Divided on D-Day

by Edward E. Gordon

  After the extreme stress of the Battle of the Bulge, Monty had the supreme effrontery to inform Eisenhower that his broad-front strategy had failed and sent him a suggested SHAEF directive that read,

  FROM NOW ONWARDS, FULL OPERATIONAL DIRECTION, CONTROL, AND COORDINATION OF THESE OPERATIONS IS VESTED IN THE C-IN-C 21 ARMY GROUP, SUBJECT TO SUCH INSTRUCTIONS AS MAY BE RECEIVED FROM THE SUPREME COMMANDER FROM TIME TO TIME.36

  Eisenhower was infuriated by this communication and decided to tell the US/UK Combined Chiefs of Staff that either he or Montgomery would have to go. At this point de Guingand once again entered the fray, pleading with the supreme commander for time. After flying back to the Twenty-First Army Group headquarters, de Guingand told Montgomery that Eisenhower wanted to replace him. He reported that Monty “looked nonplussed—I don’t think I had ever seen him look so deflated.”37 Montgomery then agreed to sign de Guingand's draft retraction, which stated, “Very distressed that my letter may have upset you and I would ask you to tear it up,” and was signed, “Your very devoted subordinate, Monty.”38

  Montgomery created a great amount of inter-Allied friction throughout the war. Even the ego-driven Patton reached the point with Monty that he felt that “Allies must fight in separate theaters or they hate each other more than the enemy.”39 Tedder, Eisenhower's deputy, amplified almost everyone's general skepticism about Montgomery: “He is a little fellow (5'7") who has had such a build-up that he thinks of himself as Napoleon—he is not.”40

  In June 1945 Montgomery and Eisenhower exchanged notes at the war's end. They seemed to try and reconcile (at least on paper) all their prior differences. Monty stated, “I as British general had been proud to serve under American command.” Ike replied with a “very charming letter.” He described Monty's note as “one of the finest things I have ever received.” He then made a surprising statement: “Whenever decision was made, regardless of your personal opinion, your loyalty and efficiency in execution were to be counted upon with certainty.”41

  During the war the two famous generals had discussed the Battle of Gettysburg. Eisenhower promised to invite him to his Gettysburg farm after the war for a personal tour of the battlefield. By then Ike had been elected president.

  Invitations to the First Family's Gettysburg farm were rare, usually only given to the closest personal friends. In 1957 Monty solved that problem by inviting himself. By that time he had already finished writing his memoirs, which were to be published in late 1958.

  Montgomery sent Eisenhower a galley proof of the book. In it he said many uncomplimentary things about Eisenhower's command competence, including the assertion that the war could have ended in December 1944 if Ike had agreed to his pencil-like thrust across the Rhine to Berlin. Eisenhower was further startled to read that “I let him have his own way and he really planned the war.”42 The president was furious. He wrote to a friend, “My opinion [of Montgomery's book] is probably so much lower than yours that I would not like to express it even in a letter.”43

  Tensions were high when Montgomery arrived at the farm for his battlefield tour. During the tour that day Monty played up to the press as they scrambled around the historic sights. At one point Monty called over the heads of the crowd, “Both Lee and Meade should have been sacked.” Then he shouted over to Eisenhower, “Don’t you agree, Ike?” Resenting Monty's grandstanding and lack of good taste, Eisenhower told him, “Listen Monty, I live here. I have nothing to say about the matter. You have to make your own comments.”44

  After Montgomery's memoir was published, the president severed all ties to him. In Ike's judgment Montgomery was “just a little man, he's just as little inside as he is outside.”45

  Over the next decade Eisenhower's opinion of Montgomery continued to sharpen. In a 1963 interview with Cornelius Ryan at Eisenhower's home in Gettysburg in which they were discussing command structures and decision making from 1944 to 1945, Ike strongly expressed his ultimate frustration over his relations with the British general:46

  First of all he's a psychopath. Don’t forget that. He is such an ego-centric that everything he has ever done is perfect—he has never made a mistake in his life. He even says that all of the Operations after we landed on D-Day went absolutely according to plan. Montgomery got so damn personal to make sure the Americans and me, in particular, had no credit, had nothing to do with the war, that I eventually just stopped communicating with him. I was just not interested in keeping up communications with a man who just can’t tell the truth.47

  After the war Montgomery served as the commander of British occupation forces in Germany, and from 1946 to 1948 he was the chief of the imperial general staff. He continued attracting controversy until his death in 1976 at eighty-eight.

  RAMSAY: THE AFFABLE COMMANDER

  During our review of OVERLORD and subsequent Allied campaigns in northwestern Europe, we have seen both the great accomplishments of the Grand Alliance but also the antagonisms that clouded the relationships among the major commanders. Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, however, was highly professional and generally maintained cordial relations with the heads of the other British armed forces and with the Allied army, navy, and air force commanders.

  His experience with combined operations long preceded his Normandy command. After his success in evacuating British forces from Dunkirk, he was chief naval planner for Operation TORCH (the invasion of North Africa) and led the British task force for the invasion of Sicily. These experiences served him well in planning the combined amphibious operations of OVERLORD. Considering the enormous scale of this endeavor, it is remarkable that Ramsay only publically tangled with two US commanders. He had to press Admiral Ernest J. King to supply additional warships for the D-Day invasion fleet and then to keep them there until the operations were completed. He also had to deal with the complaints of Rear Admiral Alan Kirk, the commander of the US D-Day Western Task Force who objected to Ramsay's detailed planning.48

  Most notable was Ramsay's ability to work amicably with Montgomery until he called him out for the failure to clear the Scheldt Estuary and open the Port of Antwerp to remedy the Allied logistical problems. Montgomery had a very important reason for holding Ramsay in high esteem as Monty was a member of the British Expeditionary Force rescued at Dunkirk and thus was spared the fate of being interred in a German prisoner-of-war camp.

  They first really got to know each other in 1941 when both held posts for the defense of Southern England. Ramsay was quick to recognize Monty's considerable ability as well as the quirky side of his personality. Ramsay wrote to his wife, “We have a new General here and his name is Bernard Montgomery but I have nicknamed him the Iron General…. He is without a doubt a tiger of a man, full of ideas and opinions…and fairly stirring everyone up.”49 Montgomery invited Ramsay to give a series of lectures to his officers on the naval aspects of combined operations.

  In March 1943 Ramsay began working closely with General Miles Dempsey, Montgomery's deputy (Monty was still commanding forces in Tunisia), in planning the invasion of Sicily. Neither of them liked the look of the plan when it was presented to them—nor did Montgomery, who described it as a dog's breakfast. The original plan was scrapped and replaced by an invasion on the southeastern corner of Sicily with the American Western Task Force and the British and Canadian Eastern Task Force landing side by side.

  The letters exchanged between these two men were cordial, but Ramsay also very diplomatically indicates that Montgomery must respect Ramsay's sphere of command in this operation:

  I have observed, with some disapproval and not without amusement, that in your messages to Dempsey you have been in the habit of issuing universal edicts on matters which require joint agreement…. As Naval Commander Eastern Task Force I have considerable responsibility for its success and intend to have my say in the framing of the plan. Incidentally my directive states that I am in executive control of the Force until the Army is firmly established ashore.

  I do not for one moment suggest that you
would contest any of the above, but I think it is just as well that there should be a full understanding between us, my mind having been somewhat disturbed by the edicts which you have issued of late with your customary clarity.

  I look forward with keen anticipation to our association together.50

  Montgomery was notorious for his lack of tact and diplomacy. Ramsay's success in working effectively and harmoniously with Montgomery through the war in Europe is a testament to his ability to get the best out of other people, even those who are particularly difficult.

  Their disagreement over Antwerp was only temporary. But the clearing of the Scheldt was not the end of the problems in keeping the Port of Antwerp open, and Ramsay continued to devote his attention to these new difficulties.

  As Antwerp gradually opened for business, the Germans launched a V-weapons campaign to stop the flow of supplies. This V-1 and V-2 weapon bombardment began during the operation to open the Scheldt Estuary. The first V-2 ballistic missile struck Antwerp on October 12, 1944. This was followed by the first V-1 flying bombs on October 23. By the end of March 1945, 1,214 V-weapons had bombarded sixty-five square miles of Greater Antwerp. Three thousand people were killed, and there were about twelve thousand mostly civilian casualties. But only 150 V-1s and 152 V-2s fell on the port facilities itself. Although they managed to sink two large ships and fifty-eight smaller vessels, and damage a lock, the overall V-weapons did not appreciably interdict the Allied logistics pipeline.51

  As 1944 waned, the Germans realized that the V-weapon bombardment of Antwerp was failing to again close the port. This objective became part of Hitler's overly ambitious Ardennes offensive launched in December. After breaking through a weakly held Allied sector, the panzers were to swing toward the northwest and drive straight toward Antwerp. If they succeeded in again closing the port, the Germans would have effectively cut the British-Canadian Twenty-First Army Group's entire logistical supply line. On New Year's Day 1945, Ramsay worked on plans for naval cooperation with the Twenty-First Army Group to counter the threat. On the following day he boarded an airplane at an airport near Versailles to fly to Montgomery's headquarters in Brussels to discuss measures for ensuring Antwerp's security. Tragically, his plane crashed shortly after takeoff, killing everyone aboard; the accident report determined that the cause was pilot error.52

  In a eulogy delivered to the House of Commons, the first lord of the Admiralty succinctly captured the range of Ramsay's strengths: “If Dunkirk was a miracle of improvisation, the naval assault on Normandy was a masterpiece of organization, and Admiral Ramsay was the architect of both.”53

  In 1946 Alan Brooke, who witnessed all the bitter infighting and rivalries among the Allied commanders, offered this reflection: “Personally I look back on the many contacts I was privileged to have with Ramsay as some of my most cherished memories. His great charm, inspiring personality and the breadth of his outlook placed him in that category of men whom one meets only rarely in a lifetime and whose loss deprives one of an irreplaceable friend.”54

  PATTON: THE MAVERICK COMMANDER

  General George S. Patton was the only serving US general twice suspended from duty first in 1943 for slapping shell-shocked soldiers, and later in 1945 for hiring local Nazis to work in the occupation administration. Marshall would have sacked him in 1943, but Eisenhower needed this battle-tested, offensive-focused commander and kept the troublesome Patton. He had snatched Patton from obscurity for TORCH, used him as a decoy for disguising the invasion site in France, and finally called on his drive and skill to achieve the breakout from Normandy.55

  Few generals in World War II surpassed Patton as a field commander. In Norman Davies's judgment, “Patton's drive through France following the breakout from Normandy in 1944 and his drive through central Germany in 1945 were epic feats.”56 But he also was his own worst enemy due to poor impulse management and an uncontrolled tongue. His personality was enigmatic. Known for his flamboyant appearance with pearl-handled pistols on each hip, out of sight he was a careful planner and even read poetry. General Alexander found him friendly and forthcoming but not in the least way personally aggressive, and stated in his memoirs, “In spite of all his bravura and toughness and terrific drive General George Patton was a very emotional man. He loved his men and they loved him. I have been with him at the front when he was greeted with demonstrations of affection by his soldiers; and there were—as I saw for myself—tears running down his cheeks.”57

  Several German generals thought highly of Patton. General Gunther Blumentritt, Rundstedt's chief of staff, observed, “We regarded General Patton extremely highly as the aggressive Panzer-General of the Allies, a man of incredible initiative and lightning-like action.”58

  General Heinz Guderian, one of the fathers of the German blitzkrieg, told his captors in 1945, “I hear much about General Patton…. From the standpoint of a tank specialist, I must congratulate him for his victory since he acted as I should have done had I been in his place.”59 General Alfred Jodl, Hitler's chief of operations, went so far as to say that Patton “was the American Guderian.”60

  Lieutenant General Fritz Bayerlein, who served with Rommel in the African Korps, said he had been amazed at the ease with which Rommel was allowed to escape after El Alamein. He commented, “I do not think General Patton would have let us get away so easily,” and also repeated his own belief that Patton was Guderian's equal.61

  As we have noted when Patton was assigned as the Third Army's commander for OVERLORD, Bradley was very concerned over whether he could control Patton's “impetuous habits.” However Bradley's fears proved ill-founded. Bradley warmed to Patton as the campaign unfolded, and he later regretted his hesitation in accepting Patton as one of his army commanders. In fact Bradley concluded that the slapping incident tempered Patton's personality and helped to curb his egotism. “I shall go on believing that the private whose face he slapped in a Sicilian hospital ward did more to win the war than any other privates in the army,” Bradley wrote after the war.62

  If Bradley had overcome his apprehensions over Patton sooner, would OVERLORD have moved forward faster? Could Patton have broken out of the bocage in early July instead of weeks later? Could he then have spearheaded a breakthrough in July and even provided an incentive to his rival Montgomery for more aggressive action around Caen, so they would both encircle the Germans at Falaise and bring the war with Germany to an earlier end? We will never know. The history of a war is usually written by its winners and survivors. In their memoirs Eisenhower and Bradley criticized Patton for overconfidence and injudicious behavior. Patton did not live to refute these criticisms, as he died in an automobile accident in December 1945. But as we have seen, he complained bitterly in his diary about Eisenhower's indecisive behavior and failure to exert his authority over Montgomery.

  His diary also reveals that Eisenhower held a luncheon meeting with his four American army commanders and their air officers on May 10, 1945, only two days after the German surrender in Berlin. This was not a victory banquet. Eisenhower told them, “Very confidentially on the necessity for solidarity in the event that any of us are called before a Congressional Committee.” Patton then wrote, “It is my opinion that this talking cooperation is for the purpose of covering up probable criticism of strategical blunders which he unquestionably committed during the campaign. Whether or not these were his own or due to too much cooperation with the British, I don’t know. I am inclined to think he over-cooperated.”63

  Military historian Martin Blumenson found Patton's judgment skewed due to his distaste for coalition warfare but states, “What Patton was trying to express was his contempt toward those who had delayed final victory because of their mediocrity…. Patton believed his superiors had won the war the wrong way. They had been much too slow.”64

  Blumenson's chapter on General Patton in The War Lords ends with this final assessment:

  Patton quickened the pace of the war, contributed élan to the campaigns in which he particip
ated, and inspired his troops, as no one else, with pride, confidence and a desire to win. He was a masterful leader whose personality and exploits captivated not only his contemporaries but also subsequent generations. He was an authentic military genius.65

  BRADLEY–THE DEPENDABLE COMMANDER

  After General Omar Bradley overcame his reluctance to have George S. Patton serve under him in Normandy, he and Patton managed to overcome their previous resentments. They worked well as a team with no political backstabbing. Bradley and Patton formed a partnership that Eisenhower could count on—Patton the maverick and the steady Bradley. He needed both.

  Over the length of his career in World War II, Bradley gained the reputation as a supremely able battlefield strategist.66 With impressive results at every turn, he successfully made the transitions from deputy corps commander under Patton in North Africa and Sicily, then to army, and finally to army group commander with Patton now under his command in Normandy.

  Bradley was known as a steady, likeable officer and an excellent team player who got along very well with the other OVERLORD commanders, except for Montgomery, in the war's final months. Forrest Pogue termed him the “soldiers’ general,” who became renowned for “his sober dependability, dogged determination, attention to detail, and proper concern for those who served under him.”67 He was a modest man, who possessed humility, intelligence, and respect for authority.

  Bradley worked carefully with Eisenhower and was a forthright go-between in handling relations among the British, French, and Patton. He made Patton's spectacular advances possible and was the essential intermediary between rival commanders.

  Before Bradley left Europe at the end of the war, Eisenhower sent him a personal, sincere note recounting his deep gratitude and admiration toward him: