Minds Behind War; 1; Eisenhower as Commander

Mine behind war, Eisenhower. Take one. The following program is from NET, the National Educational Television Network. The National Educational Television Network.

The National Educational Television Network. So Brian, when did you first meet General Eisenhower? Well, as a matter of fact, I can remember the exact day. It was the 30th of March 1943. Now, you remember that Aleman had been fought the previous October, and since then the 8th Army had been going along the North African coast, pushing the Germans and Italians underarm all behind them. We just won a difficult battle, the Battle of Marath, and I was out of my

armoured car going around my units who were probing the next possible position which the Germans might hold. And I got a message to report to 8th Army tactical headquarters. I arrived, went into the famous Mapplory where I had so many orders and there there were two figures, Montgomery and the American. And the American was introduced to me as General Eisenhower, the new Supreme Commander who had just been appointed. Derek said, Mountain, will you tell us the situation on your front? Well, now, Mountain knew the situation on my front just as well as I did. So this was obviously an act to put on. You know, Corps Commander from Veteran 8th Army report situation and for the benefit of inexperienced new Supreme Commander. So, walking back to the old South College days, I gave what I hoped was a pretty sparkly appreciation. Now, while I was doing this, I was seriously studying

this man who could have made a lot of difference to all of them. Here was the Supreme Commander, I know. I wonder what he got, was he a military genius? I would say, obviously, not for one or two of the questions he asked. Yet he had something, there was no doubt about it. There was an extraordinary contrast to the two of them. There was, Monty, the complete master of war, small, intense, like a little Terry, who might bite it any moment. The Commander, and beside him was the large, friendly figure of eyes and how was wide grim, probably more a coordinator than a commander. Yes, you wouldn't say it was one of the great commanders of the last war. No, certainly not. You see, at this actual time, remember, he was a full Colonel who had never seen a single shot fired in anger, and yet he'd been placed over the command of Alexander and Montgomery who'd spent there, well, two world wars they'd fought their ways through. But he was saying that you think it was really a bad appointment? Oh, no, no. I think it was an excellent appointment. But

it was an excellent appointment because of the qualities of eyes now. You would say that the moment of crisis in fact had brought forth the right man to do the job. Yes, they couldn't possibly done each other's job. Monty could no more have coordinated that team. And Eisenhower could no more have won the battles which Monty didn't. I always used to think of the Army Group, you know, as a coach. And on the driving seat was General Eisenhower with the reins in his head. And in front of him was some pretty difficult horses. Eisenhower, not Eisenhower, Montgomery and Pat and Bradley. And Bradley, at any moment there he has to go back in a major lash out. Yet by the end of the war, you know, by rarely skillful driving, he got that difficult team to the end. It was a very remarkable achievement. Now, let me take you right back to the beginning. What about his early days? What sort of childhood did he have? Well, of course that, to me, is absolutely fascinating, his child.

He is the supreme example of the poor boy who makes good. And what is even more interesting is this man who was the cheap architect of the German defeat was himself of pure German extraction. You know, in 1732 I think it was three brothers Eisenhower, and I believe Eisenhower and German means striker of arm, emigrated to the United States, with their wives and families. And then the whole community with a lot of friends, they moved west, like people used to do in the states in those days, to Kansas, to a small place called Abilene, where they started farming. Now, they were very religious, they called themselves the River Brethren, and they worked pretty hard and prospered fairly well, all except Eisenhower's own family. His father was a complete failure. He ended up as the night watchman in a creamery, but he did one great thing. He married a very remarkable

woman, either Elizabeth Stover, who should go down to history. Now, she was a deeply religious woman, and eventually she became a Jehovah's Witness, anti -war, and ended up as a conscientious objector, the mother of the man who won the war was a conscientious objector. And you know, when the war, she had seven, let's think, a family of seven, one of them died, and there were six boys, all of whom were successful in their different walks of life. And when the war was over, and Eisenhower was coming back, you know, as the great hero of all the Western world, the well -meaning neighbor went up to Mrs. Eisenhower and said, you must be very proud of your son, Mrs. Eisenhower. She said, which one? There was no money in that family at all, absolutely no. And she said to these boys, if you want the education, go out and earn it. And my word, they did.

Eisenhower used to get up at five, lay the fires, and used to start by selling vegetables from the farm to all the rich neighbors around it, and he got a job as an assistant engineer in the creamery. And he reckoned to have worked 72 hours a week. Now, he still remembers this formidable old mother of his, saying to him, those who lived by the sword will die by the sword. It's totally incredible. But was this background on Earth, he'd ever become a soldier? Well, this is true, two reasons, really. Firstly, he had a great friend who joined the Army and liked it, and was always trying to persuade him to go into it. And secondly, he was always interested in military history. And as a matter of fact, he took the exam on his own, for West Point, that is the American military academy, rather like our census, but even more so. And he passed in second. So, well, this showed great aptitudes straight away, presumably. Well, I wouldn't have said ever that his early career was brilliant, not at all.

You see, he was older than most of the other cadets, and he passed out 61st. He was appointed a second lieutenant in the infantry, and he had one dowel job after another. He didn't even get over to France during the First World War. I believe he was a major, wasn't he, for 16 years? I believe he was. Something like that. I know anyhow that he was a full colonel in March 41. That's right, in March 41. And 13 months, no, 23 months later, he was a five -star full gym. That's the most rapid promotion. That's incredible. In the whole, I think, of the American Army. Tommy, do you know how he got on with MacArthur? He was chief of stars. He was chief of stars to several people. And history doesn't relate how they got on. It must have been a very peculiar combination, because there was MacArthur, the aristocrat, the showman, Eisenhower, the simple man who'd come from the people. But you see, when he really made his name,

he was as the assistant to Marshal. Now, Marshal, you remember, in the war, was the head of the American Army. He was the great American leader. And Eisenhower was his assistant. But it was Roosevelt who appoints him to be the supreme commander. Yes, Roosevelt had great confidence in him, didn't he? Yes, thank him. Because the one quality out to mention, which I haven't really bought out so far, which I think was almost the greatest, was thanks to this personality of his. He had this wonderful star -funtry, a 21 -hour group, a completely integrated star. By integrated, I mean, that there were American and British officers who lived together and worked together very happily. And that's not easy. Because we talk the same language, and yet a lot of the words don't mean the same thing. And I can lead to a lot of trouble. It was an understood thing in this headquarters that they had to get out. Now, an American could call his opposite number, his opposite British number,

with whom he was working, a bastard. But if he called him a British bastard, he was for it. Out on his neck, back to America, and in view of the submarine menace, it would probably be sent in a slow cargo boat with out an escort. That was a sort of big person. Now, did you get to know I, well, in Normandy? Well, not really well, because, of course, you see, I have several layers down. I was only a corkbar learned commanding a British corps. But the funny thing was with him, he was such a warm man, that you always felt you knew him very well. And the British soldiers, you know, always felt that they knew him, and they loved him. And that's unusual, because the British soldier doesn't take the top brass, particularly to foreign top brass, and yet they always call it Ike. Not to his face, of course, but he was always known affectionately by the troops as Ike, which is unusual. But I think I can give you an example of what I mean. I, you know, got

suffered a bit of trouble with the British in North Africa, and I disappeared for 14 months from the sea. And then I went back, sent for by Monti to command a 30 -corps in the beachhead. Well, when I arrived, I came down Monti's aircraft and landed. It was a scene of immense activity. All around me were vehicle supplies, trucks and things. And I began to feel more, more miserable. This is all quite different to what I'd known in the African desert. All the thick hedgerows of the Bokers country and normally were quite different. All my friends I felt were back in Africa. I'd been out of it a long time, and quite honestly, my morale was a bit low, and I was feeling very low. And I was driving along in this Jeep to go up to Monti's head quarters when we passed a column of tanks. And suddenly out of the top of one of those tanks, a dusty face looked down, and a broad green came, and a voice said, General, I'm delighted to see you. Now, that young officer didn't realize quite what

he'd done for his co -command was morale. Well, then I arrived at Monti's head quarters. It was a small orchard. Absolutely peaceful. In contrast to this activity, which was going on all round of noise, this was quite. Oh, God, all you could see were green lumps under the trees, lorries covered with camouflage nets. And it was an extraordinary thing that this little orchard was the place from which this front, one hundred miles long, occupied by one and a half million British and American soldiers was being controlled at that moment. Suddenly I saw two figures come up, Eisenhower and Montgomery. They were talking, I honestly decided and I waited, and they walked over towards me. And I wondered whether he'd remembered me after all these years, I'd never known him very well. Suddenly he saw me in a bright grin, came over his face, that warm, warm grin. He walked up and took

me by both hands, and he said, the darks, there's nobody I'm more pleased to see back than you. Now, that was obviously a gross exaggeration because I could think of a lot of people who'd been far more used to him than me. But nevertheless, you know, it was a gesture. That's wonderful warmth. I thought I was back in the home. You've painted this picture of a charming selfless man and a great coordinator, but was he capable of taking decisions, vital decisions, as it were on the spot? Well, I would say that he had to take the most difficult decision that any commander has ever been asked to take, namely, that to go or not to go, when the landings in Normandy were under consideration. Now, let me explain what I mean. Those landings in Normandy were a combined operation, air, sea, and troops landing from boats, therefore very, very dependent on the weather. And there were

only three days in every month when they could take place going to the moon and the tide and one of the things which I won't go into here. And in June, there were the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh, the June. Now, obviously, the weather conditions and those three days were absolutely vital. They met on the fourth. Monty, Eisenhower, air, chief air mart, Lee Mallory, all a lot. Yes. And the weather reports were given to them by a tough, canny, Scott, called group captain stack. Now, stack reports terrible. Wind, a cloud, high seas, everything. Air reconnaissance would have been impossible. Sports and sea would have been difficult, even the landings on the beaches and the cast would have been very dangerous. There was only one thing to do was to postpone it, till they did. They made again the next afternoon, same report to nothing to be done. Then,

they met at 3 .30 in the morning on the fifth of June. Now, this was the last possible date in which they could take this vital decision. It was howling with wind. The rain was pouring down. And they were very, very depressed, lot of men who sat there. Stags started by saying that the conditions which he predicted were then in operation on the coast of France. And had they gone, it would have been a complete disaster. Then he added this curious new bit of information. The weather was going to suddenly improve for 36 hours before it would deteriorate again, he thought. Now, this was a very, very difficult decision. To go or not to go, because remember you see that all the troops had been briefed. If they couldn't go then, they'd have to put it all back at least to fortnight and security would have

gone, because somebody was certain to have talked. On the other hand, if they went, a leading troops might get on land and then the follow -up would have been imposed. They'd been cut off by the Germans. Supplies would have been short and all arrested. Now, only one man could take that decision, Eisenhower. This was so, soly, he was taking this entirely alone. And they all looked at him and he said, we'll go. Now, you think of a way to responsibility on that one man should. Well, months and months of work. Millions of lives. One man, I think, is almost unfair. The one man should have to take. Sure, the most difficult moment of his life, certainly of the war for him. Well, he certainly was capable of taking. But he wasn't the most difficult moment of his life. I thought it was. And I said this to him once. He said no. But the most difficult moment in his life was in connection with the

landings in Normandy. Now, you remember that the beaches were like this. Yes. They were coming in from the sea here. There were the British and Canadians and then there were the Americans, like that, on those beaches. Now, here, the six British airborne division was going to drop, just behind at the end of the British beaches. And here, the two American divisions were going to drop, behind the right of the American landings, a beach called Utah. Now, as the time went on, the situation got worse and worse over here. More anti -aircraft guns, more flak, more obstacles to prevent gliders coming in into the terrible picture. Eventually, Eisenhower's chief armman, air chief Marshal Suley Mallory, went to him, and he said this is not ours. This would be murder. You must call it all. Now, this was a vital part of the American landing on Utah beach. It wasn't believed that they'd get a show without this. But this would be murder. Now, that was a decision. Eisenhower went off by himself,

and he thought it out. Then he decided to overrule his technical advisor and to tell them to go. Now, that was a very difficult decision. But being Eisenhower, this is what's so good. He went down to see them off. That's the type of man. It's a great moral courage, isn't it? And he said, you know, when he went there, they were all cherry and friendly, and they pated him on the back, and they said, don't you worry, we'll do the job for you, and so on. And he said that as he stood there and saw them disappearing into the darkening sky, he felt like a murderer, and he said, there was no other moment as bad as that in the whole war. Now, Sir Brian, at one time there was serious disagreement between Monterey and I, wasn't there? Oh, yes. Now, what about that? Well, that was when we were in the beachhead. Yes. Yes, you can show me on the map here, could I? Yes, all right. Let's see. When we were in the beachhead here, afterwards was the question of breaking out. How were they going to break out? Yes.

Now, when Gummary said, the Germans have been very badly defeated. Yes. We must give them no chance of recovery. Therefore, what I suggest is a narrow thrust right up here like that. And we'll get over the Rhine, we'll get over all these rivers before they have time to consolidate on them. We cut off the roof from the rest of Germany here and we can finish the war in 1944. Now, Eisenhower said no. This is called it narrow thrust. It wasn't as narrow as all that. He said it's too dangerous. He advocated going forward on a broad front, right the way through, right of course. That was the narrow front, the broad front. Now, the broad front was safer. Let's be honest about it. Yes. I see, let's see. But the

big thing about the broad front was that you couldn't finish the war in 1944. We'd have to go on if it would be much longer. And the second thing about it was that all the troops would be in the line. So you didn't have anything in reserve for unforeseen situation which actually did occur in the Ardenne. It was very difficult. Very few reserves were in the Gems. Did that surprise attack in the Ardenne? And the answer is which of them was correct. Yes. Now, I would say that they were both correct in their own particular sphere. Now, my call led the advance, the subsequent advance up the plane. And we got to Brussels in six days, 250 miles. We had to halt there because we'd outrun our administration. If we'd had the supplies and the petrol and the men behind us we could have gone straight on. And if we hadn't halted we'd have got right through to the right and over the right. It could have been done.

So Monte from the battle point of view was right. Eisenhower on the other hand was correct because to keep that momentum going administered to the United States, you know what I mean? It meant that every American division of which came over, all the new ones, especially trained in America, would have to have all that transport taken away and handed over to a thrust which was predominantly British and all the aircraft and everything. It was the only way on this long haul right up there you could have kept the administration going. Now, if anything had gone wrong, the political consequences would have been disastrous. So I think that the political sphere, Eisenhower's right on the fighting sphere, Monte was right. Now, did you meet Eisenhower often in New York then? Not very often, but I think the last time I met him was in November, that's right, November 1944. My call was on the right flank of the American Army next to

a new American Army which had just come in, the seventh, commanded by General Simpson, whom I was very, got very fond of. Now, they were preparing an offensive. And Simpson said to me, will you take on the town of Gylin' Curse, which is just on my left flank, in cooperation with us, will you attack it? Well, to do this, I wanted one more division. I tried Montgomery, I tried Densey, I tried everybody. Nobody would give me this division. I would tell the state court that I'd been put there and I wasn't to take part in any offensive. Then Simpson invited me to Densey and he said, General Eisenhower's coming up to spend the night. Well, I always liked meeting him. I liked his warm personality, and I willingly accepted. And when I arrived in, he came up to me, he said, well, Jarks, you're taking on Gylin' Curse and Poros. I explained that the spirit was willing, that the flesh and the shape of one division was weak. I was sure. Give me one of ours, he said to

Simpson. And before I knew where I was, I was handed over a brand new American division, the 84th division, which had never been in battle before. Now, I wasn't very much like this, because I pointed out twice in high and to everybody else, I said, you know, this isn't going to be an easy attack, because this is part of the Seagweed line, there's going to be concrete, wire, mines. And these boys are going to battle for the first time. To interesting, it'd be much better for them, or else they went in under Limey General, and not under Limey General, but under an amendment. Yes, yes, quite. Well, now we took a slightest note. Instantly, the one thing I do remember, is that was the first time I ever saw Coca -Cola. The first Coca -Cola I ever drank was offered me by the future president of the United States, all the nights I remember that. Yes, yes. Now, tell me, Sabrina, this is a little outside the program, a present program, but do you think he made a good president of the United

States? Well, who am I to say, really? You can't really say that, as you say, it's outside the program. All I can say is that I was suddenly when he took me down, because I didn't like to see this man, from whom we all had such an enormous opinion, stepped down from the pedestal on which we placed him, into that sort of murky arena of politics, from which it is very difficult for any man to emerge with a rarely clear reputation. All I know is that when he was president, he paid a visit to this country, and he laid on a dinner party in the American Embassy, and he invited all his old friends to come, and I happened to be one of them. It was a very memorable occasion. They were all there, including Eisenheim's self, who was Churchill, Macmillan, Montgomery, Alexander, all of them. And our tools, we were all brought up to see him

and have a word with him, and by the American ambassador, and it was the same old icon as far as I could see. He hadn't got a bit pompous. He was just as friendly and as nice as ever. And let me remind you, he made a rather famous speech, you know, to the Guildhall when he was given the freedom of the city of London, and there was one sentence in that, which I have never forgotten. And I want to read this to you, because I think it sums him up very well. This is what he said. He said, humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim, earned in the blood of his followers, and the sacrifice of his friends, humility. Now humility is the quality which I always look for in every great name, because only the really great can afford to be humble. Yes. And Eisenhower, to my mind, had that

quality really more or more than anybody I've ever met. And coupling this with his great understanding of men. Ah, yes, it's fantastic. Yes, I think so. I don't believe anybody could have come up the hard way like he did, without really understanding men. And that's why the truth is... This is NET, the National

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