Supreme Commander (70 page)

That evening Eisenhower drove from his command post to Southwick House, Admiral Ramsay’s headquarters north of Portsmouth. There he met in the mess room with his commanders and Group Captain Stagg. The weather man had bad news. The high pressure system that had prevailed over England the past few weeks, bringing perfect weather
with it, was moving out, and a low was coming in. The weather on June 5 would be overcast and stormy, with a cloud base of five hundred feet to zero and Force 5 winds. Worse, the situation was deteriorating so rapidly that forecasting more than twenty-four hours in advance was highly undependable. It was too early to make a final decision, but word had to go out to the American Navy carrying Bradley’s troops to Omaha and Utah beaches, since they had the farthest to travel. Eisenhower decided to let them start the voyage, subject to a possible last-minute cancellation. He would make the final decision at the regular weather conference the next morning.
⁷

At 4:30
A.M
. on Sunday, June 4, Eisenhower, who had had a poor night’s sleep, met with his associates at Southwick House. Stagg said sea conditions would be slightly better than anticipated, but the overcast would not permit the use of the air force. The meteorologists added that the sea conditions, although improved, would still render naval gunfire support inefficient and might interfere with the handling of small boats. To Tedder’s amazement, Montgomery said he wanted to go ahead anyway. Tedder and Leigh-Mallory wanted a postponement. Ramsay said the navy could do its part of the job but remained neutral when asked whether or not the whole operation should go. Eisenhower remarked that OVERLORD was being launched with ground forces that were not overwhelmingly powerful. The operation was feasible only because of the Allied air superiority. If he could not have that advantage, the landings were too risky. He asked if anyone present disagreed, and when no one did he declared for a twenty-four-hour postponement.
⁸
The word went out to the American fleet by prearranged signal. Displaying superb seamanship, the fleet drove through the incoming storm, regained its ports, refueled, and prepared to sail again the next day.

That evening, June 4, Eisenhower ate at Southwick House. After dinner he moved into the mess room. Montgomery, Tedder, Smith, Ramsay, Leigh-Mallory, and various high-ranking staff officers were already there. The wind and the rain rattled the windowframes in staccato sounds. The mess room was large, with a heavy table at one end and easy chairs at the other. Three sides of the room were lined with bookcases, most of which were empty and forlorn. The officers lounged in easy chairs. Coffee was served and there was desultory conversation. Stagg came in about nine-thirty with the weather report. Eisenhower called his associates to order and they all sat up to listen intently.
⁹

Stagg reported a break. The rain that was then pouring down would stop in two or three hours, to be followed by thirty-six hours of more or
less clear weather. Winds would moderate. The bombers and fighters ought to be able to operate on Monday night, June 5–6, although they would be hampered by clouds. Leigh-Mallory remarked that it seemed to be only a moderately good night for air power. The heavy bombers would have great difficulty in getting their markers down and doing anything useful. Tedder, his pipe clenched between his teeth and forcibly blowing out smoke, agreed that the operations of heavies and mediums were going to be “chancy.” Eisenhower countered by pointing out that the Allies could call on their large force of fighter-bombers.

The temptation to postpone again and meet the following morning for another conference was strong and growing, but Ramsay put a stop to that idea by pointing out that Admiral Alan G. Kirk, commanding the American task force, “must be told within the next half hour if ‘Overlord’ is to take place on Tuesday [June 6]. If he is told it is on, and his forces sail and are then recalled, they will not be ready again for Wednesday morning. Therefore, a further postponement would be for forty-eight hours.”
¹⁰
A two-day delay would put everything back to June 8, and by that time the tidal conditions would not be right, so in fact postponement now meant postponement until June 19.

Still Eisenhower did not want to make the decision. He listened intently as someone asked Stagg, “What will the weather be on D-Day in the Channel and over the French coast?” Stagg hesitated for two dramatic minutes and finally said, “To answer that question would make me a guesser, not a meteorologist.”
¹¹

Whatever Eisenhower decided would be risky. He looked at Smith. “It’s a helluva gamble but it’s the best possible gamble,” Smith said, indicating that he wanted to go.
¹²
Turning to Montgomery, Eisenhower asked, “Do you see any reason for not going Tuesday?”

“I would say—Go!” Montgomery replied.

“The question,” Eisenhower pointed out, was “just how long can you hang this operation on the end of a limb and let it hang there?”
¹³

If there was going to be an invasion before June 19, Eisenhower had to decide now. Smith was struck by the “loneliness and isolation of a commander at a time when such a momentous decision was to be taken by him, with full knowledge that failure or success rests on his individual decision.”
¹⁴
Looking out at the wind-driven rain, it hardly seemed possible that the operation could go ahead. Eisenhower calmly weighed the alternatives, and at 9:45
P.M
. said, “I am quite positive that the order must be given.”
¹⁵

Ramsay rushed out and gave the order to the fleets. More than 5000
ships began moving toward France. Eisenhower drove back to his trailer and slept fitfully. He awoke at 3:30
A.M
. A wind of almost hurricane proportions was shaking his trailer. The rain seemed to him to be traveling in horizontal streaks. He dressed and gloomily drove through a mile of mud to Southwick House for the last meeting. It was still not too late to call off the operation. In the now familiar mess room, steaming hot coffee helped shake the gray mood and unsteady feeling. Stagg began the conference by saying that the bad weather he had predicted for June 5 was here; this, Eisenhower supposed, was intended to inspire confidence in the weather man’s abilities. Stagg then said that the break he had been looking for was on its way and that the weather would be clear within a matter of hours. The long-range prediction was not good, to be sure, he said, for the Channel might be rough again on June 7, raising the possibility that the Allies would get the first and second assault waves ashore and then be unable to reinforce them.
¹⁶
But even as Stagg talked the rain began to stop and the sky started to clear.

A short discussion followed. Montgomery still wanted to go, as did Smith and Ramsay. Smith was concerned about proper spotting for naval gunfire but thought the risk worth taking. Tedder was ready. Leigh-Mallory still thought air conditions were below the acceptable minimum but said he realized this applied equally to the enemy.
¹⁷

Everyone had stated his opinion. Stagg had withdrawn to let the generals and admirals make the decision. No new weather reports would be available for hours. The ships were sailing into the Channel. If they were to be called back, it had to be done now. The Supreme Commander was the only man who could do it.

Eisenhower thought for a moment, then said quietly but clearly, “O.K., let’s go.”
^*

The commanders rushed from their chairs and dashed outside to get to their command posts. Within thirty seconds the mess room was empty, except for Eisenhower. The outflow of the others and his sudden isolation were symbolic. A minute earlier he had been the most powerful man in the world. Upon his word the fate of millions of men, not to mention great nations, depended. The moment he uttered the word,
however, he was powerless. For the next two or three days there was almost nothing he could do that would in any way change anything. The invasion could not be stopped, not by him, not by anyone. A captain leading his company onto Omaha, or even a platoon sergeant at Utah, would for the immediate future play a greater role than Eisenhower. He could now only sit and wait.

Eisenhower was improving at killing time. He visited South Parade Pier in Portsmouth to see some British soldiers climb aboard their landing craft, then returned to his trailer. He played a game of checkers on a crackerbox with Butcher, who was winning, two kings to one when Eisenhower jumped one of Butcher’s kings and got a draw. At lunch they exchanged political yarns. After eating, Eisenhower went into a tent with representatives of the press and nonchalantly announced that the invasion was on. Smith called with more news about De Gaulle. After hanging up, Eisenhower looked out the tent flap, saw a quick flash of sunshine, and grinned.
¹⁸

When the reporters left, Eisenhower sat at his portable table and scrawled a press release on a pad of paper, to be used if necessary. “Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops,” he began. “My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.” He then stuffed the note in his wallet and forgot about it. Nearly a month later he happened to pull it out, chuckled over it, and showed it to Butcher, saying he had written a note in a similar vein for every amphibious operation in the war but had torn up the others.
¹⁹

After writing the note, Eisenhower went to dinner. Then at 6
P.M
. he and a group of aides drove to Newbury, where the 101st Airborne was loading up for the flight to Normandy. The 101st was one of the units Leigh-Mallory feared would suffer seventy per cent casualties. Eisenhower wandered around among the men, whose blackened faces gave them a grotesque look, stepping over packs, guns, and other equipment. He chatted with them easily. The men told him not to worry, that they were ready and would take care of everything. A Texan promised him a job after the war on his cattle ranch. He stayed until all the big C-47s were off the runway.
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As the last plane roared into the sky Eisenhower turned to his driver with a visible sagging in his shoulders. A reporter thought he saw tears in the Supreme Commander’s eyes. He began to walk slowly toward his
car. “Well,” he said quietly, “it’s on.” It took nearly two hours to get back to camp. Eisenhower arrived at 1:15
A.M
., June 6. He sat around and chatted with Butcher and some aides for a while, then finally went to bed. Shortly before 7
A.M
. Ramsay called to tell him everything was going according to plan. Then Butcher came over to his trailer with good news from Leigh-Mallory—the air drop had been a success and casualties were light. Butcher found the Supreme Commander sitting up in bed, smoking a cigarette and reading a Western novel.
²¹

A GI came up the path carrying the first edition of the Portsmouth morning paper. “Good morning,
good
morning,” Eisenhower called out cheerfully. Grabbing the paper, he found that it had been published before the news of D-Day had been released and that the headlines belonged to Mark Clark—Fifth Army had scored a crushing victory and taken Rome. Eisenhower washed, shaved, and strolled over to the war tent. He found “Pinky” Bull, the SHAEF G-3, on the telephone arguing with Smith. Bull wanted to release a communiqué saying that the Allies had a beachhead, but Smith refused until Montgomery said it was all right, and Montgomery wished to be absolutely sure he was going to stay ashore before authorizing any such statement. News from the beachhead, as always in the first hours of an invasion, was spotty and often contradictory. General Morgan, Smith’s deputy, came into the tent. Eisenhower grinned at him and congratulated him on the success of the plan, reminding him that COSSAC had done much of the hard work on OVERLORD. Morgan thanked Eisenhower and said, “Well, you finished it.” Major General Kenneth Strong, the SHAEF G-2, was all smiles, telling everyone that the Allies had surprised the Germans.
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Eisenhower sent a brief message to Marshall, informing him that everything seemed to be going well and adding that the British and American troops he had seen the previous day were enthusiastic, tough, and fit. “The light of battle was in their eyes.”
²³

Eisenhower soon grew impatient with the incessant chatter in the war tent and decided to visit Montgomery at Twenty-first Army Group headquarters. He found the British general wearing a sweater and a grin. Montgomery was too busy to spend much time with the Supreme Commander, as he was preparing to cross the Channel to set up an advanced headquarters in Normandy, but they did have a brief talk. When Eisenhower invited him to see the world press representatives, Montgomery said he could spare a few minutes for that, and Eisenhower had Butcher call and arrange the interview. The Supreme Commander then went on to Southwick House to see Ramsay. “All was well with
the Navy,” Butcher noted, “and its smiles were as wide as or wider than any.” Losses were unbelievably light—two destroyers and one LST had hit mines, and that seemed to be all. The German Navy and Air Force were nowhere in sight.
²⁴

The Germans had, in fact, as Strong emphasized, been completely surprised. Their reaction to the landing was confused and unco-ordinated. Partly this was due to luck—two of the three German division commanders in the Cotentin, along with some of their subordinates, were away attending a war game. The Allied naval and air bombardment had cut telephone and telegraph lines, making communication difficult. The weather had worked against the Germans; because they had no weather bases out in the Atlantic, they had not seen the break in the storm that Stagg had correctly predicted, so the troops were not on a full alert status, as they had been so many times in May. Even Rommel was not there. When the storm struck, he decided there would be no invasion in the immediate future and went to Germany to celebrate his wife’s birthday and to see Hitler. The ploy of developing FORTITUDE played a major role; none of the German senior officers believed OVERLORD was the major invasion. They thought it a feint and braced themselves for the real thing at Pas de Calais.