In this episode, Richard D. Hooker argues that the historical assessment of Dwight D. Eisenhower as Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War II lacks objectivity and balance. While we will never know if other generals would have outperformed Eisenhower, several leaders were available—all senior to Eisenhower at the outbreak of the war and with superior professional résumés.
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Podcast record date: November 7, 2024
Keywords: Dwight D. Eisenhower, World War II, strategy, command, Joint campaign
Episode Transcript
Stephanie Crider (Host)
You are listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.
I'm talking with Richard D. Hooker today, the author of “Eisenhower as Supreme Allied Commander: A Reappraisal,” which you can find in the Autumn 2024 issue of Parameters. Hooker is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council and senior associate at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. He is the former National Security Council senior director for Europe and Russia and authored The High Ground: Leading in Peace and War, which was published by Casemate in 2023.
Welcome to Decisive Point, Richard.
Richard D. Hooker
Thank you. It's great to be here.
Host
How did Eisenhower’s lack of prior combat command experience affect his performance as Supreme Allied Commander?
Hooker
Well, I think first of all, it is important to give some credit where credit is due. Eisenhower began the war as a lieutenant colonel and rose in some 23 months to four stars. As the Supreme Commander he superintended, really, the largest Joint campaign in probably military history up to that point, which was ultimately successful in a little over 10 months. So, that’s a major achievement.
I think what we’re wrestling with here [is] was he the best qualified person, and how did his background help him or hinder him in the performance of those remarkable duties? And, I think it’s fair to say that although he was clearly a highly intelligent and experienced middle-grade officer, the lack of professional experience in command of larger formations—and probably a lack of combat experience, as well—didn’t serve him as well as it otherwise might have done. There were other officers, in my opinion, who were far more experienced and senior who possibly could have done a little bit better job, and we can talk about that as we go forward in this discussion.
Host
Sure, I’m looking forward to hearing about that. Tell me, what were some of the key strategic errors that are attributed to Eisenhower, and how did they affect the course of the war?
Hooker
I think there are a number of those that are discussed in the article in Parameters and most of them have to do, in my opinion, with seizing or not seizing opportunities.
So, the first major error that I see in the European campaign in 1944 is a missed opportunity to trap two German field armies at Falaise during the breakout from the Normandy beachhead. At this time, Eisenhower is still in the UK [United Kingdom], and the overall ground commander is [British General Bernard Montgomery, commander of 21st Army Group]. So, I think it's fair to say that Eisenhower did not exert, really, a firm grasp of the operations that were going on at that time. There was a golden opportunity to close the gap at Falaise and trap a large number of German soldiers who, unfortunately, were able to escape and then form the basis for reconstituted units later on, which of course prolonged the war, and were directly responsible for many, many more Allied casualties.
The second opportunity, I think, had to do with the failure to open the port of Antwerp, which was essential for the logistical support of the campaign after the breakout from the Normandy beachhead in the bocage. Although the British actually captured Antwerp early in September of 1944, the long estuary leading out to the North Sea, some 54 miles, was not cleared of German troops as Montgomery attempted to press forward. This resulted in an inability to open up Antwerp—really, one of the major ports in all of Europe at the time. And it caused the campaign to stall for logistical reasons at a time when even the German commanders in their post-war memoirs felt that it would have been fairly easy to rupture the entire front and drive deep into Germany. So, I think that was the second major strategic misstep.
The third, in my opinion, was Market Garden, which was the audacious attempt to seize the bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem, which for a number of reasons was unsuccessful. Eisenhower himself described himself as an ardent supporter. He said he didn’t have to be convinced to approve the operation. But, for a number of reasons, it failed, and the Germans remained in control of that sector and of that bridge, really, all the way through April of 1945. As a number of historians have pointed out, [it was] a real strategic disappointment.
Perhaps the fourth major strategic misstep was the terrible, painful, and very costly battle fought in the Hürtgen Forest through the fall and early winter of 1944. [It was] really one of the longest ground battles ever fought by the US Army in Europe [and] resulted in very, very high casualties for very limited gain. I think the official historians have pointed out [that it] was really a battle that didn’t need to be fought and ended up having very, very high costs on American soldiers.
Little known to many is an opportunity for Eisenhower’s forces to cross the Rhine in, uh, late November, early December of 1944. So, if you’ll recall, [General Jacob L. Devers] 6th Army Group coming up from southern France following Operation Dragoon actually reaches the Rhine in mid-November of 1944 and makes preparations to cross the river and enter into Germany, which, in all probability, would have disrupted the Ardennes counteroffensive, the Battle of the Bulge, which happened shortly thereafter. He pleaded with Eisenhower for permission to cross the Rhine with his army group, but that permission was denied, and that opportunity was, in my opinion, squandered. And so, a month later, we find ourselves in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge, again with very, very heavy US casualties—and arguably a needless battle that could have been avoided or prevented.
That takes us to what I saw as this sixth strategic misstep, which was the Bulge itself. It has to be accounted a major intelligence failure for the Germans to mass almost 30 divisions without the knowledge of the Allies doesn’t speak well to our intelligence apparatus. There’s reason to believe that intelligence officers were always cautious about predicting the chances of German counterattacks because of the wave of euphoria that had sort of swept Eisenhower’s headquarters at that time. At any rate, the Battle of the Bulge does happen. The Ardennes, counteroffensive, again, inflicting very, very heavy casualties on US troops, in particular—really not on Montgomery’s 21st Army Group, which suffers very, very few, almost 20,000 US fatalities in the Battle of the Bulge, which is a very high number.
But, the Bulge represented an opportunity as well. It was a very large, very deep penetration, which, if it had been countered aggressively, as Patton argued, by strong attacks on the northern and the southern flanks of the penetration, again, another opportunity to cut off and bag several hundred thousand German soldiers. That’s not what happens. Eisenhower finds himself unable to get Montgomery to attack aggressively from the north, and the Germans are essentially pushed back from west to east. They fall back in something like good order, and the campaign continues for another five or six months.
So very briefly, those are the six major missteps that I saw in the campaign that I think can be fairly attributed to Eisenhower’s generalship, as he himself pointed out in his memoirs and in his letters to General [George C.] Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, he assumed the supreme authority for all the decisions that were made in the campaign, and I argue, therefore, bears responsibility for these decisions as well.
Host
So, you mentioned earlier about Montgomery and I’m curious about how Eisenhower’s relationship with British commanders like Montgomery might have influenced Allied operations and campaign outcomes.
Hooker
Eisenhower, of course, is often lauded as being, sort of, a very accomplished military diplomat, but actually, his relations with Montgomery, in particular, were very strained and problematic. Although only three years older than Eisenhower, Montgomery, of course, was vastly more experienced and senior than Eisenhower at the outbreak of the war. [He was] badly wounded in World War I, commanded at the division and the corps in the Army and, ultimately, Army group level. And, as some stories have pointed out, Eisenhower was painfully aware of his lack of credentials when compared to others like Montgomery.
So, through the course of the campaign, he finds it very difficult to impose his will on the field marshal. I’ve cited some of the examples of that at Falaise and the opening of the port of Antwerp and during the Battle of the Bulge. During the war, Montgomery never attended any of the staff conferences that Eisenhower held for the Army and Army group commanders, always sending his chief of staff instead. So, I think this was really problematic for the campaign because in a number of instances there were real opportunities to inflict decisive defeats on the German army that would have hastened the end of the war and saved tens of thousands of lives. And, Eisenhower is just unable to, as I said, impose his will on Montgomery in that way. And so, I do think it was problematic.
A different, more senior, more experienced commander, perhaps someone like General Walter Krueger, who spoke fluent French and German and was a corps commander in 1941 when Eisenhower is a newly promoted colonel, would have been able, in my opinion, to contend on a much more equal and more firm footing with strong world commanders like Montgomery.
Host
Can we build on that a little bit? You hinted earlier about maybe an alternative commander would have had better outcomes with the Allies in Europe. What kind of qualities would this person possess?
Hooker
First of all, you would want someone who had standing with the British. Let’s remember that the British had been in the war for a number of years before the Americans really entered the scene in force. So, that would have been one.
A commander who had had previous experience at high levels of command would have enjoyed a greater prestige and, I would say, position power with the British. There’s no question about that. An example is Pershing in the First World War, he had been a general officer for many years by the time the war broke out, and he was able to interact with his Allied counterparts on more or less an equal footing. And, we know from the memoirs of senior British officers following the war that they always looked at Eisenhower with this in mind, and I think that was an important factor in many of the problems that he had dealing with Montgomery, but also with others.
Host
This has been a very interesting overview of your article, but before we go, do you have any concluding thoughts that you would like to share?
Hooker
You know, it’s hard to find another example of an officer [that] was so junior at the outbreak of the war, who rose to Supreme Command. Certainly, the British didn’t operate that way. The Germans did not operate that way. They had some very talented officers who were, sort of, regimental commanders at the outbreak of the war. [General Georg Otto Hermann Balck] is one who comes to mind. He begins the wars of lieutenant colonel, and he ends the war as an army group commander, but he never rises above three stars. This was really an unprecedented decision that Marshall took to put a relatively untried officer in such an exalted position, and I think there probably were good reasons for that.
Now I don’t want to in any way denigrate Eisenhower’s service. At the end of the day, he’s ultimately responsible for a successful campaign in—up to that point—the largest war in human history. Let’s give him the credit which is due. The real question is, was he the best choice for the job, and could the war have been concluded more quickly with fewer casualties? I think that’s the real question for us to think about here some 80 years on.
Host
Listeners, you can download the article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 54, issue 3. For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace.
Richard, I enjoyed this very much. Thank you for making time to speak with me today.
Hooker
Thank you. [It was] a great pleasure.