Supreme Commander

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  Lee himself, and SOS generally, posed some special problems. Lee was a martinet who had an overly exalted opinion of himself. It worked to his disadvantage both because he exhibited a strong religious fervor (Eisenhower compared him to Cromwell) and because as head of SOS he dispensed the material. Lee and his organization decided which division got the new rifles or machine guns, which general received a late-model luxury automobile for his personal use, etc. Since he had something akin to a supply sergeant’s attitude and handed out the equipment as if it were a personal gift, he was cordially hated. Field officers and enlisted men gave him a nickname based on his initials, J. C. H.—“Jesus Christ Himself,” they called him. Still, he was a man who got things done and was an effective administrator, so Eisenhower kept him on.

  Lee was the cause of one of Eisenhower’s rare outbursts of anger against Marshall. When Eisenhower was in the United States in early January, Somervell had suggested that Lee be promoted to lieutenant general. Eisenhower guessed that Somervell wanted the promotion so that he could then argue that as Lee’s superior he, Somervell, ought to be promoted to full general. Eisenhower refused to make the recommendation, but in March he found that Lee had been promoted anyway. Eisenhower complained to Marshall, since there were supposed to be no promotions in ETO above the rank of lieutenant colonel without Eisenhower’s recommendation. Marshall sent a warm apology, saying he had assumed a recommendation had come from Eisenhower. He explained that he had moved Lee up because when Smith had been promoted to lieutenant general, MacArthur insisted that his chief of staff, Richard K. Sutherland, also be promoted. Marshall wanted to promote others at the same level at the same time in order to dilute the effect of Sutherland’s promotion, and had seized upon Lee’s name. Lee had been the beneficiary of Army politics, and the situation represented no attempt on Marshall’s part to cut into Eisenhower’s authority as theater commander.36

  Eisenhower often escaped the pettiness and politicking by going out into the field, where he would observe training exercises and afterward meet and talk with the troops. His ready grin, warm handshake, and sincere interest in the problems of the G.I.s and Tommies made him a popular figure. In the four months from February 1 to June 1 he visited twenty-six divisions, twenty-four airfields, five ships of war, and countless depots, shops, hospitals, and other installations.37 Bradley, Montgomery, Tedder, Spaatz, Patton, and the other commanders made similar visits.

  Montgomery was best at that sort of thing. He would roar up in his jeep and, amid a cloud of dust, climb up on the hood. The troops were usually ramrod straight in formation around the vehicle. Montgomery would shout, “Break ranks and come close,” and the men would rush in upon the jeep. “Sit down,” Montgomery would order to the men’s great approval. “Take off your helmets so I can get a look at you.” He would then tell them that they were a fine-looking bunch, that it would be an honor to command them, and that no one wanted to get the war over with and get home more quickly than he did.

  All the visits paid off. On the eve of D-Day Smith reported that the confidence of the troops in the high command was without parallel. Montgomery had managed to visit every American division in the U.K., and Smith said the G.I.s idolized him. They thought he was a friendly, genuine person without any traces of pomposity.38

  Eisenhower’s own relations with his principal subordinates, men like Smith and Tedder, were excellent, and there was a warm friendliness in his relationship with the BCOS and Churchill. Indicative of the tone at SHAEF was a small dinner party Cunningham gave for Eisenhower in February. Only twelve Britishers, most of them senior officers at SHAEF, and Smith were present. They presented Eisenhower with a silver salver as a token of their esteem.

  In making the presentation, Cunningham began by recalling the days of October 1942, when many of the men present first started to work under Eisenhower. They had all wondered what sort of a man he was. “It was not long before we discovered that our Commander was a man of outstanding integrity,” Cunningham declared, “transparent honesty and frank almost to an embarrassing degree.… No one will dispute it when I say that no one man has done more to advance the Allied cause.” Eisenhower mumbled a reply. The next day he apologized to Cunningham for not being more eloquent but said that the gift itself, plus the admiral’s remarks, “came so nearly overwhelming me that my only recourse was to keep a very tight hold on myself.”39

  The attitudes that Eisenhower insisted upon at SHAEF, and which he helped to bring about through his own bearing, were those of friendship, honesty, and hard work. He did not always get them, but he never quit trying. He had everyone “working like dogs,” he declared with some satisfaction in late March.40 As always, he insisted upon a positive outlook. “Our problems are seemingly intricate and difficult beyond belief,” he noted in April, but he refused to allow anyone even to hint that they would not be overcome.41

  When Eisenhower visited Gerow, the corps commander began to complain that he could see no way to solve the problem of the underwater beach obstacles. After Gerow went on in a pessimistic vein for some time, Eisenhower stopped him and said he should be optimistic and cheerful. After all, he would have behind him the greatest fire power ever assembled on the face of the earth. On D-Day there would be six battleships, two monitors, twenty-one cruisers, and an untold number of destroyers pounding the German defenses. In addition there would be the greatest air force in history, plus rocket ships and army artillery firing from the landing craft. Gerow mumbled that he was just being realistic; Eisenhower grinned and told him to keep smiling.42

  Eisenhower’s emphasis on the positive was deliberate play-acting. Privately, he was more worried than anyone else, but he never let his subordinates or his superiors in London and Washington know it. Once he explained his reasoning to Somervell. “As the big day approaches,” he wrote in early April, “tension grows and everybody gets more and more on edge. This time, because of the stakes involved, the atmosphere is probably more electric than ever before.” Under the circumstances, “a sense of humor and a great faith, or else a complete lack of imagination, are essential to sanity.”43

  Eisenhower had a vivid imagination and he could conceive of all sorts of problems that might emerge. Unless they were situations over which he could exercise some kind of control, however, he never discussed them. It was in that spirit, with the emphasis on hard work and optimism, that Eisenhower and the SHAEF staff approached the great problems of OVERLORD.

  CHAPTER 2

  The ANVIL Debate

  Both during and after the war, Eisenhower often complained that men who had limited responsibilities, like Montgomery and Patton, came to conclusions that were narrow, hidebound, and mistaken. They thought of their own armies as the only one that really counted, their own fronts as the decisive ones, and felt that they should have all the supplies and reinforcements AFHQ or SHAEF had available. They never took into account the Supreme Commander’s greater over-all responsibilities or larger areas of interest. Much in the complaint was justified, as was the implication—that Eisenhower took the broader view.

  But even the Supreme Commander in the European Theater had a limited outlook, as the ANVIL debate was to show. For just as Patton never understood why Eisenhower would not give him everything he wanted, so Eisenhower could not understand when the CCS would not give ETO all that SHAEF asked for. And just as Montgomery later would urge Eisenhower to gear the movements and operations of all other armies to help his, so would Eisenhower ask that the CCS arrange world-wide strategy to fit the needs of OVERLORD. This desire extended to resources; at one point in the ANVIL debate Eisenhower was asking that all surplus landing craft, along with vessels already scheduled for operations elsewhere, be transferred to ETO from the other two principal theaters, the Mediterranean and the Pacific. On his own level, in short, Eisenhower could be just as narrow as the men he criticized, he could fight just as hard for ETO as MacArthur did for Southwest Pacific.

  In the particular case of the ANVIL debate, Eisenho
wer’s attitude contributed to an already great strain on the alliance, a strain brought about for many reasons: because the resources were limited; because the Americans were suspicious of the British and their intentions; because the British were irritated at what they regarded as the bullying attitude of the Americans; and most of all, because it did make a significant military difference where the major Allied forces in the Mediterranean operated, whether in southern France, Italy, or the Adriatic.

  Eisenhower wanted the debate to center around the question of which operation would most help OVERLORD. Marshall wanted to retain world-wide balance and keep the British from dragging him into any more adventures in the Mediterranean, especially in Italy or even farther to the east. The British doubted that there was much the forces in the Mediterranean could do to help OVERLORD, felt that what they could do they were already doing in Italy, and sensed that operations in Italy or to the east could be pushed with great profit. And these differing positions were only the beginning of the complexities in the debate.

  The world-wide shortage of landing craft colored the entire situation and made all events related. At one point Churchill growled that “the destinies of two great empires … seem to be tied up in some Goddamned things called LSTs.”1 The shortage stemmed from these sources: a failure earlier in the war to put landing craft at the top of the production priority list; the U. S. Navy’s (and MacArthur’s) insistence on assuming the offensive in the Pacific; and the unexpectedly determined German resistance in Italy.

  There was little Eisenhower could do about the U. S. Navy except complain, and he did a lot of that. On January 25 he said that Admiral King was keeping all information as to the number and location of landing craft in the Pacific a secret. Army planners were forever in the dark. No one but King and his immediate subordinates, Eisenhower moaned, knew how many craft there were in the Pacific. “He spoke of action in the Pacific as ‘the Navy’s private war.’ ”2 Two weeks later Eisenhower wrote, in a memorandum for the diary, “The fighting in the Pacific is absorbing far too much of our limited resources in landing craft during this critical phase of the European war.” To him this was a major error, for he thought OVERLORD should have every resource available until the invading force was firmly established on the Continent. “But we are fighting two wars at once—which is wrong—so far as I can see from my own limited viewpoint.”

  Eisenhower had no control over events in the Pacific, and he was equally helpless with regard to developments in Italy. In January the Allied forces in the Mediterranean had made an assault at Anzio, hoping to drive inland and cut off the German forces facing Clark’s Fifth Army. Von Kesselring had decided to fight rather than retreat and nearly drove the Anzio forces back into the sea. By early February it was obvious that they were stymied. Since there was no good port at Anzio, the troops there had to be supplied over the beaches by landing craft, which tied up ships previously counted on for ANVIL. When ANVIL was planned, it had been thought that there would be no need for landing craft in Italy after the end of January. It was on that very basis that the British had agreed in principle to ANVIL. Eisenhower recognized that the requirements at Anzio (which would continue until May, although no one knew that at the time), could not be ignored, “no matter how much we shout ‘principle and agreements.’ ” Even before the Anzio stalemate Smith and Montgomery had argued that ANVIL ought to be abandoned in order to free landing craft for OVERLORD; now the BCOS joined them. Eisenhower was being forced into that position. On February 7 he noted, “It looks like ANVIL is doomed. I hate this.”3

  Marshall disagreed. When Eisenhower hinted that he was ready to drop ANVIL, Marshall replied that he still strongly favored the operation and expressed a fear that the BCOS were influencing Eisenhower’s views. “I merely wish,” the Chief declared, “to be certain that localitis is not developing and that pressure on you has not warped your judgment.” He also asked the British not to discuss strategic matters with Eisenhower before Eisenhower had had a chance to give Washington his opinion. Marshall pointed out that canceling ANVIL would have the effect of losing a number of divisions because they could not be employed either in Italy or northwestern France due to inadequate port facilities. He did admit that the whole question would become academic if Rome had not fallen by early April. If the Allies were still south of the city at that time, ANVIL could not go concurrently with OVERLORD. But if Alexander’s armies were north of Rome, there would be many divisions available and ANVIL could be mounted. This conclusion was based on the assumption that the offensive in Italy would end when Rome was taken.4

  In any debate, Eisenhower’s practice was to seek agreement. Brooke, for one, felt that this often meant the Supreme Commander was susceptible to the influence of the last person to whom he talked. Marshall evidently agreed. But the Chief also realized that he was the single most influential person in Eisenhower’s life, and was usually careful not to state his views too strongly, for fear of unduly swaying the Supreme Commander. But ANVIL fit in very closely with Marshall’s over-all view of how to defeat Germany—through a power drive on the Continent. In addition the Chief had so determinedly set himself against any extension of the Mediterranean campaign that in this case he very definitely did want to influence Eisenhower.

  He was successful. Eisenhower bristled at Marshall’s charge that he was letting the British influence his views and on February 8 sent a long, defensive answer. After a discussion of the background, in which he emphasized his own insistence on beefing up OVERLORD to five assault divisions, Eisenhower pointed out, “I felt so strongly that ANVIL should be preserved while we were achieving the necessary strength for OVERLORD that [when Smith and Montgomery advised dropping ANVIL and adhering to a May 1 date for OVERLORD] I replied we would accept a date of 31st May in order to get an additional month’s production of every kind of landing craft from both countries” so as to make both operations possible. Eisenhower insisted that only after he had formed his conclusions about dropping a simultaneous ANVIL to make OVERLORD strong enough did he learn that the BCOS themselves wanted to abandon ANVIL. Then, in a ringing defense of himself, Eisenhower declared, “In the various campaigns of this war I have occasionally had to modify slightly my own conceptions of campaign in order to achieve a unity of purpose and effort. I think this is inescapable in Allied operations but I assure you that I have never yet failed to give you my own clear personal convictions about every project and plan in prospect.” He was not aware of being “affected by localitis,” and protested that his overriding concern was to make sure OVERLORD worked. He was, in short, responding to different pressures than Marshall. As commander of OVERLORD, he saw it as his responsibility to fight for all possible support for it; beyond that, living in London made him more aware than Marshall of the requirements of the alliance.

  Eisenhower then gave Marshall his thoughts, based on a month of intensive study of OVERLORD. First, the initial assault had to have five divisions heavily reinforced with armor. Second, it had to be preceded by two months of intensive air preparation. Third, at least one full airborne division would have to be dropped inland. Fourth, at least two reinforced divisions should land on the second tide of D-Day. Since landing craft would be needed to carry them, OVERLORD would in fact require enough craft for seven, not five, divisions. Last, “we must have the strongest possible support from the Mediterranean,” which meant ANVIL. Eisenhower did warn Marshall, “From D day to D plus sixty this thing [OVERLORD] is going to absorb everything the United Nations can possibly pour into it,” but the implication was that, having given Marshall a long defense of his proposal to drop ANVIL, he would bow to Marshall’s wishes and continue to fight for the operation.5

  Marshall was satisfied with Eisenhower’s response, and on February 11 he got JCS permission to give Eisenhower authority to represent the JCS in ANVIL discussions with the BCOS. The British had been pressing for a conference of the CCS in London to settle ANVIL; the JCS did not want to come because the members were involved
in an internal debate over strategy in the Pacific. Marshall’s decision to make Eisenhower the JCS executive for ANVIL discussions meant that Eisenhower became in effect a member of the CCS when southern France came up. The British were amazed that the Americans would delegate so much authority to a commander in the field, but happily accepted the arrangement since dealing with Eisenhower was easier than dealing with Marshall. The JCS may not have realized it, but the grant of authority made Eisenhower’s complex role even more difficult, for it gave him two responsibilities; as Supreme Commander, he had to fight for what he thought best for OVERLORD, while, as the JCS representative, he was obliged to present as strongly as possible the American strategic position.6 It is also possible that Marshall’s motives were not altogether pure, that he realized that by making Eisenhower the JCS executive he was forcing Eisenhower to take the JCS position on ANVIL.

  At a meeting with Brooke on February 10, Eisenhower found that he had reached an impasse on the issues at hand. He finally accepted Brooke’s contention that the only reasonable approach to the problem was to decide what resources were required for OVERLORD and allot them, then to consider how best to use the remaining forces so as to make the maximum contribution toward the success of OVERLORD.7 Four days later Eisenhower attended a meeting with Rear Admiral Charles “Savvy” Cooke, Jr., Admiral King’s chief war planner, and Major General John E. Hull of OPD. Both had come to London to discuss with Eisenhower the plans for allocation of landing craft to OVERLORD and ANVIL. The three Americans, together with members of the SHAEF staff, made a minute examination of OVERLORD’s needs. Their conclusion was that not enough landing craft had been allotted and that neither current production nor overloading of the craft on hand would be sufficient to complete OVERLORD’s requirements. More craft would have to come from the Mediterranean, Eisenhower warned Marshall on February 14, even though he added that “we have not reached final conclusion.…”8