General Louis-Marie Koeltz, commander of the French XIX Corps, presents the Croix de Guerre to Terry Allen (center) and Ted Roosevelt for their valor in the Tunisian campaign.
General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim, commander of Axis forces in North Africa, on May 15, 1943, three days after his capture and shortly before being flown to a prison in England. Behind him is General Hans Cramer, commander of the German Afrika Korps.
American soldiers from the 34th Infantry Division march through Tunis in the victory parade on May 20, 1943. Patton complained that “our men do not put up a good show in reviews”; thousands of spectators disagreed, shrieking “Vive l’Amerique” from sidewalks and balconies.
Twenty-seven acres of headstones today fill the American military cemetery at Carthage, outside Tunis. (Collection of the author)
NOTES
To provide an individual citation for every fact in this book would result in an extraordinarily cumbersome and pedantic ream of notes. I have instead grouped the sources relevant to particular passages of the text; the intent is to provide explicit attribution, as well as a guide for readers seeking additional source material. The bibliography also gives further information regarding the sources cited.
The following abbreviations appear in the endnotes and bibliography.
AAF Army Air Forces
AAFinWWII W.F. Craven and J.L. Cate, eds., The Army Air Forces in World War II, vol. II
AAR after action report
AD armored division
AFHQ micro Allied Forces Headquarters microfilm, NARA RG 331
AFHRA Air Force Historical Research Agency
ag adjutant general
AR armored regiment
ASEQ Army Service Experiences Questionnaire, MHI
Bde brigade
Bn battalion
CARL Combined Arms Research Library, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
CBH Chester B. Hansen diary, MHI
CCS Combined Chiefs of Staff
CEOH U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Office of History
Chandler Alfred Chandler, ed., The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower: The War Years, vol. II
CINCLANT Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet
CMH U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort McNair, Washington, D.C.
Co company
Col U OHRO Columbia University Oral History Research Office
corr correspondence
CSI Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
CT combat team
DDE Lib Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
Destruction I.S.O. Playfair and C.J.C. Molony, The Mediterranean and the Middle East, vol. IV
diss dissertation
Div division
DSC Distinguished Service Cross
E entry
ETO European Theater of Operations
FA field artillery
FCP Forrest C. Pogue, background material for The Supreme Commander
FDR Lib Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library
FMS Foreign Military Studies, MHI
FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States: The Conferences at Washington, 1941–1942, and Casablanca, 1943
GCM Lib George C. Marshall Library, Lexington, Va.
GSP George S. Patton, Jr., Papers
Hansen draft of Omar Bradley’s A Soldier’s Story, C. B. Hansen, MHI
HKH Henry Kent Hewitt Papers
ID infantry division
inf infantry
Intel intelligence
Iowa GSM Iowa Gold Star Museum, Fort Dodge, Iowa
IWM Imperial War Museum, London
JAG judge advocate general
JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff
lib library
LHC Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, London
LKT Jr. Lucian K. Truscott, Jr.
LOC MS Div Library of Congress Manuscript Division
Med Mediterranean
MCC Mina Curtiss Collection
MHI U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pa.
MWC Mark Wayne Clark
micro microfilm
MP military police
MRC FDM McCormick Research Center, First Division Museum, Cantigny, Ill.
msg message
mss manuscript
MTOUSA Mediterranean Theater of Operations, United States Army
N Af North Africa
NARA National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md.
NATOUSA North African Theater of Operations, United States Army
n.d. no date
NHC Naval Historical Center, Washington, D.C.
NSA National Security Agency
NWAf George F. Howe, Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West
NWC Lib National War College Library
OCMH Office of the Chief of Military History
OCNO Office of the Chief of Naval Operations
OCS Office of the Chief of Staff
OH oral history
OW Orlando Ward Papers
Para parachute
PMR Paul McD. Robinett papers
PP-pres Papers, Pre-presidential
PRO Public Record Office, Kew, England
qm quartermaster
Regt regiment
RG record group
RN Royal Navy
ROHA Rutgers University Oral History Archives of World War II
SEM Samuel Eliot Morison Office Files
SM Sidney T. Matthews Papers
SOOHP Senior Officer Oral History Program
S.P. self-published
td tank destroyer
TdA Terry de la Mesa Allen Papers
Three Years Harry C. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower
TR Theodore Roosevelt III Papers
ts typescript
USAF U.S. Air Force
USAF HRC U.S. Air Force Historical Research Center
USMA Arch U.S. Military Academy Archives, West Point
USAWWII United States Army in World War II
USN U.S. Navy
USNAd “U.S. Naval Administration in World War II”
USNI OHD U.S. Naval Institute, Oral History Department, Annapolis, Md.
UTEP University of Texas at El Paso
UT-K University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Center for the Study of War and Society
WD War Department
WTF Western Task Force
WWII World War II
YU Yale University Library, Manuscripts and Archives
PROLOGUE
Twenty-seven acres: Author visits, Sept. 1996, Apr. 2000; “North Africa American Cemetery,” n.d., American Battle Monuments Commission.
No large operation: AAFinWWII, 41 (“the degree of strategic surprise”); Siegfried Westphal, The German Army in the West, 131 (“to the last man”).
“There is a soul”: William T. Sherman, Memoirs, 387.
North Africa is where: Mina Curtiss, ed., Letters Home, 65 (“It is a very, very horrible war”); James Tobin, Ernie Pyle’s War, 89 (“killing is a craft”); A. B. Austin, Birth of an Army, 133 (“The last war”).
September 1, 1939: Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, 894, 57; Martin Gilbert, The Second World War, 14–19 (“Take a good look”). Weinberg estimates total war-related deaths at 60 million.
“The small countries”: Winston S. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 24. France was not small: Destruction, 116; Gilbert, 90 (“First they were too cowardly”); Mark M. Boatner III, The Biographical Dictionary of World War II, 421 (“They call me only”); NWAf, 16–17.
Pétain so pledged: Gilbert, 100 (“Whatever happens”), 130 (“The war is won”), 137 (RAF pilots shot down), 151 (“Whither thou goest”); Marvin A. Kreidberg and Merton G. Henry, History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army, 1775–1945, 674–75; Norman Gelb, Desperate Venture, 72 (“our eyelids”).
Hitler faced: Gilbert, 135 (“we are on the mar
ch”), 194–99, 246–47, 272, 277 (“the single most decisive act”), 304; Weinberg, 260, 264–72; Churchill, The Grand Alliance, 606, 608 (“the sleep of the saved”).
Two years, three months: Gelb, 25 (“more unready for war”); Christopher R. Gabel, The U.S. Army GHQ Maneuvers of 1941, 8; James A. Huston, The Sinews of War: Army Logistics, 1775–1953, 411; Richard M. Ketchum, The Borrowed Years, 1938–1941, 544 (“reconstruction of a dinosaur”). That task had started: Ketchum, 645; Lee B. Kennett, G.I.: The American Soldier in World War II, 19–22, 29; Ralph Stein and Harry Brown, It’s a Cinch, Private Finch! (“Do you like girls?” and “at least below the rank of major”); Roy R. Grinker and John P. Siegel, War Neuroses in North Africa.
Jeremiads derided: Roger Barry Fosdick, “A Call to Arms,” diss, 1985; Time, Aug. 18, 1941, 36.
Equipment and weaponry: Marvin Jensen, Strike Swiftly: The 70th Tank Battalion, 6 (“tanks are dear”); Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 51 (“The idea of huge armies”); David Brinkley, Washington Goes to War, 57; Alexander M. Bielakowski, “Calmer Heads Will Prevail,” paper, Society for Military History, Apr. 2000; Alexander M. Bielakowski, “The Role of the Horse in Modern Warfare as Viewed in the Interwar U.S. Army’s Cavalry Journal,” Army History, summer–fall 2000, 20.
To lead the eventual host: Mark A. Stoler, George C. Marshall: Soldier-Statesman of the American Century, 93; Gabel, 116; Charles E. Kirkpatrick, “Orthodox Soldiers: Army Formal Schools Between the Two World Wars,” paper, March 1990; Richard W. Stewart, “The Red Bull Division,” Army History, winter 1993, 1; letter, L. J. McNair to C. Brewer, Nov. 15, 1943, NARA RG 165, Director of Plans and Ops, corr, box 1229; E. J. Kahn, Jr., “Education of an Army,” New Yorker, Oct. 14, 1944, 28; Joseph W. A. Whitehorne, The Inspectors General of the United States Army, 1903–1939, 440 (stained with scandal).
Yet slowly the giant stirred: Geoffrey Perret, There’s a War to Be Won: The United States Army in World War II, 29 ($9 billion), 31; Gilbert, 240 (amputation saws).
But where?: Louis Morton, “Germany First: The Basic Concept of Allied Strategy in World War II,” in Kent Roberts Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, 3–38 (“the problem confronting us”); Maurice Matloff and Edwin M. Snell, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1941–1942, USAWWII, 27, 44, 113; Ray S. Cline, Washington Command Post: The Operations Division, USAWWII, 56; Gilbert, 286 (“life, liberty, independence”).
The American idea: Gelb, Desperate Venture, 70 (“Through France”); Cline, 156; John Slessor, The Central Blue, 434 (“go for him bald-headed”); Arthur Bryant, The Turn of the Tide, 353 (“wanted revenge”).
Direct, concentrated attack: Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War, 313 (for an enlightening critique of the U.S. strategic tradition see Brian M. Linn, “The American Way of War Revisited,” Journal of Military History, April 2002, 501); Maurice Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943–1944, USAWWII, 11; Matloff and Snell, 156; memo, DDE, Chandler, vol. I, 66 (“We’ve got to go”).
As the new chief: Matloff, 12; Leo J. Meyer, “The Decision to Invade North Africa,” in Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions, 134; Samuel Eliot Morison, The Two-Ocean War, 222; Field Marshal Viscount Alanbrooke, OH, FCP, Jan. 28, 1947, MHI (“We shall be pushed out”); Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman, eds., War Diaries, 1939–1945, Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, 281–82; Richard W. Steele, The First Offensive, 171, 231; Benjamin A. Dickson, “G-2 Journal: Algiers to the Elbe,” ts, n.d., MHI, 9 (some skeptics); Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 43; Gilbert, 283; Frederick E. Morgan, ts, n.d., cited in FCP, MHI (“He recoiled in horror”); Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate Biography, 591; GCM, OH, Forrest C. Pogue, Oct. 5, 1956, GCM Lib (“Bodies floating in the Channel”); GCM, OH, July 25, 1949, SM, MHI (“sacrifice play”).
Whereas the dominant American strategic impulse: Morton, “Germany First,” 34; Meyer, “The Decision to Invade North Africa,” 132; Weigley, 328; Michael Howard, The Mediterranean Strategy in the Second World War, 14–17; Matloff and Snell, 55; Gelb, 96 (“This has all along”).
The American military disagreed: Matloff and Snell, 104 (“indirect contribution”); Gelb, 89 (“will not result in removing”).
To many American officers: William C. Frierson, “Preparations for TORCH,” Dec. 1945, vol. I, Historical Division, WD Special Staff, CMH 2–3.7 AD, 22; Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief, 436 (“After England Failed”).
Following another visit: Stoler, The Politics of the Second Front, 55–56; Matloff and Snell, 214, 231, 268–72, 276; Albert C. Wedemeyer, Wedemeyer Reports!, 158 (“Scotch bagpipe band”); msg, WD to AFHQ, Nov. 4, 1942, NARA RG 492, MTOUSA, box 1388; Walter Bedell Smith, OH, May 8, 1947, FCP, MHI (often had to rely on the British); Morison, History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. IX, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, 4 (war could last a decade); GCM, OH, July 25, 1949, SM, MHI (would have to field at least 200 divisions).
Other factors also influenced: Walter Scott Dunn, Jr., Second Front Now 1943; Gilbert, 322, 350 (Operation WATCHTOWER), 335 (“I am going on to Suez”).
By chance, the bad news: Danchev and Todman, eds., 268–69, 286 (Cromwell’s death mask); Gilbert, 335 (“What can we do”); Arthur Layton Funk, The Politics of Torch, 86; Meyer, 143; Matloff and Snell, 283; NWAf, 14.
The president had made: Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. IV, xxi (“defeat of Germany”); Danchev and Todman, eds., 250 (“The prospects of success”), 275 (“to play baccarat”); Charles Bolte, OH, Oct. 17, 1973, Maclyn Burg, DDE Lib, OH 395, 51–52 (Army logisticians); Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 41; Meyer, 135–39 (7,000 landing craft); Matloff and Snell, 104 (“persuasive rather than rational”), 241 (only 20,000); Cline, 150 (at least 600,000), 157 (“Who is responsible”).
Roosevelt had saved: Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, 1939–1942, 330 (“We failed to see”); Three Years, 29 (“blackest day”); Matloff and Snell, 190 (“thrashing around”), 298 (“a blessing in disguise”), 310–11; Cline, 160; Funk, 86–92; minutes, CCS, July 25, 1942, 10:30 A.M., NARA RG 218, JCS records, box 325; Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, 449–51; NWAf, 15.
CHAPTER 1: PASSAGE
A Meeting with the Dutchman
A few minutes past ten A.M.: John Clagett, “Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, U.S. Navy,” Naval War College Review, XXVIII, summer/fall 1975, 2 (“squeezed the tar”); note, July 24, 1943, HKH, LOC MS Div., box 1 (turkey trot); George Sessions Perry, “Why Don’t They Write About Hewitt?” Saturday Evening Post, Dec. 16, 1944, 22; Louis Mountbatten, OH, n.d., HKH, NHC, box 6 (“a fat, bedraggled figure”); HKH, n.d., Col U OHRO, CNOF-0334, NHC, box 20; Thaddeus V. Tuleja, “Admiral H. Kent Hewitt,” in Stephen Howarth, ed., Men of War: Great Naval Leaders of World War II, 315–16; HKH, “Reminiscences of a World War II Admiral,” ts, n.d., NHC, box 21, 170–206; John T. Mason, ed., The Atlantic War Remembered, 160–63.
In April 1942: DDE to T. Troubridge, Oct. 13, 1942, NARA RG 407, E 427, AG Office, WWII Ops Reports, box 203 (“The object of the operations”); Matloff and Snell, 291.
Through a tiny window: Brinkley, 117 (if the military); William D. Leahy, I Was There, 98; James B. Stack, OH-317, DDE Lib.; Alfred Goldberg, The Pentagon: The First Fifty Years, 175.
The plane settled: Associated Press article, in New York Sun, Jan. 30, 1943, HKH, LOC MS Div, box 9, folder 6 (“You do everything”); “Amphibious Training Command,” #145, USNAd, NHC, VII-26; William S. Biddle, “Amphibious Training of American Troops in Great Britain,” lecture, Fort Hood, 1943, William S. Biddle Papers, MHI; Kenneth Macksey, Crucible of Power: The Fight for Tunisia, 1942–1943, 48 (imaginary ocean); Ken Ford, Battleaxe Division, 6.
Would the eight: “Reminiscences of a World War II Admiral,” 170–206; Michael Howard, Grand Strategy, 112; C.B.A. Behrens, Merchant Shipping and the Demands of War, 367–68; F. H. Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 2, 470; Walter Karig, Battle Report: The Atlantic War, 167; Disney note, HKH, LOC MS Div, box 2, folder 6.
&nbs
p; The staff car crawled: New York Times, Oct. 21, 1942, 1; Washington Evening Star, Oct. 21, 1942, 1 (“there aren’t any nylon stockings”); Goodwin, 394.
The car pulled up: Quartermaster report, n.d., NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 231 (among the secret cargoes).
Since Roosevelt’s final decision: Theodore J. Conway, SOOHP, Robert F. Ensslin, Sept. 1977, MHI; Leahy, 136 (“pig-headed”).
First, he insisted: Greenfield, ed., 149; FDR to Churchill, in Aug. 31, 1942, memo, E. King to GCM, NARA RG 218, JCS, box 325 (“I am reasonably sure”); James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom, 290 (public opinion in North Africa); Larrabee, 424.
There was skepticism: Harold Macmillan, The Blast of War, 160 (“where all good Americans”); Churchill to FDR, Sept. 14, 1942, NARA RG 218, JCS, box 225; Danchev and Todman, eds., 316 (wait a full month).
The second vital issue: Matloff and Snell, 287; minutes, CCS meeting, Aug. 28, 1942, NARA RG 218, JCS, box 225 (“take great risks”); Andrew Browne Cunningham, A Sailor’s Odyssey, 470; Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 79.
But General Marshall: Howard, Grand Strategy, 124, 127; NWAf, 26; Destruction, 124; msg, War Cabinet, Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee, Aug. 7, 1942, NARA RG 165, Plans and Ops, General Records, corr, box 1229; Bernard Fergusson, The Watery Maze, 197 (drawstring); General Lord Ismay, The Memoirs of General Lord Ismay, 261; MWC, OH, May 19, 1948, G. F. Howe, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 228; minutes, CCS meeting, Aug. 28, 1942, NARA RG 218, JCS, box 225 (“only bring ridicule”).
Roosevelt agreed: FDR to Churchill, Aug. 31, 1942, NARA RG 492, MTOUSA records, box 1388; Danchev and Todman, eds., 315 (“a much wiser plan”); Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 80 (“realm of the probable”).
On September 5: GCM, OH, Oct. 5, 1956, FCP, GCM Lib; GCM, OH, July 25, 1949, SM, MHI.
At the White House: William Seale, The President’s House, vol. II, 976; Hewitt, Col U OHRO, copy at NHC, Hewitt papers, box 20.
Even as he shook Patton’s hand: HKH to GSP, Sept 1, 1942, HKH, LOC MS Div, box 2, folder 5 (“By all means”); HKH, OH, Jan. 23, 1951, G. F. Howe, NARA RG 319, OCMH, box 228 (Army planners proposed); Ismay, 265 (“bunch of rattlesnakes”); “Amphibious Training Command,” #145, USNAd, NHC, VII-8 (“failure to cooperate”); Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, 82 (Eisenhower’s personal warrant); Carlo D’Este, Patton: A Genius for War, 422 (“Don’t scare the Navy”); Warren Tute, The North African War, 152; NWAf, 43.