Eisenhower's likable personality and dedication to the Allied cause. Churchill had developed both respect and a genuine liking for this collaborative American, first as commander of US forces in England, then during his command of the Mediterranean campaigns. Churchill was impressed by Eisenhower's ability to smooth relationships between the British and American commands.15

  Brooke thought along the same lines, seeing Eisenhower as a far better choice than Marshall. Although he saw Eisenhower grow in command abilities during the Mediterranean campaigns, Brooke still had reservations about his strategic abilities. What particularly impressed Brooke were Eisenhower's abilities to develop the alliance structure into a day-to-day workable, successful operations command.

  On December 7, 1943, the second anniversary of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt's plane stopped in Tunisia to refuel before flying on to Oran, where the battleship Iowa would take him home. Eisenhower met the president's party at the airport and walked alongside Roosevelt as the secret service escort wheeled him into Ike's waiting limousine. Without any prior warning a smiling president stunned Eisenhower by announcing, “Well, Ike, you are going to command OVERLORD!”16

  Background

  Although Eisenhower's parents were pacifists, he had accepted an appointment to West Point in 1911. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Eisenhower was promoted to captain. Though he saw no action in Europe, Eisenhower was recognized by his superiors as an officer possessing excellent organizational abilities.

  After the war Eisenhower helped organize America's first tank units. At Camp Meade in Maryland Ike was assigned to tanks. There he met Colonel George S. Patton. They became lifelong friends. In 1922 Eisenhower, now a major, was sent to the Panama Canal Zone to serve as executive officer of the Twentieth Infantry Brigade under the command of Brigadier General Fox Conner, one of the US Army's leading thinkers and an expert on strategy and tactics. Impressed with Eisenhower's abilities, he organized an advanced course for Ike on military history and its lessons from the great past campaigns. In 1925 Conner helped Eisenhower gain admission to the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He graduated first in his class in June 1928.

  While serving as executive officer to the assistant secretary of war, General George V. Moseley, Eisenhower became known as an excellent staff officer in Washington, DC, military circles. This led to his appointment in 1932 as aide to General Douglas MacArthur, US Army chief of staff.

  In 1935, Roosevelt sent MacArthur to reorganize the military forces in the Philippine Islands. Ike followed him as his chief of staff. There Eisenhower began questioning MacArthur's policy decisions, and a lifetime rift between the two men began that never closed. This precipitated Ike's return to the United States in December 1939. He first served at Fort Lewis where he was promoted to colonel and made chief of staff under Major General Kenyon Joyce. In June 1941 he was assigned to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, the Third Army headquarters, where he was chief of staff under Lieutenant General Walter Krueger.

  As we have already noted, with his appointment as chief of staff in 1939, General Marshall began revolutionizing the army's structure in preparation to fight and win a global war. Among his many innovations was the creation of a board of retired generals, what he called the plucking committee. During the war's duration they put over seven hundred officers out to pasture. This gave Marshall the leverage to appoint to the upper ranks men he saw who had great command potential, with Eisenhower, George S. Patton, and Omar Bradley at the top of his list.17

  Eisenhower and Marshall had only met twice. But Ike's army-wide reputation and his planning role in the defense of the Philippines brought him to Marshall's attention.

  Five days after Pearl Harbor, Major General Walter Bedell Smith, Marshall's assistant, telephoned Eisenhower. “The chief,” he said, “says for you to hop a plane and get up here right away.”18 Because of Eisenhower's knowledge of the Philippines, Marshall immediately appointed him head of the Far Eastern desk at the army's War Plan Division. Marshall increased his responsibilities rapidly, in March 1942 making him head of the newly formed Operations Division, which dealt with military plans and operations throughout the world.

  By mid-1942 Eisenhower was promoted to major general and placed in charge of the US Army's European buildup in England. As we have seen, he then went on to command the Allied invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy.

  SHAEF Commander in Chief

  On January 17, 1944, Eisenhower arrived in London to assume command of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). COSSAC ceased to exist.

  When Eisenhower began his duties most of the other OVERLORD top appointments to ground, air, and naval commands were already in place. By previous agreement these were not Ike's to make. The British had backhandedly agreed to a 1944 cross-channel invasion. They had done most of its planning and would supply the majority of initial assault divisions. Though the British agreed to make Ike SHAEF supreme Allied commander in chief, they had insisted that most of the other crucial OVERLORD command appointments would be British.19

  General Bernard Law Montgomery had been named the overall ground commander of what was labeled the Twenty-First Army Group composed of all American, British, and Canadian forces. The air forces were placed under the command of Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory. Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay was given the naval command for OVERLORD, code-named Operation NEPTUNE.

  Aside from these senior appointments, Eisenhower had a free hand in selecting the other members of the SHAEF staff. As the top US general in Europe, he also appointed or vetoed all American army corps or division commanders, contingent on Marshall's approval.

  Eisenhower selected British air marshal Sir Arthur Tedder as his deputy commander. Major General Walter Bedell Smith became chief of staff. Eisenhower made COSSAC's former chief general Morgan a deputy to Smith, managing SHAEF's large staff.

  For US field commands, Eisenhower chose General Omar Bradley to head the US First Army. Later Bradley led the US Army group once it was activated. General Courtney Hodges then took over the First Army, and General George S. Patton was named the commander of the Third Army.20

  In three short years, Eisenhower, now fifty-four, had risen from colonel to the general commanding OVERLORD. While still noted for his charm and diplomatic skills, the years had taken their toll. He was a chronic workaholic and chain-smoker, and late-night conferences, inspection trips, and endless meetings with truculent allies had etched deep worry lines into his face. The weight of supreme invasion commands had transformed Ike into a more restless, abrupt, far less approachable personality.

  As supreme commander Ike learned that despite a lofty title his power was far from absolute. In reality he directly commanded very few people. In early 1943 Ike already understood that the British always considered the impact on their empire when making military decisions.21 Eisenhower mastered how to best cooperate and compromise with outside forces, be they political, logistical, Allied, or members of his own army command.

  Fig. 3.3. Meeting of the Supreme Command. Allied Expeditionary Force in London. February 1, 1944. Left to right (front row): Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur W. Tedder, deputy supreme commander, Expeditionary Force; General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander, Expeditionary Force; General Sir Bernard Montgomery, commander in chief, Twenty-First Army Group. Back row: Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, commander in chief, U
S First Army; Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, Allied naval commander in chief, Expeditionary Force; Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, Allied air commander in chief, Expeditionary Force; Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith, chief of staff to Eisenhower. (Collection of the Imperial War Museums)

  Eisenhower's primary job was to keep the Allied OVERLORD ship afloat and on course to its final destination. He did not take sides. Bradley, Patton, and other Americans often complained that Ike was too pro-British.

  After the landings, Eisenhower spent much of his time in Normandy. But he took no active command role. Part of Ike's personality and style of command was to delegate responsibility and scrupulously keep his hands off. Even after moving his headquarters to France, Eisenhower believed that he lacked the intelligence-gathering staff needed to direct events. Instead he visited commands, listened, encouraged, but refrained from issuing orders. As our subsequent analysis will illustrate, by electing to use such a very detached command style, Eisenhower ran the grave risk of failing to intervene effectively at critical moments during the Normandy campaign.22

  His lack of battlefield experience and personal success inevitably aroused the jealousies of many other capable commanders. “Just a coordinator, a good mixer, a champion of inter-Allied co-operation, and in those respects few can hold a candle to him,” wrote Brooke. “But is that enough? Or can we not find all the qualities of a Commander in one man?”23 After the war Brooke offered his final judgment on Eisenhower: “My opinion, however, never changed much as regards to his tactical ability or his powers of command…. As Supreme Commander, what he may have lacked in military ability he greatly made up for by the charm of his personality.”24

  Eisenhower was very sensitive to his shortcomings as a general in the field. This might in part explain his command style. But for all the players available in 1944, he was unmatchable as a supreme commander. Historian Max Hastings comments that “he revealed a greatness of spirit that escaped Montgomery, perhaps every British general of the Second World War with the exception of [First Viscount General William] Slim [hero of the Burma campaign].”25 Even his fellow American commanders often proved difficult. They were irked that all of the principal OVERLORD commanders were British. Eisenhower's extraordinary generosity of spirit during many moments of Anglo-American tension proved his greatness as supreme SHAEF commander.

  BERNARD LAW MONTGOMERY

  Eisenhower first met Montgomery in late spring 1942 while in England to kick some urgency into the US contingent organizing the buildup of American forces in England. While there, he also met with Brooke and Mountbatten. Overall Ike found the English to be helpful, pleasant, and warm allies. Then he met Montgomery.

  Ike and General Mark Clark motored to a British army training center in Sussex commanded by General Montgomery. “Monty” and his staff were briefing a group of American officers about lessons learned while fighting the Germans.

  Clark recounted that Montgomery set the meeting's tone with this opening announcement. “I have been directed to take time from my busy life to brief you gentlemen.” Montgomery then began a patronizing lecture, since he and Brooke both believed the Americans were inexperienced, a bunch of reckless newcomers, and, if not guided by a veteran British hand, might bring disaster to the Allies. Soon into the program Ike began to unobtrusively smoke a cigarette. Montgomery, wrinkling his dachshund-like nose, stopped speaking abruptly and demanded, “Who is smoking?” A startled Eisenhower responded, “I am, sir.” “Stop it,” Montgomery snapped. “I don't permit it.”26 Ike turned crimson and meekly snuffed out his smoke.

  On the trip back to London his driver Kay Summersby recalled that Eisenhower was “furious—really steaming mad,” overhearing the words, “Montgomery” and “son-of-a-bitch” as Ike's temper flared.27 He hoped never to encounter this arrogant general again. Unfortunately their association was to be long and filled with many troubling encounters throughout the war.

  Background

  General Sir Bernard Law “Monty” Montgomery, the hero of El Alamein, was the son of an Anglican Church of Ireland (Northern Ireland) missionary bishop. Although he was born in England, he spent most of his unruly and difficult childhood in Tasmania. Monty's many adult eccentricities were apparent earlier. He freely admitted, “I was the bad boy of the family.”28

  In 1902, the family returned to England. Bernard was enrolled as a day student at St. Paul's School in London. His last report described him as “rather backward for his age.”29 At home he was moody and silent.

  Monty was nineteen when he entered the Sandhurst Royal Military College in 1907. Slightly older than his Sandhurst colleagues, he was outwardly less mature. His undisciplined behavior almost caused him to be expelled from Sandhurst.

  When World War I began, Montgomery was a twenty-six-year-old platoon leader. In its opening days he was severely wounded. For his gallantry he received the Distinguished Service Order. Montgomery did not return to France until 1916 as a brigade staff officer. By 1918 Monty had risen to a lieutenant colonel and the chief of staff of the Forty-Seventh Division.30

  After the war, Montgomery applied for the course at the Staff College at Camberley, regarded as an essential step for reaching the highest army ranks. After he was turned down in 1919, Montgomery, a good tennis player, got himself invited to play tennis at the house of Sir William Robertson, his commander in chief. There he pled his case so well that shortly afterward he was ordered to report to the Staff College. In spite of his arrogant attitude that he knew more than his instructors, Montgomery must have distinguished himself, as in January 1926 he received a three-year appointment to the Staff College faculty.

  In the 1930s Monty was also a senior instructor at the army Command and Staff College in Quetta, India, with the rank of full colonel. In the summer of 1937 he returned to England and was promoted to the rank of brigadier, commanding the Ninth Infantry Brigade, Portsmouth. It became the star brigade of the British army. It was selected for special exercises in 1937 and 1938. At their conclusion, General Wavell, commander in chief of the Southern Command, commented, “Brigadier Montgomery is one of the cleverest brains we have in the higher ranks, an excellent trainer of troops and an enthusiast in all he does.”31

  When his wife, Betty, died in October 1937 from blood poisoning, David, his then nine-year-old son, was away at preparatory school. Monty never allowed his son to visit her. Nor was her son at the funeral. Only after it was over did he tell David. The impact must have been crushing, because David was very close to his mother. Monty then compounded this highly questionable treatment of his son by refusing his own sister's offer to let David live with her family. Instead the boy was consigned to some of Montgomery's friends in Portsmouth. He saw little of his son during the next ten years.32

  Needless to say, David did not follow in his father's footsteps. He attended schools at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge. Montgomery disapproved of David's career in international commerce, regarding it as bizarre and even fairly disreputable.33

  In October 1938, Montgomery was selected to command the Eighth Division in Palestine and was promoted to the rank of major general. The following May, Montgomery became seriously ill from suspected tuberculosis. After his arrival in England that summer, he was found to have an infection from a World War I bullet wound.

  Montgomery had arrived home at a very opportune moment. On August 28, 1939, he was appointed to command the Third Division. Less than a week later, Britain was at war with Germany.

  Montgomery seemed to be well educated and positioned for higher command at the opening of World War II. However, he had been denied a virtual component of a British senior officer's higher education—attending the Imperial Defence College in London. Opening in 1927, a group of twenty to thirty-six select army/navy officers attended a year-long course. Other officers eventually came from the Royal Air Force (RAF), the British Territorial Army, the United States, and even industry and government. From 1931 to 1933 Admiral Bertram Ramsay and Ge
neral Alan Brooke had helped direct the staff. They stressed its importance as an arena for learning the value of networking with all branches of the armed services. Many of Monty's contemporaries were selected. Among them were General Claude Auchinleck (1927), Air Marshal Arthur Tedder (1928), Admiral Andrew Cunningham (1929), General Harold Alexander (1930), Air Chief Trafford Leigh-Mallory (1934), General Henry Crerar of the Canadian army (1934), General Richard O’Connor (1935), and General Bill Slim (1937).

  The peculiar omission from this pantheon of attendees was Monty. His three OVERLORD fellow commanders had all attended or directed staff. Even Eisenhower had attended the US equivalent of the Imperial Defence College. Cunningham commented that his year at the college was “one of the most interesting and valuable I have ever spent.”34 The decision not to send Montgomery was a possible War Office judgment on his suitability for higher command. An Imperial Defence College year might have exposed him to the necessity for collaboration at high command levels during coalition warfare.

  At the end of September 1939, the British Expeditionary Force landed in France. General Alan Brooke was Montgomery's corps commander. Before the German offensive began, he had identified Montgomery as an eccentric but also inspiring division commander. Brooke particularly noted Monty's division exercises as “an eye-opener to me as to his ability as a trainer.” Taking the measure of the man Brooke appointed himself Montgomery's guardian.35

  It was a good thing he did. At the end of November 1939, Monty issued a divisional order to his troops on the prevention of venereal disease. Its explicit vulgar language showed a remarkable lack of judgment and sensibility for a British general. The Third Division chaplain filed a complaint that eventually reached Field Marshal John Gort, commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force.36