Supreme Commander (13 page)

The proposal to send a token force to Egypt and to delay making any other decisions might have satisfied the President, who had listed such action as one of the alternatives available to Marshall. In addition, on July 15, Marshall had had his planners in OPD prepare a study on the same subject, and they had reached the same conclusion as Eisenhower. Given the vehemence with which Marshall had attacked GYMNAST, it would have been consistent for him to agree.

But Marshall rejected the recommendation. His experiences with Pershing in World War I, when the British and French had tried to gobble up the American Army piecemeal, may have made him leery of sending American divisions into British armies. He may have been suspicious of Eighth Army leadership—certainly the British record in the desert would not have filled him with confidence in British methods or made him anxious to place his soldiers under British command. He may also have doubted that he could get away with sending just one division to Egypt, as Eisenhower had hoped, since the President wanted to get at least five American divisions into action before Christmas. Still, the proposal to reinforce the Eighth Army in the desert
represented a most intriguing alternative to the over-all strategy of World War II. The British quite possibly would have been satisfied with one armored and one infantry division, which would have made ROUNDUP feasible. The Eighth Army alone, in the end, proved strong enough to drive the Germans across Africa. Opening a new theater in North Africa not only required more shipping, it dictated the strategy of 1943 in a way that reinforcing the Eighth Army would never have done. Marshall’s decision to ignore the recommendation was a crucial one; surprisingly, it is ignored by almost all historians, including Marshall’s official biographer. Perhaps the reason for the neglect is that Eisenhower and Handy, awed as always by Marshall, did not push. As soon as the Chief announced his decision, they accepted it, abandoning their own brain child.

On July 24 Marshall and King met with the British. Marshall proposed to invade North Africa that fall, although he wanted the final decision delayed until September 15, when a study of the Russian situation would be made. The British agreed, and when Marshall left London shortly thereafter he thought nothing would be done before September 15.
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Churchill thought otherwise and so, it turned out, did the President. Both men ignored the contention that GYMNAST meant the end of ROUNDUP, both professed their eagerness to go ahead with a 1943 cross-Channel attack, both paid no attention to the September 15 decision date, and both were delighted to have a firm agreement. They exchanged joyful telegrams and before Marshall even got back to Washington it was all settled. Operation TORCH, as it was rechristened, would be the first Anglo-American offensive since the French and Indian War.

July 22, 1942, was hardly history’s blackest day, but of course Eisenhower had said it might have been, not that it was. There are two unanswerable questions with regard to the decision for TORCH. First, was the gamble of leaving the Russians to their own devices justifiable? Since Russia did win, it would seem so. In the West, however, not enough is known of the true Russian situation that summer. It seems fair to say that the Red Army was in dire straits, and certainly many German generals later felt that had Hitler adopted a more orthodox plan the Germans could have forced a general Soviet collapse.

Marshall was quite right in arguing that TORCH made ROUNDUP
impossible, so the second question is, did TORCH delay the final victory? This is even more speculative than the first, for it really asks, could ROUNDUP have worked? German coastal defenses in 1943 were not as strong as they were in 1944, but then Allied air power in 1943 was not what it would become in 1944. Most of the Allied air effort in 1943, however, had gone into the Mediterranean—it could have been used against Germany. The Nazis did not reach total mobilization until 1944, but neither did the Americans. U.S. troops were neither fully trained, equipped, nor blooded in 1943. The Allies did not have the landing craft in 1943 that they would have in 1944. The German eastern front in 1943 was farther into Russia than it would be a year later, so the Wehrmacht would have found it more difficult to transfer troops from one front to the other.

The argument can go on and on and on; each advantage for either side in 1943 is balanced by a disadvantage. Looked at from another point of view, the question is, what contribution did TORCH make to the final victory? Since Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps was to be defeated at El Alamein
before
the Allies launched TORCH, the major accomplishments of TORCH and later Mediterranean operations were to (1) free shipping and (2) drive Italy out of the war. But TORCH took up as much shipping as it freed, and the Germans—paying a high cost—occupied Italy before it left the war. TORCH did give the British a better political position in the Mediterranean immediately after the war, but in the long run that was not worth much.

One advantage of TORCH often overlooked is that it gave the American Army battle experience and provided Marshall and Eisenhower with a better idea as to which generals were going to be successful as combat commanders. A number of the ground force commanders for TORCH proved wanting and had to be sent home; by the time of OVERLORD the American team was settled and Eisenhower had few disappointments with his subordinates. Had the cross-Channel attack gone in 1943, the Americans would have hit the beaches with raw troops fighting under untested leaders, which would have been costly and could have been disastrous. Finally, TORCH did give the Americans a 1942 offensive against the Germans, which presumably helped morale in the U.S.

There can be no authoritative answer to the question, did TORCH delay the end of the war? One thing does seem clear: the only chance the British and Americans had of winning the war sooner was to mount the cross-Channel attack earlier. The risks would have been greater,
but so would the rewards. If successful, ROUNDUP might have led to a link-up of Western troops with the Red Army somewhere near the old Polish-Russian frontier sometime in 1944. The implications of a Western liberation of central Europe are enough to justify Butcher’s comment on July 16: “Upon the discussions to take place in the next few days may rest the future history of the world.”
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The speculation can and will go on forever. For Eisenhower, in the summer of 1942, the point was that everything he had worked on for the preceding six months was in the ashcan, and it was time to start all over.

The atmosphere at 20 Grosvenor during the week of Marshall’s visit had been tense; over the next three weeks it became confusing. Organization, plans, even basic decisions were up in the air. The confusion resulted from the CCS statement that no decision should be made until September 15 and Marshall’s refusal to accept the President’s rejection of that statement. At the July 25 meeting of the CCS the Chiefs had faced the problem of appointing a commander for TORCH, for although they felt that the operation was still tentative it was necessary to get on with the planning. The British wanted an American to take the position of Supreme Commander, but Marshall was hesitant to move without consultation with the President. At this point Admiral King remarked, “Well, you’ve got him right here. Why not put it under Eisenhower?”
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The British agreed, their idea being that Eisenhower would be in charge of planning until Marshall or someone else could take over.

Marshall then remarked that he wished to avoid competition for resources between ROUNDUP and TORCH and Brooke suggested that initially the Supreme Commander should be responsible for both so that he could shift resources from one to the other in line with later decisions. The Americans accepted the proposal and the meeting broke up. Marshall then went back to his suite at Claridge’s and asked Eisenhower to come to his room. When Eisenhower arrived Marshall was in the washroom. Through the closed door he called out that Eisenhower was now in charge of planning for TORCH and that he and King favored him for command of the expedition.
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By August 2 Marshall was back in Washington and the somewhat confused arrangements began to become clearer. The BCOS, uncertain
as to Eisenhower’s role, had wired their Joint Staff Mission in Washington for clarification; the reply indicated that Eisenhower was to assume “immediate executive authority” for TORCH planning.
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The same day Eisenhower met with the BCOS, who said they objected to the title “Supreme Commander” and suggested in its place “Commander in Chief.” Eisenhower had no objection. He also agreed with a British recommendation that an American become his deputy so that the American character of the expedition would be maintained even if the original commander were disabled. In effect, this meant Eisenhower now commanded TORCH.

The British also said they wanted to increase the size of the total force from seven to twelve divisions, which meant that TORCH’s objectives and importance were increased. Marshall and King had proposed the old GYMNAST to the British, but TORCH had now become an expedition designed to go far beyond the occupation of French North Africa. Its new aim was to drive the Axis from Africa altogether. This increase in scope made Eisenhower’s responsibilities far too broad for one man to handle. He was Commanding General, ETO, in charge of planning for BOLERO-ROUNDUP and TORCH, had to furnish an American detachment for a combined planning team, control the team once it was established, and in accordance with the July 25 decision of the CCS present as soon as possible an outline plan for TORCH. His first move to clear his desk was to assign Major General Russell P. Hartle as deputy theater commander, ETO, and turn most ETO problems over to him. He then appointed Clark deputy Allied commander in chief for TORCH and put him in direct charge of all TORCH planning.
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One of Eisenhower’s major tasks was to build a staff for Allied Force Headquarters (AFHQ). He chose the American delegation from among planners at ETO. Under the direction of Brigadier General Alfred M. Gruenther, an old friend of Eisenhower’s (and the best bridge player in the Army), the Americans met with their British opposite numbers and began to study British plans already developed. On August 4 they moved over to Norfolk House on St. James’s Square to begin their combined deliberations. On August 10 Clark took command of the planning.

In building AFHQ Eisenhower decided that since both the commander and his deputy were American he would use the American staff system of G-l, G-2, and so on. He also decided that at AFHQ he would follow the principle of balanced personnel, which meant that whenever the assistant chief of staff for an operational staff section
was of one nationality his opposite number was of the other and had the title of deputy assistant chief of staff. Below the heads of sections the rest of the personnel was recruited as equally as possible from American and British sources. As Eisenhower noted, “there was no historical precedent upon which to base” the organization of AFHQ, and he considered his decisions in setting up his headquarters as “among the most important and far-reaching … of the campaign.”
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The integration was complete. At AFHQ British soldiers worked in daily contact with American sailors, while Army Air Force officers struggled over problems with British sailors. At first, Eisenhower recalled, they came together like a bulldog meeting a cat, but all realized that the job had to be done and they made valiant efforts to understand each other’s accents, slang usages, and administrative ideas. In most offices the co-operation was so complete that British officers joined their American opposite numbers for a coffee break in the morning, while the Americans joined the British for tea in the afternoon.

The system worked, mainly because of the determination of the participants to make it work, partly because of Eisenhower’s leadership. He was, by his own description, fanatic on the subject of Anglo-American solidarity, and he shipped home immediately any American officer who could not co-operate with the British. When asked, long after the war, about his emphasis on the need for Allied unity, Eisenhower said that he had read a considerable amount of military history and had talked at length about it with Fox Conner. Neither he nor Conner had any respect for coalition commands as they had existed in the past. This was the reason, he added, that he supported the CCS system, for it made it possible for theater commanders to look to one source for orders. The CCS system was as close as one could get, Eisenhower felt, to having one government giving the orders. But even with the CCS, Eisenhower knew that as Allied commander in chief he had an enormous responsibility to make the alliance work.
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Soon after AFHQ came into existence, General Hastings L. Ismay, Churchill’s Chief Staff Officer and a member of the BCOS, reported to Eisenhower that he had heard of an American officer who when drinking boasted that the Americans would show the British how to fight. Eisenhower “went white with rage.” He summoned an aide and told him to arrange for the officer in question to report the next morning. As the aide left the room, Eisenhower hissed to Ismay, “I’ll make the son of a bitch swim back to America.” The officer was sent home—by boat. Sometime later, Eisenhower learned of a fracas between an
American and a British officer on the AFHQ staff. He investigated, decided that the American was at fault, ordered him reduced in rank, and sent him back to the States. The British officer involved called on Eisenhower to protest. “He only called me the son of a bitch, sir, and all of us have now learnt that this is a colloquial expression which is sometimes used almost as a term of endearment.” To which Eisenhower replied, “I am informed that he called you a British son of a bitch. That is quite different. My ruling stands.”
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