supplies to Hodges’s First Army, much of which was immobilized, yet which possessed a vastly better prospect of penetrating Hitler’s West Wall. Patton was delighted when one of his formations hijacked a load of fuel destined for First Army, yet in truth such action was recklessly irresponsible. Patton said to Bradley on 14 September, “Don’t call me till after dark,” as he strove to entangle his Third Army so deeply on the Moselle front that Eisenhower would feel obliged to support its operations. Far from being matter for laughter, this was a grotesque way to allow any subordinate commander to drive strategy from the bottom. Montgomery was wrong about many things, but he was surely right that grip and discipline were essential at the summit of the Allied armies. Patton’s crossings of the Moselle in early September were a waste of resources unless they conformed to a coherent SHAEF strategy. Third Army was allowed to parade the eagerness and egotism of its commander, at great cost to the interests of the other American armies. Likewise, Eisenhower allocated a million gallons of fuel to forces besieging Brest on the French Atlantic coast, a further dispersal of vital resources in favour of a marginal objective.
It has become a cliché of the north-west Europe campaign that the Allies’ difficulties of supply were insuperable, given their lack of an operational big port in France. Yet for most of the war the United States displayed a genius for overcoming logistical obstacles, surmounting shortages that seemed intractable to the weary and impoverished British. Why did that genius fail in September 1944? The officer in overall charge of supply for the Allied armies was among the least impressive senior soldiers America sent to Europe in the Second World War. General John C. H. Lee was regarded even by his colleagues as vain, self-important, self-indulgent and undisciplined. Patton dismissed him as “a glib liar.” Lee was colloquially known as “Jesus Christ,” the only American general to wear stars on both the front and back of his helmet. There was immense anger within the fighting army when it was learned that Lee had descended upon Paris following its liberation and established himself and his sprawling empire of bureaucrats in sybaritic comfort, occupying no fewer than 167 of the French capital’s hotels. There was a disease among the service units of the Allied armies, from which Lee was the most notorious sufferer, known as “Paris fever.” At the most critical period of the Allied supply crisis, Lee allocated transport to ship to the city 11,000 men and 560,000 square feet of hutted accommodation for his own headquarters. “The movement naturally produced strong criticism from combat commanders,” the U.S. official historian comments drily.
In late August and September, senior American officers believed that Lee, the man responsible for finding urgent means to carry the armies into Germany, was chiefly preoccupied with his own creature comfort. A U.S. Army report of 1 December condemned in withering terms the “lethargy and smugness” that had been displayed throughout the campaign by some ComZ—Communications Zone—personnel. “Lee . . . never ceased to be a controversial figure,” in the understated words of the official historian.
It is a serious criticism of Eisenhower that he failed to focus upon Lee’s shortcomings, and to replace him, when the Supreme Commander was foremost among those who recognized the tyrannical influence of logistics upon the battlefield. General Everett Hughes, ETO (European Theater of Operations) Chief of Staff, puzzled over Eisenhower’s indulgence of Lee and observed sourly to his diary: “Alexander the Great loved flatterers .” Even an administrator of genius might have been dismayed by the supply problems facing the Allied armies in September 1944. But Lee’s failure to prepare contingency plans for a rapid Allied advance seemed deplorable to field
It has become a cliché of the north-west Europe campaign that the Allies’ difficulties of supply were insuperable, given their lack of an operational big port in France. Yet for most of the war the United States displayed a genius for overcoming logistical obstacles, surmounting shortages that seemed intractable to the weary and impoverished British. Why did that genius fail in September 1944? The officer in overall charge of supply for the Allied armies was among the least impressive senior soldiers America sent to Europe in the Second World War. General John C. H. Lee was regarded even by his colleagues as vain, self-important, self-indulgent and undisciplined. Patton dismissed him as “a glib liar.” Lee was colloquially known as “Jesus Christ,” the only American general to wear stars on both the front and back of his helmet. There was immense anger within the fighting army when it was learned that Lee had descended upon Paris following its liberation and established himself and his sprawling empire of bureaucrats in sybaritic comfort, occupying no fewer than 167 of the French capital’s hotels. There was a disease among the service units of the Allied armies, from which Lee was the most notorious sufferer, known as “Paris fever.” At the most critical period of the Allied supply crisis, Lee allocated transport to ship to the city 11,000 men and 560,000 square feet of hutted accommodation for his own headquarters. “The movement naturally produced strong criticism from combat commanders,” the U.S. official historian comments drily.
In late August and September, senior American officers believed that Lee, the man responsible for finding urgent means to carry the armies into Germany, was chiefly preoccupied with his own creature comfort. A U.S. Army report of 1 December condemned in withering terms the “lethargy and smugness” that had been displayed throughout the campaign by some ComZ—Communications Zone—personnel. “Lee . . . never ceased to be a controversial figure,” in the understated words of the official historian.
It is a serious criticism of Eisenhower that he failed to focus upon Lee’s shortcomings, and to replace him, when the Supreme Commander was foremost among those who recognized the tyrannical influence of logistics upon the battlefield. General Everett Hughes, ETO (European Theater of Operations) Chief of Staff, puzzled over Eisenhower’s indulgence of Lee and observed sourly to his diary: “Alexander the Great loved flatterers .” Even an administrator of genius might have been dismayed by the supply problems facing the Allied armies in September 1944. But Lee’s failure to prepare contingency plans for a rapid Allied advance seemed deplorable to field
Similar Books
