In the first two and a half months of SHAEF’s existence, problems fell into two distinct categories: those under the purview of the CCS, and those that devolved on Eisenhower’s commands. At the end of March, Eisenhower believed his headquarters was well on the road toward accomplishing its essential tasks: forming a supreme headquarters and lesser staffs and mastering all the details of organization, the assignment of personnel, and the vast problems of moving troops and supplies. “The matters that have really caused us trouble,” he noted in his diary, “are those in which only the Combined Chiefs of Staff can make final decisions.” He listed three: the allocation of resources and whether and when to launch Anvil; the organization and command of the air forces; and political matters, especially pertaining to the French.1 Unless the chiefs could come together, the Overlord ship might never sail.
Aside from the operational value he attached to Anvil as a complement to Overlord, Eisenhower pointed to other considerations. As he explained to Marshall on 17 January, “according to my understanding the British and American staffs at Teheran definitely assured the Russians that ANVIL would take place. Secondly, we have put into the French Army a very considerable investment. Since these troops, plus the Americans and the British, cannot profitably be used in decisive fashion in Italy, we must open a gateway for them into France or all of our French investment will have been wasted. Altogether there would be a great number of American and other forces locked up in the Mediterranean from whom we will be deriving no benefit.” There was another factor he omitted: Marseilles, France’s largest prewar port, and Toulon offered alternative points of entry for manpower and materiel coming into the theater.2
Whatever the advantages, by 6 February the British restated their opposition to Anvil. On 26 January the BCOS had agreed to the concept of Anvil on the condition it contained two divisions, but by 6 February it became clear the Allies would not possess the requisite landing craft to mount concurrent operations in northern and southern France. As Smith pointed out, the difference of opinion never followed national lines. Cunningham, now first sea lord, sided with Eisenhower, while Smith emerged as the leading doubting Thomas in the American camp. Smith felt Anvil would deflect scarce Allied resources, especially for the vital buildup phase before the lodgments became secure. Intimately involved in assessing the landing craft issue, Smith concluded the strategic debate would necessarily come down to lift, and there was not enough for both operations. Something had to give, and that something had to be the southern France operation: Anvil’s demise, its downgrading to a threat, or a delay.
On 6 February Smith received a study from the combined planners in Washington that floored him. Based on their calculations, enough landing craft would become available by 31 May for a seven-division Overlord and a two-division Anvil. This flew in the face of everything his own people had told him and set off another hurried exchange of communications between London and Washington. As Marshall noted, the “battle of numbers” greatly confused the entire puzzle. To Eisenhower, Marshall marveled at the turn of events. “The British and American Chiefs of Staff seem to have completely reversed themselves,” he wrote, “and we have become Mediterraneanites and they heavily pro-OVERLORD.” Attesting to his continued support, Marshall still wondered if “localitis” had “not warped [Eisenhower’s] judgment.”3 A deflated Eisenhower confided in his diary, “looks like ANVIL is doomed. I hate this.”4
Smith and Handy held marathon telephone exchanges on 8–9 February, trying to narrow the numbers gap. The combined planners in Washington, in Smith’s view, badly underestimated the initial force requirements and overestimated the lift capacities of infantry landing craft. SHAEF operated on the basis of division slices, not just combat troops. Divisional assault scales called for 25,000 men, not the 15,000 assumed in Washington. This meant that, according to SHAEF calculations, a seven-division operation called for a lift of 175,000 men, not 105,000. The Washington planners, based on experience in the Pacific, figured on three trips per vessel with 1,400 men in each wave; the London planners’ calculated on two trips and 960 men. In addition, calculations for the assault scales did not provide for the immediate buildup phase, which increased the divisional slice to 40,000, or for the vehicles to move materiel, especially ammunition, from the beaches to the dumps and then forward to the troops.
And, as Smith reminded Handy, “Eisenhower was strong for ANVIL.” Smith and Handy moved toward a compromise, but the naked fact remained that there would not be enough landing craft for the sevendivision cross-Channel attack without a major deployment from the Mediterranean.5
The prime minister considered the problem serious enough for a CCS meeting in London; failing that, he wanted Marshall to come over. As Churchill told Roosevelt, “The OVERLORD Commanders-in-Chief must know where they stand and every day counts.”6 Marshall headed off Churchill, and the JCS empowered Eisenhower to negotiate directly with the BCOS. Landing craft constituted only the subtext of the wider issues of Anvil and future Allied strategy in the Mediterranean.
Eisenhower and Smith attended a noon BCOS meeting on 10 February. Nothing much transpired; a full-ranging discussion would await an answer to the landing-craft issue. Marshall and King dispatched MG John Hull of OPD and RADM Charles Cooke Jr., who arrived in London on 12 February. A series of conferences ensued at Norfolk House. On 19 February Eisenhower, Smith, and Cooke, representing the JCS, presented their findings to the British chiefs. As Smith and Strong foresaw, Anzio had accomplished none of its objectives except tying down German divisions. By the middle of February parts of two German corps numbering 100,000 troops launched a vicious counteroffensive against the lodgment. Lucas predicted before the landing that Shingle bore “a strong odor of Gallipoli … [with] the same amateur still on the coach’s bench.” Churchill accepted no responsibility, instead blaming the senior officers. “I had hoped we were hurling a wildcat into the shore,” he snidely remarked, “but all we got was a stranded whale.”7 Brooke believed Anzio rendered Anvil impossible and privately concluded that Eisenhower was pushing for the southern France landings merely to please Marshall. Portal thought “the Americans wanted to get all their troops into the European theater and out from under Alexander.”8
Marshall added to SHAEF’s headaches. On 10 February he floated a fantastic airborne scheme that made Giant II look timid in comparison; he proposed “a true vertical envelopment” by establishing an airhead south of Evreux, seventy miles beyond Caen. “We have never done anything like this before,” he told Eisenhower, “and frankly, that reaction makes me tired.”9 Not for the first time, Marshall’s scheme smacked of the unreal, but Smith put the planners to work.
Montgomery finally added his voice to the debate. Agreeing with Brooke that Anzio made Anvil difficult, he pointed out that “fought out” divisions in Italy could not easily regroup and redeploy for the southern France operation. “No point in saving landing craft in the Mediterranean if ANVIL cannot be staged,” he wrote on 19 February. Two days later he argued that the Italian Front had already accomplished its mission by tying down German divisions. “We should now make a definite decision to cancel ANVIL,” he stated, and recommended “very strongly that we now throw the whole weight of our opinion onto the scales vs. ANVIL. Let us have two really good major campaigns—one in Italy and one in OVERLORD.”10
Brooke and Montgomery made an impression. After the meeting with the BCOS, Eisenhower wired Marshall, indicating the situation in Italy probably ruled out Anvil as envisioned. At the meeting he had clearly stated the “utmost urgency” of a CCS decision on “whether the prospects in the Mediterranean can really offer any reasonable chance of executing ANVIL.” The BCOS wired Washington recommending “the immediate cancellation of ANVIL.”11
In the meantime, Smith and Hull talked to Handy on the phone. Echoing Montgomery’s assessment that tired divisions and Italian commitments made Anvil doubtful, Smith nevertheless said Eisenhower still believed that “planning for ANVIL and as much of the preparation as possible should go on up [to] the last minute. It may be that ANVIL cannot be launched simultaneously with OVERLORD, but the situation in Italy might clear up and ANVIL might be put on a little later.” Pressed, Smith conceded that Eisenhower “is beginning to believe that there cannot be an ANVIL, much as he regrets it.” Smith’s personal view, he informed Handy, “is that ANVIL as an operation is not going to have any material effect on OVERLORD during the first fifteen to thirty days.” Yet Anvil planning must continue because “we may find that we cannot do any OVERLORD.” As he explained, “the buffer of German divisions confronting us across the channel is just now approaching the absolute maximum we can handle.” If Overlord went by the wayside, the center of gravity must shift back to the Mediterranean in 1944. “I have felt right along,” Smith continued, “that we have another month really before we need to make a final decision on ANVIL.” Smith and Hull reported good progress in closing the gap on the differing landing craft estimates. Finally, Smith killed Marshall’s vertical envelopment plan, explaining that the airborne units must stay fixed on taking Cherbourg “early in the game. Our plans contemplate actually a fast air operation supported by a landing.” Hull proved even less diplomatic. He reported the idea had been universally dismissed as unfeasible; “a glance at the map will prove the point.”12
Smith always proved extremely proprietary when outsiders came to SHAEF lending advice. “The people were all our friends,” he remembered, “but we accused them of being desk soldiers.” The Hull-Cooke mission fell into that category. Smith resented the War Department using the Pacific as the model. “We had to tell them the facts of life.”13 Smith told them they should forget theoretical capacities of landing craft and look at the beaches. MG Charles Corlett had a similar experience, only worse. Although he was fresh from conducting an amphibious assault at Kwajalein in the central Pacific that, in Marshall’s estimate, “approached perfection,” Eisenhower passed Corlett over for a corps command in Neptune in favor of Ike’s friend Gerow. Eisenhower promised Marshall he would make Corlett available “so that his experience would be available to all.”14 The British proved very keen on exploiting Corlett’s expertise, but the Americans made him feel like “a son-of-a-bitch from out of town.” He wrote a paper arguing that the estimated rate of fire for artillery was far too low and called for the development of new methods for bringing more ammunition over the beaches in the early phase of the landings. Events proved him right on both counts. Smith had a talk with him, and when Corlett cited Pacific experience, Smith lost his temper. Pounding the table, Smith yelled, “Do I have to defend the plan to you!” Smith exemplified the attitude Corlett found everywhere in ETO. Smith and Bradley both rejected Corlett’s advice on flotation tanks. Everybody from Eisenhower and Smith on down, in Corlett’s opinion, considered anything that happened in the Pacific as “strictly bush league stuff, meriting no consideration.”15
On 21 February Roosevelt entered the Anvil fray. At a conference with the JCS, the president issued instructions to Eisenhower “to call attention that we are committed to a third power and I do not feel we have any right to abandon this commitment for ANVIL without taking up the matter with that third power.”16 Despite this communication from the president, Eisenhower admitted to Marshall the next day that the “prospects for ANVIL in the hoped strength … have deteriorated in past ten days.”17
News of Eisenhower’s appointment remained classified until 15 February. On 22 February Churchill reviewed the state of the war in a speech before the House of Commons. When he announced Eisenhower’s name as supreme commander, the House erupted in cheers. More cheering greeted the prime minister’s depiction of the unprecedented unity that existed in the combined headquarters. Then he announced Tedder’s name as deputy supreme commander: more cheers. Finally he revealed the name of the chief of staff, Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith: silence. Such is the lot of faceless staff officers.18
The next evening Eisenhower and Smith had a rare opportunity to take their minds off their many troubles. The British staged a dinner at Claridge’s and presented Eisenhower with a silver salver engraved with all the names of his chief British subordinates from the Mediterranean. Admiral Cunningham made the presentation and, after acknowledging Eisenhower’s sterling traits as a man, added, “we must not forget your second self—Bedell—to whom all of us owe a great debt and whose great qualities fill us with admiration.”19 These tributes reminded both men that, despite the immediate stresses, the bonds of the alliance held firm.
After a month of “sweating,” Eisenhower intimated to Smith on 26 February that he would reverse his position and call off Anvil in exchange for the release of Mediterranean landing craft for Overlord. Despite his deep reservations about both operations, Smith talked Eisenhower out of sending the cable to Marshall. Another of the pressures on Eisenhower grew out of the relentless British press campaign that elevated Montgomery to the station of Britain’s greatest general since Wellington and correspondingly denigrated Eisenhower to affable chairman of the board. Smith had been goading Eisenhower into asserting his command prerogatives. He pushed the idea of Eisenhower’s assuming the ground command the day after the landings, and since 11 February he had been quietly expanding the staff of the advance command post at Portsmouth to facilitate the rapid movement of the headquarters across the Channel. He harped on the importance of not repeating what had happened after Alexander’s appointment, when Eisenhower and AFHQ had found themselves bypassed and overshadowed by the Eighteenth and Fifteenth Army Groups. “I kept arguing with him on the question and pushing him to take over,” remarked Smith. “[I] wanted to handle [Overlord] like a river crossing.” Smith also railed against the general impression that the British commander in chief exercised decisive authority over planning and the orchestration of Overlord. Smith feared that if SHAEF gave “the impression of changing our minds too quickly,” Eisenhower would sacrifice credibility and ultimately damage himself as supreme commander.20
Smith’s advice did the trick; Eisenhower agreed that SHAEF should hold on to Anvil for as long as possible. As Smith had argued, until the landing craft dilemma got sorted out, no real decision could emerge. SHAEF suggested a bargain: the Italian Front would enjoy priority for ongoing and future operations in the Mediterranean in exchange for Wilson’s agreement to continue planning and preparations for Anvil. The entire question would undergo reappraisal on 20 March. The political heads readily agreed to the compromise. As Butcher noted, SHAEF decided “to ‘saw wood’ for a little longer.”21 Just as the Anvil debate subsided, another crisis hit.
At the end of February, Churchill, in another of his “bull in a china shop” moods, suddenly concluded he did not trust Leigh-Mallory. As Brooke noted, “PM had been stepping in and muddling things badly as he has been ‘crashing in where angels fear to tread!’” In the middle of February, the first fight over control of the heavy bombers ended in a no decision. Leigh-Mallory advanced his transportation plan—diverting the bombers from attacking German aircraft production facilities and refined petroleum installations (Operation Pointblank) and using them to paralyze the rail networks in northern France, the Low Countries, and western Germany. Spaatz and AM Arthur Harris of Bomber Command opposed the plan and received support from Churchill, Brooke, Portal, and Arnold. Tedder backed Leigh-Mallory. The bomber barons refused to surrender any measure of control over the strategic air forces to Leigh-Mallory, who came from Fighter Command. Churchill wanted Tedder, the “Aviation Lobe of Eisenhower’s brain,” in command of any air forces assigned to Overlord. Eisenhower blistered at Churchill’s intrusion. Eisenhower backed the transportation plan, but he also insisted on his right to employ the strategic air forces in the theater. Even though Spaatz and Harris made it clear they would not willingly follow orders issued by Leigh-Mallory, Tedder also rejected any disruption of the high command.22 Still with no agreed air plan, Eisenhower ordered Tedder to expedite planning, or “the P.M. will be in this thing with both feet.” Eisenhower would control all air units through Tedder, but he emphasized that Leigh-Mallory would actually exercise command of assigned and attached air units for definite periods and specific missions.23
How control and command and coordination would function in the absence of an agreed plan and without a fixed chain of command bedeviled the discussions. After a number of meetings, Tedder and Portal cut a deal on 9 March: Tedder would supervise air operations in Overlord, and Portal, as executive agent of the CCS, would superintend the execution of Pointblank as it related to the invasion. Leigh-Mallory remained in command of forces assigned by the CCS to Overlord. The strategic air forces in Europe and the Mediterranean would be at the operational disposal of Eisenhower, subject to the concurrence of Portal. Eisenhower noted to Smith that the deal was “exactly what we want.” Smith replied, “I think this is excellent and a most fair solution.”24
Content the air command agreement went his way, Eisenhower shifted his attention back to Anvil. Eisenhower informed Marshall that planning, down to regimental combat teams, could not proceed without some resolution of the landing-craft issue. “If the matter does not clear up within a couple of days I shall send Smith on a hurried trip home although I badly need him at this juncture.”25
On 16 March Marshall informed Eisenhower the JCS had proposed reopening discussions with the BCOS on Anvil. “The basis for a final decision appears no better than a month ago,” Marshall observed. “The only clear-cut decision would be to cancel the ANVIL operation.” Marshall solicited Eisenhower’s views, “including your present appraisal of the landing craft situation and the latest dates that you can accept craft for use in OVERLORD.” He concluded by saying, “We will support your desire regarding the ANVIL decision, whatever it may be.”26
The next day Smith got on the transatlantic phone to Handy. Handy thought, “We better hang on to [Anvil] as long as we can. I am afraid you are the people who are going to regret more than anybody else cancelling it in the long run.” Smith agreed but complained, “You can’t imagine the difficulties here in planning. It is enough to drive you mad with this uncertainty and these changes. When you have to sit down and figure the balance of divisions, the loading tables and everything of that sort and you don’t know what kind of craft you are going to load them in or whether you are going to have as many as you think you are going to have, it is enough to drive a man insane.” Currently his planners operated on 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. Any time anybody will guarantee us there will be a strong landing in the Mediterranean we will stick by that measly figure, but time is getting short.”27
Eisenhower and Smith reevaluated Anvil on 20 March as promised. “I firmly believe that ANVIL as we originally visualized it,” Eisenhower reported to Marshall, “is no longer a possibility either from the standpoint of time in which to make all the necessary preparations or in probability of fresh and effective troops at the appointed date.”28 SHAEF proposed abandoning the concept of a two-division, building to a tendivision, Anvil in exchange for all the landing craft in the Mediterranean except for a one-division lift.29 A crestfallen Eisenhower complained to Marshall, “More talk seems completely useless.” The arguments of the last two months had not changed “the convictions of any single individual.” He warned, “Matters must be cleared up soon.”30 They would not be. The BCOS readily accepted Eisenhower’s offer, but the JCS balked. The American chiefs admitted the infeasibility of launching concurrent operations but argued for Anvil’s postponement, not cancellation.
That same day, 21 March, the air command deal unraveled. There was never much chance it would survive. Indeed, all throughout the Mediterranean campaign, AFHQ and the tactical and strategic air forces had sought fixed command chains and failed. All the command lines remained tenuous and might have become tendentious except for the fact that Eisenhower’s command style worked so well—and then only because of the personalities involved; he enjoyed the trust and admiration of Tedder, Cunningham, and Alexander. Personalized command simply could not function without these feelings of mutual regard. Relations with Montgomery, Leigh-Mallory, Ramsay, Portal, and Harris remained on the whole congenial, but never more. But the British were not the problem. On 14 March Leigh-Mallory forwarded his plan for attacking rail targets in France to Smith, and it mentioned SHAEF’s control over the strategic air forces. Smith readily approved Leigh-Mallory’s plan and forwarded it to the BCOS.31 The British exchanged letters with the JCS, and the American chiefs expressed their confusion over the meanings of “supervision” and “command” in relation to the Portal-Tedder agreement.
By 22 March Eisenhower neared the end of his rope. “For two months I have been struggling in every possible way to provide for a real ANVIL but I have come to the conclusion that we are simply striving for the impossible.” Despite his and Smith’s best efforts, the American and British chiefs remained widely divided. In the first week of March, after weeks of twists and turns, it seemed that he had finally worked out the instrumentality of the air command, but now it flew apart. Without agreements for the distribution of landing craft and naval support, detailed Overlord planning could not proceed. Endless conferences, studies, planning, and revisions of plans—from SHAEF down to regiments—swallowed time and expended energies, while the vital business of preparing troops for combat—discipline, morale, and training—took a backseat. A thoroughly disillusioned supreme commander vowed in his diary on 22 March that if he could not resolve the air command conundrum to his satisfaction, he would “take drastic action and inform the Combined Chiefs of Staff that unless the matter is settled at once I will request relief from this Command.”32
Things never went that far. The British, who thought the Americans approached the question like lawyers, fastened on the word direction rather than command. Direction did not constitute command, but was much more declarative than supervision. Eisenhower exclaimed “Amen!” when he heard the news. On 25 March he presided over a meeting at the Air Ministry with Portal, Tedder, Spaatz, Harris, and Leigh-Mallory. Tedder made Leigh-Mallory’s case for the transportation plan; he argued there was not enough time before D-day for Pointblank to bite enough to disable the Luftwaffe. Portal and Harris gave their tepid and qualified support; MG Lewis Brereton, the acting Ninth Air Force commander, had already approved the plan. On 26 March Eisenhower endorsed the transportation plan, agreeing with Tedder that it provided the best means to “help the Army get and stay ashore.”33 It took another three weeks of wrangling over details, but on 14 April the CCS finally turned the air forces over to Eisenhower’s “direction.” The next day Tedder issued a directive stating that the primary objective remained the destruction of the Luftwaffe; secondarily, the strategic air forces would be employed against transportation facilities. However, no clear command channels evolved. Eisenhower, Tedder, and Spaatz vowed to stay in personal contact. “In other words,” Spaatz commented, “from an organizational point of view it was lousy.” Spaatz considered it “the wrong idea in trying to put on paper all complications of lateral staff functions and coordinations between staffs of the organizational setup as now in being.” But, he noted, “I have always been able to work satisfactorily with General Eisenhower regardless of conflicts between staff members.” As Morgan remarked, “It will, I think, be a considerable time before anybody will be able to set down in the form of an organizational diagram the channels through which General Eisenhower’s orders reached his aircraft.”34
On the morning of 27 March the British chiefs came out to Bushy Park for discussions on the latest JCS proposal for moving landing craft committed to the Pacific to Overlord in exchange for a British pledge to stage a 10 July Anvil. Eisenhower argued that taking Rome bore no significance compared to maximal support for Overlord. Brooke refused any commitment to an unpredictable operation four months in the future. Portal wanted the deal, allowing for a firm decision later when matters clarified.35 Patton arrived for lunch. The initial reason for the BCOS’s visit was ceremonial. In the king’s name, Brooke awarded Patton and Smith their knighthoods.36
The next day the BCOS signaled their acceptance of the offer of landing craft and agreed that Anvil should be postponed, not abandoned; they conceded that planning should proceed on the basis of a July operation, but no final decision would emerge until a review of the entire problem took place sometime in early June. The BCOS also consented to shift SHAEF’s minimum requirements of additional assault craft from the Mediterranean. On Anvil, the British contended no solution could emerge until Fifth Army linked with the Anzio beachhead. After making a real concession toward a settlement, the JCS reacted, in Dill’s words, with shock and pain to the testy British response, and on 12 April the JCS withdrew the offer to divert assault shipping from the Pacific. The Americans now insisted the British provide “a firm directive” on Anvil.
Confronted by this bitter altercation, Eisenhower pleaded with Marshall “that no stone should be left unturned in order to achieve an understanding that will allow us to have this additional strength.”37 Brooke noted in his diary, “Marshall is quite hopeless, I have seldom seen a poorer strategist! He cannot see beyond the end of his nose.”38 On 14 April Marshall wired that the American chiefs’ acquiescence to the British view amounted to a cancellation of Anvil, and the U.S. Navy refused any diversion of landing craft from the Pacific. Later that day Marshall explained that if the CCS took landing craft from the Pacific, it would slow the momentum of operations against the Japanese; he maintained the cancellation of Anvil at least provided Wilson the flexibility to stage the operation at a later date.39 Churchill summed up everyone’s sense of frustration: “The whole of this difficult question only arises out of the absurd shortages of LSTs. How it is that the plans of two great empires like Britain and the United States should be so much hamstrung by a hundred or two of these particular vessels will be never understood by history.”40
On 17 April Eisenhower and Smith attended a conference with Churchill, Brooke, and Alexander. They agreed on new wording for a directive to Wilson. The first priority remained tying down as many German divisions in Italy as possible; operations in Italy would center on linking the main battle line with the Anzio forces. Sufficient amphibious lift must stay in the theater in the hope of retaining the initiative in Italy. However, preparations for Anvil must continue, and the operation must be executed “as soon after the beginning of OVERLORD as the situation in the Mediterranean will permit.”41
To Butcher, Eisenhower seethed at Washington’s refusal to provide the added lift. He complained about the “debate reflecting increasing American desire in this election year to prosecute the war in the Pacific.” But “if OVERLORD failed,” he predicted, “the President couldn’t possibly be elected and … if he were informed of the seriousness of the situation over here he would quickly … make certain that not only OVERLORD but the Mediterranean get the landing craft which are so essential. So far virtually the only additional landing craft we have received for OVERLORD have been at the expense of ANVIL.”42
After a further exchange of messages between the BCOS and the JCS, King stated he now stood prepared to send the shipping he and Marshall had offered earlier for Anvil. The resultant CCS directive called for an all-out offensive in Italy, with the possibility of future attacks in the peninsula—all designed to neutralize German forces in support of Overlord—and the postponement and possible downgrading of Anvil to a threat. Once again, unable to agree on an overall strategy in the Mediterranean, the CCS sanctioned drift. Events on the ground—and the German response—again dictated the direction and flow of Allied operations. After three months of haggling, the bargain at least guaranteed that operational headquarters could now proceed with detailed planning based on assurances that enough essential assault shipping would be available for the five-division operation.43
In the meantime, SHAEF’s Joint Planning Staff developed the first draft of the post-Neptune plan. At first Smith had been cold to the idea of forming a Joint Planning Staff, and he never convened a meeting until the middle of March. Betts remembered that the key decision on the outline postlodgment plan took all of fifteen minutes. “We’d break out, we’d cross the Seine, and fan out and advance north.” As Betts commented, “the big strategic decisions are usually rather simple.”44 On 11 April the CCS directed that SHAEF undertake planning for the period after completion of the lodgment phase through the capture of the Ruhr, designated as the primary strategic objective. SHAEF replied immediately with its first outline plan forecasting a three-phase campaign: first, secure the Brittany ports and press forward across the Seine to the Somme, merely investing Paris; then advance to the Arras-Laon-Reims line, prompting the climactic armor battle somewhere in Champagne; finally, drive in a northeasterly direction along the Brussels-Venlo-Mülheim axis in the north and through the Aachen Gap toward Bonn in the south. The day before, Eisenhower had requested that operational headquarters and the G divisions of SHAEF prepare estimates for post-Neptune operations, including maps, phase lines, anticipated dates for the capture of ports, the timing and direction of the advance from phase line to phase line, and projected locations for supply echelons. The directive stated that these forecasts would serve as a template for all future planning, particularly pertaining to the computation of supply requirements and logistical organizations. At the same juncture, Eisenhower directed SHAEF to prepare planning for operations in Germany (code-named Eclipse), including the assumption that resistance would continue after the German surrender. The planners anticipated three routes of advance: Hamburg-Kiel in the north, Berlin and Saxony in the center, and Nürnberg-Munich in the south. Initially motivated by requests from AGF and ASF for benchmarks to use in planning the movement of manpower and materiel into the theater, the outline plan, together with the phase lines, evolved into something much more—the first concrete statement of the broad front strategy.45
Smith told COL Frank McCarthy in the War Department, “Things generally are going well—very well—and we are very confident. There is less of the pre-invasion ‘jitters’ than ever before.”46 With agreements made on the air command and landing craft, the commanders began to finalize planning for the cross-Channel and lodgment phase of operations while SHAEF formulated an overall scheme for post-Neptune strategy. Satisfied that Overlord was now back on track, Eisenhower shifted his focus toward fulfilling his affective role as supreme commander by conducting as many inspection tours as he could manage. He charged Smith with the tedious tasks of harmonizing Overlord planning, coordinating the air program, and, most exasperating of all, dealing with the French and finalizing a policy on civil affairs.
Smith devoted much of his time in April to fashioning a civil affairs program, despite the absence of concrete policy directives from Washington and London. The inability of the political heads to agree on de Gaulle, civil affairs policies for liberated territories, or even basic war aims meant that SHAEF organized and planned in a political vacuum. Without an established French policy and accords with the governments in exile, issues such as cooperating with resistance groups and setting guidelines for the myriad political, social, legal, and economic problems the Allied forces would encounter on the Continent stymied those charged with putting together the civil affairs and psychological warfare programs. The chief of staff carried the burden of these problems on his back.
C. D. Jackson, a perspicuous observer of the French problem and future member of Smith’s psychological warfare section, reported, “All circles seem to be agreed that the President’s behavior toward the French is pretty outrageous and can only lead to trouble, if not disaster. The French themselves here are so much more realistic and understanding and generally decent than the French in North Africa, that one cannot compensate one’s own bitterness over U.S. foreign policy by getting peeved at the Frogs—which was possible to do in North Africa.”47 Roosevelt’s unreasoned resistance to recognizing de Gaulle and the FCNL blocked the entire civil affairs program. In the middle of March Roosevelt issued a directive empowering SHAEF to decide “where, when and how [to execute] the Civil Administration in France.” Eisenhower could “consult” with FCNL officials and assign civil officials in liberated France, but this conferred no measure of political recognition.48 The lack of an agreement with the FCNL handicapped efforts aimed at coordinating with French underground groups. On 8 March Smith initiated the execution of the political and psychological warfare plan everywhere in occupied Europe, except in France, where political complications precluded it.49 SHAEF operated through the special operations section of the SOE, but Eisenhower wanted more formal contacts. He and Smith saw the underground playing a number of vital roles—sabotage in the battle area, disruption of the German lines of communication, and direct cooperation with airborne operations. In the middle of March, Smith approached d’Astier about forging links with the French resistance.50 Other than promises to make concerted efforts toward the liberation of France, genuine cooperation remained elusive. On 3 April Smith opened discussions on political arrangements that might develop in France in the absence of recognition of the FCNL.51
Then in April, Secretary Hull modified the president’s injunction: “the President and I [are] disposed to see the French Committee of National Liberation exercise leadership to establish law and order under the supervision of the Allied Commander-in-Chief.” This apparent shift in Washington’s policy prompted Smith’s decision to assume direction of civil affairs, psychological and covert warfare, and public relations. But first the staff divisions devoted to these functions required another overhaul.
At a 4 April chiefs of staff meeting, Smith signaled his dissatisfaction with McClure’s organization and his intention to tighten G-3’s control over special operations and psychological warfare. Four days later he announced he would redraft the directives to G-5 and G-6. The next day he voiced his displeasure with the War Office for dragging its feet on appointments to G-5. He warned he would fill the slots with Americans—a hollow threat, given the dearth of qualified American officers.52 On 13 April Smith broke up G-6 into separate public relations and psychological warfare sections. BG T. J. Davis became the new public relations officer, while McClure remained as head of psychological warfare. Taking the lead, Smith ordered that McClure initiate discussions with the FCNL on psychological warfare, especially on propaganda operations.53 On 19 April he requested authorization from Eisenhower to enter into agreements with the Dutch, Belgian, and Norwegian governments. The next day he created SHAEF liaison missions to each Allied government and charged them with the responsibility for representing headquarters on all operational and civil matters.54 Finally, Eisenhower succumbed to Smith’s pressure and agreed on Lumley’s replacement. Smith still wanted an American—he nominated Clay—but again Eisenhower said no. On 22 April LTG A. E. Grassett, a Canadian-born British officer who headed the contact section in SHAEF, took over. Grassett proved even less amenable than Lumley. As he made clear before taking the assignment, Grassett planned to implement civil affairs in strict accordance with the phases of the Overlord plan. Initially, Montgomery’s Twenty-first Army Group would control civil affairs; then, with the activation of an American army group, control would devolve to SHAEF. Smith thought political matters could not be subordinated to the chain of command, but for “substantial political reasons,” he considered his hands tied.55 The two men clashed over the timing of SHAEF’s handover of civil administration to the reconstituted governments. Churchill and Roosevelt wanted a quick transfer to the national governments; Eisenhower and Smith took the position that military requirements came first.
Smith consolidated understandings with the French through the commander of French forces in the United Kingdom and head of the French Military Mission, MG Pierre Koenig. On 19 April they produced an aide-mémoire.56 The agreement contained specifics on narrow military arrangements, but since civil affairs and military matters remained inextricably knotted, Smith and Koenig agreed on the inclusion of a civilian FCNL representative in their future deliberations. “It is the Supreme Commander’s intention,” Smith informed Marshall, “to take the head of the French Military Mission into his full confidence regarding plans for the employment of the French forces in operations in France well in advance of their being committed to these operations.” Smith renewed his plea for policy direction; SHAEF needed working agreements on civilian labor, currency matters, custody of enemy property, requisitioning, public safety, public health, displaced persons, and controls on transportation and communications.
At the end of April de Gaulle took offense to a British government ruling, prompted by a SHAEF request, forbidding all governments in exile from sending correspondence in cipher. De Gaulle ordered Koenig to terminate any associations with SHAEF so long as the communications ban applied to the French. The general’s reaction threatened to undo Smith’s accord with Koenig. Smith got around the problem through a little subterfuge. Koenig submitted copies of transmissions he wanted sent to Algiers; Smith vetted them and transmitted the communications through SHAEF channels. The maneuver satisfied Koenig, who continued his discussions with Smith on a whole range of issues.57 Throughout most of April, Hull’s undersecretary, Edward Stettinius, conducted a special mission to London, in part expediting agreements on post-hostilities policies in Germany. On 13 April he met with Eisenhower and Smith. The generals had approached Stettinius in the hope the State Department could nudge the president into some modification of the unconditional surrender policy. Without a fixed policy, planning for military government and civil affairs and the whole Allied propaganda program could not move forward. The generals, Stettinius reported, advocated announcing the “principles on which the treatment of a defeated Germany would be based. This seemed to them highly desirable in view of the accumulated evidence that German propaganda is interpreting the words ‘Unconditional Surrender’ to strengthen the morale of the German Army and people.” Eisenhower and Smith believed the terms needed to be defined, emphasizing the protection of law, order, and property rights and creating conditions for the overthrow of the Nazi state. Smith carried the argument. He proposed that, immediately after securing the beachhead, SHAEF should issue a statement of intent, summarizing the terms of surrender and calling on the Germans to lay down their arms. “From all available evidence,” Smith stated, “in default of such declarations, it would be impossible to exploit the crisis in the German Army which will undoubtedly arise immediately after a successful Allied landing.”58
Eisenhower and Smith also approached Stettinius on the question of zonal boundaries for post-surrender Germany. They stated “their conviction that there should be a single Anglo-American zone of occupation in Germany instead of two separate zones. They raised the issue through military channels but received no reply. They ask that the matter be discussed with the President and with the Secretary.” Stettinius recommended that, in light of demands that SHAEF initiate planning for the zones of occupation, the State Department should counsel the White House to begin discussions with the British and the Soviets.59
Nothing came of these initiatives. As Stettinius explained to Butcher, “the President was far from well and … is becoming increasingly difficult to deal with because he changes his mind so often.”60 But recognizing de Gaulle and altering the unconditional surrender formula remained two policies the president refused to reconsider. Roosevelt reacted angrily to appeals for modification in unconditional surrender, instructing Hull that “he did not want the subject to be considered further.” On 22 April Hilldring reported that any agreements with the French must remain only tentative.61 In May Roosevelt reiterated that the “free determination” clause of the Atlantic Charter precluded the recognition of any French group outside of France. There matters rested.
Undeterred, Smith entered into further discussions with Koenig and tightened SHAEF’s superintendence over cooperative understandings with the French resistance. Smith convened a meeting to discuss methods for enhancing SHAEF’s control over French underground activities.62 On 26–27 April Smith issued directives to AFHQ, extending control to underground activities in the south of France.63 On 8 May Smith asked permission to reveal portions of the Overlord plan to Koenig. As Smith explained to the CCS, “the limitations under which we are operating in dealing with the French are becoming very embarrassing and are producing a situation which is potentially dangerous.” Despite the liability of having no formal directive, Smith felt he understood the policy “well enough to be able to reach a working way with any French body or organization that can effectively assist us in the fight against Germany.” The only body with representation in London was the FCNL. Smith discussed issuing supplemental franc currency and implementing military security and civil policing arrangements. “General Koenig feels very keenly the fact that he is denied even the most general knowledge of forthcoming operations although French naval, air and airborne units are to be employed, and much is expected from French resistance, both active and passive. The sum total of these delays and resentments is, in my opinion, likely to result in acute embarrassment to the Allied forces, and it will be too late, after the event, to correct them.”
Smith offered two solutions: either “divulge certain general information to a very few French officers in London only and on the highest level,” or allow de Gaulle to come to London. Eisenhower “would then be able to deal with him direct on the most immediate and pressing problem of the initial approach to the French people and their organized resistance groups.” Failing that, Smith proposed that he continue working through Koenig, who would then communicate through cipher with de Gaulle in Algiers. He concluded by stating, “from a military point of view coordination with the French is of overriding importance. I request that this matter be treated as of the utmost urgency, and that it be considered, as far as possible, on its military aspects.” Eisenhower categorized it as “a pretty sticky mess.”64
SHAEF’s appeal again came to naught. Roosevelt’s position remained unchanged: the Allied powers should not assume that de Gaulle represented the French nation, and Allied military leaders should use extreme caution when approaching de Gaulle so as not to appear to support the general’s elevation as postwar leader. Roosevelt responded that although de Gaulle might come to London and consult on military matters, Eisenhower could not discuss political topics. “It must always be remembered,” wrote Roosevelt, “that the French People are quite naturally shell-shocked from sufferings at the hands of German occupation, just as any other people would be…. As the liberators of France we have no right to color their views or to give any group the sole right to impose on them one side of a case.” Roosevelt then quoted a message he had sent to Churchill: “I am unable at this time to recognize any Government of France until the French have an opportunity for a free choice, and I do not desire that Eisenhower shall become involved with the Committee on a political level.”65
Despite the president’s reply, Eisenhower called Smith on 13 May, informing him of his decision to invite de Gaulle to London. The general would be compelled to remain in England until well after the landings and possess no channel of communications with Algiers. Smith thought it was a very bad idea; he reckoned de Gaulle would refuse to be muzzled and would angrily rebuff this clear aspersion on his honor, with hard feelings all around. The prime minister agreed. On 18 May Smith attended a meeting of the BCOS as the only American representative. Smith voiced concern about damaging the spirit of cooperation that existed between SHAEF and Free French elements in London, especially Koenig. He pointed to “the great importance of obtaining for the Supreme Commander if possible a clear cut combined directive on relations with the French.”66 The BCOS vetoed Smith’s recommendation that de Gaulle be invited to England before the invasion. Since de Gaulle would not be coming to London and had balked at issuing a D-day statement to the French people, Eisenhower charged Smith with writing a proclamation. As Butcher noted, “Beetle said he was ‘walking on eggs’ to find language which would be effective yet not create a storm of criticism at home as occurred in the Darlan case.”67
Smith pointed to his reliance on the FCNL to reconcile the French population to the bombing campaign. Portal had first raised the issue of French civilian casualties at a 25 March meeting at the Air Ministry. On 3 April the matter went before the War Cabinet.68 Eisenhower refused to budge, but he accepted responsibility for monitoring the campaign—a duty he delegated to Smith. On 29 March Smith added a new air staff to SHAEF, headed by another deputy chief of staff, VAM James Robb. On 17 April SHAEF reissued Eisenhower’s directive for the strategic bombing forces in preparation for Overlord. Smith established an advisory board composed of officers from Bomber Command, the U.S. Strategic Air Forces, and Leigh-Mallory’s staff to assist Tedder in the direction of these operations. Three days later SHAEF issued the first list of transportation targets.69
A week after the bombing campaign opened, Churchill called Eisenhower and announced the cabinet’s clear opposition to bombing French marshaling yards. “Eisenhower apparently stuck to his guns & his plan,” noted Cunningham, “and apparently said the bombing of the railways was nothing to what was coming.” The admiral observed, “if we were not prepared to bomb France we should never have entered on Overlord.”70 As Eisenhower informed Marshall, “the British government has been trying to induce me to change my bombing program against the transportation systems, so as to avoid the killing of any Frenchmen. I have stuck to my guns because there is no other way in which this tremendous air force can help us, during the preparatory period, to get ashore and stay there.”71
SHAEF responded to pressure. On 30 April SHAEF forwarded a catalog of railway targets, situated in population centers, that were exempted from attack until further notification. A week later Smith ended his supervision of attacks on railroad targets but acknowledged that priority would be given, where options existed, to centers with the smallest populations.72 As the campaign mounted in intensity, so did French civilian casualties—and with them, anxiety in London and Algiers.
Smith grew increasingly frustrated trying to cope with these interlocking French problems and elicited support from Marshall. Pointing to the military necessity of working through the FCNL, and emphasizing the near impossibility of differentiating between military and civil activities, SHAEF continued to operate under the liability of having no CCS directive. Eisenhower and Smith still worked under the assumption that Hull’s April address had altered the framework of American policy. Smith claimed he had “only just learned” that Hull’s remarks did not represent the president’s views. He stressed the impracticality of acting on a unilateral directive from Roosevelt and complained he could not proceed with basic civil and military agreements with the French. The president left SHAEF no viable alternative to de Gaulle. The only differences between British and American texts, he protested to Marshall in another letter, centered on the British willingness to treat with the FCNL and the American inclination to deal with any non-Vichy group.73
Eisenhower added his voice in another letter to Marshall. He mentioned the frustrations Smith confronted in working with the British and French on composing a directive. Churchill now considered deferring de Gaulle’s visit to England until after D-day, which provided a window for reaching an agreement with the FCNL. Eisenhower petitioned Marshall to intercede with the president; he considered it of paramount importance that some joint policy emerge, because command relations inside SHAEF depended on building a cooperative foundation. He also assured Marshall that the British made no effort to steer policy decisions.74
Marshall offered no comfort; instead, he informed Smith of the pressures emanating from London and the French Military Mission in Washington to curtail the transportation plan.75 Since Marshall threw the problem back at SHAEF, Smith raised the issue with Koenig. “To my surprise,” Smith informed Marshall, “Koenig takes a much more coldblooded view than we do. His remark was, ‘This is War, and it must be expected that people will be killed. We would take twice the anticipated loss to be rid of the Germans.’”76 Koenig’s sangfroid permitted SHAEF to soft-pedal the moral issue; the bombing campaign continued.
The constant stress began to eat at Smith. Except for a weekend trip to Scotland for some salmon fishing in April, Smith had no relief from the grinding pace of sixteen-hour days. And crises almost always cropped up when Eisenhower was away on one of his inspections tours. One example was Patton’s latest inability to master his tongue—the so-called Knutsford incident. On 26 April Smith wired Eisenhower and Marshall to report that “Patton had broken out again.” Smith immediately got on the phone to Patton, who reported he had given a talk to about sixty people at a private gathering and disavowed speaking for anybody but himself; he had accepted the invitation on the condition that no representatives of the press would be present. Smith pointed to the offensive line: “Since it seems to be the destiny of America, Great Britain and Russia to rule the world, the better we know each other the better off we will be.” The British press had carried only “innocuous quotes of the blood and guts type,” with nothing about “Americans and British ruling the world.” In his opinion, it was “not headline stuff.” He also explained to Marshall that SHAEF had released word of Patton’s “unofficial” presence in the United Kingdom as part of the Fortitude plan to convince the Germans that Armeegruppepatton would spearhead the real invasion of France at the Pas de Calais. Smith had decided that some unscrupulous journalist would break the scoop sooner or later and thought it better if SHAEF got out in front of the story. “Beetle had answered Marshall,” Butcher recorded, “taking on himself the responsibility for releasing Patton’s name and reporting that Ike had steadfastly objected to the release.”77 But as Marshall had already reported, Patton was very much headline stuff in the United States, and a Washington Post editorial had pretty much killed all the permanent promotions—including Patton’s and Smith’s—then on the verge of confirmation.78
The Smith-Patton relationship was one-sided. Smith admired Patton, defended him during his many scrapes, and, until the end of the war, considered him a close friend. Initially, Patton could not make up his mind about Smith, but by now Smith ranked near the top of his long list of bêtes noires. Privately, Patton declared his dislike for Smith; publicly, he bootlicked. He begrudged Smith’s close working relationship with Eisenhower and the fact that Beetle always acted as the bearer of bad news and the supreme commander’s instrument for enforcing policy; most of all, he resented having “to bone” Smith in order to “keep things greased.” Patton developed a nasty cold sore and attributed it to “all the ass kissing [of Smith] I have to do.”79
As the rough-and-tough field commander, Patton held all staff officers and rear-echelon types in contempt. He penned a word picture of the typical staff officer as “a man past middle age, spare, wrinkled, intelligent, cold, passive, noncommittal, with eyes like a codfish, polite in contact, but at the same time unresponsive, cool, calm, and as damnably composed as a concrete post … a human petrification with a heart of feldspar and without charm or the friendly germ; minus bowels, passions or a sense of humor. Happily they never reproduce and all of them finally go to hell.”80 No doubt Smith served as his archetype.
Patton concluded that he was being framed. “So far as I am concerned, every effort is made to show lack of confidence in my judgment and at the same time, in every case of stress, great confidence in my fighting. None of those at Ike’s headquarters ever go to bat for juniors, and in any argument between the British and the Americans, invariably favor the British. Benedict Arnold is a piker compared with them, and that includes … Ike and Beedle [sic].” Smith called Patton again on 27 April and passed on a verbal order from Eisenhower, which Patton recorded as follows: “I am never to talk in public without first submitting what I am going to say to Ike and himself for censorship, thereby displaying great confidence in an Army commander—if I have not been relieved. Beedle also said that due to my ‘unfortunate remarks,’ the permanent promotions of himself and me might never come off. How sad. ‘God show the right,’ and damn all reporters and gutless men.”81
As he listened to Smith on the phone, Patton glanced at a photograph he had received that day. In the days before D-day, all the senior officers exchanged photographs, and Patton had requested one from Smith for his “rogue’s gallery.” Smith autographed the photo and included a warm personal acknowledgment. For Patton, the photograph always reminded him of “the Judas trees that grew in Virginia.”82
Eisenhower would not return to headquarters until 28 April. He attended the disastrous amphibious exercises (code-named Tiger) at Slapton Sands on the Devon coast. German E-boats evaded the naval pickets, sinking two LSTs and disabling a third. The loss of the assault shipping—not to mention the deaths of 749 servicemen—reduced the Overlord reserve to zero and threw a pall of despair over headquarters. The Patton affair added to the gloom.
On 29 April Eisenhower told Marshall, “I am seriously contemplating the most drastic action. I am deferring final action until I hear from you.” When Marshall told him the decision on Patton was entirely up to him, Eisenhower stated, “On all of the evidence now available I will relieve him from command and send him home.” He would let Patton present his case personally but observed, “after a year and a half of working with him it appears hopeless to expect that he will ever completely overcome his lifelong habit of posing and of self-dramatization.”83 Alerted by Patton, Hughes, since February Eisenhower’s special assistant and chief troubleshooter, raced to Bushy Park. “Ike was mad,” Hughes recorded. “I read him Geo’s explanation in his letter. Don’t know what action Ike will take!”84 To Butcher, Eisenhower estimated that “Patton’s chance of retaining his command was only one in a thousand.”85
“Beedle [sic] called up and told me to report to Ike, at Ike’s office,” Patton noted on 2 May. “It can be anything from a reprimand to a reduction, or a new plan of campaign. These constant pickings are a little hard on the nerves.”86 Patton exhibited bravado but feared the worst. Patton’s bipolar symptoms made Churchill’s look tame. Patton’s posing and self-dramatization were the by-products of a lifetime of playacting. Patton labored so hard to present to the world his own fabricated selfimage that he became a caricature of himself. Observers stood aghast at the wild modulations in Patton’s mien, from maudlin sentimentality and tears to unchecked exuberance, often in the space of moments. Now he arrived to face Eisenhower, complete with his shiny cavalry boots, creased jodhpurs, gleaming helmet, and ivory-handed pistols. Just like at West Point, when he had curried the favor of the tactical officers by bracing harder and longer than anyone else, Patton stood at rigid attention in front of his old friend.
Eisenhower handed Patton three letters: one called for Patton’s relief; the second stated that if Eisenhower could not be trusted to handle the problems of his own officers and troops, he could no longer continue in command; the last, from Marshall, authorized Eisenhower to decide either way. Patton started to sob. This too represented a Patton artifice. On those rare occasions when the golden-tressed Georgie had faced the displeasure of his doting father, he had broken into hysterical crocodile tears. This time, he faced more than going to bed without his supper; Eisenhower could send him home in his permanent grade, with his great destiny derailed. According to the story Eisenhower told one of his staff officers, Patton put his head on Eisenhower’s shoulder, and because of the difference in their heights, Patton’s helmet fell off and rolled into the corner. “He immediately stopped crying, stooped over, picked up the helmet, replaced it carefully on his head—and started to cry all over again.” Eisenhower could no longer stand it. “This was too much for me! I stretched out on the couch in my office and burst into laughter. George couldn’t even cry without his helmet! Imagine that!” Patton could not look at Eisenhower without breaking his brace.
Eisenhower had already made up his mind to take another chance on Patton and so informed him. “I expect,” he added, “from now on that you will please keep your goddamned mouth shut. When it is time for you to speak, I will tell you! I intend to use you to the fullest—you will have every opportunity to get into all the combat you ever dreamed of. That is all for the moment!” Patton dried his eyes, snapped off a salute, and smartly exited the office. Feeling a little sheepish for making “this tough old officer” blubber, Eisenhower “had to tell someone, so I called in Beetle and told him what had happened.” Eisenhower remembered it as “the only time in all the years of my long experience with Smith that I saw Beetle really lose himself in laughter!”87
An immensely relieved Patton never revealed what transpired in Eisenhower’s office, but the customary bluster soon returned. “Everything is OK,” he informed Hughes by phone. Patton claimed “he received a note and then a personal telephone call from D. D. who was absolutely charming and reassuring.”88 He never blamed Eisenhower, but Smith would forever remain a thorough “s.o.b.”
Relations between Smith and Patton remained strained for another reason. Smith found himself the subject of an inquiry by the inspector general’s office for the misappropriation of funds. Eisenhower asked that Hughes investigate the matter. “Beadle [sic] looked at his bill,” Hughes logged in his diary, “and is now scared.” A week later, Patton and Hughes visited a gun shop near Grosvenor Square and found a beautiful shotgun being made for Smith. Smith had befriended the famed gunsmith James Purdey and his family. Upon closer questioning, Purdey revealed that Smith had purchased a toy train for Purdey’s son and kept Mrs. Purdey’s larder well stocked with U.S. government–issued goods. They also found two U.S. Army carbines Smith had presented to his friend. “Reminds me of Beadle’s saying,” Hughes recorded: “The photos are expensive. I’ll charge them to my entertainment allowance.” When Hughes mentioned seeing the guns, Smith flew into a rage and blamed Patton for stirring up trouble. Following up on the story, Hughes uncovered that Smith had been issued two weapons, reported them lost, and paid for them. Hughes decided, “Maybe I’s better … keep mum on the subject … until IG has finished his investigation.” The scrutiny continued for weeks. On D-day, when Smith’s attention should have been elsewhere, he threatened to fire “IGs who delve too much into his affairs.” Patton had nothing to do with Smith’s troubles, but he and Hughes reveled in watching Beetle squirm.89
All this took its toll. On 11 May Smith unburdened himself to Butcher, of all people. Smith invited Butcher to lunch at his billet and talked of his misgivings about Overlord. Smith thought the Allies would get ashore but calculated their chances of staying as only a fifty-fifty proposition. The key would be the buildup race, and here, SHAEF projections were razor thin. He also worried about the underwater obstacles. Ultra indicated the German high command still had not discovered where the landings would be; Fortitude remained the ace in the hole. “Beetle’s professional realism and misgivings,” Butcher noted, “rather substantiate the reluctance the British have had about undertaking OVERLORD before we are fully prepared.” He groused about all the obstacles to dealing more frankly with the French. All told, Smith confided that “he would never be fit to be Chief of Staff for another campaign; this one had worn him down. Beetle said he was damned well going to get out of the Army after the war. He was fed up.”90