Book Read Free

Crusade in Europe

Page 25

by Dwight D. Eisenhower


  With this landing we were ashore on the Italian mainland in three places, Salerno, Taranto, and Reggio Calabria.

  The fierce fighting in Salerno drew off enemy forces from in front of Montgomery and his advance to the northward speeded up. By the sixteenth his left made contact with Clark’s right just south of Salerno Bay. Montgomery’s right moved forward to join up with the airborne division which was pushing its way toward Foggia. Within a few days that great prize fell to us. Clark continued his battling toward Naples and on October 1, 1943, his forces triumphantly entered that city.33

  The combination of engineers and sea salvage experts who had constantly amazed us with their exploits in the rehabilitation of harbors immediately went to work. All of their prior successes at Casablanca, Algiers, Oran, Bizerte, and Palermo were as nothing compared to the speed and efficiency with which they repaired the seemingly destroyed and useless harbor facilities at Naples. With the establishment of this base and with Foggia firmly in our grasp, we had accomplished the first major objectives of the Italian campaign. All later fighting in that area would have as its principal objective the pinning down of German forces far from the region of the major assault that was to take place the following year across the English Channel. A secondary purpose was of course to force the constant drain upon German resources of replacing losses and providing supplies over the tortuous and vulnerable Italian communications. A third purpose was political in nature: the constant threat against Rome and the Italian industrial centers to the northward would cause unrest through the Balkans and other portions of Europe, which would depress German morale and raise our own.

  Fundamentally, however, the Italian campaign thereafter became a distinctly subsidiary operation, though the results it attained in the actual defeat of Germany were momentous, almost incalculable. It was obvious, however, that the Italian avenue of approach did not in itself offer a favorable route from which to attack decisively the German homeland. That could be done only across the English Channel and through France and the Low Countries.

  Immediately after the surrender of Italy in early September there arose a situation in the eastern Mediterranean that not only caused us great concern but which will be argued pro and con for a long time to come. The important Dodecanese Islands were largely garrisoned by Italian troops and with the Italian surrender it was possible that all these islands could be taken almost without a fight. Provided that the Italian garrisons could then be persuaded to defend them for the Allies, it appeared that we could gain a tremendous strategic advantage in that area with almost no expenditure.

  Thoroughly alive to this situation, the Middle East command, under General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, promptly dispatched small detachments to these islands, among which were Leros and Rhodes, and an early success was secured.34 However, it was quickly found that the Italian garrison had no stomach for fighting against anyone. If the islands were to be held the Allies had to provide the garrisons and these could come from nowhere except from the Allied Force then engaged in the bitter struggle in Italy.

  The Prime Minister was anxious to provide support for the islands and my staff and I studied the problem with the greatest possible sympathy. We came to the conclusion that aside from some temporary air support there was nothing we could give. To detach too much of our air force and particularly to dispatch land forces to that area would be definitely detrimental—possibly fatal—to the battle in which we were then engaged, while the amount of strength these reinforcements could provide in the eastern Mediterranean would probably be insufficient to hold these important islands.

  The insistence of the Prime Minister on undertaking something to help the Middle East was so great that we were directed to hold a conference with the commanders in chief of the Middle East.35 They all came to meet us in Tunisia, where I had assembled my own commanders in chief of ground, sea, and air.

  It was the simplest, most unargumentative of any similar conference I attended during the war. I outlined the entire situation as we saw it and announced the decision I had reached, which was to be final unless overridden by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Its purport was that detachments from the Italian command were not warranted and that we could and would do nothing about the islands. Those islands, in my judgment, while of considerable strategic importance, did not compare in military value to success in the Italian battle. Every officer present agreed emphatically with my conclusions, even though it was a great disappointment to the Middle East commanders, while all of us knew that the decision would be a bitter one for the Prime Minister to accept. I reported these conclusions to the Combined Chiefs of Staff, who supported my decision.36 The islands were quickly retaken by the enemy.

  From the beginning of the conquest of Sicily we had been engaged in a new type of task, that of providing government for a conquered population. Specially trained “civil affairs officers,” some American, some British, accompanied the assault forces and continuously pushed forward to take over from combat troops the essential task of controlling the civil population.

  The American contingent had been trained in the school established at Charlottesville, Virginia. Later, groups of both British and American military government officers received further training in North Africa. They operated under the general supervision of a special section of my headquarters.37

  Public health, conduct, sanitation, agriculture, industry, transport, and a hundred other activities, all normal to community life, were supervised and directed by these officers. Their task was difficult but vastly important, not merely from a humanitarian viewpoint, but to the success of our armies. Every command needs peace and order in its rear; otherwise it must detach units to preserve signal and road communications, protect dumps and convoys, and suppress underground activity.

  The job was new to us but in spite of natural mistakes it was splendidly done. We gained experience and learned lessons for similar and greater tasks still lying ahead of us in Italy and Germany.

  Chapter 11

  CAIRO

  CONFERENCE

  WHILE THE SUMMER AND FALL FIGHTING WAS IN full swing we received word that the President and the Prime Minister and their staffs were preparing to hold another joint meeting, this time near Cairo.1 Egypt was not then within the limits of our theater, but aside from insuring safe passages through our area we were called upon to provide secure places for preliminary meetings and for the accommodation of individuals. The usual swarm of United States Secret Service men preceded the President into every locality where he was expected to stop even briefly. They began with my staff the reconnaissance work that was intended to guarantee the safety of the President but which also, inevitably, advertised his coming.

  The secret concerning plans for the conference leaked, apparently, either in Washington or London; and because of the great amount of comment inspired in the press of the world, including some embarrassingly accurate statements in the Cairo papers, the home governments became very much worried. Even after the principals were en route to the meeting place the home governments suggested a complete change in the program.2 An urgent proposal came from the War Department to shift the meeting place to Malta or possibly even to Khartoum. Our responsibility in protecting and assuring the safety of the President and the Prime Minister was made heavier by the knowledge that every fanatical Nazi sympathizer was already notified as to their possible movements. After reflection I nevertheless made strong recommendations to the President against any change in plan. I believed that if we could not protect the meeting and its participants after we had made every conceivable defensive preparation, including heavily guarded enclosures and anti-aircraft defenses, then we would only be adding to the risk by making a sudden change to a place where we could not be well prepared. Almost any place would have been satisfactory for a surprise stop of one or two days. But when a meeting of several weeks’ duration is planned, the only protection lies in thorough preparation.

  The Prime Minister preceded the President into o
ur area and I met Mr. Churchill at Malta, where we had a lengthy conference.3 After considerable discussion he agreed with me as to the wisdom of adhering to the original plan for the meeting and he cabled the President to that effect.

  The Prime Minister was accompanied by his military staff, and I had an opportunity to spend the day going over a number of subjects of interest to current and future operations.

  Mr. Churchill, as always, was entertaining and interesting. I have never met anyone else so capable at keeping a dinner gathering on its toes. His comments on events and personalities were pointed and pungent, often most amusing. He looked forward with great enthusiasm to his meeting with the President, from whom, he said, he always drew inspiration for tackling the problems of war and of the later peace. He dwelt at length on one of his favorite subjects—the importance of assailing Germany through the “soft underbelly,” of keeping up the tempo of our Italian attack and extending its scope to include much of the northern shore of the Mediterranean. He seemed always to see great and decisive possibilities in the Mediterranean, while the project of invasion across the English Channel left him cold. How often I heard him say, in speaking of Overlord prospects: “We must take care that the tides do not run red with the blood of American and British youth, or the beaches be choked with their bodies.”

  I could not escape a feeling that Mr. Churchill’s views were unconsciously colored by two considerations that lay outside the scope of the immediate military problem. I had nothing tangible to justify such a feeling—I know, though, that I was not alone in wondering occasionally whether these considerations had some weight with him. The first of them was his concern as a political leader for the future of the Balkans. For this concern I had great sympathy, but as a soldier I was particularly careful to exclude such considerations from my own recommendations. The other was an inner compulsion to vindicate his strategical concepts of World War I, in which he had been the principal exponent of the Gallipoli campaign. Many professionals agreed that the Gallipoli affair had failed because of bungling in execution rather than through mistaken calculations of its possibilities. It sometimes seemed that the Prime Minister was determined in the second war to gain public acceptance of this point of view.

  In the old palace of the Knights of Malta the Prime Minister presented Alexander and me each a specially designed medal sent to us by the King; no others identical to them were ever to be produced. The occasion was informal; one of the guests commented that such an event in the same palace, four hundred years earlier, would have called for days of jousting, pageantry, and roistering in the garrison.

  I was called upon shortly to go meet the President, who was arriving by ship at Oran. At Oran we transferred Mr. Roosevelt to a plane and took him to a villa on the seashore in Tunisia, which by coincidence was locally known as the “White House.” At that time the President seemed in good health and was optimistic and confident. He stayed over an extra day in Tunisia in order to visit battlefields of that area. While traveling through them he speculated upon the possible identity of our battlefields with those of ancient days, particularly with that of Zama. So far as either the President or I knew, that battlefield had never been positively identified by historians, but we were certain, because of the use of elephants by the Carthaginians, that it was located on the level plains rather than in the mountains, where so much of our own fighting took place. The President’s liking for history and his frequent reference to it always gave an added flavor to conversation with him on military subjects. The same was true of George Patton and the Prime Minister.

  I wandered off to inspect some burnt-out tanks while the President and his Wac driver had their lunch. When I returned he remarked, “Ike, if, one year ago, you had offered to bet that on this day the President of the United States would be having his lunch on a Tunisian roadside, what odds could you have demanded?” This thought apparently directed his mind to the extraordinary events of the year just past. He told me, first, what a disappointment it had been to him that our African invasion came just after, instead of just before, the 1942 elections. He spoke of Darlan, of Boisson and Giraud. He talked of Italy and Mussolini and of the uneasiness he had felt during the Kasserine affair. He told of instances of disagreement with Mr. Churchill, but earnestly and almost emotionally said, “No one could have a better or sturdier ally than that old Tory!” Mr. Roosevelt seemed to be enjoying himself sincerely, but his reminiscences were interrupted by a Secret Service man who approached to say, “Mr. President, we’ve been here longer than I like. We should go on now.” The President grinned and said to me, “You are lucky you don’t have the number of bosses I have.”

  The Secret Service had objected strenuously to the battlefield tour for the President but I felt so well acquainted with conditions that I thought the trip was perfectly safe. Because of the fact that it was a surprise move, executed without warning to anyone, it tended to add to rather than detract from the degree of safety enjoyed by the President.

  To give General Marshall and Admiral King some release from the restrictions that inevitably accompany travel with a presidential party I invited the two of them to stay at my little cottage in Carthage. Both were outspokenly delighted to have the opportunity for a quiet evening, and both seemed to me to be in splendid health and spirits. In a before-dinner conversation Admiral King brought up the subject of future command of Overlord. He said that in early discussions between the President and the Prime Minister it had apparently been agreed that a British officer would be named to the post, possibly because an American was already commanding in the Mediterranean. Later, when the President came to realize that American strength in Overlord would eventually predominate over British, he decided that public opinion would demand an American commander. He so informed the Prime Minister, who agreed although the agreement cost him some personal embarrassment because he had already promised Alan Brooke the command.4

  At the same time the President had suggested to Mr. Churchill that acceptance of this arrangement would logically throw the Mediterranean command to the British, where British Empire forces would be expected to provide the bulk of the ground and naval strength. The President had tentatively decided, King said, to give the Overlord command to Marshall, against the urgent and persistent advice of King and others who dreaded the consequences of Marshall’s withdrawal from the Combined Chiefs of Staff.5

  During the admiral’s explanation General Marshall remained completely silent; he seemed embarrassed. Admiral King was generous enough to say that only because I was personally slated to take Marshall’s place in Washington could he view the plan with anything less than consternation, but that he still felt it a mistake to be shifting the key members of a winning team and declared he was going to renew his arguments to the President.

  While the Prime Minister had spoken of this matter a few days earlier at Malta, this was the first time I had heard any American discuss the Overlord command, except on the basis of rumor and speculation. Admiral King’s story agreed in such exact detail with what the Prime Minister had told me that I accepted it as almost official notice that I would soon be giving up field command to return to Washington.

  Incidentally, the Prime Minister, although he was disappointed that Brooke would not get the Overlord assignment, had spoken with considerable satisfaction over the prospect of Marshall’s appointment. He said, “It is the President’s decision; we British will be glad to accept either you or Marshall.” Then he added, “Marshall’s appointment will certainly insure that the American Government will put everything available into the enterprise.” He hastily added that “they always did,” but said that this development would tend to attract even greater intensity. With his usual concern for personal feelings, Mr. Churchill assured me that he was delighted with the results so far achieved in the Mediterranean, but felt I would understand the wisdom of transferring the Mediterranean to British command so long as an American was to have command of the major operation across the Channel.


  On the morning following my talk with Admiral King, the President spoke briefly to me about the future Overlord command and I came to realize, finally, that it was a point of intense official and public interest back home. He did not give me a hint as to his final decision except to say that he dreaded the thought of losing Marshall from Washington. But he added, “You and I know the name of the Chief of Staff in the Civil War, but few Americans outside the professional services do.” He then added, as if thinking aloud, “But it is dangerous to monkey with a winning team.” I answered nothing except to state that I would do my best wherever the government might find use for me.

  On the second day the President and his party departed for Cairo, leaving personal orders with me to join the conference in that city within two or three days. Accompanied by my principal commanders, except for Alexander, who was ill, we proceeded to Cairo to present our views concerning the forces in the Mediterranean.6

  Trips such as these gave me an opportunity to provide a break for members of my personal staff. Since these individuals normally had little to do during my absence from headquarters, I would invite them, in such numbers as could be accommodated in my plane, to go with me on these journeys. Consequently they always greeted with considerable satisfaction news of an impending trip to a distant point because some four to six of them could count on a vacation to strange places and interesting sights. Officers, enlisted men, and Wacs seized a number of well-earned opportunities that otherwise could not have come to them.

 

‹ Prev