The American Military

by Brad D. Lookingbill

  Even though the Allies agreed on basic war aims, American and British war planners disagreed in regard to the “second front” controversy. From the beginning, Marshall advocated an early invasion of France across the English Channel. British military leaders, however, preferred to keep the German command off balance with quick raids and aerial attacks. The Allies initially agreed to postpone a major offensive for a year, because a direct invasion of continental Europe seemed a logistical impossibility.

  During 1942, German submarine “wolf packs” threatened the movement of troops and materials across the North Atlantic. The Allied shipment of equipment and supplies, particularly to support cantonments, airfields, and bases, fell behind schedule. Hundreds of American vessels were lost, although the Navy gradually devised effective countermeasures to protect the Atlantic lifeline. Using convoy tactics in which warships and airplanes escorted vulnerable merchant ships, U.S. and British forces sank more and more German submarines. The clashes across thousands of ocean miles also involved salvos between battleships and cruisers. Within a year, the Allies began turning the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic.

  On August 17, 1942, the U.S. Army's Eighth Air Force conducted its first heavy bomber raid on targets inside continental Europe. A squadron of B-17s struck railroad marshaling yards near Rouen in France. Even though the bombs caused minimal damage, the appearance of American planes over Nazi-occupied territory indicated the potential for air power to disrupt the enemy's interior lines.

  Through a program called Ultra, London helped Washington D.C. to gain a strategic advantage by decrypting enemy communications and secret messages. Thanks to British cryptologists at Bletchley Park, they broke the German and Italian ciphers and routinely obtained valuable intelligence. Although the British and the Americans never shared their secret weapon with the Soviets, Ultra contributed to the increasing effectiveness of Allied operations at sea, on land, and in the air.

  Again and again, President Roosevelt assured Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin that the Allies eventually planned to open a “second front” in Europe. Winston Churchill, the British prime minister, preferred to move on French North Africa, which was controlled by the Axis Powers. Rather than a direct assault on the Nazi behemoth, he advocated peripheral operations against the “soft underbelly” in the Mediterranean Sea. Marshall opposed the idea, because the dispersion of forces threatened to further delay Allied plans for crossing the English Channel. Eager to launch Americans into the fight against Adolf Hitler anywhere, Roosevelt agreed with Churchill. “When President Roosevelt began waving his cigarette holder,” Marshall later confessed, “you never knew where you were going.”

  Marshall selected General Dwight D. Eisenhower, a member of his staff, as the American commanding general, European theater. Born in Texas and reared in Kansas, he distinguished himself over the course of a 25-year military career with the insight of his analysis and the lucidity of his reports. His leadership skills fostered amity within the high command, prompting British General Bernard Montgomery to observe: “He is the incarnation of sincerity.”

  Known affectionately as Ike, Eisenhower took charge of Operation Torch in North Africa. Beginning on November 8, 1942, U.S. forces landed at Casablanca in Morocco and at Oran and Algiers in Algeria. The inexperienced Americans encountered unexpected difficulties while confronting the Vichy French, which underscored how inadequately prepared they were for fighting the seasoned Nazis. On February 14, 1943, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel launched a surprise attack against the Army's II Corps at the Kasserine Pass. Eisenhower benefited from the tenacity of General George S. Patton, who wore cavalry boots and ivory-handled revolvers while leading his troops. Regardless of American missteps during the first encounters, he managed to prevail during the Battle of El Guettar in Tunisia. Hammered from all sides, over 250,000 German and Italian forces surrendered to the Allies on May 12.

  The Allies continued to fight against the Axis in the Mediterranean, where they launched Operation Husky next. On July 10, 1943, the Americans and the British landed in Sicily. Patton's Seventh Army captured Palermo and reached Messina, but he faced criticism for slapping two GIs suffering from shell shock and malaria in Sicilian hospitals. While the Allies slowly advanced across the island, the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini collapsed in Italy.

  For Operation Avalanche, General Mark Clark's Fifth Army landed at Salerno in Italy on September 9, 1943. With five divisions of Germans awaiting them, the battle for the beachhead raged for days. Aided by supporting fire from U.S. warships and aircraft, the 45th Infantry Division made a valiant stand to avert a potential disaster. Withdrawing inland, the Germans established the Gustav Line as a defensive position. The bunkers, emplacements, and trenches across the Apennine Mountains frustrated the Americans.

  On January 22, 1944, Clark attempted an end run around German defenses with an amphibious attack at Anzio, which stood only 30 miles away from Rome. Blocked by stiff German resistance, Operation Shingle left American troops trapped on the new beachhead. The intense fighting turned into an artillery duel. As winter passed into spring, the entire campaign in Italy seemed to stall. The Allied forces struggled to break through the enemy line at Monte Cassino, which guarded the highway to Rome. Following months of ruthless combat, the Fifth Army finally reached the city on June 4, 1944. Over the course of the campaign in Italy, the Allies suffered 312,000 casualties while inflicting 435,000 on the Nazis.

  Long before the floundering campaign in Italy ended, Roosevelt and Churchill informed Stalin about their plans for a “second front in the air.” The U.S. and Great Britain launched a combined bomber offensive in Europe called Operation Pointblank, which included round-the-clock air raids against German defenses. Accordingly, the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Forces followed their own preferences for strategic bombing. The former preferred nighttime bombing raids against major population centers, while the latter preferred the precision of daytime strikes against German military and industrial targets. The aerial assaults caused massive destruction to submarine yards, aircraft facilities, ball-bearing factories, and oil refineries. German Luftwaffe fighters and antiaircraft guns shot down thousands of B-17s, which resulted in attrition rates as high as 20 percent for some bombing raids. Owing to the longer range of the P-51 Mustang, fighter escorts began flying with bombers all the way to Berlin and back. By the spring of 1944, the Allies achieved air superiority over France.

  While the Red Army battled hundreds of German divisions in the Russian heartland, an impending invasion of France remained the foundation of the grand strategy to defeat Nazi Germany. Beginning on November 27, 1943, the Big Three – Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin – met for the first time face-to-face at the Tehran Conference. The heads of state and their military advisors discussed numerous global issues, including the eventual participation of the Soviets in the Pacific theater. However, none of the issues seemed more urgent than the “second front.”

  Stalin insisted that the northern coast of France represented the best location for the Americans and the British to concentrate their armed forces. Churchill suggested expanding military operations in Italy, the Aegean, and the east Mediterranean, which implied another delay that strained Allied unity. After several animated sessions, Roosevelt finally agreed with Stalin and committed to a firm target date of May 1, 1944. The Big Three approved what was dubbed Operation Overlord, which would be coordinated with Operation Anvil in southern France.

  “Who will command Overlord?” Stalin asked Roosevelt before the Tehran Conference ended. No one knew the answer at the time, but Secretary of War Stimson advised Roosevelt to appoint Marshall. The Chiefs of Staff preferred that the general remain at the Pentagon, where his leadership helped to solve the logistical problems of the different services, theaters, and commands. He avoided expressing his own preference to lead the long-awaited invasion, even though he began planning it a year earlier. Apparently, he showed no sign of disappointment when Roosevelt informed him of t
he decision to select someone else. The commander-in-chief told Marshall: “I didn't feel I could sleep at ease if you were out of Washington.”

  Despite rumblings in London and Moscow, Roosevelt knew his choice. A few days later, he flew to Tunis to meet with Eisenhower, who greeted him at the airport. “Well, Ike,” remarked the president, “you are going to command Overlord.”

  Great Crusade

  Eisenhower departed for Great Britain, where he took command at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force, or SHAEF. Summoning all of his skill and resolution, the supreme commander anticipated the largest, most complex military operation in the history of the world. Amid confusion and delay, he finalized Allied plans.

  Eisenhower faced the Atlantic Wall of Nazi dispositions that extended from Holland to the Bay of Biscay. He further complicated the logistical problems by increasing the size of the projected Allied force, which required more landing craft than anyone expected. The coastline of northern France, which contained sandy beaches pounded by surf, lacked available ports capable of berthing ships large or small. Given the rate of factory production in the U.S., the target date for the invasion in May became infeasible. On account of the moon and the tides, the Allies rescheduled the landing to take place between June 4 and June 6.

  While meticulously preparing for D-Day, the Allies implemented a secret plan of misdirection known as Fortitude. They assembled dummy camps, fictitious armies, and rubber tanks to convince the German high command that the invasion targeted Pas-de-Calais, where the English Channel narrowed. Instead, staff officers to the supreme commander selected Normandy for “a lodgment.” Without betraying the location of the impending Allied landing, squadrons of bombers and fighters ramped up their attacks on the Nazi transportation system.

  “You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade,” announced Eisenhower in his orders for D-Day. In the predawn hours of June 4, 1944, the Allied soldiers filed into landing craft in southern England. However, stormy weather in the English Channel forced another delay in the launch. A day later, the forecast began to improve. On the evening of June 5, Eisenhower watched thousands of paratroopers board their assigned transports. “Well,” he said as they departed for Normandy, “it's on.”

  Figure 12.3 General Dwight D. Eisenhower gives the Order of the Day, 1944. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

  At 2:27 a.m. on June 6, Lieutenant Robert Mathias rode aboard a C-47 Dakota toward Normandy. He was a platoon leader in E Company of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which belonged to the 82nd Airborne Division. “Stand up, hook up,” the jumpmaster ordered, as each platoon shuffled to the door. With the green light for the jump flashing, Mathias looked through the doorway at the explosions and the tracers. From the drop zone, the Germans furiously fired 20mm four-barreled antiaircraft guns and machine guns at the American planes.

  Suddenly, flak knocked Mathias down, but he got up again. Instead of calling for first aid, he called out “follow me” while leaping into the night. When he was located on the ground a half-hour later, he was in his parachute – dead. As paratroopers scattered across the Cotentin peninsula, Mathias became the first American officer killed by the Germans on D-Day.

  The amphibious landings on D-Day surprised the Germans, who initially dismissed the military action as a diversion from an anticipated attack at Pas-de-Calais. The Allied colossus included some 4,000 ships carrying no fewer than 195,000 sailors and 130,000 troops to Normandy. Over 11,000 planes provided a protective umbrella from the skies. Approximately 12,000 vehicles, 2,000 tanks, and 10,000 tons of stores crossed the Channel. Five American, British, and Canadian divisions along with three British armored brigades made the initial assault. They penetrated a heavily fortified area, which 58 German divisions defended.

  During the first 48 hours of fighting, the outcome of Operation Overlord remained uncertain. The British units quickly seized Gold Beach and Sword Beach, while their Canadian counterparts stormed Juno Beach. U.S. airborne divisions dropped near the westernmost flank of the beachhead and attempted to support VII Corps at Utah Beach. Once the 4th Infantry Division landed on their segment, General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., the assistant division commander and son of the former president, told them to “start the war from here.”

  Narrowly averting disaster, the American landing on the 4-mile segment known as Omaha Beach proved quite tenuous. Few of the amphibious tanks or howitzers made it through the rolling surf. With the German defenses along the shoreline largely intact, a deadly crossfire mauled the scrambling soldiers of the 1st, 2nd, and 29th Infantry Divisions. The survivors crawled across the sand to the seawall, while the mangled bodies of their comrades washed ashore. Because much of the demolition equipment sank in the water, mines and obstacles made every movement on the beach that morning perilous. By the end of the long day, Americans had suffered 3,881 casualties at “Bloody Omaha.” Nevertheless, the bulk of the troops fought their way up the draws that passed through the towering cliffs.

  Suffering some 4,900 casualties on D-Day, the Allies massed more than 100,000 men to consolidate the beachhead at Normandy. Within two weeks, their numbers grew to a million men. Their foothold on French soil extended approximately 60 miles wide and 15 miles deep. Tons of supplies and equipment poured into the forward positions. Naval guns offshore helped to clear the remaining coastal defenses. Despite bouts of stormy weather, Eisenhower's attention to detail made the “thin wet line of khaki” possible.

  While the aerial assault continued to blast German lines, the Allied boots on the ground attempted to break out from the beachhead. General J. Lawton Collins handled the drive to Cherbourg, although the Nazis destroyed the port facilities before he arrived. Soldiers maneuvered inland to face a deadly combination of mortars, snipers, and machine guns. More than a month behind schedule, Montgomery's troops eventually took Caen. The Allied advance slowed in the heavy bocage – a landscape of woods, heath, fields, and orchards marked by tall hedgerows and farmhouses.

  Spearheading the American advance through the difficult terrain, tanks such as the M-4 Sherman appeared inferior to the German Panzers. Its “thin skin” of armor caused the vehicle to “brew up” and burn when hit by a shell. Fast but vulnerable, its 75mm gun was outclassed in tank-to-tank duels. American tankers often survived counterattacks by firing on the move – something the Germans never did. According to conventional wisdom, it took five Shermans to knock out one Panzer.

  Eisenhower asked General Omar Bradley to command Operation Cobra, which pushed westward from Saint-Lô in late July. Under Bradley, Patton led the Third Army through Brittany in an “armored parade.” The speed of his columns demonstrated the significance of mobility, which involved a complex balancing of movement with equipment, organization, communications, command, and logistics. They traveled over 50 miles per day. They penetrated Argentan that August, but Bradley stopped Patton from promptly closing the Falaise gap to envelop the Germans. Thousands escaped the Allied pocket and lived to fight another day.

  Meanwhile, the sheer weight of American air power and artillery fire fell upon the escape corridor to the River Seine. As retreating Germans braved a narrowing gauntlet, the roads, highways, and fields became choked with wrecked equipment and charred bodies. It was possible to walk through the “killing grounds” while stepping on nothing but corpses for hundreds of yards.

  Along a broad front, the Allied divisions crossed western Europe to roll back the Third Reich. Operation Anvil was renamed Dragoon, which involved the landing of U.S. and French forces on the southern coast of Nazi-occupied France. Beginning on August 15, they raced up the valley of the Rhone to link up with the other divisions on the move. With supply lines stretched dangerously thin, Allied troops liberated Paris on August 25. The Americans reached the banks of the River Meuse, while the British entered the valley of the Somme. Supported by a transportation convoy system dubbed the “Red Ball Express,” infantry patrols set foot onto German soil. Unfortunately, Montgom
ery and Patton began to squabble about the next step. Eisenhower insisted that the Allies should advance shoulder by shoulder, so that no nation might claim all the glory for defeating Nazi Germany.

  Eisenhower agreed to Montgomery's plan for Operation Market Garden, which involved the deployment of 35,000 British and American paratroopers near Antwerp. Beginning on September 17, they attempted to seize several bridges for British armor units attempting to dash into the German heartland. The American 101st and the 82nd Airborne Divisions captured most of their targeted bridgeheads. However, the British 1st Airborne Division faced heavy resistance from German SS divisions at Arnhem. Montgomery underestimated the number of Panzers along the River Rhine, where strong resistance and bad weather hindered the foray. For more than a week, soldiers tried but failed to take a “bridge too far.” Because the Allies withdrew after intense fighting, Operation Market Garden represented a costly mistake.

  Near the Siegfried Line, autumn mud and winter cold slowed the Allied momentum. In the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, the Germans inflicted as many as 20,000 casualties on the Americans. The defensive barriers along the western border remained formidable, even after bomber squadrons pounded them for months. Although the “Great Crusade” liberated western Europe, German morale up front showed no signs of cracking.