Eisenhower meeting with Middleton - 9 Sep 44

[Delta Tank]

Tom,

This is getting tedious. Did Monty know his logistic situation? Did Monty ask one of his staff officers to call SHAEF G-4 and ask about the logistics situation and "come back and brief me, please no papers, don't want to cloud my mind with numbers and facts". If Monty did not know his logistic situation than he was an/a . . . (fill in the blank!)

Going to bed. Will read with more intensity tomorrow. You know it is the commander's responsibility to know what is happening to his flanks, his rear, and one level up and two levels down. Since he gave up the position of ground forces command on 1 September 1944, the logistical situation on 4 September 1944 was either the same or worse, he should of realized the trend by 1 September 1944.

Mike

[Aber]

I think there's a couple of key points being missed.

Firstly Eisenhower's initial conception of his (and by extension SHAEF's) role. IIRC in Crusade in Europe there is a comment about each Army Group Commander (of the Northern, Central and Southern Army Group's) acting as Commander in Chief in his own zone - leaving SHAEF with little to do apart from allocate boundaries between the zones and general objectives. Even this would be subject to adjustments between Army Group commanders (eg Bradley passing Brussels to Montgomery).

Secondly the logistics organisation (or lack of it). As I understand it Montgomery had control over his own line of communications except some (IIRC POL and railways) which were shared to some extent. The US logistics were controlled by COMZ, not SHAEF which was an allied command. Most of the logistics arguments were about the split of supplies between 1st and 3rd Armies with Eisenhower in his US role directing COMZ, not in his role as Supreme Commander.

The position on 4th September, with Dieppe, Brussels and Antwerp captured, was far different to that on 31 August when IIRC British forces were still short of the Somme. On 4th September Montgomery's original 'single thrust' plan had effectively been completed and commanders should have been planning 'what next'.

[RichTO90]

I think there's a couple of key points being missed.

Yep, as noted by DT this has become pretty much yet another tail-chasing exercise...

Firstly Eisenhower's initial conception of his (and by extension SHAEF's) role. IIRC in Crusade in Europe there is a comment about each Army Group Commander (of the Northern, Central and Southern Army Group's) acting as Commander in Chief in his own zone - leaving SHAEF with little to do apart from allocate boundaries between the zones and general objectives. Even this would be subject to adjustments between Army Group commanders (eg Bradley passing Brussels to Montgomery).

Secondly the logistics organisation (or lack of it). As I understand it Montgomery had control over his own line of communications except some (IIRC POL and railways) which were shared to some extent. The US logistics were controlled by COMZ, not SHAEF which was an allied command. Most of the logistics arguments were about the split of supplies between 1st and 3rd Armies with Eisenhower in his US role directing COMZ, not in his role as Supreme Commander.

It wasn't his "conception"; it was the organization agreed to by the two principal allies that perforce had to adapt to two different national systems. Supreme Command, p. 66, "The Powers Reserved to SHAEF" is illuminating and digesting it would help clear up a lot of misconceptions.

"General Eisenhower, in appointing General Montgomery to command U.S. and British ground.forces in the assault, gave him operational control of the forces to be used in the early days of the attack. The temporary nature of the arrangement was understood. The Supreme Commander, while delegating for an interval operational control of Allied ground forces, did not lay aside his responsibility for making tactical decisions that involved major changes in the OVERLORD plan or the calling forward of additional troops. His intervention was also necessary to get increased air or naval support for the ground forces.

In the administrative sphere, where supply and personnel were concerned, the Supreme Commander retained a large
number of duties. As the chief Allied headquarters, SHAEF co-ordinated interservice and inter-Allied administrative policy. This co-ordination extended to such matters as policy on the hiring of labor, the purchase of supplies, welfare, health, discipline and awards, prisoners of war, movement, and the construction of airfields. It was the task of SHAEF to prepare outline administrative plans for future Allied operations, allocate scarce resources until shipped overseas, deal on national policy matters with non- U.S. and British powers, determine policy on POL (petrol, oil, and lubricants) matters, and make representations to the U.S. and British ministries and departments concerning policy and materiel requirements when they influenced the theater as a whole."

And p. 73, "Administration":

"COSSAC had intended initially to follow the British system of putting both personnel and supply activities under an
administrative division with subsections devoted to these matters. When a decision was made near the end of 1943 to extend the U.S. system of organization throughout the headquarters, separate G-1 and G-4 Divisions were established. That neither division ever had as much operational control as the G-2 and G-3 Divisions was due chiefly to differences in personnel and supply organizations in the British and U.S. armies which required entirely separate logistic arrangements for the two forces. Control of British troops and supplies for OVERLORD was vested in 21 Army Group. Control of U.S. troops and supplies was given to Headquarters, ETOUSA, which General Eisenhower commanded as the senior U.S. commander in Europe. The actual task of supply in the battle zone was handed over to a U.S. supply headquarters. Administrative control of British tactical air forces was placed under Air Chief Marshal Leigh Mallory as long as his Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Air Force, existed. Headquarters, USST AF, retained administrative control of U .S. units assigned to AEAF."

The position on 4th September, with Dieppe, Brussels and Antwerp captured, was far different to that on 31 August when IIRC British forces were still short of the Somme. On 4th September Montgomery's original 'single thrust' plan had effectively been completed and commanders should have been planning 'what next'.

Quite, but in terms of logistical administration the situation remained problematic. Montgomery's plan necessarily required U.S. forces under his operational control to execute, but they would perforce have to remain under American administration for logistical purposes. And vice versa for any plan that would have required British troops under American operational control. At best, the SHAEF G-4 Section could try to coordinate between the 21st Army Group logistical administration and the American COMZ, but they could not direct or order either to do anything. On top of that I suspect that neither 21st Army Group Administration or COMZ was fully aware of each others limitations and problems. They likely suspected each of bamboozling SHAEF to get the lions share of support and neither adequately communicated well to each other - witness the screw-ups in the relatively simple effort to support U.S. 82nd and 101st A/B Division in MARKET GARDEN.

This dicey - but necessary - organizational set-up was but one additional factor in the myriads of factors affecting the logistical situation by September 1944. It was compounded by inadequate preparations for long-distance road hauling, which led to the high incidence of deadlined vehicles, the rail "desert", the ship unloading backlog, the damage due to overuse done to the Normandy beachhead communications routes, the miscalculation of requirements allocations caused by the unexpected German forward defense, the June Channel storm, the delay in opening Cherbourg, the profligate misuse of jerri-cans by American forces, the lack of experience administering logistics of large mechanized forces, the limited - and, in parts, badly damaged - road transportation network in Western Europe, and on and on. Which is why I somehow doubt that a "more efficient use" of supplies is as simple a solution as might be supposed.

[Tom from Cornwall]

Rich,

Good post - I hadn't realised that the first half of 'Supreme Command' should have been on my reading list. I shall go away and correct that deficiency...

The Supreme Commander, while delegating for an interval operational control of Allied ground forces, did not lay aside his responsibility for making tactical decisions that involved major changes in the OVERLORD plan or the calling forward of additional troops. His intervention was also necessary to get increased air or naval support for the ground forces.

Is very interesting from the perspective of the historiography of the Normandy campaign and particularly, perhaps, the relationship between the ground forces and the air forces.

I'm still not sure I understand the rationale behind having SHAEF, 12 US Army Group and ETOUSA all with separate G-4 sections. Back to Ruppenthal for me I think.

Mike,

Did Monty know his logistic situation?

Yes.

Did Monty ask one of his staff officers to call SHAEF G-4 and ask about the logistics situation

Do you mean, SHAEF G-4 or COMZ G-4 or 12 US Army Group G-4? I guess he did the next best thing, he asked Eisenhower to send a "responsible staff officer" so that they could talk it over.

BTW when you say "call SHAEF G-4" you probably need to remember what everyone has said about the parlous state of SHAEF communications at this point.

In addition, he also had the following information at hand from his Liaison Officer at 12 US Army Gp on 7 Sep:

Priority of sups and tpt are now equal as between First and Third Armies irrespective of the number of divs operating. This gives slight priority to Third US Army...

and the following information from his COS sent on 8 September:

“As far as I can gather, Ike feels we ought to get a bridgehead into the SAAR, while the going is good, after which he will apparently let you have anything you want.”

Is that the sort of thing you were thinking about?

Regards

Tom

[RichTO90]

Rich,

Good post - I hadn't realised that the first half of 'Supreme Command' should have been on my reading list. I shall go away and correct that deficiency...

Is very interesting from the perspective of the historiography of the Normandy campaign and particularly, perhaps, the relationship between the ground forces and the air forces.

I'm still not sure I understand the rationale behind having SHAEF, 12 US Army Group and ETOUSA all with separate G-4 sections. Back to Ruppenthal for me I think.

The American capability for creating adminstrative organizations that do little more than administer themselves should never be underestimated... Just look at the Department of Homeland Security, which was created to administer a number of existing departments that were doing quite well at administering themselves. So far DHS's main function has appeared to be determining where its headquarters building will be and ensuring that it will be sufficiently opulent as befits a cabinet-level department. :roll: Otherwise, it's about as useful as tits on a boar.

Seriously, the evolution from SPOBS to USAFBI to ETOUSA to SHAEF and the effect it had on operations is not well understood. Nor is the difference between ETOUSA, COMZ, and SHAEF well known. Fundamentally, the CONUS War Department organization was replicated in theater, with separate commands for ground, air, and logistical forces that only loosely "coordinated' with one another and which had no real "head". Eisenhower could command SHAEF and ETOUSA, but although Lee was nominally his deputy J.C.H.L. actually only answered to Somervell, which was fitting since one wanted to be a potentate and the other was an empire builder. Although Somervell reputedly "spared no effort to ensure that the American fighting man had all he needed for victory" in reality he was parsimonious with everything except his own pet projects. I'm rather surprised you have never wondered why the ETOUSA Transportation Department's requirement estimate for OVERLORD truck units was cut by 50%?

[Aber]

Tom

To revert to this key point

The more I read about it, the more I think that the sooner that Eisenhower and his G-4 people went to see Montgomery and could then explain face to face what they thought COMZ could do to support 12 US Army Group the sooner the reality of the situation would have sunk home all round.

I'm not sure that you've fully considered the change in 'operational control' on 1 September. It is not clear to me what Eisenhower and SHAEF thought 'operational control' over 21st Army Group meant in September 1944 (putting aside whether they had the communications and staff to carry it out). The 'commander in chief' in their zone comment suggests to me an expectation that Eisenhower would set general directives only, and so there would be no need for frequent face to face meetings with the Army Group commanders. In addition SHAEF had no reserves of their own to allocate beyond FAAA.

On the logistics side, as Rich has elaborated, SHAEF had little effective control. Montgomery had control of his own lines of communications and COMZ was independent minded and anyway stretched far beyond its capacity (even if this was not fully clear at the time).

It seems to me that in early September 1944 SHAEF was 'in office, but not in power' to use a phrase from politics. Whether anybody realised this (or would admit to it) is not clear. I don't see that an earlier meeting with Montgomery would have changed anything unless SHAEF had fully understood the scale of the US logistics problems.

[RichTO90]

On the logistics side, as Rich has elaborated, SHAEF had little effective control. Montgomery had control of his own lines of communications and COMZ was independent minded and anyway stretched far beyond its capacity (even if this was not fully clear at the time).

I am not at all sure that the logistical overstretch was "fully clear at the time" since it was just beginning - the Third Army fuel hiccup was the first real indicator to the commanding generals, which was what mattered since they tend to ignore the log types at the best of times. (Edit: It may be significant that the first post-NEPTUNE log studies by SHAEF were 17 June and 17 August, before the massive extent of the breakout became fully apparent, The Logistical
Implications of a Rapid Advance by AEF Beyond the Seine was not done until 23 August and then revised in September [date unknown].) The evidence is that the reasoning followed was "the Germans are defeated so its better we get what we can forward to occupy territory and round up PW than it is to take a logistical pause". Both Eisenhower's "broad front" and Montgomery's "narrow front" conceptions were based on that logic, since both had their loggies whispering "memento mori" in their ears.

It seems to me that in early September 1944 SHAEF was 'in office, but not in power' to use a phrase from politics. Whether anybody realised this (or would admit to it) is not clear. I don't see that an earlier meeting with Montgomery would have changed anything unless SHAEF had fully understood the scale of the US logistics problems.

Yep. Nobody seemed to realize that, just as in a bureaucracy, if the commander did not control the purse-strings (logistical purse-strings in this case) they lacked actual control. Eisenhower may have gently told Montgomery on 10 September "I'm your boss", but I rather suspect Ike knew at that point that his only real hold over Monty was a threat to resign, which he had employed against the Airedales pre-NEPTUNE and in January 1944 during the post-Bulge flap.

I've come to believe that the real root of the problem lays in Brooke's original ploy to make Eisenhower an AFHQ "supreme commander" in the Med who had little real command authority. That rather idiotically clever :roll: (typical for Brooke) notion carried over into SHAEF, which was often little more than a coordinating clearing house for arguments between the various Allied ground, air, naval, and logistical commanders, all of whom considered themselves on a par with the supreme command. About the only reason the Allied command wasn't completely dysfunctional was Eisenhower.

And yet historians - amateur and professional alike - criticize the German command setup? :roll:

[Carl Schwamberger]

And yet historians - amateur and professional alike - criticize the German command setup? :roll:

Sucess excuses so many sins.

Is there a Latin phrase for that ?

[RichTO90]

And yet historians - amateur and professional alike - criticize the German command setup? :roll:

Sucess excuses so many sins.

Is there a Latin phrase for that ?

Tot successus excusat peccatum...

[Aber]

I've come to believe that the real root of the problem lays in Brooke's original ploy to make Eisenhower an AFHQ "supreme commander" in the Med who had little real command authority.

The original structure, or the one that put a ground commander underneath Eisenhower?

SHAEF, which was often little more than a coordinating clearing house for arguments between the various Allied ground, air, naval, and logistical commanders, all of whom considered themselves on a par with the supreme command.

I can see your point regarding the Bomber Barons and COMZ. What is your evidence for throwing Ramsey and Leigh-Mallory into the pot? Which Army Group do you consider had the worst relationship with SHAEF?

[RichTO90]

I've come to believe that the real root of the problem lays in Brooke's original ploy to make Eisenhower an AFHQ "supreme commander" in the Med who had little real command authority.

The original structure, or the one that put a ground commander underneath Eisenhower?

You mean the original structure of AFHQ or the original structure of SHAEF? In AFHQ, Alexander, who was actually higher in rank than Eisenhower, had ground command... :roll:

SHAEF, which was often little more than a coordinating clearing house for arguments between the various Allied ground, air, naval, and logistical commanders, all of whom considered themselves on a par with the supreme command.

I can see your point regarding the Bomber Barons and COMZ. What is your evidence for throwing Ramsey and Leigh-Mallory into the pot? Which Army Group do you consider had the worst relationship with SHAEF?

Yeah, I was letting my eloquence get away from me...a bit. I probably should have said "for arguments and smoothing ruffled feathers" and "on a par with or outside the authority of". Ramsey and Eisenhower cooperated pretty well and most of the Allied naval commanders worked well together also, but ultimately answered to either the Admiralty or the CNO. Leigh-Mallory's problem was his continual whining to Eisenhower that the sky was falling...

[Delta Tank]

Tom,

Tom wrote:

Do you mean, SHAEF G-4 or COMZ G-4 or 12 US Army Group G-4? I guess he did the next best thing, he asked Eisenhower to send a "responsible staff officer" so that they could talk it over.

BTW when you say "call SHAEF G-4" you probably need to remember what everyone has said about the parlous state of SHAEF communications at this point.

Yes to all of the above! You tell your guy to get the information, it is up to him to decide who to call to get accurate information and to verify it before presenting it. He could also call the 1st US Army G-4 and 3d US Army G-4 to get an accurate assessment of their situation. You know you are allowed to talk to people, this is not a game of "I got a secret"! Another thing that I found in my short 22 year career in the US Army, sometimes the number 2 guy in an organization knows more and will actually give you the information you want.

Mike

[Delta Tank]

Tom,

Tom wrote:

I hope you had a good time in Europe, I was in southern Italy in July looking at the mountains north of Naples and thinking how the hell did they get through them!!

I did have a good time! Going back next year. I was in Italy last year and the terrain north of Florence is god awful!! This year we went to Gallipoli for a short visit. As our guide we had Haluk Oral, a college professor with a PhD in mathematics, very interesting man. He has been fascinated with this campaign since he was a boy and he wrote a book called "Gallipoli 1915, Through Turkish Eyes" by Haluk Oral. He also sent this via e-mail which I am now reading http://www.pattonhq.com/pdffiles/gallipoli.pdf Yes LTC George S. Patton wrote this paper on Gallipoli in 1936. Some of the terrain in Gallipoli is also god awful!! ANZAC Cove and the terrain beyond is impossible!

Mike

[Delta Tank]

Tom,

Tom wrote:

When Eisenhower and SHAEF received Montgomery's infamous "Berlin" signal of 4 Sep, they replied on 5 Sep: "While agreeing with your conception of a powerful and full-blooded thrust towards Berlin, I do not agree that it should be initiated at this moment to the exclusion of all other manoeuver. The bulk of the German Army that was in the West has now been destroyed. We must immediately exploit our success by promptly breaching the Siegfried Line, crossing the Rhine on a wide front, and seizing the SAAR and RUHR."

So was this an order to Montgomery to "immediately cross the Rhine and seize the RUHR? Did Montgomery have the logistics to do that? Did he have the forces required on his front? How much better would it have been for someone from SHAEF, if not Eisenhower then his Deputy or his Chief of Staff, to follow this up with a personal visit to make sure that this could be done with the resources on hand. BTW I don't see any evidence to say that Eisenhower thought that there was a large German reserve anywhere to worry about, rather the opposite in fact.

Was this an order to immediately cross the Rhine and seize the Ruhr? Yes, if he could do it! If he could not do it, do as much as you can without suffering a defeat. Did Montgomery have the logistics to do that? Would not Monty know if he had the logistics? Did he have the forces required on his front? That depends how many enemy forces are opposing your operation, Monty would know that better than Ike since the assessment of that would change every day if not more often.

You do realize that Monty was a Field Marshal in the British Army, you believe that someone should of been holding his hand and giving him precise directions. If you are going to do that, why not relieve him and find someone who did not have to have his hand held and constantly given precise directions.

Monty was free to fly back or drive back or walk back to see Eisenhower. But, it appears it was easier to bitch than to solve the problem. He had time to write FM Brooke every night, but not enough time to write Ike. Odd?

Mike

[Tom from Cornwall]

Mike,

Tom,
I did have a good time! Going back next year. I was in Italy last year and the terrain north of Florence is god awful!! This year we went to Gallipoli for a short visit. As our guide we had Haluk Oral, a college professor with a PhD in mathematics, very interesting man. He has been fascinated with this campaign since he was a boy and he wrote a book called "Gallipoli 1915, Through Turkish Eyes" by Haluk Oral. He also sent this via e-mail which I am now reading http://www.pattonhq.com/pdffiles/gallipoli.pdf Yes LTC George S. Patton wrote this paper on Gallipoli in 1936. Some of the terrain in Gallipoli is also god awful!! ANZAC Cove and the terrain beyond is impossible!

Mike

Gallipoli is another one of those battles that seems to create obsessions! Churchill for one...

I've always wanted to go there as well - I'm planning a return to Italy next year, I've told my wife that the mountains south of Rome are beautiful especially around Cassino, I might get away with it.

Regards

Tom