Flight of the Eagle: The Grand Strategies That Brought America from Colonial Dependence to World Leadership

by Conrad Black

  8. THE RETURN OF THE ALLIES: D-DAY

  As 1944 opened, the forces of Stalin, MacArthur, Nimitz, and Alexander were all in inexorable progress toward their objectives, Berlin, Manila, Tokyo, and Rome. The Germans retreated from Leningrad at the end of January, ending a siege of 29 months, in which the Russians lost a million soldiers and a million civilians, and suffered nearly 2.5 million wounded and critically ill from famine or exposure. The Russians recaptured Odessa on April 10 and Sevastopol on May 9. MacArthur’s forces seized most of the Admiralty Islands in March and invaded Dutch New Guinea in April. Nimitz’s marines took Kwajalein in February, and landed at Saipan, nearly 2,000 miles west of Honolulu on June 15 (where the Japanese would lose 30,000 dead out of 31,000 defenders, many incinerated or asphyxiated by flame-throwers in caves where the U.S. Marines had chased them, or suicide victims as they leapt from cliffs rather than suffer the indignity of being captured). The Allies made an amphibious landing at Anzio, 30 miles south of Rome, on January 22, but instead of exploiting their advantage, dug in, and were almost dislodged by the Germans. From March to May, the Allies breached the German Gustav Line, especially at Monte Cassino, and approached Rome, which fell to the Americans on June 4, without significant fighting within the city.

  The European Advisory Commission (set up at the Moscow foreign ministers’ meeting in October 1943 to deal with German matters), which Roosevelt tried to discourage from doing anything until the Western Allied armies were well established in France and at least approaching Germany, was galvanized to action by the Russians and British in early 1944. It met in London and was chaired by the third-ranking member of the British Foreign Office (after Eden and Permanent Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs Cadogan), Sir William Strang, who had assisted Chamberlain at Munich and led the ill-fated mission to try to negotiate arrangements with Russia in 1939. The other members were the U.S. and Soviet ambassadors in London, John G. Winant and Feodor Gousev. Winant was assisted by George F. Kennan, a Russian expert and career diplomat, who would go on to great distinction as the original architect of the West’s postwar strategy to counter the USSR.

  Winant was slightly aware of the Tehran agreements that would move the western borders of the Soviet Union and Poland each more than 200 miles to the west, but no one else in the State Department was, including Hull. And Strang and Gousev knew nothing about those agreements, and Winant was under orders from Roosevelt not to breathe a word about them. While the Western nightmare was that Stalin would make a separate peace with Hitler (the Russo-German Stockholm discussions after Stalingrad and Kursk were not revived, but that was mainly because Hitler was not interested), the Soviet nightmare was that Hitler would be disposed of by the Germans, who would make a separate peace with the British and the Americans as the post-Mussolini Italians did. The particular British concern was that, as Churchill had explained at Tehran, the British contribution of manpower on the ground in Germany would be only a quarter of the American total (if the Canadians were lumped in with the British, which Roosevelt knew was not how the Canadians perceived themselves), and about 10 percent of the Russians, and the British would end up with a postage stamp of an occupation zone.

  The commission met on January 14, and Strang presented a plan that gave the three powers almost equal zones and left Berlin 110 miles inside the Russian zone. Winant countered with Roosevelt’s hastily executed design on the National Geographic map on the USS Iowa, which was the only instruction he had, from the Joint Chiefs (to whom Roosevelt had given it on the ship), confining Russia to the east of Berlin, with the eastern and western Allied zones meeting there. The U.S. had 46 percent of prewar Germany, Britain 34 percent, and the Soviet Union only 20 percent. Gousev rejected Winant’s plan as completely unacceptable, and presumptuous, considering that in Europe, the West only had forces in Italy, where they were not overly numerous by Russian standards, nor advancing very quickly.

  Winant and Kennan requested more information from Washington so they could support the president’s plan, but never received anything useful, as the other powers became impatient. Finally Kennan returned to Washington, naturally received no enlightenment from the State Department, and requested an audience with the president, which was accorded in mid-March. Roosevelt said he would clarify matters. The British and the Russians agreed on a version of their own, similar to Strang’s and giving almost equal zones to the three powers, leaving Berlin inside the Russian zones, but with British and American zones of Berlin and three assured access routes to Berlin from the western zones of Germany. Roosevelt was “irritated”122 but on May 1 sent Winant an instruction to accept the Anglo-Russian fait accompli.

  As events unfolded, about 10 million Germans fled before the advancing Red Army, carrying Germany on their feet and ox carts into the Western world, and thus securing most of Germany and more than 75 percent of Germans for the West. This fulfilled a primary objective of the Western leaders, and incidentally was something of a coup for Britain in attaining such a large German occupation zone, given the relatively small size of British forces engaged in Germany. (In fairness, the British did provide a much larger share of air forces in the war against Germany, the bulk of the forces in Italy, and the great majority of the naval forces in the European theater.) But if Strang had been less proactive, Roosevelt’s ambition to enable the Western armies to take advantage of tougher German resistance in the east than the west, which Stalin also anticipated, would have been achieved. In his memoirs, Strang lamely claimed concern that the Russians would stop on the Polish-German border and leave it to the West to finish off Germany, that the Western commanders were concerned about having too large a part of Germany to occupy, and that the division was “fair.” The first two assertions are a complete fabrication, and the British thereafter, especially Montgomery, blamed the Americans for not taking a larger part of Germany, and fairness was the last criterion anyone was concerned about and was not for a secondary official like Strang to judge.

  General Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in London to set up the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force on January 16. The intensive bombing of Germany and of military targets in France in preparation for Overlord had begun on January 11 and ramped up steadily. On March 6, 800 American bombers dropped incendiary bombs on Berlin. As Eisenhower elaborated his plans and organized his command structure, Churchill wrote Roosevelt three times that he was “hardening” for Overlord. Eisenhower took Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Tedder as his deputy commander, and three other British officers as service commanders: General Montgomery, Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay (who had commanded the Dunkirk evacuation), and Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory. The plan eventually evolved to land in Normandy, well to the west of the narrowest part of the English Channel, and promote the ruse that it was a diversionary landing. Nearly 7,000 ships, including nearly 5,000 landing craft, and 12,000 aircraft would be involved, as three American, three British, and one Canadian division would come ashore, and three airborne divisions, two American and one British, and a Canadian brigade, would descend behind the beaches, 10 divisions on the first day, D-Day Artificial harbors would be created by sinking cement barges, and over one million men would be disembarked in the first four weeks. It was the greatest single military operation in the history of the world and was masterly in concept, as it would be in execution. The target date was deferred, and problems of weather caused further delays. Finally, before his entire staff, after predictions of slightly improved weather, and a final moment of consideration, at 4 a.m. on June 5, 1944, Eisenhower uttered the deceptively simple words “OK, let’s go.”

  On the evening of June 5, 1944, as Roosevelt spoke to the world about the liberation of Rome, and welcomed Italy back into the civilized world, Churchill and de Gaulle were having the most severe of all their many disputes. Churchill had advised de Gaulle two days before that in any dispute between France and America, Britain would always side with America. This was not a surprise, but was a rather insens
itive comment. De Gaulle considered that Eisenhower’s statement, to be given a few hours later announcing the Allied landings in France, effectively referred to France as if it were enemy territory, and that the Allies proposed to flood France with “counterfeit money,” dispensed by the Allied soldiers. Eisenhower had made the point to Churchill and Roosevelt on June 3 that he was about to set forth to liberate France without the active support of the only Frenchman who could be of any military assistance to the Allies. De Gaulle, in the circumstances, had withheld the French officers who were to accompany the Allied airborne divisions and assist them with the local populations, and was declining to address the French people on the invasion unless France were treated like an ally and he were treated as the spokesman for France that Britain had officially recognized him to be for nearly four years.

  De Gaulle’s ambassador to the British, Pierre Vienot, was trying to smooth matters over and fetched up in Churchill’s bedroom with Eden at one in the morning on D-Day, June 6. There was a frightful scene as Churchill, on one of the most momentous nights of his life, had consumed more alcohol than usual and had retired earlier than usual. Vienot said that there was a misunderstanding and that de Gaulle would certainly speak to the French people through the BBC. Churchill harangued Vienot for nearly two hours, accusing de Gaulle of “treachery in battle” and of not appreciating the sacrifice of the young British, Americans, and Canadians who were already embarked to go forth and liberate France. Vienot finally declared that he would not be spoken to in this way and left at 3 a.m., returning to de Gaulle, who was staying in the Connaught Hotel. Churchill then awakened an aide and shouted down the telephone to him that de Gaulle would not be allowed into France and would be returned to Algiers, if need be, he added in a magnificent flourish, “in chains.”123

  The aide ignored this and went uneasily back to sleep as if after a nightmare, but de Gaulle, advised by Vienot of Churchill’s tirade, was satisfied at having inflicted on his host such an uncontrollable and sleep-depriving rage, and told Vienot to assure the British that of course he would speak to the French and send whatever support people he could. (Most of the initial airborne divisions were already over France, approximately 13,000 men.) When Eisenhower’s statement was broadcast at 3:32 a.m. Eastern Time in the United States, as the British were making their way to work, de Gaulle issued a statement entirely supporting the invasion and announcing his presence in “this old and dear England; where else could I be?” The BBC announced all day on its French service that de Gaulle would speak in the evening, although de Gaulle refused to show his remarks in advance to the British.

  9. THE BATTLE OF FRANCE

  The landings went better than had been feared, other than with unforeseen problems for Americans scaling cliffs at Omaha Beach. The Allies took about 6,000 casualties on the day, but landed successfully at all five beaches (two British, two American, and one Canadian), and penetrated inland beyond their initial targets. Casualties were not heavy among the airborne troops, for whom a casualty rate of up to 80 percent had been feared. The remarkable total of over 132,000 Allied soldiers landed on D-Day Roosevelt had been awakened by his wife, to whom Marshall’s telephone call at 3:30 a.m. was directed by the White House switchboard, as she was unable to sleep. Roosevelt had White House employees called in to work at 4 a.m. Throughout the United States, church bells and school bells pealed constantly, large crowds gathered in almost all public squares, and houses of worship of all denominations held almost continuous services in favor of the cross-Channel operation on D-Day and succeeding days.

  De Gaulle spoke to the French, with Churchill listening in his office, prepared at any moment to pull the plug on his obstreperous colleague by telephone hookup with the BBC. It was soon clear that there would be no need for such a draconian and almost unthinkable intervention. De Gaulle summoned “the sons of France” to do their “simple and sacred duty to fight the enemy by every means in their power.” He was generous in his references to the Allies, spoke as the civil and military authority of France, and said to his countrymen: “From behind the cloud so heavy with our blood and our tears, the sun of our greatness is reappearing.” Churchill, well over his violent rage against de Gaulle 18 hours before, with tears streaming down his face, demanded of an incredulous aide: “Have you no sentiment?” Roosevelt gave one of his greatest addresses a few hours later, beginning “Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor” and ending with the prayerful hope that America’s sons and allies would produce “a peace invulnerable to the scheming of unworthy men.”124

  The landings achieved complete surprise and the ruse that Normandy was only a diversion was assisted by conspicuous air and sea activity in the nearer Channel ports, and by large numbers of dummy tanks and trucks and tent camps. And the conspicuous presence of General Patton, the Western general the Germans feared most, around Dover was successful and played a role in Hitler’s withholding two armored divisions from the real invasion area. In Normandy, overwhelming Allied air and sea superiority made it difficult for German counter-attacks to take hold or the torrential influx of men and vehicles and stores to be interdicted or contested at all. There was fierce fighting in the bocage hedge country of the Norman interior, but it became clearer each day, and certain within 10 days, that the Allies could not be evicted. The German theater and Atlantic defense commanders, Field Marshals von Rundstedt and Rommel, told Hitler on June 17 that it would be impossible to contain the Allies in their beachhead. Within three weeks, more than a million men, 172,000 vehicles, and over 600,000 tons of supplies had been landed. By September 5, the Allies had landed 2.1 million men and 3.47 million tons of supplies, and the Americans continued to send two divisions a week to the front, and could do so almost indefinitely.

  Stalin launched the offensive he had promised to synchronize with Overlord on June 23, moving a million men forward on a 450-mile front in Belarus, taking Minsk and entering Poland, and promptly installing his puppet Communist Polish government in Lublin. Stalin may, as the British suspected, have pushed for Overlord at Tehran because he thought it would fail, but at the end of June, completely unprompted, he issued a statement praising it and the strategic bombing campaign that had preceded it. He referred to the “brilliant successes” of Eisenhower’s forces and added, “The history of war does not know of another undertaking comparable to it for breadth of conception, grandeur of scale, and mastery of execution.” This was nothing less than the truth, from a source not much given to hyperbole in praise of others. This was an immense vindication of the strategic judgment of the American leadership, and of Eisenhower’s command decisions. The combined power and prestige and perception of benignity of America and its president were now approaching a scale never before attained in the Western world. It was an astounding surge in the fortunes and standing of the economically and psychologically depressed country whose headship Franklin D. Roosevelt had taken 11 years before.

  One of the few spirited disagreements Roosevelt and Churchill had took place in mid-June through early July over the proposed landing in southern France, which Churchill objected to because it would take six divisions from his beloved but somewhat sluggish Italian campaign. He was prepared to sacrifice the divisions to an amphibious landing up the Adriatic to Trieste and what he called the Ljubljana Gap into Austria, but Eisenhower countered him at Roosevelt’s request. He did not believe there really was a Ljubljana Gap or that the Germans could not prevent a breakthrough there as they had in Italy. And he believed the southern French landings would lead to a quick progress up the Rhone Valley and a linkup with his armies in northern France, cutting off a good many Germans in France and ideally moving quickly to the Rhine.

  Churchill dismissed the southern French action—Anvil, as it was called, and later Dragoon—as “bleak and sterile” and likely to lead to a costly defeat or at least stalemate. He even suggested that moving French divisions to France would unduly assist de Gaulle’s ambitions, a rather disingenuous argum
ent. Roosevelt replied to Churchill on June 29 that “The Rhone corridor has its limitations, but it is better than Ljubljana and is certainly far better than the terrain over which we have been fighting in Italy.... My dear friend, I beg you, let us go ahead with our plan.” Churchill was so upset, he initially considered resigning, but thought better of it, and dejectedly wrote back, “We are deeply grieved by your telegram” and quoted Montgomery’s skepticism about the operation. (Montgomery was motivated entirely by anti-Americanism.) Churchill, as he had recently written Mrs. Churchill, was already discountenanced by the inexorable rise of America: “It has always been my wish to keep equal, but how can you do that against so mighty a nation?”125

  Roosevelt replied instantly and in very conciliatory manner to Churchill; the landings went off as scheduled on August 15, with Churchill gallantly watching from a destroyer offshore; and once again Roosevelt and Marshall and Eisenhower were entirely vindicated. The 10 divisions eventually involved moved swiftly up the Rhône Valley, joined with the northern armies near Dijon on September 11, cut off nearly 100,000 German soldiers in southwestern France, and reached the Rhine at Belfort on September 14. They facilitated Eisenhower’s double-envelopment of the Ruhr in early 1945.

  On June 23, the Soviets launched their main summer offensive, involving over two million men on a front stretching 800 miles south from Leningrad. It moved inexorably toward Poland. The Germans began launching V-1 semi-guided missiles at southern England on June 14, succeeded by the more powerful V-2 on September 7. The Allies broke out of their beachhead area on June 18, and seized the damaged port of Cherbourg on June 27. The British would take Caen on July 9 and the Americans St. Lo on July 25, and Patton, who took over the Third Army after his service as a decoy had run its course, cut off significant German forces in Brittany by August 10.