Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings (64 page)

36.
FDR to Pershing, September 20, 1943, PGCM, 4:129n; Frederick Morgan,
Overture to Overlord
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1950), 169.

37.
Stimson to FDR, August 10, 1943, FRUS (Special Conferences Series) 3:497.

38.
Arnold to Handy, September 29, 1943, PGCM, 4:178; Robert E. Sherwood,
Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History
(New York: Enigma Books, 1948, 2008), 593–94.

39.
GCM, Memorandum for JCS, November 5, 1943, PGCM, 4:180–81; Memorandum by the U.S. Chiefs of Staff, November 25, 1943, FRUS (Special Conferences Series), 2:405.

40.
Marshall to Sherwood, February 25, 1947, PGCM, 4:195.

41.
Minutes, November 28, FRUS (Special Conferences Series), 2:487, 490, 500.

42.
Minutes kept by Chip Bohlen, November 29, 1943, FRUS (Special Conferences Series), 2:534.

43.
Ibid., 534–35.

44.
The attribution of these views to FDR is derived from Elliott Roosevelt’s summary in a conversation with Eisenhower in November. See DDE, Memorandum for Diary, December 6, 1943, PDDE, 3:1586.

45.
Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Crusade in Europe
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1949), 207. Roosevelt sent a telegram to Stalin the next day (the second anniversary of Pearl Harbor) to notify him of Eisenhower’s appointment. See PDDE, 3:1606n.

Chapter 8: SHAEF and ANCXF

1.
DDE, Memorandum for Diary, February 7, 1944, PDDE, 3:1712.

2.
DDE to GCM, December 28, 1943, and DDE to Morgan, December 26, 1943, both in PDDE, 3:1627, 1616. Morgan’s comment is in Elliott B. Strauss, “Disaster at Dieppe, Success at Normandy,” in Paul Stillwell, ed.,
Assault on Normandy: First Person Accounts from the Sea Services
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1994), 12.

3.
Martin Blumenson, ed.,
The Patton Papers
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974), 2:237 (diary entry of April 29, 1943); Brooke Diary (entry of December 11, 1943), 496; Bernard Montgomery,
The Memoirs of Field-Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
(London: Collins, 1958), 198–99.

4.
DDE to GCM, December 31, 1943, March 3 and March 21, 1944, all in PDDE, 3:1648–49, 1758–59, 1781–82.

5.
W. S. Chalmers,
Full Cycle: The Biography of Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay
(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1959), 21, 29.

6.
Ibid., 50, 134–36.

7.
Ramsay Diary (February 22, 1944), 30.

8.
Montgomery,
Memoirs
, 213; Ramsay to his wife, January 1944, in Chambers,
Full
Cycle
, 187; Ramsay Diary (January 14, 1944), 7–8.

9.
Montgomery subsequently asserted in his memoirs that the expansion of the assault force from three divisions to five was his idea, and that he had to persuade Eisenhower to do it. Some historians have taken this seriously, but as Ike wrote in a letter to Marshall: “About the end of December … I had General Montgomery come to see me and General [Beetle] Smith and told him to go to England … to seek for an intensification of effort to increase the troop lift in OVERLORD.” Thus when Monty insisted on an enlargement of the landing front at a meeting at St. Paul’s School on January 3, 1944, it was in fulfillment of Ike’s orders. See DDE to GCM, February 8, 1944, PDDE, 3:1713–14; Montgomery,
Memoirs
, 210.

10.
Gordon A. Harrison,
The European Theater of Operations: Cross-Channel Attack
(Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1951), 123–25.

11.
Ramsay Diary (January 18 and 20), 10–11.

12.
Chambers,
Full Cycle
, 191; DDE to CCS, January 23, 1944, PDDE, 3:1673–75.

13.
JCS to DDE, January 25, 1944, PDDE, 3:1691–92n. King’s concerns are in Harrison,
The European Theater of Operations
, 127; Ramsay’s annoyance is in Ramsay Diary (January 26, 1944), 15.

14.
The “Loading Tables, South West Coast,” for October 12, 1943, are in ANCXF Papers, Subject File, box 6, folder 3, NA; DDE to JCS, January 27, 1944, PDDE, 3:1688–91; DDE to JCS, March 9, 1944, PDDE, 3:1763.

15.
Harrison,
The European Theater of Operations
, 170; DDE to GCM, February 6, 1944, PDDE, 3:1707; Ramsay Diary (February 2, 1944), 19.

16.
Ramsay Diary (February 5, 1944), 20.

17.
DDE, Memorandum for Diary, February 7, 1944, PDDE, 3:1711–12.

18.
Brooke Diary (March 29, 1944), 535. The proposal to swap LSTs from the Med is in DDE to British COS, February 18, 1944, PDDE, 3:1732, and GCM to DDE, March 25, 1944, PGCM, 4:374–75. Ike’s note to Marshall is in DDE to GCM, February 14, 1944, PDDE, 3:1725.

19.
Brooke Diary (March 17, 1944), 532.

20.
Ramsay Diary (February 29 and March 6), 35, 39; Brooke Diary (April 1 and January 24, 1944), 537, 516.

21.
DDE to JCS, March 9, 1944, PDDE, 1763–64; DDE to GCM, March 20 and March 21, 1944, and DDE, Memorandum for Diary, March 22, 1944, all in PDDE, 3:1775, 1777, 1783. Marshall’s letter to DDE, dated March 25, is in PGCM, 4:374–75.

22.
Brooke Diary (April 19, 1944), 541; Ramsay Diary (March 25, 1944), 48.

23.
Montgomery discusses his travels in his
Memoirs
, 223–24, 227, 231. The story of the beret is in Anthony Beevor,
D-Day: The Battle for Normandy
(New York: Penguin, 2009), 6.

24.
Montgomery,
Memoirs
, 225–26; Ramsay Diary (February 17, 1944), 28. Italics in original.

25.
Ramsay Diary (January 1, 1944), 1.

26.
Philip Vian,
Action This Day: A War Memoir
(London: Frederick Muller, 1960), 124–25.

27.
Ibid., 126–27.

28.
Ramsay Diary (March 3, 1944), 37.

29.
Kirk’s orders to command the Western Task Force are in COMINCH to COMNAVEU, October 13, 1943, ComUSNavEu, RG 313, box 16, NA; Alan G. Kirk Oral History, Columbia University, 233–34, 251.

30.
Alan G. Kirk Oral History, Columbia University, 252–53.

31.
Ibid., 261, 296. Italics in original.

32.
The undated letter of Ramsay to Kirk is in W. S. Chambers,
Full Cycle
, 197.

33.
Alan G. Kirk Oral History, Columbia University, 248.

34.
Ramsay Diary (January 21, 1944), 12.

35.
Admiralty to COMINCH, April 27, 1944, ComUSNavEu, Subject file, RG 313, box 16, NA; Ramsay Diary (March 7, 1944), 39.

36.
Ramsay Diary (January, 21, 1944), 12; DDE to GCM, March 20, 1944, PDDE, 3:1773–74; John Lesslie Hall Jr. Oral History, Columbia University, 177–78.

37.
Bernhard Bieri Oral History, USNI, 143–45.

38.
COMNAVEU (Stark) to CNO (King), April 17, 1944, ComUSNavEu, Message File, RG 313, box 13, NA.

Chapter 9: Duck, Fox, Beaver, Tiger

1.
Gene Jaeger,
Flat-Bottomed Odyssey: From North Africa to D-Day
(Henry, IL: Prairie Ocean Press, 2010), 104–5.

2.
Edwin Gale Oral History, NWWIIM-EC, 2–3.

3.
Ibid.; George Goodspeed Oral History, NWWIIM-EC, n.p.

4.
Kenneth Edwards,
Operation Neptune: The Normandy Landings, 1944
(Fonthill Media, 2013), 84.

5.
William E. Heavy,
Down Ramp! The Story of the Army Amphibious Engineers
(Washington, DC: Infantry Journal Press, 1947), 22.

6.
Nigel Lewis,
Exercise Tiger: The Dramatic True Story of a Hidden Tragedy of World War II
(New York: Prentice Hall, 1990), 20–22.

7.
William T. O’Neill Oral History, NWWIIM-EC, 12; Training Schedule of “U.S. Naval Advanced Amphibious Training Base, Appledore,” General File 2002.570, NWWIIM-EC; Dean Rockwell Oral History, and Ralph A. Crenshaw Oral History (p. 5), both in NWWIIM-EC.

8.
William Steel Oral History, NWWIIM-EC, 8.

9.
“Procedure for Marrying LCT(5) and LCT(6) to LST,” George Keleher File, NWWIIM-EC.

10.
Don Irwin, “The U.S. LCT 614 Following D-Day at Omaha Beach, Normandy,” in Don Irwin File, NWWIIM-EC, 7–8.

11.
Ibid.

12.
Wallace Bishop Oral History, NWWIIM-EC, 3.

13.
Kenneth C. Newberg Oral History (p. 8), and Donald W. Nutley Oral History (p. 2), both in NWWIIM-EC.

14.
U.S. Naval Academy
Lucky Bag
(1913), 92; John Lesslie Hall Jr. Oral History, Columbia University, 10, 177.

15.
Ramsay Diary (March 10, 1944), 41; John Lesslie Hall Jr. Oral History, Columbia University, 164. See also Susan Godson,
Viking of Assault: Admiral John Lesslie Hall, Jr., and Amphibious Warfare
(Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1982), 121.

16.
Kirk to King, February 5, 1944, ComUSNavEu, Subject File, RG 313, box 16, NA; Ramsay Diary (March 8, 1944), 40; U.S. Naval Academy
Lucky Bag
(1916), 113. Moon’s daughter remembered that it was a family mantra “to always do one’s best.” Meredith Moon to the author, May 15, 2013, author’s collection. Long after Moon’s death, a trunk containing his old check stubs was discovered in an Annapolis home that was being demolished. It may or may not illustrate Moon’s meticulous attention to detail that every cancelled check had been carefully reattached to the stub.

17.
John R. Lewis Jr. Oral History, NWWIIM-EC, 3; John A. Moreno, “The Death of Admiral Moon,” in Paul Stillwell, ed.,
Assault on Normandy: First-Person Accounts from the Sea Services
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1994), 225; John Lesslie Hall Jr. Oral History, Columbia University, 162. Moreno recalled that Moon and his chief of staff, Captain Rutledge Tomkins, “were not compatible.”

18.
J. Lawton Collins,
Lightning Joe: An Autobiography
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979), 193; John R. Lewis Jr. Oral History, NWWIIM-EC, 3. At the baseball game between British and American sailors, Moon was watching from a distance when an errant ball bounced near him. He ran to it, picked it up, and threw it back into the field of play. The British sailors were stunned that an admiral would condescend so much. No British admiral, they asserted, would do such a thing.

19.
See a summary of all the Allied practice landings in
www.history.army.mil/documents/WWII/beaches/bchs-7.htm
.

20.
Ramsay Diary (March 1 and March 10–11, 1944), 36, 40–42.

21.
www.history.army.mil/documents/WWII/beaches/bchs-7.htm
; Heavy,
Down
Ramp!
, 75.

22.
Frederick C. Morgan,
Overture to Overlord
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1950), 261.

23.
Guy Hartcup,
Code Name Mulberry: The Planning, Building and Operation of the Normandy Harbors
(London: David & Charles, 1977), 18–19; Michael Harrison,
Mulberry: The Return in Triumph
(London: W. H. Allen, 1965), 170.

24.
Eisenhower’s concerns are in COMNAVEU (Stark) to CNO (King), February 1, 1944, ComUSNavEu, Subject File, RG 313, box 16, NA.

25.
Ibid.; Hartcup,
Code Name Mulberry
, 13–27, 95.

26.
Alfred Stanford,
Force Mulberry: The Planning and Installation of the Artificial Harbor off U.S. Normandy Beaches in World War II
(New York: William Morrow, 1951), 74; COMINCH to C in C, Atlantic Fleet, October 9, 1943, ComUSNavEu, Subject File, RG 313, box 18; and COMNAVEU to COMINCH, April 12, 1944, ComUSNavEu, Message File, RG 313, box 13, NA.

27.
Ramsay Diary (February 3, 1944), 19; Harrison,
Mulberry
, 14, 82.

28.
Harrison,
Mulberry
, 94.

29.
For a discussion of Hobart’s Funnies, see Richard C. Anderson Jr.,
Cracking Hitler’s
Atlantic Wall: The 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers on D-Day
(Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2010). Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Crusade in Europe
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1949), 236–37; John J. Guilmartin Oral History, NWWIIMEC, 10.

30.
Dean Rockwell, “DD Spelled Disaster,” in Stillwell, ed.,
Assault on Normandy
, 68–71; Karl D. Everitt Oral History, NWWIIM-EC, 20.

31.
Joseph H. Esclavon Oral History, NWWIIM-EC, 2; Ramsay Diary (February 7 and 12, 1944), 22, 25. The story of salvaging the DD tank and the creation of a memorial is in Ken Small,
The Forgotten Dead
(London: Bloomsbury, 1988).

32.
Norman Friedman,
U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft: An Illustrated History
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2010), 218.

33.
Lewis,
Exercise Tiger
, 4.

34.
Elliott B. Strauss, “Disaster at Dieppe, Success at Normandy,” in Stillwell, ed.,
Assault on Normandy
, 12. There is circumstantial evidence that Moon pressed Kirk to do something about the threat from Cherbourg. After the war, both Robert Lewis and Mark Dalton, who served on Moon’s staff, remembered Moon’s efforts to neutralize the E-boat threat from Cherbourg. It is not clear if Kirk acted in response to this prodding from Moon or on his own. In addition, Strauss identifies the British officer Struble talked to as Vian, but Vian had no authority to draw new command boundaries, and it was very likely Ramsay that Struble talked with. Interview with Meredith Moon, May 3, 2013. See also Alan Kirk Oral History, Columbia University, 290.

35.
Lewis,
Exercise Tiger
, 73–74. The “no luck” message is CTF122 to NCWTF, April 24, 1944, ComUSNavEu, Message File, RG 133, box 16, NA.

36.
Lewis,
Exercise Tiger
, 74; Edwin Hoyt,
The Invasion Before Normandy
(New York: Stein and Day, 1985), 93.

37.
Lewis,
Exercise Tiger
, 66.

38.
M. J. Whitley,
German Coastal Forces of World War Two
(London: Arms and Armour, 1992), 23.