AS Army Chief of Operations in Washington a year and a half earlier, Eisenhower had drawn up plans for Operation Roundup, an Allied invasion of France from England to take place in the spring of 1943 and bring the war to a rapid, victorious conclusion. Now it was January 1944; Operation Roundup had been renamed Operation Overlord, was scheduled to be launched that coming May, and Eisenhower was returning to London to be its Supreme Commander.
Overlord would be a far more momentous operation than those that had preceded it, and far more depended on its success. Details for establishing a secure beachhead on the coast of northern France against strong resistance had been closely examined. Feasibility studies had been undertaken. Proposals had been drawn up. A great quantity of relevant data had been gathered.
It was far easier for the staff at the newly established Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) to move forward from there than it would have been to start from scratch. Eisenhower had doubts about the COSSAC invasion plan when he first saw it but he later paid tribute to Morgan's work. He said, "He had in the months preceding my arrival accomplished a mass of detailed planning, accumulation of data, and gathering of supply that made D Day possible." His praise for COSSAC was reciprocated.
I had to hand over to General Eisenhower [Morgan wrote] a hideous complexity of problems connected with the articulation of higher command into which there entered not only military but international considerations. . . . But here, at long last, was the man to solve these and, indeed, any other problems, one already well acquainted with all the actors who were to take part in the forthcoming drama and who, moreover, had already led an Anglo-American army to notable victory.
There was little doubt where the landings would have to take place. COSSAC planners had scrutinized the west coast of the European continent from the Netherlands to Spain. The region around Calais was closest to southern England and was therefore an obvious choice. But that area was the most strongly fortified of any along Hitler's Atlantic Wall. As for the region just north of it, close to the German border with Belgium, any advantage derived from surprise, if it could be maintained.
Would be neutralized by how quickly the Germans would be able to reinforce their defending forces there.
Brittany was too far south for adequate fighter cover to be provided. That left the French coast between Brittany and Pas de Calais. It was there, on the beaches of Normandy, that the Allied troops would go ashore on D-Day.
It would be essential for the invaders to be adequately supplied once they had established themselves in France or they might be driven back into the sea. The Norman port of Cherbourg was not as good for that purpose as Antwerp, farther north in Belgium. COSSAC had long been pondering that problem and had produced plans for what became the Mulberry artificial harbors that were floated across the English Channel to Normandy to keep the troops supplied immediately after D-Day.
Timing for the invasion had also been narrowed down by COSSAC. What was necessary was moonlight sufficient for paratroops to drop with relative safety at night to coincide with a low tide that would permit landing craft to get to the beaches to disgorge their troops, tanks, and trucks. That narrowed the choice of dates down to the beginning of May or two weeks into June. Later than that and the Allies might not have time to gather sufficient momentum on land to crush German resistance before winter conditions came to the aid of the enemy.
British himself, and with a COSSAC staff that was at first mostly British, Morgan had to deal with the qualms of his government and the British military establishment about the agreed-upon spring 1944 timing for the cross-Channel assault. Brooke made no secret that he still had doubts about an invasion of France until the Germans showed greater signs of cracking. Churchill was deeply worried. ''When I think of the beaches of Normandy choked with the flower of American and British youth," he said, "and when in my mind's eye, I see the tides running red with their blood, I have my doubts." The prime minister also grumbled about forces he said were lying effectively idle in Britain, training for an operation that was not to take place for several months, when there were other opportu-
Nities to be exploited in tle Mediterranean region. Morgan came to be considered by many of his compatriots as far too Americanized, as would some other British generals who worked under Eisenhower at SHAEF.
In the meantime, both the U. S. Army Air Corps and the RAF had war-winning plans of their own and no wishes to come under the jurisdiction of others. The U. S. Navy was still more interested in the Pacific, and the Royal Navy was still too fully stretched to devote much attention to future planning. In addition to clashes of interests and attitudes among the services, now that Germany's defeat was not only certain but likely soon to be achieved, divergent national objectives between the Americans and the British were emerging on such matters as dealing with the Russian ally and what to do with Germany once it was conquered, both of which had important bearing on strategic considerations.
Morgan had done what he could to prevent those and other differences from obstructing the development of invasion plans. He pointed out, "The GOSS AC staff, containing as it did men and women of six fighting services of two different nations, was bound of its nature to contain all the elements of discord." But like Eisenhower he strove to forge an atmosphere of camaraderie and overriding common purpose. Shortly after COSSAC had begun functioning, an American general making a transatlantic phone call from Washington to an American general at Norfolk House offered his view of what was wrong with the way planning was shaping up and finished by saying, "But for Christ's sake don't tell the British." He was informed that the laughter his warning aroused came from two British generals and one British admiral who had been listening to the conversation.
COSSAC planning had dealt with all sorts of problems. As well as invasion preparations, invasion details, and post-invasion logistics, it had included deception plans, arrangements for civil administration in liberated France, a rapid airborne seizure of Berlin if the German Army and government suddenly collapsed, the military occupation of Germany, and much else.
But COSSAC had labored under a fundamental constraint.
The key problems it had sought to address could only be resolved by individuals more senior and more experienced than Morgan in operational command in the war, and that could only happen when those individuals finally could extract themselves from their other campaigns to devote their full attention to Overlord. Specifically, firm decisions could not be made for the operation until a Supreme Commander with sufficient authority was appointed. The task for Eisenhower when he took charge was momentous. He was required to absorb the extensive planning that had already been done, update and revise it in accordance with his own strategic thinking and the resources and intelligence available to him, and make the appropriate decisions.
Before leaving Washington to return to England, in answer to a question from Roosevelt Eisenhower had told the president that being Supreme Commander sounded good to him. 'Tt has a ring of importance," he jocularly told him, "something like Sultan." He didn't feel like a sultan. He was flattered to have been chosen and was anxious to get cracking on his new assignment. But he knew he would face great challenges in the weeks and months ahead and had no doubt that his competence as a commander-in-chief would once again be sorely tested.
Montgomery had no such concerns as he left command of the Eighth Army in Italy. He was brimming with confidence when he arrived back in England on January 2, 1944, to assume command of the British 21st Army Group. Having been instructed by Eisenhower to take control of Overlord planning in England while he was in the United States on home leave, he immediately proceeded to do exactly that.
Headquarters for him had been set up at St. Paul's School in London, where he had been a boy student. The headmaster's room, which he had never before visited, was chosen for his office. Letters were sent to him by people living in the area asking that he locate his headquarters elsewhere. Having endured four years of enemy air raids, they feared that the presence of so famous a figure would attract German bombers. Montgomery was contemptuous of such requests and even chose living quarters across the street from St. Paul's.
But he wasted neithfei; rime nor energy on peripheral matters. Within hours of his arrival in London, senior COSSAC planners were informed that their presence would be required at St. Paul's for a conference at nine the following morning. At that gathering, they presented the outline of the plan they had drawn up for the assault on the Normandy beaches, the first phase of the invasion, which was code-named Operation Neptune. Montgomery made no pretense of seeing any more value in it than he had when Churchill had asked for his opinion in Morocco.
In crisp teacher-to-student manner, he declared that it could not work, that it was based on too narrow a front. He restated his view that, as planned, the assault would not be powerful enough to establish a secure beachhead. He explored wider options for the invasion, describing the problems each presented with regard to logistics, likely enemy responses, advantages, and drawbacks. He said that his analysis of the essentials showed that the assault force would have to consist of five rather than the three divisions COSSAC had proposed, with two divisions in reserve, and it would have to be put ashore on a much longer expanse of coast.
There would also have to be important alterations in the command structure for the operation. Montgomery said it was too complicated and was likely to be prone to confusion once the assault was launched. The British 21st Army Group and the American First Army, which included the forces that would land on D-Day, would manage their own combat areas under his general direction. Armies that trained separately, had their distinctive military procedures, and even used different kinds of ammunition, would best fight independently, under their own commanders. It would simplify logistical and operational control. The lines of command, communication, and supply would be tidy, as Montgomery always instructed his students that they should be.
Not all of these ideas were exclusively Montgomery's. Eisenhower's gut reaction to the COSSAC plan had also been that the invasion force had to be stronger than three divisions. Churchill felt the same way. Bradley, now commanding the
U. S. First Army, shared many of Montgomery's detailed ideas, as did others. Indeed, COSSAC itself was aware of the limitations of its proposals and had insisted for many months that nothing really could be planned until a Supreme Commander was assigned to the operation and given a reasonably accurate estimate of the resources that would be at his disposal.
But it was Montgomery who presented clear, concise, and comprehensive ideas for the actual invasion that was to take place, stripped to their essentials, presented as firm instructions about how things should and would be done. Some of those to whom he lectured, or who heard that he had appeared to assume command of Overlord, questioned his authority. But he made certain everyone knew that Eisenhower had authorized him to get things moving.
For the COSSAC planners, Montgomery's exposition at St. Paul's was an animating experience. They had been pondering Overlord problems for months. With Allied combat emphasis having focused on the Mediterranean strategy, many had grown fatigued and even doubtful about the chances of success for the invasion. Conscious of the recalcitrance of the British High Command, some had begun to suspect that it might not even be attempted in the foreseeable future. Major General K. G. McLean, one of the senior planners, said, "There were many cold feet on the operation."
No longer. Some COSSAC planners grumbled at how their labors had been curtly discounted by Montgomery, as if they had no value whatsoever, and how they personally had been treated like amateurs. Nevertheless, they were sent away from Montgomery's presentation with a sense that things were finally about to happen and that they had some hard, important work to do in reexamining details and options.
The invasion of France would be by far the most important task Montgomery had ever undertaken, and the 21st Army Group was the highest command he had ever held. That inevitably meant that some of the senior officers who were to serve under him had their own ways of doing things. It also meant that, as usual, some of those ways and some of those individuals would not meet with his approval. He was generally disin-
Dined to employ any' senior officer who had not once been a favored student of his or who had not already satisfactorily served under him. Several officers found themselves relieved of their commands, replaced by Montgomery men, and shifted to second-string assignments at the moment of the greatest opportunity in their military careers. It aroused much bitterness.
Ten days after his return to England, Montgomery summoned the general officers under his command in Overlord to a meeting at which he made his views clear about the basic principles of war and the management of battle. His confident pronouncements served once more to refresh tired minds and expose those assembled to a dynamic, if bombastic, approach to problems that had to be solved. But though these were seasoned officers, Montgomery could not keep himself from addressing them as if they were second lieutenants still wet behind the ears.
It was more apparent than before that not everyone in the British military establishment had succumbed to admiration for him. Some entertained doubts about him because theirs was a deeply entrenched bureaucracy and his dynamism shook some of their cobwebs. They reacted strongly to his attempts to alter long-existing procedures, as in the case of changes in the structure of British Army divisions that had been recommended earlier for the sake of efficiency. But though those changes were uncontroversial, the War Office had not yet gotten around to authorizing them. Learning of it, Montgomery simply instructed that they be made. When word got back to the War Office, outraged complaints were made to War Minister Grigg.
Grigg shared the objections that such high-handedness aroused. Montgomery recognized that it was a mistake to make an enemy out of someone so highly placed, and someone who had been his admirer. He made arrangements to see the minister, exposed him to the charm of which he was capable when he chose to be, apologized, and explained that a sense of urgency had made him take precipitous action. Grigg became an even stronger supporter of him than he had been earlier. If Montgomery had made a practice of cultivating friends, he
Might have emerged from the war with even greater achievements than those with which he is credited. But it was beyond him. Sometimes he seemed driven to giving gratuitous offense.
On January 13, Montgomery left London to review troops training in the north of England. Eisenhower was due to arrive in Britain that night. Though Eisenhower was no stickler for protocol and did not mind, it was a discourtesy not to be on hand in the British capital to welcome the Supreme Commander. A week later, Eisenhower met with his senior staff, Montgomery included, to review some key elements of the COSSAC invasion plan. At the meeting, the content, clarity, and conciseness of Montgomery's presentation of his ideas for Overlord greatly impressed him. However, when Eisenhower's car, driven by Kay Summersby, had reached Norfolk House for that meeting, the parking spot reserved for the Supreme Commander was occupied by the car in which Montgomery had already arrived. It was another minor impertinence. Eisenhower again didn't give it a second thought, and Kay quickly sorted the matter out. But Montgomery appeared almost childish in his haste to test the limits in the new relationship that was being established between himself and Eisenhower.
He raised eyebrows at SHAEF and in Washington a few days later by announcing publicly that he was taking "command of the British Army and the American Army of which General Eisenhower is the Supreme Commander." Such a declaration was liable to give a misleading impression of the role to which he had been assigned. It suggested that Eisenhower was a mere figurehead in Overlord and that the British—in this case Montgomery—were really running the show. Asked at a press conference about Montgomery's self-serving, ambigious announcement, Eisenhower urged the assembled correspondents not to "go off on the end of a limb."
The British general had been tactless and had spoken out unnecessarily. However, what he said was essentially accurate. No public disclosure was being made, but the plan was for him to be the Allied ground-forces commander for the invasion. He was to remain ground-forces commander until an American army group was established in France alongside the British
Army group, at which time Eisenhower would directly assume that role himself.
As Overlord's Supreme Commander, Eisenhower was no less bedeviled by doubts and worries than he had been before, and not only about the possibility that the operation might fail. Despite his efforts to conceal his concern, he also feared he would again "be the target for those [American] critics who say the British have cleverly accepted an American as Supreme Commander but have infiltrated British commanders for land, sea, and air." The continuing glorification of Montgomery in the British press and the emphasis London newspapers placed on Eisenhower's managerial rather than military talents fueled gossip about who was really in charge. The Supreme Commander was wounded by such talk, as a notation in his diary testified.
Much discussion has taken place councerning our command set-up. . . . Generally speaking the British columnists. . . try to show that my contributions in the Mediterranean were administrative accomplishments and "friendliness in welding an allied team." They dislike to believe that I had anything particular to do with campaigns. They don't use the words "initiative" and "boldness" in talking of me, but often do in speaking of Alex and Monty.
But his exasperation at being damned by the British with faint praise did not diminish his determination to eliminate, prevent, or smooth over British-American friction. After a complaint from the War Office about a problem in communications with Washington, he told Marshall that when such situations arose to "please make it appear, whenever possible, that the mistake was made by me since I am always in a position to go and make a personal explanation or apology."
Much has been written about how harmoniously SHAEF functioned under Eisenhower's guidance. It was indeed a remarkable display of unity in the pursuit of a common objective. The Supreme Commander's ability to get along well with every-
One involved remained undiminished, as even the enemy knew. According to a German intelligence report filed a month after Eisenhower returned to England, he was "noted for his great energy, and for his hatred of routine office work. He leaves the initiative to his subordinates whom he manages to inspire to supreme efforts through kind understanding and easy discipline. His strongest point is said to be an ability for adjusting personalities to one another and smoothing over opposite viewpoints."
However, despite accounts that suggested otherwise, the atmosphere at Supreme Allied Headquarters—whose staff grew to number more than 16,000—was less than perfectly harmonious. COSSAC chief General Morgan, who became SHAEF's Deputy Chief of Staff, later said that his "dominant recollection" was "the awkwardness of the British [there]. It seemed that their idea of cooperation was that others should co-operate with them and not vice versa."
On the British side [Morgan wrote] there had been generated a widespread belief that General Eisenhower was little more than a politico-military figurehead, adept, might be, at the resolution of conflict on the higher diplomatic levels, but inexperienced, untried and little to be relied upon in the fields of tactics and strategy. For that matter there was no American who could bear comparison with the veteran British, notably with their popular hero Montgomery. By contrast, on the American side this same General Montgomery was held in no very high esteem. Careful analysis of his comparatively small campaign in North Africa had brought American soldiers to the conclusion that there was no great military virtue in the slogging match at El Alamein followed by the procession to Tunisia when, they estimated, if it had not been for the intervention of American and British Armies from the west, Rommel would have made his orderly withdrawal to Europe in his own good time.
Little of this filtered up to Eisenhower. Though regretting what he did learn of it, as long as the recriminations remained
Reasonably discreet and did not interfere with the workings of his headquarters he pretended they did not exist. Instead, he enthused about British-American camaraderie and cooperation. To have done otherwise, and to have brought the mutual scoffing fully out into the open, probably would have intensified it, with disagreeable consequences.
Unlike most of the American generals, the Supreme Commander was prepared to accept that Montgomery was responsible for a great and glorious triumph in North Africa. The victor of Alamein was still the most highly acclaimed British war hero and Eisenhower was anxious that all concerned treated him with the respect such status warranted. He certainly intended to treat him that way himself.
However, he could not overcome feeling ill at ease in Brooke's presence. They got along well enough, but the British chief of staff's clipped manner grated on Eisenhower, while Brooke, not the most diplomatic of men, had difficulty concealing the persisting doubts he had about the Supreme Commander despite his efforts to come to terms with him.
The main impression I gathered [Brooke wrote in his diary] was that Eisenhower was no real director of thought, plans, energy or direction. Just a coordinator, a good mixer, a champion of inter-Allied co-operation, and in those respects few can hold the candle to him. But is that enough?
However, other senior British figures—notably Cunningham, now the First Sea Lord, and Air Marshal Tedder—remained fond of Eisenhower and respected him as a commander. And he was popular with the British as well as the American press and public. He gradually employed that popularity, and the fulsome support of Roosevelt and Marshall, to infuse the role of Supreme Commander with far more substance than had been intended, certainly by the War Office in London, which remained uneasy entrusting command over British forces to a foreigner whose competence it doubted. And there was persisting concern about how Eisenhower and Montgomery would
Get along now that they were working closely together, without Alexander as a buffer between them.
The plane carrying Eisenhower back to Britain from the United States in mid-January had landed at Prestwick, in Scotland, from where the private train assigned to him carried him to London. The British capital was shrouded in a damp, dense winter fog when the train pulled in to the Primrose Hill station. A car was waiting to take him to the central London townhouse residence that had been made ready for him just off Berkeley Square.
He had not yet been issued his formal Overlord instructions by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Important differences between the British and Americans were still unresolved. The British continued to object to bolstering Overlord preparations at the expense of the operations in the Mediterranean. But Eisenhower's mission had to be defined in some way or other and a compromise directive for him was finally produced, though not until mid-February. Even then it was a very general description of the Supreme Commander's objective: "You will enter the continent of Europe, and, in conjunction with the other United Nations, undertake operations aimed at the heart of Germany and the destruction of her armed forces." Eisenhower was entrusted with preparing for the invasion, but he knew that Churchill and the British chiefs of staff would be looking over his shoulder and breathing down his neck, as would the War Department in Washington.
He was pleased that Tedder, with whom he had worked well in the Mediterranean, was named Deputy Supreme Commander. And he had brought Bedell Smith from Italy to continue as his chief of staff. Smith soon tangled heatedly with Brooke, who accused him of denuding the Italian campaign of experienced officers to staff SHAEF's upper echelons. It was proof that—directive or no directive—Eisenhower would have to struggle to establish his authority.
A number of fundamental matters had to be sorted out from the beginning. Prime among them was the importance of Over-
290 lord in the wider scheme of things. Eisenhower had no doubt that it would be the most important undertaking for the Western Allies in the war and that, together with the Soviet Army's advance from the east, it was the operation that would lead to victory over Nazi Germany. If Overlord failed, it would not be merely a setback for the Allies; it would be an unmitigated disaster. The Russians might be tempted to pull out of the war after driving Hitler's armies from Soviet soil, a process that was well under way. The war with the Germans in the west might then simply go on and on. As far as Eisenhower was concerned, everything else in which the Western Allies were engaged in the European theater had to be peripheral to Overlord.
But that opinion was not unanimously held by the Allied High Command. Impatient, fidgety, and fearful of Soviet power in the postwar world, Churchill continued to insist that the Italian campaign, which he believed could still lead the armies of the Western Allies into Central Europe, not be downgraded and that other operations be considered in the Mediterranean. The U. S. Navy's insistence on fighting its private war in the Pacific meant Overlord planning had to proceed nervously on the assumption and hope that an adequate naval task force would be available for support when the time came. Most troubling for the Supreme Commander was the dispute over who should control Allied air power based in Britain.
Eisenhower's experience in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy had taught him the crucial importance of coordinated aerial support for ground and amphibious operations. But in assuming command of Overlord, he was confronted with the quasi-independent roles that were being played by Britain's Bomber Command, under Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, and the U. S. Strategic Air Forces in Britain, commanded by General Carl Spaatz. Both had been heavily engaged in raining death and destruction down on Germany and on strategic targets elsewhere in German-occupied Europe. Neither Harris nor Spaatz believed Overlord was the great opportunity it was said to be. Nevertheless, Eisenhower considered it essential to incorporate control of their bomber operations into his plans for the buildup to the invasion. Specifically, he wanted to employ them for the
So-called Transportation Plan devised by Churchill's science adviser. Professor Solly Zuckerman.
Zuckerman, described by one of Bradley's aides as a small, mysterious man in an old, unpressed suit, was one of the British scientists who had been recruited from their various laboratories and lecture halls to put their knowledge and occasional brilliance to work on behalf of the war effort. During the latter part of 1943, he had made a close study of the effect of Allied bombing of enemy targets in Sicily and Italy. He had concluded that selective, intensive raids against railway installations over an extended period of time could do the enemy the most damage by paralyzing the rail systems on which it depended to transport men and equipment to areas where they were urgently needed.
It followed from that conclusion that knocking out the railway networks in France and Belgium was the best use to which Allied air power could be put in the weeks before the invading troops were to be sent across the English Channel. If that plan worked, German forces manning Hitler's Atlantic Wall would be quickly starved of supplies and reinforcements when the crunch came.
Eisenhower was persuaded, but the idea was dismissed as hokum by Harris and Spaatz. Aside from insisting that his aircraft were not capable of the kind of pinpoint bombing that was required to make Zuckerman's railway-bombing plan effective, Harris believed Overlord would result in the needless slaughter of Allied troops. He was convinced that the Luftwaffe could be destroyed and Germany could be crushed by permitting his bombers to continue uninterruptedly with their saturation bombing of its cities and strategic installations. Spaatz also considered Overlord unnecessary. He claimed that if he had thirty clear flying days, his bombers would destroy Germany's industrial infrastructure and, in particular, demolish its fuel-production capacity, and that would be the end of the war.
Personality conflicts were involved as well. In the process of making history, Harris was not much taken by the idea of deferring to the upstart American Supreme Commander, who not long before had been a junior desk general. Nor did he
Think much of Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, who was Eisenhower's deputy in charge of air operations and who strongly promoted Zuckerman's railway plan. Harris believed that Leigh-Mallory, who had previously headed Britain's Fighter Command, had no idea how bombers could or should be used. Spaatz was equally dismissive, considering Leigh-Mallory not very bright and disliking him personally. He and Harris recoiled at the idea that they were to surrender to him effective control of their precious bombers, which were doing such a comprehensive job of pulverizing Germany.
Eisenhower found himself in the awkward position of having Allied officers whom he was not empowered to command obstructing the implementation of his plans for a historic operation that he believed had to be given the highest priority. It wasn't only the Bomber Barons, as they came to be called, with whom Eisenhower had to tangle over aerial strategy. Churchill was reluctant to force "Bomber" Harris into subservience to Eisenhower. He said Harris's Bomber Command and the U. S. Strategic Air Forces should certainly coordinate their operations with Eisenhower's headquarters, but that they should be answerable directly to the Combined Chiefs of Staff rather than to the Overlord Supreme Commander. That would mean Eisenhower would be Supreme Commander in name rather than fact.
The prime minister, and, even more strongly. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, also objected to the saturation bombing of the French and Belgian railway networks that Eisenhower favored. They were thinking ahead to the postwar political climate, when hatreds resulting from the inevitably heavy civilian casualties would complicate relations between Britain and its cross-Channel neighbors.
But Eisenhower argued that the object of Overlord was liberation of Europe from Nazi rule, and that might not happen if the Germans were able to use Belgian and French railways to reinforce their troops on Hitler's Atlantic Wall when the Allied troops went ashore. He insisted that his control and use of air power was central to plans for the invasion. "I get tired," he
Wrote to Marshall, "oi trying to arrange the blankets smoothly over several prima donnas in the same bed."
In demanding that Spaatz and Harris come under his command, he pressed with greater firmness and determination than he had previously shown when challenging High Command potentates. A few months before he might have backed down in the face of Churchill's strongly expressed objections and the obstinacy of Harris and Spaatz. But he was now well positioned to have his way. He threatened to resign if he was denied it. He knew that short of a catastrophe, he could not be replaced. Aside from the outrage his departure would generate in the United States, the resulting command confusion, at a time when the invasion was imminent, would have been monumental. He was centrally engaged in a host of intricate problems related to Overlord.
The debate carried on over a period of three months. Eventually, both he and the British gave ground, they more than he. He accepted a formula that gave him effective control of tactical-bombing operations when he would need them most, during the crucial weeks prior to D-Day. During that time, British and American bombers would unload tens of thousands of tons of bombs on French and Belgian railway installations, railroads, and bridges. Whether more damage would have been done to the enemy's ability to resist if the Bomber Barons had been permitted to follow their own policies without interruption for the sake of Overlord has been argued ever since. But there is no doubt that sharply restricting the ability of the Germans to move reinforcements and supplies about when the invasion of France was launched greatly assisted the Allied forces in securing their beachhead in Normandy. Eisenhower's ability to more or less win that argument against formidable opposition helped consolidate his authority as Supreme Commander.
But the image he projected as resolute commander was somewhat tarnished by his equivocation over Operation Anvil, the planned invasion of southern France. If Anvil were made to coincide with Overlord, it would force the Germans in France to fight simultaneously on two fronts and hasten the collapse
Of their defenses. The y. S. chiefs of staff maintained that the operation was important to the success of Overlord; it would tie down German divisions that otherwise might be thrown against the Overlord invaders. It would also liberate ports on the French Mediterranean coast. Cherbourg, the port scheduled for rapid capture on France's Normandy coast, was not large enough to accommodate a massive amount of traffic. But American divisions still to be shipped from the United States, and Free French divisions gathered in North Africa to liberate their homeland, could be quickly fed into Europe through the much larger Marseilles in the south. The involvement of the French divisions would produce much more coordinated support from the French resistance.
Eisenhower had strongly favored Anvil when he took over as Overlord Supreme Commander. But, exposed in London to British arguments, he grew concerned that the continuing difficulties for the Allied forces in the Italian campaign would mean that insufficient resources could be made available for the assault on southern France. He wrote to Marshall that he was beginning to doubt whether Anvil could be launched at the same time as the cross-Channel invasion. The U. S. Chief of Staff agreed that the success of Overlord could not be put in jeopardy by diverting necessary resources from it. He said that the decision on Anvil was Eisenhower's to make, but he believed that the British were critical of the whole Anvil idea because they feared the commitment to the Italian campaign would be downgraded still further if the operation took place. He told Eisenhower he wanted "to be certain that localitis is not developing and that pressure on you has not warped your judgment."
Eisenhower was stung by the suggestion that he was easily persuaded to change his mind. He strongly denied that his decisions were being influenced by the British. "In the various campaigns of this war," he told Marshall, "I have occasionally had to modify slightly my own conceptions of campaign in order to achieve a unity of purpose and effort. . . . [B]ut I assure you that I have never yet failed to give you my own clear personal convictions about every project and plan in prospect."
However, it was becoming increasingly evident that broadening the invasion front in Normandy and enlarging the assault force for the cross-Channel assault required a great many more landing craft than had been previously calculated, as well as additional warships and minesweepers. The British argument that those could be made available only if the Anvil operation was called off was difficult for Eisenhower to counter. However, he came under unrelenting pressure from Washington to stick with Anvil. Roosevelt had him reminded that the Soviets, who had been promised Anvil as well as Overlord, and with whom operational coordination was considered crucial once the invasion of France was under way, would be grievously slighted by its abandonment.
Eisenhower found himself in an extremely difficult situation. Logistical shortfalls led him to favor postponement of Anvil while strategic and tactical considerations suggested that it had to coincide with Overlord after all. At one point, after Eisenhower had shifted from one emphasis to another. Bedell Smith warned him against informing the War Department of his current thinking lest he give the impression back in Washington that he was wishy-washy.
Ultimately, all concerned did come to accept that if resources had to be devoted simultaneously to Anvil and Overlord, prospects for the success of the latter would be undermined. Eisenhower decided 'That we are simply striving for the impossible" and that the assault on southern France would have to wait. The British still looked askance on the operation, but now Eisenhower insisted that Anvil would have to be launched as soon as circumstances permitted during the summer, to provide Overlord with assistance, however belated.
One reason why he regretted the delay was the effect on De Gaulle. Committing Free French troops, due to participate in Anvil, to the liberation of France would help appease the contentious Free French leader. He was still being confined to the periphery of Allied action and was outraged not to be permitted to play a significant role in the Overlord invasion of his country, especially since his Free French army was now a well-organized fighring force.
Eisenhower had hoped that many of the problems and perplexities of coping with civil aspects of the liberation of France could be avoided and he could get on with fighting the war if he could deal with De Gaulle's French Committee of National Liberation. But Roosevelt and the State Department remained suspicious of the French general. They recoiled at the idea of France being liberated only to be handed over to a selfappointed ruler, and they continued to deny De Gaulle and the FCNL the recognition they demanded. Roosevelt favored free elections in France, under Allied supervision, after the war was won. Eisenhower was instructed to act accordingly in whatever dealings he had with De Gaulle.
That added to his catalogue of complications. Fearing the emergence of rival political forces in liberated France, De Gaulle served notice that he would withhold from the Allies the support of his Free French army, as well as the Gaullist underground resistance movement in France, if he continued to be frozen out.
Eisenhower had been able to block a Washington-sponsored open break with the general. He had also been able to extract from him an agreement that the Free French divisions would be put under his command in return for an assurance that they would participate conspicuously in the liberation of Paris and the rest of their homeland. But that accord was voided by instructions from Washington that he was not to recognize De Gaulle officially. De Gaulle responded by declaring his Committee of Liberation the provisional government of France, with himself at its head. He insisted that he and it be treated as such no matter what Roosevelt thought of him. Trying to keep on top of Overlord's logistical difficulties, strategic differences, and other problems, Eisenhower was lumbered with trying to find a solution to that dilemma as well.
As ground-forces commander for Overlord, Montgomery was having a wonderful time. In North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, he had been able to plan the operations of only a single army. Now, subject to the approval of his fully preoccupied Supreme
Commander, he could decide how three armies—British, Canadian, and American—would invade France and begin the liberation of Nazi-held Europe. He found the challenge and the opportunity to put his ideas into practice exhilarating. He thought deep and hard about the challenges involved, gave lectures to his senior subordinates, and drew up plans.
Spearheading the initial invasion assault, the 1st and 4th divisions of Bradley's U. S. First Army would go ashore at Omaha and Utah beaches, just east of the Cherbourg peninsula in Normandy. The 50th Division of General Miles Dempsey's British Second Army would land at Gold Beach east of Omaha. The 3rd Canadian Division, attached to the British I Corps, would land at Juno Beach, east of Gold. And the British 3rd Division would land at Sword Beach east of Juno. They would be bolstered by troops of other divisions, brigades, specialist combat units, and naval assault forces. Air support from bombers, fighters, troop transports, and reconnaissance planes was to be closely integrated. Three airborne divisions, two American and one British, were to drop behind enemy lines on the night preceding the landings.
Once the troops were ashore, the beachheads were to be speedily joined up to give Montgomery control of a long, uninterrupted stretch of the Normandy coast. The heart of Montgomery's follow-up plan was an imaginative disposition of forces and objectives. His 21st British Army Group on the left, consisting of the British Second Army and the Canadian First Army, would drive quickly inland to seize the key communications center of Caen before nightfall on D-Day and penetrate enemy defenses. At the same time, the Americans on the right would direct their efforts toward cutting off the Cotentin Peninsula and seizing the port of Cherbourg before sweeping out south and west.
Phase lines drawn to illustrate how Montgomery thought the operation was likely to develop in the days that followed the landings—by D +17, D + 20, D + 25, D + 35 and D + 60—as ever greater numbers of Allied troops were fed into the battle, thirty divisions by D + 35. According to his presentation, by ninety
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Days after D-Day, the Allies could be expected to be lined up along the River Seine, ready to regroup and then plunge forward to liberate the rest of German-occupied Western Europe.
Though enjoying himself enormously in outlining his doctrines of combat to arrays of senior officers, American as well as British, and experiencing a great sense of fulfillment, Montgomery remained awkward and uncomfortable dealing with military men who were in a position to judge his ideas, even when they were not being critical. General Bradley, who was his subordinate in the opening phase of the operation, met with him frequently in England. He found Montgomery to be ''usually aloof, almost withdrawn, and not readily open to suggestions. ... He left me," Bradley said, "with the feeling that I was a poor country cousin whom he had to tolerate." Nevertheless, Bradley observed that Montgomery's plan "made a profoundly favorable impression on Eisenhower, Bedell Smith—all of us in fact."
When Montgomery sent Eisenhower a copy of the notes he used in lectures to Overlord officers down to the rank of lieutenant colonel, the Supreme Commander told him that to say he was enthusiastic about his approach "is merely understatement. You have hit exactly the right note and have punched home your points perfectly. . . . [T]here is no doubt in my mind that everything one man can do to make this a success you are doing."
Montgomery made an equally strong impression on the king and Churchill at his St. Paul's headquarters on May 15, 1944, three weeks before D-Day, when, in the presence of Eisenhower, generals who were to command Overlord armies, and senior SHAEF officers, he outlined the difficulties that had to be overcome but confidently ran through a final review of his Overlord plans.
The Supreme Commander had begun with an introductory review of objectives before his air, sea, and ground deputies made their presentations. But the star of that session was undoubtedly Montgomery. Lord Ismay later wrote of how overwhelmed his audience was by his presentation: "Plans and preparations were now complete in every detail. All difficulties
Had been foreseen and provided against. Nothing had been left to chance. The troops had been intensively trained. Every man knew exactly what he had to do. They were full of ardor and confidence. Their equipment left nothing to be desired. . . . Overlord was in fact a perfectly normal operation of war which was bound to succeed."
While his staff, instructed on essentials, had gotten on with the job of filling in the details of the invasion plan, Montgomery had been devoting his attention to the one key to success his staff could not handle, building the morale of the troops and the British public. He toured the country, calling in at troop training grounds everywhere. When he arrived at a military base, he would go out into the field, climb onto the hood of a car or jeep, and call the men to gather close around him. He wanted them to see that Montgomery, the general who won all his battles, was there with them, cared for their well-being, and would lead them to victory. He visited American troops as well as British, going in among them to ask about their hometowns and about how they were doing.
Bedell Smith paid tribute to his effect on the morale of the soldiers. "Confidence in the high command is absolutely without parallel. Literally dozens of embarking troops talked about General Montgomery with actual hero-worship in every inflection. And unanimously what appealed to them—beyond his friendliness, and genuineness, and lack of pomp—was the story (or, for all I know, the myth) that the General Visited every one of us outfits going over and told us he was more anxious than any of us to get this thing over and get home.' This left a warm and indelible impression."
Montgomery also visited war factories, dockyards, and rail terminals to assure the people working there that they were as much a part of the war effort as the men he would lead into combat in France. He flattered them by imparting non-classified military information about how the Germans would be defeated. Wherever he went, reporters and press photographers went as well. He became the symbol of victory, rivaling Churchill in popularity.
Some politicians were alarmed by the specter of a Napoleon
Rising in their midst, a demagogue whose fame and popularity could tempt him into dangerous domestic pursuits. He displayed no political ambition, but Churchill was suspicious. He muttered, ''It would seem to be about time that the circular sent to generals and other high commander about making speeches should be renewed. . . . There seem to have been a lot of speeches and interviews lately."
But the people of Britain needed the pep talk Montgomery offered. Everyone knew the invasion of France was imminent and was anxious about it. The war had been dragging on for five years for them, had claimed hundreds of thousands of casualties, and had caused much grief. Now the big push was about to take place. Would it succeed? Fully stretched, Britain would be unable to supply many more troops for subsequent major offensives if it did not. The Second Army Montgomery was sending to France was the last full army the British could put in the field. And even if the invasion was successful, how many more sons, fathers, and brothers would feature in the casualty lists? What about reports that the Germans were developing a missile that the RAF and antiaircraft gunners would not be able to shoot down? And when would austerity and the blackouts end?
If Montgomery had any worries, he did not exhibit them. This was his first prolonged stay on home ground since becoming a celebrity, and it had a profound effect on him. The loner, the man who went to bed early each night, the general who had offended colleagues in the British Army, the scratchy-voiced social misfit whose preferred attire was a tanker's beret and floppy battle dress, was now sought after socially by prominent London figures. He was becoming one of them, recognized and acclaimed everywhere, and he reveled in his new status.
In contrast to Montgomery, Eisenhower drew no satisfaction from his prominence among his British hosts as senior American in town. He was distressed being required to meet social obligations and attend meetings of little relevance to his mission. He also felt that being headquartered in the British capital was not conducive to his staff's exclusive concentration on the difficult job at hand. Shortly after arriving back in England, he
Had therefore issued instructions for his headquarters to be moved elsewhere, away from London's distractions.
The plan was for SHAEF to be shifted to Bushey Heath, not far from RAF Fighter Command headquarters in Stanmore, just northwest of London. But the U. S. Corps of Engineers, which was given the job, made a mistake over the name and started building what came to be a veritable self-contained hut and tent town, code-named Widewing, at Bushy Park just southwest of the capital. By the time the error was discovered, "too much earth had been moved to make it economic to back-track."
Preparing for Overlord and related matters consumed virtually all of Eisenhower's waking hours, although, because his sleeping problems persisted, he had more of those hours than most people. A series of security scares did nothing to ease his fear that things could go catastrophically wrong. It seemed grotesque when it was learned that classified Overlord documents had slipped from a poorly sealed envelope in a Chicago post office because a sergeant had mistakenly addressed it to his sister back home. How many more mistakes like that had there been, and was the enemy already aware of when and where Overlord would be launched?
The strain showed on Eisenhower's face and in his more frequent outbursts of bad temper. On March 29 he wrote to Mamie, "All my conferences this morning have been of the irritating type. People had misquoted me, others have enlarged on my instructions, still others have failed to obey orders. So I had a big field day, and ended up by tanning a few hides. I feel positively sadistic—But I undoubtedly got a certain amount of of satisfaction out of the process."
Butcher noted, "Ike looks worn and tired. ... He looks older now than at any time since I have been with him." He suffered from tinnitus in one ear, eye strain, high blood pressure, and an almost chronic cold. These were all minor complaints. He had a basically strong physical constitution and they did not affect his control of his job. But they were wearying. He wrote to Mamie, "I'm having a flare-up with my insides, accompanied by shooting pains! I think it's just the old trouble, but at times it's worrisome." Bedell Smith was also worn down. He was fed
Up too, and was ''damned well going to get out of the Army after the war."
Eisenhower had managed to have Telegraph Cottage west of London rented for him again and was pleased when he could get away, go there, and escape briefly from his duties and cares. He played some golf and bridge and sketched landscapes, though he had no illusions about the quality of his artistic skills. He went horseback riding at nearby Richmond Park, arrangements being made for him to gain access to it when it was barred to other visitors.
At the cottage he enjoyed the presence of Kay Summersby, who regularly accompanied him there from Widewing along with other staff. In view of the pressure he was under, she was now more than ever a comfort and a pleasure. At his office, he had even taken to having tea with her many afternoons. Nevertheless, he felt guilty about their relationship and about the sour moments he'd had with Mamie during his home leave in Washington. He wrote affectionate letters to his wife to make amends.
But everyone in his entourage knew that he found Kay's company greatly therapeutic. One of his aides once observed that he "blinked at Kay" when someone mentioned Mamie, as if they shared a secret concerning her. Though Kay was a British subject, he arranged for her to be commissioned a lieutenant in the American Women's Army Corps. Rumors continued to circulate about the intimacy of their relationship, but there was still nothing to suggest that they made love, and indeed the fervor of their romance seemed to have toned down somewhat.
Eisenhower's closest professional relationship was with Bedell Smith. As his chief of staff. Smith had far more to do with the day-to-day running of Overlord preparations than Eisenhower himself. But he was a difficult man temperamentally. His stomach ulcers inflamed his fiery temper, to which even Eisenhower was exposed from time to time. Shortly before they had left Italy, they had engaged in a furious argument when Smith declined an invitation to join Eisenhower for dinner one night. Eisenhower, who was himself feeling out of sorts at the time, considered it an act of insubordination and angrily
Threatened to leave Smith in the Mediterranean when he went on to Overlord in London, to which Smith snarled, 'That suits me."
They subsequently exchanged apologies. Eisenhower was fortunate that they were able to adjust to each other's temperaments and moods. Smith was an angrily confident, take-charge figure. Even more than Eisenhower he forged SHAEF, with its vast staff and countless problems, into an efficient administrative machine. He dealt with or otherwise diverted many of the difficulties and pesterings that might have increased the load the Supreme Commander was carrying at a time when virtually all of Britain was an armed camp manned by some three million troops under his command. Tanks, trucks, guns, and an assortment of other equipment and supplies had been and still were being gathered in vast quantities at ports, depots, in towns and villages, and even along roads across the land for the most massive military operation in history.
At a final general-staff preparation conference on May 26, ten days before Overlord was due to be launched, Churchill, who was attending, rose, gripped his lapels firmly, and dramatically announced, "Gentlemen, I am now hardening to this enterprise." Eisenhower said at that moment he "realized for the first time" that while he had been striving exhaustingly to piece the operation together, the prime minister, with whom he had often conferred about it, "hadn't believed in it" at all "and had had no faith that it would succeed." It was a painful discovery.
World History
