The Supreme Commander

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  He was a man of extraordinary energy. He went to bed late, got up early, worked seven days a week, and had to be forced to relax. For four years he averaged five hours’ sleep a night, but it never seemed to reduce his efficiency. He smoked incessantly. His fierce temper frightened him and he struggled to keep it under control, revealing it only to Butcher, Smith, and a few other intimates.

  His language reflected his three decades in the Army. It was of the barracks room, filled with Anglo-Saxon phrases which he used as exclamation points and which he pronounced clearly and without embarrassment (although he was prudish about certain four-letter words). He talked rapidly and often was not a good listener, but he was not a nervous man, for he directed his energy toward obtainable objectives. He was a man of deep involvements, whether the issue at hand concerned strategic planning or the personal problem of an obscure member of his staff.

  The overriding impression he gave was one of vitality. Dwight Eisenhower was an intensely alive human being.

  At the end of the Mediterranean campaign he was fifty-three years old. He had a strong constitution, an absolute essential for a man about to embark on a long and arduous campaign, one which would make innumerable demands on his energy and his body. In his youth he had been an athlete and during his early career in the Army a football coach, and he had kept himself in good physical condition in middle age. Over the past two years, however, he had been so busy working in his office or traveling that he had neglected exercise. At Marshall’s insistence he went horseback riding occasionally, or played a game of golf, but that was all. Still, his muscle tone remained firm and his health good. In the past two years he had lived in Texas, Washington, London, Gibraltar, and Algiers, with frequent trips to Tunisia, Sicily, and Italy. Despite all the changes in climate, water, food, and local diseases, he had lost only a few days to the flu or to colds.

  It was not that he did not pay a price for all his activity, but rather that he did not let it show. In September 1943 a relative told him that he was pleased to see from some snapshots taken in Sicily that Eisenhower looked so healthy. In reply, Eisenhower said, “I must admit that sometimes I feel a thousand years old when I struggle to my bed at night.”1

  He had a sharp, orderly mind. No one ever thought to describe him as an intellectual giant, and outside of his professional field he was not well read. He was not liable to come up with brilliant insights. But he had the ability to look at a situation or a problem and analyze it, see what alternatives were available, and choose from among them. He might miss some nuances, but he seldom overlooked major points. When his superiors gave him a problem they could count on his taking all relevant factors into consideration.

  Eisenhower had firm ideas on justice and fair play. He readily accepted the privileges of command but would not take more than he thought he had coming to him. On a cruise around the Isle of Capri on Christmas Eve, Eisenhower spotted a large villa. “Whose is that?” he asked. “Yours, sir,” someone replied—Butcher had arranged it. Nodding at another, even larger villa, Eisenhower asked, “And that?” “That one belongs to General Spaatz.” Eisenhower exploded. “Damn it, that’s not my villa! And that’s not General Spaatz’ villa! None of those will belong to any general as long as I’m Boss around here. This is supposed to be a rest center—for combat men—not a playground for the Brass!”2

  He was not just performing for the benefit of his aides. When he got back to shore he investigated, found that Spaatz had reserved Capri as a recreation facility for AAF officers, and exploded again. “This is directly contrary to my policies and must cease at once,” he told Spaatz, and ordered him to see to it immediately that “all British and American personnel in this area, particularly from combat units, may be assured of proportionate opportunity in taking advantage of these facilities.”3

  The Capri story, and others similar to it, quickly got out to the troops and delighted them. Nothing pleased the foot slogger struggling in the mud of Italy more than hearing that Eisenhower had put Spaatz or some other general in his place. The fact that Eisenhower often referred to Churchill, Roosevelt, and the CCS as the “big shots,” or that he swore like a sergeant, was much appreciated by the men. So were his frequent visits to the front lines, especially because he listened to the troops’ complaints and, when he could, did something about them. His popularity with the men rested on his genuine concern for their welfare and on his common touch—they regarded him as one of them.

  Eisenhower enjoyed his popularity but he did not always court it. He was a strict disciplinarian and constantly harped on the subject. As a result of his experiences in the Mediterranean, however, he was beginning to recognize that discipline alone was not enough to make men fight, or at least to fight well. Discipline and training “lie at the foundation of every success in war,” he explained to a friend, but morale was just as important. In the prewar Army it was axiomatic that morale came from esprit de corps. Eisenhower still believed this, but he now realized that something more was needed. The battlefields of Tunisia and Sicily and Italy had made a deep impression upon him. So had talking with the men at the front and seeing the conditions under which they lived and fought. Eisenhower had decided that for an army to have morale “there must be a deep-seated conviction in every individual’s mind that he is fighting for a cause worthy of any sacrifice he may make.”

  He seldom spoke about his deepest beliefs (“Professional soldiers do not like to get too sentimental about such things as the flag and love of country”) but he felt, strongly, that the Allied cause was an inspiring one, and he thought that every commander had a responsibility to make the issues clear to the troops. The G.I. and the Tommy had to be made to realize that “the privileged life he has led … is under direct threat. His right to speak his own mind, to engage in any profession of his own choosing, to belong to any religious denomination, to live in any locality where he can support himself and his family, and to be sure of fair treatment when he might be accused of any crime—all these would disappear if the forces opposed to us should, through carelessness or overconfidence on our part, succeed in winning this war.” The Allied cause was “completely bound up with the rights and welfare of the common man.”4

  Eisenhower’s patriotism was simple and direct. As in his approach to many other things, it had few nuances or qualifications. In October his brother Milton sent him a recording of his inaugural speech as president of Kansas State College. He told Milton it was a masterpiece, but he wished his brother had referred to one other responsibility of the educator. “It is the necessity of teaching and inculcating good, old-fashioned patriotism—just that sense of loyalty and obligation to the community that is necessary to the preservation of all the privileges and rights that the community guarantees.”5 Two days later Eisenhower urged a boyhood friend, Swede Hazlett, who was on the staff at the Naval Academy, to teach the obligations as well as the privileges of American citizenship, the need for a clean, honest approach to life, and the necessity for “earnest devotion to duty.” All these things were necessary “if we are to survive as a sturdy nation.”6

  Eisenhower’s beliefs, and his expression of them, were those of Main Street. His personality was that of the outgoing, affable American writ large. It was, therefore, easy to dismiss him as a man of no depth, a general who had the common touch because he was common. But there was more to Eisenhower than that. His qualities may have been like those of the average American, but he had them in abundance.

  Given his role, Eisenhower’s lack of ruthlessness, at least in personal relations, was a source of strength. Although none of his immediate superiors or subordinates seemed to realize it, Eisenhower could not afford to be a table-thumper. With Montgomery’s prestige, power, and personality, for example, had Eisenhower stormed into his headquarters, banged his fist on the table, and shouted out a series of demands, his actions could have been disastrous.

  Precisely because of Eisenhower’s personality, he was by all odds the best of the British or Ameri
can officers available to deal with the French. De Gaulle liked, respected and counted on him heavily. Three days before Eisenhower left North Africa for the last time, De Gaulle paid him a great tribute: “I want to tell you that the French Committee of National Liberation has full confidence in you in the employment of the French forces that it is placing under your command for the next allied operations.”7 Eisenhower had come to have a certain grudging admiration for the tall, cranky, sensitive Frenchman who had given him so many problems. On December 30 he called on De Gaulle to say farewell; the meeting, according to Butcher, was “a love fest.”8 De Gaulle recognized that Eisenhower was his best friend in the Anglo-American camp, while Eisenhower realized that De Gaulle could be of great help in resolving the complex problems that would arise when France was liberated. The two generals looked forward to working together.9

  All these relationships, and the many others involved in the position Eisenhower was assuming, had innumerable ramifications and complex interactions. Doing something to satisfy Montgomery might make Patton angry; a decision that pleased Marshall would leave Brooke unhappy; bowing to the President’s wishes could mean opposing the Prime Minister. The Supreme Commander would have to be able to maintain a balance and still defeat the Germans.

  Eisenhower was aware of the complexities. He had already been charged with bending over backward to please the British; Wedemeyer had said as much in September 1943. Eisenhower saw the report in which Wedemeyer made the charge and said it gave him a laugh. He told Wedemeyer that things were not quite so simple as they may have appeared from OPD. An allied command could work, he explained, “only if the Chief is truly self-effacing.” He must have a fund of patience and good humor so that “when he necessarily drags out the big stick it is most effective.” Eisenhower was well aware of the importance of personal relations. He thought that no man should be an allied commander in chief “unless he is rather well acquainted with the individuals comprising the Combined Chiefs of Staff, and unless he has the direct or indirect confidence of the two Heads of State.” No man could achieve these results by pursuing a purely national policy.10

  Good relations with those above him, and with the line officers in the field, were absolutely necessary to the Supreme Commander’s success. Equally important was the way his staff operated. The manner in which Eisenhower put SHAEF together and into operation would be the cement that would hold the alliance together. For Eisenhower the ideal to be approached was AFHQ. He tried at SHAEF to gather a team of British and American staff officers who would match the performance of the AFHQ team. The most obvious first step was to rob AFHQ, and Eisenhower did so with skill. Most of his key staff personnel came out of Algiers. They worked well together. They knew each other’s habits and those of their commander, shared a basic pattern of thought in dealing with alliance problems, and were imbued with the Allied approach. Eisenhower could count on them to continue and expand the teamwork concept of AFHQ.

  The presence of men like Smith, Tedder, and the others gave Eisenhower confidence as he approached his new job.

  The Germans summed up some of Eisenhower’s qualities in an analysis the Luftwaffe made of him in February 1944. Eisenhower “is noted for his great energy, and his hatred of routine office work,” the analysis said. “He … manages to inspire [his subordinates] to supreme efforts through kind understanding and easy discipline. His strongest point is said to be an ability for adjusting personalities to one another and smoothing over opposite viewpoints. Eisenhower enjoys the greatest popularity with Roosevelt and Churchill.”11

  As Eisenhower prepared to assume his duties at OVERLORD he had much to draw upon—his knowledge, based on his three decades of professional service and especially what he had learned in the Mediterranean; his personality; his skill in handling complex problems and relationships; his hand-picked and molded staff. Over and above these and the other factors that led to his success, however, one stood out. When associates described Eisenhower, be they superiors or subordinates, there was one word that almost all of them used. It was trust. From Churchill to the lowest Tommy, from Roosevelt to the buck private at a replacement depot, from De Gaulle to the Resistance fighter in southern France, people trusted Eisenhower.

  They did so for the most obvious reason—he was trustworthy. His grin, his mannerisms, his approach to life all exuded sincerity. He wore his heart on his sleeve. There was nothing devious about him. It is, perhaps, a paradox that it was for this reason that he was such an outstanding diplomat, a profession in which the guarded phrase and the half-truth are supposed to count for much. Darlan and De Gaulle and Badoglio felt they could trust Eisenhower because they knew where he stood and that he said exactly what he meant. Montgomery never thought much of Eisenhower as a soldier (“I would not class Ike as a great soldier in the true sense of the word”) but he did appreciate other qualities. While he thought Eisenhower intelligent, “his real strength lies in his human qualities.… He has the power of drawing the hearts of men towards him as a magnet attracts the bits of metal. He merely has to smile at you, and you trust him at once. He is the very incarnation of sincerity.”12

  Eisenhower once explained to Ismay the basis for his dealings with French politicians. “I immediately started a personal campaign to establish for myself a reputation for the most straightforward, brutal talk that could be imagined,” he said. “I refused to put anything in diplomatic or suave terminology, and carefully cultivated the manner and reputation of complete bluntness and honesty—just a man too simple-minded to indulge in circumlocution.”13

  Eisenhower did all he could to make his word his bond. “I know only one method of operation,” he once said. “To be as honest with others as I am with myself.” In December 1942 he made some promises to Boisson about using his influence with Churchill to do some favors for French West Africa. For political reasons Churchill delayed. Eisenhower told the Prime Minister that Boisson had said to him, time and again, “As long as you tell me that, I believe it!” If it turned out that his word meant nothing, Eisenhower warned Churchill, his effectiveness in dealing with the French would come to an end. The Prime Minister did what the general wanted him to. Later, when Roosevelt tried to back out of American commitments to rearm the French, Eisenhower took the same line with the same results. With his staff and with his troops, with his superiors and with foreign governments, Eisenhower did what he said he was going to do. His reward was the trust they placed in him.

  He had been successful at AFHQ because the people with whom he worked trusted him. If he could keep that trust, he would also be a success as Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force.

  BOOK TWO

  Supreme Commander,

  Allied Expeditionary Force

  Part I

  THE PREPARATION

  [January 1944–June 1944]

  THE Western plan to insure German defeat centered on OVERLORD. The British and Americans were putting everything they had into the operation. Because they were holding nothing back, they were engaging in a tremendous gamble. If OVERLORD failed, it would take months to mount another assault, and by then weather on the Continent and on the coast would have deteriorated to the point that an expedition would have been impossible. But neither Eisenhower nor anyone else made any contingency plans about what to do in case the armies did not get ashore on D-Day, in part because they wanted to think positively, in part because if OVERLORD failed there was little else they could do in any case.

  What the Eastern Ally would have done in the event of a disaster befalling the Western Allies is pure conjecture. There was a great fear in the West that the Russians, once they reached their historic borders, would stop their offensive and, possibly, negotiate a peace with the Germans. Stalin might have decided, had OVERLORD failed, that the West was less than serious about the war and made immediately the best peace with Hitler that he could. On the other hand, the Russians might have continued to drive forward into Europe, thus becoming the liberators—and therefore the occup
iers—of Denmark, western Germany, the Low Countries, and France.

  The point that stood out in January 1944 was that the Western Allies dared not fail, since the consequences were staggering. They therefore approached the task of making OVERLORD succeed with the gravest seriousness. A successful OVERLORD meant, in practice, getting ashore and staying. There was a good deal of talk at Allied headquarters about getting well inland on D-Day, and an over-all scheme for the campaign in Europe to follow, but in fact all recognized that if a bridgehead could be won Anglo-American superiority would sooner or later exploit it, and so planners and commanders concentrated on getting ashore. As Eisenhower put it, at Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), there was “a very deep conviction, in all circles, that we are approaching a tremendous crisis with stakes incalculable,”1 and everyone on the staff and in the field now prepared to use all his talents to meet and overcome that crisis.

  CHAPTER 1

  “We Cannot Afford to Fail”

  The allied invasion of France in 1944 was one of the most complex operations in human history. The requirements and detailed plans involved were enormous. Although the number of men landing in the initial assault at Sicily was higher than the number that would hit the beaches at Normandy on D-Day, OVERLORD’S over-all force of ships, planes, and divisions for the follow-up was vastly greater than at Sicily. OVERLORD was the military effort of the war for the British and Americans. A high percentage of everything done in the two countries for the preceding two years, from the refining of oil for airplane fuel to the training of infantry soldiers, had been aimed toward the operation. This was especially true of technological development.

  As mentioned above, the main thrust of OVERLORD was to get ashore and stay. This goal affected every decision. In selecting the site of the landings, for example, the criterion was not proximity to the heart of German power in France, or to Berlin, or to the major Atlantic port of Antwerp for later build-up and exploitation purposes. The first question in site selection was, rather, Where are we most likely to succeed?