Supreme Commander

(See Cover)

On D-day plus one--Wednesday--General Dwight David Eisenhower felt justified in leaving his advanced command post in England long enough for his first close look at how the invasion was going. Boarding a British cruiser, he steamed along the invasion coast for four and a half hours, held conferences with his operational commanders.

He sat first with his top naval chiefs, British Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay and U.S. Rear Admiral Alan Kirk. Then Ground Forces Commander General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery came aboard, in his favorite battle dress of fleece-lined jacket and corduroy trousers. After Monty had made his report he swung down a rope ladder to his launch, and looked up again, sharp-nosed, grinning, jaunty. Looking down at the great little soldier who, more than anyone, now carried the fate of the invasion in his thin hands, "Ike" gave him a thumbs-up and shouted: "Good luck to you!"

Then General Eisenhower headed back to England. Presently he issued his appraisal of the first 54 hours: "My complete confidence in the ability of the Allied armies, navies and air forces to do all they are asked to do has been completely justified."

After that, like many a commander in chief before him, he settled down to chain-smoking cigarets, to sweating out a miserable period of waiting--of confused, skimpy, incomplete reports, while other men put his campaign plans to the test. Not until five days later could he make his first brief inspection visit to the beachhead. Then he had eminent companions: General Marshall, Admiral King and General Arnold, who had flown from Washington to London during the week.

The Surprises. The opening phase of the invasion had gone well. As might be expected in an operation of such size and complexity, there had been surprises for both sides. One big surprise for the Germans had been the Allied timing on the beaches, a brilliant stroke which had sent in the vanguard of the great flotilla some four hours before the morning high tide which most military thinkers had regarded as necessary for the landing.

That move had paid off heavily for the Allies. Minesweepers had been able to do an especially good job of cleaning up the beach approaches, and the skippers of the host of first-wave landing craft could see the German water obstacles (submerged at flood tide), thus had a minimum of trouble from ripped bottoms in the first few hours.

There were other surprises. A few of the landing beaches turned out to be lightly defended and poorly trapped, as though the enemy had barely got around to working on them. Others were held in strength, and were forced only at the cost of heavy casualties. On all, the interlocking fire of the Atlantic Wall defenses was heavy, in spite of the massive air and naval bombardment.

The Risk. The decision to invade had been made with outward casualness at 4 a.m. Monday, in a charming country house somewhere in England. Around the table in the library sat a little group of men, lounging in comfortable chairs, smoking, talking quietly. There was no visible suspense, no excitement.

Eisenhower was at the head of the table. Grouped around him were the leaders of his team: his deputy, Air Chief Marshal Tedder; Admiral Ramsay, General Montgomery, the tactical air force (ground support) chief, Air Chief Marshal Leigh-Mallory; Lieut. General Walter Bedell ("Beedle") Smith, the Supreme Commander's pale, hard-working chief of staff.

Into the room came three men, the weather experts. They gave their report: what the weather was likely to do in the next few hours; probable conditions for sailors and airmen; a general forecast for the next 50 hours.

Quiet, stocky Admiral Ramsay spoke first. He gave his estimate of what the naval forces could do under those conditions. Cool, incisive Leigh-Mallory summed up the airmen's point of view. Monty said, in effect: "Well, if the Navy can get us in, and the Air can give us cover, let's go." Somebody asked the head weather man a question. He stared intently at the table, finally said: "If I answered that I wouldn't be a meteorologist, I'd be a guesser." Everyone laughed. It was no time for guessing. Ike's Decision. At last General Eisenhower crisply summarized the situation. He pointed out that there were many factors in favor of the operation. He spoke also of the possible fatal effects of delay, notably the problem of security, and the morale of troops already aboard ship, poised and ready. Finally he said what all were waiting to hear: "In view of all these factors, I think we had better go ahead." The die was cast. The meeting had taken just half an hour. With one characteristically casual sentence General Eisenhower loosed the fateful lightning that will stab and flicker over Europe until Nazi Germany is down. Similar conferences had been held twice a clay for three days. On the preceding Saturday the operation had even been ordered, then canceled again almost immediately, when the weather took a sudden turn for the worse. That, even the calm Tedder admitted, had been "pretty nerve-racking." But this time there would be no turning back. Ike's Plan. The plan that General Eisenhower set in motion had its genesis in the dark days after the rescue of the B.E.F. from Dunkirk. Then it was little more than a bulldog determination on the part of Britain to fight on alone, and some day, somehow, to carry the war back to the enemy. Now, after years of training and preparation, the plan had grown to a complexity of detail incomprehensible to the civilian mind. Item: the Navy's overall plan for the operation ran to 800 type written pages; a complete set of naval orders including maps weighed 300 pounds. Yet the broad outlines were simple : 1) organize the force; 2) move it across; 3) sustain it on the beachhead. For this the Allies deployed their great strength, the 4,000 ships, 11,000 planes, hundreds of thousands of men, machines, guns. Ike's Nature. The master of this titanic effort is a generally affable, obviously brainy, 53-year-old Midwestern American. As a professional soldier he is distinctly the command-and-staff rather than the warrior type. Ike Eisenhower never took a platoon or a company into battle. The smallest military organization he has ever commanded in actual combat was the Allied Expeditionary Force that went into French North Africa in November 1942. He has no specific battle experience remotely comparable to that of Britain's Generals Montgomery and Alexander, or such U.S. generals as Bradley and Patton. What he has got is the proved ability to work generals -- along with airmen, Navy men and lesser soldiers by the million -- in effective harmony in carrying out large-scale operations. A rollicking, better-than-average graduate of the outstanding West Point class of 1915, Ike was speedily marked down as an expert training officer, a fact which cost him his chance for combat duty in World War I. When Eisenhower, years later, suddenly emerged into national prominence, there was some tendency among civilians to regard him as a dashing unknown who had popped up with a brilliant staff performance on army maneuvers. It was not that simple. Through the peacetime interlude Eisenhower had worked hard at home and abroad--most notably as MacArthur's technical adviser in the Philippines. He had kept his eye on his number, acquired as solid a military background as a U.S. officer could get. He had diligently cultivated his chief virtues of smartness, judgment, a concern for fine detail and a marked ability to make people work for him.

The Climb Upward. He was definitely one of the Army's coming men; there is no reason to believe that he was particularly startled by any of the rapid promotions that in 35 months boosted him from lieutenant colonel to full general.

In quick succession his World War II assignments took him to Washington to work on war plans, to London as commander of the Army's European Theater of Operations, to Africa for the Mediterranean campaign, back to London as Supreme Commander for the Western invasion.

Outwardly, Ike Eisenhower has changed little through all this. He is as natural, kindly, down-to-earth as ever. But he is a strict disciplinarian with the troop formations under his command. He is a bear on uniform neatness, a bug on such items of military smartness as saluting. Once in Eighth Air Force headquarters he took General "Tooey" Spaatz down because West Pointer Spaatz, steeped in the Air Force ways of offhand efficiency, had banned saluting in the corridors as a damned nuisance.

Marked from the first as an officer who was not afraid to make a decision, Eisenhower has become even more confident, more incisive as his job grew. Few men can talk with his fluent clearness. His handling of press conferences makes good reporters beam with admiration. Before a complex operation he can take an airman, an infantryman and a naval officer, and rapidly explain to all three the peculiar requirements of their separate specialties far better than those specialists could hope to explain them to one another.

Dour Day. Aside from whatever lift of spirit that fact gave him, D-day found Ike Eisenhower in one of his worst moods. The Supreme Commander had little to do but wait in galling idleness during the slow-treading hours before the vast fleets of landing craft and gliders could put their troops ashore, and some vestige of order begin to appear out of the vast amphibious chaos.

It was Ike's most trying experience since his painful vigil at Gibraltar during the early hours of the African invasion. At such times the carefully controlled Eisenhower temper bends under the strain; he hates uncertainty. All he could do now was to pace around headquarters, scribble memos to himself, a set habit at such times. One of his self-memos could stand as a masterpiece of military understatement: "Now I'd like a few reports." He doodled with his pencil, barked at his aides.

Quiet Life. For this crisis in his life, Ike has kept himself in excellent physical trim. The magnitude of the gamble has not outwardly affected him. His health is robust, his sleep undisturbed. It is the kind of conditioning all soldiers must achieve, or blow up.

Although his duty is essentially an executive job on a giant scale, General Ike spent about a third of his time in England out with the men who are now battling the enemy across the Channel. In London he turned down all social engagements. His chief recreation, in the days when he still had occasional free evenings, was a session of bridge, at which he is ruthlessly expert.

In the weeks just before Dday, he usually began his day at the stereotyped U.S. military hour of 5 a.m. He lived with his close personal friend and naval aide, Commander Harry Butcher, peacetime CBS vice president, and his orderly, Sergeant "Micky" McKeogh, onetime bellboy at New York's Plaza Hotel, in an unpretentious eight-room cottage near headquarters. One room was full of gymnasium paraphernalia, which the general studiously avoided except upon rare occasions when he took an exasperated belt, in passing, out of the punching bag.

Sergeant McKeogh has been with the general since Eisenhower picked him as a driver at the 1941 maneuvers. Commander Butcher's role has puzzled many civilians, although veteran officers understand it well. As a general moves up in the military scale, he becomes surrounded with a loneliness not unlike that which enfolds the master of a ship at sea.

No matter how close and amiable relations with his staff may be, the general is set apart, behind an invisible wall of rank and responsibility. If he is not to be completely alone on his side of the wall, he must have a special sort of confidant. This person must be a congenial friend, understanding and totally discreet, with whom the general can talk with utmost freedom. The confidant should be without personal military ambition; he should want nothing from the general save his confidence.

In this role "Butch" is about perfect. He wants nothing except to serve Ike throughout the war, then go straight back to the radio business. Since Butch is a naval officer, Ike cannot even give him promotion.

Next to Butcher, Ike's closest colleague is clever, tireless General Beedle Smith, whom Eisenhower baldly describes as the best chief of staff in the world. It is with Smith that Ike holds his longest daily sessions on the progress of the invasion. Until he can move to the Continent, Ike will probably also see a good deal of Winston Churchill, with whom he has recently been lunching regularly twice a week at No. 10 Downing St. The two get along splendidly. Churchill calls Eisenhower "Ike." The general calls Churchill "Sir," or "Prime."

Weather and History. Now that the big push is on, Eisenhower will press it forward with full faith in his commanders and his troops, whom he considers the best any commander ever had. With them as his counsel and expert witnesses, he now stands before the bar of history. The progress of the just-begun campaign will decide his case.

But if the greatest of his present worries is weather, then among the least of his worries is how history will rate him. Toward such concerns Eisenhower maintains an attitude of Kansas common sense, mildly sarcastic good humor, military fatalism. Because all his big troubles have been waterborne, he once told Butcher that when his time came he was going to insist that his ceremonial coffin be built in the shape of a landing craft. Someone else can figure out the history part.

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