The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965

by William Manchester

  Meanwhile, Churchill had decided that an invasion of northern Sumatra, which he had first proposed in May, now offered the greatest strategic opportunity in Southeast Asia. On that score, Brooke lamented to his diary: “He [Churchill] has during the sea voyage in a few idle moments become married to the idea that success against Japan can only be secured through the capture of the north tip of Sumatra!” Churchill, Brooke added, “has become like a peevish child asking for a forbidden toy.”229

  On August 9, Queen Mary dropped anchor in Halifax Harbor. Churchill and his party required two Canadian National Railway trains for the trip to Quebec City, which they reached late in the afternoon of the tenth. Churchill left the train just shy of the city in order to complete the journey by car with the Canadian prime minister, Mackenzie King. The principals bunked at the Citadel, on the cliffs above the Old City, while hundreds of staff officers took over the nearby Château Frontenac hotel, whose six hundred rooms had been cleared of guests but for one suite occupied by an elderly woman who was expected to die within days (she, however, lived, and was residing in the same room a year later when the second Quebec conference convened). The Americans were not due for three days.230

  Prime Minister Mackenzie King and the Canadians found themselves looking in from the outside at their own garden party. Other than being given vague summaries of decisions made by the Combined Chiefs, the Canadians were excluded from the conference. Canada fielded five divisions in Britain and Sicily, including a division under Montgomery. During the Great War, Canada buried 66,000 of her sons, America, 117,000 of hers; adjusted for the difference in populations, America would have needed to plant more than one million crosses in Flanders. Canada had bled for England. Now, again, this nation of just eleven million was suffering several times more casualties on a per capita basis than the United States and almost as many as Britain. When, two weeks earlier, the Canadian commander in chief in London, General Andrew McNaughton, traveled to Malta in expectation of reviewing his troops in Sicily, Montgomery refused. Alexander backed Monty up; Eisenhower did not intercede. It was an appalling slight to Canada, yet since September 3, 1939, HMG’s position was that Dominion forces served under British command. The Dominions had neither a permanent seat in the War Cabinet nor any binding say in its deliberations. The logic behind London’s arrangement with the Dominions was compelling from a military standpoint. Given that British troops (and British casualties) far outnumbered those of the Dominions, the apogee of the command structure must therefore be British. Franklin Roosevelt also understood that logic and was about to turn it against Churchill.231

  Within a day of arriving in Quebec, and before Quadrant began, Churchill boarded a train for a journey south to Hyde Park and a private meeting with Roosevelt. He was accompanied by Mary but not by Clementine, brought low by the long sea voyage. Mary had become the darling of the American press as soon as she set foot in North America. Other than being the prime minister’s daughter and manning an ack-ack battery in Hyde Park, she lived a normal life, Time reported. She did not much frequent London’s bare-boned nightclubs, did not smoke cigarettes. She loved to dance. Unlike her sister, Sarah, her father, and her brother, she drank only modestly, although late at night of an evening, she liked to sit before the fire in the company of her father and smoke a cigar. She dated British and U.S. officers. Time reported that when one of them, the American cartoonist and creator of G.I. Joe, Sergeant Dave Breger, fifteen years her senior, took her to see prizefights between British and U.S. soldiers, “she saw her first boxing. She asked everyone around her about the rules, cheered, chewed gum.” Her nickname was Chip; “she was a member of the jukebox generation” but wise beyond her years and “intelligent without thick lenses…. She has watched too many big minds grapple with too many big problems.”232

  Churchill chose not to take the most direct routes from Quebec to Hyde Park, south through Vermont or along the Hudson. Never one to let the privileges of rank go begging, he instead took his party on a one-day four-hundred-mile detour in order that Mary might behold the majesty of Niagara Falls. While flashing the “V” sign for onlookers at Niagara, Churchill was asked by a reporter what he thought of the falls. He replied that he had been there before, in 1900, and that “the principle seems the same. The water still keeps falling over.” Then, after driving across to the American side, he reboarded his train. He loved trains, especially American trains. A decade earlier he had written in Collier’s of the luxuries of American Pullman cars, the wide and comfortable berths in the deluxe sleepers, the “gargantuan meals” prepared with “skill and delicacy” and served by “the darky attendants with their soft voices and delightful drawl and courteous, docile, agreeable ways” and who were “an unfailing source not only of comfort but of perpetual amusement.” Thus ensconced in his favored mode of transportation—and taking delight in flashing his “V” at farmers in their fields as he stood at the window—he made the four-hundred-mile run east on the New York Central main line, past farms and fields alongside the Erie Canal, through the Mohawk Valley, and finally down the Hudson Valley to Hyde Park.233

  There, the president awaited Churchill with homey meals of hot dogs, hamburgers, and clam chowder (Inspector Thompson thought the hot dogs “abominable”). Roosevelt, jaunty and the picture of civility, was ready to serve up to Churchill a nonnegotiable proposition. Henry Stimson, always wary of Churchill’s sway over Roosevelt whenever the two met alone, had delivered his brief to the president. Based on his unsettling conversations with Churchill in London, Stimson advised Roosevelt to repudiate the British “pinprick” strategy and to demand from Churchill a second front in France by May of 1944, and an American commander for that front, George Marshall. During his May visit to Washington, Churchill had told the U.S. Congress: “I was driving the other day not far from the field of Gettysburg, which I know well, like most of your battlefields. It was the decisive battle of the American Civil War. No one after Gettysburg doubted which way the dread balance of war would incline, yet far more blood was shed after the Union victory at Gettysburg than in all the fighting which went before.” Now, in mid-August, no one doubted how the war would end, and if the majority of the blood to be shed in France was to be American, Franklin Roosevelt wanted an American in command.234

  This had not been the case just weeks earlier. Roosevelt and the American military chiefs considered that fair play called for the British to command the French invasion; after all, an American had commanded Torch and Husky. It was now London’s turn. Measured by casualties, it certainly seemed only fair that a Briton command Overlord. At the end of operations in North Africa, the U.S. Army and Army Air Force accounted for approximately 18,200 of 70,000 Allied casualties in that theater—2,700 dead, 9,000 wounded, and 6,500 missing. The British and Dominions suffered the vast majority of the remaining 52,000 casualties. By August, more than 100,000 British airmen, soldiers, and sailors had been killed in action since September 1939, along with 45,000 civilians and more than 20,000 merchant seamen. In Sicily, the British army finally surpassed the Home Island civilian casualty count. The final calculations in Sicily showed 13,000 British and Canadians killed, wounded, or missing, along with the equivalent of two infantry divisions laid low by malaria and typhus, versus 10,000 American casualties. Measured by casualties thus far, Churchill had a far stronger case than Roosevelt in the matter of command of Overlord. But Roosevelt’s case rested on the assumption that by the time the invasion of France took place, or soon thereafter, American forces would equal the British, and within months would outnumber the British by as many as five to one. Therefore, he concluded, command of Overlord must go to an American.235

  Shortly arriving at Hyde Park, Churchill acquiesced. Thus, one of the most significant military decisions made at Quadrant wasn’t made in Quebec, but on the banks of the Hudson River before the conference even began.

  At Quebec, in the days that followed, Churchill and the British chiefs managed to extract four qualifications from the Ame
ricans: Overlord would take place only if the invasion forces did not face more than twelve mobile German divisions, including three on the beaches; and only if the Germans could not build up their forces by fifteen divisions within two months. As well, Germany’s airpower had to be reduced before the invasion could take place; and artificial harbors had to be operational in order to reinforce and supply the initial force. The British saw these conditions as sound planning, especially as the plan for Overlord called for only three seaborne and two parachute divisions to land on the first day. The Americans saw them as loopholes through which Churchill and the British would try to escape their obligations. Still, Marshall and the Americans signed off, for in spite of the conditions, the Americans had demanded and been granted one of their own: if needed, seven divisions that were now in North Africa and Sicily would be siphoned away for Overlord. Brooke opposed this, telling Marshall that “by giving full priority to the cross-Channel preparation you might well cripple the Italian theater and thus render it unable to contain German forces necessary to render the cross-Channel operation possible.” Brooke’s logic was sound, but Marshall and the Americans carried the day. In fact, they added a new dimension to the French strategy by proposing an invasion by two divisions on the Mediterranean French coast in support of Overlord. The operation—named Anvil—was intended to draw German troops away from Normandy. Not addressed for the time being was the question of where those two divisions would come from. It soon became clear to Churchill that they would come from the Italian campaign.236

  Churchill later wrote that his decision to endorse an American commander for Overlord was based on his agreement with Roosevelt’s argument that the Americans were likely to put more men on the beaches than the British were; therefore the command should go to an American. Yet Churchill and the British chiefs also presumed that Eisenhower would replace Marshall, and that Alexander in turn would replace Eisenhower in the Mediterranean. Churchill’s logic (and motive) in accepting second billing for Overlord was consistent with his multifaceted strategy. He considered Overlord to be but one of several ventures, critical, to be sure, but not necessarily destined to be more significant than any other. In fact, the success of Overlord, as Churchill saw it, would depend upon the success of all the other operations. Handing over command of Overlord to the Americans placated Washington and opened the way for the British to command most, perhaps all, of Churchill’s hoped-for ventures—in the Aegean, the Balkans, Burma, Sumatra, the Middle East, northern Norway, and, most important, Italy, where the Allies had more men in combat than would be going ashore in the early days of Overlord. And, as the Americans already suspected, if the agreed-upon conditions for undertaking the invasion of France were not met, there would be no invasion, leaving the Americans with the command of a nonentity, while Churchill held the rest of the marbles.237

  But Churchill did not yet grasp that the supreme commander of Overlord would necessarily become de facto supreme commander of all Anglo-American forces in Europe, with veto power over secondary operations and authority to move men and machines throughout the theater in support of Overlord. Churchill thought only in terms of putting men ashore in France, and of holding that position before advancing with caution while other killing strokes were made in Norway, Italy, and the Balkans, and by the Russians in the east and the RAF and American Eighth Air Force over Berlin. Yet, if his Mulberry harbors performed as planned and the port of Cherbourg was captured, tens upon thousands of men and hundreds of thousands of tons of supplies would land in Normandy in the weeks following the invasion. The commander of such a magnificent force—armies within army groups—could only supplant all others. George Marshall understood this. The command of a lifetime within his grasp, he and his wife began quietly sending furniture from their Maryland post to the family home in Leesburg, Virginia, in anticipation of their move to London.238

  By handing the command over to Marshall, Churchill denied Brooke his dream of a decisive role in the destruction of Hitler’s armies (as well as his escape from Churchill’s direct influence). On August 15, the CIGS scribbled in his diary: “Winston gave in, in spite of having previously offered me the job!” Churchill explained his reasoning while he and Brooke stood on a terrace of the Citadel high above the Saint Lawrence, and then asked Brooke how he felt about the decision. “Disappointed” was about all Brooke could muster. Years later he wrote, “Not for one moment did he [Churchill] realize what this meant to me. He offered no sympathy, no regrets at having had to change his mind.” It took several months for Brooke to recover from this “crashing blow,” in part because he suspected Churchill had traded command of Overlord for the appointment of Mountbatten as supreme commander in Southeast Asia. In this, Brooke was partially correct, but Churchill’s horse trading with Roosevelt in regard to Asia was more political than military. Roosevelt got on famously with Mountbatten; the American press adored the man. By sending Mountbatten to take charge, Churchill could claim the British were doing their part against Tokyo.239

  Each night at Quebec, Brooke found a new way to tell his diary what he thought of that day’s discussions: “long,” “trying,” “poisonous,” especially as pertained to the Japanese war, and especially as pertained to Churchill’s approach to the Pacific theater, which Brooke described as “chasing hares.” Where Churchill wanted to nibble at the edges of the Japanese empire, Nimitz and MacArthur wanted to drive from the South Pacific straight to Tokyo, with MacArthur on the left taking aim at the Philippines, and Nimitz on the right island-hopping northward. The Americans therefore demanded more from the British in Burma in support of Chiang, who they believed would prove his worth by holding down Japanese armies in China while the main thrust came from the South Pacific. China, for the Americans, had a vital supporting role in the whole show. But Churchill, Gil Winant reported to Washington, “was quite willing to see China collapse.” The Americans suspected the British were fighting in Burma, not for China but for the restoration of British imperial holdings. This, the Americans could not be a party to; the greater the American presence in Southeast Asia, the greater the risk that Roosevelt would be accused of aiding and abetting British imperialism.

  Each side was driven by conflicting political strategies, with the result that the strictly military objectives they shared were often made orphans to politics. Wingate’s six thousand raiders, Stilwell’s Chinese troops in India, and the Fourteenth Army, under General Billy Slim, found themselves the forgotten men in a forgotten theater. Mountbatten’s presence would signal a change; Churchill could claim he sent his best man, his “triphibian” warrior, to take up the reins. To placate the Americans, Stilwell would go in as Mountbatten’s deputy. Stilwell, caught in the middle and denied a real opportunity to kill his hated Japs, reacted with his usual fury. In a symbolic thumb in the eye to the British, he refused to stand and sing when “God Save the King” was played. After a plea from Marshall, he agreed to stand for the ceremony, but he would not sing. As for his new supreme commander, Stilwell considered Mountbatten to be a “limey mountebank” and “as dumb as that thick-headed cousin of his, the King.” Such sentiments lent credence to a saying Churchill liked to toss out over drinks: “There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.”240

  The same could be said of Brooke’s difficulties in fighting a war in harness with Churchill. The meetings of the Combined Chiefs of Staff were contentious, but progress was made. Then, just as Brooke appeared to reach an understanding with the Americans on the need for a general plan for the war against Japan, Churchill insisted again on capturing northern Sumatra, and letting events elsewhere play out on their own. Brooke exploded to his diary, “He [Churchill] refused to accept that any general plan was necessary, recommended a purely opportunistic policy…. I feel cooked and unable to face another day of conferences.” Pug Ismay, Churchill’s liaison with Brooke, found himself caught in the middle of this clash of supremely different personalities. Churchill, well aware of Brooke�
��s disdain of his strategic talents, once dispatched Ismay to ask Brooke why he so hated the prime minister. Ismay returned with Brooke’s reply; he in fact loved the prime minister but could not serve him well without disputing that which he disagreed with. Churchill listened, bowed his head, and whispered, “Dear Brookie.”241

  On August 17, Alexander cabled Churchill the news that the last Germans had been flung out of Sicily. The campaign was over; it had lasted just thirty-eight days. But the victory was incomplete: Kesselring’s 60,000 men had escaped to Italy. That day, the new Italian government scrambled to meet surrender terms laid down by Eisenhower. The problem, ironic as Churchill saw it, was that the Italian negotiator in Lisbon, General Giuseppe Castellano, wanted to learn from Eisenhower’s lieutenant, Bedell (“Beetle”) Smith, how best Italy could take the field against the Germans, whom Castellano, a Sicilian, hated. But Smith replied that he could only discuss unconditional surrender. With the invasion of the toe and heel of Italy now scheduled to take place in two weeks, Churchill worried that a quisling government might take power in Rome, or that the Germans would occupy Rome and take direct control. He wanted Eisenhower to convey to the Italians that if, when the Allies landed, they encountered Italian troops fighting Germans, Italy would be welcomed as a co-belligerent in the war against Hitler. But Castellano wanted assurances; the Italian forze amate stood no chance in a fight with the Wehrmacht. And Eisenhower could not deliver any such guarantee until the Italians surrendered, unconditionally. Eisenhower also sought reassurance from Castellano that Mussolini would not reappear in the guise of savior. When asked by Smith where Mussolini was being kept, Castellano replied, “Hitler would like to know, too.” In fact, Hitler soon learned that Il Duce was being held at Campo Imperatore Hotel, a mountaintop ski resort in Abruzzo, and put plans into place for the very resurrection Churchill feared.242