Supreme Commander

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  Patton was a problem, but Eisenhower had Bradley to control him and did not need to worry too much about what Third Army would do next. The situation with De Gaulle was different. In mid-February, just when Eisenhower was beginning to make progress in building up a strong reserve, the French President told the Supreme Commander he wanted to pull three French divisions back into the interior of France. De Gaulle felt that since the Colmar pocket was gone and the French First Army had a defensive mission in Alsace, this could safely be done. He said he wanted to use the troops to help train the new units the French were raising, and confessed that an additional reason for pulling back into France was the need “to assure contact between certain regions of the country and its organized Army.” He was, in other words, having trouble with the Communists in the FFI again.

  Eisenhower scribbled by hand at the bottom of De Gaulle’s written request, “Does this mean French are ready to assume full responsibility for Alsace with only 5 divisions?” Smith discussed the matter with General Juin and worked out a compromise—only two divisions were pulled back, and they did not go as far into the interior as De Gaulle had wanted.16

  Still Eisenhower was angered by De Gaulle’s action. His own analysis was that the French President was showing a bit of pique at not having been invited to attend the Big Three conference at Yalta. Eisenhower told Marshall that “as usual we will work out something,” but he noted that the most popular theme in the French press was an expression of dissatisfaction with the Allies, especially SHAEF, for failing to bring more food into France “and lack of political deference to their government.” Remembering all the way back to TORCH, Eisenhower summarized the frustration and irritation to which he had been subjected in dealings with the French for nearly two and a half years. “The French continue to be difficult,” he declared. “I must say that next to the weather I think they have caused me more trouble in this war than any other single factor.” To emphasize the point, he added, “They even rank above landing craft.”17

  But with the AEF rolling forward, even the French could not break Eisenhower’s spirits. During the first week in March the men of Twelfth and Sixth Army Groups took up the attack. Elements of Hodges’ First Army reached the Rhine on March 5, his armored units roaring into Cologne, which they cleared of the enemy by March 7. From Cologne northward the Allies had closed to the Rhine; by March 10, as Patton pushed forward, they were up to the Rhine from Koblenz northward. The Germans had taken a terrible beating. In the Rhineland campaign (which in the south continued through March), they lost 250,000 prisoners and untold killed and wounded. More than twenty full divisions had been destroyed, and the total German strength in the West was no more than twenty-six complete divisions. Spaatz’s oil campaign, now going at full force, had virtually eliminated the German fuel reserves. The Allied air forces were blasting virtually every German who moved during daylight hours, flying as many as 11,000 sorties in one day.18

  Eisenhower’s plan had worked. Late in March he met Brooke on the banks of the Rhine. The CIGS had come to observe Montgomery’s crossing. “He was gracious enough,” Eisenhower reported to Marshall the next day, “to say that I was right, and that my current plans and operations are well calculated to meet the current situation.”* Eisenhower added that he did not want to sound boastful, “but I must admit to a great satisfaction that the things that Bradley and I have believed in from the beginning and have carried out in face of some opposition from within and without, have matured so splendidly.”19

  The situation that Eisenhower’s plan had brought about was not dissimilar from that Montgomery had created in Normandy. By attacking on the left, with Twenty-first Army Group, Eisenhower had forced the Germans to concentrate in that area. As he explained to Churchill, this increased “the vulnerability of the enemy to the devastating later attacks of the 9th, 1st and 3rd Armies. With perfect teamplay every allied unit of every service has performed its part to its own further distinction and to the dismay of the enemy.”20 On the eve of an attack by Seventh Army, Eisenhower told Marshall, “… so far as we can determine there is not a single reserve division in this whole area. If we can get a quick breakthrough, the advance should go very rapidly.” He realized that breaking through would be difficult, “but once this is accomplished losses should not be great and we should capture another big bag of prisoners.”21

  At the conclusion of the Rhineland campaign Eisenhower held a press conference. A reporter asked him if he thought it was Hitler or the German General Staff that had made the decision to fight west of the Rhine. Eisenhower answered, “I think it was Hitler. I am guessing because I must confess that many times in this war I have been wrong in trying to evaluate that German mind, if it is a mind. When it looks logical for him to do something he does something else.” Later in the conference the Supreme Commander added, “When we once demonstrated with the attack of 21st Army Group and the Ninth Army that we could break through the defense west of the Rhine and he was exposed, any sensible soldier would have gone back to the Rhine and given us the Saar and stood there and said, ‘Now try to come across.’ They simply seem to want to stand and fight where they are. Starting on March 1, if they had gotten out the bulk of their force they would have been better off.”22

  Eisenhower spent most of the first week in March visiting his commanders in the field. He did not interfere with their conduct of operations but he was anxious to see how operations were proceeding and wanted to be where the action was. He usually contented himself with giving Simpson or Hodges or Patton a pat on the back and telling him to keep up the good work. On March 7 he was back at Reims and caught up on his work. After reviewing all the reports and attending a conference in the War Room, he dictated some personal letters. That evening he planned to relax and asked a few of his corps commanders to dinner. They had just sat down to eat when the telephone rang. Bradley wanted to talk to Eisenhower. When the Supreme Commander got on the phone Bradley said that one of Hodges’ divisions had taken intact a bridge over the Rhine at Remagen.23

  * The logistical limitation was the fallacy in Brooke’s thinking about putting all available force into Montgomery’s attack. Even had Eisenhower wanted to do so, he could not have supported more than thirty-five divisions in the area. The thirty-five-division figure, incidentally, was Twenty-first Army Group’s, not SHAEF’s.

  * It should be noted that this is not saying Eisenhower was telling the British one thing while planning another. He did intend to make the major crossing on Twenty-first Army Group’s front, and in fact did do so. But he also wanted flexibility, a point he made to the British time and again. There is, however, the subconscious attitude. To use the football jargon American officers were so fond of employing, Eisenhower was the quarterback. When he got down near the goal line, the back he relied upon was Bradley and, everything else being equal, he wanted Bradley to carry the ball.

  * In his memoirs Eisenhower gave a much fuller account of what Brooke told him. When Brooke saw Eisenhower’s claim, he denied that he had ever said Eisenhower was right in insisting on the Rhineland battle. (Bryant, Triumph in the West, p. 333.) That Eisenhower made the claim the day after the event is strong evidence that Brooke did in fact say so. The CIGS may have later changed his mind.

  CHAPTER 19

  Crossing the Rhine and a Change in Plan

  While Eisenhower sat down to dinner with his corps commanders on March 7, Bradley had been talking with Bull about a SHAEF proposal to shift four divisions from Twelfth Army Group to Sixth Army Group in the south. Bull wanted to give the divisions to Patch to assist his attack south of the Moselle, on Patton’s right flank. Bradley was furious. He told Bull the proposal was “larcenous.” Bull shouted back, “By gosh, but you people are difficult to get along with, and I might add that you are getting more difficult every day.”

  “But SHAEF has had experience,” Bradley replied, “in getting along with difficult people.” Bull glared, then snapped, “The Twelfth Army Group is no harder to get along
with than Twenty-first Group. But you can take it from me, it’s no easier either.”

  It was at that point that Hodges called to tell Bradley that one of First Army’s divisions had captured the Ludendorff Railroad Bridge, at Remagen, intact. “Hot dog, Courtney,” Bradley shouted, and told him to get as much material over the river as he could. After hanging up, Bradley turned on Bull, grinned, thumped him on the back, and laughed. “There goes your ball game, Pink. Courtney’s gotten across the Rhine on a bridge.” Bull shrugged and said that did not make any difference, because nobody was going anywhere from Remagen. “It just doesn’t fit into the plan.” Bull explained to Bradley, “Ike’s heart is in your sector, but right now his mind is up north.”1

  Bradley would not be put off. He could not believe that Eisenhower was so rigid that he would ignore a bridgehead over the Rhine, even though it did not fit into previous plans and was in an area ill suited to offensive operations. It was then that he decided to call the Supreme Commander on the telephone.

  Eisenhower left the dining room to go into an adjacent office to take the call. Bradley told him about Remagen. “Brad, that’s wonderful,” Eisenhower replied. Bradley said he wanted to push all the force he had in the vicinity over to the east bank of the Rhine. “Sure,” Eisenhower responded, “get right on across with everything you’ve got. It’s the best break we’ve had.…” Bradley, grinning at Bull, then said that Eisenhower’s own G-3 was opposed to such a move because Remagen did not fit into the over-all accepted plan. “To hell with the planners,” Eisenhower replied. “Sure, go on, Brad, and I’ll give you everything we got to hold that bridgehead. We’ll make good use of it even if the terrain isn’t too good.”2

  Over the next two weeks Hodges fought to extend his bridgehead. On March 11 he installed pontoon bridges and had ferries and landing craft bringing material across the river. The Germans made determined efforts to wreck the bridge, using air attacks, artillery fire, V-2 missiles, floating mines, and frogmen, but Hodges’ elaborate defenses thwarted their efforts. By the time the big railroad bridge finally collapsed, the bridgehead was twenty miles long and eight miles deep, with six pontoon bridges across the river. It constituted a threat to the entire German defense of the Rhine, and the Wehrmacht—as in Normandy—counterattacked with whatever units were handy. All that the piecemeal attacks accomplished, however, was to use up the remaining German armor and to weaken the Germans defending the Rhine north and south of Remagen. Eisenhower had recognized these possibilities immediately; the morning after his telephone conversation with Bradley he informed the CCS that he was rushing troops to Remagen “with the idea that this will constitute greatest possible threat” to the enemy.3

  To the south of Remagen, meanwhile, Patton had launched Operation LUMBERJACK, an attack toward the Rhine along the north bank of the Moselle. Once he broke through the initial defenses (March 6–8), his Third Army raced forward, closing to the Rhine on March 10. LUMBERJACK had been designed as a preliminary action to UNDERTONE, the advance to the Rhine by Sixth Army Group, but because of Patton’s unexpected success Eisenhower changed the plan slightly and Patton now crossed the Moselle to attack south in support of Patch’s Seventh Army. With Patch attacking from the front and Patton from the right flank, the German First and Seventh Armies were surrounded. By March 21 most of the German Seventh Army had been destroyed, the German First Army was caught in a salient along a short stretch of the Rhine, and Patton had closed to the river from Mannheim to Koblenz.4

  Eisenhower now prepared to set his whole front in motion. On March 13 he told Montgomery to begin Operation PLUNDER, the crossing of the Rhine north of the Ruhr, on March 24. To assist Montgomery, Eisenhower assigned the First Allied Airborne Army to participate in the operation and directed the air forces to give PLUNDER highest priority. In the center, he directed Hodges to be ready to launch a thrust from Remagen toward Frankfurt, which meant that Remagen had now become more than a threat—it could act as a springboard for a major advance to the east. The advance from Remagen would take place after Devers closed to the Rhine and Patton got across the river, and would be designed to link up with Patton for the drive into Germany. In order to keep his options open, however, Eisenhower also told Hodges to be prepared to send as many as ten divisions to Montgomery to be used north of the Ruhr. If Montgomery got across without undue difficulty, and if he could get a railroad bridge built and operating over the Rhine, SHAEF would be able to support more than the thirty-five divisions allotted to Montgomery in the advance along the north German plain. If the railroad bridge was completed in time, Eisenhower wanted to be able to send Hodges to join Simpson in support of Montgomery. The use of First Army east of the Rhine, in other words, depended on forthcoming developments—Eisenhower was keeping an open mind and was prepared to reinforce success.5

  Eisenhower’s spirits were soaring. He felt so good that for practically the only time in the war he engaged in a little banter with the Chief of Staff. Marshall had told the Supreme Commander that he was having an argument with Senator Robert A. Taft, who objected to the use of eighteen-year-olds in combat. “I was impressed yesterday with the difficulties of my position,” Marshall said, because he had simultaneously to answer attacks on the use of the young men and demands from MacArthur for more replacements. In addition, field commanders were protesting against the conversion of their specialists to infantry replacements. “The combined circumstances could hardly present a more illogical pressure.” Eisenhower said Marshall’s complaints gave him the “pleasant feeling of ‘misery loves company.’ ” He explained that “sometimes when I get tired of trying to arrange the blankets smoothly over the several prima donnas in the same bed I think no one person in the world can have so many illogical problems.” But after he read of Marshall’s troubles, Eisenhower said, he “went right back to work with a grin.”6

  The smell of victory was in the air, and Marshall began to be concerned about how the credit for it should be apportioned. He thought it only just that the Army divisions that spearheaded the AEF attacks should receive the honor due them, and he was also concerned about the postwar situation, when the services would have to present their case for appropriations to congressmen anxious to cut the budget. A little publicity for the Army would help its financial cause. Many American divisions had done outstanding work in the Rhineland campaign, but practically none of them were known in the United States. “What I am interested in,” Marshall told Eisenhower, referring to the 3d Division at the Colmar pocket, “is the result and I go back to my usual comparison, that had it been a Marine Division every phase of a rather dramatic incident would have been spread throughout the United States. They get the result, we do not. Our technique therefore must be faulty.”

  On March 12 Eisenhower explained to Marshall that he was doing the best he could, but the problem of getting publicity for any one division was almost impossible because there were so many American divisions in Europe and because so many of them were doing well. He named ten that could match the achievements of any Marine division, but obviously, he said, once publicity was spread that widely it lost its impact. Eisenhower threw the problem back to Marshall by saying that the Army might get more attention with the fact that it had fifty divisions engaged in combat in Europe: “I believe the War Department … might emphasize the number of divisions the Army has deployed and fighting all over the world,” Eisenhower said.7

  In his own theater, Eisenhower told Devers and Bradley to do what they could to publicize their divisions. “These matters may not seem very weighty,” he admitted, and he did not want his subordinates to think “that we are fighting this war for headlines,” but proper publicity did improve troop morale. “Moreover, it will have an enduring effect on the future of American defense forces and I hope that you and your staffs … will give to the matter some imaginative thought.”8

  Eisenhower’s involvement with publicity continued. Marshall had sent Roosevelt’s press secretary, Steve Early, to ETO to help the public
relations experts, and SHAEF got a number of suggestions from Early that Eisenhower implemented. He loosened censorship controls so that more information could be released about individual divisions and their commanders.9 He was also concerned about his more senior commanders. On March 30 he sent Marshall a long and glowing description of Hodges’ achievements to date, made it clear that he thought Hodges had done more to bring about the victory than any other army commander, and declared, “I should like very much to see Hodges get credit in the United States for his great work.” Eisenhower could do little to achieve this within ETO, because if he singled out one commander for praise the others would be miffed, “but it occurs to me that as a purely United States proposition” the War Department could promote Hodges in the press.

  Eisenhower also thought Bradley should get additional credit for his role throughout the European campaign. “Never once has he held back in attempting any maneuver, no matter how bold in conception.…” Bradley’s handling of his army commanders had been “superb.… His energy, common sense, tactical skill and complete loyalty have made him a great lieutenant on whom I always rely with the greatest confidence.” In trying to get either Hodges or Bradley publicized, however, Eisenhower was fighting a losing battle. Headlines in the United States continued to refer to First Army or Twelfth Army Group. Only Patton was identified by name; when Third Army took a town, the headlines inevitably proclaimed “Patton captures …”10

  Marshall too was worried about the publicity individual commanders were receiving, although he liked Patton and had no objection in that specific case. What did bother him was all the attention Montgomery was getting, and he urged Eisenhower to praise Hodges and Bradley in a press conference “as a possible antidote for an overdose of Montgomery which is now coming into the country.” Eisenhower, in reply, said he could not understand why Montgomery should be “getting a big play at this time,” and added that he suspected “there is some influence at work that insists on giving Montgomery credit that belongs to other field commanders.” He would, he promised, try to set the newsmen straight.11