Supreme Commander (60 page)

Despite the pressure from the British to make a clear-cut choice, Eisenhower did not want to make a final negative decision on a matter about which Marshall felt so strongly. On February 19 Montgomery told Eisenhower that he had learned that the divisions fighting in Italy had suffered heavy casualties, were tired, needed to be reinforced, and required rest. They were not in a position to get to and beyond Rome in the near future, and Montgomery did not see how any divisions could be withdrawn for ANVIL. “There is no point in cutting ourselves down and accepting a compromise solution for OVERLORD, if ANVIL can never come off,” Montgomery said. “It would be far better to have a really good OVERLORD.” Two days later he added that ANVIL should be canceled immediately, so that Wilson, Alexander, Clark, and the others in the Mediterranean could concentrate on Italy and put ANVIL out of their minds.
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Eisenhower merely replied that he wished to retain flexibility in strategic plans as long as possible.

Agreement on priorities, however, could not be put off. At a meeting with the BCOS on February 22, Eisenhower accepted Brooke’s suggestion that until Rome was taken Italy have priority over all present and future operations in the Mediterranean. Eisenhower did insist that, subject to that priority, alternative plans had to be prepared to assist OVERLORD. The first alternative was ANVIL. The participants then agreed to order Wilson to release, in April, the twenty LSTs and twenty-one LCI(L)s Eisenhower wanted, in exchange for six AKAs. All these arrangements
would be reviewed on or about March 20, when the situation in Italy would be clearer. The President and Prime Minister accepted the proposal.
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The number of contingencies surrounding OVERLORD-ANVIL seemed to grow daily, making it exceedingly difficult for planners to get on with their work. Firm commitments were needed if frustration was to be avoided. The Germans, by fighting savagely in Italy, had forced Marshall and the President to retreat from their previous insistence on ANVIL and accept the proposal that everything be reviewed on March 20. Eisenhower now wanted to go beyond that and once and for all call off ANVIL. On February 26 he told Smith he was considering cabling Marshall “his view that ANVIL was impossible” in order to force a decision to release ANVIL craft for OVERLORD. Smith talked him out of it, for he “feared that it would give the impression of changing our minds too quickly.”
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Eisenhower wanted to act quickly because he realized that the British had their own ideas about how to use the ANVIL craft if ANVIL were canceled. Having gained a bit by getting the Americans to agree to review ANVIL on March 20, the British now prepared to go all out. At the end of February Alexander asked for additional craft for his troop movements in Italy. This meant that the British had now gone beyond merely suggesting that ANVIL be canceled in order to aid OVERLORD to the point of proposing that craft be withheld from OVERLORD in order to insure success in Italy. The BCOS backed up Alexander, requesting that the LSTs and LCI(L)s not be transferred from the Mediterranean and that they be replaced by dispatching craft directly from the U.S. (which meant, in effect, at the expense of the Pacific war).
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This was exactly what Eisenhower had feared all along. To make sure he got the craft, he wanted to make the negative decision on ANVIL final and have the LSTs and LCI(L)s sent on their way to England. “It becomes daily more apparent that a two division ANVIL is out of the question,” he told Marshall on March 3,
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and he reiterated the point six days later. Marshall wanted him to preserve ANVIL, while the British wanted him to support the Italian offensive. He was caught in the middle. He had made his plans for OVERLORD fifteen LSTs short in order to leave them in the Mediterranean, which satisfied both the JCS and the BCOS so long as no decision on their final use had been made. In the process, however, OVERLORD suffered.

Asserting himself as Supreme Commander, Eisenhower told Marshall
that “uncertainty is having a marked effect on everyone responsible for planning and executing operation OVERLORD.” He was upset with both Marshall and the BCOS, since each seemed willing to skimp on OVERLORD, even though they had different concepts of what ought to be done with the resources held in the Mediterranean. “It seems to me,” Eisenhower said, referring to both his British and American superiors, “that all concerned except ourselves [SHAEF] take it for granted that the actual assault will be successful and relatively easy, whereas we feel that it will be extremely difficult and hazardous.” The time had come to put first things first. The Marshall-BCOS debate about operations in the Mediterranean was now two years old, and it had to be suspended so that SHAEF could get on with OVERLORD. In an unusually direct and stern statement, Eisenhower told Marshall, “I think it is the gravest possible mistake to allow demands for ANVIL to militate against the main effort.…” As an example of what he meant, Eisenhower said that five LSTs had been torpedoed in the past week, which had the most serious possible effect on OVERLORD planning. It was ridiculous. Because the allotment of resources was so close to the bone, the loss of five comparatively small vessels threw the largest Anglo-American venture of the war into jeopardy.
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On the evening of March 17 Smith talked to General Handy, head of OPD, by transatlantic telephone. Smith said that the SHAEF planning estimate for OVERLORD was the “very lowest, skimpiest, measliest figure that we can possibly calculate to get by on in the assumption there would be a strong landing in the Mediterranean.” He added that if Washington could guarantee ANVIL “we will stick by that measly figure, but time is getting short.” Expressing Marshall’s views, Handy replied that “we better hang on to that [ANVIL] as long as we can,” for it was necessary to OVERLORD’s success. “I thoroughly agree with you,” Smith cut in, “but you can’t imagine the difficulties here in planning. It is enough to drive you mad with this uncertainty and these changes.”
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The same day Marshall wired Eisenhower. The Chief said it was unlikely that there would be enough of a break in German resistance in Italy to permit an advance to Rome in the near future, or even to allow Fifth Army to link up with the forces at Anzio. What he feared was that the Germans would take desperate measures to crush OVERLORD, including the transfer of troops from the Russian front, Italy, the Balkans, and southern France. He wanted to make firm decisions, but he realized that “the only clearcut decision would be to cancel ANVIL,” which he did not want to do. Still, Marshall assured Eisenhower, he would support
the Supreme Commander’s desires as to ANVIL whatever they might be.
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Eisenhower had arranged to meet with the BCOS on March 22 to make the final decision. Two days before, he told Marshall he was going to recommend that a simultaneous ANVIL be canceled. In defense of his decision, he pointed out that all his LSTs were scheduled to be used on the first three tides of the invasion. It took the LSTs three days to return from France to England, reload, and return to Normandy. This meant that SHAEF would have no LSTs reaching the beaches after the morning of D plus one until the morning of D plus four. Eisenhower had to have more LSTs, and since they could only come from the Mediterranean, it meant the end of ANVIL. As far as Eisenhower was conerned, that was the inescapable conclusion.
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What would happen in the Mediterranean now? This was the first question the British posed after accepting Eisenhower’s recommendation to cancel ANVIL. Eisenhower replied that he still wanted to operate offensively in the area, “initially in Italy and extending from there into France as rapidly as we can.” He wanted Wilson to “constantly look for every expedient, including threat and feint, to contain the maximum possible enemy forces in that region.”
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In other words, Eisenhower only wanted to postpone ANVIL, not cancel it altogether. After OVERLORD was successful he would send LSTs back to the Mediterranean for a midsummer invasion of the south of France. Wilson, on the other hand, recommended stepping up operations in Italy itself, with end runs like Anzio whenever possible. This meant continuing operations in Italy after Rome fell, which could only be done at the expense of an ANVIL mounted later in the summer. The British felt the best strategy was to maintain a strong campaign in Italy and a threat to southern France; they feared that letting up in Italy would allow the Germans to send troops from Italy to northern France.

The JCS, upon learning the results of the Eisenhower-BCOS meeting of March 22, agreed that ANVIL could not be launched concurrently with OVERLORD and “must therefore be delayed.” The Chiefs also agreed to Eisenhower’s request for extra shipping from the Mediterranean. They insisted, however, that ANVIL be only delayed, not abandoned, and that it have priority over a continuing full offensive in Italy once Rome had been reached. They proposed a target date of July 10 for a two-division ANVIL assault. For this purpose, they were willing to divert landing craft earmarked for the Pacific, but only on the hard and fast
condition that the British agree that the July 10 ANVIL would be “vigorously pressed.”
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Marshall, in other words, felt so strongly about ANVIL that he had accomplished the seemingly impossible—he had been able to persuade Admiral King to divert some of the precious craft from the Navy’s “private war” to the Mediterranean. Like Marshall, however, King was willing to do so only if he had a guarantee that the British were not going to take the extra resources and extend their operations in Italy and to the east. ANVIL would be the vehicle through which the Americans could force the bulk of the strength in the Mediterranean into France. In this sense the American insistence on ANVIL was just another of the long list of attempts to drop the peripheral strategy the British favored and concentrate on the bulk of the Wehrmacht. Only on that basis would King approve the diversion of landing craft.

Brooke complained to Eisenhower that the JCS were “pointing a pistol.” Eisenhower met with him on March 27 and emphasized the importance of the reallocation of landing craft. This was the first time the JCS had ever offered to withdraw resources fully committed to Pacific operations, which was an indication of how Marshall and King felt about ANVIL. Eisenhower reminded Brooke that there was great pressure on Marshall within the United States to step up operations in the Pacific. Brooke merely replied that he, for one, was unwilling to give a firm commitment to an operation five months in the future. In replying to the JCS offer, the BCOS said they were willing to accept the offer of the landing craft, but they wanted to give priority to Italian operations over ANVIL.
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When the JCS heard the British position, Field Marshal Dill reported, the members were “shocked and pained to find out … how gaily we proposed to accept their legacy while disregarding the terms of their will.”
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The Americans told the British that they would never accept a diversion of landing craft from the Pacific unless the British agreed to a July 10 ANVIL.
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By now Eisenhower was growing exceedingly tired of the whole debate. His recommendation on the main point—canceling ANVIL as originally planned—had been accepted, and he had the landing craft he needed. Planning for OVERLORD was proceeding rapidly, new issues and problems came up every day, and he wanted to concentrate on them. He was becoming somewhat irritated with Marshall, whose insistence on “hard and fast” agreements, a reflection of his continuing suspicion of the British and their motives, seemed to Eisenhower rather hidebound.
“A present complete freezing of ideas as to where and in what ultimate strength an amphibious attack” in the Mediterranean should be launched, Eisenhower warned Marshall at one point, “might later cause much embarrassment.”
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Still, there was no way for Eisenhower to back out of the discussions in which he was already so deeply involved.

On April 4 the JCS told the British that a July ANVIL had to have priority after Fifth Army linked up with the Anzio beachhead. The British replied that this was unacceptable. The Americans then said they were withdrawing their offer to divert assault shipping from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. Churchill, growing somewhat frantic, entered the debate. Why not, he suggested, delay making a decision until the link-up? At that time the CCS could “survey the situation.” The Allies could then decide whether to go “all out for ANVIL or exploit the results of victory in Italy.”

Marshall remained stubborn. Referring to Churchill’s proposal, he sarcastically commented to Eisenhower, “You can draw your own conclusions.” The United States, he explained to Churchill, could not stop the momentum it had started in the Pacific “unless there was assurance that we are to have an operation in the effectiveness of which we have complete faith.”
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Marshall’s attitude distressed Eisenhower as much as it did Churchill. It seemed to Eisenhower so obvious that the European Theater was more important than the Pacific, and so clear that “additional lift is going to be badly needed in the European Theater this summer,” that he could hardly understand why Marshall was acting as he was. As head of OPD in early 1942, Eisenhower had had a better instinct for world-wide strategy and would have had no difficulty then in understanding Marshall’s position. Even now he was aware that it was “not in my province to attempt to intervene in Chief of Staff discussions and decisions, but the issues at stake are so great that I felt I should submit to you personally my earnest conviction.…”
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Like Eisenhower, Churchill would not give up without a fight. On April 16 he wired Marshall to plead for the additional landing craft. In the message he summarized everyone’s feeling of frustration. “The whole of this difficult question arises out of the absurd shortage of LST’s. How it is that the plans of … Britain and the United States should be so hamstrung and limited by a hundred or two of these particular vessels will never be understood by history.”
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