Closing the Ring (59 page)

*  *  * *  *

When the X-ray photographs showed that there was a shadow on one of my lungs, I found that everything had been diagnosed and foreseen by Lord Moran. Dr. Bedford and other high medical authorities in the Mediterranean and excellent nurses arrived from all quarters as if by magic. The admirable M and B, from which I did not suffer any inconvenience, was used at the earliest moment, and after a week’s fever the intruders were repulsed. Although Lord Moran records that he judged that the issue was at one time in doubt, I did not share his view. I did not feel so ill in this attack as I had the previous February. The M and B, which I also called Moran and Bedford, did the work most effectively. There is no doubt
that pneumonia is a very different illness from what it was before this marvellous drug was discovered. I did not at any time relinquish my part in the direction of affairs, and there was not the slightest delay in giving the decisions which were required from me.

Prime Minister to Foreign Secretary

13 Dec. 43

I am caught amid these ancient ruins with a temperature and must wait till I am normal. Future movements uncertain.

Angora must be left under no illusions that failure to comply when request is made on February 15 is the virtual end of the alliance, and that making impossible demands is only another way of saying no.

You should ask the Staffs to report upon the possibilities of the Germans being able to gather enough forces for a further separate invasion of Turkey. I believe this to be absolute rubbish.

Prime Minister to President Roosevelt

15 Dec. 43

Am stranded amid the ruins of Carthage, where you stayed, with fever which has ripened into pneumonia. All your people are doing everything possible, but I do not pretend I am enjoying myself. I hope soon to send you some of the suggestions for the new commands. I hope you had a pleasant voyage and are fit. Love to Harry.

President Roosevelt to Prime Minister

17 Dec. 43

I am distressed about the pneumonia, and both Harry and I plead with you to be good and throw it off rapidly. I have just left the
Iowa
and am on my way up the Potomac. The Bible says you must do just what Moran orders, but at this moment I cannot put my finger on the verse and the chapter. … Nothing further seems to be imminent, so do what Sarah says, and give her my love and take it easy.

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It now fell to me, as British Minister of Defence responsible to the War Cabinet, to propose a British Supreme Commander for the Mediterranean. This post we confided to General Wilson, it being also settled that General Alexander should command
the whole campaign in Italy, as he had done under General Eisenhower in Tunisia. It was also arranged that General Devers, of the United States Army, should become General Wilson’s Deputy in the Mediterranean, and Air Chief Marshal Tedder General Eisenhower’s Deputy in “Overlord,” and that General Montgomery should actually command the whole cross-Channel invasion force until such time as the Supreme Commander could transfer his Headquarters to France and assume the direct operational control. All this was carried out with the utmost smoothness in perfect agreement by the President and by me, with Cabinet approval, and worked in good comradeship and friendship by all concerned.

I should add that when in December 1944 General Alexander succeeded General Wilson as Supreme Commander in the Mediterranean, I myself proposed, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, that United States General Mark Clark should take command under him of the whole of the forces in Italy, three-quarters of which were British, Imperial, or British-controlled. This he did with marked distinction and success.

The operative telegrams were:

Prime Minister to President Roosevelt

18 Dec. 43

Thank you so much for your telegram. I have hearkened unto the voice of Moran and made good progress, but I am fixed here for another week.

2. Since our last talk on the subject, I have given much thought to the remodelling of the commands, and have had discussions with Eisenhower, Alexander, and Tedder. I have also consulted my colleagues at home, and have today had a long conversation with the C.I.G.S. on his return from a visit to Italy. As a result I am able to place before you the following proposals, which, if you approve them, will, I am satisfied, be generally accepted.

3. I had always thought that Alexander would succeed Eisenhower, but am convinced by the arguments of the C.I.G.S., Eisenhower, and others that it would be impossible for him or Montgomery to act as Supreme Commander and at the same time fight the battles which will take place in Italy after the conquest of Rome. Alexander himself quite saw this.

4. I therefore propose General Wilson as Supreme Commander,
vice
Eisenhower. Under him will be: (
a
) General Commanding, Algiers: a United States officer. We have heard that it might be convenient to you to transfer General Devers from his present post. (
b
) Commander-in-Chief of the Armies in Italy: Alexander. (
c
) General in charge of Operation “Anvil”: Clark. We understand that this was what you and General Marshall had in mind. If so, we concur. (
d
) A British major-general in charge of the Yugoslav assistance measures, Tito, Greeks, etc. (
e
) Commander-in-Chief Mid-East, for operational purposes within the Mediterranean theatre, and also in charge of the Turkish operations: Paget (now commanding British Home Forces).

5. The Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief should be an American, appointed by you. Arnold when passing through here spoke of Brereton or Eaker. We would agree to either, but we should miss the latter from the bombing and “Overlord” build-up. Sholto Douglas will be Deputy Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, and also Commander-in-Chief of all the R.A.F. in the Mediterranean theatre.

6. Political assistance will be provided for the Supreme Commander: (
a
) by Messrs. Murphy and Macmillan, who work hand-in-hand; (
b
) from the French angle by Duff Cooper and Wilson; (
c
) from the Middle Eastern area by the Minister of State or his successor.

7. Bedell Smith will accompany Eisenhower after a few weeks and become his Chief of Staff in England, being replaced here by a British Chief of Staff. We leave it to you to decide whether you would like to have a Deputy Supreme Commander, who would of course be an American.

8. You will understand that I have given most careful consideration to the appointment of Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, and I am satisfied that for the great co-ordination task which will be entrusted to him he has all the qualifications and the necessary vigour. This is also the opinion of the C.I.G.S. When I mentioned this idea to you at Cairo you seemed to like it.

9. Turning to the “Overlord” theatre, I propose to you that Tedder shall be Eisenhower’s Deputy Supreme Commander, on account of the great part the air will play in this operation, and this is most agreeable to Eisenhower. The War Cabinet desires that Montgomery should command the first expeditionary group of armies. I feel the Cabinet are right, as Montgomery is a pub
hero and will give confidence among our people, not unshared by yours.

10. I beg most earnestly that I may soon have your reply on these proposals, or at least upon the key ones, as the Commander of “Overlord” is urgently required, and I should like to arrange for Wilson to take over from Eisenhower at an early date, and to come to him even sooner in order to settle the many consequential details.

President Roosevelt to Prime Minister

20 Dec. 43

Replying to your telegram of December 18, I am agreeable to an announcement on January 1 of selection of Eisenhower to command “Overlord,” Tedder to be Eisenhower’s Deputy Supreme Commander, Wilson to relieve Eisenhower as Supreme Commander Mediterranean (this change to be made when Eisenhower reports that conditions in Italy justify the change), Eaker to command Allied Air Force Mediterranean.

2. I prefer to delay announcement of changes in subordinate commands until after the first of the year, because I want to have opportunity to discuss it with Marshall, who will return to Washington in a few days.

3. I am delighted that you are really so much better, and I wish I could be with you at Marrakesh. I hope you have sent for your brushes.

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The days passed in much discomfort. Fever flickered in and out. I lived on my theme of the war, and it was like being transported out of oneself. The doctors tried to keep the work away from my bedside, but I defied them. They all kept on saying, “Don’t work, don’t worry,” to such an extent that I decided to read a novel. I had long ago read Jane Austen’s
Sense and Sensibility
, and now I thought I would have
Pride and Prejudice.
Sarah read it to me beautifully from the foot of the bed. I had always thought it would be better than its rival. What calm lives they had, those people! No worries about the French Revolution, or the crashing struggle of the Napoleonic Wars. Only manners controlling natural passion so far as they could, together with cultured explanations of any mischances. All this seemed to go very well with M and B.

One morning Sarah was absent from her chair at the foot of my bed, and I was about to ask for my box of telegrams in the prohibited hours when in she walked with her mother. I had no idea that my wife was flying out from England to join me. She had hurried to the airport to fly in a two-engined Dakota. The weather was bad, but Lord Beaverbrook was vigilant. He got to the airport first, and stopped her flight until a four-engined plane could be procured. (I always think it better to have four engines when flying long distances across the sea.) Now she had arrived after a very rough journey in an unheated plane in midwinter. Jock Colville had escorted her, and was a welcome addition to my hard-pressed personal staff, through whom so much business was being directed. “My love to Clemmie,” cabled the President. “I feel relieved that she is with you as your superior officer.”

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As I lay prostrate, I felt we were at one of the climaxes of the war. The mounting of “Overlord” was the greatest event and duty in the world. But must we sabotage everything we could have in Italy, where the main strength overseas of our country was involved? Were we to leave it a stagnant pool from which we had drawn every fish we wanted? As I saw the problem, the campaign in Italy, in which a million or more of our British, British-controlled, and Allied armies were engaged, was the faithful and indispensable comrade and counterpart to the main cross-Channel operation. Here the American clear-cut, logical, large-scale, mass-production style of thought was formidable. In life people have first to be taught “Concentrate on essentials.” This is no doubt the first step out of confusion and fatuity; but it is only the first step. The second stage in war is a general harmony of war effort by making everything fit together, and every scrap of fighting strength plays its full part all the time. I was sure that a vigorous campaign in Italy during the first half of 1944 would be the greatest help to the supreme operation of crossing the Channel, on which all minds were set and all engagements made. But
every item which any Staff officer could claim as “essential” or “vital,” to use these hard-worked words, had to be argued out as if it carried with it the success or failure of our main purpose. Twenty or a dozen vehicle landing-craft had to be fought for, as if the major issue turned upon them.

The case seemed to me brutally simple. All the ships we had would be used to carry to England everything the United States could produce in arms and men. Surely the enormous forces we could not possibly move by sea from the Italian theatre should play their part. Either they would gain Italy easily and immediately bite upon the German inner front, or they would draw large German forces from the front which we were to attack across the Channel in the last days of May, or the early days of June, as the moon and the tides prescribed.

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The deadlock to which our armies in Italy had been brought by the stubborn German resistance on the fifty-mile front from Cassino to the sea had already led General Eisenhower to yearn for an amphibious flanking attack. He had planned to land with one division south of the Tiber and make a dart for Rome, in conjunction with an attack by the main armies. The arrest of these armies and the distance of the landing point from them made everyone feel that more than one division was required. I had of course always been a partisan of the “end run,” as the Americans call it, or “cat-claw,” which was my term. I had never succeeded in getting this manoeuvre open to sea-power included in any of our Desert advances. In Sicily however General Patton had twice used the command of the sea flank as he advanced along the northern coast of the island with great effect. Both at Carthage and at Marrakesh I was near enough to the scene of action to convene meetings of all the chief commanders.

There was a great deal of professional support. Eisenhower was already committed in principle, though his new appointment to the command of “Overlord” now gave him a different sense of values and a new horizon. Alexander, Deputy Supreme Commander and commanding the armies in Italy, thought the operation right and necessary; Bedell Smith was ardent and helpful in every direction. This was also true of Admiral John Cunningham, who held all the naval cards, and of Air Chief Marshal Tedder. I had therefore a powerful array of Mediterranean authorities. Moreover, I felt sure the British Chiefs of Staff would like the plan, and that with their agreement I could obtain the approval of the War Cabinet. When you cannot give orders, hard and lengthy toils must be faced.

“Overlord” in May was sacrosanct. We had pledged ourselves at Teheran only a month before. Nothing could be considered which prevented our keeping our supreme engagement. In this case troops, air and seapower, presented no obstacles. All turned upon L.S.T.s (Landing-ships, Tanks). This included “Landing-ships, Vehicles,” because landing tanks was only a small proportion of their indispensable work. A lengthy correspondence conducted in cipher between me and Whitehall and Washington arose. The military student may some day be interested to read the details of this tense and clear-cut argument, of which only a skeleton is here printed. The L.S.T.s must, in the name of “Overlord,” be in England at certain dates. These dates had been calculated with extreme precision, and of course with all the margins for accident which, at every stage, enter into military planning, and would make almost all action impossible if they were not controlled from the top. Everyone claims his margin at every stage, and the sum of the margins is usually “No.”