Supreme Commander

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  As Clark put it, “Admiral Darlan’s death was, to me, an act of Providence.… His removal from the scene was like the lancing of a troublesome boil. He had served his purpose, and his death solved what could have been the very difficult problem of what to do with him in the future.”28

  Spirits at AFHQ immediately rose. With Darlan gone, a new start could be made. The tension disappeared, too, for Eisenhower was no longer living under the constant pressure of trying to get an offensive started. The decision to call it off meant that he and his staff could now settle down to manageable tasks—building up the force, creating a reserve, constructing a line of communications, and straightening out the command situation, which was almost hopelessly confused because of the mixture of American, British, and even some French units in Anderson’s First Army.

  On December 22 Marshall had told Eisenhower to “delegate your international diplomatic problems to your subordinates and give your complete attention to the battle in Tunisia.…”29 With Darlan gone, Eisenhower felt he could now afford to do just that. Although the failure to get Tunis and Bizerte hurt, he had much to be proud of, especially in diplomacy. He had brought Dakar into the Allied camp, arranged matters so that Frenchmen were once again fighting on the Allied side, and most of all commanded the largest amphibious operation history had ever seen. Despite setbacks that put a strain on the alliance, he had held together the largest allied force that ever operated under one man’s command. He himself was gaining experience and learning to command men in battle. He could look forward with confidence.

  Part III

  OPENING THE MEDITERRANEAN

  [January 1943–July 1943]

  AS 1943 opened, the initiative everywhere lay with the Allies. A year earlier Germany, Japan, and Italy had decided where and when to fight. The United States, Russia, and Great Britain had reacted to their thrusts. By January 1, 1943, the situation was reversed. This was due primarily to the courage, fortitude, and effort of the British and Russian people, for the United States was not yet totally mobilized and had less than one field army in contact with the enemy throughout the world. But at Stalingrad, El Alamein, Tunisia, and Midway the Allies had stemmed the flow of the Axis advance. Now the Allies could decide the time and the location of the battles, and the Americans were almost ready to play their full role.

  CHAPTER 11

  Conference at Casablanca

  The first month of 1943 was devoted to preparation. In Tunisia, both sides worked to build up their force, with Eisenhower additionally struggling to improve the quality of the American troops in the theater. On a higher level the CCS and heads of government met to plan a strategy for 1943 and to create an organization that could implement it. By the end of the month the tasks were almost complete and the Allies were nearly ready to resume the offensive.

  The day of Darlan’s death Eisenhower had decided to abandon all hope of getting Bizerte and Tunis before spring, but he did not intend to fall back. He feared the psychological effects of a retreat and he wanted to keep the troops in place on a line that would cover the forward airfields at Thélepte, Youks-les-Bains, and Souk-el-Arba. With the airfields, Eisenhower could send air attacks against the Germans in Bizerte and Tunis, while remaining in position on the ground for a final offensive when Allied strength and the weather permitted. These positive advantages seemed to him to be greater than anything that could be gained by falling back toward the supply bases at Oran and Algiers.

  From the forward line, Eisenhower told his commanders to engage the enemy with probing attacks, especially on the right (to the south), where the flank was in the air. He planned to concentrate the U. S. 1st Armored Division in the Tebessa area and give it a tentative objective of Sfax. If it captured that port on the Gulf of Gabès, small detachments might push south toward Gabès while the main force struck north toward Sousse. This operation, if successful, would secure Eisenhower’s right flank and, more important, interpose 1st Armored between Rommel’s forces retreating from Libya and Generaloberst Juergen von Arnim, who succeeded Nehring in Tunisia.

  It was an ambitious plan for one division, even a reinforced armored one. What made it possible was the nature of the countryside. Mountainous or hilly and sparsely settled, southern Tunisia was devoid of a modern communications network. Roads were dry and dusty or muddy and impassable and there were only a couple of small railroads. Later in World War II the Americans could have handled such terrain with relative ease because of their motor transport, but this was an item in which AFHQ was deficient. So were the Germans. The result was that neither side could maintain large forces in southern Tunisia. At this time in all of Tunisia south of Enfidaville neither side had more than light patrols. The Germans were attempting to build up forces at Sousse, Sfax, and Gabès, supplying them by sea. For the Allies, transportation problems were so bad that Eisenhower was afraid that even if he took Sfax “we may later find it impossible to hold the place permanently,” not because of German counterattacks, but because of supply difficulties. Still, he would try.1

  His major concern was the inadequacy of motor transport. He needed it so badly that he had stripped rear units of their transportation in order to restore some effectiveness to the troops on the fighting line. Adding to Eisenhower’s worries, the 50,000 French in the center of the line were not equipped to stand up to a tank-air attack and the Germans were concentrating their probing thrusts in that area. The air situation was critical, mainly because of the lack of suitable forward landing fields. Eisenhower could construct them, but each landing strip required two thousand tons of perforated plate and to move it forward tied up his transport for days, at the expense of everything else.

  The outlook was gloomy, but on January 4 Eisenhower assured the CCS, “Personally, I do not consider the picture to be excessively dark, providing always of course that no great catastrophe overtakes us.” He felt that by conducting aggressive operations on the right he could divert German strength and attention while building up Anderson on the left. The key to the situation was transportation and equipment for the French, which brought him up against the same problem he had wrestled with a year earlier while in OPD—shipping. If the U.S. devoted cargo space to material for the rebuilding of the French Army, it could not bring trucks, aircraft, tanks, and other material to the U.S. forces.2

  The absence of needed equipment was disheartening to the troops as well as to Eisenhower, but they at least could complain about it. The commander’s position required him to maintain a façade. “On the whole,” he reported to OPD on New Year’s Day, “I think I keep up my optimism very well, although we have suffered some sad disappointments.” Actually, he could not call them disappointments, “because they were only things to be anticipated in the event that the enemy reacted aggressively and strongly.” He realized that “none of this business is child’s play and only the sissy indulges in crying and whimpering.…” The need now was to “get tougher and tougher,” to take losses in stride “and keep on everlastingly pounding until the other fellow gives way.”3*

  The war, in short, would have to be slugged out. Getting the troops into the right place at the right time, with the right amount of the proper equipment in their hands, was an essential part of the soldier’s job. But even logistical considerations were secondary to the human factor. The industrial might of the United States, the efficiency of American supply officers, the strategic brilliance of American generals—all this would count for nothing if the enlisted men in the field could not outfight the Germans. Eisenhower knew this and he was unhappy with what he had seen on his trips to the Tunisian battlefield.

  When German troops took up a defensive position, they had their mine fields laid, their machine guns emplaced, and troops located in ready reserve within two hours. Americans, on the other hand, took two or three days to do the same thing. The British had been at war for three years, but whenever their troops were out of the line they trained for the next operation; the Americans tended to go to the nearest city and re
lax. This in turn reflected a national attitude, an almost casual approach to the war based on the cockiness seemingly inherent in the American character. Eisenhower could hardly overcome it by himself, but he feared that it would lead to disaster and he did what he could to change the attitude.

  On January 15 he sent a letter that amounted to a lecture to his senior commanders. He said that nothing had impressed him in North Africa more strongly than American “deficiencies in training.” This was not a result of poor doctrine or methods, for they were sound. Rather, it stemmed from the failure to “impress upon our junior officers, on whom we must depend in great measure, the deadly seriousness of the job, the absolute necessity for thoroughness in every detail.…”

  One of the major deficiencies was discipline. The G.I. and the junior officer, coming into the Army from one of the most permissive societies in the world, had scoffed at the professional soldier’s concept of discipline. To the average soldier the idea that a speck of dust on his bedpost might have anything to do with the job of fighting Germans or Japs was so ludicrous that he developed a contemptuous attitude toward discipline as a whole. The result was reflected on the battlefield. Officers failed to carry out orders, men failed to construct foxholes or slit trenches, drivers neglected to use vehicle blackout lights and ran their road columns closed up. As a result men—many men—died needlessly.

  The newly commissioned officers were primarily responsible, for like their men they could not take the Army’s petty discipline seriously and winked at minor infractions. Eisenhower said he would no longer tolerate such an attitude. “Every infraction, from a mere failure to salute, a coat unbuttoned, to more serious offenses, must be promptly dealt with, or disciplinary action taken against the officer who condones the offense.”

  On the basic tactical level, the principal mistakes in North Africa had been the tendency to make frontal instead of envelopment attacks, diversion from the objective by minor incidents, poor communications between units, and inadequate reconnaissance. These could have been avoided had there been more small unit training. Eisenhower ordered his commanders to require frequent combat exercises involving the squad, platoon, and company, and wanted each one followed by complete critiques. He ordered, and underscored, “An exercise should be repeated until proficiency is attained.”

  A major difficulty was that the troops, and their officers, being Americans, were tied to their vehicles and the roads. They were uncomfortable when they were away from either. This was reflected in training, for most exercises revolved around road networks, and in practice, for in battle the Americans tended to remain road-bound. Eisenhower wanted them to get off the roads and out into the countryside.

  The American soldier came from a specialized society. This had obvious advantages, but a price had to be paid for technological sophistication. A part of the bill was that the men did not know how to take care of themselves in the field, how to reserve rations, how to live off the countryside, how to make themselves inconspicuous in wild terrain. Eisenhower wanted them taught. Surprisingly, the Americans were also showing an inability to co-ordinate the use of modern arms. Air and ground forces were not co-operating in battle. Eisenhower wanted it emphasized in training (it was, and became one of the strengths of the U. S. Army).

  He had been shocked at the softness of his men. Their physical endurance did not come close to that of the British and was even below that of the undernourished French. “Troops must be hard,” he told his commanders, capable of marching up to twenty-five miles a day while going without sleep and subsisting on short rations. He ordered frequent cross-country runs and “real exercise,” not some perfunctory calisthenics, during sea voyages.

  Eisenhower’s conclusion was clear and direct. “Perhaps the above may appear elementary,” he declared. “It is so intended. The defects in training in elementary subjects are the most outstanding of the lessons learned in this campaign. The mistakes made in maneuvers nearly two years ago are now being repeated on the battlefield—almost without variation—but this time at the cost of human life instead of umpire penalties.” His last words were those of a professional soldier thoroughly proficient in his trade: “I cannot urge too strongly that emphasis be placed on individual and small unit training. Thoroughness—thoroughness achieved by leadership and constant attention to detail—will pay maximum dividends.”4 Training can accomplish only so much, however, and most of the deficiencies Eisenhower enumerated would disappear only when the G.I. became a veteran soldier. Still, his efforts did help prepare the G.I. for the test of meeting the Wehrmacht in combat.

  Strategic, tactical, and organizational problems are the meat of a soldier’s life, the tasks for which he has prepared himself throughout his career. No general commanding alliance forces, however, can escape politics. On December 30 Boisson called on Eisenhower to complain about the treatment he had received from the British. When Boisson brought Dakar over to the Allied side, he had done so as a result of Eisenhower’s personal promise that the British would release the French West Africa prisoners they held and would cease sending anti-Boisson propaganda into West Africa via radio. In return, Boisson had promised to release the British prisoners he held and make his air and port facilities available to the Allies.

  Boisson had carried out his part of the bargain but, he reported to Eisenhower in some excitement, the British had not. They continued to hold his men prisoner and to beam into West Africa radio propaganda boosting De Gaulle and attacking Boisson. He reminded Eisenhower that he had signed the agreement only because “I have found and all other French leaders tell me that you will not lie or evade in any dealings with us, even when it appears you could easily do so.”

  Although Eisenhower had no official or unofficial connection with French West Africa, he reported the conversation to Churchill and asked the Prime Minister to do something to satisfy Boisson. Eisenhower justified interfering in matters outside his theater by pointing out, “I engaged my personal word and honor” in making the original commitments to Boisson. “My whole strength in dealing with the French … has been based upon my refusal to quibble or to stoop to any kind of subterfuge or double dealing.”5 Churchill promised to patch things up with Boisson “in spite of his bad record.” He ordered the French internees released and curbed the Gaullist propaganda.6

  Obviously, co-ordination between the British government and AFHQ was lacking. In the Boisson case it had hurt AFHQ: earlier, in the Darlan deal, when the British had been confronted with a fait accompli, the lack of communication had damaged His Majesty’s Government. On New Year’s Eve Churchill took steps to improve co-ordination by sending Harold Macmillan, Tory MP and Under Secretary of State, Colonies, to AFHQ to report to the Foreign Office on the political situation and to represent to Eisenhower the views of the British government on political matters.7

  Macmillan arrived in Algiers on January 2 and went immediately to see Eisenhower in his office. “Pleased to see you,” Eisenhower said, “but what have you come for?”

  Macmillan tried to explain that the appointment had been arranged between the President and the Prime Minister. “But I have been told nothing of it,” Eisenhower declared. “You are a minister, but what sort of a minister are you?”

  “Well, General,” Macmillan replied, “I am not a diplomatic minister; I am something worse.”

  “There is nothing worse,” Eisenhower pointed out.

  “Perhaps you will think a politician is even more troublesome,” Macmillan warned.

  “Well, I don’t know about that. Perhaps so. But anyway what are you going to do?” Eisenhower asked.

  “I will just do my best,” Macmillan replied.8

  Churchill meanwhile answered an Eisenhower query about Macmillan’s status. He stressed that “We meant Macmillan to be in the same relation to you as Murphy, who I presume reports on political matters direct to the President as Macmillan will to me.” Although Macmillan would not be a member of the AFHQ staff, Churchill said he would fully accept
Eisenhower’s authority “and has no thought but to be of service to you.” It was the Prime Minister’s hope that Macmillan and Murphy would work together to relieve Eisenhower of the burden of local politics.

  There was more to Macmillan’s appointment than he or Churchill indicated. As Allied commander in chief in a war zone, Eisenhower was the only man through whom a whole variety of British and American agencies could implement their policies in North Africa. Eisenhower was responsible to Roosevelt as commander of American forces in North Africa and to Churchill (through the CCS) as commander in chief of Allied forces. Both the U. S. State Department and the British Foreign Office were dependent on him for their policies in North Africa. Thus Eisenhower received directives and advice from the CCS, the JCS, the State Department, the War Department, the Foreign Office, Roosevelt, and Churchill. Although Eisenhower officially represented a combined command, Roosevelt frequently sent him direct instructions on political matters, with copies to Churchill. The Prime Minister wished to avoid clashes with the United States and so nearly always concurred, even when in disagreement. Macmillan, Churchill felt, would be useful as an agent to make sure British views were put before Eisenhower on all questions.9