Supreme Commander (91 page)

Eisenhower then turned to the question of nationalism versus military
considerations. Montgomery felt that Eisenhower had been trying to act for political reasons at the expense of military operations. Eisenhower said he had never hesitated to put U.S. forces under British command when necessary, and added: “It would be quite futile to deny that questions of nationalism often enter our problems. It is nations that make war, and when they find themselves associated as Allies, it is quite often necessary to make concessions that recognize the existence of inescapable national differences.… It is the job of soldiers, as I see it, to meet their military problems sanely, sensibly, and logically, and, while not shutting our eyes to the fact that we are two different nations, produce solutions that permit effective cooperation, mutual support and effective results. Good will and mutual confidence are, of course, mandatory.”
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Montgomery took the lecture well. He had already concluded that the First Army could not reach the Rhine and had therefore dispatched part of Second Army to help the Canadian forces fighting to open Antwerp. “I have given you my views and you have given your answer,” Montgomery replied to Eisenhower’s letter. “I and all of us will weigh in one hundred percent to do what you want and we will pull it through without a doubt.” He said he had given Antwerp top priority and would terminate the discussion on command arrangements. “You will hear no more on the subject of command from me,” he said, and signed off, “Your very devoted and loyal subordinate.”
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That was that, or so at least it seemed.

In January 1945 other British officials, led by Brooke and Churchill, raised the question of over-all command again, and the nature of the advance through Germany remained a subject of dispute almost until the final surrender. The story of these controversies is long and complex; the point that stood out was that Eisenhower continued to make the decisions and continued to enforce his will. He had the strongest possible support, from his own staff and from Marshall, Roosevelt, and the War Department generally, but he also had to stand up against heavy pressure, including frequent personal visits and messages from Churchill. In the end the greatest support he had, the support that was really decisive, was his own self-confidence. He was sure he took everything into account, gathered all relevant information, and had considered all possible consequences. Then he acted. This is the essence of command.

Fall was never Eisenhower’s best season. In 1942 he had been stuck in the mud of Tunisia, in 1943 bogged down on the Italian Peninsula, and in 1944 the rains came again to turn the fields of northwest Europe into quagmires. His airplanes could not fly, his tanks were unable to maneuver, and his soldiers marched only with difficulty. He was still short on supplies and was beginning to have replacement problems. In mid-November he told Marshall, “I am getting exceedingly tired of weather.”
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But he was at his best in adversity. His optimism and his grin helped convince the troops and their commanders that there were sunny days ahead, and he managed to keep morale high.

During late October and all of November 1944 Eisenhower traveled incessantly. He tried to visit every division in the AEF, talk with as many men as possible, and spend at least some time with their officers. The trips involved a great deal more than simply showing himself to the front-line troops, for Eisenhower picked up much valuable information during his visits and used it later to improve or keep up morale. While on a trip in early November he noticed that ETO policies on recreation, rest, and comfort for the men were not being applied. “This applies to such matters as billets for resting of troops,” he told his American subordinates, “to conditions of sanitation and convenience while travelling by motor, train or ship, and,
above all, it applies to equality of treatment as between officers and enlisted men
.” He pointed out that G.I.s had complained to him that officers had whiskey rations while enlisted men did not, that unit commanders disapproved leave for enlisted men but granted it freely to officers, that when units were out of line the men had to stay in their usually uncomfortable billets while the officers had the use of a car, that on the trip over to the Continent the
G.I.s were jammed into the holds while the officers had ample deck space, and the PX supplies were frequently reserved for officers. Eisenhower admitted that some of the complaints were probably unjustified, but that he had personally noted troops making bivouacs along the roads when, “with a bit of care and foresight,” shelter could have been found for the night. He had also seen truckloads of men driving in the rain without top covers on the trucks.

The Supreme Commander wanted all these conditions changed. He laid it down as a rule that “care must be taken that privileges given to officers in any unit must be available in proper proportion to enlisted men.” If, for example, a unit could provide a jeep or a car for its officers when out of the line, that vehicle should never be used for recreational trips unless the unit could provide a similar privilege to the men. Leave and furlough policies had to be applied with absolute fairness. All captured wine should be issued “on a basis where the enlisted man receives exactly as much as any officers.” (Hard liquor was to be reserved for medical use.) General officers should make the trip to France by ship with their divisions, instead of flying on ahead, so that they could see what conditions actually were on board.

Acting on a suggestion from Marshall, Eisenhower said he wanted his general officers to make frequent trips by road, with the stars on their cars covered so that they did not receive preferential treatment in passing on a road. The generals could then “find out for themselves what conditions actually are and take proper steps for correction of defects.” Finally, just in case anyone missed the overriding point, Eisenhower concluded, “Officers must invariably place the care and welfare of their men above their own comfort and convenience.”
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The responses to Eisenhower’s orders were neither instantaneous nor uniform, but they were significant. In early December following a trip which took him to every division in First and Ninth Armies, Eisenhower reported with some pride that “the morale and condition of our troops stay remarkably high. It is noticeable that each division, after it has been out of the line three or four days and has absorbed its replacements, is fit and ready to go back again into the line.”
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Checking on the men’s condition and welfare was not the only purpose of Eisenhower’s travels. He also wanted to see for himself how his division and corps commanders were holding up. Only by personal inspection could he decide who needed a rest, who should be relieved, and who was adequately performing the tasks at hand. After his early December trip he sent three division and one corps commander home on sixty
days’ detached service so that they could get some rest and recreation. “In certain instances these officers themselves do not realize that they are momentarily exhausted,” Eisenhower explained to General Handy in the War Department, and he asked Handy to make sure that before they started back they were fit to resume their duties.
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Eisenhower knew most of his division commanders personally and was able to obtain the information he desired in short chats with them. He told Marshall that he had sent two generals home because they had both lost their only sons in the war, “and this shock and distress, coupled with the abnormal strains always borne by an active Division Commander, are really more than any one man should be called upon to bear.” He had learned, he added, that commanding a division was a much more exacting task than heading a corps, army, or army group. It was also easier to be in Bradley’s or Patton’s position than his own; “they are in that more fortunate middle area where their problems involve tactics and local maintenance, without on the one hand having to burden themselves with politics, priorities, shipping and Maquis, while they are also spared the more direct battle strains of a Division Commander.”
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Eisenhower did not limit his efforts to improve operating procedure and morale to the front lines. He was also concerned with what was going on Stateside, especially after he discovered that a serious ammunition shortage in the AEF was the result not only of insufficient port capacity but also because of a manufacturing slowdown back home. When General Surles reported to him that public opinion in the United States regarded the war as good as won, Eisenhower did all he could to disabuse the American people of that notion. In a series of letters and cables to manufacturing organizations and labor unions he tried to convince the home front that there was a great deal of hard fighting left and that it was imperative for them to maintain high production.
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When in December a group of manufacturers and another of labor leaders came to Europe, Eisenhower took time to have a long talk with each. He convinced them that ETO’s demands for goods were not excessive and that it was necessary for labor to work overtime and for manufacturers to use their plants to full capacity.
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In his private letters, as well as in his public pronouncements, Eisenhower emphasized that the war was far from over. To his brothers and to family friends he pointed out that there was no basis for believing that the end was near. “One thing that puzzles me is where anyone finds any factual ground upon which to base a conviction that this battle is over, or nearly over,” he wrote on October 20. “We have chased the Hun out
of France, but he is fighting bitterly on his own frontiers and there is a lot of suffering and sacrificing for thousands of Americans and their Allies before the thing is finally over.”
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He purposely tempered his optimism with realism for the very good reason that it was overwhelmingly obvious that bloody battles remained to be fought. The AEF was still on the general offensive, but its daily gains were measured in yards instead of tens of miles. There were three basic causes for the showdown: the German recovery, weather, and supply shortages. Hitler had scraped up a hundred fortress infantry battalions, formerly used in rear areas, and sent eighty of them to the western front. He had also organized twenty-five new Volks Grenadier divisions, which began to come into the lines at the beginning of October. He ordered every inch of ground held and counterattacks at the slightest opportunity. His generals skillfully moved armored units from one end of the front to the other to patch up holes in the line, and with these and other desperate measures the Germans were able to hold on. They paid a price, as vehicles and men became more worn out with each passing day and new operation, but the only hope the Nazis had left was a falling out between their Eastern and Western enemies, and Hitler would do anything to buy time in case that falling out took place. From SHAEF’s point of view this reinforcement was irritating for the moment but promising for the future. General Strong believed that the Germans were getting themselves into the same dangerous situation that had prevailed in Normandy. “The dwindling fire brigade is switched with increasing rapidity and increasing wear and tear from one fire to another.”
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As had been the case in Normandy, this development increased Eisenhower’s desire to attack all along the line.

The fanatic German resistance and the foul weather were hard on the men of the AEF. Somehow they managed to advance a little, despite freezing rain, driving snow, record floods, mile after mile of mud, and numbing cold. Trench foot and respiratory diseases took a heavy toll. The situation was not as bad as fighting on the eastern front, but it was bad enough. Needless to say, the weather also prevented the AEF from using its Tactical Air Force effectively.
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Since Antwerp was not functioning until the end of November, supplies remained inadequate until early 1945. On his visits to the front Eisenhower heard a constant complaint from division commanders—they had neither enough ammunition nor riflemen. In reporting the ammunition shortage to Marshall, Eisenhower said he hoped production of it in the States could be increased, but pointed out that a part of the problem was
that the War Department allowances to divisions in combat did not meet minimum requirements.
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In order to persuade Marshall to increase the allowance, he sent a team of staff officers to Washington to present all the facts and figures. “I have tried,” Eisenhower told the Chief, “all through this war, to avoid presenting any problems in such a way as to appear to be whining or weeping, thus adding needlessly to your own burdens,” but he did want to make sure Marshall clearly understood the problem.
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Marshall increased the allowance, and by January 1945 imports through Antwerp had almost set things right.

The shortage in riflemen was a more difficult problem. It stemmed from many factors, but the chief was the decision early in the war to hold down the total size of the U.S. armed forces in order to have labor on hand at home to increase U.S. wartime production. Coupled with this was an attitude in the War Department that the coming conflict was going to be one of specialists. Thus, too many recruits had been put into branches other than the infantry—armored or airborne or mountain divisions, Services of Supply, the AAF, technical corps, and so on. The result was that when operations involved primarily the kind of hard, footslogging war that characterized the battles of October and November 1944 the American Army was not prepared. When the needs for infantrymen were immediate, all SHAEF could do was comb out men from Com Z and the Zone of the Interior and try to hire French civilians to do much of the work that military supply troops had been performing. This procedure was not very satisfactory, but it worked as a stopgap measure.
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