Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings (74 page)
Read Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings Online
Authors: Craig L. Symonds
and the North African campaign,
93
–
94
Shubrick
(USN destroyer),
349
Sicily, Allied invasion of
Sinnett, Clifford,
326
Skahill, Bernard,
212
–
13
,
215
–
17
Slapton Sands
as training area,
140
,
197
–
218
,
205
Smith, Joel,
278
Smith, Walter Bedell “Beetle,”
172
,
178
,
218
Solomon Islands,
82
Southwick House (Ramsay’s HQ),
186
,
237
,
241
–
42
Soviet Union
and Lend Lease,
18
and United Nations declaration,
44
Spaatz, Andrew “Tooey,”
173
Special Engineer Brigades,
198
,
224
SS troops,
332
Stagg, James M.,
236
–
37
,
241
–
42
,
245
Stalin, Josef,
52
,
103
,
170
,
179
,
353
Stalingrad, battle of,
70
,
94
–
95
,
103
Stark, Harold “Betty,”
23
–
24
,
134
St.-Saveur-le-Vicomte,
336
Steel, William,
293
steel plate (as shipbuilding bottleneck),
159
Stimson, Henry,
23
,
37
,
51
–
52
,
67
–
68
,
144
,
157
,
167
Straussler, Nicolas,
209
Struble, Arthur,
211
,
219
–
20
,
246
,
326
–
27
Sullivan, William,
327
Susan B. Anthony
(USN transport),
318
Suwanee
(USN carrier),
77n
Svenner
(Norwegian destroyer),
305
Swenson, Edwin T.,
8
landings on,
281
naval bombardment of,
264
Talbot, George,
264
Talley, Benjamin,
286
Talybont
(RN destroyer),
291
tanks,
80
–
81
,
81n
.
See also
duplex drive
Taylor, George A.,
300
in attack on Cherbourg,
340
,
342
,
344
–
46
,
346n
,
347
off Normandy beaches,
263
–
64
,
294
,
299
,
302
,
313
Thomas Jefferson
(USN transport),
252
Thompson
(USN destroyer),
291
,
294
,
296
Thurston
(USN transport),
275
–
76
Tibbets, Paul,
82n
Tiger, Exercise.
See
Exercise Tiger
Torch (invasion of North Africa),
69
–
70
training for landing operations
troop transports,
84
,
90
,
124
–
28
,
252
,
275
–
76
,
318
Tully, Grace,
24
Tuscaloosa
(USN cruiser),
259n
in attack on Cherbourg,
340
,
347
U-boats,
16
–
19
,
36
,
50
,
55
,
76
,
82
,
114
,
146
in Neptune,
311
in Torch,
92
unconditional surrender doctrine,
103
–
4
United Nations, declaration of,
44
–
45
U.S. Coast Guard ships,
195
,
270
,
279
–
81
U.S. Maritime Commission,
159
–
60
U.S. Navy ships
bombardment of Cherbourg,
339
–
48
bombardment of Neptune beaches,
258
–
66
,
267
–
68
,
266
–
67
,
335
–
36
undeclared war with German U-boats,
16
–
19
See also
individual ships
Van Fleet, James,
271
Vernon, Paul,
331
and the Normandy invasion,
237
,
241
,
245
Vickery, Howard,
160
Wakefield, Orval,
274
whales (floating roadways),
320
,
323
Walney
(RN corvette),
88
Walsh, Quentin,
350
War Production Board (WPB),
148
,
158
,
159
–
60
War Shipping Administration,
147
Warspite
(RN battleship),
235
,
264
,
305
Wedemeyer, Albert C.,
102
–
3
,
110
Welles, Sumner,
13
Western Task Force,
189
.
See also
Kirk, Alan G.
White, F.S.,
248
William P. Biddle
(U.S. transport),
90
Williams, Clendel,
162
Winant, John G. “Gil,”
25
–
26
,
25n
Winettes (early landing craft),
81
,
152
Winooski
(USN tanker),
92
Winstons (early tank landing ships),
81
,
152
women
as U.S. shipyard workers,
162
Wurzburgs (German radar),
262
–
63
X-20 and X-23 (midget submarines),
233
*
The gross domestic product of the United States in 1941 was $1,094 billion, which was more than the GDP of Germany and Japan combined.
*
One irony of this tale is that John Stark’s wife was actually named Molly, and what he is supposed to have said at the Battle of Bennington is “We’ll beat them before night or Molly Stark’s a widow.” If the upperclassman had known his historical mythology a little better, the future chief of naval operations might have gone through life as “Molly” Stark.
*
Though it is not clear that Churchill was aware of it, both Winant and Harriman were taking rather severe advantage of his hospitality. The married Winant was embarking on an amorous affair with Churchill’s twenty-seven-year-old daughter Sarah, while the equally married fifty-year-old Harriman was sleeping with the prime minister’s twenty-one-year-old daughter-in-law, Pamela, who was married to Churchill’s only son, Randolph, serving in Egypt. Thirty years later, with much water having passed under the bridge, Averell, by then nearly eighty, and the fifty-one-year-old Pamela were married.
*
Beaverbrook resigned as minister of supply in February, shortly after returning to England from the Arcadia conference. Ostensibly it was because of his poor health, but Beaverbrook also objected to Churchill’s decision to allow the Admiralty to control shipbuilding priorities, and he feuded openly with Clement Attlee, Churchill’s deputy prime minister.
*
Churchill headed first to Canada, where he made a memorable address to the Canadian parliament, mocking Hitler’s claim that he would wring England’s neck like a chicken. In his growling baritone, Churchill remarked: “Some chicken … some neck.” Then on January 6 he flew to Florida, where he stayed for several days in the winter home of the American Lend-Lease administrator (and later secretary of state) Edward Stettinius. There he enjoyed a genuine vacation, one of only a very few during the war.
*
An exception to the principle of unified command was the agreement reached at Arcadia that the United States Navy “will remain responsible for the whole Pacific Ocean east of [the] Philippine Islands.” Of course, the U.S. Navy then had to negotiate its command responsibility with an equally assertive authority in the person of General Douglas MacArthur, who was subsequently endowed with command of what was called the Southwest Pacific Area (SoWesPac), including Australia and the Philippines, while the U.S. Navy presided over the Pacific Ocean Areas (POA) under the overall command of Admiral Chester Nimitz.
*
The War Plans Division was renamed the Operations Division in March 1942, though Eisenhower remained its director.
*
It is instructive to compare British losses in World War I (886,939 deaths out of a population of 45.4 million, or about 2 percent) to American losses in the Civil War (about 700,000 deaths—on both sides—out of a population of 31.5 million, or about 2.2 percent).
*
Brooke’s name occasionally creates confusion for American readers. He was elevated to the peerage at the end of the war, and in selecting his title he conflated his two names to become Viscount Alanbrooke, which is how his name appears in the notes and bibliography of this book. During the war, however, he was Alan Brooke, and his friends called him “Brooksie.”
*
These were the
Sangemon
(CVE-26), which gave her name to the class; the
Suwanee
(CVE-27); the
Chenango
(CVE-28); and the
Santee
(CVE-29).
*
It is noteworthy that the Winston was designed to carry the Churchill tank, a circumstance that underscores both the impact that the prime minister had on virtually every aspect of British weaponry as well as on planning and strategy, and his unembarrassed willingness to accept these tributes as appropriate. Though the official designation for the Winettes was “LST(1),” they were substantially different from the American-built LSTs that were used at Normandy a year and a half later.
†
There were two versions of the thirty-ton M3 tank. Those sent to Britain under Lend-Lease were dubbed the “General Grant”; those retained and used by the Americans were dubbed the “General Lee.” Thus it could be said that the British deployed a “Yankee” tank while the Americans used a “rebel” tank. Both versions suffered from the fact that they carried a relatively small gun (37 mm) and were therefore no match for the German Mark IV tank, which had a 75 mm gun.
*
The pilot of Eisenhower’s plane was Major Paul Tibbets, who three years later, as Colonel Tibbets, would fly the B-29
Enola Gay
to Hiroshima carrying an atomic bomb.
*
This story soon made the rounds of those few who were aware of the mission. When Clark later met King George VI in Buckingham Palace, the king tweaked him by saying: “You’re the one who took that fabulous trip. Didn’t you, by the way, get stranded on the beach without your pants?”
