Wielders of the Weapon

The timetable was set, the weapon almost forged. Now the men to command the attack on the German heartland were chosen. The division of command gave sobering impressions: in the hard, costly attack from the west, U.S. troops will bear a major burden. In whatever venture develops from the south, British troops will carry the show.

General Dwight David Elsenhower will direct the main assault from Britain. On the supple, affable shoulders of the 53-year-old American will fall the toughest job of military coordination since Marshal Ferdinand Foch took supreme command over 1918's Western Front.

"Ike" Eisenhower had to defend his conduct of the Italian campaign last week. But Messrs. Roosevelt & Churchill had their reasons for assigning him to the west. He is the only commander with experience in large-scale coordination of British and American forces. He is particularly respected by the British; Winston Churchill has called him "one of the finest men I ever knew"; London gave his appointment unstinted approval. He has more schooling than any other commander in the management of amphibious operations (French North Africa, Sicily, southern Italy).

By all indications, the main blow will fall in the west. But Franklin Roosevelt spoke of combined attacks "from other points of the compass" than east and south. That could mean anything from Norway to southern France. This week, as Ike Eisenhower said farewell to his Mediterranean command, he made a flat, unhedging prediction: "We will win the European war in 1944."

The confident Commander in Chief's subordinate officers had yet to be named in full. The known appointments heart-warmed every Briton: cocky, confident General Sir Bernard L. Montgomery will leave his Eighth Army to serve as chief of "the British group of armies" on the second front; the R.A.F.'s taut, smart Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder will be Eisenhower's top air deputy (as he was in the Mediterranean).

In his new job, Monty may resume the chase of an old fox. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, according to reports from the Continent, is organizing a mobile army, intends to switch it, in the manner of Frederick the Great, against the various invasion threats as they arise.

General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson becomes Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean theater. Hulking (6 ft., 260 lb.), happy-natured "Jumbo" Wilson will merge his old Middle East command with all operations between Gibraltar and the Levant. Crisp, experienced General Sir Harold Alexander, who had been General Eisenhower's No. 1 deputy, remains in Italy as top commander there. With General Sir Bernard Paget, who modernized the British Army's battle training at home, as Jumbo Wilson's deputy in the Middle East, the Mediterranean thus becomes an all-British theater (although U.S. units may remain there).

Lieut. General Carl Spaatz will lead "the entire American strategic bombing force operating against Germany." This decision officially put the air attack on a single sky front. It meant that both the U.S. Eighth Air Force, striking from Britain, and the U.S. Fifteenth, flying from the Mediterranean, would synchronize their blows. Up to now the R.A.F.'s strategic bomber force has been based largely in Britain, hence may require no inter-theater commander. Apparently, the U.S. Army Air Forces were to continue and increase strategic bombings from both British and Mediterranean bases.

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