America's Greatest 20th Century Presidents (16 page)

General Montgomery

Nevertheless, the Desert Fox eventually quit the theater, ceding North Africa to the Allies, and Eisenhower’s star was rising, literally. After his success in North Africa, he was awarded a fourth star.

Invading Sicily

With Italy and Germany both having been defeated in North Africa, the Allied troops there were now free to be used in an invasion of Europe. In addition, North Africa provided the Allies a potential staging ground for an invasion of the southern part of the continent, while an invasion force from Britain could threaten from the west. Hitler now had to worry about the Allies invading not only from Britain but also from North Africa. 

Before Churchill and Roosevelt made their strategic decisions for 1943, the German army suffered a massive blow in February 1943 at Stalingrad, where a major surrender of troops marked the beginning of the end for Hitler’s armies in Russia.  Still, it would take another two years for the Red Army to gradually push the Nazis west out of Russia and back toward Berlin. Stalin still desperately needed Allied action on another front.

It would be Eisenhower that commanded that Allied action. The British and Americans debated over their next course of action, with the British favoring an invasion of Sicily over the skepticism of the Americans, who believed the operation was overly ambitious and not a direct enough strike against Hitler’s Germany. Eventually the British won out by arguing that invading and controlling Sicily would give the Allies a free hand across the Mediterranean Sea, facilitating both commerce and transportation.
Since the invasion would be made by the 7
^th
U.S. Army (led by Patton) and the British 8
^th
Army (led by Montgomery), the soldiers in the North African theater, the operation fell under the overall command of Eisenhower.

In July 1943, less than half a year after the surrender at Stalingrad, the Allies conducted what at the time was the largest amphibious invasion in history, coordinating the landing of two whole armies on Sicily over a front more than 100 miles long. Within a month, the Allies had taken control of the entire island, setting in motion a chain of events that led to Italy quitting the war and Mussolini being hanged. It was the crowning achievement of Eisenhower’s career thus far. 

Eisenhower's success did not go unnoticed.  By the end of 1943, Eisenhower's prowess as a military leader was noticed even outside of military circles.  He was hailed across Europe as a highly competent general, and the President of the United States himself was highly proud. Thus came the highest promotion possible in December of 1943.  That month, President Roosevelt made a surprising decision, when he appointed Eisenhower, instead of the much more experienced George Marshall, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Eisenhower was understandably elated, and having studied military theory for years, he was now prepared to use that theory in practice.  The General, however, had not seen real military combat until his operations in Northern Africa, and many thought him incapable of the job. In particular, military circles thought his promotion made little sense; to them, the prospect of a General Marshall in command seemed the more sensible option.

Planning the Buildup for D-Day

Italy may have been out of the war, but the Germans still had a strong defensive hold over the Italian peninsula in 1943. Although the Axis’ attempts to resist the Allies’ invasion on Sicily were badly outmanned and outgunned, leading to an evacuation of the island within a month, the Germans maintained defenses across the mainland for the rest of the year. Nevertheless, with Allied forces now possessing a foothold in Italy, Churchill and Roosevelt began to plot an even greater invasion that would finally liberate Europe.

During the first half of 1944, the Americans and British began a massive buildup of men and resources in the United Kingdom, while Eisenhower and the military leaders devised an enormous and complex amphibious invasion of Western Europe.  Though the Allies theoretically had several different staging grounds for an attack on different sides of the continent, the most obvious place for an invasion was just across the English Channel from Britain into France. And though the Allies used misinformation to deceive the Germans, Hitler’s men built an extensive network of coastal fortifications throughout France to protect against just such an invasion.

Largely under the supervision of Rommel, the Germans constructed the “Atlantic Wall”, across which reinforced concrete pillboxes for German defenders were built close to the beaches for infantry to use machine guns and anti-tank artillery. Large obstacles were placed along the beaches to effectively block tanks on the ground, while mines and underwater obstacles were planted to stop landing craft from getting close enough.

Rommel

The Green Line marks the Atlantic Wall

A pillbox

The Atlantic Wall necessitated an elaborate and complex invasion plan that would ensure the men who landed wouldn’t be fish in a barrel. Thus, the Allies began drawing up an elaborate battle plan that would include naval and air bombardment, paratroopers, and even inflatable tanks that would be able to fire on fortifications from the coastline, all while landing over 150,000 men across 50 miles of French beaches. And that was just the beginning; the Allies intended to create a beachhead that could support an artificially constructed dock, after which nearly 1 million men would be ferried to France for the final push of the war.

Initially, Hitler was far more concerned with the Eastern front, and though the Atlantic Wall continued under Rommel’s supervision, he ignored Western Europe to his detriment. Germany’s apathy to the prospect of invasion is clear from the fact that German units were woefully underprepared for the upcoming Allied invasion. However, as Allied power grew through 1944, the Germans were forced to recognize that an invasion would be soon attempted. Under the command of Erwin Rommel, the German defenders of the French coast began serious efforts to shore up defences in the areas around Pas de Calais and Normandy. Pillbox and bunker construction accelerated rapidly, millions of mines were laid and anti-landing devices were planted on the beaches of the region.

Entering 1944, France, once a lightly defended area, used largely for the recuperation of German soldiers from the Eastern front, was now the focus of Allied and German attention, with feverish plans made for the region on both sides. Reinforcements flooded into Northern France while tacticians planned for the impending invasion and counter-attack. The speed with which Germany had reinforced and strengthened the region meant that the Allies were less than certain of the success of the invasion. Britain, weary of amphibious landings after the disastrous Expeditionary Force campaign of 1940 came perilously close complete obliteration, was more than anxious. Allied military fortunes had been, at best, mixed. Professor Newton points out Britain, together with its continental allies, had lost its foothold in Europe but had managed to bloody the nose of Germany in the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940. The Allies had lost Crete, yet stopped the Afrika Corps at El Alamein. With its American allies, Britain had successfully invaded Italy before becoming entangled in the costly German defense of the country. Britain, as a small island nation, lacked the manpower and supplies needed to singlehandedly defeat the German military. In comparison, the United States, an industrial colossus, had ample men and materials. Like Britain, American fortunes in the European theater were mixed, ranging from the successful landings in North Africa to the debacle of Kasserine Pass.

Given the skill of German infantry and past results, Allied leaders had plenty to worry about, especially when considering that an amphibious invasion is one of the most hazardous operations a military force can undertake. Russell Wigley, in his book,
Eisenhower’s Lieutenants,
explained,
“
An amphibious assault is a frontal attack, with all the perils thereby implied. The assaulting troops have no room for maneuver. They cannot fall back. They have only limited ability to outflank strong points. They cannot do anything subtle.”  The painfully costly defeats of previous Allied amphibious landings at Dieppe and Gallipoli were all too well known to Allied planners.

A sense of fear and foreboding marred the weeks and months in the build up to the invasion. Churchill was aghast at Eisenhower’s bombing plan to accompany the landings, which would have resulted in the deaths of between 80,000 and 150,000 French civilians. It would have been an outrageous number of civilian casualties, and more French citizens killed by Allied bombing than had lost their lives in four years of German occupation. Churchill felt it was better to continue the bombing of Germany rather than inflict terrible casualties upon their French allies in support of what may be a doomed invasion. Just months before the planned invasion of France, Allied forces had landed at Anzio, just south of Rome. Almost immediately, the Allied landing force was halted and almost driven back into the sea. Churchill himself had been a leading player in the invasion of Gallipoli in 1915, a debacle which almost cost him his career. The idea of landing on the heavily defended Normandy coast filled Churchill with fear. On one occasion, just weeks before the launch of
Overlord,
the Prime Minister was heard to say, ““Why are we doing this? Why do we not land instead in a friendly territory, the territory of our oldest ally? Why do we not land in Portugal?”