An Army at Dawn

by Rick Atkinson

MTOUSA Mediterranean Theater of Operations, United States Army

  N Af North Africa

  NARA National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md.

  NATOUSA North African Theater of Operations, United States Army

  n.d. no date

  NHC Naval Historical Center, Washington, D.C.

  NSA National Security Agency

  NWAf George F. Howe, Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West

  NWC Lib National War College Library

  OCMH Office of the Chief of Military History

  OCNO Office of the Chief of Naval Operations

  OCS Office of the Chief of Staff

  OH oral history

  OSS Office of Strategic Services

  OW Orlando Ward Papers

  Para parachute

  PMR Paul McD. Robinett papers

  PP-pres Papers, Pre-presidential

  PRO Public Record Office, Kew, England

  qm quartermaster

  Regt regiment

  RG record group

  RN Royal Navy

  ROHA Rutgers University Oral History Archives of World War II

  SEM Samuel Eliot Morison Office Files

  SM Sidney T. Matthews Papers

  SOOHP Senior Officer Oral History Program

  S.P. self-published

  td tank destroyer

  TdA Terry de la Mesa Allen Papers

  Three Years Harry C. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower

  TR Theodore Roosevelt III Papers

  ts typescript

  USAF U.S. Air Force

  USAF HRC U.S. Air Force Historical Research Center

  USMA Arch U.S. Military Academy Archives, West Point

  USAWWII United States Army in World War II

  USN U.S. Navy

  USNAd “U.S. Naval Administration in World War II”

  USNI OHD U.S. Naval Institute, Oral History Department, Annapolis, Md.

  UTEP University of Texas at El Paso

  UT-K University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Center for the Study of War and Society

  WD War Department

  WTF Western Task Force

  WWII World War II

  YU Yale University Library, Manuscripts and Archives

  PROLOGUE

  Twenty-seven acres: Author visits, Sept. 1996, Apr. 2000; “North Africa American Cemetery,” n.d., American Battle Monuments Commission.

  No large operation: AAFinWWII, 41 (“the degree of strategic surprise”); Siegfried Westphal, The German Army in the West, 131 (“to the last man”).

  “There is a soul”: William T. Sherman, Memoirs, 387.

  North Africa is where: Mina Curtiss, ed., Letters Home, 65 (“It is a very, very horrible war”); James Tobin, Ernie Pyle’s War, 89 (“killing is a craft”); A. B. Austin, Birth of an Army, 133 (“The last war”).

  September 1, 1939: Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, 894, 57; Martin Gilbert, The Second World War, 14–19 (“Take a good look”). Weinberg estimates total war-related deaths at 60 million.

  “The small countries”: Winston S. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 24. France was not small: Destruction, 116; Gilbert, 90 (“First they were too cowardly”); Mark M. Boatner III, The Biographical Dictionary of World War II, 421 (“They call me only”); NWAf, 16–17.

  Pétain so pledged: Gilbert, 100 (“Whatever happens”), 130 (“The war is won”), 137 (RAF pilots shot down), 151 (“Whither thou goest”); Marvin A. Kreidberg and Merton G. Henry, History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army, 1775–1945, 674–75; Norman Gelb, Desperate Venture, 72 (“our eyelids”).

  Hitler faced: Gilbert, 135 (“we are on the march”), 194–99, 246–47, 272, 277 (“the single most decisive act”), 304; Weinberg, 260, 264–72; Churchill, The Grand Alliance, 606, 608 (“the sleep of the saved”).

  Two years, three months: Gelb, 25 (“more unready for war”); Christopher R. Gabel, The U.S. Army GHQ Maneuvers of 1941, 8; James A. Huston, The Sinews of War: Army Logistics, 1775–1953, 411; Richard M. Ketchum, The Borrowed Years, 1938–1941, 544 (“reconstruction of a dinosaur”). That task had started: Ketchum, 645; Lee B. Kennett, G.I.: The American Soldier in World War II, 19–22, 29; Ralph Stein and Harry Brown, It’s a Cinch, Private Finch! (“Do you like girls?” and “at least below the rank of major”); Roy R. Grinker and John P. Siegel, War Neuroses in North Africa.

  Jeremiads derided: Roger Barry Fosdick, “A Call to Arms,” diss, 1985; Time, Aug. 18, 1941, 36.

  Equipment and weaponry: Marvin Jensen, Strike Swiftly: The 70th Tank Battalion, 6 (“tanks are dear”); Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 51 (“The idea of huge armies”); David Brinkley, Washington Goes to War, 57; Alexander M. Bielakowski, “Calmer Heads Will Prevail,” paper, Society for Military History, Apr. 2000; Alexander M. Bielakowski, “The Role of the Horse in Modern Warfare as Viewed in the Interwar U.S. Army’s Cavalry Journal,” Army History, summer–fall 2000, 20.

  To lead the eventual host: Mark A. Stoler, George C. Marshall: Soldier-Statesman of the American Century, 93; Gabel, 116; Charles E. Kirkpatrick, “Orthodox Soldiers: Army Formal Schools Between the Two World Wars,” paper, March 1990; Richard W. Stewart, “The Red Bull Division,” Army History, winter 1993, 1; letter, L. J. McNair to C. Brewer, Nov. 15, 1943, NARA RG 165, Director of Plans and Ops, corr, box 1229; E. J. Kahn, Jr., “Education of an Army,” New Yorker, Oct. 14, 1944, 28; Joseph W. A. Whitehorne, The Inspectors General of the United States Army, 1903–1939, 440 (stained with scandal).

  Yet slowly the giant stirred: Geoffrey Perret, There’s a War to Be Won: The United States Army in World War II, 29 ($9 billion), 31; Gilbert, 240 (amputation saws).

  But where?: Louis Morton, “Germany First: The Basic Concept of Allied Strategy in World War II,” in Kent Roberts Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, 3–38 (“the problem confronting us”); Maurice Matloff and Edwin M. Snell, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1941–1942, USAWWII, 27, 44, 113; Ray S. Cline, Washington Command Post: The Operations Division, USAWWII, 56; Gilbert, 286 (“life, liberty, independence”).

  The American idea: Gelb, Desperate Venture, 70 (“Through France”); Cline, 156; John Slessor, The Central Blue, 434 (“go for him bald-headed”); Arthur Bryant, The Turn of the Tide, 353 (“wanted revenge”).

  Direct, concentrated attack: Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War, 313 (for an enlightening critique of the U.S. strategic tradition see Brian M. Linn, “The American Way of War Revisited,” Journal of Military History, April 2002, 501); Maurice Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943–1944, USAWWII, 11; Matloff and Snell, 156; memo, DDE, Chandler, vol. I, 66 (“We’ve got to go”).

  As the new chief: Matloff, 12; Leo J. Meyer, “The Decision to Invade North Africa,” in Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, 134; Samuel Eliot Morison, The Two-Ocean War, 222; Field Marshal Viscount Alanbrooke, OH, FCP, Jan. 28, 1947, MHI (“We shall be pushed out”); Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman, eds., War Diaries, 1939–1945, Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, 281–82; Richard W. Steele, The First Offensive, 171, 231; Benjamin A. Dickson, “G-2 Journal: Algiers to the Elbe,” ts, n.d., MHI, 9 (some skeptics); Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 43; Gilbert, 283; Frederick E. Morgan, ts, n.d., cited in FCP, MHI (“He recoiled in horror”); Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate Biography, 591; GCM, OH, Forrest C. Pogue, Oct. 5, 1956, GCM Lib (“Bodies floating in the Channel”); GCM, OH, July 25, 1949, SM, MHI (“sacrifice play”).

  Whereas the dominant American strategic impulse: Morton, “Germany First,” 34; Meyer, “The Decision to Invade North Africa,” 132; Weigley, 328; Michael Howard, The Mediterranean Strategy in the Second World War, 14–17; Matloff and Snell, 55; Gelb, 96 (“This has all along”).

  The American military disagreed: Matloff and Snell, 104 (“indirect contribution”); Gelb, 89 (“will not result in removing”).

  To many American officers: William C. Frierson, “Preparations for TORCH,” Dec. 1945, vo
l. I, Historical Division, WD Special Staff, CMH 2–3.7 AD, 22; Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief, 436 (“After England Failed”).

  Following another visit: Stoler, The Politics of the Second Front, 55–56; Matloff and Snell, 214, 231, 268–72, 276; Albert C. Wedemeyer, Wedemeyer Reports!, 158 (“Scotch bagpipe band”); msg, WD to AFHQ, Nov. 4, 1942, NARA RG 492, MTOUSA, box 1388; Walter Bedell Smith, OH, May 8, 1947, FCP, MHI (often had to rely on the British); Morison, History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. IX, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, 4 (war could last a decade); GCM, OH, July 25, 1949, SM, MHI (would have to field at least 200 divisions).

  Other factors also influenced: Walter Scott Dunn, Jr., Second Front Now 1943; Gilbert, 322, 350 (Operation WATCHTOWER), 335 (“I am going on to Suez”).

  By chance, the bad news: Danchev and Todman, eds., 268–69, 286 (Cromwell’s death mask); Gilbert, 335 (“What can we do”); Arthur Layton Funk, The Politics of Torch, 86; Meyer, 143; Matloff and Snell, 283; NWAf, 14.

  The president had made: Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. IV, xxi (“defeat of Germany”); Danchev and Todman, eds., 250 (“The prospects of success”), 275 (“to play baccarat”); Charles Bolte, OH, Oct. 17, 1973, Maclyn Burg, DDE Lib, OH 395, 51–52 (Army logisticians); Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 41; Meyer, 135–39 (7,000 landing craft); Matloff and Snell, 104 (“persuasive rather than rational”), 241 (only 20,000); Cline, 150 (at least 600,000), 157 (“Who is responsible”).

  Roosevelt had saved: Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, 1939–1942, 330 (“We failed to see”); Three Years, 29 (“blackest day”); Matloff and Snell, 190 (“thrashing around”), 298 (“a blessing in disguise”), 310–11; Cline, 160; Funk, 86–92; minutes, CCS, July 25, 1942, 10:30 A.M., NARA RG 218, JCS records, box 325; Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, 449–51; NWAf, 15.

  CHAPTER 1: PASSAGE

  A Meeting with the Dutchman

  A few minutes past ten A.M.: John Clagett, “Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, U.S. Navy,” Naval War College Review, XXVIII, summer/fall 1975, 2 (“squeezed the tar”); note, July 24, 1943, HKH, LOC MS Div., box 1 (turkey trot); George Sessions Perry, “Why Don’t They Write About Hewitt?” Saturday Evening Post, Dec. 16, 1944, 22; Louis Mountbatten, OH, n.d., HKH, NHC, box 6 (“a fat, bedraggled figure”); HKH, n.d., Col U OHRO, CNOF-0334, NHC, box 20; Thaddeus V. Tuleja, “Admiral H. Kent Hewitt,” in Stephen Howarth, ed., Men of War: Great Naval Leaders of World War II, 315–16; HKH, “Reminiscences of a World War II Admiral,” ts, n.d., NHC, box 21, 170–206; John T. Mason, ed., The Atlantic War Remembered, 160–63.

  In April 1942: DDE to T. Troubridge, Oct. 13, 1942, NARA RG 407, E 427, AG Office, WWII Ops Reports, box 203 (“The object of the operations”); Matloff and Snell, 291.

  Through a tiny window: Brinkley, 117 (if the military); William D. Leahy, I Was There, 98; James B. Stack, OH-317, DDE Lib.; Alfred Goldberg, The Pentagon: The First Fifty Years, 175.

  The plane settled: Associated Press article, in New York Sun, Jan. 30, 1943, HKH, LOC MS Div, box 9, folder 6 (“You do everything”); “Amphibious Training Command,” #145, USNAd, NHC, VII-26; William S. Biddle, “Amphibious Training of American Troops in Great Britain,” lecture, Fort Hood, 1943, William S. Biddle Papers, MHI; Kenneth Macksey, Crucible of Power: The Fight for Tunisia, 1942–1943, 48 (imaginary ocean); Ken Ford, Battleaxe Division, 6.

  Would the eight: “Reminiscences of a World War II Admiral,” 170–206; Michael Howard, Grand Strategy, 112; C.B.A. Behrens, Merchant Shipping and the Demands of War, 367–68; F. H. Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 2, 470; Walter Karig, Battle Report: The Atlantic War, 167; Disney note, HKH, LOC MS Div, box 2, folder 6.

  The staff car crawled: New York Times, Oct. 21, 1942, 1; Washington Evening Star, Oct. 21, 1942, 1 (“there aren’t any nylon stockings”); Goodwin, 394.

  The car pulled up: Quartermaster report, n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 231 (among the secret cargoes).

  Since Roosevelt’s final decision: Theodore J. Conway, SOOHP, Robert F. Ensslin, Sept. 1977, MHI; Leahy, 136 (“pig-headed”).

  First, he insisted: Greenfield, ed., 149; FDR to Churchill, in Aug. 31, 1942, memo, E. King to GCM, NARA RG 218, JCS, box 325 (“I am reasonably sure”); James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom, 290 (public opinion in North Africa); Larrabee, 424.

  There was skepticism: Harold Macmillan, The Blast of War, 160 (“where all good Americans”); Churchill to FDR, Sept. 14, 1942, NARA RG 218, JCS, box 225; Danchev and Todman, eds., 316 (wait a full month).

  The second vital issue: Matloff and Snell, 287; minutes, CCS meeting, Aug. 28, 1942, NARA RG 218, JCS, box 225 (“take great risks”); Andrew Browne Cunningham, A Sailor’s Odyssey, 470; Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 79.

  But General Marshall: Howard, Grand Strategy, 124, 127; NWAf, 26; Destruction, 124; msg, War Cabinet, Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee, Aug. 7, 1942, NARA RG 165, Plans and Ops, General Records, corr, box 1229; Bernard Fergusson, The Watery Maze, 197 (drawstring); General Lord Ismay, The Memoirs of General Lord Ismay, 261; MWC, OH, May 19, 1948, G. F. Howe, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 228; minutes, CCS meeting, Aug. 28, 1942, NARA RG 218, JCS, box 225 (“only bring ridicule”).

  Roosevelt agreed: FDR to Churchill, Aug. 31, 1942, NARA RG 492, MTOUSA records, box 1388; Danchev and Todman, eds., 315 (“a much wiser plan”); Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 80 (“realm of the probable”).

  On September 5: GCM, OH, Oct. 5, 1956, FCP, GCM Lib; GCM, OH, July 25, 1949, SM, MHI.

  At the White House: William Seale, The President’s House, vol. II, 976; Hewitt, Col U OHRO, copy at NHC, Hewitt papers, box 20.

  Even as he shook Patton’s hand: HKH to GSP, Sept 1, 1942, HKH, LOC MS Div, box 2, folder 5 (“By all means”); HKH, OH, Jan. 23, 1951, G. F. Howe, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 228 (Army planners proposed); Ismay, 265 (“bunch of rattlesnakes”); “Amphibious Training Command,” #145, USNAd, NHC, VII-8 (“failure to cooperate”); Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 82 (Eisenhower’s personal warrant); Carlo D’Este, Patton: A Genius for War, 422 (“Don’t scare the Navy”); Warren Tute, The North African War, 152; NWAf, 43.

  At precisely two: “FDR Day by Day, Oct. 21, 1942,” Secret Service records, box 4, FDR Lib; diary, Oct. 21, 1942, GSP, LOC MS Div. (“Come in”).

  “Well, gentlemen”: Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph, 195 (“conqueror or a corpse”); John S. D. Eisenhower, Allies: Pearl Harbor to D-Day, 63 (“cigarette-holder gesture”); Larrabee, 486.

  But TORCH had its own hazards: Morison, The Two-Ocean War, 223; S.L.A. Marshall, World War I, 192.

  For his part, Roosevelt: Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War, 425, 416; diary, Oct. 21, 1942, GSP, LOC MS Div (how to moor); Clagett, “Admiral H. Kent Hewitt,” 72 (“just dropped off”).

  Gathering the Ships

  An unholy din rolled: “Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet,” vol. I, USNAd, 391; Morison, Operations in North African Waters, vol. II, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, 48; Soldier Stevedores, Signal Corps Film Bulletin #32, NARA Films, RG 111, Chief Signal Officer; William Reginald Wheeler, ed., The Road to Victory, 35.

  Into the holds: Richard M. Leighton and Robert W. Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy: 1940–1943, 465; Frierson, “Preparations for ‘Torch,’” vol. 1, 63 ($100,000 in gold coins); memo, Aug. 23, 1942, LKT Jr. Papers, GCM Lib, box 9 (flyswatters); msg, Oct. 18, 1942, NARA RG 338, General Records ETO, 7th Army Awards, box 1 (Purple Hearts).

  In theory, only 800 people: Oscar W. Koch, G-2: Intelligence for Patton, 4; 12th Air Force doc., Oct. 17, 1942, Lauris Norstad Papers, Air Campaign in Naf, DDE Lib, box 6 (“I am your friend”); C. L. Strong, “Allo, Maroc,” Bell Telephone Magazine, Sept. 1943; “Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet,” vol. I, USNAd, 384; John H. Waller, The Unseen War in Europe, 252 (“Behold”).

  Quartermasters had: Quartermaster report, n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 231 (“Do not open”); “Chemical Warfare Policy, Operation TORCH,”
Sept. 10, 1942, AFHQ G-3, and memo, “chemical warfare policy,” W. B. Smith, Sept. 27, 1942, both in NARA, AFHQ micro, R-83-F (“most unlikely”). The use of chemical weapons appears never to have been seriously considered. See Brooks E. Kleber and Dale Birdsell, The Chemical Warfare Service: Chemicals in Combat, 87–93.

  Using a Michelin: Jack F. Wilhm et al., “Armor in the Invasion of North Africa,” Armored School, 18; M.T. Wordell and E.N. Seiler, Wildcats over Casablanca, 19 (Baedekers); Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., Command Missions, 33; Alfred M. Beck et al., The Corps of Engineers: The War Against Germany, 63; “Catalogue of Standard Ordnance Items,” vol. I, in “Kasserine Pass Battles,” vol. II, pt. 3, CMH.

  All cargo was: Leighton and Coakley, 443; Carl E. Bledsoe, report, Oct. 15, 1942, NARA RG 165, Plans and Ops, Gen’l Records, corr, box 1228; “Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet,” vol. I, USNAd, 391; John Erbes, “Hell on Wheels Surgeon,” ts, n.d., USMA Arch, 11.

  On this disorderly Thursday: Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 1940–1945, 92, 94–95; Farago, 194; D’Este, Patton, 425; Wheeler, ed., 10 (Aeneid).

  It was a fair self-assessment: Rick Atkinson, introduction to GSP, War as I Knew It, xi–xxii; Mark M. Boatner III, The Biographical Dictionary of World War II, 413.

  “Give me generals”: Mountbatten, OH, n.d., HKH, NHC, box 6; Larrabee, 486; diary, Oct. 21, 1942, GSP, LOC MS Div.

  His command for TORCH: Matloff and Snell, 317; E. N. Harmon with Milton MacKaye and William Ross MacKaye, Combat Commander, 69 (“put iron in their souls”); D’Este, Patton, 422, 426–27 (“had been ordered into arrest” and “If you don’t succeed”).

  In a dinner toast: Harry H. Semmes, Portrait of Patton, 81; Henry Gerard Phillips, The Making of a Professional: Manton S. Eddy, USA, 84; James H. Doolittle with Carroll V. Glines, I Could Never Be So Lucky Again, 299; Harmon, Combat Commander, 69; Martin Blumenson, Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1885–1945, 64.

  On Friday morning, October 23: “Reminiscences of Rear Adm. Joshua W. Cooper,” USNI OHD, John T. Mason, 1975 (“If you have any doubts”); Morison, Operations in North African Waters, 43.

  As the hour of departure: Frierson, “Preparations for ‘Torch,’” vol. I, 23.