Brest fell on September 19. The harbor and its facilities had been so completely wrecked by our bombing and by German demolitions that we never made any attempt to use it.23
When the Allied armies finally completed their envelopment of the German forces west of the Seine the eventual defeat of the German in western Europe was a certainty. The question of time alone remained. A danger, however, that immediately presented itself was that our own populations and their governments might underrate the task still to be accomplished, and so might slacken the home-front effort, which could have the gravest consequences. I not only brought this danger to the attention of my superiors, but as early as August 15 held a press conference, predicting that there was one more critical task remaining to the Allied forces—the destruction of the German armies along the general line of the Siegfried and the Rhine.24 This word of caution was swept away in the general rejoicing over the great victory, and even among the professional leaders of the fighting forces there grew an optimism, almost a lightheartedness, that failed to look squarely in the face such factors as the fanaticism of great portions of the German Army and the remaining strength of a nation that was inspired to desperate action, if by no other means than the Gestapo and Storm Troopers, who were completely loyal to their master, Hitler.
Our new situation brought up one of the longest-sustained arguments that I had with Prime Minister Churchill throughout the period of the war. This argument, beginning almost coincidentally with the break-through in late July, lasted throughout the first ten days of August. One session lasted several hours. The discussions involved the wisdom of going ahead with Anvil, by then renamed Dragoon, the code name for the operation that was to bring in General Devers’ forces through the south of France.
One of the early reasons for planning this attack was to achieve an additional port of entry through which the reinforcing divisions already prepared in America could pour rapidly into the European invasion. The Prime Minister held that we were now assured of early use of the Brittany ports and that the troops then in the Mediterranean could be brought in via Brittany, or even might better be used in the prosecution of the Italian campaign with the eventual purpose of invading the Balkans via the head of the Adriatic.25
To any such change I was opposed, and since the United States Chiefs of Staff, following their usual practice, declined to interfere with the conclusions of the commander in the field, I instantly became the individual against whom the Prime Minister directed all his argument. In brief he advanced the following points:
We no longer had any need of the port of Marseille and the line of communication leading northward from it. Troops in America could come in via Brittany.
The attack through the south of France was so far removed geographically from the troops in northern France that there was no tactical connection between them.
The troops to be used under General Devers in the southern invasion would have more effect in winning the war by driving forward in Italy and into the Balkans and threatening Germany from the south than they would by pursuing the originally planned line of action.
Our entry into the Balkans would encourage that entire region to flame into open revolt against Hitler and would permit us to carry to the resistance forces arms and equipment which would make the efforts of these forces more effective.
My own stand was defined generally as follows:
Experience of the past proved that we were likely to be vastly disappointed in the usefulness of the Brittany ports. Not only did we expect them to be stubbornly defended but we were certain they would be effectively destroyed once we had captured them. We did not expect this destruction to be so marked at Marseille because we knew that a large portion of the defending forces had already been drawn northward to meet our attacks. Capture should be so swift as to allow little time for demolition.
The distance from Brest to the Metz region was greater than the distance from Marseille to Metz. The railway lines connecting the two former points were much more tortuous and were more easily damaged than was the case with regard to the lines up the Rhone River.
Unless Marseille were captured, we would be unable to speed up the arrival of American divisions from the homeland.
The entry of a sizable force into southern France provided definite tactical and strategic support to our own operation.
First, it would protect and support the right flank as we continued our advance toward the heart of the German resistance. Secondly, by joining it to our own right flank we would automatically cut off all regions westward of that point, capture the enemy troops remaining back of the point of junction, and free all of France to assist us both passively and actively.
Without the Dragoon attack we would have to protect our right flank all the way from the base of the Brittany Peninsula to the most forward point of our attacking spearheads. This would have meant the immobilization of large numbers of divisions, stationed along the right merely to insure our own safety against raids by small mobile forces. These defending divisions could scarcely have participated in later aggressive action.
As yet we had secured as a permanent port only Cherbourg. The lines leading out of it were entirely incapable of maintaining our fighting forces along the front. Our maintenance and administrative position would never be equal to the final conquest of Germany until we had secured Antwerp on the north and Marseille or equivalent port facilities on our right. Once we had accomplished this, I was certain, we could marshal on the borders of Germany a sufficient strength, both in troops and in supplies, to launch final and decisive offensives that would knock Germany completely out of the war. Without such facilities we would inevitably outrun our maintenance capacity. We would then find ourselves in a position such as the British had so often experienced in their advances westward from Egypt, an experience that was repeated by Rommel when he finally attained the El Alamein line and was then unable to exploit his advantage.
Another factor was that the American Government had gone to great expense to equip and supply a number of French divisions. These troops naturally wanted to fight in the battle for the liberation of France. At no other point would they fight with the same ardor and devotion, and nowhere else could they obtain needed replacements for battle losses. These troops were located in Italy and North Africa, and the only way they could be brought quickly into the battle was through the opening in the south of France.
I firmly believed that the greatest possible concentration of troops should be effected on the great stretch between Switzerland and the North Sea, whence we would most quickly break into the heart of Germany and join up eventually with the Red forces advancing from the east.26
In sustaining his argument, the Prime Minister pictured a bloody prospect for the forces attacking from the south. He felt sure they would be involved for many weeks in attempts to reduce the coastal defenses and feared they could not advance as far northward as Lyon in less than three months. He thought we would suffer great losses and insisted that the battlefield in that region would become merely another Anzio. It is possible the Prime Minister did not credit the authenticity of our Intelligence reports, but we were confident that few German forces other than largely immobile divisions remained in the south. Consequently we were sure that the German defensive shell would be quickly pierced and that Devers’ troops would pour northward at a rapid pace.
Although I never heard him say so, I felt that the Prime Minister’s real concern was possibly of a political rather than a military nature. He may have thought that a postwar situation which would see the Western Allies posted in great strength in the Balkans would be far more effective in producing a stable post-hostilities world than if the Russian armies should be the ones to occupy that region. I told him that if this were his reason for advocating the campaign into the Balkans he should go instantly to the President and lay the facts, as well as his own conclusions, on the table. I well understood that strategy can be affected by political considerations, and if the Presi
dent and the Prime Minister should decide that it was worth while to prolong the war, thereby increasing its cost in men and money, in order to secure the political objectives they deemed necessary, then I would instantly and loyally adjust my plans accordingly. But I did insist that as long as he argued the matter on military grounds alone I could not concede validity to his arguments.
I felt that in this particular field I alone had to be the judge of my own responsibilities and decisions. I refused to consider the change so long as it was urged upon military considerations. He did not admit that political factors were influencing him, but I am quite certain that no experienced soldier would question the wisdom, strictly from the military viewpoint, of adhering to the plan for attacking southern France.27
As usual the Prime Minister pursued the argument up to the very moment of execution. As usual, also, the second that he saw he could not gain his own way, he threw everything he had into support of the operation. He flew to the Mediterranean to witness the attack and I heard that he was actually on a destroyer to observe the supporting bombardment when the attack went in.
In this long and serious argument the Prime Minister was supported by certain members of his staff. On the other hand, British officers assigned to my own headquarters stood firmly by me throughout.
Although in the planning days of early 1944, Montgomery had advocated the complete abandonment of the southern operation in order to secure more landing craft for Overlord, he now, in early August, agreed with me that the attack should go in as planned.
Coincidentally with this drawn-out discussion, Montgomery suddenly proposed to me that he should retain tactical co-ordinating control of all ground forces throughout the campaign. This, I told him, was impossible, particularly in view of the fact that he wanted to retain at the same time direct command of his own army group. To my mind and to that of my staff the proposition was fantastic. The reason for having an army group commander is to assure direct, day-by-day battlefield direction in a specific portion of the front, to a degree impossible to a supreme commander. It is certain that no one man could perform this function with respect to his own portion of the line and at the same time exercise logical and intelligent supervision over any other portion. The only effect of such a scheme would have been to place Montgomery in position to draw at will, in support of his own ideas, upon the strength of the entire command.
A supreme commander in a situation such as faced us in Europe cannot ordinarily give day-by-day and hour-by-hour supervision to any portion of the field. Nevertheless, he is the one person in the organization with the authority to assign principal objectives to major formations. He is also the only one who has under his hand the power to allot strength to the various major commands in accordance with their missions, to arrange for the distribution of incoming supply, and to direct the operations of the entire air forces in support of any portion of the line. The existence, therefore, of any separate ground headquarters between the supreme commander and an army group commander would have placed such a headquarters in an anomalous position, since it would have had the power neither to direct the flow of supply and reinforcement nor to give instructions to the air forces for the application of their great power.
Modern British practice had been, however, to maintain three commanders in chief, one for air, one for ground, one for navy. Any departure from this system seemed to many inconceivable and to invite disaster. I carefully explained that in a theater so vast as ours each army group commander would be the ground commander in chief for his particular area; instead of one there would be three so-called commanders in chief for the ground and each would be supported by his own tactical air force. Back of all would be the power of the supreme commander to concentrate the entire air forces, including the bomber commands, on any front as needed, while the strength of each army group would be varied from time to time depending on the importance of enemy positions to the progress of the whole force.
While my decision was undoubtedly distasteful to individuals who had been raised in a different school, it was accepted. In different form the question was raised at a later stage of the campaign, but the decision was always the same.28
In spite of such occasional differences of conviction, there was in our day-by-day operations, month after month, a degree of teamwork and intensive co-operation that made incidents such as I have described exceptional. When these exceptions arose they had to be thrashed out firmly and decisively and an answer given. The wonder is that so few of them ever became of a serious nature.
Field Marshal Montgomery, like General Patton, conformed to no type. He deliberately pursued certain eccentricities of behavior, one of which was to separate himself habitually from his staff. He lived in a trailer, surrounded by a few aides. This created difficulties in the staff work that must be performed in timely and effective fashion if any battle is to result in victory. He consistently refused to deal with a staff officer from any headquarters other than his own, and, in argument, was persistent up to the point of decision.
The harm that this practice could have created was minimized by the presence in the Twenty-first Army Group of a chief of staff who had an enviable reputation and standing in the entire Allied Force. He was Major General Francis de Guingand, “Freddy” to all his associates in SHAEF and in other high headquarters. He lived the code of the Allies and his tremendous capacity, ability, and energy were always devoted to the co-ordination of plan and detail that was absolutely essential to victory.
Montgomery is best described by himself in a letter he wrote to me shortly after the victory was won in Europe. He said:
Dear Ike:
Now that we have all signed in Berlin I suppose we shall soon begin to run our own affairs. I would like, before this happens, to say what a privilege and an honor it has been to serve under you. I owe much to your wise guidance and kindly forbearance. I know my own faults very well and I do not suppose I am an easy subordinate; I like to go my own way.
But you have kept me on the rails in difficult and stormy times, and have taught me much.
For all this I am very grateful. And I thank you for all you have done for me.
Your very devoted friend,
Monty29
In my reply I said, with complete truth:
Your own high place among military leaders of your country is firmly fixed, and it has never been easy for me to disagree with what I knew to be your real convictions. But it will always be a great privilege to bear evidence to the fact that whenever decision was made, regardless of your personal opinion, your loyalty and efficiency in execution were to be counted upon with certainty.30
Another interesting, if less pressing, discussion took place with Secretary Morgenthau. In a visit to our headquarters in early August 1944 he said that the rate of monetary exchange, to be eventually established in Germany, should be such as to avoid giving that country any advantage. I candidly told him that I had been far too busy to be specifically concerned with the future economy of Germany but that I had an able staff section working on the problem. This brought about a general conversation on the subject of Germany’s future and I expressed myself roughly as follows.
“These things are for someone else to decide, but my personal opinion is that, following upon the conclusion of hostilities, there must be no room for doubt as to who won the war. Germany must be occupied. More than this, the German people must not be allowed to escape a sense of guilt, of complicity in the tragedy that has engulfed the world. Prominent Nazis, along with certain industrialists, must be tried and punished. Membership in the Gestapo and in the SS should be taken as prima facie evidence of guilt. The General Staff must be broken up, all its archives confiscated, and members suspected of complicity in starting the war or in any war crime should be tried. The German nation should be responsible for reparations to such countries as Belgium, Holland, France, Luxembourg, Norway, and Russia. The warmaking power of the country should be eliminated. Possibly this could be done by strict co
ntrols on industries using heavy fabricating machinery or by the mere expedient of preventing any manufacture of airplanes. The Germans should be permitted and required to make their own living, and should not be supported by America. Therefore choking off natural resources would be folly.”
I emphatically repudiated one suggestion I had heard that the Ruhr mines should be flooded. This seemed silly and criminal to me. Finally, I said that the military government of Germany should pass from military to civil hands as quickly as this could be accomplished.
These views were presented to everyone who queried me on the subject, both then and later. They were eventually placed before the President and the Secretary of State when they came to Potsdam in July 1945.
Chapter 16
PURSUIT AND THE
BATTLE OF SUPPLY
DURING THE PERIOD OF THE BATTLE OF THE Beachhead the enemy kept his Fifteenth Army concentrated in the Calais region. He was convinced that we intended to launch an amphibious attack against that fortress stronghold and as a result stubbornly refused to use those forces to reinforce the Normandy garrison. We employed every possible ruse to confirm him in his misconception; General McNair, for instance, was in the European theater so that we could refer to him, semipublicly, as an army commander, although his army was a phantom only. His name was kept on the censored list, but we took care to see that, in the United Kingdom, the secret was an open one. Thus any Axis agent would feel certain that knowledge of his presence was important information, to be passed promptly to the Germans who, we hoped, would interpret his “army’s” mission to be an assault against the Pas de Calais front.
Finally the enemy began to obtain a clearer view of the situation; we quickly knew this. Identification of hostile units on the front is one of the continuous objectives of all battlefield Intelligence activities. From this information we daily constructed, normally with remarkable accuracy, the “Enemy Order of Battle,” which revealed in late July that the German had started the divisions of the Fifteenth Army across the Seine to join in the battle. They were too late. Every additional soldier who then came into the Normandy area was merely caught up in the catastrophe of defeat, without exercising any particular influence upon the battle. In that defeat were involved, also, a number of divisions that the enemy had been able to spare from the south of France, from Brittany, from Holland, and from Germany itself. When the total of these reinforcements had not proved equal to the task of stopping us, the enemy was momentarily helpless to present any continuous front against our advance.
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