Eisenhower in War and Peace

by Jean Edward Smith

  As soon as it was ashore, VII Corps would slice across the Cotentin Peninsula, then wheel right and capture the port of Cherbourg. Until the harbor was cleared, Allied forces would be supplied through two temporary harbors (MULBERRYs) assembled in England and towed across the Channel. Fuel would be pumped through a flexible pipeline (PLUTO) laid on the Channel floor. The entire operation would be commanded by Twenty-first Army Group under Montgomery.

  As the beachheads expanded, the First Canadian Army under General Henry Crerar and the U.S. Third Army under Patton would funnel through. At that point, Montgomery and the Twenty-first Army Group would assume command of the British and Canadian armies, and Bradley would establish the Twelfth Army Group headquarters to control the U.S. First and Third armies. Courtney Hodges would move up to succeed Bradley at the head of First Army, and Ike would assume overall command of the ground forces.

  When Eisenhower returned to Britain, the outlines of OVERLORD had been roughed in. But vital issues awaited his attention. Aside from the manifold problems of assembling the men and matériel, there were barely enough landing craft for a three-division assault, much less five, to say nothing of the nine follow-on divisions Monty wanted. The strategic bombers based in Britain—RAF Bomber Command and U.S. Strategic Air Forces—were still operating independently. And Eisenhower had yet to find a way to insinuate de Gaulle into France in order to avoid saddling SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force) with the responsibility for governing liberated territory.

  Eisenhower and Butcher arrived in London by special train from Prestwick, Scotland, shortly after 11 p.m. on January 15, 1944. They were met at the station by Summersby and Colonel James Gault of the Scots Guards, Ike’s British military aide. Gault, later Sir James Gault, was an investment banker in private life and a peacetime denizen of the upper reaches of English society. Using his connections, he had secured for Ike an elegantly furnished town house off Berkeley Square in fashionable Mayfair, within walking distance of Allied headquarters.

  Eisenhower examined his new quarters with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy. “I don’t need a big place like this,” he told Summersby, “but it’s very pleasant. Very pleasant. Still and all, I think I would rather be back at Telegraph Cottage.”54

  Eisenhower and Summersby relaxed over a few drinks, and then Ike gave Kay the photo FDR had autographed. After a few more drinks they embraced, kissed, and tried those things lovers do. Summersby reports this was one of two times Ike was impotent.55 As David Eisenhower, the general’s grandson noted, “However far it went, they [Ike and Kay] were attached. Eisenhower was under tremendous pressure and in need of company. Beyond this, the truth was known only by them, and both are gone.”56

  Eisenhower’s immediate problem was the acute shortage of landing craft. The Navy’s Bureau of Yards and Docks, which was the responsible agency, preferred to build carriers and battleships, and the landing craft program got short shrift. Late in 1943, General Somervell took over the program and, in Marshall’s words, “swept the cobwebs out of their pants.”g But Admiral King continued to divert two-thirds of the landing craft produced to the island-hopping war in the Pacific. The poorly executed landing at Anzio—which rivaled Salerno in its ineptitude—had drawn off others.

  The problem was exacerbated by the plan to land a second invasion force on the Mediterranean coast of France simultaneously with the cross-Channel attack. At Teheran, the Combined Chiefs of Staff had promised the Russians that the Allies would supplement OVERLORD with a landing near Marseilles (code name ANVIL) to seize the vital French port, draw off additional German troops, and press north. Eisenhower was strongly in favor of ANVIL. It might make OVERLORD easier, and was the only way a significant number of French troops could be brought into the war. The nine French divisions that had been raised in North Africa were composed primarily of African troops, and for racial reasons the British did not want them billeted in the United Kingdom. That precluded their participation in OVERLORD, but it did not rule out their landing on the Riviera. The British were lukewarm to ANVIL and would have preferred to reinforce the Allied effort in Italy, but Eisenhower, backed by Marshall and de Gaulle, insisted the landing take place.

  Nevertheless, it soon became apparent that OVERLORD and ANVIL could not be mounted simultaneously. It was also apparent that even OVERLORD could not be launched as scheduled in early May because of the shortage of landing craft. Ike trimmed his sails. He ordered OVERLORD pushed back to early June and, with the approval of the Combined Chiefs, reset the landing on the Riviera (rechristened DRAGOON) for mid-August. That would permit all available landing craft to be committed to the cross-Channel attack, and then redeployed to the Mediterranean.h

  The struggle for control of the strategic bombers based in Britain was not so easily resolved. But for Eisenhower, remembering his unhappy experience at Salerno, command was essential: “When a battle needs the last ounce of available force, the commander must not be in the position of depending upon request and negotiation to get it. It was vital that the entire sum of our assault power, including the two Strategic Air Forces, be available for use during the critical stages of the attack.”57

  The problem was part doctrinal, part political, and part personal. At the doctrinal level, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur (“Bomber”) Harris, who commanded RAF Bomber Command, and Lieutenant General Tooey Spaatz, who commanded the U.S. Strategic Air Forces, were committed to the concept that the war could be won by strategic bombing alone, rendering OVERLORD unnecessary. For Harris, sometimes described as a propeller-driven version of William Tecumseh Sherman, Germany would be brought to her knees by the relentless bombing of populated areas: the thousand-bomber raids he launched against Berlin, Cologne, and Hamburg (and later Dresden) to sap civilian morale. The fact that the Luftwaffe’s attacks on London and Coventry had precisely the opposite effect on British morale failed to enter Harris’s calculations. For Spaatz, who like Harris had been weaned on the airpower theories of Giulio Douhet and Billy Mitchell,i the primary target was Germany’s oil refineries, which, if destroyed from the air, would make further resistance by the Wehrmacht impossible. Neither Harris nor Spaatz was prepared to target the transportation net in France to disrupt Hitler’s ability to rush reinforcements to Normandy, nor were they willing to render the preinvasion bombardment that Eisenhower deemed essential.58 Harris and Spaatz assumed it would be easy to get ashore and stay ashore. Eisenhower knew he needed all the help he could get.

  The political problem involved Churchill’s reluctance to surrender control of Bomber Command to SHAEF. On February 29, 1944, the prime minister told Ike that the Bomber, Fighter, and Coastal commands had the primary function of defending the British Isles, and he was unwilling to turn them over to the supreme commander of a task force that happened to be operating from British soil. They would cooperate with OVERLORD, but would remain under the control of the Combined Chiefs of Staff.59 A second political problem pertained to the collateral damage that would be done should the strategic air forces attack targets in France. Some estimates put the number of French casualties as high as eighty thousand. Churchill and the British war cabinet found that figure unacceptable. “Postwar France must be our friend,” said Churchill. “It is not alone a question of humanitarianism. It is also a question of high state policy.”60

  The number of possible French casualties was worrisome. But de Gaulle saw no problem, nor did General Pierre Koenig, the hero of the Battle of Bir Hakeim, who commanded the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) under de Gaulle. “This is War,” Koenig told Bedell Smith. “It must be expected that people will be killed. We will take the anticipated loss to be rid of the Germans.”61 When Churchill took his case to the president, FDR came down hard on Eisenhower’s side. “However regrettable the loss of civilian life is,” Roosevelt cabled Churchill, “I am not prepared to impose from this distance any restriction on military action by the responsible commanders that in their opinion might militate against the success of OVERLORD or ca
use additional loss of life to our Allied forces of invasion.”62

  The most serious problem, however, was the personal. Harris and Spaatz detested Leigh-Mallory, Ike’s commander in chief for air, and refused to place their commands under his control. “This came as somewhat of a surprise to me,” said Eisenhower, “since I understood that he [Leigh-Mallory] had been especially selected by the British themselves for this post.”63

  When Eisenhower decided he was fighting a losing battle, he told Churchill he would “simply have to go home.”64 Ike’s threat precipitated a compromise. Rather than place Harris and Spaatz under Leigh-Mallory, it was agreed that Ike’s deputy, Air Chief Marshal Tedder, would assume “direction” of RAF Bomber Command and U.S. Strategic Air Forces, as well as the tactical air units already assigned to OVERLORD, in effect putting Harris, Spaatz, and Leigh-Mallory on the same level. And when the British war cabinet continued to resist bombing French targets, Eisenhower simply ordered Harris and Spaatz to commence the attack.65 The order was obeyed, and the war cabinet made no protest. By D-Day, American and British heavy bombers had dropped 76,000 tons of bombs on rail marshaling yards, bridges, and tunnels, cutting French rail traffic in half. The Seine bridges north of Paris remained out of commission until late June.66 Normandy was sealed off, and the Germans were unable to rush reinforcements to the beachheads. The Allies lost almost 2,000 planes and 12,000 men. French casualties numbered fewer than 10,000.67

  The problem of inserting de Gaulle into liberated France over Roosevelt’s objections required considerable maneuvering. When Ike arrived in London in January, he was informed by Smith that the State Department had instructed SHAEF to have no dealings with the FCNL or de Gaulle pertaining to civil affairs in France. Eisenhower was dumbfounded. As he saw it, there was no alternative to de Gaulle, and he had already committed himself.

  Ike decided to challenge the directive head-on. “It is essential that immediate crystallization of plans relating to civil affairs in Metropolitan France be accomplished,” he cabled Marshall on January 19, 1944. “I therefore request that General de Gaulle be asked to designate an individual or group of individuals with whom I can enter into immediate negotiations. The need for prompt action cannot be overemphasized.”68

  Eisenhower’s cable found a receptive audience at the War Department. Assistant Secretary John J. McCloy, who often handled delicate issues with the president, was dispatched to convince FDR of Ike’s need for de Gaulle. McCloy, former managing partner of the prestigious New York law firm of Cravath, Swaine, and Moore, had come to Washington with Henry Stimson in 1940. The warmth of his personality and the clarity of his intellect convinced many in the capital that he could put any deal across. He was a favorite of Roosevelt’s, and he took Ike’s cable with him to the White House. After a half hour of subtle advocacy, mixing flattery with fact, McCloy brought FDR around to the point that the president authorized the War Department to tell Eisenhower “informally” that he should feel entirely free in making decisions about French civil affairs, “even if it involved dealing with representatives of the French Committee.”69

  McCloy kept at it, and two months later Roosevelt approved a War Department directive that empowered the supreme commander to decide “where, when, and how the Civil Administration in France” should be exercised. Eisenhower was given explicit authority to consult with the FCNL and allow it to select and install civil officers, providing this did not constitute official recognition of the committee as the government of France.70 On April 9, Secretary of State Cordell Hull expanded FDR’s instructions when he announced in a radio address, “The President and I are disposed to see the French Committee of National Liberation exercise leadership to establish law and order under the supervision of the Allied Commander in Chief.”71 Hull’s statement did not satisfy de Gaulle, but Eisenhower believed it gave him sufficient room to operate.j “The whole matter has been thrown back in my lap,” he recorded, “and I [may] deal with any French body that seems capable of assisting us.”72 The solution was not perfect, but Ike was accustomed to dealing with ambiguity.

  “The current stage of preparation is a replica of the others I have been through,” Eisenhower wrote Somervell in early April. “As the big day approaches 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. A sense of humor and a great faith, or else a complete lack of imagination, are essential to sanity.”73

  Eisenhower wrote regularly to Mamie, sometimes in response to her questions, more often of his own volition. On March 11, 1944, he wrote, “I desperately miss you. Why we have to have wars to separate families and cause all the anguish that they do is sometimes impossible for me to understand.”

  Ike’s sense of humor was sorely tested later in April when George Patton found himself in the headlines again. Patton, who was playing decoy in East Anglia (decrypted German cable traffic indicated the Wehrmacht assumed Patton would lead the invasion force), had been invited to speak at the opening of a club for American servicemen in the village of Knutsford. Patton spoke on Anglo-American unity. After quoting Bernard Shaw to the effect that the British and Americans were two peoples separated by a common language, Patton said: “Since it seems to be the evident destiny of the British and Americans to rule the world, the better we know each other the better the job we will do.”74 k The idea that Britain and the United States would rule the world sent shock waves through the alliance. A local newsman quoted Patton in his report of the club opening, the wire services picked up the report, newspapers in the United States and Britain carried banner headlines, and Patton was again in hot water.

  Mamie insisted that Ike write in longhand. (illustration credit 13.2)

  “We were just about to get [Senate] confirmation of the permanent [Regular Army] promotion list,” Marshall cabled Eisenhower on April 26, “but this I fear has killed them all.”75 (Patton had been on the list, moving from the permanent peacetime rank of colonel to major general.)

  Eisenhower was in the field observing maneuvers when Marshall’s cable arrived. “Your cable,” he told the chief of staff, “was my first intimation that Patton had broken out again. Apparently he is unable to use reasonably good sense in all those matters where senior commanders must appreciate the effect of their actions upon public opinion and this raises doubts as to the wisdom of retaining him in high command despite his demonstrated capacity in battle leadership.” Eisenhower suggested Patton might have been misquoted, and told Marshall he would delay taking any action until he could gauge the situation better. If it turned out that Patton’s action diminished public confidence in the War Department, he would relieve him.76

  “You carry the burden of responsibility for OVERLORD,” Marshall replied. “If you feel that the operation can be carried out with the same assurance of success with Hodges in command instead of Patton, all well and good. If you doubt it, then between us we can bear the burden of the present unfortunate reaction.”77

  On April 30, Eisenhower instructed Smith to have Patton report to headquarters. He then cabled Marshall that unless Patton could provide a satisfactory explanation, “I will relieve him of command and send him home. After a year and a half of working with him it appears hopeless to expect that he will ever completely overcome his lifelong habit of posing and self-dramatization which causes him to break out in these extraordinary ways.”78

  Marshall reiterated his support. “The decision is exclusively yours,” he told Eisenhower on May 2. “Send him home if you see fit, and in grade, or hold him there as surplus if you desire, or continue him in command if that promises best for OVERLORD. Consider only OVERLORD and your own heavy responsibility for its success. Everything else is of minor importance.” Marshall evidently was having second thoughts about relieving Patton. He told Ike that he might have overemphasized the editorial fallout in Washington, and that “no one has called for Patton’s removal.”79

  Marshall’s cable provided E
isenhower the guidance he needed. With obvious relief he radioed Marshall: “Because your telegram leaves the decision exclusively in my hands, to be decided solely upon my convictions as the effect on OVERLORD, I have decided to retain him in command.” Eisenhower said Patton’s demonstrated ability as an army commander in battle, as well as his ability to get “the utmost out of soldiers in offensive operations,” rendered him invaluable.80

  Patton was yet to be informed of Eisenhower’s decision, and Ike kept him sweating. “After an interval I sent for him, told him I had decided to keep him on, and said that he had to learn to keep his mouth shut on political issues.”

  When I gave him the verdict, tears streamed down his face and he tried to assure me of his gratitude. He put his head on my shoulder as he said it, and this caused his helmet to fall off—a gleaming helmet I sometimes thought he wore while in bed.… Here was George Patton telling me how sorry he was he had caused me distress and anguish, and swearing by all our many years of friendship that he would never again offend, while his helmet bounced across the floor into a corner.

  George could recover from emotion as quickly as he fell into it. Without apology and without embarrassment, he walked over, picked up his helmet, adjusted it, saluted, and said, “Sir, could I now go back to my headquarters?”