Supreme Commander (49 page)

Churchill however certainly did, and Eisenhower gave his views full consideration. On October 7, Eisenhower informed Marshall of the coming conference at Tunis and asked for guidance from the War Department. His own view, he said, was that the greatest contribution AFHQ could make to OVERLORD was through a fall and winter offensive that would carry the Allies into northern Italy. From there they could attack the south of France in the spring of 1944 as a diversion for OVERLORD. To reach northern Italy, however, Eisenhower needed all his resources and could spare none for ACCOLADE.
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If OVERLORD retained priority, in short, there was nothing to argue about—ACCOLADE should be canceled. If there were new priorities or a shift in world-wide strategy, Eisenhower wanted to be informed, and he requested a new directive.

Marshall talked with Roosevelt, who had also been subjected to Churchill’s pressure for ACCOLADE, and they agreed that Eisenhower was right—no diversion should be made. Roosevelt cabled this conclusion to Churchill, with a copy to Eisenhower.
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Not satisfied, Churchill contacted the President again, repeated his strategic arguments, and said he was willing to come with the BCOS to Eisenhower’s headquarters to discuss plans with Eisenhower and Marshall, whom Roosevelt should send over for the conference. The President thought that such a trip was unnecessary and by transatlantic telephone Hopkins informed the Prime Minister that there was little chance of Marshall’s coming to such a meeting. Tedder meanwhile expressed the view to Portal that a visit from Churchill was “most dangerous and might have a disastrous effect on Anglo-American relations.”
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The next day, October 8, an intelligence discovery made the whole issue academic. G-2 reported that the Germans had moved three additional divisions that were in Italy south of Rome. It suddenly became obvious that Von Kesselring intended to make the campaign a real fight, and the Allies would have to pay a high price to take Rome.
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Churchill’s assumption that Rome would be won cheaply and that the Allies could afford the diversion to the Aegean was shattered. Still, the Prime Minister
was not willing to give up, even though his commanders in the Middle East had departed from his view.

The meeting at Tunis on October 9 was, Eisenhower later recalled, “the simplest, most unargumentative of any … I attended during the war.” Eisenhower outlined the situation and announced his decision, which was to make no diversion for ACCOLADE. Every officer present, including Wilson, agreed.
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Churchill, however, deserved and would demand a complete explanation, so after the meeting Eisenhower dictated a two-part, six-page, single-spaced report for the CCS that could be handed to the Prime Minister. He concluded by saying that ACCOLADE could be re-examined after Rome was captured.
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Then he sent a special, personal message to Churchill in which he stressed that his decision had been unanimously supported by all the commanders in chief from both theaters, all of whom were British. “It is personally distressing to me to have to advise against a project in which you believe so earnestly,” Eisenhower concluded, “but I feel I would not be performing my duty if I should recommend otherwise.”
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Churchill however was not ready to give up his favored plan. He asked if the decision had been affected by Roosevelt’s view that no diversion should be made; Eisenhower said it had not. To back up Eisenhower the British officers present at the meeting all sent their own cables to the Prime Minister, assuring him that they had examined the possibilities of ACCOLADE fully, fairly, and without prejudice and agreed with Eisenhower. Churchill finally conceded the issue, but not gracefully. In a long cable to the President he said he recognized that the activation of his plan was hopeless, and added, “I will not waste words in explaining how painful this decision is to me.” Years later he was still bitter. “The American Staff had enforced their view,” he wrote in his memoirs; “the price had now to be paid by the British.”
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What Churchill meant was the immediate price in lives lost on Leros. But Eisenhower could have answered, with justice, that both British and American troops in Italy were suffering heavy losses, losses which would have been even higher without the air forces. The mountain fighting had become slow, tedious, and bloody. The Germans were amazingly proficient with demolitions, mines, and booby traps. The Allies had respected their opponent’s tactical performance in Sicily; in Italy, they almost stood in awe of Von Kesselring’s and his men’s abilities. In one sense Eisenhower could congratulate himself on his own performance in the new role of commander of a secondary theater, because he certainly was attaining his main objective: to threaten the enemy and force him to make a relatively
heavier commitment to the battle than AFHQ had to make. By mid-October Eisenhower’s eleven divisions were engaging twenty-five German divisions, but the final offensive would have to wait until spring, when AFHQ could use its air superiority effectively. That meant a winter campaign in Italy, with carefully planned minor offensives that would seemingly have every chance of success.
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But under the circumstances progress was exasperatingly slow. Because Von Kesselring needed time to get his Winter Line constructed, he ordered the Volturno River held until October 15. Fifth and Eighth Armies pushed forward in bitter fighting but they did not reach the Volturno until October 12. That night Clark sent each of his corps on a frontal assault with three divisions abreast. He gained some bridgeheads, but German artillery firing from high ground north of the Volturno delayed the construction or repair of bridges, and not until October 15 did Fifth Army make any real progress. From the fifteenth on, the Germans gradually fell back from one natural strong point to another, until they reached the Winter Line, which ran along the Garigliano River on the west across the high ground south of the Sangro River on the east. Tedder’s air forces proceeded to make the winter difficult but not impossible for the defenders, the chief limiting factor on air operations being the weather.

Obviously an inferior force was going to have difficulty pushing back a superior one that was skilled in defensive operations, especially along a narrow peninsula cut by mountains and rivers. Eisenhower’s advantages over Von Kesselring were command of the air and sea, but bad weather prevented effective use of the air and a lack of landing craft limited the advantage of control of the sea. The apparent way to defeat the Germans was seemingly to outflank them, force them out of their prepared positions, and hit them while they were on the move. Along the Winter Line, however, Von Kesselring was so strong that there was no possibility of forcing a breakthrough which was needed to create flanks. An amphibious operation was the only answer.

The trouble was that, again, the landing craft were not available. At Quebec the CCS had decided to concentrate the craft in England in preparation for OVERLORD and ordered Eisenhower to send eighty per cent of his LSTs and LSIs and two thirds of the remaining landing craft in the Mediterranean to the U.K. between the middle of October and early December. Eisenhower protested, to no avail. But after the capture of Foggia he decided the CCS had been right—OVERLORD should have priority. He told Alexander he did not intend to bother the CCS with any more requests for landing craft for Italy.

Alexander had accepted Eisenhower’s view, but he had done so during the period when the Allies were sure they would get Rome without a major fight. The situation brought about by Von Kesselring’s decision to stand on the Winter Line changed the entire situation. On October 13 Alexander told Eisenhower that, while he was aware “you have decided to accept Combined Chiefs of Staff decision,” it was his duty to point out that the shortage of landing craft “will force us into frontal attacks which will undoubtedly be strongly contested and prove costly.” Eisenhower passed Alexander’s views on to Smith, who had gone to Washington to confer with Marshall about future strategy, and commented, “I refuse to raise again with the Combined Chiefs of Staff this question … but you might make personal inquiries to discover whether the production situation has improved sufficiently to warrant our asking for more.”
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Smith replied that the production situation had not improved, “but all concerned are aware of the great advantages that would accrue to us through additional equipment of this kind.”
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It emerged that the only way AFHQ could get landing craft support was by delaying departure of the vessels scheduled to go to England, and Eisenhower did not want to request such a delay since he knew it would have an adverse effect on OVERLORD.

On October 21 Eisenhower had a Commanders’ Conference. Alexander held the floor, giving a full review of the battle situation and making his recommendations for the future. He argued persuasively for the retention of some landing craft for a month or so and convinced Eisenhower and his fellow deputies that the request had to be made. Alexander’s main point was that the most help AFHQ could give OVERLOAD would be to retain the initiative in Italy and prevent Von Kesselring from withdrawing divisions from the area, divisions which could be used to oppose OVERLORD. In view of the two-to-one German manpower superiority on the ground, there was a certain danger in this, as Von Kesselring might change his program to an offensive. Eisenhower was not particularly worried about that possibility, however, because of his faith in the air forces, and Alexander pointed out that if Von Kesselring did attack “the better it will be for OVERLORD and it then makes little difference what happens to us if OVERLORD is a success.”

To retain the needed initiative, Alexander proposed a three-pronged thrust. He would begin by having Montgomery seize the high ground north of the Pescara River, then turn to his left (southwest) and drive up the valley of the Pescara River, threatening Rome from the rear. To give Montgomery a fair chance of success, Alexander wanted a sea-borne attack
by an infantry brigade around the Germans’ east flank. Thus, while Montgomery was moving forward, Alexander wanted Clark to launch a frontal attack aimed at Rome. The third prong of the offensive would be an amphibious attack by an infantry division northwest of Rome. The crucial governing factor in the entire proposal, Alexander recognized, was landing craft. He urged Eisenhower to ask the CCS for a delay in the movement of the craft to the U.K., saying it simply had to be permitted “if we are to capture Rome in the near future and avoid a slow, painful and costly series of frontal attacks.”
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Eisenhower thought about Alexander’s proposal for a week, then discussed it again with his deputies at another Commanders’ Conference. He finally decided that Alexander was right. On October 31 he asked the CCS to be allowed to retain some sixty-eight LSTs until January 5, or three weeks beyond their scheduled departure date. He said he was certain that a favorable decision from the CCS would lead to success in Italy, “which will have a great effect on OVERLORD.” He was reluctant to make the request, “but the enormous value to us of being able to use these additional LST’s for a comparatively short period … is so impressive from our local viewpoint …” that he felt he had to do it.
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Churchill and the BCOS supported Eisenhower and Marshall gave in. On November 5 the CCS told Eisenhower that he could retain sixty-eight LSTs until December 15. Eisenhower immediately protested that the December deadline still made effective amphibious assaults difficult, and Alexander made a similar protest to Brooke.
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On November 7 Brooke privately told Alexander to plan on the assumption that the LSTs would remain until January 15. Brooke, however, had no authority to make any promises. Eisenhower meanwhile had talked to Clark, who wanted to lower the sights a little. Instead of an amphibious landing north of Rome, Clark thought it ought to be to the south, around Anzio. From that point the troops could drive inland and take the Alban Hills, which dominated the surrounding countryside and would cut Von Kesselring’s communications between Rome and the front lines. If everything worked, the Allies might even cut off and destroy the Germans facing Fifth Army. Clark also felt there was no point in launching the attack on Anzio until Fifth Army was farther north. Eisenhower agreed with him and adjusted the plan accordingly.

Everything still hinged on availability of landing craft. “The situation appears to me to hang in the balance,” Eisenhower told the CCS, in asking once again to be allowed to keep the LSTs until January. “Naturally I do
not
wish to interfere with the preparations for OVERLORD but I have
felt it my duty to lay before you my requirements, leaving it to you to judge the priorities.”
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Until the CCS said otherwise, however, Eisenhower had to proceed on the assumption that the orders stood and that the LSTs would sail for England in mid-December. On November 9 he told Alexander that although he had sought in every possible way “to avoid a mere slugging match along a wide front,” he had come to the conclusion that Alexander should try to build up Fifth and Eighth Armies “while depending upon our air forces to make the enemy’s maintenance more and more difficult.” Small end runs might be possible, and Alexander should keep the possibility of a stronger sea-borne operation in mind, “but for the present it would seem to be more advantageous to continue an intensive buildup than to set aside craft hoping to make an attack by a reinforced division.”
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The next day Eisenhower learned that the CCS would be meeting in two weeks at Cairo and that he and his deputies would be going there to testify. The whole question of world-wide strategy could be reviewed; as a part of the review, of course, the CCS would deal with AFHQ’s request for help in landing craft. Eisenhower thought a verbal presentation of AFHQ’s case “by far the best way of raising the question again,” and so advised Alexander.
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