The Rising Tide: A Novel of World War II (2 page)

For years, part of Hitler’s appeal to the German people has been in his boisterous insistence that they are unique and racially superior, that the German bloodline should prevail over all others. With so much German territory lost by the Treaty of Versailles, it is easy for Hitler to convince his nation of the need for more
Lebensraum,
or living space, allowing the pure bloodlines of Aryan Germany to flourish and prosper across Europe. To make room for his version of the Chosen People, Hitler has already begun ordering the forced relocation of sizable numbers of immigrants and Jews from their homes in Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other countries, including France. These uprooted people are being transported into enormous camps, where they are often told they will only remain until new homes can be found for them. But few are allowed to leave, and instead, enormous numbers of men, women, and children are led into gas chambers, where they are simply exterminated.

In the first two years of the war, knowledge of the camps is confined mostly to the Gestapo, Hitler’s secret police. Many close to Hitler’s inner circle choose to ignore the rumors of what is happening to the Jews. Others accept Hitler’s philosophy without qualm. Most of the professional soldiers, whose duties keep them far out in the field, have little or no idea what is taking place in the concentration camps.

On June 22, 1941, a force totaling more than 186 German divisions, nearly two and a half million men, crosses the frontier into Russia. Hitler’s dream of conquering the enormous country will occupy most of his attention for many months to come.

As Germany’s might spreads eastward, in North Africa a far smaller force has been deployed. They are mostly mobile and armored forces, many of the same men who had launched the stunningly successful attack across France and Belgium. Now, they will be asked to drive the British away from the places held dear by Mussolini, and if possible to secure all of North Africa. Compared to the enormous army surging across the plains of Russia, the two panzer divisions that land at the Libyan port city of Tripoli are barely a token force, not nearly the juggernaut Mussolini has hoped for. But Mussolini will take what he can get. The panzers are led by the man whose name has already gained him a considerable reputation in the German high command. His name is Erwin Rommel.

I
n the years following the Great War, the American government is as divided as its people. As had been the case in 1914, many Americans are enormously reluctant to get involved in the rest of the world’s problems. In the 1920s, isolationist sentiment returns with even more vigor.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt assumes the presidency in 1933, the nation has suffered through three years of a Great Depression, and Roosevelt’s New Deal policies are designed to put the American economy back on its feet. His policies succeed, and throughout the 1930s Americans begin to emerge from their economic gloom. American newspapers trumpet the turmoil around the globe, the civil war in Spain, Mussolini’s conquests in Africa, Japan’s aggressions against China. As Hitler’s landgrab in Europe evolves into full-scale war, American celebrities such as Charles Lindbergh warn the nation that any alliance the United States makes with Hitler’s enemies will only result in America’s destruction. Roosevelt does not agree.

America’s relationship with Great Britain is based on more than economic alliance, and Roosevelt believes that the American people are enormously pro-British. After Britain’s near catastrophe at Dunkirk, Roosevelt responds with several aid packages, including military supplies and ships, loaned to Britain on terms that clearly demonstrate where America’s allegiance lies. In March 1941, the Lend-Lease Act formalizes this alliance. Roosevelt’s enemies, including Lindbergh, are outraged.

On December 7, 1941, that outrage is silenced. The Japanese launch a devastating surprise attack on the American naval fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. As Roosevelt conveys the news to a shocked American public, the isolationists and pacifists are suddenly ignored. Roosevelt declares war on Japan and its allies, Germany and Italy.

Immediately, American military leaders discover that two decades of antimilitary sentiment have reduced the American armed forces to a pitiful state. From aircraft to tanks, rifles to fighting men, the armed forces are woefully underequipped to confront an enemy that possesses the most modern tools of war. General John Dill, the senior British officer stationed in Washington, notes, “Their armed forces are more unready for this war than it is possible to imagine. The whole organization belongs to the days of George Washington.” Thus begins a crash program involving every industrial resource the United States can muster. Within weeks, factories dedicated to appliances and modern conveniences are converted to the manufacture of munitions. Automobile makers begin producing tanks. The aid to Britain continues, but in Washington, the American military begins to divide its priorities, some believing that America should first confront Japan, others, Europe. A wrestling match for resources ensues. The difficult balance is maintained with a skilled hand by the chief of staff, George C. Marshall, who is convinced that if Britain falls, America will be isolated, squeezed hard between two great military powers. Marshall convinces Roosevelt that Hitler must be defeated first if there is to be any hope that the British can devote their own resources to helping fight the Japanese.

As American troop strength rises, and volunteers fill the training centers, the American officer corps undergoes convulsions of its own. Marshall’s unenviable job is to find the right men for jobs no one has trained for. Command in the Pacific is given to the former chief of staff Douglas MacArthur, whose experience in the field has come mostly in the Philippines. Though the British are also confronting Japanese threats against their colonies in Singapore and India, there is no united front, and MacArthur takes command over a vast area in the central and western Pacific that is primarily an American affair. In Europe, Marshall’s choice of commander is less clear-cut. With no Allied forces actually fighting on the European continent, America’s first role must be to support an invasion, to stand beside the British, seeking the means to crack Hitler’s stranglehold. The Americans strongly favor an invasion across the English Channel, directly into France. The British disagree vehemently, and Winston Churchill pushes for regaining control of the Mediterranean Sea. Churchill believes that if Germany prevails in North Africa, the threat to the Suez Canal and the oil fields of the Middle East cannot be overcome. Churchill’s plan is to strike first at German and Italian interests in North Africa. Since early 1941, British forces have been engaging Erwin Rommel in a seesaw duel across the Libyan desert. Churchill convinces the Americans that if the Germans are swept clear of North Africa, all of southern Europe, especially Italy, would become vulnerable to an Allied attack. Though Marshall and Roosevelt continue to push for a cross-Channel invasion, Churchill prevails. All that is required is a commander, one man to lead the combined forces of America and Britain. Though the British have experience against Hitler’s armies, Churchill understands that American resources are essential to success. To that end, the American people must feel that their military is standing side by side with Britain, not one step behind them. Therefore, the commander of the overall campaign should be an American. Though many in the British military are quietly convinced he will be but a figurehead, George Marshall chooses the man he believes to be the most dogged and clearheaded administrator in the American command: Dwight D. Eisenhower.

DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER

Born 1890, in Denison, Texas, one of seven sons (only six survive to adulthood) of hardworking, devout parents. He is originally named David Dwight, but reverses his names after he graduates high school. Eisenhower spends most of his early years in Abilene, Kansas, learns the conservative values of American life from the small-town experiences of a world cut off from the buoyant temptations of the “Gay Nineties.”

He is an exceptional athlete and is sensitive about his family’s humble position in the community. Handy with his fists, he quickly establishes that he will tolerate none of the high-handed snootiness of the town’s more aristocratic boys.

In 1911, Eisenhower applies to the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, and as an afterthought, and to increase his chances for acceptance, adds an application to West Point as well. He has no plans for a military career, believing only that the service academies will offer him a first-class college education, which otherwise his parents could simply not afford. To his disappointment, his age makes him too old for acceptance at Annapolis, but he is accepted by West Point. At twenty-one, Eisenhower is the oldest member of his class. His journey east is his first trip away from his close-knit family.

He graduates in 1915, sixty-first in his class, leaving behind a reputation for prowess on the football field far more than in the classroom. He cannot know at the time that of the 164 members of his graduating class, fifty-nine will rise to the rank of general, the most of any class produced by West Point. Included among these will be his friend Omar Bradley.

In late 1915, he is sent to San Antonio, Texas, where he meets Mamie Geneva Doud, who bears an uncanny resemblance to actress Lillian Gish, and whom Eisenhower describes as “the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.” In July 1916, they are married. In September 1917, Mamie gives birth to Doud Dwight Eisenhower, but the baby’s life is cut short by scarlet fever, and Eisenhower’s first son dies in January 1921, at age three. It is a tragedy he will rarely speak about. In August 1922, Mamie gives birth again, to another boy, whom they name John.

Throughout the Great War, Eisenhower remains stateside, training tank crews, and he serves as commander of a tank brigade at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He meets and becomes friends with the army’s tank-school commander, George Patton.

With the conclusion of the war, Eisenhower accepts a role in the downsized army, serves as General Fox Connor’s chief of staff in Panama, with the rank of major, a rank he will hold for more than fifteen years. Connor had served closely with American commander John “Black Jack” Pershing and is one of the army’s most outstanding minds. He educates Eisenhower in literature and the arts, broadening the young man’s perspectives, and gives Eisenhower the opportunity to hone his skills at military planning and organization.

In 1924, Connor suggests that Eisenhower enter the Army’s Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. After a two-year study, Eisenhower surprises himself more than anyone else by graduating first, out of a class of 275 officers.

In 1927, Eisenhower serves as aide to retired general Pershing, as part of the American Battlefield Monuments Commission. Pershing influences him, as had Fox Connor, and encourages him to read and study the tactics and strategies of the bloody fields of the Great War.

In 1933, Eisenhower accepts a staff position with then Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur. He serves in a continuing role on MacArthur’s staff in the Philippines and remains there until 1940. The two men are oil and water, but Eisenhower performs his duties with complete professionalism, though he genuinely dislikes MacArthur. However, Eisenhower respects MacArthur’s experience, and long before Pearl Harbor, MacArthur tells him that another large-scale war is a certainty, a prediction that Eisenhower takes seriously.

In February 1940, he is stationed at Fort Ord, California, named executive officer of the Fifteenth Infantry regiment. He begins to speak of his fears, warning all who listen that the United States is simply not prepared for a war he feels is inevitable. To the officers around him, he becomes known as Alarmist Ike.

In September 1941, Eisenhower is promoted to brigadier general, and when news comes of Pearl Harbor, Eisenhower is called to Washington, where he is named to command the general staff’s War Plans Division. Now under the direct eye of Chief of Staff George Marshall, Eisenhower finds himself critiquing MacArthur’s strategies in the Pacific, which he does without prejudice, though he often finds fault with MacArthur’s planning. Marshall is impressed. In March 1942, Eisenhower receives a promotion to major general. His friendship with Marshall continues to grow, the two men seeing eye to eye on most of the critical matters erupting around them.

On April 8, 1942, Marshall flies to London, where he meets with Churchill and the British chiefs of staff. Their discussion covers every aspect of the coming campaigns against Hitler’s army, and for the first time, the chiefs discuss which officer will be chosen to lead the Allied command. On June 15, 1942, Eisenhower receives the final word from Marshall. The command is his.

ERWIN ROMMEL

Born 1891, in Heidenheim, Germany, the son of a schoolmaster, the middle child of five. His childhood is spent in the hills and woods of his Bavarian home, and he quickly discovers that he has little aptitude for studies, which of course does not please his father. One teacher remarks, “If he ever produces a dictation without a mistake, we will hire a band and go off for a day in the country.” Always preferring athletics, by his teen years Rommel becomes an exceptional skier and has a fascination with flying machines. Though the Rommel family has no military tradition, he begins to see himself as a soldier, and in 1910, to his father’s enormous disappointment, Rommel joins the army.

In 1911, while attending the German War Academy in Danzig, East Prussia, Rommel meets Lucy Maria Mollin, a moderately aristocratic girl who sweeps him completely off his feet. A year later, Rommel concludes his officer training and is assigned to an infantry regiment as a second lieutenant, training new recruits. Loyal always to Lucy, Rommel does not participate in the rowdy temptations offered to young officers, rarely drinks, and never smokes. He is considered an uninteresting bore by his fellow officers. His superiors interpret that differently and note the young man has the right material to become a proper officer.