The Supreme Commander

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  The truth was that De Gaulle accepted the arrangement because he was sure he could bend the committee to his will. AFHQ officers saw what they wanted to see and, despite all evidence to the contrary, kept assuring themselves that De Gaulle was through. In reporting on the “local political mess” to Marshall, Eisenhower said, “I am quite sure that De Gaulle is losing ground, but strangely enough this is not resulting in a strengthening of Giraud.” He sensed a “growing weariness by the majority with the bickerings of individuals,” and thereby came close to putting his finger on one of the key elements in De Gaulle’s success—his persistence. De Gaulle was in it for the long haul. Unlike ordinary men, he would never get weary until he got his way.27

  De Gaulle was certain things would begin to fall into place, and they began to do so almost immediately. On the morning of June 24 Boisson wired to Giraud to announce his resignation. This came as a great surprise. Giraud, fearing that Boisson had sent a similar resignation to De Gaulle, “and not wanting to be outfoxed” by having De Gaulle assume the prerogatives of government and accept the resignation, accepted it himself. Eisenhower rushed over to see Giraud and urged him to defer any action on Boisson until the FCNL could meet.28 Giraud thereupon withdrew his acceptance of the resignation.

  Murphy meanwhile told the American government that, if Boisson insisted upon resigning, it should make the best of it. Roosevelt, who earlier had been ready to send regiments of infantry into Dakar to keep Boisson, had by now lost interest. Neither Murphy nor Eisenhower received instructions from Washington. The FCNL, meanwhile, met and decided to ask Boisson to remain at his post until a successor could be found. The Americans asked only that the successor be persona grata to them, and he was. By July 1 the whole thing was settled.29

  De Gaulle then began to press for recognition of the FCNL as the sole French administrative body. This issue was far more important than Giraud’s position. Recognition would force Eisenhower and American officials to deal with the committee rather than the commander in chief, it would open the way for representatives of the FCNL to participate in Allied committees, it would permit the FCNL access to French credits held in the United States (estimated at a billion dollars in gold), and most of all it would simplify the situation when the day of liberation came. If there were no recognition of the FCNL, nothing would prevent the Allied commander from signing another Clark-Darlan accord with some Pétainist official or with Pétain himself, from ignoring the Resistance, or from setting up a military occupation.30

  Macmillan thought the committee ought to be recognized, and he was gradually converting the Americans at AFHQ to his view. He felt that the committee was acquiring a collective authority, that De Gaulle was by no means its master, and that it would make dealings much less complicated if AFHQ could deal with the FCNL instead of with personalities. Besides, he feared that if the committee broke down, as it was likely to do without recognition, De Gaulle would become the sole figure around whom patriotic Frenchmen could rally.31

  Churchill agreed with Macmillan. He was deeply concerned about De Gaulle because De Gaulle’s conduct had alienated Hull and Roosevelt so badly that the two Americans could hardly speak rationally about the man. The Prime Minister thought the solution was to submerge De Gaulle in the committee and allow it to demonstrate its value.32 On July 21 Churchill urged Roosevelt to help solidify Anglo-American relations with the FCNL. “What does recognition mean?” he asked. “One can recognize a man as an Emperor or as a grocer. Recognition is meaningless, without a defining formula.” The formula he wanted amounted to a recognition of the FCNL as the provisional government of France. Churchill added that Macmillan “reports that Eisenhower and Murphy both agree with this.…”33

  Roosevelt’s response was to send a blistering cable to Eisenhower demanding to know what was going on. “Under no condition are you to recognize the Committee …,” Roosevelt warned.34

  Eisenhower was “astonished” at the suggestion that he had intended to recognize the FCNL on his own authority. He assured Marshall, “I am quite well aware of the exclusive authority of the President in such matters, and I am sometimes disturbed that any rumor of such a kind can gain such force or atmosphere of validity as to create an impression that I would step out of my own proper sphere to this extent, or could impel, as in this case, the President himself to send me orders on the subject.” He then added that he, Murphy, and Macmillan felt that “some kind of limited recognition … would be helpful.”35

  A period of negotiation between Churchill and Roosevelt followed. Eventually, in August, they reached an agreement of sorts. Roosevelt, roundly declaring that he would not “give De Gaulle a white horse on which he could ride into France and make himself master of a government there,” chose to “recognize” the FCNL “as administering those French overseas territories which acknowledge its authority.” He went to great pains to emphasize that “this statement does not constitute recognition of a government of France or of the French Empire by the Government of the United States.”

  Churchill’s government gave the FCNL a much broader and less circumscribed recognition. Both governments insisted that, “in view of the paramount importance of the common war effort, the relationship with the French Committee of National Liberation must continue to be subject to the military requirements of the Allied Commanders,” although the British couched their statement in more polite language.36

  For Eisenhower, what mattered was that there had finally been a settlement of French affairs, and, it must be added, generally along the lines he had recommended. He could, he believed, expect political tranquillity in Algiers. With Giraud and De Gaulle functioning as loyal members of a committee that was beginning to take its position as a provisional government seriously, Eisenhower could look forward to a relationship with the French free from personal animosity or difficulty. Or so he at least fondly hoped. If trouble did come, however, he could cope with it, for he had learned much since Murphy first introduced him to French political affairs. He had indeed become an expert in the field.

  * How Roosevelt got it into his head that the Allies had a military occupation of French West Africa is a mystery. Boisson had invited Allied representatives into Dakar and allowed the Allies to use the facilities at Dakar of his own free will. There was never any pretense of military conquest, as there was in Algiers, Morocco, and Tunisia.

  CHAPTER 15

  Preparing HUSKY: March–July 1943

  As the end of the campaign approached in Tunisia, planners began the detailed work on HUSKY, the invasion of Sicily. As had been the case with TORCH, the attempt to reach agreement on a date and landing sites led to confusion and disagreement. “The HUSKY thing has gotten planners really in a turmoil,” Eisenhower told Somervell as early as March 19.1 The next day he confessed to Handy that HUSKY was bringing on “terrific headaches.” Unlike the TORCH argument, however, the HUSKY dispute did not follow national lines. “I do not allow, ever, an expression to be used in this Headquarters in my presence that even insinuates a British vs. American problem exists,” Eisenhower told Handy. “So far as I am concerned, it doesn’t.”2 There were differences of opinion on when and where to land, but at the center of the argument were three British officers, with Montgomery on one side and Tedder and Cunningham on the other.

  About some things there could be no argument, since availability of equipment was the determining factor. The possible dates for the invasion were limited by the phases of the moon. The army men wanted darkness for their trip to the landing sites, while the paratroopers who would land inland to seal off the beaches wanted some light for their drop. This meant the assault had to come when the moon was in its second quarter, either between June 10 and June 14 or during a similar period in July. The CCS wanted the attack to come in June, but on March 13, following a meeting with his three deputies, Eisenhower decided that he could not mount it until July. The main reason was that landing craft would not arrive before May. In addition, Eisenhower needed time to train th
e HUSKY contingent in assault tactics.3

  A brief glance at a map of the Mediterranean indicated that the best landing site would be at or just south of Messina. Possession of that area would cut off Sicily from the Italian mainland. The Allies could then throw up a defensive line and force the Axis troops to attack them. Messina, however, received no serious consideration because all the commanders thought it too risky. The Axis could bring too much strength to bear, the approach was narrow, and the sea rough. Most of all, it was out of range of fighter cover. Next best was anywhere north of Mount Etna, followed by a northward move to Messina, but again the risks seemed too great. The truth was that, both at AFHQ and at Alexander’s headquarters, planners were cautious to a fault. Their major—sometimes, it seemed, sole—concern was getting ashore. Montgomery and his staff shared this concern.

  The easiest place to get ashore was on the southeastern portion of Sicily. It was closest to Allied ports in North Africa and had the softest beach. The trouble here was that the supply people insisted that without port facilities they could not support the nine divisions that would participate, and even if Syracuse was captured early there would not be enough port capacity. The operation would thus fail, they felt, because of lack of reinforcements, ammunition, and other supplies.

  The alternative was to make the major attack in the southeast with smaller attacks elsewhere to gain the needed ports. As long as only Italians were on the island, the relative weakness of the minor attacks did not matter much, for the planners did not expect the Italians to put up a serious fight. But if German troops came onto the island in any number, each assault force would have to be large enough to maintain itself or face annihilation.

  At a March 13 meeting of the commander in chief and his deputies, the Allies decided to make three separate landings. The first and largest would be in the southeast, the second in the southwest, and the third in the northwest, near the excellent port of Palermo. One of the major concerns was air cover and the need to eliminate the Axis striking force; under the echelon plan, captured airfields from the first landing would be used to provide air support for the second, and so on. Meanwhile ports would be opened, and an inland parachute drop would take place opposite the southeastern landing site.

  The risks seemed great. The plan was complicated, involved a serious diversion of strength, and called for successive rather than simultaneous assaults. If the Germans got onto the island in a strength of two divisions or more, the Allies felt the Axis could defeat any one of their landing forces in detail, thus throwing the whole program out of kilter. But the commanders felt they had to trust their experts. The supply people said they had to have the ports, especially Palermo, so the final decision was made.4

  The assault forces would consist of the Eastern Task Force, composed of five divisions of Montgomery’s Eighth Army, and the Western Task Force, the U. S. Seventh Army, under Patton.5 All would come under Alexander’s Fifteenth Army Group. Eisenhower personally selected Patton, while the British insisted on Montgomery, even though during the main planning stage he was busy in Tunisia.

  When Montgomery studied the first plan, he immediately declared that his force was not strong enough to take all its objectives, which included Syracuse and the airfields at Catania and Gela. To achieve this, he declared, he had to have at least one more division. Alexander and Eisenhower went over the problem and decided they would have to eliminate the southwestern landings, since there was no possibility that the CCS would give them more men or landing craft. This would bring an American division to the east and place it under Montgomery, with Gela as its objective.6

  Neither Cunningham nor Tedder liked this alternative plan. They wanted as many landings as widely scattered as possible in order to capture Axis airfields. To Tedder this was the cheapest and quickest way to gain control of the air; to Cunningham, worried about his ships in the area, it represented insurance against enemy air strikes on his naval forces. Both were inclined to feel that Alexander gave in to Montgomery too easily.7

  At the beginning of April Eisenhower paid a visit to Montgomery. He wanted to inspect the Eighth Army, visit the Mareth battlefield, and talk about HUSKY. It was his first long meeting with the British general and his impression was unfavorable. Eisenhower told Marshall that although Montgomery had ability he was conceited. Eisenhower thought Montgomery was so proud of his achievements that he would never attack until victory was certain. He thought Montgomery intended to preserve the reputation he had won at El Alamein.8

  Caution was widespread that spring. As Eisenhower prepared for the first Allied assault against an Axis position in Europe, his major thought continued to be getting ashore safely. On April 7 he told the CCS that if more than two German divisions were present in Sicily “the operation offers scant promise of success.” The assault was a frontal one devoid of strategical or tactical surprise, with nine Allied divisions hitting eight Axis divisions. It could succeed against the poorly-equipped Italians, but not against a garrison with a high proportion of German troops.9

  The next day an agitated Churchill discussed Eisenhower’s message with the BCOS. He pointed out, with some heat, that Eisenhower’s caution contrasted oddly with the confidence the Americans had shown the previous summer about invading France across the Channel, where they would have to meet a great many more than two German divisions. If two German divisions were to be decisive against the operations of the million men now in North Africa, the Prime Minister felt, he could not see how the war could be carried on. “Months of preparation, sea power and air power in abundance and yet two German divisions are sufficient to knock it all on the head,” he growled.

  To Churchill it was “perfectly clear that the operations must either be entrusted to someone who believes in them, or abandoned. I trust the Chiefs of Staff will not accept these pusillanimous and defeatist doctrines from whoever they come.” He reminded the BCOS that the Allies had told the Russians that lend-lease convoys could not be run for the sake of HUSKY. Now HUSKY was to be abandoned if there were a mere two German divisions in the neighborhood. “What Stalin would think of this when he has 185 German divisons on his front, I cannot imagine.”10

  Churchill’s chiefs agreed with him and immediately sent a telegram to the JCS in Washington. The JCS accepted the view of the BCOS, and a telegram in the same sense as Churchill’s remarks, but in less vehement language, came to Eisenhower on April 10. His reply, in full, read: “Operation HUSKY will be prosecuted with all the means at our disposal. While we believe it our duty to give our considered and agreed opinion of relative changes under conditions as stated in our previous messages, there is no thought here except to carry out our orders to the ultimate limit of our ability.”11

  Eisenhower’s British deputies, meanwhile, continued to argue about HUSKY (which ultimately went through eight separate plans). Eisenhower did not officially participate in the argument, since under the command structure created at Casablanca he was supposed merely to approve or disapprove of the plan his deputies sent up to him. Unofficially, however, he was deeply involved, primarily by paying visits to the various headquarters and talking things over with the commanders.

  The situation began to come to a head in late April. Montgomery went to Cairo, where his own planning headquarters was working on HUSKY, and came away convinced that everything should be concentrated on the southeastern corner of Sicily. He flew to Algiers to present his plan. Eisenhower refused to discuss it with him unless Alexander was present, and Alexander was busy conducting the Tunisian battle. Montgomery then proposed to Smith that AFHQ give up the Palermo landing and put Patton’s force ashore on Eighth Army’s left flank, near Gela. Smith agreed and called a staff conference, at which Montgomery presented his case.

  “I know well that I am regarded by many people as being a tiresome person,” Montgomery began. “I think this is very probably true. I try hard not to be tiresome; but I have seen so many mistakes made in this war, and so many disasters happen, that I am desperately
anxious to try and see that we have no more; and this often means being very tiresome. If we have a disaster in Sicily it would be dreadful.” The way to avoid disaster, he continued, was to be strong at the point of landing, which meant putting Seventh and Eighth Armies ashore side by side.12

  Montgomery felt he convinced Eisenhower, to whom Smith related the plan, but Eisenhower refused to come to a decision until the plan was recommended to him by the three deputies. When they came to Algiers the next day, agreement was finally reached. Tedder felt that Montgomery would take “no risks” and was “shaken at the thought of the risks inevitable in an operation of this sort,” but since the plan would give the air forces the fields at Gela and Catania, Tedder agreed to go along with it. Cunningham was agreeable, too, since at least his naval forces would have concentrated air cover. Alexander, according to Tedder, did whatever Montgomery wanted him to do. When Eisenhower gave his approval, the plan was set.13

  The final plan was based on anticipation of strong Italian and German resistance. As the official American historians note, “The whole approach toward Sicily was cautious and conservative,” with the emphasis on ensuring success and avoiding calculated risk. The plan reflected the planner—Montgomery—and like him it was cautious. “No one except Montgomery was particularly happy with it.”14

  With the concentrated assault, the Allies were avoiding the risk of dispersion and accepting another. Montgomery’s plan had long been discussed and always rejected on the grounds that the Allies could not supply the Western Task Force over the beaches. Montgomery insisted that the technicians would have to find a way. What convinced Eisenhower was the presence of additional LSTs that the CCS brought in, and the quantity production of the DUKW, or “duck,” an amphibious vehicle that could bring in supplies over the beach. With the DUKW, Eisenhower’s supply people told him, they could maintain Patton. This assurance made up Eisenhower’s mind.15*