The First Army Group consisted of several imaginary field armies, complete with bogus radio traffic and dummy landing craft at English ports close to Calais. Soon after its formation, Allied intelligence in the form of ULTRA—the British code-breaking project corresponding to the United States’ MAGIC operation in the Pacific—revealed that the Germans were swallowing the bait and that Field Marshal Rommel was holding his 15th Panzer Army in the Pas-de-Calais in anticipation of an invasion by Patton.
Patton played along, making his presence known in the small town of Knutsford, England, where the Third Army was headquartered, and where he committed a political indiscretion that nearly did him in.
On April 25, scarcely six weeks before Overlord was to commence, at the behest of the British Ministry of Information Patton made an appearance at a club for women, whose purpose it was to welcome American soldiers. It was not his intention to speak but merely to be present to acknowledge the group for helping entertain his men.
When Patton arrived three press photographers were waiting for him outside wanting to take his picture. He agreed, remarking that he was there unofficially and stipulating that the pictures could not be published, to which the photographers agreed. After several introductions and addresses, a Miss Foster Jeffery, head of the British Women’s Volunteer Services, suddenly turned to Patton and asked him to “say a few words.” Then a Mrs. Smith arose and introduced him, reminding the audience of about two hundred that he was there unofficially and his “presence was not to be disclosed.”
Thus on the hook, Patton took to the stage and began telling the audience:
Until today, my only experience in welcoming has been to welcome Germans and Italians to the “Infernal Regions.” In this I have been quite successful …
I feel that clubs such as this are of very real value, because I believe with Mr. Bernard Shaw, I think it was he, that the British and Americans are two people separated by a common language, and since it is the evident destiny of the British and Americans, and of course the Russians, to rule the world, the better we know each other, the better job we will do.
A club such as this is an ideal place for making such acquaintances and for promoting mutual understanding. Also, as soon as our soldiers meet, and get to know the English ladies, and write home and tell our women how truly lovely you are, the sooner the American ladies will get jealous and bring this war to a quick termination, and I will have the chance to go to the Pacific and kill Japanese.7
Several lengthy speeches ensued, followed by the singing of “God Save the King” and “The Star-Spangled Banner,” after which Patton departed. The next day all hell broke loose.
Around noon, Eisenhower’s headquarters reached Patton asking what he had said about the Americans and British ruling the world. Patton replied that he had included the Russians, but apparently some British newspapers had omitted that part. It was certain to create a great commotion within the suspicious Soviet Union.
Worse, the British Press Association had released the story on the wire where it was immediately picked up by practically every newspaper in the United States and given front-page play. It didn’t help much when the BPA later issued a correction including “the Russians” in Patton’s address. The damage had been done.
Marshall had cabled Eisenhower that American newspapers were carrying “lurid” stories about Patton’s speech, and that official Washington was in an uproar. It was the business about “ruling the world” that inspired the most reactionary outrage. A senator from South Dakota denounced Patton for “stepping out of bounds” in overriding diplomatic prerogatives. Letters to the editor poured in condemning Patton as a “Fascist” and for being “insulting to other nationalities.” Newspaper editorials widely pronounced Patton’s remarks “irresponsible.” One described Patton as “Chief-foot-in-Mouth” and a congressman even compared him to Hitler.8
Coming on the heels of the slapping incident, Patton’s latest gaffe became vastly overblown, and the Senate even held up his confirmation for promotion to the regular army rank of major general. A livid Eisenhower again sought Marshall’s consent to fire Patton, and once more it was tactfully refused. The chief of staff told the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe that if he felt Overlord could succeed without Patton then he was free to relieve him. However, if he had any doubts about Overlord not succeeding in Patton’s absence, he ought to keep him. Then Marshall pointed out “the unmistakable fact that Patton is the only available Army commander for his present assignment [Third Army] who has actual experience in fighting Rommel and in extensive landing operations followed by a land campaign of rapid exploitation.”9
Eisenhower’s reaction to this heavy hint was to call Patton onto the carpet and then let him stew for several weeks worrying whether Eisenhower or Marshall was going to fire him. Though he had already made the final decision on his fate, the notion of Patton dangling in perdition for all the trouble he had caused gave Ike no small amount of satisfaction. Knowing full well how Patton craved battle, and most especially this one, it was the cruelest cut of all and, evidenced in his personnel correspondence, Patton suffered grievously.
To his daughter Ruth Ellen Totten, Patton wrote, “Jesus only suffered one night but I have had months and months of it, and the cross is not yet in sight, though probably just around the corner. At least I have the When and If [his eighty-three-foot sailing schooner].” And to Beatrice he said, “My final thought on the matter is that I am destined to achieve some great thing—what, I don’t know …”
It wasn’t until the following week that Patton received a telegram from Eisenhower: “I have decided to keep you … Go ahead and train your army.” Patton immediately wrote back, thanking Eisenhower, and to his diary said, “He [Ike] called up in person and was very nice. Sometimes I am very fond of him, and this is one of the times.”
Two days later Patton wrote a paper on the use of armored divisions and told his diary, “I have completely gotten back in the swing of things, thank God.”10
Eisenhower had warned Patton about saying anything publicly, which Patton initially interpreted as forbidding him to speak openly even to his infantry and armored divisions. When that was straightened out he made a series of speeches to these units as they arrived in Great Britain, telling them, among other things, “DO NOT TAKE COUNSEL OF YOUR FEARS.” To his officers Patton said, “The only worry I have about this show is how I’m going to get the Army across [the English Channel] and assembled on the other side. For the fighting I have no worry.” He’d instructed his commanders to visit the front daily, to observe, not to meddle, that issuing an order is only 10 percent of the problem—the rest is ensuring it is properly carried out—and to visit their wounded personally and frequently.
An army historian noted that Patton rarely cursed when speaking to his staff but was highly profligate with military billingsgate for the edification of his troops. He talked their turkey and they loved him for it. He would make speeches to division-size audiences—20,000 to 30,000 men, who would gather in a sea of brown uniforms before a stage decorated with bunting and an army band playing martial marches and popular tunes. “His speeches became galas in themselves,” writes biographer Carlo D’Este, noting that Patton would arrive in a black Mercedes driven by a sergeant behind an MP escort with sirens blaring.
“He would emerge in his buff-and-dark-green uniform, helmet, and highly shined cavalry boots, and march through the crowd to the front of the platform,” from which he intoned such sentiments as “A man must be alert at all times. If not, some German sonofabitch will sneak up behind him and beat him to death with a sockful of shit!” The men roared and clapped and slapped their thighs. One of his more famous speeches went:
Everyone has a job to do. Every man serves the whole. The Ordnance is needed to supply the guns. The Quartermaster is needed to bring up the food and clothes for us, for where we are going there’s not a hell of a lot to steal. Every last man in the mess hall, even the guy that heats the water to k
eep us from getting diarrhea, has a role to play. Even the Chaplain is important, for if we get killed and he is not there to bury us we would all go to hell. We don’t want yellow cowards in the army. They should be killed off like flies. If not, they will go back home after the war, goddamn cowards, and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. One of the bravest men I saw in the African campaign was the man I saw on a telegraph pole in the midst of furious fire … I stopped and asked him what in hell he was doing up there and he answered “Fixing the wire, Sir.”
“Isn’t it a little unhealthy up there right now?” I asked.
“Yes sir, but this goddamn wire has got to be fixed.”
That was a real soldier … I’m not even supposed to be in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the goddamn Germans. Some day I want them to raise up on their hind legs and howl “Jesus Christ, it’s that goddamn Third Army and that goddamn sonofabitch Patton again!”
The troops ate it up and when he’d finished one had the impression, according to numerous accounts, that to the last man they would have followed him to hell and back.11
A WEEK BEFORE THE ALLIES’ ARMADA embarked for Normandy, Marshall returned to his home on General’s Row at Fort Myer with an expression of deep sorrow on his face. He had come to tell Mrs. Marshall that her son, Second Lieutenant Allen Tupper Brown, had died that morning as his tank unit moved toward Rome.
Allen was Marshall’s favorite stepson. He had volunteered for the army even though he was married with a young son, and he graduated from the Armored School at Fort Knox. He had survived the bitterest fighting in North Africa, Sicily, and in Italy around Monte Cassino. He was approaching the Alban Hills when a German sniper’s bullet struck him in the head as he rose up with binoculars through the turret of his tank.12
“He came in, closing the door behind him,” Mrs. Marshall wrote years afterward, “and told me Allen was dead. He had given his life … in a tank battle on the road to Rome.”
In one of his last letters Allen had written his wife, “Today is a beautiful day. It is warm out and the feel of spring is in the air. It is hard to believe that men are killing and being killed all around us. The noise of the artillery is a reminder, however, and no matter how beautiful it is, it is bound to be a sad day for many people as it is every day of this war.”13
Marshall was heartbroken, but with Overlord looming on the horizon he made every effort to block the family tragedy from his thoughts.
OVERLORD GOT OFF TO A DUBIOUS START when Eisenhower, on June 4, postponed the invasion scheduled for the following day. Despite continued threatening weather on June 5, Marshall’s office was notified that the invasion was on for June 6. It was a terribly agonizing condition for old-time sailors who knew the English Channel. They shook their heads and clamped their jaws at the prospect of landing in high winds and surf. But the weather forecaster had told Eisenhower there was reason to hope for a brief period of calmer weather between approaching fronts.
Marshall notified Secretary Stimson of the decision and went to bed. He has left no record of his reactions, although one might assume he would have been a bit wistful, knowing that the greatest command in history had eluded him. He got up the next day as he always did and went to the office where messages from Ike began informing him that the operation apparently was successful. To cap it off, the previous day, Mark Clark’s army had marched into Rome.
Marshall, along with Arnold and King, chiefs of the air force and navy, respectively, decided to fly to England the day after Overlord to be on hand in case anything went wrong, and also one might fairly suspect to at least get a look at this greatest of all invasions—the one they had argued over, planned over, sweated over, and often anguished over—that would anticipate the liberation of Europe and the end of the war.
Once in England, on June 8, the American service chiefs briefed their counterparts on the British general staff as to their plans for the rest of the war, including Pacific operations. It was also then decided to dust off the long-shelved Operation Anvil (its new code name: Dragoon), a plan to invade southern France along its Mediterranean coast. Its aim was to both further confuse the Germans about Allied intentions and employ the more than 250,000 Free French soldiers currently languishing in North Africa.
The American chiefs joined the ebullient Prime Minister Winston Churchill in his private train for an expedition to the battlefront. That night as the train chugged toward Portsmouth, the chiefs enjoyed a sumptuous dinner in the prime minister’s dining car where they celebrated Overlord with many toasts of champagne.
At Portsmouth they were met by a glowing Eisenhower and split up for the Channel crossing—the Englishmen boarding a Royal Navy destroyer that would carry them to the British zone (where Churchill insisted he was going to take a shot at the enemy) and the Americans boarding the USS Thompson to take them to the U.S. Army sector of Normandy. Once on French soil, the distinguished visitors were greeted by General Omar Bradley, who had been chosen to command the ground forces of Overlord. It was George Marshall’s first return to France since he’d left it twenty-five years earlier as an aide to General Pershing, when they said their goodbyes to Field Marshal Foch and his staff.
From the beaches, the party moved inland past a large sobering temporary cemetery where at least a portion of the several thousand Americans killed in action had been lain. One of Marshall’s aides carried a bag full of medals with which to decorate men for acts of bravery. Having served in World War I he recognized the value of high-ranking general officers going among the fighting troops and personally presenting honors for acts beyond the call of duty.
It was hot and dusty and the roads were crammed with thousands of American soldiers, German prisoners, and vehicles—tanks, trucks, jeeps, ambulances filled with wounded and dead—in a continuous stream going to and from the battle area. This was the bewildering “flow of battle,” which, as biographer Pogue points out, “could never be envisaged by use of even the most sophisticated visual aids in the Pentagon.”
It was not long before General Bradley called a halt to the proceeding, stressing the catastrophe that just a single German sniper could cause, and took everyone to his headquarters in an old apple orchard where they lunched al fresco on army C-rations washed down by water in tin canteen cups.
Marshall cabled Roosevelt that “Conditions on the beachhead are generally favorable.” The German army, he said, did not appear able to launch a counterattack of any consequence, at least for “some days to come.” He commended the morale of the troops and their officers and was especially impressed with the confidence and aggressive attitude of the commanders. Overall, he told the president, he was highly impressed with the development of “a remarkable scale of efficiency.”
AFTER TWO WEEKS IN ENGLAND, Marshall visited the Italian front where Fifth Army commander General Mark Clark gave him a tour of the battle area, then a hundred miles north of Rome along roads littered with the twisted and burned remains of German vehicles, tanks, and guns. Approaching the town of Grosseto, close to the fighting front, the windshield on Marshall’s jeep was lowered “to avoid reflecting the sun which would have attracted the attention of the Germans.”
Near the end of his trip, Marshall took time to visit the gravesite of his stepson Allen. It lay near the flagpole on the main pathway through the seven-thousand-grave cemetery. Afterward he took a small plane and flew low over the terrain where Allen had been killed. With the help of Clark, he met with a lieutenant who had been in the tank immediately behind Allen’s, and with the driver and gunner of Allen’s tank. The lieutenant produced Allen’s map, “a much rumpled paper with the various lines and objectives noted in crayon.”
Using the map, the lieutenant described Allen’s last battle in detail. Still not satisfied, the general again took a plane and, using the map, had the pilot circle slowly at 300 feet above the scene of the action, which lay about twenty miles southeast of Rome. That done, he returned to Rome and wrote Allen’s
widow of three weeks that he had both visited the gravesite and been able to pinpoint the place where her husband fell. It wasn’t much, but it was something he alone could do in wartime; other widows hadn’t even that small comfort and grieved never knowing where their loved ones had fallen.
AFTER A MONTH OF TERRIFIC FIGHTING, the Allies broke out of their bridgehead in Normandy and, led by the U.S. Army, began to sweep across France with breathtaking success. In the Mediterranean, Operation Dragoon was successfully launched as well, spearheaded by the U.S. Seventh Army and an army of Free French, which fought its way up the valley of the Rhône, clearing southern France of Germans and linking up with the main Allied force near Paris.
Meanwhile, the Russians, who had been so badly tried by the German attack in 1942, had reversed their fate and were now counterattacking all along the Eastern Front. All of this as Allied bombers continued to reduce German cities, including the capital, Berlin, to rubble.
As the Allies were clearing the last Germans out of France, in the Pacific Douglas MacArthur had made good on his promise to return to the Philippines, having established a bridgehead on Leyte, in the middle of the archipelago. Marshall was profoundly satisfied with these developments, for all the hard work and burning of midnight oil seemed at last to be paying off after the years of consternation, disappointment, and fret.
Just as Marshall was feeling good about the progress of the war, however, a bugaboo arose to once again break him into a sweat. The Allies in Europe—particularly the American armies—had raced across France so quickly they had outrun their supplies.
Toward the end of September, Field Marshal Montgomery launched Operation Market Garden, in which a large part of his army—including 41,000 paratroopers—aimed for the town of Arnhem in Holland to secure a bridgehead across the Rhine into Germany.