Supreme Commander (53 page)

Bradley had already been selected to command the U. S. First Army, which of course delighted Eisenhower. He thought that when the forces increased Bradley should move up to army group command, with Patton
taking one of the American armies. The other army commander could be either Lieutenant General Courtney H. Hodges of U. S. Third Army or Lieutenant General William H. Simpson of Fourth Army. Whichever of these two got the appointment should come to England immediately to serve as Bradley’s deputy and familiarize himself with the plans. Eisenhower planned to deal personally with each of the army group commanders, which would put him in actual charge of operations, a shift from the practice in the Mediterranean, where Alexander ran the ground war. For his successor as American theater commander in the Mediterranean, Eisenhower recommended Devers, who “will be superfluous in the U.K.” after Eisenhower took up his duties as the commander of ETO. At the appropriate moment, Clark could take command of Seventh Army, which would make the invasion of southern France, with Lucas replacing Clark at Fifth Army.
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Two things stood out. First, Eisenhower was taking the best men out of the Mediterranean, a policy which he had no difficulty justifying since Italy was now a secondary theater. Second, he was willing to keep Patton.

Eisenhower made his decision to retain Patton in the face of one of the most sensational press outbursts of the war. In late November radio commentator Drew Pearson had learned of the Patton slapping incident. Newsmen in the Mediterranean, at Eisenhower’s request, had kept silent about the affair, but Pearson gave it full, if somewhat garbled and exaggerated, treatment. He made much of the fact that Eisenhower had not reprimanded Patton. Pearson delivered his broadcast at a time when there was a lull on the various battlefronts and it received front-page treatment everywhere. Eisenhower, the War Department, and the White House all received hundreds of letters, most demanding that any general who would strike a private in a hospital be summarily dismissed from the service. The correspondents were especially upset because Eisenhower apparently had done nothing to censor Patton. The pressure was so great that Marshall wired Eisenhower, demanding a full statement of the facts of the case with an account of what Eisenhower had done about the matter.
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Eisenhower’s reply ran to four pages. He described what had happened, told Marshall that he had personally reprimanded Patton but had put nothing official in Patton’s 201 file, had forced Patton to apologize to the privates, nurses, and doctors involved, and concluded: “I decided that the corrective action as described above was adequate and suitable in the circumstances. I still believe that this decision is sound.”
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Smith meanwhile held a press conference Unfortunately, Smith confirmed Pearson’s
charge that Eisenhower had not reprimanded Patton, and the storm grew. Eisenhower decided the best thing to do now was remain silent. Smith, he thought, had made a “bad mistake” (Smith may not have known about Eisenhower’s private letter to Patton), but, Eisenhower told Marshall, Smith was “my ablest and finest officer” and he had “no intention of throwing valuable men to the wolves merely because of one mistake.” He thought the best thing to do was “to keep still and take the brunt of the affair myself.”
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Eisenhower made no public defense of his actions. He did answer a number of the incoming letters of criticism, carefully pointing out that Patton was too important to lose. In each case he asked that the letter be regarded as strictly personal.
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He advised Patton to keep quiet, since “it is my judgment that this storm will blow over.” In the end partly because other events took news priority, it did.
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But meanwhile, Marshall was not as sure as Eisenhower about the wisdom of giving Patton command of an army in OVERLORD. It was not that the Chief of Staff was afraid of adverse publicity, but rather that he had made his own selections for the top positions and had not included Patton. Marshall’s plan was to give Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair the army group, with Bradley and Devers commanding the armies, or to put Devers in command of the army group, with Bradley and Hodges under him. McNair, he said, had the great advantages of “extreme firmness, expert knowledge of artillery and infantry combined action, perfect loyalty and dependability,” while Hodges “is exactly same class of man as Bradley in practically every respect. Wonderful shot, great hunter, quiet, self-effacing. Thorough understanding of ground fighting, DSC, etc.” McNair’s only drawback was his deafness.
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Marshall not only disagreed with Eisenhower’s personnel selections; he objected to Eisenhower’s tendency to gut Mediterranean headquarters and the casual way in which he proposed to transfer to Algiers men who had been working in the United Kingdom, especially Eakers and Devers. Such wholesale shifting of personnel would create serious problems in AFHQ, and Marshall thought both Eakers and Devers should be left where they were, with Spaatz remaining in the Mediterranean. Marshall thought Smith too should stay in Algiers until at least February 1944, in order to help Wilson get oriented.
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Eisenhower disagreed with everything Marshall proposed. He thought it was logical to take Tedder and Spaatz to England with him because he was anxious to have for OVERLORD senior commanders who were experienced in the air support of ground troops. Eaker’s experience had all
been in the area of strategic bombing. The technique of air-ground co-operation “is one that is not widely understood and it takes men of some vision and broad understanding to do the job right. Otherwise a commander is forever fighting with those air officers who, regardless of the ground situation, want to send big bombers on missions that have nothing to do with the critical effort.” If Spaatz and Tedder went to England, there would be nothing for Eaker to do there. He should, therefore, report to Algiers to head the air effort in the Mediterranean.
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With regard to Devers, Eisenhower said he had “nothing whatsoever” against him, a less than candid remark, “and thought I was recommending him for an important post.” Eisenhower said he knew Marshall had great confidence in Devers and if the Chief wanted to leave Devers in England “I have no doubt that I will find a useful job for him.” But Eisenhower did want experienced commanders leading the American armies in OVERLORD, or so he said, and Devers had no experience. Still, Eisenhower insisted on Gerow as a corps commander, and Gerow had no experience.

Nor would Eisenhower give up Smith. He wanted to send Smith on to London within the next few days so that he could check the present organization there. Smith could return to Algiers later and stay for a week or so after Eisenhower left in order to clear up details, but then Eisenhower wanted him to return to London to get to work. Eisenhower said he had conferred with Wilson, who was bringing his key staff people with him, and was sure he could handle all major problems without Smith. “I regret that you found anything disturbing in the recommendations I made,” Eisenhower concluded, “but, frankly, they are the best I could evolve considering the jobs to be filled and the experience and qualifications of the several individuals that could be shuffled around.”
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He was, in short, gently reminding Marshall that OVERLORD was now his responsibility and that he wanted to hand-pick the team to carry it out.

At this point great confusion set in. The reason was that Eisenhower’s messages were crossing Marshall’s, and vice versa, because Marshall had gone on an extended trip to the Pacific.
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Shortly after Christmas, Marshall got back to Washington. “Appears that we have gotten into complete confusion regarding future assignments …,” he wired Eisenhower. He said he had “followed a confused trail while traveling in the Pacific” and was just now catching up with some of Eisenhower’s messages. He was willing to accept Eisenhower’s proposals in toto.
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“The message was like the sun breaking through the fog,” Butcher recorded.
“When Ike received the good news … his whole demeanor changed.”
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Marshall even agreed to bringing Devers down to Algiers as American theater commander.

Eisenhower now had Bradley, Patton, Smith, Spaatz, and Tedder. Churchill had decided to leave Alexander in the Mediterranean, under Wilson, and had chosen Montgomery to command the British land contingent in OVERLORD, so most of the high command was now set. On the question of the second American army commander, Eisenhower preferred to wait. He did ask Marshall to send Hodges over to England early so that he could “live by Bradley’s side during the … planning and preparation and … actually accompany him into the operation.” Eisenhower would determine later whether to move Bradley or Hodges up to army group command. He promised Marshall that “in no repeat no event will I ever advance Patton beyond army command.” As far as McNair was concerned, he was definitely out—his deafness was too big a handicap to overcome.
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With the personnel chosen, Eisenhower could turn to organization. Smith went to London right after Christmas to have a firsthand look at the setup there, and he was quite disturbed at one or two things that he learned. The CCS had made Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory the air commander in chief, which put him in command of the tactical air forces for OVERLORD. Tedder had been named deputy Allied commander without portfolio. Smith wired Eisenhower, “I personally believe that Tedder should be the real Air Commander and your advisor on air matters, which Mallory now considers himself.” Smith was even more worried about a rumor he had heard that the BCOS intended to submit to the CCS for approval a directive to Eisenhower on the organization of his air forces. Smith urged Eisenhower to insist that no CCS directives be issued until Eisenhower and Tedder had arrived in England and become familiar with the entire situation there.
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Eisenhower sent a quick answer to Smith, saying he agreed entirely “on the necessity for preventing higher authority from dictating details of our organization,” and telling Smith he could present this view to the BCOS as strongly as he wished.
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He then wired Marshall, “I most earnestly request that you throw your full weight into opposing the tendency to organize in advance the sub-echelons of the OVERLORD operation in such a way as to tie the hands of the command.” He believed that the AFHQ staff had learned some lessons about proper organization in the Mediterranean that might be of value in organizing OVERLORD. “I think it a tragedy to give us such rigid directives as to
preclude the application of those lessons.”
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Marshall agreed, and the problem of air organization was left to be settled later.

There were, meanwhile, problems in the Mediterranean that needed wrapping up. The CCS had ordered Eisenhower to prepare an outline plan for Operation ANVIL, the invasion of southern France, which was to be staged simultaneously with OVERLORD. On December 24 his staff finished a draft. Eisenhower forwarded it to the CCS on the twenty-eighth, with the warning that he was not ready to give it his approval until he had examined OVERLORD plans in detail. He added that Wilson had not seen the ANVIL outline and as Eisenhower’s successor he of course might wish to make changes in it. The plan itself called for a three-division assault under U. S. Seventh Army, with the initial assault in the Toulon area.
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Eisenhower’s attitude toward operations within the Mediterranean, meanwhile, had undergone a marked shift. Whereas formerly he had repeatedly requested permission to retain landing craft and special units that had been marked for OVERLORD, now he looked with extreme disfavor on similar requests from Alexander. In late December, for example, Alexander asked to be allowed to retain the 504th Airborne Regimental Combat Team of the 82d Airborne Division for use in SHINGLE, an amphibious assault he planned to make at Anzio.
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Eisenhower refused. “Our demands against OVERLORD resources have been so numerous and oft repeated,” he declared, “that I am unwilling to put up another.”
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Alexander remonstrated and Eisenhower, perhaps beset by a guilty conscience, gave in. SHINGLE was scheduled for late January, and Eisenhower said Alexander could keep a paratrooper regiment until it was completed. Alexander had also wanted to keep some LSTs longer than scheduled, but on that point Eisenhower was adamant. “There can be no repeat no flexibility in the release date of all those destined for the U.K.,” Eisenhower ordered.
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It was, somehow, fitting that the last problem Eisenhower had to deal with before leaving the Mediterranean concerned French politics and involved some of the same personalities who participated in the uproar over the Darlan affair. In the third week in December De Gaulle decided the time had come to settle accounts with some of the Vichy administrators who had opposed him. He placed Boisson, Peyrouton, and Flandin under arrest, and rumor had it that he intended to have them shot. Eisenhower heard of De Gaulle’s action while he was at the front visiting troops. It came as a complete surprise and left him “profoundly
disturbed,” especially with regard to Boisson, who had acted for so long as a loyal subordinate. Eisenhower radioed Murphy in Algiers and told him to let the FCNL know that he was deeply concerned and hoped the matter would not be pushed to the point of holding a trial for treason, much less a firing squad. He also had Smith fly to Algiers to confer with Murphy and Macmillan.
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Eisenhower, who was improving all the time in dealing with the French, was most worried about a possible overreaction from the Prime Minister or the President. Events proved his fears justified. Churchill wanted to offer the three arrested Frenchmen political asylum and send a strong warning to De Gaulle. Roosevelt went farther. He cabled Eisenhower, “Please inform the French Committee as follows: In view of the assistance given the Allied armies during the campaign in Africa by Boisson, Peyrouton, and Flandin, you are directed to take no action against these individuals at the present time.”
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