A corresponding factor was the problem of manpower. Even though the US population might have appeared to offer an advantage over the Axis, the nature of America’s role in the war—as the “great arsenal of democracy”—made it difficult for the United States to field an army as large as the forces arrayed against it. Out of some 25 million Americans fit for military service during the war, the absolute ceiling on the number who could be used for active duty was somewhere between 15 million and 16 million. Most of the rest were needed by the American war industries. Hence, the US Army had to compete for manpower, not only with the needs of the other services but also with the claims of industry. To make matters worse, prior US assumptions about the Chinese Army tying down large numbers of Japanese troops in Asia had all but collapsed in the wake of the successful Japanese Ichi-Go offensive in the summer and fall of 1944, which led to the virtual collapse of the Chinese front by December. Taken together, these considerations made cooperation, not confrontation, with the Russians a military imperative from the US point of view. Thus, FDR and his military advisers regarded the efforts of the British to beat the Russians to the punch in Europe as nothing less than a threat to American national security.34
All of these disputes resurfaced and came to a head during the Combined Chiefs of Staff meeting that took place on Malta on January 30, 1945. As the arguments intensified, the normally calm and soft-spoken Marshall demanded that he and General Alan Brooke and their top advisers go into a closed session—that is, without any stenographers. There Marshall gave full vent to his frustration. He lashed out at the British so severely that “he carried everything before him,” clinching the argument with his insistence that if the Supreme Commander’s plans were not acceptable to the British he would recommend to Eisenhower “that he had no choice but to ask to be relieved of his command.” Impressed by Marshall’s conviction, and with much less leverage now that the American forces on the Western Front far outnumbered their own, the British relented and the matter was settled in favor of Eisenhower, “without the need for reference to higher authority.”35
Having settled this critical strategic question, Marshall was happy to inform the president, during the debriefing he gave FDR on board the Quincy on February 2, that the Combined Chiefs had little trouble coming to an understanding about various other matters—including the withdrawal of five divisions from the Mediterranean to France—during the remaining discussions that took place in the two days before FDR arrived on Malta. But in the subsequent meeting with Churchill and the Combined Chiefs of Staff that immediately followed General Marshall’s report to the president—where all concurred that they were in “complete agreement” about how to proceed in northwest Europe—Churchill suddenly surprised both his own military chiefs and the Americans by indicating that he continued to attach the utmost importance to the possibility that the Allies would be able to follow up any German surrender or withdrawal from Italy with a rapid thrust from the Balkans into Austria. Perhaps taken aback by this abrupt outburst, neither FDR nor any of the British or American military chiefs present made any comment, and with that the discussion turned to the war against Japan.36
Not unlike the case over what strategy to pursue in Europe, it soon became apparent that there was a divergence of opinion over how best to prosecute the war in the Far East. Churchill wondered—after indicating how dissatisfied he was with the progress of the war in China and Southeast Asia—if it might not be advantageous for the British to move a number of divisions from Burma into China to take part in operations there. But General Marshall rejected this idea as impractical, and although FDR did not say so during the meeting, his opposition to such a move was unequivocal and long-standing. Fully alive to the idea that “the raising of the Union Jack over Singapore is more important to the British than any victory parade through Tokyo,” FDR viewed any such suggestion as little more than a brazen attempt to reestablish the Empire in the region.37
As FDR explained to Stettinius and Hopkins in a conversation they had in early January, the British “were working to undermine our whole policy with regard to China.” Indeed, it appeared to the president that London “still clung to the idea of White supremacy in Asia” and did not want to see a strong China. By contrast, his approach to the region was based on the recognition that despite “temporary weakness,” and the possibility of revolutions and civil war, the 450 million Chinese “would someday become united and modernized.” When this occurred, they “would be the most important factor in the whole Far East.”38
Given that FDR was even less enamored with the idea of a return of the French to Indochina,39 these differences point toward a fundamental split over the very purpose of the war in Asia. Whereas FDR looked at the conflict as an opportunity to rid the region of colonialism and create a new world order, Churchill and de Gaulle seemed mired in the past, unwilling or unable to embrace FDR’s forward-thinking ideas about what he saw as the essential nature of the struggle. Indeed, in another indication of the increasingly disparate geopolitical strategies of the two powers, FDR and his military advisers had by this point shifted their emphasis away from support for a British drive into Malaya and other parts of Southeast Asia. Their focus was now centered on bringing Russia into the war against Japan.40 This was undoubtedly a welcome development in Washington, where the acronym of the British-led Southeast Asian Command, SEAC, was frequently translated as “Save England’s Asian Colonies.”41
Leaving the issue of China unresolved, but satisfied that “such a great measure of agreement had been reached” on all other issues, FDR adjourned the meeting. At this point, Anna took it upon herself to explain to any lingering officials—including Secretaries Eden and Stettinius—that she wanted her father “to have a little rest time to himself.” The prime minister had had his nap, and now planned to take his usual bath before dinner. FDR, in contrast, “had been going strong since 9:30 a.m. without a break.” She therefore insisted that he return to his cabin for some quiet time before cocktails were brought in at 8:15 p.m. That would allow FDR forty-five minutes of peace. To her and Dr. McIntire’s great annoyance, however, Eden and Stettinius snuck into FDR’s cabin to engage in a further review of the previous day’s discussion on the UN voting procedure, among other matters. Anna was right, however, about her father’s need for a rest. Seeing the president in such close quarters for the first time since the Quebec conference in September, Eden thought FDR looked considerably older, writing in his diary that “he gives the impression of failing powers.”42
Though the evening meal had been arranged for the express purpose of serious discussion, the lighthearted conversation that ensued made dinner, as Eden later recorded, “no more successful than the luncheon” in this regard. Churchill raised his oft-expressed desire to see General Harold Alexander replace Air Marshal Arthur Tedder as Eisenhower’s deputy commander, and there was some general talk about the issues that Eden and Stettinius had discussed the day before, but overall, it turned out to be “impossible to even get near business.” Frustrated, Eden spoke “pretty sharply” to Harry Hopkins about this circumstance later that evening, “pointing out that we were going into a decisive conference and had so far neither agreed what we would discuss nor how to handle matters with a Bear who would certainly know his own mind.”43
Concerned about her father’s well-being, Anna tried her best to get the dinner party to break up at 10:00 p.m., but it would be 10:30 before FDR finally found himself alone in his cabin. He spent the next half hour on his correspondence. Then he, Anna, and the rest of the delegation departed the Quincy for the Luqa Airfield and the 1,400-mile flight to the Crimea. At 11:15, FDR at last found himself able to retire to his bedroom in his new presidential plane, to attempt to get a good night’s sleep before landing the next morning in Saki. In the mail pouch heading the other direction was the brief diary that FDR had penned that morning for Daisy. “The awful day” that began thirteen hours earlier had finally ended. It would soon be time to set off on the la
st leg of his 14,000-mile journey to try to secure the “worthwhile” peace he had promised to the “good people of Malta,” and to the rest of the world.44
Chapter 4
On to the Crimea
THE BRITISH AND AMERICAN DELEGATIONS FOR THE YALTA CONFERENCE totaled more than seven hundred people, making Yalta the largest of any of the wartime summit gatherings to date. Needless to say, transporting the group by air from Malta to the Crimea was no small undertaking, particularly in the days before the advent of large-scale air transport. The flight was also not without risk. The route for the 1,400-mile journey took the delegation across the Mediterranean due east from Malta. Before reaching Crete, still under German control, the planes would make a sharp 90-degree northerly turn toward the southern coast of Greece, where they would then head northeast across the Aegean, past northwestern Turkey and the Dardanelles, and finally over the Black Sea for the final descent to the Crimea. Even though both governments had taken special measures to secretly inform the Turks, there was still the possibility that the planes might be fired on accidentally by Turkish anti-aircraft batteries. At the very end of the flight, each pilot had to execute another 90-degree turn to identify himself as friendly aircraft to the radio transmitter at Saki airfield.1
For security reasons the decision was made to fly at night, and in order to take full advantage of the darkness, the first of the twenty C-54 Skymasters and five RAF Avro Yorks began taking off at ten-minute intervals shortly after midnight, with strict instructions to maintain constant air speed and observe radio silence. Meanwhile, all along the flight path, US and Royal Navy rescue craft had been stationed, in the event that something went wrong, despite all the precautions.2
Not until 3:30 a.m. did FDR’s aircraft, nicknamed “the Sacred Cow,” take off. This was the first time the president had flown in the precursor to “Air Force One.” The plane had been outfitted with a specially designed retractable lift to hoist FDR on board in his wheelchair, a mechanism that FDR, always trying to downplay his disability, had objected to as an unnecessary expense. The plane boasted a private compartment for the president, complete with a bathroom, a closet, an armchair, a table, communications equipment, and a wide bed adjoining the fuselage. Anna, who accompanied her father along with Admirals Leahy, Brown, and McIntire, Pa Watson, Michael Reilly, and Arthur Prettyman, found the plane “quite luxurious.” Also on board was Dr. Bruenn, whose presence, as always, was a closely guarded secret.3
Churchill’s plane took off ten minutes after FDR’s. Because there were still rump German forces and potential enemy aircraft located on the Dodecanese, and owing to the proximity of the flight path to Nazi-occupied Crete, both the prime minister’s and the president’s planes had been assigned six P-38 long-range fighter aircraft as escorts. As they took off, they might have reflected on the sad news that less than forty-eight hours earlier one of the aircraft transporting senior Foreign Office personnel from London to Malta had mistakenly flown over the island of Pantelleria at night, and, unable to find the aerodrome, had crashed into the sea. Among the dead were Alexander Cadogan’s private secretary, Peter Loxley; Albany (Barney) Charlesworth, the trusted confidant and aide-de-camp of Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke; Anthony Eden’s bodyguard; and twelve of the other nineteen people on board.4
Worried about the effects that a high-altitude flight might have on FDR’s delicate heart, Dr. McIntire had instructed the pilots of his plane not to exceed 10,000 feet. Meanwhile, FDR refused to wear the specially designed belt that had been fitted to the bed in his cabin; to counter the possibility that FDR might suddenly be thrown out of bed, Dr. Bruenn slipped quietly into the slumbering president’s cabin just before takeoff to sleep on the floor next to him.5
Shortly before noon, local time, the Crimean peninsula finally came into view, and at exactly 12:15 the president’s plane bolted down the concrete block runway, which was just long enough to accommodate the C-54s. Eight inches of new snow had been swept off the runway by a host of sturdy Russian babushkas. Stationed along the perimeter of the airfield, at 20-foot intervals, were Russian guards armed with tommy guns, while a crack regiment of Red Army troops and a military band stood at attention as the Skymaster slowly taxied past.
Since Churchill’s plane had not yet landed, FDR decided to remain in his cabin, where Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov and his interpreter, Mr. Pavlov, immediately came to greet him. Anna, in the meantime, slipped out of the aircraft with the other members of the president’s delegation to sample some of the lavish refreshments the Russians had provided for their guests, including the ubiquitous vodka.6
As soon as Churchill had landed and disembarked, and greeted Molotov and Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinski, the three walked over to the president’s plane. As Churchill later recalled, watching FDR coming down from the aircraft in his special elevator, and then being lifted by a Secret Service agent from his wheelchair into the waiting lend-lease jeep, made him seem something of a “tragic figure.” Conscious of the president’s desire to maintain his dignity, his hosts had draped a hand-woven Kazak carpet from the Caucasus over the back of the seat behind him. They had also outfitted the jeep with a special booster chair that would elevate FDR to a height roughly equal to that of the dignitaries who strolled beside him as the party inspected the guard of honor there to greet them.7
Observing the scene, Alexander Cadogan recorded that the prime minister “walked by the side of the President, as… an Indian attendant accompanied Queen Victoria’s phaeton,” preceded by a throng of cameramen, “walking backwards as they took snapshots.” In the intense winter light that even at this hour cast lengthy shadows before them, “the President looked old and thin and drawn,” a “shrunken” figure under the dark naval cape wrapped around his shoulder to keep out the damp air. Following a short speech by the commander of the Russian regiment and the playing of the three national anthems, the honor guard paraded in goosestep. “A fine, strong, and healthy looking bunch,” Anna observed, made all the more interesting “because they represented so many different races.”8 Like Cadogan, she had noticed the weary look on FDR’s face as he reviewed the Russian troops. Ever protective, she insisted that she and Secret Service Agent Michael Reilly would ride alone with her father in the car that was to take them to Yalta “so that he could sleep as much as he wanted and would not have to ‘make conversation.’”9
FDR greeting Harry Hopkins a few minutes after the president’s arrival at Saki Airfield in the Crimea. Note the special booster chair that would bring FDR to the same height as his guests. (Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library)
The distance from Saki to Yalta is only about ninety miles, but the journey on mountain roads took more than five hours. As in Malta, Anna was taken aback by the destruction in and around the airport, which had been heavily bombed by the Germans. As they crossed over the snow-covered steppes to the southeast of Saki, a desolate scene came into view, the result of the scorched-earth tactics the Nazis employed as they withdrew west. Anna noted a few rebuilt homes, but most of the farming villages they passed had largely been destroyed, with barely a barn left standing. Burnt-out tanks and vehicles littered the sides of the road. Here and there they saw small flocks of sheep but very few civilians, mostly grim-faced peasant women. The road, which was unpaved in places, left Admiral Leahy wondering if the trip would “break every bone in his body.”10
As the president’s car reached the foothills, the road rose rapidly. In keeping with his passionate interest in geography, FDR noted their position: nine hundred miles south of Moscow and three hundred miles east of Romania. He also informed Anna that he was going to tell Marshal Stalin that this part of the country should be reforested. The turns and switchbacks in the ascending road became much more frequent, with the car seeming to go three miles sideways for every mile forward. At 1,000-yard intervals along the route, Russian sentries, most of them women, stood at attention as they passed. Their hosts had also arranged an elaborate lunch
eon for the party in the town of Alushta with vodka, wines, caviar, fish, bread, butter, stewed fruit, and sweet champagne. But Anna was fearful that the luncheon would hold them up for at least two hours; stepping out of the car, she pulled Molotov’s interpreter aside and did her best to “pave the way… for a refusal from Father,” without informing him of her intentions. She then told FDR that she was sure they could skip the luncheon without causing any offense, and so off they went, much to their mutual relief. For his part, Churchill felt no such reticence. He accepted the invitation, even though he and Sarah had already fortified themselves with “a very stale ham sandwich” and numerous swigs of “some very good brandy.”11
Crimean Peninsula
Thanks to Anna’s intervention, she and her father made the rest of the journey in the daylight. From Alushta the road turned to the southwest, past the summit of Mount Roman Kosh, and then wound its way up to dizzying heights. Since the road had no guardrails, the drive was a terrifying experience. Once over the crest of the Crimean range, however, they seemed to arrive “in a different country,” one dotted with cypress trees, “almost like Italy.” The snow was gone, and they immediately noticed that the air was much balmier than it had been north of the mountains.12
Just before dark, Anna and FDR finally passed through the town of Yalta. The city had once been a popular destination for wealthy members of the Russian aristocracy, whose palaces lined the shore. It also possessed a fine natural harbor, to accommodate the yachts that transported the wealthy from Sevastopol—the terminus of the train from Moscow—to this resort community on the “Russian Riviera.” Following the Bolshevik Revolution, many of these palaces were transformed into either sanatoriums or vacation hostels for Russian workers. The Wehrmacht, which had occupied the city from 1941, had made sure to render the harbor nearly useless by strewing the bay and the sea beyond with hundreds of mines. Hence, the USS Catoctin and most of the other support vessels had to weigh anchor in the harbor at Sevastopol, which had been cleared of mines. FDR was appalled by the destruction of the city itself. “There was no military reason for it,” he said to Anna. “Yalta had no military value and no defenses.” The sight of it “now made him want to exact an eye for an eye from the Germans, even more than ever.” Virtually all of the palaces within or close to the town had been destroyed or badly damaged by the Germans. The three intact ones were to be used by the British, American, and Russian delegations to the conference.13
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