Divided on D-Day
Page 42
81. Barnett, Engage, p. 851.
82. Callahan, Churchill and His Generals, p. 221.
83. Montgomery, Memoirs, p. 297.
CHAPTER 13: CRISIS IN COMMAND
1. Alan Brooke, War Diaries, 1939–1945, eds. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (London: Phoenix Press, 2001), p. 564.
2. Quoted in Antony Beevor, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy (New York: Penguin Books, 2009), p. 522.
3. Frederick Morgan, Overture to Overlord (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1950), pp. 287.
4. David Woolner, “The ‘Special Relationship’ between Great Britain and the United States Began with FDR,” Roosevelt Institute, July 22, 2010, http://rooseveltinstitute.org/special-relationship-between-great-britain-and-united-states-began-fdr/ (accessed April 4, 2017).
5. Quoted in Maurice Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare 1943–1944 (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, US Army, 1990), p. 5, http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/001/1–4/CMH_Pub_1–4.pdf (accessed June 4, 2017).
6. Brooke, War Diaries, pp. 465, 475.
7. Morgan, Overture, p. 284.
8. Don Cook, “General of the Army: Dwight D. Eisenhower,” in The War Lords, Military Commanders of the Twentieth Century, ed. Michael Carver (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1976), p. 509.
9. Erwin Rommel, Rommel Papers, ed. B.H. Liddell Hart (London: Hamlyn Paperbacks, 1953), pp. 521–22.
10. Martin Blumenson, Breakout and Pursuit (Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of History, Department of the Army, 1961), p. 8.
11. Cook, “Eisenhower,” pp. 509–10.
12. Ralph Ingersoll, Top Secret (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1946), p. 12.
13. Cook, “Eisenhower,” p. 527.
14. Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph (New York: Dell, 1963), pp. 629–30; Carlo D'Este, “A Lingering Controversy: Eisenhower's ‘Broad Front’ Strategy,” Armchair General Magazine, October 7, 2009, http://www.armchairgeneral.com/a-lingering-controversy-eisenhowers-broad-front-strategy.htm (accessed April 4, 2017).
15. William Weidner, Eisenhower and Montgomery at the Falaise Gap (New York: Xlibris, 2010), p. 354; Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), p. 344.
16. Patton, diary, July 12, 1944, in The Patton Papers 1940–1945, ed. Martin Blumenson (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 1974), p. 480.
17. Quoted in D.K.R. Crosswell, Beetle: The Life of General Walter Bedell Smith (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2010), p. 722.
18. Max Hastings, Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), pp. 28–29.
19. Earl Alexander, The Alexander Memoirs 1940–1945 (London: Cassel, 1962), pp. 40–41.
20. Correlli Barnett, The Desert Generals (London: Allen & Unwin, 1960), pp. 8, 310–13.
21. Correlli Barnett, Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991), p. 615.
22. Rommel, Papers, pp. 280, 360–61.
23. Barnett, Desert Generals, pp. 272, 302–303, 308–309, 312–31; Weidner, Eisenhower and Montgomery, p. 243.
24. Martin Blumenson, The Battle of the Generals (New York: William Morrow, 1993), pp. 78–79.
25. George S. Patton, Jr., War as I Knew It (New York: Bantam Books, 1980), pp. 112–13.
26. Rommel, Papers, p. 521.
27. Quoted in Henderson, Blunders, p. 380.
28. Stephen Hart, Montgomery and “Colossal Cracks”: The 21st Army Group in Northwest Europe, 1944–1945 (Connecticut & London: Praeger, 2000), p. 189; Horace Edward Henderson, The Greatest Blunders of World War II (New York: Writer's Showcase, 2001), pp. 380–81; Beevor, D-Day, p. 522; Hastings, Overlord, pp. 211, 254; Rick Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light, vol. 3, The Liberation Trilogy (New York: Henry Holt, 2013), p. 182; Jim DeFelice, Omar Bradley (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2011), pp. 166–67.
29. Quoted in Alun Chalfont, Montgomery of Alamein (New York: Atheneum, 1976), p. 329.
30. Francis de Guingand, Operation Victory (London: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1947), p. 182.
31. Weidner, Eisenhower and Montgomery, p. 210.
32. Carlo D'Este, “A Lingering Controversy: Eisenhower's ‘Broad Front’ Strategy,” Armchair General, October 7, 2009, p. 5, http://www.armchairgeneral.com/a-lingering-controversy-eisenhowers-broad-front-strategy.htm (accessed April 4, 2017).
33. Mark Urban, Generals: Ten British Commanders Who Shaped the World (London: Faber and Faber, 2005), pp. 296–97.
34. Quoted in Atkinson, Last Light, p. 383.
35. Ibid.
36. Quoted in Jonathan W. Jordan, Brothers, Rivals, Victors (New York: Caliber, 2011), p. 458.
37. Quoted in Mark Urban, Generals: The British Commanders Who Shaped the World (London: Faber and Faber, 2005), p. 296.
38. Ibid.
39. Quoted in Antony Beevor, Second World War (New York: Little, Brown, 2012), p. 489.
40. Quoted in Tim Moreman, Bernard Montgomery: Leadership Strategy and Conflict (Oxford: Osprey, 2012), p. 15.
41. Quoted in Alan Moorehead, “Montgomery's Quarrel with Eisenhower,” Colliers, October 5, 1946, p. 12.
42. Ambrose, Eisenhower, The President, vol. 2, Eisenhower (New York: Simon and Schuster, 198), pp. 329–93.
43. Glenn LaFantasie, “Monty and Ike Take Gettysburg,” Quarterly Journal of Military History, Autumn 1995, p. 73.
44. Quoted in Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President, p. 392.
45. Quoted in LaFantasie, “Monty and Ike,” p. 73.
46. ““Longest Day’ Author Used Journalistic Accuracy for World War II History,” https://www.ohio.edu/news/months/july/007.html (accessed April 4, 2017).
47. Cornelius Ryan, interview with Eisenhower, Gettysburg, 1963. Cornelius Ryan Collection of World War II Papers, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. Though the transcripts and recording have survived, the Ohio University Archives has been unable to determine the exact date of the interview in 1963.
48. Symonds, Neptune, pp. 189–91; Thomas B. Buell, Master of Sea Power: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1980), pp. 453,465.
49. Papers of Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge University.
50. Ibid.
51. J.L. Moulton, Battle for Antwerp (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1978), p. 230; Kenneth Edwards, Operation Neptune (Sabon, UK: Fonthill, 2013), p. 332.
52. W.S. Chalmers, Full Cycle, The Biography of Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1959), p. 266.
53. Quoted in Chalmers, Full Cycle, p. 268.
54. Ibid., p. 7.
55. Stephen R. Taaffe, Marshall and His Generals (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas, 2011), p. 205; Norman Davies, No Simple Victory: World War II in Europe 1939–1945 (New York: Viking, 2007), p. 241.
56. Davies, No Simple Victory, p. 256.
57. Earl Alexander, The Alexander Memoirs, 1940–1945, ed. John North (London: Cassell, 1962), p. 45.
58. Quoted in Harry Yeide, Fighting Patton (New York: Zenith, 2011), p. 416.
59. Ibid.
60. Ibid.
61. Quoted in Michael Arnold, Hollow Heroes (Philadelphia: Casemate, 2015), p. 63.
62. Omar N. Bradley, A Soldier's Story (New York: Modern Library, 1999), p. 357.
63. Patton, diary, May 10, 1945 in Patton Papers, p. 702.
64. Martin Blumenson, The Battle of the Generals (New York: William Morrow, 1993), p. 272.
65. Martin Blumenson, “General George S. Patton,” in The War Lords: Military Commanders of the Twentieth Century, ed. Michael Carver (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976), p. 567.
66. Carlo D'Este, Decision in Normandy (Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky & Konecky, 1994), p. 506.
67. Forrest C. Pogue, “General of the Army Omar N. Bradley,” in War Lords, p. 538.
68. Quoted in Jordan, Brothers, p. 526.
69. Omar N. Bradley, A General's Life (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1983),
pp. 440–62, 463–67, 504–505, 552–53.
70. B. H. Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War (Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky & Konecky, 1970), p. 561.
71. Quoted in David I. Hall, “Much the Greatest Thing We Have Ever Attempted,” in D-Day, ed. Jane Penrose (Oxford: Osprey, 2010), p. 272.
(Pages in bold indicate photographs.)
ABC Conference in Washington, DC (Jan.–Mar. 1941), 23
Adam, Sir Ronald (British adjutant general), 202
Afrika Korps (Germany), 26, 59, 92, 120, 126, 158, 326
Alexander, Harold (British general)
background and personality, 60
commander in chief in Burma, 59
commander in chief of Middle East Command, 59
commander of Eighteenth Army Group and ground forces, 61
considered commander for Normandy ground forces, 60
Imperial Defence College in London, 57
Montgomery vs., 61–62
North African Campaign, 58
Allied theater commander in chief for, 60
Operation HUSKY, 71–72
Operation TORCH, 61
Allied air forces
American and British airmen, squabbling between senior, 95
“Big Week,” 94–95
Bradley and Operation COBRA, 226
Caen, battle near, 159–60
Cherbourg, 186
Flying Fortresses and Liberators escorted by Mustang fighters shot down over six hundred German fighters, 94–95
Mustang fighters gained mastery of skies over the English Channel and the Normandy invasion area, 95
Operation Lüttich, 244
Operation NEPTUNE, 116, 169
Operation OVERLORD, 93–94
support for ground offensives CHARNWOOD, GOODWOOD, TOTALIZE, COBRA, and Falaise Pocket, 95
Transportation Plan, 94, 100
Allied Military Government in Occupied Territory (AMGOT), 181
Allied Naval Commander (Normandy) Expeditionary Force (ANCXF), 81. See also Ramsay, Sir Bertram
Ambrose, Stephen E. (historian), 152, 272
American paratroopers, 142
AMGOT. See Allied Military Government in Occupied Territory
amphibious invasion
Dunkirk's beaches, 19
German, threat of, 117
German threat to United Kingdom, 117
in Mediterranean and the Pacific, 85
Normandy, 74
of northwestern Europe, 19
Operation AVALANCHE-Salerno (July 1943, Jan. 1944), 29, 81
Operation DRAGOON, 188, 261, 271, 283–84
Operation HUSKY-Sicily (July 1943, Jan. 1944), 81
Operation OVERLORD, 31, 284
Operation SHINGLE-Anzio (July 1943, Jan. 1944), 81
Speidel phoned Rommel (June 6, 1944), 163
ANCXF. See Allied Naval Commander (Normandy) Expeditionary Force
Antwerp (Belgium)
Allied armies, supplies for, 283
Allies captured Antwerp (Sept. 4, 1944), 307
Allies’ logistics nightmare, 301–302, 302, 303–305
Antwerp Harbor (1944–45), 302
Battle of Antwerp (Oct.–Nov. 1944), 303, 308, 318
British forces, supplies for, 40
Crerar's First Canadian Army and First and Fourth Polish Armored Divisions, 308
Eisenhower backed the wrong offensive, 306, 314
Eisenhower's orders to secure Antwerp, 290–91, 295–96
German defenses around major channel seaports, 35–36
German navy laid mines and deadly obstacles, 308
key objective and supply crisis, 300
logistical support for Allied drive into Germany, 292
major port vital for successful invasion and deployment of large numbers of troops, 39
Montgomery and Antwerp, 284, 292, 304, 306, 314
Normandy bridgehead and Allied shipping, 83
OVERLORD and capture of major ports, 39
port captured by Allies, 302
Ramsay's warnings, 303
Rundstedt deprived Allies of port facilities, 307
See also Scheldt Estuary
Arcadia Conference (Washington, DC, Dec. 1941), 23–24, 40
Ardennes (Belgium)
German offensive (Battle of the Bulge), 58, 319, 333
invasion routes to the Ruhr, 292, 295–96
Army Group B (Germany)
army's disintegration, 262
casualties (June 6 to Aug. 12, 1944), 266
Falaise Pocket battle, 268
Rommel, 121, 124, 126
Speidel and German defensive capabilities, 293
Arnim, Hans-Jürgen von (German general), 120
Arnold, Henry H. (US general)
Casablanca Conference (1943), 27–29, 28
Quebec Conference (Aug. 1943), 20
Atkinson, Rick (historian), 274
Atlantic Wall (German)
anti-paratroop defenses, 132
artillery bunker, bombproof, 131
beaches floodlit by searchlights, 131
“Belgian Gates,” 131
construction materials shortage and lack of leadership, 129, 132
“Czech hedgehog” or “horned scully,” 130
defenses concentrated around major channel seaports, 35–36
“dragons-teeth” obstacles, 500,000, 131
flooded low tidal marshlands behind Utah Beach, 132
German engineers dammed rivers and streams, 132
Germans deployed fifty-eight divisions between Norway and the Mediterranean, 126
German soldiers guarding, 850,000, 129
mines planted along the coast (4, 193, 167), 129
Organization Todt, German agency for military works, 119, 122, 129
Rommel fortification orders, 129
“Rommel's asparagus,” 132
Attlee, Clement (British deputy prime minister), 62
Auchinleck, Claude (British general), 57, 325
Barker, Ray W. (US major general), 34, 40–41
Barnett, Correlli (historian), 75, 84, 189, 325
Barr, Niall (historian), 16, 254
Battle of Britain, 63, 94, 117. See also Dowding, Sir Hugh
Battle of El Alamein (Oct. 23–Nov. 1942), 26, 55, 62, 92
Battle of Stalingrad, 27, 262
Battle of the Bulge (Dec. 1944–Jan. 25, 1945), 17, 58, 267, 274, 319, 328, 333
Battle of the North Atlantic, 22, 101
Battle of Villers-Bocage (June 11–12, 1944), 167, 172–75, 214, 232
Bayerlein, Fritz (German general), 126, 141, 168, 211, 227, 228, 241, 334
Bayeux (Norman capital), 15, 40, 87, 110, 143, 155, 166–67, 182
BCS. See British Chiefs of Staff
Beaverbrook, Lord (British head of the Minister of Aircraft Production), 64
BEF. See British Expeditionary Force
Bennett, David (historian), 314
“Big Three” (Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt)
Casablanca Conference (1943), 27–29
postwar future of Europe, 201
Tehran Conference (Iran, Nov.–Dec. 1943), 30–31
Blumenson, Martin (historian), 16, 267, 275, 279, 328, 335
bocage terrain (hedgerow), 107, 175–79
bocage/hedgerows of Normandy, 176
British Universal Carrier drives through gap in hedgerow, 177
German tank concealed in a hedgerow, 178
Boll, Heinrich (NCO, 348th Infantry Division), 117
Bomber Command (British), 25, 93–94, 144, 154, 200
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 288
Boulogne (France)
channel seaport, major, 35–36, 96
German defenses around major channel seaports, 35–36
German E-boats base and sorties on Allied warships, 169
Germans withstood siege by Canadians until Sept. 22, 1944, 300
Rundstedt defended English Channel fortresses to starve Allies of logistical support
needed for advance into Germany, 307
Bradley, Omar (US general)
background, 66
battlefield and logistics, 67
Bradley/Patton plan not supported by Eisenhower; Germans regrouped their shattered forces in Western Europe, 316
Caen Conundrum, 205–207
Cherbourg advance (June 13 to June 30, 1944), 179, 186, 190
commander at Utah Beach, 99
commander of American First Army for OVERLORD, 99
commander of II Corps in Tunisian campaign, 67
commander of new Twelfth US Army Group, 80
commander of US Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, 66
Cotentin Peninsula and airborne divisions, 88, 186, 198
dependable commander, 336–37
Eighty-Second Infantry Division, trained, 66
Eisenhower appointed Bradley to lead army invasion of France, 68
Eisenhower ordered Bradley to send Gerow's V Corps to aid Leclerc's French Second Armored Division to free Paris, 279
Exercise THUNDERCLAP of OVERLORD planning (Apr. 7, 1944), 98–100
Falaise-Argentan Pocket stop order, four major controversies about, 253–58, 270
Haislip's command split, 258
Marshall, General, 51
Montgomery
headquarters of (June 1, 1944), 112
Normandy campaign of was not defensive, 100
Operation HUSKY (invasion of Sicily), 67, 71
Operation MARKET GARDEN, Patton tried to enlist Bradley in a “protest” action to stop Montgomery, 307
Operation OVERLORD final full-scale briefing (May 15), 105–107
Operation TORCH, 61, 66–67, 86
Operation TOTALIZE (ground offensive), 95, 247, 249–50
Patton during campaigns, stood by, 67–68
Patton-Montgomery rivalry during the Sicily campaign, 68
Patton's advance to Falaise, Bradley's choice, not Montgomery's prohibition that stopped, 254–55
Patton's commendation, 67–68
personality, 67, 73
photograph, 221, 288
SHAEF meeting in London (Feb. 1, 1944), 53
Tunisian command campaign, 71
US First Army, commander in chief, 52, 53
Breadner, L. S. (British air marshal), 20
Brest (Brittany, France)
American forces, supplies for, 40
Brittany Sweepstakes, 238–41
captured Sept. 18 at a cost of ten thousand US casualties, 241
Fourth Armored and Eighth Infantry Divisions, 238
major port vital for successful invasion and deployment of large numbers of troops, 39