Eisenhower and the Invasion of Normandy

[franksolich]

You know, Eupher, as Tanker here is biting his tongue to keep from reminding everybody, I used to not be any fan of Dwight Eisenhower.

It's true that I still consider Douglas MacArthur the ne plus ultra, the sans peer, of American military officers during the second world war, my opinion of Eisenhower has since been considerably elevated, due not least to Tanker's suggestion (over at our old home) that I look into him more.

[Crazy Horse]

You know, Eupher, as Tanker here is biting his tongue to keep from reminding everybody, I used to not be any fan of Dwight Eisenhower.

It's true that I still consider Douglas MacArthur the ne plus ultra, the sans peer, of American military officers during the second world war, my opinion of Eisenhower has since been considerably elevated, due not least to Tanker's suggestion (over at our old home) that I look into him more.

So you didn't like Nimitz?

[franksolich]

So you didn't like Nimitz?

I'm biased, British-wise on admirals, and so my opinion can't be taken seriously.

Lord Mountbatten of Burma.

Of course, that's only because I met him in real life, when I was a teenager, a little over a year before he was assassinated by terrorists.

Other than being a stuffy old prig and a pompous old ass, he seemed an okay guy.

I have no idea how skillful he was as an admiral, though; from reading of his life, it seems to me he spent more time partying than admiraling.

Based purely upon admiralty skills of any era, I would say Admiral Lord Nelson.

I always had the impression--and one is free to correct me if it's the wrong impression--that Admiral Chester Nimitz was a marionette of Admiral Ernest King.

[Crazy Horse]

I have no idea how skillful he was as an admiral, though; from reading of his life, it seems to me he spent more time partying than admiraling.

That's what the Navy does......................"a drunken Sailor"........duh

So I guess the turning point of the war when everything was laid on the line and all bets off...............Midway, wasn't Nimitz doing?

[Eupher]

You know, Eupher, as Tanker here is biting his tongue to keep from reminding everybody, I used to not be any fan of Dwight Eisenhower.

It's true that I still consider Douglas MacArthur the ne plus ultra, the sans peer, of American military officers during the second world war, my opinion of Eisenhower has since been considerably elevated, due not least to Tanker's suggestion (over at our old home) that I look into him more.

Well, as I don't have any history over at the old site, I wouldn't have known about any of that. Matters not, really, because I thoroughly enjoy these discussions and I manage to learn some in the process.

I am not any kind of WWII historian, beyond someone who has simply done a fair amount of reading (to include MacArthur's biography American Caesar which was, despite the title, somewhat complimentary), but I have a keen interest in those events.

Mac was a great general, no doubt, but his ego got the best of him, I'm afraid. And I'm completely unconvinced that his MOH was worthy - getting on board a couple of PT boats and traveling south with one's family and friends isn't entirely up to the level of Audie Murphy's getting up on a track and manning a Ma Deuce, alone against an attacking company of Germans.

Mac's attempts to emulate his father at seemingly all costs revealed a fair amount of weakness, in my view. But I think it's fair to say that we are all human - even MacArthur - and in some respects it's refreshing to see some of that fallibility in him.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Well, I'll just say my opinion of MacArthur is not as high as Frank's; I have talked to one person who met him, and consistent with all the written info on him, Mac was blessed with the charismatic power to sell himself and his plans to the most senior military and government officials of his day.  My own opinion is that he was a bit like an older and more senior version of Mark Clark, a general to whom vainglorious headlines were more important than the lives and welfare of his men.     

[franksolich]

So I guess the turning point of the war when everything was laid on the line and all bets off...............Midway, wasn't Nimitz doing?

See, Crazy Horse, there's something else here that's been going on all my life as a professional civilian.

I have a great deal of fondness for the U.S. Navy, and most especially the U.S. Marines, probably because for some reason, that's the branch of service most Nebraskans who enter the millitary, enter.

As far as my personal observation and experience is concerned, the Marines are the cream of the crop of America, nobody better.  Never met one less than outstanding.

However, most general literature aimed at the general public, concerning the history of the U.S. military, concentrates upon the U.S. Army, another fine and outstanding organization, and so naturally it happened all my life, since children's books, that I've read a lot more about the Army, than about the other services.

Since I majored in the history of the British Empire and Commonwealth, it happened that I learned a great deal more about the Royal Navy, than the U.S. Navy.

I'm skewed--not having gotten the whole vast picture, the whole panorama--biased, and I admit it.  Which is why I have always pointed out that my own opinions of matters military should not be taken seriously.

But damn, there's only so many hours in the day; one can't read everything.

As for reading about major military figures, Douglas MacArthur dominated military biography that I've read.

It was about three years ago, at our old home, that Tanker gently suggested I look more into Dwight Eisenhower, to whom I had formerly paid some attention, but not comprehensive attention.  I thought, well, Tanker knows his stuff, and has no reason to steer me wrong, so why not?

And so the past three years, I've looked more into Eisenhower, and have been considerably enriched.

One learns.  But it takes time.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Frank, for many years I was deeply immersed in studying WW2 naval warfare, originally out of interest in wargaming both real and hypothetical situations.  This involved learning about both Axis and Allied naval construction both executed and planned, the relative capabilities of the forces and their orders of battle, and also doctrinal, training, and materiel strengths and weaknesses of the various combatants (Whch I could discuss at a length that would drive sane men mad).

Midway was the critical strategic victory of the entire Pacific theater, it was a blow from which the IJN could never recover, and never did recover, and which shifted the strategic initiative irrevocably to the Allies.  After Midway, the American carrier force would be progressively strengthened many times over by the Essex-class ships coming into service after fitting-out (Essex herself was launched in 1940, but not yet with the fleet by the time of Midway), as well as the Princeton-class CVLs and whole flotillas of CVEs.  Japanese carrier strength never again approached the level they brought to Midway (4 fleet carriers and some unmatched light ones), let alone the strength they committed to Pearl (All 6 fleet carriers on their order of battle at the time).  Though the Marines in the Central Pacific and both Marines and Army in SW Pacific and Ryukyus campaigns shed a great deal of their own blood in many hard-fought battles, ultimate victory over Japan all goes back to that one signal naval victory, a mere six months after Pearl Harbor.  In terms of the gravity of the consequences from a single battle, only Stalingrad is even remotely comparable.

The US lost four pre-war fleet carriers in the entire course of the war - Lexington, Yorktown, Hornet, and Wasp - while the IJN lost that many at Midway alone, and finished just one more real fleet carrier during the entire rest of the war (Taiho, sunk on her first war mission in 1944).  The US built something over a dozen sisters for Essex, and although a couple of them (Notably Franklin) were so heavily damaged they were withdrawn from combat, the Japanese succeeded in sinking exactly NONE of them.   

MacArthur was certainly a fascinating and charismatic character, with an unparalleled flair for the dramatic, but the prevalence of biographies on him have much more to do with those characteristics than the actual quality of his generalship.  To give the Navy their just props, Nimitz was almost certainly a superior strategic thinker, in large part due to self-promotion not entering into his planning cycle while it was an ever-present factor in MacArthur's plans (And not without effect in the latter case, as the glowing biographies attest).   

[FGL]

As another civilian I also find it fascinating, but I suspect we won't ever know the whole story.