wearing” days, the Allies chose North Africa as the site for the Allied landing against the Axis powers—in that decision, FDR overruled his military commanders, who wanted a more direct strike on Europe—and agreed that they would fight beneath an American leader. The following day, Marshall picked the leader for the attack, known as Operation Torch. He named Eisenhower. In his official diary, Ike recorded the moment with dispassion that almost, but not quite, masked his unmistakable pride. “According to General Marshall’s understanding of the agreement,” he wrote, “I am to be that … commander.”
The last hours before American forces entered the European war were agonizing, and Eisenhower had few to whom he could confess his anxieties. He shared them with Marshall. “We are standing, of course, on the brink and must take the jump—whether the bottom contains a nice feather bed or a pile of brickbats,” he wrote. Hours later, with Eisenhower commanding from a headquarters in Gibraltar, American and British forces landed along the coast of North Africa. It was November 8, 1942.
Tens of thousands of young men flopped onto beaches near Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers; many died in ports or sank with ships, burned in oil, drowned in surf, their bodies cast into the waters of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, drawn by currents across thousands of miles of African coast. Those who survived the landings pressed inland off the beaches and harbors and turned left to confront Rommel and his German forces, then being pursued from the east by the British Eighth Army.
As soldiers poured from landing craft, Eisenhower paced and smoked and allowed himself a brief moment of wonder. “I have operational command of Gibraltar,” he wrote. “The symbol of the solidity of the British Empire, the hallmark of safety and security at home, the jealously guarded rock that has played a tremendous part in the trade development of the English race! An American is in charge, and I am he.”
If the landings at last put Allied troops in combat under unified command, the initial efforts also demonstrated America’s rustiness and the enormous complexity of the task at hand. Poorly packed supplies were hard to unload, landing craft failed and sank, tanks turned out to be too wide to ship on some North African rail lines. Ike displayed some rookie failings as a commander. He was distracted by politics; he sometimes dawdled when quick and decisive action might have sped along the Allied advance. General Alan Brooke, chief of the British Imperial General Staff, sized up Eisenhower early in the war and dismissed him with a sniff: “Deficient of experience and of limited ability.” Marshall may have harbored private worries as well. Still, he stood behind Ike.
The campaign for control over North Africa intermingled military and political strategy as the Allied forces confronted the vexing problem of how to deal with the French armies in the region. French soldiers yearned for liberation by the Allies, but the Vichy government was expected by its German masters to fight those same Allies. To face French resistance while embarking on a campaign to liberate Europe—including France—exasperated Eisenhower, and occasionally he let his temper boil over. “If we had come here merely to whip this French Army, I would be registering nothing but complete satisfaction at this moment,” he wrote to Marshall. But he conceded he was “irritated” at the thought that every bullet fired at a French soldier was one that could not be used against a German, every lost minute on the way to Tunis was time for Germany to regroup. “I find myself getting absolutely furious with these stupid frogs,” he fumed.
The pressure on Eisenhower mounted, and he punished himself. Roaming the gloomy underground headquarters at Gibraltar, he shivered and suffered. He was querulous and unpleasant, complaining about the pressures of his job. Patton
The last hours before American forces entered the European war were agonizing, and Eisenhower had few to whom he could confess his anxieties. He shared them with Marshall. “We are standing, of course, on the brink and must take the jump—whether the bottom contains a nice feather bed or a pile of brickbats,” he wrote. Hours later, with Eisenhower commanding from a headquarters in Gibraltar, American and British forces landed along the coast of North Africa. It was November 8, 1942.
Tens of thousands of young men flopped onto beaches near Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers; many died in ports or sank with ships, burned in oil, drowned in surf, their bodies cast into the waters of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, drawn by currents across thousands of miles of African coast. Those who survived the landings pressed inland off the beaches and harbors and turned left to confront Rommel and his German forces, then being pursued from the east by the British Eighth Army.
As soldiers poured from landing craft, Eisenhower paced and smoked and allowed himself a brief moment of wonder. “I have operational command of Gibraltar,” he wrote. “The symbol of the solidity of the British Empire, the hallmark of safety and security at home, the jealously guarded rock that has played a tremendous part in the trade development of the English race! An American is in charge, and I am he.”
If the landings at last put Allied troops in combat under unified command, the initial efforts also demonstrated America’s rustiness and the enormous complexity of the task at hand. Poorly packed supplies were hard to unload, landing craft failed and sank, tanks turned out to be too wide to ship on some North African rail lines. Ike displayed some rookie failings as a commander. He was distracted by politics; he sometimes dawdled when quick and decisive action might have sped along the Allied advance. General Alan Brooke, chief of the British Imperial General Staff, sized up Eisenhower early in the war and dismissed him with a sniff: “Deficient of experience and of limited ability.” Marshall may have harbored private worries as well. Still, he stood behind Ike.
The campaign for control over North Africa intermingled military and political strategy as the Allied forces confronted the vexing problem of how to deal with the French armies in the region. French soldiers yearned for liberation by the Allies, but the Vichy government was expected by its German masters to fight those same Allies. To face French resistance while embarking on a campaign to liberate Europe—including France—exasperated Eisenhower, and occasionally he let his temper boil over. “If we had come here merely to whip this French Army, I would be registering nothing but complete satisfaction at this moment,” he wrote to Marshall. But he conceded he was “irritated” at the thought that every bullet fired at a French soldier was one that could not be used against a German, every lost minute on the way to Tunis was time for Germany to regroup. “I find myself getting absolutely furious with these stupid frogs,” he fumed.
The pressure on Eisenhower mounted, and he punished himself. Roaming the gloomy underground headquarters at Gibraltar, he shivered and suffered. He was querulous and unpleasant, complaining about the pressures of his job. Patton
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