Eisenhower in War and Peace

by Jean Edward Smith

  27. Kent Roberts Greenfield, Robert R. Palmer, and Bell I. Wiley, The Organization of Ground Combat Troops 12, 271–76 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 2004).

  28. AC of S (G-4) [General George R. Spalding] to C of S [General Malin Craig], October 30, 1936, subject: Research and Development for FY 1939, NARA.

  29. Chief Signal Officer to C of S [Marshall], February 20, 1940, NARA.

  30. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical History of the United States 736.

  31. Public Law 190, July 29, 1941. To ensure fairness in the elimination of unfit officers, Marshall entrusted the final decision to a board of six retired officers, headed by former chief of staff Malin Craig. In 1941, the board discharged 31 colonels, 117 lieutenant colonels, 31 majors, and 16 captains. During the war years, Marshall sacked almost 500 full colonels as unfit to command. Mark Skinner Watson, Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations 241–47 (Washington, D.C.: Historical Division, Department of the Army, 1950).

  32. Pogue, 2 Marshall 98; James F. Byrnes, All in One Lifetime 113–14 (New York: Harper, 1958). Another of Marshall’s reforms was to break the autocratic hold on assignments exercised by the chief of infantry, the chief of cavalry, and the chief of artillery. Those offices were abolished when Marshall reorganized the War Department on March 9, 1942. The assignment and promotion authority moved to Marshall and the adjutant general’s office.

  33. MDE to the Douds, March 11, 1941, quoted in Susan Eisenhower, Mrs. Ike 167.

  34. DDE Fort Lewis diary, April 4, 1941, in DDE, Eisenhower: Prewar Diaries 516.

  35. DDE to Colonel Charles H. Corlett, June 1941, ibid. 517–20.

  36. DDE to Gerow, July 18, 1941, EL.

  37. Krueger to Marshall, June 11, 1941; Marshall to Krueger, June 13, 1941. Also see Pogue, 2 Marshall 163; Kevin C. Holzimmer, General Walter Krueger: Unsung Hero of the Pacific War 71 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007).

  38. Brigadier General John S. D. Eisenhower, who is the executor of his parents’ estates, has deposited their complete financial records at the Eisenhower Library, but has refused to open them for inspection. (The financial records of FDR, Eleanor, and Sara are fully available at the Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park.) When the National Archives and Records Administration prepared to open Ike’s financial records in 2010, John threatened to bring suit to keep them closed. Nevertheless, it would appear that Ike returned to the United States with roughly $10,000 ($130,000 in current dollars) in his account at Washington’s Riggs National Bank. DDE Philippine diary, November 15, 1939, EL.

  39. John S. D. Eisenhower, Strictly Personal 35. According to John, one member of the class was Asian.

  40. Kenneth S. Davis, Soldier of Democracy 267–68.

  41. Ibid. 268–69.

  42. DDE, Crusade in Europe 133–34.

  43. Friedrich Immanuel, The Regimental War Game, Walter Krueger, trans. (Kansas City, Mo.: Hudson Press, 1907); General Julius K. L. Merteus, Tactics and Techniques of River Crossings, Walter Krueger, trans. (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1918); and William Balck, Tactics, 2 vols., Walter Krueger, trans. (Fort Leavenworth: U.S. Cavalry Association, 1911). Krueger’s World War II memoir, From Down Under to Nippon: The Story of Sixth Army in World War II (Washington, D.C.: Combat Forces Press, 1953), is a remarkable, rancor-free account of Sixth Army’s ground war in the Pacific.

  44. DDE, Crusade in Europe 11.

  45. Krueger Papers, United States Military Academy. Quoted in D’Este, Eisenhower 274–75.

  46. Ibid. 275.

  47. DDE to George Van Horn Moseley, August 28, 1941, EL.

  48. The details of MacArthur’s recall remain murky. The most complete account is that provided by Watson in Chief of Staff 434–38. Also see Manchester, American Caesar 188–90; Pogue, 2 Marshall 181, 466.

  49. DDE to Brigadier General Wade Haislip, July 28, 1941, EL. (Eisenhower’s emphasis.)

  50. Pogue, 2 Marshall 89. The approximate cost of the Louisiana maneuvers was $28.6 million (roughly $350 million currently). Christopher R. Gabel, The U.S. Army GHQ Maneuvers of 1941 50 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1992).

  51. George C. Marshall, Speech to the National Guard Association of the United States, October 27, 1939, in 2 Papers of George Catlett Marshall 94–99.

  52. Gabel, GHQ Maneuvers of 1941 4.

  53. Ibid. 59.

  54. DDE to Gerow, August 5, 1941, EL.

  55. DDE to Joyce, September 15, 1941, EL.

  56. DDE to Gerow, September 26, 1941, EL.

  57. The New York Times, September 29, 1941.

  58. Gabel, GHQ Maneuvers of 1941 111.

  59. DDE, At Ease 244.

  60. John S. D. Eisenhower Oral History, EL, quoted in D’Este, Eisenhower 280. Colonel D’Este explores the reaction of General Krueger to the fame that Ike acquired at pages 280–81.

  61. Gabel, GHQ Maneuvers of 1941 115–25.

  62. “General Krueger didn’t have a thing to do with logistics and neither did Ike,” said Lutes. “Ike said, ‘You handle it.’ And Krueger said, ‘You handle it.’ And I couldn’t take a single question to them. They didn’t want it. All they wanted to know was how I did it.” Lutes Oral History, EL. After the maneuvers, Lutes was promoted by General Marshall directly to the rank of brigadier general, skipping the intermediate step of colonel. DDE to Lutes, December 5, 1941, EL.

  63. Gabel, GHQ Maneuvers of 1941 187.

  64. Mark Clark, Calculated Risk 16 (New York: Harper, 1950); Clark, interview by Merle Miller, cited in Miller, Ike the Soldier 328–29.

  65. MDE Oral History, EL.

  66. D’Este, Eisenhower 281.

  67. Ibid.

  68. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe 12–13.

  69. Ibid. 13–14.

  70. Ibid.

  71. Ibid.

  72. DDE efficiency report, June 30, 1940, EL.

  73. Ibid., March 5, 1941, EL.

  74. Ibid., June 21, 1941, EL. (Joyce’s emphasis.)

  75. Ibid., December 19, 1941, EL.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: WITH MARSHALL IN WASHINGTON

  During his tour in War Plans, Eisenhower jotted down his thoughts on a notepad he kept on his desk. The epigraph was written by Ike on January 4, 1942. It is reprinted in The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, vol. 1, The War Years 39, Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1970). Cited subsequently as 1 War Years.

  1. Krueger, From Down Under to Nippon 4.

  2. DDE, Crusade in Europe 16.

  3. Pogue, 2 Marshall 238. Also see Louis Morton, The Fall of the Philippines 30 (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1953).

  4. Stephen E. Ambrose, The Supreme Commander: The War Years of Dwight D. Eisenhower 4 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970).

  5. DDE, Crusade in Europe 18.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Eisenhower’s December 14, 1941, memo, “Assistance to Far East,” is in 1 War Years 5–6.

  8. DDE, Crusade in Europe 21–22.

  9. Pogue, 2 Marshall 239.

  10. Dwight D. Eisenhower, in Addresses Delivered at the Dedication Ceremonies of the George C. Marshall Research Library, May 24, 1964, 14.

  11. DDE, Crusade in Europe 22–24.

  12. Ibid. 30.

  13. Ibid.

  14. DDE, in Addresses Delivered at Dedication 14–15.

  15. DDE, At Ease 195.

  16. Merle Miller, Ike the Soldier 338–39.

  17. Katherine Marshall, interview by Vernon Waters, quoted in ibid. 340.

  18. Lucius D. Clay (LDC), interview, COHP.

  19. DDE to S. A. Akin, June 19, 1942, EL.

  20. DDE, Crusade in Europe 24.

  21. Quoted in Susan Eisenhower, Mrs. Ike 175.

  22. MDE to the Douds, February 7, 1942, EL.

  23. DDE to Krueger, December 20, 1941, 1 War Years 16–17.

  24. Krueger to DDE, December 23, 1941, EL.

  25. DDE to Lutes, December 31, 1941, 1 War Years 33.<
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  26. Pogue, 2 Marshall 244; DDE, Crusade in Europe 25. Also see Russell D. Buhite, Patrick J. Hurley and American Foreign Policy 101–2 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1973).

  27. Ibid. Also see DDE, memo pad entry, January 17, 1942, 1 War Years 61–62.

  28. United States Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Conferences at Washington, 1941–1942, and Casablanca, 1943 81–82 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968). Cited subsequently as FRUS: Washington and Casablanca.

  29. Meeting of the U.S.-British chiefs of staff, December 25, 1941, ibid. 93.

  30. Pogue, 2 Marshall 276–77.

  31. Eisenhower’s draft letter of instructions for the supreme commander, Southwestern Pacific Theater, December 26, 1941, is at 1 War Years 28–31. For Marshall’s change, see 30–31n3.

  32. Pogue, 2 Marshall 278.

  33. Stimson diary, December 29, 1941, Yale University.

  34. DDE diary, February 16, 1942, in 1 War Years 109. In his final efficiency report on Ike, Gerow said he considered Eisenhower “the best officer of his rank in the entire Army,” and that in wartime he should be entrusted with “the highest command.” DDE efficiency report, February 14, 1942, EL.

  35. DDE to Lieutenant Colonel William Lee, February 24, 1942, EL.

  36. Pogue, 2 Marshall 289, 290.

  37. Adjutant General’s Office, Official Army Register, January 1, 1942 4–5 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1942).

  38. DDE, At Ease 249–50.

  39. DDE diary, March 28, March 30, 1942, in DDE, The Eisenhower Diaries, Robert H. Ferrell, ed., 52–53 (New York: Norton, 1981).

  40. MDE to the Douds, March 13, 1942, EL.

  41. DDE diary, March 11, 1942, in DDE, Eisenhower Diaries 51.

  42. Ibid., March 12, 1942. Upon his return from the Philippines in December 1939, Eisenhower commenced sending his parents $20 monthly (approximately $250 currently). This continued until his mother’s death. DDE to Edgar N. Eisenhower, April 13, May 1, 1942, EL.

  43. DDE, Crusade in Europe 46.

  44. Ibid. “Tom Handy and I stick to our idea that we must win in Europe,” Ike wrote in his diary on January 27, 1942. “We can’t win by sitting on our fannies giving our stuff in driblets all over the world.”

  45. DDE, Crusade in Europe 46.

  46. Ibid.

  47. Memorandum for the Chief of Staff, February 28, 1942, DDE, 1 War Years 149–55.

  48. DDE, Crusade in Europe 47.

  49. Winston S. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate 189–94 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950).

  50. Stimson diary, March 6, 1942, Yale University. Secretary Stimson went on to say that the main problem was the U.S. Navy, which was “getting wedded to fighting in the Pacific where they had the lead. Eisenhower was quite strong to the effect that Admiral King’s proposition of a slow step by step creeping movement through the Island of New Caledonia, New Britain, etc., would not get anywhere in solving the big situation as it is being fought out in Europe.”

  51. Memorandum for the Chief of Staff, “Critical Points in the Development of Coordinated Viewpoint as to Major Tasks of War,” March 25, 1942, 1 War Years 205–7.

  52. Ibid. (Eisenhower’s emphasis.)

  53. Pogue, 2 Marshall 305–6; Stimson diary, March 25, 1942, Yale University; Ray S. Cline, Washington Command Post: The Operations Division 155–58 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 2003).

  54. OPD Exec. 10, Item 30 A, in Cline, Washington Command Post 157–58. In addition to ROUNDUP, Ike and his staff prepared an ancillary plan (SLEDGEHAMMER) for an immediate but smaller landing in 1942, should it be necessary to stave off a Russian collapse. Also see Maurice Matloff and Edwin C. Snell, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1941–1942 183–87 (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Army, 1953).

  55. Stimson diary, April 1, 1942, Yale University. Also see Henry Harley Arnold, Global Mission 305 (New York: Harper, 1949).

  56. Stimson diary, April 1, 1942, Yale University.

  57. Former Naval Person from the President, April 1, 1942, Walter F. Kimball, ed., 1 Churchill and Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence 437 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984). The Hopkins and Roosevelt cables are also reprinted in Robert E. Sherwood’s Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History 521 (New York: Harper, 1948).

  58. WSC to FDR, April 12, 1942, Kimball, 1 Churchill and Roosevelt 448–49.

  59. FDR to WSC, April 21, 1942, ibid. 466–67.

  60. Marshall to McNarney, April 13, 1942, in Pogue, 2 Marshall 318.

  61. DDE diary, April 20, 1942, EL.

  62. Memo, Captain John L. McCrea [FDR’s naval aide] to JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff], May 1, 1942, in Snell and Matloff, Strategic Planning 217.

  63. Eisenhower’s memo (signed Marshall), May 4, 1942, is at 1 War Years 276–77.

  64. Marshall to FDR, May 6, 1942, “Pacific Theater versus BOLERO,” in Snell and Matloff, Strategic Planning 218–19. Marshall’s letter was written by Eisenhower.

  65. FDR to Marshall, May 6, 1942, Snell and Matloff, Strategic Planning 219.

  66. Roosevelt sent memorandums on May 6, 1942, to the secretaries of war and Navy, the three chiefs of staff, and Hopkins, emphasizing his basic strategy of holding in the Pacific and taking the offensive against Germany. COS TS Decimal File, 1941–43, 381, Sec. 1.

  67. DDE diary, May 5, 1942, EL. (Eisenhower’s emphasis.)

  68. Ibid., May 21, 1942.

  69. Pogue, 2 Marshall 339.

  70. DDE, Crusade in Europe 49.

  71. Ibid. 50; Kay Summersby, Eisenhower Was My Boss 16 (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1948).

  72. Quoted in Martin Blumenson, Mark Clark 57 (New York: Congdon and Weed, 1984).

  73. Mark Clark, Calculated Risk 19.

  74. DDE diary, May 27, 1942, EL.

  75. Kay Summersby Morgan, Past Forgetting: My Love Affair with Dwight D. Eisenhower 28 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976).

  76. Summersby, Eisenhower Was My Boss 4; Kay Summersby Morgan, Past Forgetting 31–32.

  77. Korda, Ike 272; Kay Summersby Morgan, Past Forgetting 31.

  78. “When the King told me this story, he laughed uproariously.” DDE, At Ease 277–78. Also see Harry C. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower: The Personal Diary of Captain Harry C. Butcher, USNR, Naval Aide to General Eisenhower, 1942 to 1945 17–18 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946).

  79. Arnold, Global Mission 315.

  80. Ibid.

  81. Summersby, Eisenhower Was My Boss 10; Kay Summersby Morgan, Past Forgetting 37.

  82. DDE to GCM, “Command arrangements for BOLERO,” June 3, 1942, 1 War Years 327–28. Eisenhower recommended that Major General Robert L. Eichelberger replace McNarney as deputy chief of staff.

  83. DDE to GCM, “Command in England,” June 6, 1942, 1 War Years 331–32.

  84. Directive for the Commanding General, ETO, June 8, 1942, ibid. 334–35.

  85. The directive explicitly specified that “the commanding general, European theater, will keep the Chief of Staff U.S. Army fully advised of all that concerns his command and will communicate his recommendations freely and directly to the War Department.” Ibid.

  86. Lyon, Eisenhower 124; Clark, Calculated Risk 20.

  87. Pogue, 2 Marshall 339, 476n52.

  88. Kenneth S. Davis, Soldier of Democracy 299–300.

  89. DDE diary, June 8, 1942, EL. (Eisenhower’s emphasis.)

  90. DDE, 1 War Years 337.

  91. Adjutant General’s Office, Official Army Register, 1942, 4.

  92. DDE to GSP, July 20, 1942, EL.

  93. DDE, Crusade in Europe 51.

  94. Jean Edward Smith, FDR 546–47n.

  95. Kenneth S. Davis, Soldier of Democracy 302–3.

  96. Eisenhower diary, June 20, 1942, EL.

  97. Carol M. Petillo, “Douglas MacArthur and Manuel Quezon: A Note on an Imperial Bond,” 48 Pacific Historical Review 107–17 (1979). Profess
or Petillo discovered the payments while working in the Richard K. Sutherland papers at the Library of Congress. The payments were made while the decision was pending on whether to evacuate Quezon and his family from Corregidor by submarine, and the paperwork was backdated to January 3, 1942. Stimson and FDR appear to have been aware of the payments and made no objection. Under the terms of MacArthur’s 1935 appointment as military adviser to the Philippine government, the payments would have been permissible. But on July 26, 1941, the military adviser’s office was abolished and MacArthur returned to active duty as commander of U.S. Army forces in the Philippines. From that date onward, he and his staff were bound by Army regulations, which explicitly prohibit such gifts, loans, or emoluments. (Army Regulations 600–10, Par. 2e [9], December 6, 1938.) Also see Paul P. Rogers, “MacArthur, Quezon, and Executive Order Number One—Another View,” 52 Pacific Historical Review 93–102 (1983); Petillo, Douglas MacArthur 208–13; Perret, Old Soldiers Never Die 271–72.

  98. DDE to Kenyon Joyce, June 22, 1942, EL.

  99. Jean Edward Smith, Lucius D. Clay 219.

  CHAPTER NINE: TORCH

  The epigraph is from a letter from DDE to GSP, September 5, 1942, in 1 War Years 541–42.

  1. Michael J. McKeogh and Richard Lockridge, Sgt. Mickey and General Ike 29 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1946).

  2. Quoted in Kenneth S. Davis, Soldier of Democracy 314; also see Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower 5–6.

  3. McKeogh and Lockridge, Sgt. Mickey 39.

  4. DDE to MDE, June 26, 1942, in DDE, Letters to Mamie 23–24, John S. D. Eisenhower, ed. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978).

  5. DDE, Letters to Mamie 12.

  6. Richard G. Davis, Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe 3–89 (Washington, D.C.: Center for Air Force History, 1992).

  7. DDE diary, June 29, 1942, EL.

  8. Pogue, 2 Marshall 408. Smith’s maternal grandfather served in the cavalry during the Franco-Prussian War, and his spiked helmet was prominently displayed in the Smith home. D. K. R. Crosswell, The Chief of Staff: The Military Career of General Walter Bedell Smith 4 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1991).