While Kuznets and May returned to academia, Nathan, along with Leon Henderson’s top aide, David Ginsberg, enlisted.62 Both had found themselves stunned by an article in a Virginia newspaper that claimed that thousands of Americans were dying while a couple of Jews (Nathan and Ginsberg) got paid for planning how best to send good Christian boys off to fight their war. Upon their arrival in boot camp, they saw a Washington Post article about their enlistment posted on a bulletin board inside the front gate. On it was scrawled in black grease pencil, “These sons-a-bitches arrive today.” Later that day both men were cleaning out the latrines when Ginsberg commented that so far the Army was not treating them very well, to which Nathan retorted, “About as well as or better than they treated us in Washington.”63
The effects of the 1943 reductions on military planning and future strategic operations were profound. In no small measure, these cuts decided when the invasion of northern Europe (D-day) would take place. Before examining how they did so, it is necessary to carefully analyze the positions of the Joint Chiefs, and in particular the position of General Marshall, in relation to the invasion. Marshall’s stance on the invasion of Europe at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943 was decisively influenced by debates over feasibility in October and November 1942.
CHAPTER 9
Marshall’s Commitment to a 1943 Invasion of Europe
In 2005 the Army Center for Military History published a volume on American military history that included the following statement: “At Casablanca [Conference, 12–23 January 1943], General Marshall made a last vigorous, but vain stand for a cross-channel operation in 1943.” 1 Once again, an “official” history perpetuated a myth that has no basis in fact, a tradition dating back to the first official histories of the war—popularly known as the Green Books. Ever since publication of Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare: 1943–1944, many historians have accepted that, during the Casablanca Conference, Marshall opposed further operations in the Mediterranean and continued to push for a decisive invasion of northern Europe in 1943. According to Maurice Matloff’s 1958 official history, “It was extremely important for the American and British leaders to decide on the “main plot.” To support this view, Matloff quotes Marshall as stating, “Every diversion or side issue from the main plot, acts as a ‘suction pump.’” After this, Matloff presents his own insight into Marshall’s thoughts, and states, “It was Marshall’s belief that in the diversion to TORCH [the invasion of North Africa] the United States and Great Britain had been ‘abnormally fortunate.’ He still favored a main British–American effort against Germany in the form of a cross-Channel operation aimed at northern France.” 2
In a single paragraph the official historians captured their two main points: Marshall’s revulsion to all diversions from the main effort and his desire for a cross-Channel operation in 1943. Unfortunately, this version of events has serious flaws. First, the Marshall quote was far from complete. The part the authors left out totally reverses the point they were trying to make. The minutes of the Casablanca Conference reveal that, immediately after making the “suction pump” remark, “He [Marshall] stated that the operations against Sicily appeared advantageous because of the excess number of troops in North Africa brought about by the splendid efforts of the British Eighth Army.”3
Besides neglecting to inform their readers that Marshall was not adamantly opposed to further Mediterranean operations, the official historians categorically stated that Marshall was a strong advocate for a 1943 cross-Channel invasion.4 This is most certainly wrong. By the time Marshall and the rest of the Joint Chiefs arrived in Casablanca, a 1943 invasion was no longer a serious option from their point of view. The Joint Chiefs’goal in Casablanca, therefore, was not to persuade the British to commit to a 1943 invasion, but rather to get their agreement to an invasion, with the exact date to be determined later.
That Marshall, at Casablanca, would strongly advocate a 1943 invasion is more a result of the extrapolation of his previous stance on the matter than a reflection of his thinking by late 1942. Before Operation Torch the evidence of Marshall’s support for a cross-Channel invasion as soon as feasible is beyond doubt. Marshall was joined without reservation in this policy by the Joint Chiefs and the president. Moreover, the British chiefs of staff and Winston Churchill fully supported a decisive cross-Channel invasion. They did insist, however, that the Allies not launch it before preparations ensured a fair chance of success.5
As early as the Arcadia Conference, which ended in mid-January 1942, the Allies formally affirmed both the American-British-Canadian (ABC-1) Conference’s (29 January–27 March 1941) identification of Germany as the primary enemy and that the most efficient means to defeat Germany was a continental invasion, although the route to that invasion was still open for debate. According to the conference minutes, the combined chiefs recognized that no large-scale offensive against Germany was possible, except for one on the Russian front. Although the chiefs kept open the possibility of a 1942 invasion in the event of a German collapse, they believed that the optimal time for a continental invasion would not arrive until 1943. The record further states that this invasion would be a prelude to a final assault on Germany itself, and went so far as to direct that the Victory Program “be such as to provide the means by which this can be carried out.”6
After the Arcadia Conference, General Marshall ordered his planners to prepare a more detailed strategic plan focused on the decisive defeat of Germany. In response, by 1 April Brigadier General Eisenhower had completed the basic outline of this plan, which Marshall approved and sold to the president. The plan consisted of three major parts:1. Bolero: The build-up of men and materiel in England for a cross-Channel invasion
2. Roundup: The actual invasion of northern France scheduled for 1943
3. Sledgehammer: A smaller invasion of as little as a half-dozen divisions to be carried out in 1942 in the event an imminent Soviet collapse necessitated a sacrifice to relieve pressure on the Soviets
After receiving the president’s approval for the basic concept, Marshall flew to Britain with the president’s friend and adviser Harry Hopkins to sell it to the British. After several days of consultations, Churchill agreed to a public pronouncement “that our two nations are resolved to march forward into Europe together in noble brotherhood of arms, in a great crusade for the liberation of the tormented people.”7 After this, both Marshall and Hopkins believed they had British support for a 1943 invasion, while Marshall turned his attention to Sledgehammer in 1942, which, in Marshall’s opinion, the British had also accepted, if conditions were right.8
Soon after Marshall and Hopkins returned from London, Anglo-American conceptions for future operations began to diverge. Toward the end of May, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov first visited Britain and then the United States. While Molotov was in Britain, Churchill told him that a second front was a priority, but remained vague as to when it would prove possible. By the time he arrived in the United States, the Soviet foreign minister was ready to press for a more specific commitment, and he found a receptive audience. During a 30 May White House meeting, the president seemed committed to a 1942 cross-Channel invasion. After getting Marshall’s assurance that developments were far enough along to assure Stalin that there would soon be a second front, Roosevelt authorized Molotov to inform the Soviet leader that he could expect a second front during that year.9
Even before this commitment, Marshall and the Joint Chiefs had begun focusing on the possibility of conducting Sledgehammer in 1942 with the intention of establishing a lodgement in the Cotentin or Brest peninsulas, which the Allies would reinforce by a more massive Roundup the following year. The president, who had earlier appeared supportive of Churchill’s conception of a North Africa invasion, no longer supported such an operation and was fully supportive of a rapid Bolero build-up and launching Sledgehammer, sooner rather than later. That Sledgehammer was the president’s prime focus became apparent when he was informed that h
is suggestion to redirect one and a half divisions and a thousand aircraft, that had been targeted for an early invasion of northern Europe, to the Pacific to shore up crumbling defenses would delay the Bolero build-up. The president’s suggestion came up for discussion at a meeting of the Joint Chiefs on 4 May when Admiral King tried to have it both ways. King had prepared a memorandum in which he expressed agreement with the Army that there should be no undue delay in preparations for Bolero, but in which he said he did not agree that forces in the Pacific should be kept at a bare minimum. In his opinion, the problem of holding in the Pacific was as important as and more urgent than Bolero.10
After considerable discussion, the chiefs were unable to reconcile their differences. Consequently, they agreed to submit their divergent views to the president. After the meeting, King wrote a note to the president, pointing out, “Disastrous consequences would result if we are unable to hold the present position in the Pacific.” He closed by telling the president, as “Important as Bolero may be, the Pacific problem is no less so, and certainly the more urgent.”11
Despite King’s impassioned pleas, Roosevelt’s decision was a succinct, “I do not want BOLERO slowed down.”12
By the end of May, the British were becoming animated over U.S. ambitions to invade the continent in 1942. Churchill, alarmed at the emphasis the U.S. chiefs of staff appeared to be placing on a possible cross-Channel operation in 1942, decided the time had come to cross the Atlantic to determine how matters stood. The situation in Africa was rapidly deteriorating as General Rommel advanced towards the British stronghold of Tobruk. The British chiefs were not eager to commit to a possible but doubtful operation on the European continent in the fall of 1942 that would use troops that were desperately needed in Egypt. At the same time, they believed that some form of invasion of North Africa might be extremely helpful. Moreover, British planners had not succeeded in developing what they considered an acceptable plan for Sledgehammer.13
Churchill spelled out his objections in a letter he delivered to the president when they met in Hyde Park, New York, in early June. In it, the prime minister first appeased Roosevelt by telling him that arrangements were proceeding apace to enable six or eight divisions to be landed on the coast of northern France in 1942. He then informed the president that, although preparations were ongoing, the British government was not in favor of undertaking a limited operation in 1942 if it was likely to lead to disaster. In support of this position, Churchill laid out some of the negative results of failure: “The French people would be exposed to Nazi vengeance, it would not help the Russians and would gravely delay the main operation in 1943.” Churchill concluded by saying that the Allies should not make any substantial landing in France in 1942 unless they were going to stay there.14
Right or wrong, Churchill’s arguments appealed to Roosevelt, who was always interested in reducing loss of life.15 By the time the president and prime minister returned to Washington to continue discussions with their military staffs present, the president was half-convinced to scrap Sledgehammer and was beginning to look at North Africa as the first sphere of combat operations for American forces—an idea that had long appealed to him.
In the Washington talks with the British Imperial General Staff, General Alan Brooke opened the debate. According to Guyer’s unpublished official history, Brooke announced the British chiefs had exhaustively examined the question of an early invasion but had not been able to discover any worthwhile objective commensurate with the risk. Brooke went on to inform the Americans that there were twenty-five German divisions in France against which the Allies, due to a lack of landing craft, could only hope to throw some six divisions. In sum, Brooke considered it unlikely that such a small invasion would cause the Germans to remove any forces from the Eastern Front, even if it did secure a small lodgement. It was quickly apparent that the British strongly opposed Sledgehammer, except of course, in an alternative concept as an operation to take advantage of a marked German weakening. General Brooke did reaffirm Bolero, but proposed that alternatives be considered in the event a cross-Channel operation later proved impracticable. Among these alternatives was the revival of Gymnast, the expedition against North Africa.16
The reaction of the American chiefs was visceral. King was utterly opposed to Gymnast taking place in 1942, which would open a “ninth front.” He told the assembled group that the risks already taken in the Pacific to provide for Bolero had caused him great anxiety, and Gymnast would render the Pacific situation still more desperate by requiring an immediate withdrawal of naval forces from the Pacific for redeployment to the Atlantic. Marshall reiterated that opening another front would “achieve nothing” and that from the military point of view there was “no other logical course” but to concentrate on Bolero and drive ahead, while diverting only the minimum of forces elsewhere. Marshall emphasized that even the 1943 continental operation might be impossible unless the Allies devoted all efforts now to its preparation. To defeat the Germans, declared Marshall, “We must have overwhelming power, and North West Europe was the only front on which this overwhelming superiority was logistically possible.”17
In private discussions with the president, the Joint Chiefs emphasized that Gymnast would seriously curtail reinforcements to the Middle East with possible disastrous consequences in that theater, since even a successful Gymnast operation could not give the support necessary to the British Middle East forces in sufficient time to be effective. Moreover, Gymnast would thin out naval concentrations in all other theaters, particularly in regards to aircraft carriers and escort vessels. What really upset the Joint Chiefs, however, was that Gymnast would markedly slow preparations for Bolero, particularly the accumulation in Britain of necessary aircraft, antiaircraft, and service units. The Joint Chiefs concluded by informing the president that it would be unwise to disperse available resources on a doubtful venture.
Whatever the president’s attachment to a North African invasion might have been, the arguments of his chiefs convinced him to again support a 1942 invasion of northern Europe, both in public and in private discussions with Churchill. Ironically, the American debating success was probably due in large part to Churchill and his staff’s preoccupation with the news that Tobruk had fallen to Rommel. This was a blow to Churchill because Tobruk had withstood a year-long siege the year before and the British took its rapid collapse this time as hard as the loss of Singapore in February 1942. When this thunderclap bulletin arrived, the conference rapidly shifted from debates over a cross-Channel invasion to determining how best and most rapidly to ship munitions to reinforce the crumbling British position in North Africa.
As Marshall made emergency plans to move hundreds of new Sherman tanks and modern aircraft to Egypt, he was content in the knowledge that this was a temporary diversion of resources now that the British had finally acquiesced in plans for a 1943 invasion. The full text of that agreement was brief. While it paid lip service to Gymnast it definitely focused everyone’s attention on cross-Channel operations by ordering, “Plans and preparations for the BOLERO operation in 1943 on as large a scale as possible are to be pushed forward with all speed and energy.” The agreement also continued to hold open the option for a 1942 invasion by calling for “the most resolute efforts to overcome the obvious dangers and difficulties of the enterprise. If a sound and sensible plan can be contrived, we should not hesitate to effect it.” Despite the emphasis on as rapid a return to the continent as possible, the agreement did leave some hope for undertaking Gymnast, stating that “all possibilities of Operation GYMNAST will be explored carefully and conscientiously.”18 Since the agreement called offensive operations in 1942 essential while recognizing that such action on the continent was fraught with risk, the Gymnast option was set to grow in significance.
On 8 July, however, the British chiefs of staff dispatched a message to the U.S. Joint Chiefs that was to cause one of the most violent reactions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in the entire war. Referring to the J
une agreement, the British pointed to what they believed was an inconsistency in pressing on urgently with a full-scale Roundup in 1943, at the same time speeding preparations for a limited-scale Sledgehammer in 1942. Moreover, the British chiefs complained that mounting Sledgehammer meant the use of oceangoing shipping, which would entail a 0.75-million-ton loss of imports per annum to the British Isles. In conclusion, they pointed out that they and the prime minister considered the conditions necessary for Sledgehammer were “most unlikely” to occur. Regarding future operations, the war cabinet also laid down guiding principles. First, there would be no substantial landing in France in 1942 unless the Allies planned to stay. Second, there would be no landing in France unless the Germans were demolished by their failure against Russia.19
During the JCS meeting on 10 July, Marshall read the dispatch to his fellow chiefs and informed them that the prime minister had forwarded a similar note to the president, which concluded with a suggestion that the Americans reconsider Gymnast, while the British would consider undertaking Jupiter (Norway invasion). According to the JCS minutes, Marshall then read his comments on the British attitude, the gist of which was that Operation Gymnast would be expensive and ineffectual, and that it was impossible to carry out Sledgehammer or Roundup without full aggressive British support. If the British position must be accepted, he proposed that the United States should turn to the Pacific for decisive action against Japan. He added that this would tend to concentrate rather than scatter U.S. forces; that it would be highly popular throughout the United States, particularly on the West Coast; and that, second only to Bolero, it would be the operation that would have the greatest effect on relieving pressure on Russia. Admiral King expressed himself as being completely in agreement with General Marshall’s proposal. Referring to Gymnast in particular, he said “that it was impossible to fulfil naval commitments in other theaters and at the same time provide the shipping and escorts which would be essential should that operation be undertaken.”20
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