After the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Eisenhower was assigned to the General Staff in Washington, where he served until June 1942 with responsibility for creating the major war plans to defeat Japan and
Germany. He was appointed Deputy Chief in charge of Pacific Defenses under the Chief of War Plans Division, General
Leonard T. Gerow, and then succeeded Gerow as Chief of the War Plans Division. Then he was appointed Assistant Chief of Staff in charge of Operations Division under Chief of Staff General
George C. Marshall. It was his close association with Marshall which finally brought Eisenhower to senior command positions. Marshall recognized his great organizational and administrative abilities.
In 1942, Eisenhower was appointed Commanding General,
European Theater of Operations (ETOUSA) and was based in
London. In November, he was also appointed
Supreme Commander Allied (Expeditionary) Force of the
North African Theater of Operations (NATOUSA) through the new operational Headquarters
A(E)FHQ. The word "expeditionary" was dropped soon after his appointment for security reasons. In February 1943, his authority was extended as commander of AFHQ across the Mediterranean basin to include the
British 8th Army, commanded by General Bernard Law Montgomery. The 8th Army had advanced across the
Western Desert from the east and was ready for the start of the
Tunisia Campaign. Eisenhower gained his fourth star and gave up command of ETOUSA to be commander of NATOUSA. After the capitulation of
Axis forces in
North Africa, Eisenhower remained in command of the renamed
Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MTO), keeping the operational title and continued in command of NATOUSA redesignated MTOUSA. In this position he oversaw the
invasion of Sicily and the
invasion of the Italian mainland.
In December 1943, it was announced that Eisenhower would be Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. In January 1944, he resumed command of ETOUSA and the following month was officially designated as the
Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), serving in a dual role until the end of hostilities in Europe in May 1945. In these positions he was charged with planning and carrying out the Allied
assault on the coast of Normandy in June 1944 under the code name
Operation Overlord, the liberation of western Europe and the invasion of Germany. A month after the Normandy
D-Day landings on
June 6 1944, the
invasion of southern France took place, and control of the forces which took part in the southern invasion passed from the AFHQ to the SHAEF. From then until the
end of the War in Europe on
May 8 1945, Eisenhower through SHAEF had supreme command of all operational Allied forces
2, and through his command of ETOUSA, administrative command of all U.S. forces, on the
Western Front north of the
Alps.
As recognition of his senior position in the Allied command, on
December 20 1944, he was promoted to
General of the Army equivalent to the rank of
Field Marshal in most European armies. In this and the previous high commands he held, Eisenhower showed his great talents for leadership and diplomacy. Although he had never seen action himself, he won the respect of front-line commanders. He dealt skillfully with difficult subordinates such as
Omar Bradley and
Patton, and allies such as
Winston Churchill, Field Marshal
Bernard Montgomery and General
Charles de Gaulle. He had fundamental disagreements with Churchill and Montgomery over questions of strategy, but these rarely upset his relationships with them. He negotiated with
Soviet Marshal Zhukov, and such was the confidence that President
Franklin D. Roosevelt had in him, he sometimes worked directly with
Stalin, much to the chagrin of the British High Command who disliked being bypassed. During the advance towards Berlin, he came to the conclusion that Allied forces would suffer an estimated of 100,000 casualties before taking the city. The Soviet Army sustained 80,000 casualties during the fighting in and around Berlin, the last large number of casualties suffered in the war against Nazism.
It was never certain that
Operation Overlord would succeed. The seriousness surrounding the entire decision, including the timing and the location of the Normandy invasion, might be summarized by a second shorter speech that Eisenhower wrote in advance, in case he needed it. In it, he states he would take full responsibility for catastrophic failure, should that be the final result. Long after the successful landings on D-Day and the
BBC broadcast of Eisenhower's brief speech concerning them, the never-used second speech was found in a shirt pocket by an
aide. It read:
Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.