The Supreme Commander

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  Whatever Eisenhower decided would be risky. He looked at Smith. “It’s a helluva gamble but it’s the best possible gamble,” Smith said, indicating that he wanted to go.12 Turning to Montgomery, Eisenhower asked, “Do you see any reason for not going Tuesday?”

  “I would say—Go!” Montgomery replied.

  “The question,” Eisenhower pointed out, was “just how long can you hang this operation on the end of a limb and let it hang there?”13

  If there was going to be an invasion before June 19, Eisenhower had to decide now. Smith was struck by the “loneliness and isolation of a commander at a time when such a momentous decision was to be taken by him, with full knowledge that failure or success rests on his individual decision.”14 Looking out at the wind-driven rain, it hardly seemed possible that the operation could go ahead. Eisenhower calmly weighed the alternatives, and at 9:45 P.M. said, “I am quite positive that the order must be given.”15

  Ramsay rushed out and gave the order to the fleets. More than 5000 ships began moving toward France. Eisenhower drove back to his trailer and slept fitfully. He awoke at 3:30 A.M. A wind of almost hurricane proportions was shaking his trailer. The rain seemed to him to be traveling in horizontal streaks. He dressed and gloomily drove through a mile of mud to Southwick House for the last meeting. It was still not too late to call off the operation. In the now familiar mess room, steaming hot coffee helped shake the gray mood and unsteady feeling. Stagg began the conference by saying that the bad weather he had predicted for June 5 was here; this, Eisenhower supposed, was intended to inspire confidence in the weather man’s abilities. Stagg then said that the break he had been looking for was on its way and that the weather would be clear within a matter of hours. The long-range prediction was not good, to be sure, he said, for the Channel might be rough again on June 7, raising the possibility that the Allies would get the first and second assault waves ashore and then be unable to reinforce them.16 But even as Stagg talked the rain began to stop and the sky started to clear.

  A short discussion followed. Montgomery still wanted to go, as did Smith and Ramsay. Smith was concerned about proper spotting for naval gunfire but thought the risk worth taking. Tedder was ready. Leigh-Mallory still thought air conditions were below the acceptable minimum but said he realized this applied equally to the enemy.17

  Everyone had stated his opinion. Stagg had withdrawn to let the generals and admirals make the decision. No new weather reports would be available for hours. The ships were sailing into the Channel. If they were to be called back, it had to be done now. The Supreme Commander was the only man who could do it.

  Eisenhower thought for a moment, then said quietly but clearly, “O.K., let’s go.”*

  The commanders rushed from their chairs and dashed outside to get to their command posts. Within thirty seconds the mess room was empty, except for Eisenhower. The outflow of the others and his sudden isolation were symbolic. A minute earlier he had been the most powerful man in the world. Upon his word the fate of millions of men, not to mention great nations, depended. The moment he uttered the word, however, he was powerless. For the next two or three days there was almost nothing he could do that would in any way change anything. The invasion could not be stopped, not by him, not by anyone. A captain leading his company onto Omaha, or even a platoon sergeant at Utah, would for the immediate future play a greater role than Eisenhower. He could now only sit and wait.

  Eisenhower was improving at killing time. He visited South Parade Pier in Portsmouth to see some British soldiers climb aboard their landing craft, then returned to his trailer. He played a game of checkers on a crackerbox with Butcher, who was winning, two kings to one when Eisenhower jumped one of Butcher’s kings and got a draw. At lunch they exchanged political yarns. After eating, Eisenhower went into a tent with representatives of the press and nonchalantly announced that the invasion was on. Smith called with more news about De Gaulle. After hanging up, Eisenhower looked out the tent flap, saw a quick flash of sunshine, and grinned.18

  When the reporters left, Eisenhower sat at his portable table and scrawled a press release on a pad of paper, to be used if necessary. “Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops,” he began. “My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.” He then stuffed the note in his wallet and forgot about it. Nearly a month later he happened to pull it out, chuckled over it, and showed it to Butcher, saying he had written a note in a similar vein for every amphibious operation in the war but had torn up the others.19

  After writing the note, Eisenhower went to dinner. Then at 6 P.M. he and a group of aides drove to Newbury, where the 101st Airborne was loading up for the flight to Normandy. The 101st was one of the units Leigh-Mallory feared would suffer seventy per cent casualties. Eisenhower wandered around among the men, whose blackened faces gave them a grotesque look, stepping over packs, guns, and other equipment. He chatted with them easily. The men told him not to worry, that they were ready and would take care of everything. A Texan promised him a job after the war on his cattle ranch. He stayed until all the big C-47s were off the runway.20

  As the last plane roared into the sky Eisenhower turned to his driver with a visible sagging in his shoulders. A reporter thought he saw tears in the Supreme Commander’s eyes. He began to walk slowly toward his car. “Well,” he said quietly, “it’s on.” It took nearly two hours to get back to camp. Eisenhower arrived at 1:15 A.M., June 6. He sat around and chatted with Butcher and some aides for a while, then finally went to bed. Shortly before 7 A.M. Ramsay called to tell him everything was going according to plan. Then Butcher came over to his trailer with good news from Leigh-Mallory—the air drop had been a success and casualties were light. Butcher found the Supreme Commander sitting up in bed, smoking a cigarette and reading a Western novel.21

  A GI came up the path carrying the first edition of the Portsmouth morning paper. “Good morning, good morning,” Eisenhower called out cheerfully. Grabbing the paper, he found that it had been published before the news of D-Day had been released and that the headlines belonged to Mark Clark—Fifth Army had scored a crushing victory and taken Rome. Eisenhower washed, shaved, and strolled over to the war tent. He found “Pinky” Bull, the SHAEF G-3, on the telephone arguing with Smith. Bull wanted to release a communiqué saying that the Allies had a beachhead, but Smith refused until Montgomery said it was all right, and Montgomery wished to be absolutely sure he was going to stay ashore before authorizing any such statement. News from the beachhead, as always in the first hours of an invasion, was spotty and often contradictory. General Morgan, Smith’s deputy, came into the tent. Eisenhower grinned at him and congratulated him on the success of the plan, reminding him that COSSAC had done much of the hard work on OVERLORD. Morgan thanked Eisenhower and said, “Well, you finished it.” Major General Kenneth Strong, the SHAEF G-2, was all smiles, telling everyone that the Allies had surprised the Germans.22 Eisenhower sent a brief message to Marshall, informing him that everything seemed to be going well and adding that the British and American troops he had seen the previous day were enthusiastic, tough, and fit. “The light of battle was in their eyes.”23

  Eisenhower soon grew impatient with the incessant chatter in the war tent and decided to visit Montgomery at Twenty-first Army Group headquarters. He found the British general wearing a sweater and a grin. Montgomery was too busy to spend much time with the Supreme Commander, as he was preparing to cross the Channel to set up an advanced headquarters in Normandy, but they did have a brief talk. When Eisenhower invited him to see the world press representatives, Montgomery said he could spare a few minutes for that, and Eisenhower had Butcher call and arrange the interview. The Supreme Commander then went on to Southwick House to see Ramsay. “All was well with the Navy,”
Butcher noted, “and its smiles were as wide as or wider than any.” Losses were unbelievably light—two destroyers and one LST had hit mines, and that seemed to be all. The German Navy and Air Force were nowhere in sight.24

  The Germans had, in fact, as Strong emphasized, been completely surprised. Their reaction to the landing was confused and unco-ordinated. Partly this was due to luck—two of the three German division commanders in the Cotentin, along with some of their subordinates, were away attending a war game. The Allied naval and air bombardment had cut telephone and telegraph lines, making communication difficult. The weather had worked against the Germans; because they had no weather bases out in the Atlantic, they had not seen the break in the storm that Stagg had correctly predicted, so the troops were not on a full alert status, as they had been so many times in May. Even Rommel was not there. When the storm struck, he decided there would be no invasion in the immediate future and went to Germany to celebrate his wife’s birthday and to see Hitler. The ploy of developing FORTITUDE played a major role; none of the German senior officers believed OVERLORD was the major invasion. They thought it a feint and braced themselves for the real thing at Pas de Calais.

  But the Allies made some errors too. At Omaha Beach the landings nearly failed because the Big Red One ran directly into the German 352d Infantry Division. Neither the SHAEF nor the Twenty-first Army Group G-2 had spotted the 352d, even though it had been in place for almost three months. Thus, the troops at Omaha were pinned down and on the verge of being driven back into the sea. But the Germans never delivered the final blow, in part because of the lack of direction from the top, in part because the local commanders felt they had already repulsed the invasion. Still, for the whole of June 6, the Germans had an excellent opportunity to defeat OVERLORD. A concentrated attack at Omaha would have put the Germans between the American forces on Utah and the British and Canadian units to the east. But the Germans had been misled by the airborne landings the previous evening and they grossly overestimated the Allied strength. They were in any case centering their attention on Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches, because the Allies had gotten farther inland there and because the British and Canadians threatened Caen.25

  By noon much of these situations were clear to Eisenhower. He had returned to the war tent where he anxiously watched the maps and listened to the disturbing news coming from Omaha. A messenger brought a note from Leigh-Mallory; the air commander said that it was sometimes difficult to admit that one was wrong, but he had never had a greater pleasure in doing so than on this occasion. He congratulated Eisenhower on the wisdom of his command decision in sending the airborne troops in, despite his own warnings, and apologized for having added to the Supreme Commander’s worries.26

  For the remainder of the day Eisenhower paced, his mood alternating between joy and worry as he received news of the situation on the British and Canadian beaches and on Omaha. After eating, he retired early to get a good night’s sleep. At a cost of only 2500 casualties, his men had gained a striking victory. More than 23,000 airborne troops had entered Normandy the night of June 5–6, and 57,500 Americans and 75,215 British and Canadian troops had come ashore during the day. More than 156,000 Allied soldiers had breached Hitler’s much-vaunted Atlantic Wall.27

  After breakfast the next morning Eisenhower boarded the British mine layer Apollo, under Captain J. A. Grindle, to cross the Channel and visit the beachhead. Ramsay and other naval officers came along. The Apollo went in close to Omaha Beach and dropped the anchor; Bradley came aboard, along with Admiral Kirk, to discuss the situation. It was generally good, but there was cause for concern. All the five divisions ashore were seriously deficient in transport, tank support, artillery, and supplies generally. The worst situation was at Omaha where, of the 2400 tons of supplies planned to be unloaded during D-Day, only 100 tons had actually made it. The ammunition shortage was grave. The beach obstacles had cut holes in the bottoms of many landing craft, and fire from the Germans interfered with the unloading. Both Utah and Omaha were still under enemy artillery fire, and on Omaha pockets of enemy riflemen still held out at various points along the coast. Beach obstacles were only about a third cleared, beach exits had not been opened, and vehicle parks had not been established inland. The 101st and 82d Airborne Divisions had created havoc in the German lines, but they had not come together as fighting units. The 82d especially was scattered far and wide in enemy territory. Tanks were needed to spearhead the drive inland but at Omaha, of the thirty-two swimming tanks launched on D-Day, twenty-seven floundered at sea.

  All these deficiencies could be overcome, given time. Thanks to the Transportation Plan, the Allies had time. The Germans were finding it increasingly difficult to move reinforcements to the battle zone because of bombed-out bridges and railroad centers, and the French Resistance, now unleashed, was adding seriously to their problems. Air power had not been effective in neutralizing the coastal fortifications, which continued to pour artillery shells into the beachhead, but naval gunfire support here was making an increasingly successful contribution.28

  The most serious immediate problem was the gap between the forces at Utah and those at Omaha. Eisenhower discussed this situation with Bradley and decided to change the plan, which had called for both the 4th Infantry at Utah and the Big Red One at Omaha to drive inland. Instead, Eisenhower told Bradley to have them concentrate on moving toward each other, with Carentan as the immediate objective, in order to link up and provide a solid, continuous front. It was his only major command decision of the entire first week of the battle; all others he left to Montgomery and Bradley.29

  After Bradley left to carry out his orders, Eisenhower’s ship, the Apollo, moved east along the British beaches. Stopping alongside H.M.S. Hilleary, the Apollo received the local British naval officers, who told Eisenhower that, over all, things were going well on their beaches. Heavy seas slowed the unloading but, looking through his binoculars, Eisenhower could see tanks and lorries moving inland. Montgomery came aboard, said he was happy, and indicated that he thought the battle was going well. After he left the Apollo began moving east again, with Eisenhower and Ramsay urging Captain Grindle to take them closer inland so they could see more. They watched the British unloading and saw some of the artificial breakwaters and harbors being towed toward their destinations. Aircraft were overhead all the time; the air forces had flown 10,500 sorties on June 6 and nearly as many the next day. Wherever Eisenhower looked he saw only Allied ships and Allied planes.

  Suddenly there was a lurch—Grindle had gone too close and his ship was stuck on a sand bar. He tried to force his way across it, which set the entire ship to jerking, grinding, and bouncing, but with little success. The Apollo finally floated free, but the propellers were bent and Eisenhower and Ramsay had to transfer to H.M.S. Undaunted for the trip back to England. Eisenhower knew that Grindle would have to face a court of inquiry and was concerned about his fate. The Supreme Commander said the fault was his for urging Grindle to swing closer in. Ramsay reassured Eisenhower by saying Grindle would get off with a reprimand from the Admiralty and “most good naval officers have a reprimand or two on their records.” Eisenhower got back to Portsmouth at 10 P.M. after what he regarded as a “most fruitful day.”30

  The next few days were spent in consolidating gains. Nowhere along the front had initial objectives been fully achieved on D-Day or even D plus one, but the Allies held the initiative by putting pressure on the Germans everywhere. Each day the Germans attacked at one point or another, but all the counterattacks were beaten off with loss. None of them were concentrated; the Germans could not move enough reinforcements into an area. The continuation of the Transportation Plan and the concentration of fighter bombers on French highways made it almost impossible for the enemy to move columns to the battle by day. Still Rommel rejected the idea of a static defense built along a solid line and continued to probe, without much luck. On June 12 the 101st Airborne took Carentan and the link-up between the American forces was solid; th
e British and Canadians, who took on the bulk of Rommel’s armored counterattacks, also held firm. By the end of the first week of the invasion Eisenhower’s forces had consolidated a bridgehead eight to twelve miles deep and fifty miles wide.31

  The Supreme Commander kept busy, holding press conferences, answering messages of congratulation, dealing with De Gaulle, talking to Churchill, gathering incoming information, and urging all his subordinates to redouble their efforts. At Bradley’s request he removed a division commander who had failed the test of combat. On June 9 he went to SHAEF Main at Widewing to catch up on all the business that had piled up during his absence, conferred with Eden about the diplomatic ban (it remained in effect), and had a long conference with Smith on the problem of the French invasion currency. He was delighted to learn that the Russians, as promised, had launched a major offensive in the Leningrad area, and he sent a message of congratulation to them.32

  On June 10 Marshall, Arnold, and King arrived in London, ostensibly for a meeting of the CCS, in reality because they wanted to see the great invasion for themselves. They came to Widewing along with Churchill. Eisenhower gave them all a guided tour of the headquarters and especially of the war room, where the maps showed current unit positions. Churchill loved the set-up, and even Marshall was impressed. Eisenhower and Marshall discussed promotions, decorations, the need to speed the build-up, and the schedule of shipping divisions into France from the United States.33 On June 12 Eisenhower, Marshall, King, Arnold, and members of their staffs crossed the Channel in a destroyer and went ashore on Omaha Beach. They lunched at Bradley’s headquarters on C rations and discussed recent operations with some of the corps and division commanders. Ernie Pyle, the newspaper reporter, found them and complained that he could not get any news. Eisenhower said he himself depended on the reporters for his information, but Marshall satisfied Pyle’s curiosity by telling him that the attack on the island of Guam in the Pacific was being launched that day.34 Marshall also praised Eisenhower, although characteristically not to his face. “Eisenhower and his staff are cool and confident,” the Chief reported to Roosevelt, “carrying out an affair of incredible magnitude and complication with superlative efficiency.”35