Supreme Commander (9 page)

Eisenhower was thunderstruck. He had resigned himself to spending the war in Washington with OPD and had no idea that Marshall had
been grooming him for command. The appointment put him in the unusual position of having written his own directive (he later spoke of the directive as “the Bible”).

In sending Eisenhower to England in June 1942, Marshall did not expect that Eisenhower would remain in command until Germany’s unconditional surrender. Rather, he wanted Eisenhower to put some energy into the BOLERO program, much of which Eisenhower had created and which he understood thoroughly, and to prepare the way for the eventual Supreme Commander. When that man was appointed, and Marshall probably shared the general view that he himself would be it, Eisenhower would become chief of staff to the Supreme Commander. Marshall’s association with Eisenhower had convinced him that Eisenhower would work perfectly in that assignment.

After the war, when asked about Eisenhower, Marshall remarked, “If he hadn’t delivered he wouldn’t have moved up.” The London trip had been, in part, a test. “I sent Eisenhower and some others over so the British could have a look at them,” Marshall recalled in 1956, “and then I asked Churchill what he thought of them. He was extravagant in his estimate of them, so then I went ahead with my decision on Eisenhower.”
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Marshall’s memory was faulty on this point. While in England Eisenhower met only with British Army and Navy officers and did not see the Prime Minister, and Marshall himself did not see Churchill from the middle of April until June 19. Marshall probably did check with Field Marshal Sir John Dill, head of the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington, who could have relayed the information that the BCOS had a favorable impression of Eisenhower.

Leaving Marshall’s office after receiving the momentous news, Eisenhower returned to his desk and noted what Marshall had told him. He was flattered, for he knew “It’s a big job—if U.S.-U.K. stay squarely behind Bolero and go after it tooth and nail, it will be the biggest American job of the war.” Then, being a realist, he continued, “Of course command now does not necessarily mean command in the operation—but the job before the battle begins will still be the biggest outside of that of C/S himself.”
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Eisenhower spent the next two weeks preparing for his departure. He spent much of his time with General Handy, his successor, and talked with government officials whose duties included some part in BOLERO. A short talk with Secretary Stimson convinced him that Stimson was the most active backer of ROUNDUP in Washington. He visited with the blunt and abrupt Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral King, who emphasized
that in England the United States was, for the first time in her history, attempting to create a unified command in the field for an indefinite period. King promised to give Eisenhower full support, to see to it that he was “commander” of the U. S. Navy in the British Isles in fact as well as name. If any naval officer violated the unity of command concept by questioning Eisenhower’s single authority, King asked Eisenhower to report him at once.
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On June 19 Eisenhower had to interrupt his last-minute preparations, leave bag-packing to his wife, and attend a meeting between Marshall, Dill, Brooke, and General Hastings Ismay, Churchill’s personal representative on the BCOS. The British had come to Washington to have another discussion on strategy. While the soldiers talked, Churchill and Roosevelt met at Hyde Park, New York. It was a sweltering hot day in Washington. The generals, sitting around a table in the Munitions Building, fumed, wilted their collars, and anxiously imagined all sorts of wild schemes their heads of government might be dreaming up in Hyde Park. Brooke and Marshall had little in common, but they equally dreaded the possible consequences of a Roosevelt-Churchill meeting when they were not present to keep the politicians from making impossible commitments.

Churchill, in fact, was trying to swing Roosevelt away from BOLERO and back to North Africa (he was also pushing Norway, a prospect that horrified all the soldiers). While they talked at Hyde Park, the soldiers in the Munitions Building—Eisenhower, who was present, kept the minutes—reiterated their commitment to BOLERO and ROUNDUP. They also denounced any operation in French North Africa, Brooke because it would take strength away from the Middle East, Marshall because it would make ROUNDUP impossible. Brooke even agreed that SLEDGEHAMMER was preferable to North Africa.
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The next day, at a formal meeting of the CCS, Brooke explained that, since they had North Africa out of the way, he wanted to express his opposition to a “so-called ‘sacrifice’ operation on the Continent” in 1942, for even if a bridgehead was gained it could not be followed up. Eisenhower replied that “there was a possibility at least of securing a bridgehead and holding it as Malta or Tobruk had been held. If the air forces in Great Britain were concentrated for the operation, the Germans would certainly have to bring back air forces to deal with the situation.” He realized that the circumstances in which such an operation might be feasible were unlikely to arise, but felt that the Allies should be ready to seize any favorable opportunity.
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Churchill, meanwhile, was swinging Roosevelt around to North Africa. The American President had promised the Russians some aid in 1942 and it was easy enough for Churchill to demolish SLEDGEHAMMER. He intimated to Roosevelt that he could sell the Russians on the idea that North Africa constituted a second front. Roosevelt made no promises, but his interest was aroused.

On the night of June 20–21 Churchill and Roosevelt took the train to Washington. Shortly after their arrival, they learned of the fall of Tobruk, the symbol of British resistance to the Germans in Libya. It was one of the heaviest blows Churchill suffered during the war.
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He used it immediately, however, to step up his arguments for a North African invasion. The British-American talks reached no firm conclusions, but a North African invasion was once again very much alive as an alternative to SLEDGEHAMMER-ROUNDUP.

When Eisenhower left for England the strategic situation was in a state of flux. He was not taking over as commander of a going concern with a firm objective. Instead of being able to concentrate on building up his forces, training them, and planning for their employment, he would have to engage in still another strategic debate. His son John came down from West Point for two days, and Eisenhower had a brief vacation, but he probably did not enjoy it fully, since the uncertainties loomed so much larger than the certainties.

Of one thing Eisenhower was sure and the knowledge was to sustain him not only in his first trying months in England but throughout the war. It was that as long as he did his job Marshall would stand behind him. Just before leaving, Eisenhower took time to write to Brigadier General Spencer Akin, a friend who was on MacArthur’s staff. Summing up his experience in OPD, Eisenhower said it had been a “tough, intensive grind—but now I’m getting a swell command and, of course, am highly delighted that I got away with this job sufficiently well to have the Chief accord such recognition to me.” This meant everything to Eisenhower, because he felt “the Chief is a great soldier.” Enumerating his characteristics, Eisenhower said Marshall was “quick, tough, tireless, decisive and a real leader. He accepts responsibility automatically and never goes back on a subordinate.” Eisenhower thought the United States was “particularly fortunate in having him for a Chief of Staff,” and declared that it had been a “pleasure to work directly under him.”
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Marshall had almost as high an opinion of Eisenhower, for the younger man had fulfilled all his expectations and met all his tests. But Eisenhower’s
achievements, to date, had been as a staff officer, usually serving under strong-willed superiors. All of the men under whom he had worked, including MacArthur, thought he would be a success as an independent commander, but that was only prediction. No one really knew how he would react when commanding on his own, away from the daily influence of a decisive superior. Eisenhower still had to meet that test.

Part II
LONDON TO GIBRALTAR
[
June 1942–December 1942
]

On June 24, 1942, Eisenhower arrived in England. There were no bands to greet him, no speeches at the airport, no ceremonies. He quietly climbed into a car and had his driver take him to his office at 20 Grosvenor Square, an apartment building that served as headquarters for the U. S. Army in Europe. A kitchen in the basement put forth a constant odor of boiled cabbage and Brussels sprouts, an odor strong enough to remind all inhabitants of 20 Grosvenor that they were in England and England was at war.
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On his first full day in London, Eisenhower began his career as theater commander by meeting with his staff and impressing on them that their job was to have an army in the field ready to attack the coast of France. He told them that he wanted every American officer in the British Isles to cultivate an attitude of determined enthusiasm and optimism and warned them that he would not tolerate pessimism or defeatism. Eisenhower said that any officer who could not rise above the recognized obstacles should ask for instant release from ETO.

Most of Chaney’s officers had regarded their positions as unimportant and had fallen into the habit of referring anything big back to Washington for decision. Eisenhower informed them that all policy making applying to ETO lay with his headquarters. He urged the officers to adopt the greatest informality, learn to solve their own problems, and stop passing the buck.
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Following his meetings with Chaney’s officers, Eisenhower wrote Marshall, “I am quite certain that this staff and all commanders now realize that we have unique problems to solve, that we have full opportunity and freedom of action in solving them, and that no alibis or excuses will be acceptable.…”
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Eisenhower liked to describe himself as a simple Kansas small-town
boy and his typical expressions, such as “Determined enthusiasm and optimism,” certainly struck some observers as pure corn. On the face of it, it was ridiculous for Eisenhower to come into a wartime headquarters and tell cynical, able officers that they had to work hard, assume responsibility, and be cheerful. But something had to be done, for the job was not being accomplished. Eisenhower’s way, at least when applied by Eisenhower, worked.

One reason Eisenhower ran an efficient office was that he knew how a staff should function. He once said that he suspected he had been a chief of staff, either to a division, corps, or army, longer than anyone else in the U. S. Army, so he knew how to run an organization. He emphasized the positive. When he was dissatisfied with or disappointed in an officer, he seldom wasted time criticizing him, but instead sent him back to the States. He preferred to praise and encourage, to give a man a task and then leave him alone, resisting the temptation to look over his shoulder or to guide him to the correct solution. When the work was well done, he saw to it that the man got credit for his accomplishment.

Support from Marshall helped too. Eisenhower was not particularly good at bringing forth hidden talent; instead he gave up on officers who disappointed him and asked Marshall for a proven replacement. After August, when it was clear that Eisenhower was the permanent theater commander and Marshall was going to stay in Washington, Marshall gave Eisenhower the men he wanted.

Eisenhower had spent much of his time in the twenties coaching football teams and he adopted most of the ideas about morale that football coaches had developed through the years. He wanted the emphasis on the team rather than upon the star, co-ordination of effort rather than flashy individual performances. He said that one of the reasons he wanted to move his headquarters out of London was to get the staff living “together like a football team” so that the officers could “think war, plan war, and execute war twenty-four hours a day, or at least all of our waking hours.”
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On a great football team everyone’s responsibility intertwined and all pulled together. Success came through team effort. Eisenhower wanted his headquarters to operate on the same basis.

“War has become so comprehensive and so complicated that teamwork seems to me to be the essence of all success,” Eisenhower once declared. “Each bureau, each section, each office … has to be part of a well-coordinated team.” Because he thought that “no successful staff can have any personal enmities existing in it,” he insisted “on having a happy family.… I want to see a big crowd of friends around
here.” This had been important to Eisenhower since the twenties, when Fox Conner told him that a commander should never have a personal enemy on his staff, since he would sabotage the commander.
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In the summer of 1942 Eisenhower could go only so far in shaping his staff, since practically none of the officers was hand-picked. At the end of July he was still growling about the inability of the staff to function. He wondered if his own drive was causing his officers to leave all decisions and initiative to him, a tendency he regarded as near disastrous. “Too many staff officers are merely pushing paper,” Eisenhower declared, “and we can’t win this war pushing paper. It takes imagination and initiative and a lot of it.”
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He did simplify his task, and that of his headquarters staff, by divesting himself of most administrative responsibilities, turning them over to the head of the Services of Supply (SOS) organization in England, Major General John C. H. Lee, a martinet who was both willing and able to handle the thousands of details connected with the presence of the American Army in England. Lee freed Eisenhower and his staff for more important work.
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