Latest / Generals of WWII: The Art of Command / General Eisenhower: the Supreme Allied Commander (with Nick Kramer) | Ep 6

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General Eisenhower: the Supreme Allied Commander (with Nick Kramer) | Ep 6 · Generals of WWII: The Art of Command

0:06
Welcome to generals of World War 2, the art of Command.
0:10
We are back with a very special guest, my good friend Nick
0:14
Cramer. Hello, Nick.
0:15
Hi, John. How are you doing?
0:17
Nice to meet up with you again. Yeah, I'm good.
0:20
For those of you not familiar with Nick, he's a great guest
0:22
who's been on our Generals and Napoleon podcast many times.
0:25
And Nick, could you give our audience a little background on
0:27
your kind of educational studies right now?
0:30
So I'm currently a pH. D candidate at the University of
0:33
North Texas. My, as John said, I'm my
0:36
background is in the French Revolution, Napoleonic history.
0:40
I actually am doing a dissertation on Prince Carl Zeus
0:43
Schwartzenberg, who has been called the Dwight Eisenhower of
0:46
the 6th Coalition against Napoleon.
0:48
So I think that might tie in a little nicely with today's topic
0:53
of conversation. John, do you think so?
0:56
How apropos that We're talking about Dwight D Eisenhower today,
0:59
and the reason Nick brings it up, there was a guy, for those
1:02
of you not familiar with Napoleonic history, his name was
1:05
General Schwartzenberg. And in your opinion, he kind of
1:09
brought all the allies together to help defeat Napoleon, right?
1:14
Yes, he did, except he actually probably had a little bit harder
1:18
of a job than Ike did, because while FDR would be over in
1:22
Washington, DC, he constantly had the presence of, you know,
1:27
Czar Alexander the First, King Frederick William the Third of
1:30
Prussia and Kaiser Francis of Austria always in his
1:34
headquarters. But and he also didn't have the
1:37
benefit of radio. So there, there are a lot of
1:40
similarities though, you know, dealing with multi ethnic, you
1:43
know, language barriers, different styles of command,
1:46
different arts of war, very different personalities, age
1:49
gaps, experience levels. So there's a lot of good
1:52
parallels to draw between the old Austrian and Ike.
1:56
Yeah, yeah. Just for my listeners, imagine
1:59
trying to fight War 2 but in your tent would be Stalin,
2:03
Churchill, and Roosevelt all giving you advice and tips on
2:07
how to do it. And then there's Staffs.
2:10
And you know, when we get into our discussion of Ike, there's a
2:12
lot of a lot of British chief of staff and a lot of British
2:16
opinions that come out. And just the the ability to deal
2:19
with that is it's quite remarkable.
2:22
Yeah. Yeah, well, let's jump into Ike
2:25
here. He was born in October 1890 in
2:27
Denison, TX, but raised famously in Abilene, KS, where he kind of
2:32
developed his small town values. He was one of seven sons.
2:37
How do you think growing up in Kansas shaped his character and
2:40
leadership style? Well, it's actually funny that
2:43
you mentioned he was born in Denison because Dwight, you
2:46
know, Ike never really talks about Denison all that much.
2:50
And I, I also want to bring up because, you know, I live here
2:53
in Denton, TX, you know, Dennison's like an hour away.
2:56
And as soon as you get on the road, you can see all these Rd.
2:59
maps. You're like, oh, visit Dennison,
3:01
the home of Dwight D Eisenhower and you can visit like his home
3:05
and all that. And Dennison is very proud to
3:07
call like, you know, cherish Ike as a resident, but he never
3:11
really acknowledged Dennison. He moved away from Dennison when
3:16
he was 2 to move to Abilene. It's actually a really sad
3:21
story. You know, like father abandoned
3:23
pregnant mother to move to dentist in Texas and then
3:26
eventually they moved to Abilene.
3:29
He had a brother ironically named Abraham Lincoln.
3:31
Eisenhower very large family as typical in the 1890s you know
3:36
1800s dirt poor Dad worked as a a wiper for the the Katy Trail
3:43
Railroad didn't really make a lot of money the family was dirt
3:47
poor, but it's he I recalled in his memoirs never really knew
3:50
they were that poor. Abilene typical small town read
3:55
1 of biographies. You know had like 1 stoplight
3:58
one sheriff very very small and all the kids wanted to leave
4:04
Abilene as quick as possible and pursue other goals like his
4:08
brother. One of his brothers went to
4:10
Michigan law school. Ironically was a very big hater
4:14
of FDR in the New Deal, which is ironic because later, you know
4:18
Commander in chief was FDR. It's an interesting upbringing.
4:21
He's appointed to West Point in his later years after applying
4:25
through US senator, and he graduates, I think in 1915,
4:29
which is a famous class the stars fell on. 59 members of
4:33
that class became general officers.
4:36
Why is this class considered remarkable in U.S. military
4:39
history? Before we talk about that, it's
4:43
worth mentioning that Ike's first choice was not West Point,
4:47
and he does not come from a military background.
4:50
Unlike MacArthur when we talked about him later on where, you
4:55
know, his dad served in the Iron Brigade in the Civil War, Ike
4:58
did not come from that very poor family.
5:01
But Ike wanted to go into either West Point or Annapolis because
5:07
his friend, one of his friends went to Annapolis and that
5:11
offered him a chance of free schooling.
5:14
So if he wanted to go to college, you needed to get
5:16
either a scholarship or appointment to West Point.
5:19
But he wanted to go to Annapolis because his friend want was in
5:23
Annapolis, but he was too old. You had, you could not be older
5:29
than 19 when you would be attend your first day at Annapolis.
5:33
When he was applying, he was 19 and he would have turned 20 by
5:37
the time he would have been on campus in Annapolis.
5:40
So he got West Point joins that famous 1919 or 1915 class where
5:47
as you said, 59 of them become generals.
5:50
Now that's obviously the most, but it's also worth noting that
5:53
a lot of those guys fought either in World War One, World
5:56
War 2. So there's opportunity for rapid
5:59
promotion. Some of the names, you know,
6:01
Omar Bradley, the facts, second most famous one from that class,
6:05
Joe Mcnarney, who was the deputy chief of staff, later commander
6:10
in the Med, James Van Vleet or Van Fleet, who was a commander
6:14
during Korea. And then also another one I want
6:17
to point out is Luis Estevez, for a lot of people may not have
6:22
heard him, but he was the first man of Hispanic heritage to
6:26
graduate from West Point, eventually graduated and became
6:29
a Major General, two stars. He also, yeah, he also was a
6:35
football player at West Point, played for two years, got
6:39
injured, blew his knee out and almost later got him medically
6:43
disqualified, actually did get him medically disqualified.
6:48
Fun story about that. But he had a friend named
6:51
Colonel Henry Alden Shaw who saw Ike's potential, wrote a letter,
6:57
went against the medical board and got Ike appointed.
7:00
But if Colonel Shaw doesn't vouch for Ike, you do not hear
7:05
about Eisenhower because he blew his knee out.
7:08
But he people that and that's going to be a common theme with
7:11
Ike is people just recognize his potential throughout and are
7:14
willing to give him a chance. So eventually he's going to
7:17
graduate with his classmates. Graduated kind of in the middle.
7:22
Wasn't, you know, exceptionally smart.
7:25
He was always kind of just naturally smart, but he never
7:27
really applied himself as much. But he was kind of middle of the
7:31
class, not really remarkable. But because of his knee, he got
7:35
up, was originally assigned to be a coastal artillery, which he
7:38
said he would have quit if he had to go there.
7:41
But he does graduate and, you know, urge his Commission in the
7:45
US Army after 1915. Yeah, he's a first station in
7:48
Texas on the frontier there. What were his first impressions
7:52
of Army life? He was fine.
7:54
He gets lucky in the fact that his commander, his first ever
7:58
commander, was Fred Funston, who for those of you who don't know,
8:03
was going to be the commander of the AEF.
8:07
But Funston had a heart attack and died before he could get
8:12
tabbed by by Woodrow Wilson to go lead the AF.
8:15
So then they have to resort to blackjack.
8:17
John Pershing. Another thing about Ike, when he
8:20
was in Texas, he coached the Peacock Military Academy
8:23
football team. So personally, I think that's
8:27
where Ike got a lot of his good teamwork skills.
8:30
Because some of our list, your listeners, maybe former football
8:34
players like myself or former coaches.
8:37
It's really hard to be a coach 'cause you gotta take, you know,
8:42
on a college team, you know hundreds, you know, dozens at
8:45
the very least, groups of individuals from all different
8:48
backgrounds, ethnicities, walks of life, financial standing, and
8:53
you all have to bring them together as a team to fight for
8:56
a common cause. So.
8:58
This thing is interesting. I didn't know he played football
8:59
and he doesn't strike me as a big man, but I think maybe
9:02
that's how he became mentally strong was, you know, the game
9:05
of football. Yeah, coach for coach various
9:09
Army teams for 10 years. He initially turned it down
9:12
because he thought he would have no free time on his hand.
9:15
But what he found out was when he was stationed at Hugh for Sam
9:19
Houston, that he would get up at six, be done by around noon, and
9:24
he had a three time. So Funston insisted that he
9:27
coached the team. So he did.
9:30
And then there was also the financial benefit of it, of
9:33
coaching. But yeah, he coached various
9:35
teams for 10 years. Yeah, and also around this time
9:38
he meets his future wife, Mamie. They get married in 1916, which
9:43
was probably tricky with the uncertainties of Army postings.
9:45
How did Mamie Eisenhower influence his career?
9:50
Well, she's the rock of his life.
9:52
She's very loyal. She followed him almost
9:55
everywhere except the Philippines.
9:58
She refused to go to the Philippines, but she's very
10:00
loyal. You know, Ike's, you know,
10:02
remembered, is very stoic, very laid back, especially during his
10:06
presidency. He loved playing golf.
10:08
Fun fact, at Augusta on the 17th hole, there's that there used to
10:13
be a tree before a lightning strike.
10:15
Ike used to hit into that tree so often that they aptly named
10:18
it the Eisenhower Tree. So, you know, during his
10:21
presidency he was very calm, laid back, especially during
10:24
World War 2, very stoic. Mamie, on the other hand, was
10:28
very outgoing, very life of the party, very vibrant, came from a
10:32
good family, very much kept the morale high amongst the Army
10:37
wives. She was his rock, but she was
10:40
very loyal to him. And they always say behind every
10:43
great man's an even better woman, and maybe kind of
10:45
typifies that as well. Yeah, that kind of reminds me of
10:48
Napoleon, Empress Josephine, Like she was the life of the
10:51
party, kind of the outgoing one in the relationship, and he was
10:54
more stoic. Well, Napoleon was over head
10:57
over heels infatuated with Josephine.
10:59
I not, I mean, I don't want to say he took his wife for
11:02
granted, but it was very much like he was.
11:05
He expected her to do the cooking and the cleaning and but
11:08
she stood by him and she was very loyal and everybody loved
11:12
her and Ike loved her too. OK, well he's moving on his
11:16
career his he's eared to serve in World War One, but was
11:19
assigned to training in tank units in the US instead of
11:22
combat duty. So how did his lack of combat
11:26
experience in World War One affect his later approach to
11:29
warfare, if it did it all? Well, it actually benefits him.
11:32
To be honest. I think it benefits him.
11:34
History lesson. He's assigned regimental supply
11:38
officer. That was the same position that
11:40
US Grant held than the Mexican American War.
11:43
I gets that position as well. OK, supplies and logistics and
11:49
all that. That is literally the opposite
11:51
of sexy in the Army. Nobody likes it.
11:55
People think it's boring. Sure, There's a couple phrases.
11:58
You know, bullets don't fly without supplies.
12:01
Napoleon famously said an army marches on its stomach.
12:04
Or if you want to use the Omar Bradley quote, amateurs talk
12:07
about strategy. Professionals talk about
12:09
logistics. Yeah.
12:10
So that's where he learned how an army is supplied.
12:14
West Point kind of had this knack back then where you kind
12:17
of just thought about like the X's and the O's and tactics and
12:20
strategy, but you really wasn't as focused on how do you supply
12:25
the army. War doesn't just, it's not just
12:28
pawns like a chess game. It's not like Risk where you
12:31
just send your force to come Chaka and fight.
12:35
No, you have to make sure the army is fed.
12:37
And Ike really took a liking to that, especially as and he was
12:41
very meticulous as a regimental SO when he was assigned to it in
12:45
Texas. So without that, you know,
12:48
that's great on the job training that you start at the bottom,
12:50
work your way up. But supplies are without the
12:54
logistics, you don't have an army.
12:56
Right, right. Of course.
12:57
Well, let's move on in his career to his work under
13:02
MacArthur and Pershing, kind of gaining exposure to both
13:05
administrative and command level decision making.
13:08
How did these experiences with senior generals shape his
13:11
leadership philosophy? So after he becomes regimental,
13:15
SO he wants to go fight in France as every general did, but
13:20
he just wasn't in the cards. So after the war, he's lucky and
13:25
he gets assigned to the American band Battlefield Monument
13:29
Commission, which is Pershing is in charge of that.
13:32
What it allowed him to do was Tore eventually tore all the
13:37
battlefields in Europe. His first task though was he was
13:40
assigned to Washington the work under Pershing, but his duty was
13:44
this is in the 20s was to go through all the unit histories
13:48
and all the official after action reports and write a
13:52
narrative about the US involvement in World War One.
13:56
So he became an expert on every unit in the US Army.
14:01
He paid special attention to logistics, tactics, strategy,
14:05
but that is where he gained a lot of in depth hands on
14:09
knowledge about how you feed an army, how you keep them on the
14:13
March, how you keep morale high. So without that, it's a very,
14:18
very different Ike. It's also after World War One,
14:21
he gets the chance to attend the Command and General Staff
14:24
College in Leavenworth. Ironically enough, he met George
14:29
Patton on a train ride before that.
14:31
This was, you know, backing up a little bit.
14:33
He also went to tank school before he went to command and
14:36
General Staff did a lot of training of soldiers and fun
14:40
fact when I was looking up some of the many trained, his most
14:43
famous soldier was F Scott Fitzgerald.
14:46
I know that guy. Yeah, Great Gatsby.
14:49
So went to the command General Staff College, and this is where
14:52
he gets another big break. Now at West Point.
14:55
Ike was not the biggest fan of military history.
14:59
West Point, as Marshall Paton, you know, famously said, was
15:03
kind of pedantic and way behind the times.
15:06
And they were always fighting the last war and famously
15:10
remarked, you know, like, how many times is West Point going
15:12
to fight the wars of Napoleon? But at staff school, he gets
15:16
lucky and he meets a guy named Fox Connor.
15:18
Fox Connor was underneath Pershing during the war and
15:23
Connor sees the potential and Ike opens up his home to him and
15:28
his library which was vast and he basically demands that Ike
15:34
read military history he's exposed to Klaus of its in depth
15:38
for the first time. He read the campaigns of
15:40
Napoleon, Frederick the Great and Fox.
15:43
Connor would quiz him relentlessly about the maxims of
15:48
Klausowitz and all that. He also would give him side
15:51
lessons about coalition warfare. Ike famously said, quote, how do
15:55
you get allies of different nations to March and think as a
15:58
nation? Mark Well, Foxconnor taught me
16:00
the art of persuasion because no foreigner could be given
16:04
outright administrative control over troops of another nation.
16:07
So you need to learn how to persuade people.
16:11
So Ike was getting hands on knowledge and a lesson in how to
16:16
run a coalition. Eventually the Battlefield
16:19
Commission is the Monuments Commission, almost called the
16:22
Monuments Men, whoops, was moved to Paris and then Ike gets to
16:29
tour all the battlefields of Europe and get first hand
16:33
knowledge of the geography of Europe, which is going to be
16:36
very crucial later on. Come in handy?
16:39
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, very big handy.
16:41
Well, we can jump ahead to World War 2.
16:44
In 1941, he's promoted to Brigadier General after
16:48
impressing senior leaders with his planning work at the War
16:51
Department. What qualities did Eisenhower
16:54
show early in World War 2 that caught the attention of General
16:57
George C Marshall? Well, he was like you said, he
17:02
was named chief of staff of the 3rd Army, but he was also
17:05
assigned to the War Plans Division.
17:07
So that's kind of the the common theme with Ike is he definitely
17:10
really have on hand, you know, battlefield frontline knowledge,
17:14
but he's very instrumental in planning, logistics, operation,
17:20
strategy, tactics. It's also at this point that
17:24
it's assumed that George C Marshall is going to command not
17:29
just the entire U.S. Army, but more specifically the
17:32
landing that's going to take place in Europe.
17:35
And Marshall was grooming Ike to be the chief of staff.
17:40
OK. And he brings them to London to
17:42
see how he got on with the British.
17:45
All right. And it's at this point that
17:47
Marshall kind of makes a mistake.
17:51
And the fact that while Ike works well with the British, he
17:55
doesn't really like Monty. He famously recalled he was
17:58
unimpressed by Monty the first time he met him.
18:01
But Marshall is, I don't want to say abrasive, but a little bit
18:05
more authoritative and demanding that the US, that the ally
18:09
strategy reflect more of the US way.
18:12
But Ike got along very well with the British and that's very
18:18
instrumental in 1941 that he builds those relationships with
18:22
the British staff. Yeah, at least we have the next
18:25
question. You know, he's chosen by
18:26
Marshall 1942 to lead U.S. forces in Europe despite never
18:30
having commanded troops in battle.
18:33
So why did Eisenhower get this job over more experienced combat
18:37
generals? I mean, they all went to West
18:38
Point, they all had battlefield experience was just 'cause he
18:42
was more political than the other guys like Patton and
18:45
Bradley and all the other generals over.
18:49
There definitely more political, but he also just got along good
18:53
with the Brits and he was able to defer to them and he just, he
18:57
understood the British perspective and he understood
19:01
the form perspective better than any other general did.
19:06
I mean, it's also probably better for the US Army that you
19:09
have somebody who's a little bit less gung ho directing the war
19:13
effort. Like imagine if George Patton
19:16
was in charge of the war effort. So Ike was very, but he got he,
19:21
you know, he was really good. And he also had a very big open
19:24
mind that allowed the British to voice their opinions.
19:27
And he wasn't going to just come down on one side or the other
19:30
without adequately getting all opinions, much to his detriment.
19:34
Because you know, that's a lot on your plate.
19:38
It's a tricky balancing, I guess maneuver or, or act.
19:43
He's appointing commander of Operation Torch in 1942, leading
19:47
the Allied invasion of North Africa.
19:50
So it must have been a challenge because up till now the British
19:54
have been doing all the fighting, but the Americans have
19:57
been supplying all the equipment and, and now a lot of the men.
20:01
So there's a senior partner, junior partner dynamic right
20:05
between the British and the Americans.
20:06
They have to kind of. Ike has to navigate.
20:09
Yes, he does. Before this, Marshall wanted.
20:14
So just like you know, the American way of war is
20:17
annihilated and it's also annihilate the enemy as quickly
20:21
as possible, erode them, as Russell widely would put it.
20:25
But you don't like, especially in America, we have a democracy
20:28
and democracies don't tolerate 567 year long wars.
20:34
Well, not a lot of countries do. Like ask all the countries that
20:37
folded after World War One. Yeah, but especially in America,
20:40
we don't tolerate really long extended conflicts.
20:43
So Marshall wants to go to Europe immediately and the
20:47
British pushed back against this 'cause, you know, the, you know,
20:50
the DfE raid, which goes horribly sideways and they are
20:55
just really fearful of a cross channel invasion in 1942.
21:00
Marshall is, you know, basically comes down as like, no, I don't
21:03
want like, let's do it. But eventually it's, it's the
21:06
smart move to go to North Africa and do Torch.
21:10
But there's a lot of problems with Torch because the British
21:12
have been fighting there and there's a lot of debate whether
21:16
where to land or not. So they eventually go with like
21:18
3 separate landing sites. Yeah, but they gave Ike like 5
21:21
months to prepare for Torch like or even less than that.
21:26
And it didn't start off well at Kassarine Pass.
21:28
Oh, horrible goes horribly and Kassarine Pass is a straight up
21:32
disaster. You know, get that way too far
21:37
out in front of your supplies and your lines of communication.
21:39
You get in swallowed up by Rommel.
21:42
Yeah, there's also Ike gets himself in hot water in North
21:47
Africa. So you guys, you know our
21:49
blisters probably know two of the first people shoot at the
21:53
Americans in the European theater theater are the French
21:57
and Algiers. Eventually Ike wants strikes up
22:01
a deal with Francois Derlon, who was the commander of the French
22:06
forces over in North Africa. Just one problem.
22:10
He's a Vichy sympathizer, right? And the British don't recognize
22:17
Vichy France. They recognize de Gaulle and the
22:20
Free French. So I goes behind their back and
22:24
negotiates a deal where Deralon is put in charge of the of the
22:32
French forces there and basically made the commander and
22:36
the president of Africa much against the British need.
22:40
But that neutralizes Vichy France against the war.
22:44
But then it also opens up Vichy to be occupied later on
22:48
potentially. So already he's doing some
22:51
negotiating and working both sides and trying to bring a
22:54
coalition together, which as we started at the beginning, that's
22:57
a very hard task. But he also gets lucky.
22:59
FDR, you know, castigates him in private, but to the British he
23:04
backs him. Yeah.
23:06
Backs him to to the British. Well, let's talk about the next
23:10
After they succeed in North Africa, Eisenhower directs the
23:14
invasion of Sicily in Italy and earned his reputation as a
23:18
coalition commander. What lessons do you think he
23:21
learned in the Sicily invasion that later shaped the D-Day
23:25
campaign? Well, Sicily is goes splendidly.
23:30
There's a lot of, we have the Mafia connections that we use.
23:33
But again, he kind of relents to the British strategy.
23:37
Again, you know, Churchill famously wants to strike a, you
23:41
know what he called the soft underbelly of the German, you
23:44
know, Colossus, first you would go to Sicily and then up the
23:47
boot to Italy. And I just here's the thing, I
23:50
had to defer to them unfortunately.
23:53
And to be honest, if we tried to invade, you're up like northern
23:59
France in 1942 or 43, it's going to be a disaster.
24:04
We need battle experience. But we also, you know, we also
24:10
the Germans aren't weak enough yet.
24:12
So we kind of have to take the circuitous route.
24:14
But that's the brilliance of Ike is especially Marshall has a
24:19
tough time with this, you know, indirect approach if you want to
24:22
use the Basil Adel heart term with this indirect approach
24:26
going at the South underbelly. But I basically come to the
24:30
conclusion like, hey, the British are not going to do it
24:33
our way. We're going to have to do it
24:34
their way. How do we get the most out of
24:36
this situation? And it's successful, like
24:38
Operation Huskies remembered quite fondly, especially
24:41
because, like it's mythologized with George Patton and the, you
24:45
know, race against Monty to Messina.
24:48
But it's honestly kind of a failure if I don't want to say,
24:52
like a total failure, but a massive German army retreats
24:56
across the Straits of Messina to Italy.
24:58
Yeah. And then we don't close it off.
25:00
The objective is accomplished. They, you know, they conquer
25:04
Sicily. But you're right.
25:05
Yeah, large German army gets away.
25:07
Yeah, still not great cooperation.
25:09
And, you know, the Monty versus patent rivalry is, you know, it
25:14
could have been disastrous, but luckily, like the Italians are
25:16
not as good of troops as the Germans.
25:19
Yeah, well, let's move on to him.
25:22
His role as Supreme Commander and the leader of D-Day.
25:25
His name is Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force
25:29
in late 1943. He overseas plenty of Operation
25:33
Overlord, the D-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6th, 1944.
25:38
How did he, how did Eisenhower balance caution and boldness
25:42
when decided to launch D-Day despite bad weather?
25:45
Because I know they postponed it at least once.
25:48
Yeah, they did a 24 hour stand down.
25:50
If they didn't go on June 6th, it's been argued that the
25:54
weather was going to be so bad they couldn't have gone until
25:56
June 20th. So it was now or never.
25:58
But Ike does benefit from the fact that when he's named
26:02
Supreme commander in December of 1943, the general, the the
26:08
chiefs of staff had already been working on it for several months
26:12
and they do a lot of the planning.
26:14
But were Ike's brilliant in the lead up to D-Day and the Cross
26:18
Channel Invasion Operation Overlord is think of the chiefs
26:23
and all that as like a big think tank.
26:25
You get all commanders from Britain and you get them from
26:28
America in order to get together and pitch the best idea possible
26:33
for the cross Channel Invasion. But he also does quickly run
26:37
into some problems. All right, now D-Day is
26:41
remembered quite fondly because, you know, it's a great,
26:44
brilliant invasion. But I would be remiss if I
26:47
didn't talk about Adrian Lewis and his book D-Day a Flawed
26:53
Victory, because I like to give the alternative point of view.
26:57
He argued, and Lewis was in the US Army for a while, is that
27:01
D-Day was actually a diabolical disaster because Omaha Beach,
27:06
everybody knows is a, you know, bloody Omaha, but shows really a
27:10
lot of the problems with coalition warfare that Ike had
27:14
to deal with. Mm Hmm.
27:15
The Americans under Ike and the American planners, they want to
27:20
absolutely bombard the hell out of the coastline.
27:25
And that's what America does best.
27:27
We bomb you back to the Stone Age.
27:29
We make you forget that you were even born to that nationality.
27:33
That's what we wanted to do to Normandy.
27:35
We wanted to have like a days long bombardment, shell it to
27:39
submission, establish a strong beach head and then go from
27:42
there. The British don't really want to
27:44
do that. They want to focus more on a
27:47
night time raid where you send a small group of troops, you
27:51
invade at night and then you build it up throughout the
27:55
throughout the early morning. Now the British have to do that
27:58
because they rely on that because they don't have as many
28:01
men like that's why they do night time bombing and all that
28:05
because they have to do things a little bit.
28:07
They have to get a little bit cuter with invasions, and then
28:10
eventually the compromise is we'll attack at first light,
28:14
we'll do a minimal bombardment, and then we'll just send the
28:18
troops up. But thank God that the deception
28:21
campaign was as good as it was and that the Thurmans didn't
28:26
adequately use their panzers. A lot of people probably talked
28:31
about like. And that's how we're landing at
28:36
Pada Calais somewhere else. Yes, it's actually been
28:39
researched now that so like the big debate that people like to
28:43
have is should the panzers have been at the beach head?
28:46
Like should they? Should Rama put the panzers at
28:49
the beach head and then like they blame Hitler for not waking
28:52
up in time. My opinion is that actually
28:54
leaving the Panzers in reserve is a good idea, because then you
28:58
could hold them in reserve away from the front lines, then you
29:01
decipher where it's going, and then you could swap them from
29:04
there. But the Ober Commando de
29:07
Vermont, the OK W, which is the German high command, they still
29:10
thought that Normandy was a diversion.
29:13
So that, you know, by the time they realized, you know, like a
29:15
week or two later, it's over. Yeah, and I think he made a
29:19
great point that we all look back on it now like, Oh yeah,
29:22
D-Day, we were going to win no matter what with that Armada.
29:25
But on June 6th, 1944, nobody knew.
29:27
And in fact, Ike wrote a note accepting full blame if D-Day
29:32
failed, showing his sense of accountability.
29:35
What does this act reveal about his leadership character?
29:39
Well, it knows that the buck stops with him.
29:41
Like let's say D-Day fails. Hypothetical D-Day fails.
29:45
It would have been very easy for him to just point the finger at
29:50
the British and say, you know, it's their fault and, you know,
29:55
basically, you know, posture himself as like, oh, I did what
29:58
was best for America and the British like stabbed us in the
30:01
back. But no, ultimately it the buck
30:04
stops with him and he was, you know, the the supreme commander.
30:07
You know, that he should have been taking full blame for it.
30:11
He's like remembered fondly for that.
30:12
But it's kind of like not the the best comparison, but like,
30:17
like when the Bay of Pigs went awry and people like, well, at
30:20
least Kennedy like took blame for it.
30:21
It's like, damn right he should have taken blame for it.
30:24
He's the president. Like, same thing with Ike.
30:26
Like if it goes bad then yeah, sorry.
30:29
Well, like you said, sometimes you have to accept a compromise
30:32
plan. You know, like you said, he
30:35
just, you know, the American idea would just let's just shell
30:37
the heck out of Normandy and we'll go right in.
30:40
And and and then the British were like, well, we'll have this
30:43
night attack instead. This is kind of like meet in the
30:45
middle type of thing. Yes, but that's how you get the
30:50
British to buy in. You can't just put the hammer
30:53
down and just say, no, we're doing it this way.
30:57
And like, let's give Churchill some credit.
30:59
You know, he would have had every right to name like
31:03
somebody else, like Sir Allen Brooke or Monty Supreme
31:07
Commander. He could have chosen anybody
31:08
else or John Dill. That would have been well within
31:12
his right to push for that. But he acknowledged that the
31:15
Americans had the most men in the theater, that it was only
31:19
right that an American should be the supreme commander.
31:23
But I, to be honest, did as best he could.
31:26
You know, it's really hard to incorporate 2 very different
31:29
strategies in order to make a plan work.
31:33
And, you know, circling back to the thing Fox Connor told him,
31:37
like you're ordering, you know, as an American, thousands of
31:41
British people to die like. And that's something that should
31:43
not be taken lightly, and he knew that.
31:46
Yeah. No, that's a really good point.
31:49
He also skillfully managed personalities, big egos like
31:52
Patton, Montgomery, Bradley, De Gaulle, Churchill.
31:56
How did Eisenhower's ability to manage egos contribute to Allied
32:01
success? Well, I mean, hopefully you'll
32:05
probably a lot of alcohol and a lot of patience, but he did off.
32:11
It's a lot of compromise. Like for example, the big issue
32:14
was who was going to command the air.
32:16
You have old bomber Harris and Tui spots.
32:19
They want to command the air and but us Lee Mallory is currently
32:25
in charge and they refused to work under him.
32:29
So there has to be a compromise solution there where Ike's like,
32:32
hey, like, Nope, you they have to like divert command away so
32:35
that they had their own independent control.
32:38
And that's it's hard to just make sure that everybody, you
32:41
know, has their mouth fed. But that's why whenever you can
32:45
create the combined chiefs, you made sure that every nation like
32:49
the British and the Americans and and de Gaulle's like kind of
32:52
there. They didn't even tell de Gaulle
32:54
about it until like, the last possible second, but just to
32:58
make sure that everybody had their input and could, you know,
33:01
like, put their thumb on it and not just do it the American way.
33:05
Well, I think that's, you know, we talked about on the Napoleon
33:08
podcast, you know, when the Allies are making decision,
33:10
everyone, there were a lot of chefs in the kitchen.
33:13
On the French side, there was one chef.
33:14
Napoleon is whatever he wanted to do.
33:16
That's what they were doing. I think Eisenhower's great skill
33:19
was that he listened to all these generals and all these
33:21
statesman, even as president, took all that information in and
33:25
then made his decision. Yes, and also the biggest thorn
33:30
in the side was Churchill. Churchill after Italy wanted to
33:34
invade Rhodes, one invade the island of Rhodes and then like
33:37
enticed Turkey to their side and it's in fees and pack like no,
33:41
we like we're not doing this. So like eventually waited for
33:44
the right moment. But he also like took a lot of
33:49
lessons from Italy is that you know, like you can't like, you
33:53
know, Italy was not a disaster. We win, but thousands of men
33:58
were killed in a very defensive war that's conducive to the
34:01
Germans. That also shows that the
34:03
roundabout strategy doesn't work.
34:05
You have to. You have to invade northern
34:07
France if you want to end the war.
34:09
Well, he also directs the breakout from Normandy in the
34:13
liberation France in 1944. He also makes the controversial
34:17
decision to halt at the Elbe River, allowing Soviet forces to
34:21
take Berlin. So what strategic and political
34:25
factors influenced Eisenhower's decision here?
34:30
That's tough. It's a tough decision.
34:33
Well, it's actually easier if you like, do like if you take a
34:37
deep dive. But yeah.
34:38
If you go macro on it but like. Ken Burns will, you know, like
34:42
the famous documentarian. I listened to one of his
34:44
podcasts the other day. He calls it, you know, like,
34:46
unwavering revisionism, where you're kind of always just
34:50
playing the devil's advocate, looking at the other point of
34:52
view. And if, you know, hindsight's
34:54
2020, you know, in theory, we should have just, you know, like
34:58
Churchill said this, you know, like, fight the Russians now
35:01
because he envisioned the Cold War happening.
35:03
But you also got to consider the context.
35:06
Monty was on the ELB on March 8th.
35:10
It would have been a long time for him to get to Berlin.
35:15
Also the question is what strategic value does Berlin
35:18
really have? To be honest, not a ton.
35:23
Ike would rather capture as much land as possible.
35:26
That's why you divert troops to the South to go through like
35:28
Austria. It also would have taken
35:30
remarkable amounts of logistical hurdles to go over and manpower.
35:37
the US was in a manpower crisis by 1945.
35:41
It would have taken everything in our repertoire to and to have
35:47
one last thrust towards Berlin. The other problem is this,
35:52
Berlin is the home of the Third Reich and Hitler had stated that
35:56
they were going to fight to the death.
35:58
The famously said that you know if we can't defeat the Judeo
36:01
Bolsheviks then like the German race should perish from the face
36:05
of the earth. Is it worth capturing Berlin if
36:08
you lose hundreds of thousands of men?
36:11
The Russians lose all over 300,000 men in the in the South
36:14
on Berlin. Yeah.
36:16
Is it worth it to that, to you? That's the big question.
36:20
No, like, no. He thought he would rather the
36:23
roar the Roar Valley, the industrial land of Germany.
36:26
I think there's something there, though, that, you know, yeah,
36:29
the Americans kind of came in. The British have been fighting
36:33
the the Nazis for a long time. But in terms of like destruction
36:37
to their people and their homeland, probably the Soviets
36:39
suffered as much as anyone. So maybe they kind of gave it to
36:42
him. Like, look, they've earned it.
36:43
They they should take Berlin. There's also the question of the
36:48
Pacific. We are still fighting in the
36:50
Pacific at this time. We're still fighting the Battle
36:53
of Okinawa, and that is not going easily.
36:57
So we still have a whole other theater of war to worry about.
37:01
So again, the question is, is it worth, you know, losing
37:06
potentially hundreds of thousands of men to take Berlin,
37:10
which at this point is rubble anyways?
37:12
Right. OK.
37:14
And the Soviets were like, and there was the Soviets wanted it.
37:17
So, you know, like save some of your men.
37:21
I don't know. I don't really have as much of a
37:22
problem with that as others may may have a problem with it.
37:27
But we would have had to like Monty was like 200 miles away
37:32
and he was at the tip of the spear.
37:34
So it would have taken, it would have taken a lot to get there to
37:37
beat them. OK, beat the Russians to Berlin.
37:41
Well, the US accepts Germany's unconditional surrender.
37:44
May 1945 Leaves Europe is a global hero.
37:47
Admire for his calm leadership, humility and ability to forge
37:52
unity among allies. What do you think his legacy is?
37:56
Because, I mean, there's guys like Patton and Zhukov and Monty
38:00
who are like, you know, on the front lines.
38:02
And usually you think of World War Two.
38:03
You think of those guys first. What do you think Eisenhower's
38:06
legacy is? Well, did Beethoven play in the
38:11
sympathy symphonies? No, he was the conductor, all
38:14
right. That's what Ike was.
38:16
Ike was the conductor of the Allied coalition that ultimately
38:19
toppled the Third Reich. And it's like 1 of like it's
38:25
probably the first successful. Like yeah, there are other
38:28
successful coalitions, but this was like the first, like this
38:31
was a four year long coalition. The Allies in World War 2, they
38:35
didn't effectively form a high command until 1918.
38:38
So this is a four year long partnership where you got two
38:42
different strategies, British and American, and Ike managed
38:47
all these different personalities.
38:49
Like Patton, who's gung ho barely wants to take the
38:53
offensive to the enemy. You have Churchill who's like
38:56
the eternal pessimist and like we've been kind of taking a dump
39:00
on Churchill. But I can acknowledge that
39:04
Churchill had a right to feel like that, not only because he's
39:07
the Prime Minister in charge of his people, but remember,
39:10
Churchill was in charge of Gallipoli in World War One, and
39:14
that was a disaster. And he lived through World War
39:18
One and he didn't want to have a repeat of the First World War.
39:23
So not only did he know like how the countries fought war, he
39:26
knew people. And that whenever you're talking
39:29
about coalitions, it's not countries, it's people you're
39:32
dealing with, especially the United States draftees who are
39:35
not really there because they want to be.
39:38
There. You make a really solid point
39:40
there though, and going back to Napoleon, it took six coalitions
39:44
to finally topple him. Their first 5 broke apart due to
39:47
losses and squabbling with each other.
39:49
So to have a four year long coalition last to defeat Nazi
39:54
Germany is pretty impressive. So I think I should get some
39:56
credit there. Oh, he deserves a ton of credit.
39:59
He was just the one that brought everybody together.
40:02
He was always like, he's like the fun uncle.
40:04
He was the vessel that brought everybody to the table to have
40:08
tough conversations and. That's what won the war is there
40:12
were a lot of tough conversations over strategy,
40:16
tactics, deployment of troops, foreign policy, direction of the
40:21
war. There were a lot of competing
40:24
interests that Ike had to deal with.
40:27
Yeah, and I think that positive legacy ultimately leads to the
40:30
White House for him, but that's a podcast for another time.
40:33
Yes, and Ike is he's rightfully in the pantheon of American
40:39
commanders because, you know, he might he's not the flashiest
40:42
one. Like as we've talked about, he
40:44
didn't hold a battlefield Commission.
40:46
But you know, war isn't necessary.
40:50
You know, war isn't just guns a blazing and got on the bet, you
40:54
know, on the front lines. It's one with politics, it's one
40:57
with strategy. And, you know, like I made the
40:59
comment that D-Day was, you know, kind of a, you know, very
41:03
tough go of it. But in the end it it worked
41:06
splendidly. And that was a tough nut to
41:08
crack. Yeah.
41:10
Across Channel Invasion, when the Germans knew the Allies were
41:13
coming, you know, that was impressive.
41:16
And then to lead the breakout, you know, wage of three-year, 4
41:20
year long war, it's definitely something that needs to be
41:23
commended. Yeah, for sure.
41:24
And I appreciate your overview on all that.
41:28
Thank you, Nick. That was really good stuff.
41:29
If you guys want to follow Nick we we can find you on Twitter or
41:32
X Twitter I believe. Yes you can.
41:35
It's is it N Kramer or is it Nick Kramer?
41:38
N Kramer. And then there's like a bunch of
41:40
numbers at the end there, yeah. Yeah, my two favorite Steelers
41:43
of all time. Oh yeah, is it N Kramer?
41:46
5812 I think. Is it 5812?
41:48
Let. Me.
41:49
Or is it 58? I don't know.
41:51
I don't really check Twitter all that.
41:53
Much If you'd like to follow Nick Kramer on X Twitter, you
41:56
can find him at N Kramer 5812. I highly recommend you check him
42:00
out over there. And yeah, we appreciate this.
42:03
This was great stuff on Eisenhower.
42:05
Yeah, no problem. It's it was a blast.
42:07
I always loved talking military history.
42:10
Yeah, for sure. And as always, thanks for
42:12
listening to our podcast, Generals of World War 2, The Art
42:15
of Command, and we'll see you soon.