Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings (12 page)

Despite the absence of a pledge, the meeting between Roosevelt and Molotov was critical, for the American president found the specter of a Soviet collapse so horrifying that he was reconfirmed in his view that an offensive somewhere in the European theater in 1942 was essential. To Churchill he reported that they “faced real trouble on the Russian front and must make our plans to meet it.” Even if a 1942 invasion of Europe failed to gain a permanent toehold for the Allies, it might draw the Luftwaffe into an air battle over the beaches that could erode German air assets and would at least demonstrate good faith.
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No sooner did Molotov leave Washington than another visitor arrived. The new guest was Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, and there could hardly have been a greater contrast with the departed Molotov. A great-grandson of Queen Victoria, and second cousin to King George himself, Mountbatten was tall, attractive, sophisticated, and gracious. Churchill (who, like all of Mountbatten’s friends, called him “Dickie”) had
named him chief of combined operations with oversight over the production of amphibious shipping. In that capacity, Mountbatten was simultaneously a lieutenant general in the British Army, a vice admiral in the Royal Navy, and an air vice marshal in the Royal Air Force. Mountbatten was eager to take on the Germans, but his careful study of landing craft availability had convinced him that a cross-Channel operation in 1942 was out of the question. He told the British chiefs that it was dishonest to continue to plan an operation they knew to be impossible. Aware of his views, Churchill dispatched him to the United States to insert some realism into American thinking.
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As Churchill no doubt expected, Mountbatten made a wonderful impression on the Americans; both Marshall and King thought him first-rate. More significant, however, was the five-hour conversation he had with Roosevelt in the White House. The president’s fear of a Russian collapse had been intensified by Molotov’s visit, and he asked Mountbatten “whether we could not get a footing on the Continent some time this year.” Not only did Mountbatten explain the landing craft problem, but he also reminded Roosevelt that the Germans already had twenty-five mobile divisions in France, so “no landing that we could carry out could draw off any troops” from the Eastern Front. Roosevelt found that alarming and suggested that perhaps a “sacrifice” landing would be necessary anyway in order to show good faith to the Russians. When Mountbatten returned to England and shared that notion with Churchill, the prime minister decided that he must cross the Atlantic once again in order to squelch it. “I feel it is my duty to come see you,” he wrote Roosevelt on June 13, and soon afterward he was in the air again, flying west.
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IT TOOK TWENTY-EIGHT HOURS
for Churchill’s flying boat to cross the Atlantic, and then he boarded another, much smaller plane to fly up to Hyde Park, on the Hudson, where Roosevelt was spending the weekend. Brooke had accompanied Churchill, but he stayed in Washington to meet with Marshall and the CCS. After a bumpy landing at the small Hyde Park airstrip, Churchill found a smiling Roosevelt sitting behind the wheel of his specially modified Ford that allowed him to drive without using foot
pedals. The president was in a good mood, in part because of splendid news from the Pacific of an American naval victory near Midway that had resulted in the sinking of four Japanese aircraft carriers. That eased concern that assets might have to be funneled away from Europe to prop up the Allied position there. The president insisted on giving the prime minister a tour of the estate, and Churchill subsequently admitted that he had “some thoughtful moments” as Roosevelt steered his vehicle along the bluffs above the Hudson River with freewheeling joie de vivre.
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Meanwhile, Brooke sat down in Marshall’s Washington office with Dill, King, and Eisenhower. It was a typical hot and sticky summer day in the capital (“stinking hot,” Stimson called it in his diary), the building had no air-conditioning, and the British were still in their winter uniforms. Nevertheless, they got down to work at once. Brooke began by noting that the justification for the Bolero buildup was still valid—on that, at least, there was “complete unanimity of opinion.” The problem was that they needed a contingency plan in case the Russians failed to hold out against the German spring offensive. It was clear, he said, that “logistic factors” made a cross-Channel invasion into France impossible for 1942, so some alternative to Sledgehammer must be found, and the only practical one was Gymnast—the invasion of North Africa. Marshall suggested that before abandoning Sledgehammer, they should wait to see whether the Russians held out, and how the buildup in England was progressing. Perhaps they could postpone making a decision until September 15. Brooke disagreed. That would be too late “to modify existing plans,” and would come too late to help the Russians anyway. The planning must begin now for Gymnast. Dill concurred.
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Marshall felt betrayed. Just two months earlier, the British had agreed “wholeheartedly” to a strategic blueprint that they now insisted was impossible. Ernest King was equally annoyed and far less restrained. King’s daughter once quipped that her father was the most even-tempered man in the U.S. Navy—he was always in a rage. Whether that was literally true, it was true enough now. King announced angrily that he was “entirely opposed to any idea of carrying out Gymnast in 1942.” He lectured the British that “great risks” had been taken by American servicemen in the Pacific who went without needed equipment and supplies so that deliveries could be
made to England for the invasion of Germany. To abandon that invasion now would mean that those sacrifices had been made in vain. Marshall, too, fought back, though with less emotion. The key to defeating Germany, he insisted, was “overwhelming power,” and the only place where that could be applied was in “North West Europe.” The Americans got unexpected support from the Royal Navy when Admiral Sir Charles Little declared that it was reckless to open yet another front in Africa when “we were not able to maintain our existing sea communications.”
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In the end, it hardly mattered. The decision that counted was being made that same day up in Hyde Park. Marshall and King always worried when Roosevelt and Churchill met alone together, and they were right to be concerned. After their adventurous automobile tour of the estate, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Hopkins sat down in Roosevelt’s small study, where, as Churchill ruefully noted, the Americans “did not seem to mind the intense heat.” Any attempted invasion of France in 1942, Churchill asserted, “was certain to lead to disaster,” besides which it “would not help the Russians,” which, after all, was the main point. It was inconceivable that they should do nothing, so it was necessary to consider what was within their reach. In this way he worked his way back to the plan he had proposed at Arcadia: an invasion of French Northwest Africa.
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Roosevelt was far more agreeable to the idea than his uniformed chiefs were. He had never fully abandoned the idea of invading French Africa, and had signaled as much in a meeting with his war cabinet only three days before. As always, Marshall had vigorously opposed it, and because of that, though Roosevelt was now inclined to accept Churchill’s logic, he would not commit himself without talking again to Marshall and King. To do that, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Hopkins boarded a train for an overnight journey back to Washington. Arriving early the next morning, Churchill was blissfully relieved to reenter his air-conditioned guest room in the White House, and after refreshing himself, he joined Roosevelt in his study. He had been there only a few minutes when a courier brought in a pink flimsy—a copy of a cablegram—and handed it to Roosevelt. The president read it silently, then told the courier to “give it to Winston.” The first words of the message turned the prime minister chalk white: “Tobruk has fallen.”
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Other than the evacuation from Dunkirk and the fall of Singapore, few catastrophes of the war constituted a heavier blow to British arms. Tobruk was the citadel of British power in Libya. A thirty-three-thousand-man British Commonwealth army held that citadel against a German army barely half its size. Churchill had counted on Tobruk to be the anvil for the hammer blow he hoped to strike in North Africa. Now with the citadel taken and its entire defending army made prisoner of war, it seemed possible that the Germans might drive all the way into Egypt. As he contemplated the consequences of this disaster, Churchill had to sit down.
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Roosevelt was instantly and instinctively sympathetic. “What can we do to help?” he asked. Churchill replied that American tanks—some of the new Sherman tanks—might allow the British to hold Egypt. On the spot, Roosevelt ordered Marshall to reconfigure the shipping tables to send three hundred Sherman tanks and a hundred self-propelled 105 mm guns to Egypt immediately. Apparently the president was willing to go further. As others drifted out of the room, he asked Marshall to stay. What did he think of sending an American division to the Middle East to fight alongside the British? Marshall was horrified. Here was a perfect example of the kind of dispersion of resources that he believed would doom the Allied cause. Not trusting himself to speak, he excused himself and left the room.
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There was one more strategy session in Washington before Churchill left to return to London in order to deal with the crisis in North Africa. At that meeting, Brooke met the American president for the first time. He had planned to change into his best uniform beforehand, but Churchill insisted there was no time and brought him along as he was. Brooke was impressed by Roosevelt (“a most attractive Personality,” he wrote in his diary) and apologized for his dowdy uniform. Roosevelt waved it off and told him to take off his jacket and be comfortable.
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Aware that this was his last chance, Churchill pushed hard for an abandonment of Sledgehammer and a commitment to Gymnast. This time, however, Roosevelt was less amenable. Bolstered by memos from both Hopkins and Stimson (who wrote Roosevelt that “it would be a mistake … to risk
BOLERO
for the sake of
GYMNAST
”), as well as Marshall’s stalwart defense, he resisted the eloquent appeals of the prime minister. The
final memorandum stipulated that “Operations in Western Europe” would “yield greater political and strategic gains than operations in any other theater.” On the other hand, that same memorandum stated that if “despite all efforts, success is improbable, we must be ready with an alternative,” and that “the best alternative is Operation
GYMNAST
.”
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Marshall sensed that the tide was flowing against him. To demonstrate to Churchill and the British that the Americans were making great strides toward the creation of an army that might yet be able to do something in Europe in 1942, he took the whole British delegation by train down to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, to watch a scheduled army exercise. South Carolina reminded Churchill of “the plains of India in hot weather,” but he was an eager observer as ten thousand men and hundreds of vehicles maneuvered purposefully across the pine barrens. He was especially impressed by the spectacle of six hundred paratroopers dropping from the sky, and he enjoyed trying out the new “walkie-talkie” handheld radio. It did not, however, change his mind about the wisdom of hurling such troops as these against the coast of France. When he asked his military assistant, Hastings “Pug” Ismay, what he thought of the American maneuvers, Ismay replied, “To put these troops against continental troops would be murder.”
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ROOSEVELT HAD MADE IT CLEAR
that he wanted something to happen that year. Whatever that something was, Marshall wanted it to be in Europe, but it was becoming increasingly evident, even to him, that Sledgehammer was doubtful. On July 8, Churchill finally pulled the plug, sending Roosevelt a cable that did not mince words: “No responsible British general, admiral, or air marshal is prepared to recommend Sledgehammer as a practicable operation in 1942,” he wrote. Unsurprisingly, he had an alternative in mind: “I am sure myself that Gymnast is by far the best chance for effective relief to the Russian front in 1942.”
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