Eisenhower in War and Peace

by Jean Edward Smith

  Eisenhower’s response was to order Fredendall’s center task force, now designated II Corps, into position on the right flank of Anderson’s First Army. If the bulk of Anderson’s forces were bogged down, Ike believed that Fredendall could punch through to the coast and drive a wedge between Rommel’s Afrika Korps and the German forces in the north. The plan was christened Operation SATIN, and Ike’s staff put it together during the first two weeks in January. Fredendall’s attack was scheduled for January 24—a date when “General Mud” still commanded the battlefield in the north.

  On January 14, 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill met at Casablanca for their first overseas conference since their shipboard meeting off Newfoundland in the summer of 1941. Marshal Stalin had been invited, but with the Red Army fully engaged all along the eastern front, he decided that he should remain in Moscow. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss military strategy, and the two leaders were accompanied by their military staffs. As Allied supreme commander in North Africa, Eisenhower was not a member of the conference, although he was invited to brief the Combined Chiefs at 2 p.m. on January 15. This was the third session of the chiefs at Casablanca, and they wanted to hear Ike’s assessment of the Tunisian campaign and his plan for Operation SATIN.77

  Eisenhower spoke without notes. He recounted how most of Anderson’s First Army would be mired in mud until mid-March, and explained that the Allies could regain the offensive by sending Fredendall forward farther south where the ground was harder. II Corps’ goal was to capture of the port city of Sfax, which would cut Tunisia in two.78

  General Brooke was skeptical. The German Fifth Panzer Army in the north, now commanded by Colonel-General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim, a battle-scarred veteran of the Russian front whom Hitler had handpicked to defend Tunis, had 85,000 troops available; Rommel’s Afrika Korps was estimated to number 80,000. Rather than drive a wedge between the two armies, wasn’t it more likely that II Corps would be ground up between them? Anderson could not prevent von Arnim from moving troops south, and Montgomery was in no position to prevent Rommel from striking north. The 30,000 men of Fredendall’s corps would be defeated by superior forces attacking from both sides before any assistance could arrive.79

  Eisenhower was stunned. Sir Alan Brooke had been cited for gallantry six times in World War I, and had managed the British evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940. His battlefield credentials were unassailable. Ike’s plan was something that he and Leonard Gerow might have cooked up as students at Leavenworth, or that Gruenther might have devised for the Louisiana maneuvers. It looked good on paper but failed the test of combat worthiness.

  Eisenhower attempted a rebuttal, but his balloon had been punctured. General Marshall sat as silent witness to the demolition of Operation SATIN, as did Hap Arnold and Admiral King. They recognized that Brooke was correct. The entire episode lasted less than twenty minutes. As Atkinson put it, “Eisenhower saluted and left the room with the grim look of a man in full retreat.”80 Brooke said later that Ike’s plan “was a real bad one”—and the subsequent performance of II Corps under Fredendall at Kasserine Pass suggests he knew what he was talking about.81

  Later that afternoon, at the president’s request, Eisenhower called on FDR at his villa. “Ike seems jittery,” Roosevelt told Hopkins, and it was easy to understand why.82 “His neck is in a noose, and he knows it,” said Butcher.83 Roosevelt quizzed Eisenhower about the Tunisian campaign. “How long is it going to take to finish the job?”

  “With any kind of break in the weather, sir, we’ll have them all either in the bag or in the sea by late spring.”

  “What’s late spring? June?”

  Eisenhower nodded. “Maybe as early as the middle of May. June at the latest.”84

  Roosevelt accepted Ike’s assessment, but the delay in Tunisia made any cross-Channel attack in 1943 virtually impossible. FDR showed his displeasure later in the conference when Marshall recommended that Eisenhower be promoted to the rank of a full four-star general. Ike’s principal subordinates, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham and Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, held that rank, and Marshall claimed it would simplify the command structure if Eisenhower were promoted as well. Roosevelt refused. “The President told General Marshall that he would not promote Eisenhower until there was some damn good reason to do it,” Harry Hopkins recorded. “The President said he was going to make it a rule that promotions should go to people who had done some fighting, and that while Eisenhower had done a good job, he hasn’t knocked the Germans out of Tunisia.”85

  For his own part, Marshall was disappointed with Ike’s limp showing before the Combined Chiefs.86 Taking Eisenhower aside, he suggested that it might be prudent to appoint George Patton as deputy commander to oversee the fighting while Ike handled the politics. Later that evening, Eisenhower put the possibility to Patton.

  “He and I talked until about 0130,” Patton recalled. “He thinks his thread is about to be cut. I told him he had to go ‘to the front.’ He feels he cannot, due to politics.” When Ike suggested that Patton become his deputy, George was skeptical. “I doubt if it comes out and am not sure I want the job.87 l

  Eisenhower’s position as supreme commander was never in jeopardy. His executive ability was unquestioned and his dexterity in keeping all of the balls of an international coalition in the air was truly remarkable. General Sir Alan Brooke, while disparaging of Ike’s strategic understanding, thought that he “possessed an exceptional ability to handle Allied forces, to treat them all with strict impartiality, and to get the best out of an inter-Allied force.”88 Tedder and Cunningham agreed, and Cunningham’s opinion always carried great weight with Churchill and Roosevelt. Churchill, for his part, repeatedly proclaimed his admiration and affection for Eisenhower, and Roosevelt—buttressed by Marshall’s persistent faith in Ike—was unwilling to consider any change.89

  General George S. Patton. (illustration credit 10.3)

  What was at stake was the control of the ground war in Tunisia, and even Marshall had to concede that Ike was in over his head. When the Combined Chiefs met on January 20, 1943, Brooke proposed that when Montgomery’s Eighth Army reached Tunisia, it be placed under Ike’s command, and that “General [Sir Harold] Alexander should come in as Deputy Commander-in-Chief under General Eisenhower with the primary task of commanding the group of armies on the Tunisian front.”90 Alexander, the third son of the Earl of Caledon, had been the youngest general in the British Army, and had an impeccable combat record stretching more than thirty years. Commanding the 1st Division of the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk in 1940, he was literally the last Englishman to leave France. Utterly unflappable, he was Montgomery’s superior as head of the British Near East Command.m Brooke’s proposal meant that Ike would be retained as supreme commander but that he would have three deputies who would exercise the actual command of the fighting forces: Admiral Cunningham at sea, Air Chief Marshal Tedder in the air, and General Alexander on the ground. Brooke also suggested that Eisenhower assume responsibility for whatever subsequent operation (Sicily or elsewhere) was to be undertaken, again with Alexander as his deputy. Consensus came quickly. Marshall was pleased with the arrangement because it left Eisenhower in supreme command, and the British were delighted to have Alexander control the ground war. Eisenhower was not consulted. When Ike told Marshall that he intended to name Patton as his deputy, Marshall told him to hold off. “Alexander will be your man when British Eighth Army joins you after Tripoli.”91

  That evening, Brooke summarized the agreement in his diary.

  By bringing Alexander over from the Middle East and appointing him Deputy to Eisenhower, we are carrying out a move which could not help flattering and pleasing the Americans insofar as we were placing our senior and experienced commander to function under their commander who had no war experience.… We are pushing Eisenhower up into the stratosphere and rarified atmosphere of a Supreme Commander, where he would be free to devote his time to the political and inter-allied problems, whilst
we inserted under him one of our own commanders to deal with the military situations and to restore the necessary drive and coordination which had been so seriously lacking.92

  Eisenhower announced the new command setup at a press conference in Algiers on February 10, and praised his British deputies as “three of England’s stars.” But in truth, Butcher reported, Ike was burning inside. His years of high-level staff duty had given him impeccable instincts about power relationships, and it was obvious that he had been kicked upstairs.93 Whatever hurt Eisenhower felt, however, was quickly assuaged when on February 11 he received notice that FDR had approved his promotion to full general. If Ike was to be supreme commander with three British deputies, Roosevelt recognized that he needed the rank to go with it.

  With that promotion, Eisenhower became the twelfth four-star general in American history, Ulysses S. Grant having been the first. That evening, Ike broke out the champagne and hosted an impromptu celebration for his unofficial family. “I’ll never forget the sheer pleasure that radiated from him,” Summersby remembered. “The General was always very charming, always had that grin at the ready, but underneath it all he was a very serious and lonely man who worried, worried, worried. I used to feel it was a real achievement whenever we were able to divert him so that he forgot his problems for a little while and was able to have fun.”94

  Butcher had located another hideaway for Eisenhower, similar to Telegraph Cottage, where the general and his personal staff could retreat from the daily cares of office. It was a white stucco villa with a red-tiled roof, perched on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean, about fifteen miles from the city of Algiers. There were stables and tennis courts, and Butcher arranged for three Arabian stallions to be put at Ike’s disposal. “We would leave the office in the middle of the afternoon several days a week,” said Kay, “ride for a couple of hours, shower, have a drink and supper, and then drive back to Algiers. The Army had cleared the area and there were guards posted, so we felt quite safe. We also felt as if we were on parade. There was always a security man riding discreetly behind us, in addition to the sharpshooter guards. It is an eerie feeling knowing that your every move is being watched. Ike often complained about it, not only while riding, but as it affected every phase of his life.”95

  Elspeth Duncan, an attractive Scottish colleague of Kay’s on Eisenhower’s clerical staff, complained to Everett Hughes that she resented being used as cover for Ike and Kay. (Duncan was often included in their outings.) “She foresees a scandal. Wants to quit. I tell her to stick around. Maybe Kay will help Ike win the war.”96

  Eisenhower’s weekly letters to Mamie continued to profess his love. “I just want to say that you’re the greatest gal in the world,” he wrote on February 20, 1943. “I’ll never be in love with anyone but you! So, please be sure of that—and I hope it really means as much to you as ever.”97

  On February 22, Eisenhower’s professions of love were sorely tested. Margaret Bourke-White, the noted photojournalist, published an article in Life magazine detailing the travails of the WAC detachment when their troopship had been torpedoed. Bourke-White had been on board. Entitled “Women in Lifeboats,” the article featured Elspeth Duncan, “the best rower of all,” and “the irrepressible Kay Summersby, Eisenhower’s pretty Irish driver.” Bourke-White reported there had been seventeen lifeboats, each carrying between fifty-five and one hundred passengers. She was in the boat with Kay, Elspeth, and Ethel Westermann, who was on her way to be chief nurse at the headquarters dispensary. There were pictures galore, including two of “the beauteous Kay.”98

  Mamie saw the article, as did most Army wives in Washington—and those who did not soon learned of it. “Army cats of the worst sort surrounded her,” wrote Kevin McCann, a postwar aide to Ike, “relaying to her—in the most affectionately sympathetic manner—and enlarging viciously on it, the latest bit of scandalous gossip leaked through censorship.”99 Mamie was hurt and embarrassed by the article. Her letter to Eisenhower has apparently been destroyed, but from Ike’s reply it is clear that she put him on the spot.

  “So Life says my old London driver came down,” Eisenhower answered on March 2, 1943.

  So she did—but the big reason she wanted to serve in this theater is that she is terribly in love with a young American Colonel [Richard Arnold] and is to be married to him come June—assuming both are alive. I doubt if Life told that. But I tell you only so that if anyone is banal and foolish enough to lift an eyebrow at an old duffer such as I am [Eisenhower was fifty-two] in connection with WACS—Red Cross workers—nurses and drivers—you will know that I’ve no emotional involvements and will have none.… You are all that any man could ask as a partner and a sweetheart.100

  The day after receiving notice of his promotion, Eisenhower slipped out of Algiers for a quick tour of the southern end of the front held by II Corps. Fredendall’s troops were spread thin, but Ike was confident no enemy attack was in the offing. “Axis cannot risk at this moment to embark on an operation which might mean heavy losses of men and equipment,” he informed the War Department on February 13.101 Eisenhower was distressed that the frontline units had made little effort to fortify their positions, but he thought the disposition of the forces was “as good as could be made pending the development of an actual attack and in view of the great value of holding the forward regions.”102

  Scarcely had Eisenhower returned to II Corps headquarters when disaster struck. At 0630 on Sunday, February 14, tanks of the 10th and 21st Panzer divisions crashed out of the Eastern Dorsals and began to roll up the front line of II Corps, which Fredendall had deployed in penny packets on the valley floor. The 21st Panzer came on from the south, the 10th Panzer from the north, and by 1700 the two had completed a double envelopment, sending the remnants of the American 1st Armored Division in headlong retreat. Of the fifty-two Sherman medium tanks the 1st Armored had deployed, only six survived.

  At II Corps headquarters Eisenhower, who had received preliminary reports of the rout, whistled in the dark. “I really believe that the fighting of today will show that our troops are giving a very fine account of themselves even though we must give up part of our extended line,” he informed General Marshall.103 The fact is the green American troops were no match for the German veterans. The 10th Panzer Division had led von Rundstedt’s breakout in the Ardennes in 1940, and the 21st—the first German division in Africa—was in the words of one military historian “perhaps the most experienced desert fighters on earth.”104 Some American troops fought well, but they were the exception. Battalion after battalion was surrounded, overrun, or simply disintegrated.

  Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. (illustration credit 10.4)

  For the next day and a half the Allied high command remained in denial. Eyewitness testimony of the rout had little impact. Combat Command A (CCA) of the 1st Armored reported that it had lost 1,600 men, nearly 100 tanks, 57 half-tracks, and 29 artillery pieces, but the belief persisted that the German onslaught was less than real. Reality dawned on February 16 when tanks from Rommel’s Afrika Korps joined the assault. Three German armored columns slammed through collapsing American defenses, heading in the general direction of Kasserine Pass. Panic built slowly, but by the evening of the seventeenth the remnants of II Corps were racing to the rear. Fredendall suffered a nervous collapse. Eisenhower reached back to Morocco and summoned Major General Ernest Harmon, commanding the 2nd Armored Division, to rally II Corps, and on the nineteenth General Sir Harold Alexander took command of the front. Two British divisions from Anderson’s First Army moved south to close off the German penetration, and by February 23 the breakthrough had been contained.

  Eisenhower waited two weeks before relieving Fredendall, and despite his performance, recommended his promotion to lieutenant general and a cushy stateside training command. Ike offered the embattled II Corps to Mark Clark, who now headed Fifth Army in Morocco, and Clark declined—a black mark that Eisenhower never forgot. Ike then turned to Patton, who welcomed the opportunity.
Patton was slated to command Seventh Army and was preparing for the invasion of Sicily, but he was delighted to lead troops in battle. He commanded II Corps for six weeks, whipped it into shape, and turned it over to Omar Bradley when he resumed planning for Sicily.

  After Kasserine, British planners began referring to American troops as “our Italians.” Tommies called GIs “Alice.” General Alexander told Montgomery that after taking command in Tunisia he found “no policy, no plan, no reserves, no training, and no building up for the future.” The American troops were “mentally and physically soft, and very green. It was the old story: lack of proper training, allied to no experience in war, and linked with too high a standard of living. They were going through their early days, just as we had to go through ours. We had been at war a long time and our mistakes lay mostly behind us.”105 n

  The Fifth Panzer Army and the Afrika Korps, which were now linked under von Arnim’s command (Rommel had been recalled to Germany), gradually withdrew to the northeast corner of Tunisia with their backs to the Bay of Tunis. For the next three months, Alexander methodically tightened the vice. Primary responsibility was assigned to Anderson’s First Army, in the north, and Montgomery’s Eighth Army moving up from the south. The two British armies were separated by the French XIX Corps, under General Louis-Marie Koeltz. The U.S. II Corps, now under Omar Bradley, served under Anderson’s command.

  The Germans did not lose the battle of North Africa so much as they were overwhelmed. Hitler’s war machine was no match for America’s assembly line. Despite the heavy losses sustained in November and December, by February the Allies had four times as many planes in North Africa as the Luftwaffe. By the end of March, the Allies were flying over a thousand sorties a day. The Germans averaged sixty.106 Allied air superiority choked off the German supply route. Von Arnim’s Fifth Panzer Army had received 187 replacement tanks in November, and 191 in December. By February the number had dropped to 52, and in March to 20. By contrast, at Kasserine Pass the U.S. II Corps lost more tanks (235) than the Germans had deployed at the outset of the battle (228). Yet within two weeks II Corps had been supplied with replacements.107 “Supplies shattering. Ammunition for 1–2 days. Fuel situation similar,” von Armin signaled Berlin in late March.108