Eisenhower in War and Peace

“What should be our general line of action?” he asked Eisenhower. Ike had spent four years in Manila with MacArthur, and knew the situation on the ground. Marshall was testing him. As one biographer has written, “Marshall wanted to know who could do the job for him and who could not, and he wanted to know it immediately.” Eisenhower’s answer would tell Marshall whether he was up to the challenge.⁴

Ike was stunned. “I thought for a second and, hoping I was showing a poker face, answered, ‘Give me a few hours.’ ”

Eisenhower recognized the enormity of the problem—as well as the fact that he was under scrutiny. “If I was to be of any service to General Marshall, I would have to earn his confidence. My first answer would have to be unimpeachable, and the answer would have to be prompt. [It] should be short, emphatic, and based on reasoning in which I honestly believed. No oratory or glittering generality.”⁶

Three hours later, Ike marched back for a second interview. His thoughts were contained in a three-page triple-spaced memorandum that he had typed out but kept in his pocket.⁷ Marshall preferred his briefings conducted without notes. That compelled briefing officers to be concise, and Ike was.

Marshall appeared satisfied. “Eisenhower,” he said, “this Department is filled with able men who analyze their problems well but feel compelled to always bring them to me for final solution. I must have assistants who will solve their own problems and tell me later what they have done. The Philippines are your responsibility. Do your best to save them.”⁹

As Eisenhower recalled, “I resolved then and there to do my own work to the best of my ability and report to the General only situations of obvious necessity or when he personally sent for me.”¹⁰ Three days before, Ike had been chief of staff of Third Army in San Antonio. He was now Marshall’s deputy overseeing America’s military effort in the Philippines. Eisenhower stepped up to the responsibility. He and Brehon Somervell, the Army’s chief of supply, became a two-man team working against time. “I met with Somervell every day,” Ike recalled, “in a desperate hope of uncovering some new method of approach to a problem that defied solution. General Marshall maintained an intensive interest in everything we did and frequently initiated measures calculated to give us some help. In the final result all our efforts proved feeble enough, but I do not yet see what more could have been done.”¹¹

The voyage was a long one, and the Queen put in to Rio de Janeiro to refuel. It was spotted by an Italian agent who radioed Rome that the vessel, “with about 15,000 soldiers aboard,” had left port and was steaming eastward across the Atlantic. “For the next week we lived in terror,” said Ike.¹² When the ship arrived safely in Melbourne, the War Plans Division breathed a collective sigh of relief. “This was the kind of thing we kept from General Marshall. There was no use burdening his mind with the worries that we were forced to carry to bed with us. He had enough of his own.”¹³

Eisenhower assumed General Marshall was unaware of the risk he had run. But when he informed him that the Queen Mary had arrived safely in Australia, Marshall said, “I received that radio intercept [from Rio] the same time you did. I was hoping you might not see it and so I said nothing to you until I knew the outcome.”¹⁴

Eisenhower brought a unique set of skills to War Plans. In addition to his recent experience in the Philippines, he had served directly with the Army’s senior leadership for the past twenty years. For six years he had worked with Fox Conner and George Moseley, the intellectual kingpins of the interwar Army. He was with Pershing for two years, and had served with MacArthur for seven. Most recently he had worked for two of the most gifted troop commanders on active duty, Kenyon Joyce and Walter Krueger. He understood the nuance of command at the highest level, as well as the reality of translating orders into action in the field. Above all, he had learned to look at problems from the standpoint of high command.

On the surface, Ike and Marshall could not have been more different. Eisenhower made everyone feel at ease in his presence. Almost no one felt at ease in Marshall’s presence. Eisenhower’s grin was infectious, Marshall’s visage was intimidating. Everyone (except Marshall) called Eisenhower “Ike”; no one, not even President Roosevelt, called Marshall “George.” Eisenhower never forgot the name of anyone he met; Marshall had difficulty remembering the names of those closest to him. His longtime aide, Frank McCarthy, was always Frank McCartney; his secretary, Miss Nason, was Miss Mason; and his second wife, Katherine, was often “Lily”—which had been his first wife’s nickname.¹⁶ Both men had terrible tempers, and Ike blew his stack frequently. Despite his anger, Marshall remained calm on the surface. Rarely, if ever, did he betray the slightest emotion. When informed at his quarters early on the morning of June 6, 1944, that the Allies had landed in France, he hung up the phone with a curt “Thank you.” When Mrs. Marshall inquired whether he had asked how things were going, Marshall said he had not. “At this distance, don’t you think that is Eisenhower’s problem?”¹⁷

George Catlett Marshall was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, on the last day of December 1880. Like MacArthur, he was ten years older than Ike. All three men were raised by stern fathers and strong, adoring mothers who had lasting influences on their lives. Marshall had gone to the Virginia Military Institute, not West Point, and, like MacArthur, had been first captain of cadets. He was commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry in 1901, fought in the Philippines, was the honor graduate (like Eisenhower) at Leavenworth, and later taught there. In World War I, Marshall served as Fox Conner’s deputy at Pershing’s headquarters. When Pershing became chief of staff in 1921, Marshall became his principal military assistant. After four years with Pershing he went to China with the 15th Infantry, taught at the Army War College, and served as assistant commandant and chief academic officer at the Infantry School at Fort Benning. In 1933 he assumed command of the 8th Infantry at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, and also became the commanding officer of District F of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), responsible for organizing nineteen CCC camps in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.

The men were also similar in bearing and appearance. They wore neatly tailored uniforms with a minimum of ornamentation. Both were six feet tall, slender but muscular, with the loping stride of former athletes. Both were chain smokers. Both knew how to delegate. When they assigned a task, they stepped aside. Subordinates were free to follow whatever course they wished to get the job done. It was the old Army at its best. General Grant would tell a division commander what he wanted done. He would not tell him how to do it. Both Marshall and Eisenhower demanded team players, rejected exhibitionists, and preferred people who could solve problems rather than create them. They expected subordinates to take responsibility, and then backed them to the hilt when they did.

For the first two months in Washington, Eisenhower lived out of a suitcase. Fortunately his brother Milton, who was head of the Department of Agriculture’s Office of Land Use Coordination, had a house just outside Washington in Falls Church, Virginia, and Ike boarded with him and his wife, Helen. “Every night when I reached their house, something around midnight, both would be waiting up for me with a snack of midnight supper and a pot of coffee. I cannot remember ever seeing their house in daylight during all the months in Washington.”²⁰

Back in San Antonio, Mamie waited anxiously. She spent Christmas with John at West Point, and in late December received word that Ike’s stint in Washington would be permanent. After only six months at Fort Sam Houston, it was another change of station. Harry Butcher, who still ran the CBS affiliate in Washington, found a one-bedroom apartment for them at the Wardman Park Hotel—no easy task in wartime Washington, which had mushroomed to twice its size almost overnight. “I can’t tell you how I hate to dismantle this lovely house you and I fixed up so lovingly,” Mamie wrote her mother on January 15, 1942. “Every time I go onto the little porch room I could weep.”²¹

When Eisenhower learned his assignment in Washington would be permanent, he wrote General Krueger. “Up to yesterday,” said Ike, “I was determinedly clinging to the hope that I could return to your headquarters at a reasonably early date. That hope went glimmering when I found out last night that my transfer had been made permanent. I was not consulted and naturally I have never been asked as to any personal preference. This, of course, is exactly as it should be, but it does not prevent my telling you how bitterly disappointed I am to have to leave you, particularly at this time.”²³

Krueger replied instantly. “I had little hope of keeping you with the Third Army for long, but scarcely expected that you would be taken away this early in the game. However, I am sure that your new position offers a wider field for your abilities, and is in the best interests of the service.”²⁴

Eisenhower excelled under the pressure of wartime Washington. “Every day is the same—7:45 a.m. to 11:45 p.m.,” he noted in his diary. To LeRoy Lutes, the logistics specialist from the Louisiana maneuvers whom Marshall was also about to pluck from Third Army, Ike wrote:

As point man for the War Department’s oversight of the war in the Philippines, Eisenhower handled a variety of tasks. When former secretary Patrick J. Hurley (a colonel in the reserves) offered his services to FDR, Roosevelt sent him to Marshall, who sent him to Ike.^c “At that moment we were in search of a man to invigorate our filibustering attempts out of Australia,” said Eisenhower. “We needed someone to organize blockade runners for MacArthur, and Hurley was perfect for the job.” An old-fashioned buccaneer in politics, the former secretary had the energy and decisiveness the War Department needed. And having originally appointed MacArthur chief of staff, he was devoted to the cause of saving the Philippines.²⁶

Eisenhower told him to return at midnight prepared for extended field duty. Hurley was promoted to brigadier general on the spot. Ike and Leonard Gerow, who headed War Plans, each donated a star for the ex-secretary’s epaulets, and Hurley boarded the night flight to Australia armed with $10 million in cash (slightly more than $120 million currently) to buy whatever supplies and charter as many ships as he could to run the Japanese blockade.²⁷

The establishment of the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) was an unprecedented achievement in coalition warfare, and reflected the extraordinary ability of Roosevelt and Churchill to find common ground. Composed of the three British chiefs of staff—General Sir Alan Brooke, chief of the imperial general staff; Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, first sea lord; and Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal—and their American counterparts, George C. Marshall, Admiral Ernest R. King, and General H. H. (“Hap”) Arnold, the CCS became the final military authority for the conduct of the war. At FDR’s insistence, the CCS was headquartered in Washington, where its work was directed by Field Marshal Sir John Dill, who was Churchill’s personal representative. In July, Dill was joined by Admiral William D. Leahy, who had been recalled from retirement by FDR and who became, in effect, the chairman of the American chiefs of staff.^e

After the top-level command structure was established, Marshall insisted that the war in each theater be fought under a single supreme commander. This was an even greater breakthrough since the Army and Navy, not only in the United States, but in Great Britain as well, jealously guarded their command prerogatives and had never before taken orders from a different service. Marshall presented his proposal when the Combined Chiefs met on the afternoon of Christmas Day. “I am convinced,” he said, “that there must be one man in command of the entire theater—air, ground, and ships. We cannot manage by cooperation. Human frailties are such that there would be emphatic unwillingness to place portions of troops under another service. If we can make a plan for unified command now, it will solve nine-tenths of our troubles.… I favor one man being in control, but operating under a directive from here.”²⁹

To secure British approval, Marshall suggested that the first combined command be established in the southwest Pacific, and that General Sir Archibald Wavell, the British commander in chief in India and Burma, be appointed supreme commander. But there was no immediate agreement. When the CCS meeting ended at 5:20 p.m., Marshall turned to Ike: “Eisenhower, draft a letter of instruction for a supreme commander in the Southwest Pacific.”³⁰ Although it was the evening of Christmas Day, Ike returned to his desk at the War Department and hammered out a five-page draft. He finished shortly before midnight. The document specified the mission, defined the authority of the supreme commander, and provided safeguards for each nation in matters affecting national sovereignty. Eisenhower was writing on a blank slate. There were no precedents.

Marshall read Ike’s draft the following morning, made one minor change,³¹ and gave it to Secretary Stimson. Stimson was delighted. At 10 a.m. he and Marshall presented Eisenhower’s draft to the president, who was also enthusiastic.³² Bringing the British chiefs on board proved to be easier than convincing the U.S. Navy, but Admiral King eventually agreed. That left Churchill. On December 28, 1941, Marshall met with the prime minister, who initially resisted the concept. Secretary Stimson credited Marshall with gaining Churchill’s approval, and it was Stimson who suggested that the example of a supreme commander in the southwest Pacific be followed elsewhere.³³ Eisenhower’s draft, which established the principle of unity of command, became the model for the instructions issued to each supreme commander throughout the war—including Ike himself less than six months later.

Eisenhower’s ability to draft the first set of orders for a supreme commander convinced Marshall that Ike was ready to take over War Plans (G-3). Leonard Gerow was eased out. On February 14, 1942, Gerow was promoted to major general and given command of the 29th Division. Ike moved up two days later. Both men were delighted. “Well,” said Gerow, “I got Pearl Harbor on the books; lost the Philippines, Singapore, Sumatra, and all of the Dutch East Indies north of the barrier. Let’s see what you can do.”³⁴

One of the perquisites of the director of War Plans was to sit behind the desk General Philip H. Sheridan used when he was the Army’s commanding general in the 1880s. Sheridan’s desk, a massive walnut behemoth, was known throughout the War Department as “Sheridan’s throne.”³⁵ In Sheridan’s day it was adorned with a horseshoe from the great Morgan horse Winchester (née Rienzi) that carried Little Phil on his famous 1864 ride to save the day at Cedar Creek. Sheridan used the horseshoe as a paperweight. Winchester, stuffed and mounted, is on permanent display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, but the horseshoe has gone missing.

In addition to Sheridan’s desk, Ike was issued new quarters on generals’ row at Fort Myer. As the Army’s G-3, Eisenhower fell heir to Quarters 7, a handsome redbrick mansion with a panoramic view of Washington, just down the street from Marshall’s home at Quarters 1. It was a huge house, built at a time when servants were plentiful and general officers (or their wives) were independently wealthy. Ike and Mamie were thrilled at the move, but Eisenhower’s schedule left little time to appreciate their new quarters.

Eisenhower’s promotion to head War Plans coincided with General Marshall’s reorganization of the War Department. Many of the Army’s institutions dated from the Civil War. The general staff had been created in 1903, but in the intervening years had become bloated and calcified—poorly organized to provide timely response to the problems of global war. At least sixty officers, including the various branch and bureau chiefs, had access to the chief of staff, and thirty major commands reported directly to him. Marshall called the War Department “the poorest command post in the Army.”³⁶

“I was made a major general yesterday,” Ike wrote in his diary on March 28. “Still a lieutenant colonel [in the Regular Army] but the promotion is just as satisfactory as if a permanent one.^f This should assure that when I finally get back to troops, I’ll get a division.”³⁹

Two weeks before Eisenhower was promoted, his father, David, died in Abilene. Mamie received the message at home. “One of the hardest things I had to do was telephone Ike and tell him. He is a wonder. People said he worked right on and no one could have known. Guess it was his salvation (work). Poor fellow. I’ve felt so sorry for him.”⁴⁰

Ike’s stoicism masked his feelings. “I have felt terribly,” he recorded on his office notepad that evening. “I should like so much to be with my Mother these few days, but we are at war, and war is not soft. It was no time to indulge even in the deepest and most sacred emotions. I’m quitting work now, 7:30 p.m. I haven’t the heart to go on tonight.”⁴¹

As chief of OPD, it fell to Eisenhower to translate FDR’s “Hitler first” strategy into a battle plan. The prevailing wisdom—on both sides of the Atlantic—was that a cross-Channel attack would be sheer madness. “Even among those who thought a direct assault by land forces would eventually become necessary,” said Ike, “the majority believed that definite signs of cracking German morale would have to appear before it would be practicable to attempt such an enterprise.”⁴³

As Eisenhower recalled, he was one of the “very few, initially a very, very few,” who thought otherwise.⁴⁴ As Ike saw it, all other possibilities offered scant hope of success. To deploy American forces on the Russian front was out of the question; an attack through Norway or the Iberian Peninsula would merely nibble at the edges of Nazi power; and to move against Germany from the Mediterranean would involve enormous problems of logistics and terrain. Shipping difficulties alone would make such an endeavor unfeasible, to say nothing of the distance between the Balkans or the boot of Italy and Berlin. In Eisenhower’s view, the only scheme that made sense was to attack the Continent from across the Channel. American and British forces could be massed there more easily; the transatlantic journey from New York was the shortest; and there was no natural barrier between the coast of northwest Europe and Germany itself.

Eisenhower made four assumptions crucial to a successful cross-Channel attack. First, the Allies must have overwhelming air superiority. This was essential not only to protect the invasion force, but to isolate the battlefield and prevent the Germans from sending reinforcements. Second, the U-boat menace would have to be eliminated. Convoys crossing the Atlantic must have clear sailing. Third, supporting naval vessels should be present in sufficient strength to batter down coastal defenses; and fourth, specialized landing craft must be available in such numbers that a large army could be poured ashore rapidly, exploiting any initial breach in enemy defenses.⁴⁵

Ike set to work with a small team of dedicated believers—Thomas Handy, Robert Crawford, John Hull, and Albert Wedemeyer—to flesh out plans for the invasion.^g According to Eisenhower, “Not many officers were really aware of the existence of the project, nor had they heard any of the great arguments pro and con that went into its making. Many with whom we had to consult were always ready to express doubts of the blackest character.”⁴⁶

Eisenhower presented his planning draft to General Marshall on February 28, 1942.⁴⁷ “The burden of proof was on us,” Ike recalled, and the presentation was lengthy. Marshall quizzed the OPD team relentlessly. At the end he said, “This is it. I approve.”⁴⁸ Eisenhower was instructed to refine the draft for presentation to the president and the Combined Chiefs of Staff.

The following week the British appeared to draw back from their “Hitler first” commitment. Churchill was badly shaken by the fall of Singapore (“the Gibraltar of the Pacific”), and fretted about the fate of Australia and New Zealand. In a series of cables to Washington, he suggested that the Allied buildup in Europe be postponed.⁴⁹ That triggered a strategy session with FDR at the White House on March 5. Stimson and Marshall asserted that it was essential to concentrate American efforts in Europe, that Russia needed urgent support, and that the Pacific theater was secondary. Admiral King pressed the case for war in the Pacific. The next day Marshall met with Stimson to review the discussion. Marshall told the secretary that the War Plans Division was drawing up specific plans for an invasion of Europe, and sent Ike to brief him.

Ike’s unusual ability to think like his superiors paid dividends. On March 25 he presented the finished proposal to Marshall.⁵¹ Codenamed BOLERO, the plan was stripped to its essentials: Great Britain must be kept secure; Russia must be kept fighting; and the Middle East must be defended. “All other operations must be considered in the highly desirable rather than in the mandatory class.”

Eisenhower argued that the principal target for the Allies’ first offensive should be Germany, “to be attacked through western Europe.” Shipping routes were shortest; an early buildup of forces in Britain would compel Germany to withdraw troops from the Russian front; there were abundant airfields in Britain from which the air force could operate; use of British combat forces would be maximized (“If a large scale attack is made in any other region, a large portion of the British Forces will necessarily be held at home”); and, from the standpoint of an invading force, the highway and railroad networks of western Europe were superior to those found in any other area. After briefly detailing the requisites for a successful cross-Channel attack, he concluded with a dash of rhetorical saber rattling. “The War Plans Division believes that, unless this plan is adopted as the central aim of all our efforts, we must turn our backs upon the Eastern Atlantic and go, full out, as quickly as possible, against Japan.”⁵²

Marshall and Stimson reviewed Ike’s plan for a cross-Channel attack that morning, and then presented it to FDR at a meeting at the White House. The luncheon meeting, which was also attended by Navy Secretary Frank Knox, Admiral King, General Arnold, and Harry Hopkins, turned into a full-scale review of American military strategy. Roosevelt played devil’s advocate, suggesting, as Churchill might have done, a half dozen alternatives to a cross-Channel attack.⁵³ When Marshall stood his ground, FDR—who evidently was probing for weaknesses in Ike’s plan—gave his approval to the proposal and instructed Marshall to work out the details.

Time became the driving force. Relying on his knowledge of French geography, Eisenhower and his planners worked quickly to come up with an order-of-battle invasion plan (ROUNDUP). D-Day was set for April 1, 1943. By that time, the United States and Great Britain were to have assembled a force of forty-eight divisions (thirty American, eighteen British and Canadian), 5,800 combat aircraft, and 7,000 landing craft. The initial landing would be made on a six-division front between Calais and Le Havre, north of the Seine. British and American paratroops would drop behind enemy lines and prevent reinforcements from reaching the battlefield. As soon as the beachhead was secured, nine armored divisions would be “rushed in to break German resistance,” and spearhead a drive toward the Belgian port of Antwerp.⁵⁴

Eisenhower submitted the plan to General Marshall on April 1. Marshall and Stimson made two minor textual revisions, and carried the plan to the White House that afternoon. Once again the discussion was lengthy. Roosevelt examined the plan paragraph by paragraph. No minutes were kept, but in his diary Stimson said that Marshall “set the course while Hopkins and I held the laboring oar.”⁵⁵ ^h When FDR gave his final approval, Stimson noted that it would mark April 1, 1942, as one of the memorable dates in the war.⁵⁶ Roosevelt agreed that speed was essential. He directed Marshall and Hopkins to fly to London at once and present the plan to Churchill and the British chiefs of staff.

Marshall and Hopkins arrived in Britain on April 8, 1942. After a week of intensive discussions with Churchill and the British chiefs of staff, Eisenhower’s plan for a 1943 cross-Channel assault was approved. “I have read with earnest attention your masterly document about the future of the war and the great operations proposed,” Churchill cabled FDR on April 12. “I am in entire agreement in principle with all you propose, and so are the Chiefs of Staff.”⁵⁸

Roosevelt replied shortly. “Marshall and Hopkins have told me of the unanimity of opinion relative to our proposals, and I greatly appreciate the message you have sent me confirming this. I believe the results of this decision will be very disheartening to Hitler. It may well be the wedge by which we shall accomplish his downfall.”⁵⁹

Marshall, who had done most of the heavy lifting in London, shared the general enthusiasm but recognized the pitfalls that lay ahead. “Virtually everyone agrees with us in principle,” he told Army deputy chief of staff Joseph McNarney, “but many if not most hold reservations regarding this or that.”⁶⁰ Eisenhower took the agreement at face value. “I hope that at long last, after months of struggle by this division, we are all definitely committed to one concept of fighting. If we can agree on major purposes and objectives, our efforts will begin to fall in line and we won’t be thrashing around in the dark.”⁶¹

FDR was sometimes too quick off the mark, and this time he recognized that he had overstepped. As he often did when caught out, he dissembled. “I did not issue any directive to increase our forces in Australia,” he wrote Marshall. Roosevelt said he merely “wanted to know if it were possible to do so. I do not want BOLERO slowed down.”⁶⁵

The American buildup in Great Britain was saved for the moment.⁶⁶ But for Eisenhower it was a rude awakening. “BOLERO is supposed to have the approval of the President and Prime Minister. But the struggle to get everyone behind it, and to keep the highest authority from wrecking it by making additional commitments elsewhere is never ending. The actual fact is that not one man in twenty in the Government realizes what a grisly, dirty, tough business we are in.”⁶⁷

While Marshall was in London he took the measure of the American Army’s command structure in Britain and found it wanting. The senior American commander, Major General James E. Chaney (USMA, 1908), an air corps officer who had been sent originally to observe the Battle of Britain, seemed out of touch with the unfolding situation, and his headquarters remained wedded to peacetime routine. Officers wore civilian clothes to work, put in an eight-hour day, and always took weekends off. Little effort was made to coordinate with British military staffs, and the headquarters itself seemed to be operating in a vacuum. Marshall told Eisenhower to fly to London and assess the situation. With BOLERO about to begin, General Marshall wanted the Army’s command structure capable of handling it. “I’m taking off on the 23rd with General Arnold and others for a trip to England,” Ike wrote in his diary on May 21. “My own particular reason for going is an uneasy feeling that either we do not understand our own commanding general and staff in England or they don’t understand us. Our planning for BOLERO is not progressing.”⁶⁸

Eisenhower requested that Mark Clark, who was now chief of staff of Army Ground Forces, accompany the mission. “I felt that Clark’s observations regarding the suitability of the United Kingdom as a training and staging ground would prove valuable.”⁷⁰ Eisenhower and Clark, both of whom had been lieutenant colonels a year before, were newly minted major generals, Ike the senior by three weeks.

After a much delayed and rerouted flight across the Atlantic, Eisenhower and Clark rolled into Paddington Station on the morning of May 26, 1942. They were met by a smartly uniformed driver from Britain’s Motor Transport Corps (MTC), Kay Summersby. The MTC was a unit of volunteers originally formed by British post-debutantes that had done heroic service driving ambulances in London’s East End during the Blitz. They bought their own uniforms and initially received no pay for their services. The drivers were uniformly bright, attractive, upper-class, and knowledgeable about everything in which visiting dignitaries might be interested. Summersby was no exception. A former model for Worth, the Paris house of haute couture, she was recently separated from her husband, a wealthy London publisher, and linked romantically to a dashing young Army captain, Richard Arnold (USMA, 1932), who, like Summersby, was also still married.

Eisenhower and Clark remained in Britain for ten days, and Summersby was their driver throughout. The two Americans met repeatedly with the British chiefs of staff, and traveled extensively to examine possible staging areas. Ike and Clark were not pleased with what they saw. In their view Chaney and his staff were decidedly “in a back eddy, from which they could scarcely emerge except through a return to the United States.” That is how Eisenhower expressed it in his memoirs. At the time he said the whole outfit should be relieved and shipped back to the United States “on a slow boat, without destroyer escort,” a likely death sentence given the prevalence of Nazi U-boats at the time.⁷¹

As Montgomery made his way to the map board and picked up his pointer, Ike lit a cigarette. Montgomery sniffed the air without looking around and briskly asked: “Who’s smoking?”

Eisenhower put out the cigarette, but his anger smoldered. In his diary, Ike said simply, “General Montgomery is a decisive type who appears to be extremely energetic and professionally able.”⁷⁴ Riding back to London in the car with Clark, he said, “That son of a bitch.” Kay Summersby remembered looking in the rearview mirror and saw that Eisenhower’s “face was flaming red and the veins in his forehead looked like worms. He was furious … really steaming mad.”⁷⁵

Ike and Clark appreciated being chauffeured by someone as knowledgeable and attractive as Kay Summersby. On sightseeing excursions they would occasionally stop at an English pub for a pint of ale or a round of gin and tonics. Once they ignored the barriers of rank and invited Kay for lunch at the Connaught, one of London’s most elegant hotels, much to the consternation of neighboring diners. “We were three people,” Kay remembered. “Not two generals and a driver.”⁷⁶ It was at the Connaught that Ike began calling her Kay instead of Miss Summersby. Kay did not yet call Eisenhower “Ike,” but she was smitten nonetheless. As one biographer has written, “Sitting opposite him for the first time, she remarked on his ‘brilliant blue eyes, sandy hair—but not very much of it—fair and ruddy complexion.’ ” Kay thought Ike had a strong face, not conventionally handsome, but “very American, certainly very appealing. I succumbed immediately to that grin that was to become so famous.”⁷⁷

On the evening before their departure, Eisenhower, Clark, and Hap Arnold had dinner at their hotel and compared notes. All agreed that Chaney had to be replaced. The question was with whom. According to Arnold, “We agreed it had to be someone who was fully acquainted with our War Department plans. He must have the confidence of General Marshall and the Secretary of War. We also agreed that he should get to London as soon as possible.”⁷⁹

Eisenhower went to bed early, and Clark and Arnold continued talking. As Arnold remembered, “The two of us came to the conclusion that it should be Ike. Clark thought that since I knew Marshall better than he, I should present Eisenhower’s name after the three of us told the Chief of Staff of our conclusion that a change should be made at once.”⁸⁰

When the time for departure came, Kay Summersby drove Eisenhower and Clark to Northholt air base, outside London. At the field, Ike gave Summersby a “priceless” box of chocolates for her efforts—a gift that only visiting Americans could have come by in war-rationed England. “If I’m ever back this way, I hope you’ll drive me again,” he said.

Two days later, Eisenhower sent a second memo to Marshall recommending that whoever was designated to command American forces in England should be promoted immediately to three-star rank. Regardless of whether Chaney was retained, said Ike, the British did not take major generals seriously. “While, in other circumstances, the question of promotion might appear trivial, it would, in this case, have a definite effect upon orderly progress in getting ready for the attack.” Eisenhower repeated his recommendation that McNarney be named to the post.⁸³

Marshall accepted the second memo without comment. He told Eisenhower to draft a directive specifying the duties and responsibilities of a commanding general for a European theater of operations (ETO). This was the second time Eisenhower had been called upon to prepare the directive for a theater commander. The document, which Ike later referred to as “The Bible,” gave the theater commander absolute control of all American forces in the ETO, regardless of branch or service. “The mission of the commanding general, European theater, will be to prepare for and carry on military operations in the European theater against the Axis powers under the strategic directives of the combined U.S.-British Chiefs of Staff as communicated to him by the Chief of Staff U.S. Army.”⁸⁴ The directive was not as concise as Grant’s 1864 orders to Meade (“Lee’s army will be your objective. Where Lee goes there you will go also”), but the chain of command was clear. The Combined Chiefs of Staff would set policy, but the European theater commander reported to General Marshall.⁸⁵

When Eisenhower handed the draft directive to Marshall, he asked the chief to study it carefully because it could be an important document for the further waging of the war.

“Does the directive suit you?” Marshall asked. “Are you satisfied with it?”

“I’m glad it suits you,” said Marshall, “because these are the orders you are going to operate under.”

“You. You are in command of the European theater. Whom would you like to take with you?”

Eisenhower was briefly flustered. He had no combat experience, and his only command position in the past twenty years had been an infantry battalion at Fort Lewis. But he recovered quickly.

“I’d like to talk with Clark before I tell you when we can leave,” said Eisenhower.⁸⁸

Marshall cleared Eisenhower’s name with Stimson and FDR, and on June 11 Ike’s appointment to command the European theater was announced.⁹⁰ Three weeks later he was promoted to lieutenant general, leapfrogging sixty-six major generals (including George Patton and Jacob Devers) who were considerably senior. With the promotion, Eisenhower ranked eighteenth among all officers on active duty.⁹¹ His rise had been meteoric. In little more than ten weeks, dating from his promotion from brigadier to major general, Ike had moved ahead of 228 general officers with greater seniority.

Patton wrote immediately to congratulate him. “I particularly appreciate it,” Eisenhower replied, “because you and I both know you should have been wearing additional stars long ago. It is entirely possible that I will need you sorely: and when the time comes I will have to battle my diffidence over requesting the services of a man so much senior and so much more able than myself. As I have often told you, you are my idea of a battle commander.… I would certainly want you as the lead horse in the team.”⁹²

Eisenhower also had a personal request for King. He wanted his CBS friend Harry Butcher, a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve (USNR), to go to London with him as his naval aide. “I’ve got to have someone I can relax with,” he told King. “Someone I can trust absolutely. Someone who isn’t subservient. Someone who will talk back.”⁹⁵ The fact that Butcher was an excellent bridge player and well versed in the black arts of public relations went unsaid. Again, King saw no problem. In addition to Butcher, Sergeant Mickey McKeogh, and Major Tex Lee, Eisenhower snatched Colonel T. J. Davis from the adjutant general’s office to be his own AG. Ike and Davis had shared eight years in MacArthur’s headquarters and trusted each other instinctively. Nothing is more important for a commanding general than to have an adjutant who is on the same wavelength. John Rawlins served Grant in that capacity, and few would question that he was a valuable contributor to Grant’s success.

Three days before Eisenhower departed, he received a surprise visit from Philippine president Manuel Quezon. Quezon had been evacuated from Corregidor by submarine and was in Washington to plead the cause of the now-occupied Philippines. The president-in-exile presented Ike with a citation for his service in Manila, and offered him an honorarium, evidently exceeding $100,000 ($1.1 million currently). Eisenhower accepted the citation but declined the emolument. To accept the money, he told Quezon, “might operate to destroy whatever usefulness I may have to the allied cause in the present war.”⁹⁶ Eisenhower’s attitude contrasts sharply with that of Douglas MacArthur, who four months earlier had accepted $500,000 ($5.5 million) in cash from Quezon prior to the president’s departure from the Philippines. Major General Richard Sutherland, MacArthur’s chief of staff, received $75,000 ($830,000), with lesser amounts given to others on MacArthur’s staff.⁹⁷

Eisenhower departed from Bolling Field at 9 a.m. on June 23, 1942, accompanied by Clark and his personal staff. For Mamie, Ike’s appointment to command the European theater was a mixed blessing. Not only would she be separated from her husband for an indefinite period, but she was unceremoniously ordered to clear their quarters at Fort Myer within the week. “It’s a lovely way the Army has,” said Lucius D. Clay. “When your difficulties start, they make it more difficult.”⁹⁹

This was Mamie’s fourth move in less than a year. Her parents urged her to come to Denver, but she preferred to remain in Washington, surrounded by old Army friends and closer to John at West Point. Initially, she and Ruth Butcher, Harry’s wife, shared an apartment at the Wardman Park. Later she found a two-bedroom apartment there for herself, where she remained for the duration. Eisenhower, who was perpetually shy about any display of affection, asked Mamie not to come to the airfield to see him off, but to stand by the flagpole at Fort Myer so he could see her as the plane made its ascent over the Potomac.

^a Churchill had offered the use of the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth to Marshall at the ARCADIA conference in December. When General Marshall asked how many troops the ships could carry, Churchill replied that they could take 8,000 men with access to lifeboats, or 14,000 if one ignored the safety precautions. During five years of war, the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth safely transported more than 300,000 troops. All of the crossings were made without escorts, the vessels were fully loaded on each crossing, and never once did the ships encounter an enemy U-boat. Michael Korda, Ike: An American Hero 258n (New York: HarperCollins, 2007). Also see United States Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Conferences at Washington, 1941–1942, and Casablanca, 1943 102, 192–95, 201 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968).

^b Some have suggested that General Marshall occasionally called George Patton “Georgie,” though the evidence is sketchy.

^c Eisenhower had served directly under Hurley in the War Department during the last three years of the Hoover administration.

^d Roosevelt and Churchill, and their staffs, had met previously in Placentia Bay, off the coast of Newfoundland, in early August 1941. At that meeting, FDR and Churchill agreed on a “Hitler first” strategy, and Roosevelt undertook to expedite lend-lease shipments to Britain and Russia, and provide American escorts for British convoys. The meeting concluded with the promulgation of the Atlantic Charter, loosely defining Allied war aims. Jean Edward Smith, FDR 498–502, and the sources cited therein (New York: Random House, 2007).

^e The statutory basis of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (and an independent Air Force) was not established until passage of the Defense Reorganization Act of 1947. World War II was fought on an ad hoc basis, but the American element of the Combined Chiefs of Staff (Marshall, King, and Arnold, with Leahy as chairman) became the model for the act.

^f Although soon promoted to lieutenant general and then full general, Eisenhower retained the permanent rank of lieutenant colonel until after the Sicily campaign, when he was promoted to major general in the Regular Army.

^g Brigadier General Thomas T. Handy succeeded Ike as director of OPD (G-3), and later commanded American forces in Europe (1949–53). Brigadier General Crawford served later as Eisenhower’s supply officer (G-4) at SHAEF and deputy commanding general of the Services of Supply in Europe. Colonel John Hull became the Army’s G-3 after Handy, and finished his career as commander in chief of UN forces in the Far East (1953–55). Colonel Albert C. Wedemeyer, who had attended the German Kriegsakademie in Berlin (1936–38), replaced Stilwell in China, later served as the Army’s G-3, and commanded Sixth Army (1948–51).

^h Remarkable as it may seem to a contemporary audience, FDR did not allow minutes or notes to be taken at meetings. As a consequence, the after-meeting diary entries of Stimson, Hopkins, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, and Marshall are the only records that exist. FDR Library to JES, December 9, 2008.

ⁱ On May 11, 1942, Eisenhower prepared a memorandum for Marshall pertaining to the organization of BOLERO and detailing the requirements for the “type of officer to serve as Commanding General, United States Forces” in Britain. “If BOLERO develops as planned, there will come a time when United States Forces’ activity in that region will become so great as to make it the critical point in our war effort. When this comes about, it is easily possible that the President may direct the Chief of Staff [Marshall], himself, to proceed to London and take over command. The officer previously serving as Commander should be one who could fit in as a Deputy or a Chief of Staff. This will insure continuity in planning and execution, and in understanding.” Eisenhower to Marshall, May 11, 1942, in The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, vol. 1, The War Years 292–93, Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1970), hereafter 1 War Years (Eisenhower’s emphasis).

^j In 1956, Marshall told Forrest C. Pogue, his biographer, “I sent Eisenhower and some others over so the British could have a look at them and then I asked Churchill what he thought of them. He was extravagant in his estimation of them, so I went ahead with my decision on Eisenhower.” Churchill did not meet Eisenhower on this trip, but he evidently heard about him from the British chiefs. Pogue, 2 Marshall 339, 474.

^k Eisenhower’s apprehension about Stark proved unnecessary. As soon as Ike arrived in London, Stark called on him and promised his support. “You may call on me at any hour, day or night, for anything you wish,” said Stark. “And when you do, call me ‘Betty,’ a nickname I’ve always had in the service.” Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe 54 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1948).

EIGHT

With Marshall in Washington