Eisenhower

by Louis Galambos

  85. Pogue, Organizer of Victory, 183–187, is kind to both Fredendall and Ike. Eisenhower—like Marshall—let Fredendall down very gently. So much so, in fact, that Fredendall was honored as a hero on his return to the United States for a training mission. See DDE to Fredendall, March 2, 1943, and DDE to Marshall, March 3 and March 4, 1943, Papers, 2:1002–1003, 1006–1007.

  86. In the midst of the landings and efforts to move toward Tunisia, Eisenhower had continued to advocate the cross-Channel strategy. See DDE to Thomas Troy Handy, November 22, 1942, Papers, 2, 760–761: “We still have to defeat the German Armies in Europe.… Dispersion must cease!”

  87. DDE to Marshall, February 21, 1943; DDE to Combined Chiefs of Staff and British Chiefs of Staff, February 21, 1942, Papers, 2:970–974.

  88. Blumenson, Rommel’s Last Victory, 302–304.

  89. In Howe, Northwest Africa, cf. 514–519 (Médenine) with 401–458 (Kasserine Pass). According to Howe (442), Rommel specifically sought through his attack against the US II Corps to create greater disunity among the Allies. Although the attack stalled, Rommel had certainly sharpened the differences between the British and American forces.

  90. D’Este, Eisenhower, 395.

  91. See D’Este, Eisenhower, 402 and Jonathan W. Jordan, Brothers, Rivals, Victors: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, and the Partnership That Drove the Allied Conquest in Europe (New York: NAL Caliber, 2011), 147–158, for Patton’s fierce reactions to this situation.

  92. Ike also objected in a more conciliatory tone; DDE to Alexander, March 21, 1943, Papers, 2:1055–1057. He continued to put on pressure to increase the objectives of the II Corps; DDE to Alexander, April 2, 1943, Papers, 2:1065–1066. For the outcome, see DDE to CCS, April 5, 1943, Papers, 2:1075–1077, and Howe, Northwest Africa, 543–577.

  93. Howe, Northwest Africa, 613–668.

  94. D’Este, Patton, 471–490.

  95. For a good example of the disunity created by the tension between the British and Americans, see Howe, Northwest Africa, 590–591, 599.

  96. See DDE to Marshall, April 24, 1943, Papers, 2:1101. Ike was commenting on General Ward’s lack of “callousness,” but he was clearly talking about his own increasing “callousness.” See also DDE to Anderson, June 7, 1943, Papers, 2:1178.

  97. On April 15, 1943, Bradley took over from Patton, who returned to his main task of getting ready for the invasion of Sicily. For the problems with newspaper accounts that worked against British-American unity, see DDE to Marshall, April 15 and 16, 1943, Papers, 2:1089–1093.

  98. For the ongoing British-American discourse, see DDE to Joint Chiefs of Staff and British Chiefs of Staff, April 12, 1943, Papers, 2:1086–1087.

  99. See, for instance, DDE to Alan Francis Brooke, July 3, 1943, Papers, 2:1236–1237.

  100. DDE to Combined Chiefs of Staff and British Chiefs of Staff, July 11, 1943, Papers, 2:1253–1254. On the tragic antiaircraft fire that inadvertently brought down twenty-three troop transports, see DDE to Alexander, July 12, 1943, and DDE to Patton, July 12, 1943, Papers, 2:1254–1256.

  101. DDE to Marshall, July 17, 1943, Papers, 2:1248–1260; DDE to Combined Chiefs of Staff and British Chiefs of Staff, August 2, 1943, Papers, 2:1305–1307.

  102. For interim reports, see DDE to Combined Chiefs of Staff and British Chiefs of Staff, August 4 and August 16, 1943, Papers, 2:1313–1314, 1335.

  103. For Ike’s evaluations of his officers, including Patton, Bradley, and Clark, see DDE to Marshall, August 24 and 27, 1943, Papers, 2:1353–1355, 1357–1358.

  104. Hobbs, Dear General, 62–70, provides an excellent perspective on Eisenhower’s approach to “command and organization.”

  105. DDE to Geoffrey Keyes, September 27, 1943, Papers, 3:1465–1466.

  106. D’Este, Patton, 521–546, covers the incident in detail.

  107. The unity issue was broad—far broader than just British-American relations. Shortly before the invasion of Sicily, Ike had to deal again with the split between de Gaulle and Giraud; see, for instance, DDE to FDR, and DDE to Marshall, both June 18, 1943, Papers, 2:1192–1195; DDE to Marshall, June 22, 1943, Papers, 2:1207. For some of the rough edges in British-American relations, see DDE to Churchill, August 4, 1943, and DDE to Alexander, August 5, 1943, Papers, 2:1318–1320.

  Seven. The Decision

  1. As quoted in David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House, The Battle of Kursk (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1999), 188.

  2. It is important to remember that men as well as “torn-off turrets” were being blown out of the tanks.

  3. For the Nobel Prize–winning author’s account of his brief service in the SS on the Eastern Front, see Günter Grass, “How I Spent the War: A Recruit in the Waffen S.S.,” New Yorker, June 4, 2007. Grass was sixteen when he was drafted into the Labor Service.

  4. John Erickson, The Road to Berlin: Continuing the History of Stalin’s War with Germany (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983). See esp. ch. 3, “Breaking the Equilibrium: Kursk and its Aftermath,” 87–135. In regard to the importance of the Soviet victories on the Eastern Front, I am in complete agreement with David Eisenhower’s account in Eisenhower at War, 1943–1945 (New York: Vintage Books, 1987).

  5. This is one of the two occasions in which I broke my own rule and looked far into Eisenhower’s future.

  6. There are no references to Kursk in the Eisenhower papers or in George C. Marshall, The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, ed. Larry I. Bland, vol. 4 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). On the continuing British pressure to move into Italy, see Gordon A. Harrison, The European Theater of Operations: Cross-Channel Attack (Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1993, orig. 1951), 68.

  7. See, for instance, DDE to Combined Chiefs of Staff and British Chiefs of Staff, August 28 and 30 (cables 8660 and 8720), 1943, Papers, 2:1361–1367.

  8. The compromise reached at the Trident Conference in Washington, DC, May 12–25, was to limit the number of troops deployed in Italy so as to build up the Allied force in England. See DDE to Patton, June 4, 1943, Papers, 2:1173–1175. For the ongoing discussion of what would follow the campaign in Sicily, see also DDE to Combined Chiefs of Staff and British Chiefs of Staff, July 18, 1943, Papers, 2:1261–1262, in which Ike followed his commanders and advocated an Italian campaign. He still wanted to stop “nibbling and jabbing in order to leap straight at the vitals of the enemy.” DDE to Churchill, July 18, 1943, Papers, 2:1262–1263. See also DDE to Marshall, September 14, 1943, Papers, 3:1416–1417, in which he said “there can be much room for argument” about the conquest of all of Italy. The Italian surrender was messy but not as questionable as the Vichy affair; see DDE to Combined Chiefs of Staff and British Chiefs of Staff, September 8 and 9, 1943, Papers, 3:1404–1407.

  9. DDE to Combined Chiefs of Staff and British Chiefs of Staff, September 18 and 30, 1943, and DDE to Walter Bedell Smith, September 19, 1943, Papers, 3:1430–1435, 1469–1470. Martin Blumenson, The Mediterranean Theater of Operations: Salerno to Cassino (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, US Army, 1993, orig. 1969), 15, says: “The most widespread assumption among Allied planners was that an Italian collapse would move the Germans to withdraw from Italy.” This time, however, Hitler rushed his forces into Italy, and the Allies had to fight their way north in a brutal campaign that was expensive in terms of men, matériel, and time.

  10. DDE to Combined Chiefs of Staff, September 1, 1943, and DDE to Walter Bedell Smith, September 2, 1943, Papers, 2:1375–1377, 1382; DDE to Marshall, September 13, 1943, and DDE to Combined Chiefs of Staff and British Chiefs of Staff, September 15, 1943, Papers, 3:1411, 1424–1425.

  11. DDE to Combined Chiefs of Staff and British Chiefs of Staff, September 21, 1943, Papers, 3:1446–1447. While Ike had always sought unity, he now gave even more emphasis to the importance of combining the land, air, and naval forces to achieve success in an invasion.

  12. Blumenson, Salerno to Cassino, 208.

  13. Dwight D. Eisenhower, C
rusade in Europe (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1948), 194.

  14. See the discussion of the role of the British Eighth Army at Salerno in Blumenson, Salerno to Cassino, 138–143.

  15. Eisenhower, Crusade, 194.

  16. DDE, Memorandum for Diary, November 12, 1943, Papers, 3:1560–1563.

  17. Ike had first played this card in his message to Alexander, March 23, 1943, Papers, 2:1055–1057.

  18. Chief of Staff George Marshall estimated that when the buildup of Allied forces in France reached sixty divisions, the United States would be supplying forty-two, the British thirteen, and Canada five. Marshall, Memorandum for the President, August 11, 1943, Marshall Papers, 4:87–88.

  19. Maurice Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943–1944 (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, US Army, 1994, orig. 1959), 244.

  20. DDE to Churchill, October 9, 1943, and DDE to Combined Chiefs of Staff and British Chiefs of Staff, October 9, 1943, Papers, 3:1494–1498.

  21. Eisenhower was providing advice to Lord Louis Mountbatten, the newly appointed Supreme Allied Commander, Southeast Asia. DDE to Mountbatten, September 14, 1943, Papers, 3:1420–1424.

  22. See, for instance, Marshall to Eisenhower, September 22, 1943, Marshall Papers, 4:136–137.

  23. On the campaign, see DDE to Combined Chiefs of Staff and British Chiefs of Staff, November 4, 1943, Papers, 3:1548–1550.

  24. FDR announced the decision at the Teheran conference, and Ike was informed in early December. See Marshall to Eisenhower, December 7, 1943, Marshall Papers, 4:197–198; DDE to Marshall, December 17, 1943, Papers, 3:1604–1607.

  25. Churchill, displaying his usual panache, had jumped the gun and told General Sir Alan Brooke that he would have the appointment. Harrison, European Theater, 113.

  26. For a time, it appeared Marshall would get the appointment; see DDE to Walter Bedell Smith, October 2, 1943, Papers, 3:1479–1482. Also see Marshall Papers, 4:129.

  27. DDE, Memorandum for Diary, December 6, 1943, Papers, 3:1585–1589.

  28. Eisenhower’s attention was increasingly captured by the plans for the cross-Channel invasion, but he did not leave the Mediterranean until the end of December, when he flew back to the United States. He then traveled to Britain in the middle of January 1944.

  29. Ike had, among other things, become much tougher about relieving officers who failed to be successful in combat. Compare his earlier treatment of Fredendall with his abrupt dismissal of Major General Dawley. DDE to Marshall, September 19, 1943, Papers, 3:1436.

  30. Eisenhower quickly assigned leading positions to General Bradley and General Patton. He went far beyond that in attempting to ensure that he would have a deep team that would perform well in combat. See, for instance, Marshall to Eisenhower, February 25, 1944, and March 20, 1944, Marshall Papers, 4:317–318, 356–357. Marshall had General McNair combing through his units to find the kind of aggressive, battle-experienced commanders Ike wanted.

  31. Marshall to Eisenhower, December 28 and 29, 1943, Marshall Papers, 4:210–211, 215–216.

  32. It is expected of every author who writes on Ike to have a conclusion about his relationship with Kay Summersby. So here is mine: She was a beautiful, charming former model who became an important member of Ike’s immediate entourage, often called his “family.” She served along with Harry Butcher, his naval aide; with Sergeant John A. Moaney, a personal aide; and others, who spent a great deal of time with Ike. He relaxed with Kay and without doubt had what was once called a “crush” on her. Were they sleeping together? I doubt it for two reasons: they were seldom alone, and Kay did not mention it in her second book on the subject, done with a ghostwriter when she was dying. See Kay Summersby Morgan, Past Forgetting: My Love Affair with Dwight D. Eisenhower (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975). Kay’s earlier account—Eisenhower Was My Boss (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1948)—was less explicit and less interesting in regard to its main subject. The only time their relationship might have intruded on Eisenhower’s leadership was when he rather foolishly attempted to introduce her to King George, who refused to acknowledge her presence.

  33. See Eisenhower to Marshall, February 19, 1944, for an excellent discussion of what Eisenhower called “the initial crisis of the Campaign,” that is, the effort to establish a beachhead and the likely German counterattack. Papers, 3:1736–1740. The anticipated margin was so tight that the outcome might be swayed by the ability to keep the planned percentage of landing craft actually in operation. In effect, the absence of spare parts for landing craft might undercut the entire assault. Harrison, European Theater, 170–171.

  34. Early on, Ike told his chief of staff, “There is a very deep conviction here, in all circles, that we are approaching a tremendous crisis with stakes incalculable.” January 22, 1944, Papers, 3:1672. See the excellent discussion of Overlord planning under General Morgan in Harrison, European Theater, 71–79: “General Morgan was always conscious that the Allies, with such limited resources in the early stages, could hope at best for only a slender margin of superiority” (75).

  35. Eisenhower to Joint Chiefs of Staff, March 9, 1944, Papers, 3:1763–1764.

  36. Eisenhower to Combined Chiefs of Staff and British Chiefs of Staff, January 23, 1944, Papers, 3:1673–1676.

  37. Eisenhower to Marshall, March 10, 1944, Papers, 3:1766–1768.

  38. Marshall to Stimson, May 16, 1944, Marshall Papers, 4:447–450.

  39. Eisenhower to W. B. Smith, January 5, 1944, Papers, 3:1652–1654; Eisenhower to Montgomery, January 13, 1944, Eisenhower to Joint Chiefs of Staff, January 27, 1944, and Diary, February 7, 1944, Papers, 3:1654–1655, 1688–1692, 1711–1713; Marshall to Eisenhower, February 7, 1944, Marshall, Memorandum for Sir John Dill, February 9, 1944, and Marshall to Admiral Leahy and Admiral King, February 9, 1944, Marshall Papers, 4:271–275.

  40. Marshall to Eisenhower, February 21, 1944, Marshall Papers, 4:313–314.

  41. The debate is carried forward in Marshall to General Handy, March 14, 1944, Marshall to Winston S. Churchill, March 16, 1944, Marshall to Eisenhower, March 16, 1944, and Marshall to Churchill, April 13, 1944, Marshall Papers, 4:341–343, 347, 348–350, 404–405. See also Eisenhower to British Chiefs of Staff, February 18, 1944, Papers, 3:1732–1734; Harrison, European Theater, 166–174.

  42. Eisenhower to Marshall, March 21, 1944, Papers, 3:1779.

  43. Eisenhower to Marshall, March 21, 1944, and April 17, 1944, Papers, 3:1776–1779, 1827–1829.

  44. Harrison, European Theater, 270.

  45. For background, see Eisenhower to Marshall, September 5, 1943, Papers, 2:1384–1386.

  46. Eisenhower to Marshall, December 25, 1943, goes over this issue; Papers, 3:1611–1615. Eisenhower to Arthur William Tedder, February 29, 1944, gives a good sense of how serious the problem was; Papers, 3:1755–1756.

  47. Max Hastings, Inferno: The World at War, 1939–1945 (New York: Vintage, 2012), 455–479, provides an excellent overview of the bombing campaign and the powerful sense of optimism in the bomber command.

  48. Harrison, European Theater, 211.

  49. Ibid., 219. The previous plan had emphasized ball-bearing production as the crucial target.

  50. Ibid., 185–186, 214.

  51. Ibid., 219–220.

  52. Eisenhower, “Memorandum,” March 22, 1944, Papers, 3:1782–1787, gives a good summary from the Supreme Commander’s perspective. See also Harrison, European Theater, 218–220. And see Max Hastings, Bomber Command (Minneapolis, MN: Zenith Press, 2013), 226–236, which reviews with insight all sides of the debate.

  53. Eisenhower to Walter Bedell Smith and Tedder, March 31, 1944, Papers, 3:1802.

  54. On the raids and simultaneous partisan attacks, see Harrison, European Theater, 224–230.

  55. Eisenhower and Marshall debated at length over the commanders; see, for instance, Eisenhower to Marshall, December 27, 28, and 29, 1943, and Eisenhower to Walter Bedell Smith, December 31, 1943, Papers, 3:1622–1624, 1626–1628, 1630–1632, 1647–16
48. On the command structure, see Eisenhower to Marshall, April 25, 1944, Papers, 3:1830–1832.

  56. Eisenhower to Tedder, March 9, 1944, Papers, 3:1765–1766; Harrison, European Theater, 219–220, 223.

  57. Harrison, European Theater, 220–223.

  58. On the raids and the simultaneous partisan attacks, see ibid.

  59. Rommel emphasized the defense at the Atlantic Wall and Rundstedt gave greater emphasis to the counterattacks, but both generals recognized that their armies would have to move forward and probably be repositioned after the invasion began.

  60. For an exciting and meticulous account of Eisenhower’s last few days before the invasion, see Carlo D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life (New York: Henry Holt, 2002), 516–529.

  61. Eisenhower to Marshall, March 20, 1944, Papers, 3:1773–1774.

  62. Eisenhower to Marshall, June 1 and 3, 1944, Papers, 3:1902, 1903–1906.

  63. Eisenhower’s “Note” appears in the Papers, 3:1908, and is discussed in Harry C. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower: The Personal Diary of Captain Harry C. Butcher, USNR, Naval Aide to General Eisenhower, 1942–1945 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946), 610. Eisenhower apparently told Butcher that he had written a similar note on the occasion of each of the amphibious attacks he had led.

  64. It had been understood from the beginning of the planning process that the margin favoring the Allies would initially be very thin. See Harrison, European Theater, 74.

  65. Erickson, Road to Berlin, 154–162. At the Teheran Conference (November 28–December 1, 1943) Stalin had begun to clarify for the Allies exactly what the Soviets would want in the postwar settlement. Stalin was exploiting his new position of strength. He urged the United States and Britain to abandon their efforts to take Rome and put their soldiers in France. Poland and Germany were clearly Stalin’s prime interests. His position became even stronger as the Soviet summer offensive ground ahead. By April, little of Ukraine was left in German control. In the south, the Soviet attacks resulted in more than a million casualties for Germany and its allies. Germany lost between twenty-five and twenty-eight divisions when the Soviets crushed Army Group Centre. See Erickson, Road to Berlin, 154–162, 187–188, 190–192, 210, 215, 220, 224, 227–229.