Chapter 5: Planning Before SHAEF
SHAEF drew heavily on its predecessor commands for principles of organization and key personnel. In planning, it depended even more heavily on the British and U.S. staffs which since early in the war had been making strategic decisions and tactical and logistical preparations for a cross-Channel attack. Without these preliminary efforts, the Supreme Commander and his subordinates could not have hoped to launch Operation OVERLORD in June 1944.
Early Background
Prime Minister Churchill had considered the idea of an early return to the Continent even as the final British elements were being evacuated from the ports of Normandy and Brittany in June 1940, and as he was having to improvise defensive measures against a German attack. He ordered the organization of raiding forces to hit the coasts of countries occupied by the enemy and in July 1940 set up a Combined Operations Headquarters to handle these activities. Thinking in terms of ultimate tank attacks along the Channel coast, he asked his planners to develop special landing craft which could carry armored vehicles to the far shore. These armored elements, he hoped, could make deep raids inland, cut vital communication lines, and then make their escape. Larger forces he predicted, might surprise Calais or Boulogne, kill or capture the enemy garrison, and hold the area until preparation had been made to reduce it. Mr. Churchill’s orders turned the minds of the British planners toward offensive operations and launched a program of landing craft production that was essential to the ultimate cross-Channel attack.1
In September 1941, Gen. Sir John Dill, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, directed the British military planners to formulate a plan for a return to the Continent. He added significantly that it should take into consideration the capabilities of U.S. construction. Members of the Future Operational Planning Section, GHQ, were gathering data on such an operation before the end of that year. The British Chiefs of Staff Committee gave further impetus to this planning on 2 January 1942 by directing General Paget, then Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces, “to prepare an outline for operations on the Continent in the final phases and to review the plan periodically with a view to being able to put it into effect if a sudden change in the situation should appear to warrant such a course.”2
After a brief study of the problems involved in a cross-Channel attack, the British Joint Planners agreed that the greatest contribution to the Allied cause in 1942 would be to divert enemy forces from the Eastern Front. An examination of German fortifications on the Channel coast of Europe led them to conclude, however, that no sustained land operation could be made in that area in 1942. Their proposal that chief emphasis be placed on forcing the German Air Force to fight in the west was accepted by the British Chiefs of Staff. The latter directed the Combined Commanders—an informal planning staff consisting of General Paget, Home Forces, Air Chief Marshal Sir Sholto Douglas, Fighter Command, and Vice Adm. Lord Louis Mountbatten, Combined Operations—to make plans for this purpose.3
In the United States, the War Department was also turning its attention to plans for attacking the enemy in northwest Europe. Committed to the policy of defeating Germany first, the United States started moving troops to the United Kingdom in the early months of 1942. Headquarters, U.S. Army Forces in the British Isles (USAFBI), was established in London on 8 January 1942 under Maj. Gen. James E. Chaney, and Headquarters, V Corps, was sent to Northern Ireland in the same month. Brig. Gen. Ira C. Eaker and the staff of his bomber command, constituting the advance elements of the U.S. Army Air Forces in Great Britain, arrived in January; forward detachments of the VIII Bomber Command began to appear in February.4
The views of General Marshall and his staff were well illustrated in a War Plans Division memorandum of 28 February 1942 presented by General Eisenhower, then the WPD chief. Emphasizing the importance of keeping the USSR in the war, Eisenhower proposed that the United States immediately extend lend-lease aid to the Red forces and initiate operations to draw sizable portions of the German Army from the Russian front. In particular, he urged the development of a definite plan for operations against northwest Europe in conjunction with the British on a scale sufficiently great “to engage from the middle of May onward, an increasing portion of the German Air Force, and by late summer an increasing amount of his ground forces.” On 16 March the U.S.Joint Staff Planners, made up of representatives from the planning staffs of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, reported on alternative plans for U.S. Forces. They held that the United States should restrict its Pacific theater activities to existing commitments and concentrate on building up forces in the United Kingdom. This suggestion reached the U.S. Chiefs of Staff on the same day the British presented a tentative plan for invading the Le Havre area of France during the summer of 1942 in case of severe
deterioration of the enemy’s position. At the suggestion of General Marshall, the Combined Chiefs of Staff now ordered a study made of the possibilities of (1) landing and maintaining forces on the Continent in 1942 and (2) an invasion early in 1943.
Meanwhile in London the Combined Commanders continued their investigations of invasion possibilities. After a somewhat gloomy forecast in March, they reported in April that if one did not have to consider the dangerous weakening of the defenses of the United Kingdom, and if they could find means of supplying an attacking force, an operation against the Continent was practicable. They warned, however, that if the enemy made a major diversion of his forces to the west the Allies would face the loss of equipment and most of their troops. The British Chiefs of Staff now asked for a study of possible landings which could be made should Russia be dangerously hard pressed in 1942. To this query the Commanders replied on 13 April that, other than air action, raiding was the only means of achieving this objective.5
Shortly before the final April report by the Combined Commanders, General Marshall and Mr. Hopkins went to London to discuss Allied strategy for 1942 and 1943. In the first definite plan for a large-scale cross-Channel operation presented to the British Chiefs of Staff, General Marshall proposed to build up the U.S. force to one million men for an invasion of the Continent on 1 April 1943. The British were to contribute an additional eighteen divisions. In case of an emergency created by a serious weakening of Russia or the probable collapse of Germany, a force was to be put in readiness to enter the Continent in the fall of 1942. The British on 14 April accepted the Marshall proposals. The name BOLERO was given to the buildup preparation, and names of plans already in existence for the return to the Continent were assigned to the other phases of the Marshall proposal. The emergency return to the Continent was named SLEDGEHAMMER, and the assault in northwest Europe for 1943 was called ROUNDUP.
Almost before the Americans returned to the United States, there were indications that Mr. Churchill was uncertain that a cross-Channel operation could be put into effect in the near future. Churchill and General Brooke reopened the whole question during a trip to Washington in late June. While agreeing with the U.S. Chiefs of Staff that the Allies should be prepared to act offensively in 1942, they proposed that alternative operations be made ready in case no sound and successful plan for the cross-Channel attack could be contrived. They asked particularly that the possibilities of an attack in North Africa be explored.6
The Prime Minister’s revival of the proposal for a North African operation and his reluctance to undertake the cross-Channel attack in 1942 upset the plans of the U.S. Chiefs of Staff, who were proceeding with the build-up in the United Kingdom. General Marshall felt that if the Allies did not divert enemy forces from the Russian front in 1942 a full-scale attack on northwest Europe might be ineffective in 1943. He feared also that if they turned to the North African operation they would make a build-up in the United Kingdom impossible in 1942 and would curtail, if
not make impossible, the full-scale attack in 1943. He and Admiral King held that, if they were not to have complete adherence to the build-up plan for 1942, they should turn to the Pacific theater and strike decisively against Japan with full strength and ample reserves.7
The U.S. Chiefs of Staff on 25 June strengthened their build-up efforts in the United Kingdom by establishing a Headquarters, European Theater of Operations. General Eisenhower was appointed theater commander. Three weeks later the President sent General Marshall, Admiral King, and Mr. Hopkins to London to get an agreement from the British on operations for 1942 and 1943. Mr. Roosevelt stressed the importance of bringing U.S. ground troops into action against the enemy in-order to aid the Russians in 1942. Believing that SLEDGEHAMMER might be the operation that would “save Russia this year,” he instructed his representatives to abandon it only if they were sure it was impossible. In that event, they were to consider other plans to use U.S. troops in 1942. Unlike General Marshall and Admiral King, Roosevelt refused to consider the alternative of an all-out effort in the Pacific, insisting that the defeat of Japan would not mean the defeat of Germany, whereas the surrender of Germany would mean the downfall of Japan, perhaps without the firing of a shot or the loss of a life.8
The British Chiefs of Staff had taken a firm position on the cross-Channel operation before the Americans arrived. They had decided that British commitments in Africa, the Middle East, and India, their efforts in keeping the sea lanes open, and their air activities were such that it would be impossible to undertake a cross-Channel attack seriously in 1942. Further, they feared that the mounting of SLEDGEHAMMER would ruin prospects for ROUNDUP in 1943. Soon after General Marshall reached London he realized that an alternative plan would have to be accepted for 1942. Mr. Churchill and President Roosevelt then decided that the Allies would invade North Africa. General Eisenhower was appointed to lead the operation.9
The North African invasion, known as TORCH, strongly influenced preparations for the cross-Channel attack. By diverting Allied resources to the Mediterranean, it interfered seriously with the BOLERO build-up in the United Kingdom and, as General Marshall had feared, rendered ROUNDUP impracticable in 1943. So much of the air strength of the Eighth U.S. Air Force was sent to the Mediterranean that its efforts against Germany, begun in the summer of 1942, were virtually abandoned. The British, however, continued their bombing activities against the Reich. The campaign in the Mediterranean was extended in 1943 to Sicily and to Italy.
Despite the failure to get a cross-Channel attack under way, preparations for such an operation continued and many developments in the United Kingdom and the United States strengthened the Allied position for an ultimate assault on northwest Europe. Until the spring of 1943, the Combined Commanders, with representatives of Headquarters, ETOUSA, sitting in on their meetings, worked on Cross-Channel
plans.10 Although planning during this period was frequently on an academic level, the various staffs gathered information on amphibious operations, assault training centers developed new techniques, and movements and transportation directors put ports and railroad centers in condition to handle the invasion forces when the proper time came. At the same time bombing raids against the enemy were increasing, and U.S. production was hitting its stride.
The period was marked by efforts in the United Kingdom to organize and aid Resistance forces in the occupied countries. Propaganda campaigns were launched against the Axis in the hope of softening enemy opposition before the invasion of northwest Europe began. In North Africa, the Allies moved toward an understanding with the French and took steps to arm French units. Some of these were to perform brilliantly against the enemy in Italy. Others, raised and equipped in 1943, were to fight later in southern France and northwest Europe.
In August 1942, while TORCH preparations were under way, a force of 5,000 troops, mostly Canadian, attacked Dieppe. Despite heavy casualties suffered by these units, the raid was of great importance to the Allies in the development of amphibious tactics. It made clear the necessity of overwhelming naval and air support for a successful assault on coastal fortifications.11
Perhaps most important to the future commanders of the cross-Channel attack was the time they gained during Mediterranean operations in 1942 and 1943 to develop new doctrines and to train leaders in the lessons learned in battle. New ideas acquired in fighting were passed on to units then being activated.
In the United Kingdom, the training of troops who were to fight in northwest Europe became constantly more realistic as General Paget, commander of Home Forces, prepared British soldiers for coming operations. In the United States, Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair, equally wedded to principles of toughness, thoroughness, and realism in training, put through a similar program for his Ground Forces. More important was the direct training in combat acquired in North Africa. To Mr. Hanson Baldwin, New York Times military commentator, North Africa was “a training and testing ground, a college on the conduct of war by the Allies, a dress rehearsal for the far larger and more difficult operations ... that are still to come.”12
Allied Planning and Preparation in 1943
In January 1943, after the first phases of the North African operations had proved successful, the Combined Chiefs of Staff met with President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill at Casablanca to map plans for the future. The U.S. Chiefs of Staff held that the main operation in 1943 must be made in northwest Europe. The British, still uncertain that the Allies were capable of mounting a successful cross-Channel assault before 1944, maintained that the Mediterranean offered the best immediate prospects for success. General Marshall argued that the United Kingdom was a better base from which to attack since more effective air support could be given from there, and operations from there could be more easily supplied from the
United States.13 The British countered effectively that the Allies could not afford to leave their forces in the Mediterranean idle while preparations were being made in the United Kingdom for a cross-Channel operation. In the face of this fact and the British disinclination to undertake ROUNDUP in 1943, the Combined Chiefs of Staff decided to make the invasion of Sicily (Operation HUSKY) the next major operation for 1943.14
The Allies agreed at Casablanca to start preparations for an eventual cross-Channel attack. They decided that a combined staff should be established to plan for such an operation, and they ordered further that a combined bomber offensive be launched against Germany to undermine the enemy’s capacity for armed resistance. The former decision resulted, as already indicated, in the naming of General Morgan to head the COSSAC staff. The decision on an air offensive resulted in the directive of 10 June 1943 officially opening the bombing offensive known as POINTBLANK.
In a second conference, held in Washington in May 1943, the Combined Chiefs of Staff issued a supplementary directive to General Morgan, ordering him to plan an operation with a target date of 1 May 1944 to secure a lodgment area on the Continent from which further operations could be launched. The plan was to be based on the presence in the United Kingdom of twenty-nine divisions, of which nine were available for the assault period. COSSAC was ordered to start an immediate expansion of logistical facilities in the United Kingdom and to prepare an outline plan for submission to the Combined Chiefs of Staff on 1 August 1943.15
After working on the plan throughout June and the first half of July, General Morgan and his staff presented it to the British Chiefs of Staff on 15 July 1943. The COSSAC planners set forth the conditions under which the attack (OVERLORD) could be made, the area where a landing would be feasible, and the steps whereby the assault would be developed.16 As a means of aiding the assault, General Morgan asked that the most effective threat possible be made on the south coast of France in order to pin down German forces in that area. He also suggested that plans be made for the occupation of the ports of southern France in case of German withdrawal from that region.17
Before leaving London for the Quebec Conference in August 1943 the British Chiefs of Staff examined the OVERLORD plan and instructed General Morgan to continue his planning, paying particular attention to the enemy’s power to delay the Allied advance. After examining alternative plans, the Combined Chiefs of Staff approved the COSSAC outline plan for the cross-Channel operation and endorsed the action of the British Chiefs of Staff in authorizing General Morgan to continue detailed planning and preparations. They also directed Allied Force Headquarters to plan a diversionary attack in southern France. Prime Minister Churchill accepted the OVERLORD plan subject to the warning that a review of the decision would be asked if later intelligence reports indicated that German ground or air strength was greater than that anticipated
by the planners in estimating the possible success of the operation.18
The Combined Bomber Offensive began almost simultaneously with COSSAC planning. The outline plan for it was endorsed by the Combined Chiefs of Staff, who directed the Eighth U.S. Air Force and the RAF Bomber Command to initiate the bomber attack against the enemy.
British bomber forces since 1940 had made an increasing number of raids over Germany, and the Eighth U.S. Air Force had joined them in these activities in the summer of 1942. Before the Casablanca Conference, however, the raids had been carried on without a definite statement as to the priorities of targets, the mission to be accomplished, or the timing of the combined activities. The Combined Bomber Offensive was an attempt to integrate and expand the British and U.S. bombing efforts against Germany. At Casablanca the Combined Chiefs of Staff specified that the purpose of the operation would be “the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic systems, and the undermining of the morale of the German people to a point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened.”At the same meeting and in later conferences, Allied planners had agreed that the target priorities should include the following as primary objectives: enemy submarine yards and bases, the German aircraft industry, ball bearings, and oil. Secondary objectives included synthetic rubber and tires and military motor transport vehicles. German fighter strength was listed “as an intermediate objective second to none in priority.”19
The late summer and early fall of 1943 saw increasing interest of the COSSAC staff in one of its initial tasks—planning for a return to the Continent in case of German collapse or withdrawal from the occupied countries. A plan to meet this situation had been presented to the Combined Chiefs of Staff at the Quebec Conference. The march of events in August and early September, indicating growing Axis weakness, gave rise to the hope that such a plan rather than one for an all-out cross-Channel assault might be the one used by the Allies. The fall of Mussolini near the end of July, the rapid conquest of Sicily in August, and Italy’s unconditional surrender at the beginning of September seemed to indicate that the Axis was disintegrating under Allied blows. On the Eastern Front there was even greater encouragement as the Russian attack, which began in the Orel salient in July, spread along the entire front. A powerful drive in the vicinity of Kharkov brought the fall of that city in mid-August and threw the Germans back toward the Dnieper. The air battle increased in intensity with August witnessing Allied attacks on the Messerschmitt factories near Vienna and the raid on the Ploesti oilfields in Romania. The month of September was to see the greatest air fights in Europe since the Battle of Britain. On 9 September, the day of the Allied invasion of the Italian mainland at Salerno, the Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee of the War Cabinet, impressed by the parallels between the condition of Germany in August 1918 and August 1943, concluded that “a study of the picture as a whole leads us inevitably to the conclusion that Germany is, if anything, in a worse condition today than she
was at the same period in 1918.” They believed that if the Allies could take advantage of Germany’s declining strength to
press home attacks by land and sea; maintain and even intensify their air offensives; exploit the instability of southeast Europe; and pursue a vigorous political and propaganda campaign, we may see the defection of the rest of Germany’s European Allies and, even before the end of this year, convince the German people and military leaders that a continuation of the war is more to be feared than the consequences of inevitable defeat. With the German people no longer willing to endure useless bloodshed and destruction, and the military leaders convinced of the futility of resistance there might be, as in Italy, some sudden change of regime to prepare the way for a request for an Armistice.20
Although this prediction proved to be nothing more than what one British officer described as “our annual collapse of Germany prediction,”21 it required the COSSAC staff to rush planning for measures to be taken in the case of enemy collapse. A report in October that a meeting of the German high command had been called gave rise to hopeful speculation in London, leading General Barker to cable General Morgan in Washington, “We here are of the opinion that RANKIN ‘C’ [a plan to be put into effect in case of Germany’s surrender] becomes more and more of a probability.”22
As winter approached, the Allies became less hopeful about an early collapse of the enemy. It became clear that the enemy, despite increasingly heavy raids, was able to continue his production of aircraft by moving factories farther inside Germany. Near the year’s end, the enemy’s fighter force in the west was actually increasing in strength. There was also some doubt that the Combined Bomber Offensive could complete its work before the target day set for the cross-Channel attack, particularly in the light of Air Chief Marshal Portal’s statement in early December 1943 that POINTBLANK was three months behind schedule. The airmen believed, nonetheless, that given sufficient bomber resources they could rapidly reduce the enemy’s air force to impotence and achieve air superiority for the Allies.23
At the Cairo Conference in December 1943, the Combined Chiefs of Staff reached a firm conclusion as to operations for 1944. They declared that the cross-Channel attack and the landings in southern France were to be the supreme operations for 1944 and that nothing should be undertaken in any other part of the world which might prevent their success. The Allies thus made OVERLORD the chief order of business for the coming year. The appointment of General Eisenhower as Supreme Commander opened the final phase of preparations for the cross-Channel assault.24
The COSSAC Plans
On their arrival in London in 1944, the new members of SHAEF were briefed on the plans outlined by COSSAC in 1943. In one case, that of diversion plans, COSSAC had actually carried out a specific operation. Under the general name of COCKADE., British and United States forces had built up threats against the Continent to give the impression that an attack might be launched in 1943. U.S. forces had made feints in the direction of the
Brest peninsula (WADHAM), British forces in Scotland had simulated preparations for attack against Norway (TINDALL), and Allied forces had directed threats toward the Pas-de-Calais (STARKEY). It was not clear to what extent these efforts had been successful in worrying the enemy, but General Morgan felt that they might have been responsible to some degree for German activity in the Pas-de-Calais and the Cotentin area. It is possible that these efforts raised fears about landings in the Pas-de-Calais which lasted until well into the following year.25
COSSAC had also prepared three plans, all phases of Operation RANKIN (Cases A, B, and C), designed to be put into effect in the event of a sudden change in Germany’s position. The plans provided for Allied action in case of (A) “substantial weakening of the strength and morale of the German armed forces” to the extent that a successful assault could be made by Anglo-American forces before OVERLORD, (B) German withdrawal from occupied countries, and (C) German unconditional surrender and cessation of organized resistance.26
The newcomers from AFHQ were interested at the moment mainly in COSSAC’s proposals for the invasion of northwest Europe. The OVERLORD plan related in somewhat broad terms the steps necessary for making a successful assault, for building up supply and personnel in the lodgment area, and for carrying on operations during the first ninety days of battle. Although it was quite general in nature, the plan afforded much valuable information in a series of appendixes dealing with such topics as port capacities, naval requirements, availability of ships and landing craft, availability of ground forces, attainment of the necessary air superiority for a successful landing, planning data for landing craft and shipping, rate of build-up, Resistance groups, enemy naval forces, enemy defense system, beaches, meteorological conditions, topography of the assault area, administrative considerations, and methods of improving discharge facilities on the French coast.27
The OVERLORD plan had as its object the mounting and executing of “an operation with forces and equipment established in the United Kingdom, and with target date 1st May 1944, to secure a lodgment on the Continent from which further offensive operations can be developed.” In the opening phases of the attack COSSAC proposed to land two British and one U.S. divisions with one U.S. and one British in the immediate follow-up to seize the Caen area, lying between the Orne River and the base of the Cotentin peninsula. They were then to seek the early capture of the port of Cherbourg and the area suitable for airfields near Caen. Before the assault, a combined offensive consisting of air and sea action, propaganda, political and economic pressure, and sabotage was to be launched to soften German resistance.28
Much remained to be done by the new Supreme Headquarters, but COSSAC and its predecessors had contributed mightily to the final plan by fixing in general the area of the coming attack and by providing considerable groundwork and organization on which the new Supreme Commander and his subordinates could build.