personality, 180–81
photograph, 180, 281
Ramsay and Free French destroyer La Combattante, 182
US Twenty-Eighth Division marches down the Champs-Élysées, 282, 282, 293
de Guingand, Francis (British major general, Bernard Law Montgomery's chief of staff), 91, 201, 254, 255, 273
Dempsey, Miles (British lieutenant general)
background, 154
Bradley's prohibition, not Montgomery's, stopped Patton's advance to Falaise, 254–55
Caen, attempt to capture, 192
Caen Conundrum, 205–207
command of the British Second Army for OVERLORD campaign, 91, 99
D-Day beach landing, 154
Exercise THUNDERCLAP of OVERLORD planning (Apr. 7, 1944), 98–100
Montgomery's headquarters, 112, 254–55
Operation BLUECOAT, 217, 231–33
Operation EPSOM, 191
Operation GOODWOOD, 95, 206–10, 212, 214–17, 225
Operation MARKET GARDEN, 311–12
Operation OVERLORD final full-scale briefing (May 15), 105–107
Operation TOTALIZE, 95, 247, 249–50
photograph, 173
Ramsay worked closely with Dempsey (Mar. 1943), 331–32
Second British Army, 104, 172, 190, 246
Villers-Bocage, 172–74
D’Este, Carlo (historian), 46, 100, 163, 210, 254, 267, 328
Dieppe (France)
Canadian forces, six thousand troops, 35
Crerar's First Canadian Army captured Dieppe, 300
division-sized Allied raid on the port, 119
Germans drew the wrong conclusions from, 36
Hallett, Captain, 90
humiliating defeat, 35, 119
lessons learned by Allies, 90, 119
Morgan's COSSAC planners, 36
Royal Marine Commandos, 35
site for an exploratory foray (Aug. 13, 1942), 35
Third Canadian Division, 156
Dill, Sir John (British field marshal), 20
Dillon, Frank (US Army Air Force captain), 116
Dollmann, Friedrich (German general), 126, 141–42
Dowding, Sir Hugh (British air marshal), 45, 63
Dunkirk (France)
channel seaport, major, 35–36, 96
Crerar's First Canadian Army cleared channel ports, taking Dieppe, encircling German Fifteenth Army at, 300
evacuation of French and British forces (Operation DYNAMO, June 1940), 24, 76
German defenses concentrated around major channel seaports, 35–36
Germans wrecked the port, causing the Allies’ serious supply crisis, 300
landing beaches, COSSAC proposed, 40
liberated at war's end (May 1945), 300
Rundstedt defended English Channel fortresses to starve Allies of logistical support needed for advance into Germany, 307
supplies for British forces, 40
Eastwood, Sir Ralph (Gibraltar's governor), 108
Eberbach, Hans (German general), 26, 256, 261
E-boats (German motor torpedo boat), 103–104, 128, 154, 169
Eden, Sir Anthony (British foreign secretary), 59
Eisenhower, Dwight D. “Ike” (US general)
Allied air force commanders opposed being placed under SHAEF to support OVERLORD, 93
Allied general forces commander, 80
Allied ground force operational plans implemented (Mar. 1945), 80
arbitrator in dealing with egos of Churchill, Roosevelt, Marshall, Brooke, and de Gaulle, 323–24
background, 50–51
battlefield experience, lacked, 54
Bradley appointed to lead army invasion of France, 68
Bradley ordered to send Gerow's V Corps to aid Leclerc's French Second Armored Division to free Paris, 279
Bradley/Patton plan not supported; Germans regrouped their shattered forces in Western Europe, 316
Bradley urged to accept Patton for Normandy bridgehead breakout, 73
“broad front” offensive, Eisenhower's original (proposed, Aug.–Sept. 1944), 292
Brooke's reservations about his strategic abilities, 50
Churchill's respect for Eisenhower, 49
commander of Allied forces in Europe after D-Day, 61
commander of US Army forces in Britain, 27
D-Day invasion was delayed twenty-four hours due to bad weather, surprising the Germans (June 6), 113–15
directly commanded very few people, 52
Exercise THUNDERCLAP of OVERLORD planning (Apr. 7, 1944), 98–100
Expeditionary Force, supreme commander of, 51, 53
head of Far Eastern desk of War Plan Division, 51
invasion experiences (TORCH, North Africa; HUSKY, Sicily; AVALANCHE, Salerno, Italy), 64
Montgomery, Sir Bernard Law
Montgomery's initial operational proposals accepted (Jan. 1944), 88
Montgomery's patronizing lecture, 55
as temporary Allied ground forces commander during the first stage of OVERLORD invasion, 81
Normandy D-Day invasion planning, worked with Ramsay on, 27
Operation ANVIL would not be launched concurrently with OVERLORD, 89
Operation OVERLORD
airborne assault to go forward (May 29, 1944), 110
armada viewed from Eisenhower's war camp (SHARPENER) northwest of Portsmouth Harbor (June 2–3), 112
final full-scale briefing (May 15), 105–107
plan's ambiguities and the impasse over its bombing strategy, SHAEF resolved, 94
preliminary plan in Algiers, Eisenhower read (1943); wanted more division to increase assault force, 80
Roosevelt appointed Eisenhower supreme commander for, 50, 52
supreme commander, 62, 64, 79
Operation TORCH, British and American sources questioned Eisenhower's fitness to command, 67
Operation TORCH and Operation HUSKY, political figurehead commander for, 64, 79
Paris, decision to liberate, 283
Patton, Eisenhower's direct intervention with Marshall saved, 72
Patton appointed commander of Western Task Force invasion of Morocco, 71
Patton's southern thrust to the Ruhr stopped, 314, 319
personality and style of command, 52–54
photograph, 82, 288
primary job was to keep Allied OVERLORD ship afloat and on course, 53
requested landing craft and forty-seven additional LSTs from the Combined Chiefs of Staff, 89
SHAEF meeting in London (Feb. 1, 1944), 53
SHELLBURST headquarters in Normandy (Aug. 20, 1944), 245, 278–79
ship building for anti-submarine warfare, 89
Smith sent to brief Marshall, 49
supreme Allied commander in the Mediterranean, 61
Tedder's “Transportation Plan,” threatened to resign if not adopted, 94
Transportation Plan, supported, 100
US Army's European buildup in England, major general in charge of, 51
El Alamein (Egypt), 55, 59. See also Battle of El Alamein
Essame, Hubert (historian), 240, 277, 298
Exercise THUNDERCLAP (Apr. 7, 1944), 98–100
Exercise TIGER. See Operation TIGER
Falaise-Argentan Pocket (Aug. 6–22, 1944, ground offensive)
Allied divisions close Falaise-Argentan gap, 269
Bradley's issues, analysis of, 270
Bradley's stop order, four major controversies about, 253–58
Canadian forces issues, analysis of, 269–70
closing, 249, 251–52, 259–60, 265, 289
Eisenhower backs down, 258
Eisenhower refused to intervene and overrule Montgomery, 272
Eisenhower's issues, analysis of, 271
German and Allied casualties, 266–68
German army destruction, 266
Haislip's Seventy-Ninth and Ninetieth Infantry Divisions, 251
inconclusive victory, 274
military wasteland, 265–68, 265, 266
Montgomery, Sir Bernard Law
analysis of issues of Falaise-Argentan Pocket, 269
and his Twenty-First Army Group's victory, 268–69
indecision of and missed opportunity to annihilate the Germans, 269
role of national rivalries, 271–73
role of personal animosities, 273
Farago, Ladislas (Patton's biographer), 92, 223
Festung Europa (Fortress Europe), 15, 35–36, 96–97, 102, 132
Flanders field battles, 21
Foulkes, Charles (Canadian general), 270
Galland, Adolf (German air force general), 95
Garcia, Juan Pujol (code-named Garbo), 167
George VI (British king), 63, 105, 111, 137
German Wehrmacht
Ardennes offensive (Battle of the Bulge), 58, 319, 333
armed forces high command (OKW), 16, 121–22, 124, 135, 143, 166, 193
Axis forces surrendered in North Africa (May 1943), 29
Blitzkrieg, 123, 334
defenses concentrated around major channel seaports, 35–36
E-boats base and sorties on Allied warships from Boulogne, 169
German chain of command in Western Europe (June 6, 1944), 121
invasion of the Soviet Union (1941), 25
Luftwaffe, 31, 45, 95, 121, 125, 128, 135
Naval Group West, 121
Ninety-First Infantry, 109–10, 240
352nd Infantry Division, 109, 127, 133, 147, 150, 163
German West Wall (Siegfried Line)
Eisenhower gave Patton two extra divisions for push to the Siegfried Line, 285
Eisenhower stopped Patton's drive to outflank, 17, 277
First US Army successfully broke through, 296
Patton, George S.
and intelligence reports, 286, 289
lost the race to the Siegfried Line, 296
plans of for push to Siegfried Line, 285–86, 289
plea of to Eisenhower, 294
US Thirty-Ninth Infantry Brigade crossing Siegfried Line (Sept. 1944), 297
Geyr. See Schweppenburg, Leo Geyr von
Goering, Hermann (German commander in chief of the Luftwaffe), 121
Gold Beach (Normandy landing, June 6, 1944), 138, 155, 156
Gort, John (British field marshal)
commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force, 58
commander of the British Eighth Army, 59
Gott, William (British general), 59
Granville-Vire-Argentan-Falaise-Caen corridor, 106
Grigg, Sir James (British secretary of war), 62, 232–33
Guderian, Heinz (German general), 69, 334
Gustav defensive line, 29–30
Haislip, Wade (US major general)
Argentan, advance beyond, 252, 254
Bradley split Haislip's command, 258
Carrouges, near, 268
Falaise, within a few miles of, 252–53
Patton's orders to destroy Germans, 249
XV Corps, 241, 247, 249, 251–52, 256
Hallett, Hughes (British captain), 90
Hamilton, Nigel (historian), 100, 171–72, 238, 273, 297, 314
Hansen, Chester B. (US major) 247, 255
Harris, Sir Arthur (British air marshal), 17, 93–94, 106, 200
Hart, Liddell (historian), 42, 69, 160, 193, 296
Harvey, Oliver (Anthony Eden's private secretary), 59
Hastings, Max (historian), 16, 43, 54, 95, 100, 163, 203, 267–68, 324
hedgerow. See bocage terrain
Henderson, Horace Edward (historian), 269
Hesketh, Roger Fleetwood (US major), 37
Himmler, Heinrich (Reichfuehrer), 122
Hiroski Oshina (Japan's ambassador to Germany), 132–33
Hitler, Adolf (führer of Nazi Germany)
Albert Canal, rushed reinforcements to (Sept. 7, 1944), 304
Allies to land in the Pas-de-Calais sector, 124
Ardennes offensive (Battle of the Bulge), 58, 319, 333
assassination attempt (July 20, 1944), 212–13, 238
Atlantic Wall, 117, 119, 126 (see also Atlantic Wall)
completion date, 119
Aug. 15 declared “the worst day of my life,” 261
Battle of the Bulge (German offensive), 17, 58, 267, 274, 319, 328, 333
Choltitz ordered to leave Paris a wasteland (Aug. 23), 278–80
command structure from hell, 121–22
conference at Eagle's Nest mountaintop hideaway in Obersalzberg (Mar. 1944), 123–24
conference on Germany's defense of Western Europe (Sept. 1942), 119
conspirators rounded up by Gestapo, over seven thousand, 213
German defeat at Falaise due to Hitler's bungling interference, 268
Hofacker's forced confession, 213
Kluge deemed a traitor, 262
Kluge's letter and Kluge swallowed poison capsule, 264
news of Allied landings in southern France (Operation ANVIL, later DRAGOON, Aug. 15), 261, 284
Normandy legions, 124–28
Operation Lüttich, 242–44, 246
Operation Valkyrie, 213
photograph, 243
Rommel ordered to complete building of Atlantic Wall, 119
Rundstedt reinstated commander in chief in the West (Sept. 4), 307
Rundstedt's message about ending the war, Keitel gave Hitler, 195
Seventh Army put in strategic noose with the Mortain (Lüttich) counteroffensive, 270
Stauffenberg's bomb destroyed the conference room at Hitler's Wolf's Lair headquarters (July 20), 212–13
supreme commander, 121
See also German Wehrmacht
Hodges, Courtney H. (US general)
Antwerp, 300
Bradley's deputy, 66
chief of infantry, 66
Falaise Pocket, 246
First Army, 52, 235, 246, 291, 293–94
Operation MARKET GARDEN, 309
OVERLORD final full-scale briefing (May 15), 105–107
Vire, Germans pushed out of, 242
Hopkins, Harry (Roosevelt's chief advisor), 46, 49
Horrocks, Brian (British general), 300, 304, 309, 311, 313
Hussey, Thomas (British Royal Navy commander), 91
Ingersoll, Ralph (US colonel, historian), 274, 325
Inter Services Security Board (ISSB), 37
Isle of Wight (Area ZEBRA), 137
Ismay, Sir Hastings (British lieutenant general), 20, 45
Jackson, Stonewall (US general), 288
James, Meyrick Clifton (Montgomery's double), 105
Japan
Hiroski Oshina (Japan's ambassador to Germany), 132–33
Korean soldiers recruited by Germany, 127
Pearl Harbor attack (Dec. 7, 1941), 19–21, 23, 26, 46, 50–51, 66, 71
US chiefs of staffs and defeat of, 322
Jodl, Alfred (German general)
chief of operations, 121
Hitler's conference with Keitel and Jodl, 159
Rundstedt requested OKW to release Twelfth SS Panzer and Panzer Lehr Divisions to move them into Normandy, 143
Jordan, Jonathan (historian), 198
Joyce, Kenyon (US major general), 51
Juno Beach (Normandy landing, June 6, 1944), 156–57, 160
Kane, Thomas P. (US sergeant), 97–98
Kasserine Pass (Tunisia), 66
Keegan, John (historian), 26, 256, 267
Keitel, Wilhelm (German general)
chief of staff, 121
Hitler's conference with Keitel and Jodl (June 6, 1944), 159
Nuremberg trials, 213
photograph, 243
Rommel described hopelessness of their situation (June 11, 1944), 171, 213
Rundstedt and Blumentritt told Keitel the position was “impossible” (July 1, 1944), 193–95
Kenne
dy, John (British major general), 31
King, Ernest J. (US admiral)
anti-British prejudices, 86
Casablanca Conference (1943) and Operation ROUNDUP, 27–29, 28
chief of US naval operations, 23, 86
Operation GYMNAST, Roosevelt forced commitment to, 26
Operation NEPTUNE and minesweeping, 86
Quebec Conference (Aug. 1943), 20
Kirk, Alan G. (US rear admiral)
background, 85
commander of Western (American) Task Force, 85
Omaha Beach, 152
Stark's role in naval buildup for NEPTUNE, 85
Utah Beach, 145
Kluge, Gunther von (German field marshal)
Allied air attacks caused panzer personnel to begin abandoning their tanks and equipment (Aug. 8), 244
Allied fighter-bombers targeted his convoy of staff car, radio truck, and motorcycle escort, 261
army's disintegration reported (Aug. 16), 261–62
background, 195
command of the West, 195
frontline inspection of a shrinking battlefield (Aug. 14), 260
Hitler, Adolf
advice to, 214
headquarters of informed that Americans were “running wild,” 230
Kluge deemed a traitor by Hitler, 262
orders of to close the gap at Avranches by withdrawing panzers from other parts of Normandy (Aug. 3), 242
orders of to Kluge to disengage (Aug. 16), 256
letter to Hitler and swallowed a poison capsule (Aug. 19), 264
Operation Lüttich (German), 242–44, 246
overall theater commander and assumed Rommel's Seventh Army group, 214
photograph, 196
Speidel order to issue withdrawal order from Falaise Pocket, 262
St. Lo–Périers line, staff officer with order to hold the, 228
tour of Normandy front and to talk to the field commanders, 197
Weltuntergangsstimmung—the collapse of their whole world, 231
Knox, Frank (US secretary of the navy), 49
Kriegsmarine's Navy Group West (Germany), 128–29, 169–70, 187
Krueger, Walter (US lieutenant general), 51
Lamb, Richard (historian), 269, 304
Leahy, W. D. (US admiral), 20
Leclerc, Philippe (French general), 274, 279–80, 282
Lee, Asher (British wing commander), 311
Lee, Robert E. (US general), 288
Le Havre (France)
channel seaport, 36
COSSAC proposed three landing beaches between Le Havre and base of the Cotentin Peninsula, 40
First Canadian Army
cleared channel ports, taking Dieppe, encircling German Fifteenth Army at Le Havre, 300
encircled the German Fifteenth Army, 300
to land and cover the British flank and advance to Le Havre, 99
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