Supreme Commander (67 page)

“This plan appeals to me,” Marshall declared, “because I feel that it is a true vertical envelopment and would create such a strategic threat to the Germans that it would call for a major revision of their defensive plans.” It would be a complete surprise, would directly threaten both the crossings of the Seine River and Paris, and would serve as a rallying point for the French underground. The only drawback Marshall could see was “that we have never done anything like this before, and frankly, that reaction makes me tired.” The Chief concluded by saying that he did not want to put undue pressure on Eisenhower but did want to make sure that he at least considered the possibility.
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Eisenhower’s reply was long and defensive. He said that for more than a year one of his favorite subjects for contemplation was getting ahead of the enemy in some important method of operation, and the strategic use of paratroopers was an obvious possibility. Marshall’s suggestion, however, was impossible. First, Eisenhower had to have the airborne divisions to meet the first tactical crisis, the battle for the beachhead. Second, and even more important, a paratrooper force well inland would not be self-contained, would lack mobility, and would therefore be destroyed. The Germans had shown time and again that they did not fear a “strategic threat of envelopment.” Using the road nets of western Europe, they could concentrate immense firepower against an isolated garrison and defeat it in detail. Anzio was an example. Eisenhower said that “any military man … required to analyze” the situation in Italy right after the landing there “would have said that
the only hope of the German was to begin the instant and rapid withdrawal of his troops.” Instead, the Germans attacked, and because the Anzio force did not have enough tanks and trucks to provide mobile striking power, the Allies barely held out. And they held out, Eisenhower emphasized, only because AFHQ commanded the sea and could provide support to the beachhead. An inland airborne force would be cut off from almost all supply, would not have tanks or trucks, and would thus be annihilated.

Eisenhower, in short, was unwilling to take the risk Marshall advocated. He insisted that an independent force had to be strong enough to operate alone, and to be strong enough to do that it had to have balance. Airborne divisions did not have the tanks or vehicles required for that balance. Far from being a strategic threat to the Germans, paratroopers dropped near Evreux would just be paratroopers wasted. “I instinctively dislike ever to uphold the conservative as opposed to the bold,” Eisenhower concluded, but he refused to change his plans. Marshall did not raise the subject again.
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Even with the limited-objective drops there were problems. Eisenhower had originally thought that there would be “very little difficulty because of our tremendous preponderance in fighters,” but the almost total coverage of the European continent by anti-aircraft meant that the paratroopers would have a “most sticky time of it.” One answer was gliders, which could approach silently, but there were many areas in which gliders could not operate at night. To add to Eisenhower’s worries, ten days before D-Day Bradley had to change the 82d Airborne’s drop zones, as his G-2 discovered that the Germans were reinforcing the area originally scheduled for the drop.
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The assault plan for the lead divisions was Montgomery’s and Bradley’s responsibility. There would be five beachheads, with the British on the extreme left (Sword beach), then the Canadians (Juno), another British division (Gold), and on the right the Americans (Utah and Omaha beaches). Eisenhower had wanted to assault with new divisions, then pass his veterans over the beaches and let them force the breakthrough and overrun France. For the most part Bradley followed this policy (four of the first seven American divisions to enter the battle had never participated in combat before), but with the emphasis on getting ashore he did put a leavening of tested units into the first day’s battle. Two of the best divisions from the Mediterranean, the 9th Infantry (at Utah) and the 2d Armored (at Omaha) were in the immediate follow-up, and leading the assault at Omaha was the most
battle-tested infantry division in the Army, the Big Red One. All the assault divisions had essentially the same task—to get ashore, move inland, link up with the paratroopers, and expand the beachhead.

Eisenhower’s responsibility was to oversee and approve of the planning and to set the basic goals. In practice this often came down to working smoothly with the three commanders in chief. On May 22 Eisenhower complained that while it had been easier to establish teamwork on the SHAEF staff than it had been at AFHQ, he was having trouble with his commanders. They would not accept the principle of unity of command as easily as had Cunningham, Tedder, and Alexander. One reason, Eisenhower thought, was that in the Mediterranean “we were engaged in desperate battling and everybody could see the sense of and necessity for complete unification.” Another factor was that while the commanders in chief in the Mediterranean were men of “the broadest possible calibre,” two of the commanders in OVERLORD were “somewhat ritualistic in outlook and require a great deal more of inoculation.” Butcher asked Eisenhower if he meant Montgomery and Leigh-Mallory; Eisenhower said no, he was thinking of Leigh-Mallory and Admiral Bertram Ramsay, the naval commander in chief.
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Perhaps because of his negative feelings toward two of his three commanders in chief, Eisenhower met with them much less frequently than he had with Cunningham, Tedder, and Alexander. This threw responsibility for co-ordination of effort onto Smith and the SHAEF staff. All commanders did come together for reviews, the most notable being the great gathering at St. Paul’s School on May 15 for the final run-through of the plans for OVERLORD. Formal invitations went out from SHAEF to the guests; among those who attended were the King, the Prime Minister, Field Marshal Jan Smuts, the BCOS, and other notables. Patton was there, resplendent in a new uniform and with his pistols on.
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Eisenhower made a brief speech of welcome, then introduced his commanders in chief, each of whom outlined his plans in some detail. Spaatz, Harris, Bradley, and other senior officers also spoke. Brooke, who was in a sour mood, was unimpressed. Spaatz, for example, bored him. In his diary Brooke complained that “Bert Harris told us how well he might have won the war if it had not been for the handicap imposed by the existence of the two other Services.” The CIGS was especially worried about Eisenhower. “The main impression I gathered was that Eisenhower was no real director of thought, plans, energy or direction.” Brooke feared that the Supreme Commander was “just a co-ordinator, a good mixer, a champion of inter-Allied co-operation.”
He wondered if those abilities were sufficient for the task at hand and doubted it.
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Montgomery’s presence gave Brooke confidence. In his presentation Montgomery exuded optimism. There was a relief map of Normandy the width of a city street on the floor and—as Bradley recalled—“with rare skill, Monty traced his 21st Group plan of maneuver as he trampled about like a giant through Lilliputian France.”
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In deference to Eisenhower and Churchill, Montgomery even broke his long-standing rule and allowed smoking in his presence. As he talked and explained, he grew expansive. Storming the beaches was the least of his problems. He wanted to get well inland on D-Day itself and “
crack about
and force the battle to swing our way.” It was possible, he said, that he would get to Falaise, thirty-two miles inland, the first day. He intended to send armored columns quickly toward Caen, for “this will upset the enemy’s plans and tend to hold him off while we build up strength. We must gain space rapidly and peg claims well inland.” He said he intended to take Caen the first day, break through the German lines on that (left or eastern) flank, then drive along the coast toward the Seine River.
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His exaggerated claims would later be the cause of much difficulty, since it proved impossible for his armies to move as far or as fast as he thought they could.

After Montgomery spoke, the King made a brief address. Then Churchill “let go with a slow-starting but fast-ending stemwinder. He preached bravery, ingenuity and persistence as human qualities of greater value than equipment.” The King had to leave early; before he left, Eisenhower thanked him for his attendance and told him not to worry. There would be 11,000 planes overhead on D-Day, he said. The navies had “marshalled the greatest armada of transports, landing craft and warships the world had ever seen.” All the ground troops had to do was land and capture some villas for the VIPs, “particularly one to accommodate the King who would be as welcome in France as he had been in North Africa.”
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At two-fifteen the meeting broke up, thus ending, the minutes noted, “the greatest assembly of military leadership the world has ever known.”
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The meeting helped swing Churchill around to thorough belief in OVERLORD. At the beginning of 1944 he had still wondered about
the wisdom of the operation, saying to Eisenhower on one occasion, “When I think of the beaches of Normandy choked with the flower of American and British youth, and when, in my mind’s eye, I see the tides running red with their blood, I have my doubts … I have my doubts.”
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Early in May Eisenhower had lunched alone with the Prime Minister. When they were parting, the Prime Minister grew emotional. With tears in his eyes he said, “I am in this thing with you to the end, and if it fails we will go down together.”
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But after the St. Paul’s briefing Churchill told Eisenhower, “I am hardening toward this enterprise.” The Americans, meanwhile, were also growing in confidence; as Eisenhower put it, “the smell of victory was in the air.”
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Eisenhower, SHAEF, the generals, and the admirals could plan, prepare the ground, provide covering support, ensure adequate supplies, and in countless other ways try to ensure victory. But in the end success rested with the footslogger carrying a rifle over the beaches of Normandy. If he were willing to drive forward in the face of German fire, OVERLORD would succeed. If he cowered behind the beached landing craft, it would fail. The operation all came down to that.

Because Eisenhower was aware of this simple fact, and not incidentally because it gave him an opportunity to escape the office and its problems, he spent much of his time before D-Day visiting troops in the field. He wanted to let as many men as possible see him, and he usually managed to talk to a number of individuals. On May 13, for example, he visited the British troops who would be making the initial assault. He attended eight parades, spoke to enlisted men before each one, and then addressed the formations. The British officers all had their men drawn up in formal parade ground fashion. Borrowing a technique from Montgomery, Eisenhower began his talk by telling them to break ranks and gather around informally in front of him.
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How effective his visits were with the troops cannot be judged. Eisenhower thought it important that the men get at least one look at the general who was sending them into battle, and perhaps it was important. Certainly the fortunate soldiers who got to talk to him personally got a kick out of the visit, for Eisenhower was informal, friendly, and sincerely interested in what they had to say.
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Success in OVERLORD depended in large measure on surprise. Eisenhower’s greatest advantage over Von Rundstedt, aside from air superiority,
was that he knew where and when the battle would be fought, while Von Rundstedt did not. If SHAEF could keep the Germans guessing, the Allies could tie down large numbers of enemy troops at relatively small expenditure. The Germans had to defend the entire coastline of France, and even after OVERLORD had been mounted they would not know whether it was the main assault or merely a diversion. If, on the other hand, they knew where and when Eisenhower was coming, they would unquestionably be able to concentrate enough strength to throw his forces back into the sea.

Surprise depended primarily on two points: the development of a cover plan that would make the Germans think the main attack was coming elsewhere, and guarding the secret of OVERLORD. Morgan and COSSAC had developed the cover plan, code name FORTITUDE, and Eisenhower stayed with it. FORTITUDE was designed to make the Germans think that the invasion would begin with an attack on southern Norway, launched from Scottish ports in mid-July, with the main assault coming later against Pas de Calais. The attack on Norway would be the responsibility of a non-existent British “Fourth Army,” while Patton was supposed to lead an American army of twelve divisions against Pas de Calais. The notion of Patton’s personal involvement was crucial in the deception, for the Germans had a high regard for his abilities and assumed that he would lead the main effort. His imaginary army had dummy troops, make-believe exercises, and contrived radio traffic conducted with deliberate indiscretion. FORTITUDE worked; a month after OVERLORD began the Germans still had an entire army waiting for Patton in the Pas de Calais area.
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FORTITUDE’S success resulted in part from the tight security that surrounded OVERLORD. One aspect of this security was the ban on diplomatic correspondence imposed by the War Cabinet at Eisenhower’s request. Eisenhower wanted to continue the ban after D-Day, for he feared that if it were lifted the Germans would realize that OVERLORD was the real thing and FORTITUDE would be compromised. Eden objected. The Foreign Secretary pointed out that all the Allied governments expected the ban to be lifted as soon as the invasion was announced, and that if it were not their anger at the British for imposing it in the first place would be all the greater. He asked Eisenhower to agree to lifting the ban on D plus one or two. Eisenhower replied that he realized that the British government had to carry the “entire burden” of responsibility for the ban, and the question of continuing it would be “influenced by factors of which I know very little.”
But, he added, if the ban were lifted the Germans would “deduce the fact that from that moment he is safe in concentrating his forces to repel the assault we have made.” He therefore asked that it be continued well beyond D-Day.
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