Elite • 85 |
INTRODUCTION
BIOGRAPHIES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE PLATES
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES gave the president supreme control over all armed forces. Before and during World War Two, President Franklin D. Roosevelt served as president and commander-in-chief. A civilian Secretary of War controlled the War Department, and through it, the army. The War Department included three distinct army organizational groupings: chiefs of the arms (e.g. infantry, armor, field artillery); services (supply and administration); and general staff (planning).
When war began in September 1939, the US Army had a 190,000-man Regular Army, an air arm, a 200,000-man National Guard composed of civilian volunteers, and an Organized Reserve with a nucleus of reserve officers. It was quickly apparent that the army was far too small. In particular, it severely lacked professional officers. A rapid and enormous expansion began that saw regular army officers, who had been stuck among the ranks of the junior officers for years, vault into senior command levels.
The outbreak of global war, and the attendant need to cooperate with other nations, revealed the urgent necessity for a stronger civilian-military command structure and army-navy coordination. Consequently, in February 1942, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) replaced the Joint Board as the highest military authority. Among the four members of the JCS were Army Chief of Staff, George Marshall, and the commanding general of the US Army Air Forces, Lieutenant-General Henry Arnold. The JCS both controlled the nation’s armed forces and advised the president on everything from strategy to industrial policy.
The Arcadia Conference from December 22, 1941 to January 14, 1942 contrasted a well-oiled British planning organization with a fragmented American system. Inspired by the British, the Americans created the Joint Chiefs of Staff. From March 1942 on, its membership consisted of Admiral Ernest King (left), General George Marshall (leftrear), chairman Admiral William D. Leahy (right-rear), and General ‘Hap’ Arnold (right). Marshall and King were the dominant voices. (The George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, VA)
In March 1942, the old General Headquarters was replaced by three separate but equal organizations. Lieutenant-General Lesley McNair’s Army Ground Forces supervised training functions. The air arm, while remaining part of the army, acquired its own command structure. Lieutenant-General Brehon Somervell’s Army Service Forces (originally called Services of Supply) took over logistics and procurement. These new organizations relieved Marshall and his general staff of much responsibility and allowed them to concentrate on operational strategy and planning. Marshall, in turn, reorganized and expanded the War Plans Division into an Operations Division that became the nerve center for all operations. Marshall used the Operations Division to supervise the theater commands and coordinate their logistical needs.
The army group, each with two or more armies, was the highest US Army organization operating in the field. The composition of each army group depended upon the vagaries of coalition warfare. Thus, Omar Bradley’s 12th Army Group was almost entirely American, while Jacob Devers’ 6th was half French, and Mark Clark’s 15th was a diverse international force. The US Army organized 11 field armies during the war. Each army had at least two corps. During the war the army formed 26 new corps. Each corps typically had one armored and two infantry divisions, plus supporting arms and services. The US Army eventually expanded to 90 divisions. By the war’s end this proved barely sufficient even though its strength, not including the Air Force, had risen to over six million men.
As with the ground forces, in September 1939, the Army Air Forces were minuscule in comparison to national needs. There were only 17 airbases in the United States. By 1943 this had grown to 345 main bases, 116 secondary bases, and 322 auxiliary fields. The wartime expansion saw a force of 20,196 with 2,470 mostly obsolete planes grow to almost 1.9 million men and women with 79,908 modern aircraft. Sixteen air forces were raised to carry out combat missions. Larger forces required higher command structures. In January 1944, the 8th and 15th Air Forces formed Carl Spaatz’s Europe-based US Strategic Air Forces. In August 1944, George Kenney’s Far East Air Forces was established to direct the operations of the 5th, 7th, and 13th Air Forces in the Pacific. To the delight of all air force leaders, the US Air Force finally became independent of the army in September 1947.
US ARMY
George Catlett Marshall
Born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania in 1880, Marshall went south to attend the Virginia Military Institute. After his graduation in 1901, he received an infantry commission as a second lieutenant. Marshall achieved recognition during World War One through his brilliant staff service. By 1918, he had been named chief of operations for the US 1st Army in France. Marshall’s next major step came in 1938 when he headed the War Plans Division of the Army General Staff and served as deputy chief of staff. In September 1939, he became army chief of staff.
Marshall enjoyed President Roosevelt’s absolute confidence. Therefore, he had great influence at all of the major Allied wartime conferences. Although he possessed a fierce temper, he held it in check and adopted a practical approach to all problems. This, coupled with his lack of boastfulness, made for good relations with the British. Marshall hoped he would receive command of the Allied forces that would invade Europe. However, Roosevelt preferred him to remain in Washington, DC, where he would be available for close and frequent discussion. To his great credit, Marshall was able to prevent the president from meddling in military decision making. Marshall made another great contribution to the American war effort by his selection and assignment of senior officers. In addition, he made sure that generals who needed specific technical assistance received appropriate staff officers. Marshall shares with Admiral King the responsibility for failing to unify command in the Pacific. Pacific operations unwisely remained divided between the navy under Admiral Nimitz and the army under General MacArthur. The resultant two-prong advance against Japan gave the Japanese the opportunity to concentrate forces to defeat the widely separated American efforts. Fortunately, the Japanese failed to seize the chance. Because of Marshall’s ability to provide grand strategic direction and to coordinate strategy with the Allies, Winston Churchill, who liked and admired him, bestowed upon him the honorific, “the organizer of victory.”
Eisenhower (left) received a visit from George Marshall (right) in October 1944. (National Archives)
Marshall resigned from active service on November 20, 1945. President Truman quickly persuaded him to return to public service. After Marshall had held several diplomatic roles, in January 1947 Truman appointed him as Secretary of State. Marshall held this position until 1949, during which time he supervised the postwar reconstruction of western Europe, the famous Marshall Plan. Unjust attacks by the anti-communist zealot, Senator Joseph McCarthy, helped drive Marshall from public service in 1951. Two years later, Marshall became the first soldier to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He died in 1959.
How Marshall might have fared as supreme field commander is unknown. In the view of his admirers, the fact that this position went to General Eisenhower denied Marshall his “rightful place in history.” Still, no other American military figure had more influence upon the war. He was not a brilliant man. Rather, by sheer hard work and much common sense, Marshall earned Churchill’s sobriquet.
Lesley James McNair
Born in Verndale, Minnesota in 1883, Lesley “Whitney” McNair graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point with an artillery commission in 1904. Before World War One, McNair held various positions in the Ordnance Corps and went to Europe to study French artillery tactics. He participated in the 1914 expedition to Vera Cruz and served with Pershing during the Punitive Expedition in 1916. Major McNair served with the 1st Division in France in 1917. He gained a reputation as a very competent artillerist while working to develop techniques to accomplish the tactical “Holy Grail” of World War One: effective infantry-artillery cooperation. His talents earned him temporary promotion to brigadier-general, marking him as the youngest general officer in the American Expeditionary Force.
General Lesley McNair was the single most important architect of American ground forces as they prepared for land warfare in Europe. He was efficient and decisive as well as highly opinionated. McNair self-confidently believed that he knew best what equipment ground forces required for combat. He emphasized mobility over combat power, a notion that was useful during the pursuit across France but was badly out of step with combat reality when American forces had to fight through fixed positions. (The George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, VA)
At the end of the war, he reverted to his permanent rank of major. He taught at the General Service School, completed the Army War College, and rose to command the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. Between April 1939 and July 1940, he reformed the Command and General Staff College, making it “the crucial educational institution for senior American officers” in World War Two. McNair’s next assignment was as chief of staff of Army General Headquarters in Washington, DC. Because of his staff and teaching duties during the interwar years, McNair influenced the development of American Army doctrine. However, he did not prove farsighted regarding tanks, since he saw them as mere mechanized cavalry, useful only for exploitation and pursuit. He believed that in the future, attacks would still hinge upon the traditional infantry-artillery team. McNair’s pet project was the so-called tank destroyer. This ill-conceived program tried to unite mobility and gun power, at the expense of armored protection. The tank destroyers proved unsatisfactory in real combat. Worse, reliance upon them meant that designs for the standard American tanks, up to and including the M4 Sherman tank, were gravely flawed.
Promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general, in March 1942, McNair took command of army ground forces. This important position made him the supervisor for mobilizing and training the rapidly expanding US Army. This colossal task involved integrating Regular Army personnel with men from the National Guard and Army Reserve, and with new conscripts, to form a cohesive whole. At their peak, McNair controlled training facilities housing 1.5 million men. In addition, McNair supervised the conversion of the American infantry division from a square to a triangular formation featuring three, instead of four, major combat elements. His “special contribution was to enhance the mobility and flexibility of the new division.” Although McNair’s duties were administrative, he frequently visited troops at the front to see soldiers in action. During one such tour in Tunisia in 1943, he received a shrapnel wound.
McNair’s mistaken analysis of the future of armored warfare condemned American tankers to use inferior weapons. Events would show that Sherman tanks (right, in the Ardennes in 1944) could fight the better German tanks only by overwhelming them with numbers. General Omar Bradley noted, “this willingness to expend Shermans offered little comfort to the crews who were forced to expend themselves as well.” (US Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, PA)
Like many officers stuck in a rear area assignment, McNair agitated for a field command. In June 1944, he finally persuaded General Marshall to release him from army ground forces. Initially, McNair went to Britain to command the 1st Army Group, a nonexistent force used to dupe the Germans into thinking that a large army, with the capability of making a second invasion of the French coast, still remained in England. Then, McNair went to France to observe the aerial bombardment designed to open a gap for the breakout from Normandy. On July 23, 1944, misdirected bombs fell on McNair’s observation post near St. Lo and killed him. He was the highest-ranking American officer ever killed in action.
Dubbed “the maker of armies” by his chief of staff, McNair was instrumental in converting the small regular army of the 1930s into the formidable force that helped defeat the Axis powers. More than any other individual, McNair was responsible for the strengths and weaknesses of the American Army, most notably its amazing flexibility and mobility at the price of inadequate combat power necessary for frontal assault.
Dwight David Eisenhower
Born in 1890 in Denison, Texas, Eisenhower spent his youth in Abilene, Kansas. “Ike” was one of seven sons in a poor, hard-working, religious family. Before he entered West Point, he spent a year supporting a brother in college. He graduated in 1915 and spent World War One on training duties. After completing various staff and school assignments, he became special assistant to Douglas MacArthur in Washington, DC, and the Philippines from 1933 to 1939. The outbreak of World War Two found him a brigadier-general, serving in the War Plans Division.
Then began a meteoric rise: major-general, April 1942; Commander US Forces Europe, June 1942; lieutenant-general, July 1942; general, February 1943; Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force, December 1943; and general of the army, December 1944. In these positions of increasing responsibility, Eisenhower matured as a leader, while supervising a fractious coalition. After the war, Eisenhower served as chief of staff until 1948 and then resigned to become President of Columbia University. He was recalled to active duty as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe in 1950. Two years later, he was elected to the first of his two terms as President of the United States. He died in 1969.
Eisenhower and Bradley (left rear) in Tunisia in 1943. (The George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, VA)
Because he lacked tactical and strategic brilliance, Eisenhower has often been dismissed by critics. In fact, he gave the Allied cause in Europe an indispensable mix of leadership and diplomacy so that divergent national interests and personalities could work toward the common goal of defeating Germany.
Walter Bedell Smith