Ep 126: Michael Paradis on D-Day and Eisenhower
Michel Paradis—litigator, national security law scholar, and author of The Light of Battle: Eisenhower, D-Day, and the Birth of the American Superpower—
Aaron McLean:
Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold, and I have withdrawn the troops.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 upon 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, June the 5th, Dwight Eisenhower. That's the message that Eisenhower penned in the event that the D-Day landings for which the 80th anniversary is this week failed. Let's unpack the planning in the truly remarkable man Dwight Eisenhower that made them succeed.
Aaron McLean:
For maps, videos, and images, follow us on Instagram. And also, feel free to follow me on Twitter at Aaron B. McLean. Hi, I'm Aaron McLean. Thanks so much for joining, School of War. I'm delighted today to welcome Michel Paradis to the show. He's a human rights lawyer and national security law scholar. He is a fellow at the Center on National Security and the National Institute for Military Justice. He's also an author, and this is his... I believe, second book that we're going to talk about today, The Light of Battle: Eisenhower, D-Day, and the Birth of the American Superpower. Michel, welcome to the show.
Michel Paradis:
Thanks so much for having me on.
Aaron McLean:
How did you come to write a book about Dwight Eisenhower?
Michel Paradis:
I think the thing that drew me most to Eisenhower was a general sense that he was wildly underappreciated. And that may sound strange for someone who became the President of the United States and even more importantly, the President of Columbia University for a period. But it's true when you look... So, I wrote my last book about World War II, and before I really had any deep interest or knowledge in the subject.
And in doing all the interviews, I kept noticing how many books and people were interested in talking about Patton and Churchill and even de Gaulle and Truman, not to mention Hitler and Stalin and Roosevelt. And in between all of these people, there's the guy who actually beat the literal Hitler, actually won the war in Europe. And then, of all those people not only held victory, but then went on to do much bigger and better things like becoming president, unlike someone like Douglas MacArthur who are perennially fascinated by.
And so, that fascinated me because in a way, I couldn't understand why people weren't more interested in Eisenhower. And I think the main reason is that he was extremely effective making himself look as bland as possible. He has this reputation certainly in his time as president. He is this guy off the cover of the Saturday evening post. It's mayonnaise on white bread all day all the time.
And just knowing a little bit about politics and history and diplomacy, I just was like, that's impossible. There's no way that someone this bland could be this powerful. And the more I dug into it, the more some of my early suspicions were confirmed that he was actually just a far more interesting person than he let on. Indeed, his blandness probably was much like his smile, his most lethal weapon in that caused people to both underestimate him and not really... And basically, just assume that he was always on their side.
When he often was quite ruthlessly pursuing objectives that were very much at odds with their interests, whether or not that was Winston Churchill or Charles de Gaulle or even sometimes Franklin Roosevelt, and then later Harry Truman. And so, that idea, that use of power mastery of the art of power in an era where you had so many people who almost were statuesque in their personalities, to have someone understand that could be used as a tremendous advantage to really get important things done was just became really fascinating to me.
And so, I tried to understand that. I tried to understand how he learned those skills. And also, how he ended up using them because it's often much subtler than, again, the poetic leaders, whether or not it's again Churchill or later figures like JFK that we look at with a misty eye. But when we look at the set of accomplishments that they have practically, it's often far dwarfed by someone like Eisenhower. So, that's really what drew me to Eisenhower.
Aaron McLean:
Yeah, I don't think anyone's ever described Winston Churchill as bland. I'm confident...
Michel Paradis:
Absolutely.
Aaron McLean:
I'm confident in that assertion. We'll talk a bit about his upbringing then, and what led to this... Not to oversimplify what you just said, but this duality in the man, this pleasant, bland outward presentation in this ruthless roiling inner life.
Michel Paradis:
So, it's a fascinating story all by itself, especially because he worked very hard and particularly with the assistance of his brother, Milton Eisenhower, who I spent a lot of time exploring as well in the book because I think he's also an underappreciated factor in Eisenhower's both life, and also rise to power. Milton Eisenhower was his younger brother by almost a decade and was for a long time considered the important Eisenhower.
When Eisenhower's father dies in 1942, all the obituaries talk about the death of Milton Eisenhower's father. But Milton Eisenhower is an underappreciated or under remembered figure today, even though he had a very prominent life, both in Washington DC, and then additionally as an academic. But Eisenhower grows up, he's born in 1890 the year that the Frontier closes in Denison, Texas.
His father at that point is essentially an itinerant worker who then moves back to Abilene Kansas, which is the homestead of the broader Eisenhower family, which is a very prominent, wealthy agricultural family at that time who were members of the River Brethren, which is basically a branch of the Mennonite religion. But David Eisenhower was the younger son of his father who was again, a prominent planter in Abilene.
And David had this very difficult personality to put it gently. He could be quite physically abusive both to his children and to others. That included a neighbor boy, David Eisenhower's father was actually even taken to jail for abusing a neighbor, which in 1898 really must have been something just given what the world was like in 1898, Kansas.
And his mother though always described as just a coolie and smiling happy personality, this sun that sent out light and warmth in every direction. But the family was always very strapped for cash. And he grows up and again, this very barefoot existence in Abilene Kansas, which is the near center of the United States. And is basically desperate to leave.
And there were a couple of different reasons for that. One, I think is that he found it desperately boring to be in the middle of Kansas as much as he did enjoy the outdoors and had a good relationship with a lot of his family members. But there was also something really intellectually stifling about his upbringing, and that primarily came from the fact that his father and mother were members of what at time were called the Bible students.
And the Bible students ultimately become the Jehovah's Witnesses. But at the time of the turn of the century, it's essentially a millennial religion. It's a millennial cult almost. They're firmly convinced that the world is going to end in 1915 based on the dimensions of the pyramids, which their founder determines, dictated the geometry of which dictated the future of the world. Eisenhower grows up in a small house in Abilene and almost the entirety of their living room wall is covered by this diagram of the pyramids that is part of the Bible student ideology, which traces again the dimensions of the pyramids to various important points in the Bible, and then subsequent history.
And it's a very stifling environment for him, both because of its remoteness, but also, I think he didn't connect with the religiosity that his parents instilled. He very much has a spiritual and I think communitarian side, but the superstition I think made him very skeptical as doing anyone good, any good. And as some people might know, this is true, Jehovah's Witnesses even today they tend to be pretty anti-government.
His father was someone who was, again, always moved by great enthusiasms. At one point, he joins the socialist party after Eugene V. Debs comes through Abilene, and then runs for school board on the socialist ticket winning I think all of a dozen or two votes in town. But that's the foment. It's a lot of extremism in essence in his household.
And so, the way he rebels against his parents is he goes to West Point, which is counterintuitive, I think to a lot of people. The idea that you would rebel by going to the Central American military institution. But in that household, that very much was a form of rebellion. Not only is it part of the government, it's the military and the Bible students like Jehovah's Witnesses are adamantly pacifist in their outlook.
And also, it's an opportunity for a free education and a way to see the wider world. And from really, quite a young age, Eisenhower was fascinated by history, particularly military history, love to the exploits of Hannibal, recount the battle of Zuma down to the individual details. And so, saw West Point as an opportunity to really become the kind of person I think he felt he couldn't be growing up in Abilene. And so, that's how he ends up in West Point as a young football player, who's keen to see the world.
Aaron McLean:
There's a Lincoln Echo with the cruel father in the angelic mother. I mean, I haven't made a study of it, but it is fascinating how many prominent people have one or both parents who are deeply cruel. Churchill, terrible, terrible parents, especially mother, right? And so, I guess it shouldn't be surprising that Eisenhower comes from an environment like that. It's also not surprising that he reacts to the drama that you described. The drama of that kind of father by being somebody who is outwardly as undramatic as can be.
Michel Paradis:
Yeah, that's a brilliant way of putting it, is that I think he understands intuitively in his bones just the folly of people who are blindly and fervently ideological about things that are impractical at the bottom of it, right? Because his father, again, in his life goes from enthusiasm to enthusiasm. And at no point, does it provide any meaningful security or comfort for his family? He's a deeply unhappy man even into old age.
And I think Eisenhower just saw it as stupid, I mean, that's probably the word he would even use if he was honest. He probably would never be honest about it, but that would probably be the word he would use.
Aaron McLean:
I don't know if it's perfect preparation. But certainly, poetic preparation for the man who will go on to be the American who faces down, what? Two of the three great enthusiasms, evil enthusiasms of the 20th century. He defeats Nazism, and then he is among the key designers of America's long standoff with Soviet communism.
Michel Paradis:
Sure.
Aaron McLean:
What better childhood to imbue you with a sense of skepticism about such thing?
Michel Paradis:
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Anything that smacked of living in the clouds, I think he found deeply alienating. And one of the points that I draw out of his biography, which I found very surprising and people have generally found it quite surprising, is he goes through this period in the 1920s when he's in his 30s essentially, of a reeducation by a mentor by the name of General Fox Connor, who he gets stationed with this remote outpost in the Philippines.
And Connor is one of the great minds of the army in the turn of the 20th century. And has this just vast library that he insists the army cart all around the world with him at any given time.
Aaron McLean:
I respect that.
Michel Paradis:
I could tell. And he ultimately, takes Eisenhower as in a mentor relationship and just gives him a ton to read, really re-sparks imagination and curiosity in a way that West Point in some ways had beaten out of him, but that Eisenhower really had from childhood.
And among the things Eisenhower reads that I found kind of fascinating, and Eisenhower very briefly mentions having done this later in life, but he reads a bunch of Nietzsche. And it's not the full Nietzsche that we have come to know and love today. It's H.L. Mencken actually writes a book of essentially Nietzsche's aphorisms that he translates in the early 20th century, and it becomes a mild bestseller.
And the part of Nietzsche that Mencken focuses on is this idea of seeing the world as it is, and understanding that... And eschewing ideology and eschewing fantasies about the world in favor of the harsh reality and accepting the world as it is. It's really almost a Nietzsche as a stoic figure. And with that, like with stoicism, H.L. Mencken focuses on Nietzsche's emphasis on the individual and the importance of freedom and manliness.
And if you go through Eisenhower's public speeches, not once did I ever find him say, "As Nietzsche once said," of course, but he has all of these just passages from Nietzsche that just get immediately reflected out his public remark, including in the war when democracy is essentially fighting for its survival. And Eisenhower makes this speech when he arrives in London in 1944, basically saying, "Soon access powers will learn that there is nothing more powerful than a democracy stirred action." And that's almost verbatim out of Nietzsche, is that democracies are weak in peace, but there's nothing stronger in war because man will always fight for his own freedom.
Aaron McLean:
So, your book is about Eisenhower and D-Day, and we'll have this episode up the week of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, which one crazy thought that occurred to me as I was getting ready for this recording is, even though 80 years is a long time and it seems like ancient history and anybody who was there to talk about, it's basically a 100 years old, and they were the youngest ones around participating in the operation.
Here's a thought for you. I was born in 1981. I feel like saying that I should be careful not to say my social security number, my mother's maiden name. But I was born in 1981, and as long ago as D-Day was and seems, it happened. Let's do some mental math here, 37 years before I was born, 37 years. So, fewer years than my life so far. That long ago, it's really not that long ago.
Michel Paradis:
And it shaped the world to come. And that's one of the major themes that I tried to draw out of the book in both thinking about Eisenhower's role specifically. But in D-Day, as this very special moment in our history because I kept coming back to this question I had that I couldn't quite understand at first. It was like, "Why do we care so much about D-Day?"
D-Day is a generic term of art in military jargon, right? It's the day on which something planned is going to happen. It's a planning term that we have this one D-Day that we call out, and there are a lot of very much larger military operations in the Second World War, arguably, tactically more consequential operations or at least more militarily interesting operations.
And why is it D-Day? And that we still remember. Why is Steven Spielberg made two movies about D-Day or one movie in an HBO series about D-Day? And I think part of it is World War II, the superficial part of it is that World War II was the first war where we had a lot of video or a lot of film of the action, and the army understood that very well. And there's some interesting discussion of this in the book about the importance of recording what's happening because the army wanted a record of it to give to people like Frank Capra, to put into newsreels to the public, informed about what was going on with the propaganda value to that as well, but there was a genuine sense that public demanded to know and to see what was happening around the world.
And so, the level of photography and videos allowed D-Day within literally days of it happening. It's on the cover of Life Magazine. And that's kind of remarkable as a function of historical media studies, if nothing else, is that the public was able to really almost see the battle in real time. But that still doesn't quite explain why those particular images remain as iconic as the Moon landing images are.
And the more I dug into it, the more it becomes apparent. The D-Day is also this almost singular moment, or at least opportunity to mark the ascent of the United States as the leader of the free world. The Atlantic Alliance such as it was prior to 1944, was very much British-pended and dominated by the British. And there was a lot of good reason for that. The British Empire was a quarter of the world at that time, according of the world's territory as well as the population. It was the center of international banking.
The Royal Navy had a port on every continent. And the United States as large of an economy as we had, was isolationist in its politics, extremely complicated governmentally, we still are, right? We're basically, 50 states. And at that time, you said, as long ago as D-Day was, it was quite... It's not that long ago. Well, in 1940, '41, the Civil War was just as long ago as the Second World War is today. And so, you have people in living memory can still remember the Civil War in 1944.
So, you had this country that literally had torn itself apart only a few generations earlier. And so, it was often described in terms of who's the senior and who's the junior partner. And throughout the war, British were clearly the senior partner. They directed both the strategic direction of the war and led all but a few of the senior command posts on the ground.
But that changes after D-Day, and it changes in a big way. Not only does the United States really begin to direct the operation battle or direct the operation of the war and the strategy of the war in Europe. After that, the British become not only economically dependent upon the United States, but politically. And you see that in, for example, the Bretton Woods Conference that happens in July of 1944, where Britain essentially has to give over economic dominance to the United States, and the dollar becomes the currency of international trade instead of the IMF and the World Bank gets centered in Washington DC.
The future direction of the post-war period is dictated by decolonization, which is basically on its face, the smashing of the British Empire, which happens in earnest over the next 10 years. The United Nations Organization is very much an American project at that point, even war crimes, prosecutions, Nuremberg trials. The British opposed that almost to the bitter end.
And so, more or less from June 6th, 1944 the United States is now the superpower that is being able to dictate the direction or at least lead. And I actually, would make that correction as an important one, is very much in a position to lead the direction that the free world is taking, very much the expense of the British and French empires.
And so, I think that's why D-Day resonates so much even today as the singular D-Day, is that it's not just this really iconic and visually stunning military operations. It literally is this moment where the United States, a country was founded on democracy, human rights, and individual liberty sails from the British Empire to the French Empire to destroy tyranny in Europe. And had that happened 2000 years ago, it would be in the Aeneid, right? We would teach it as a myth. Yet, here it is, it's on the cover of Life Magazine.
And so, I think that's why there's something really uniquely powerful about D-Day is that it really shows the United States at least what it can do when musters all of its resources and leads the world in the cause of liberty, democracy, and human rights, which is at least the charter of our country since the 18th century.
Aaron McLean:
I have a much less deep observation in the same direction, which is the battlefield itself is a strange and magical place. And I always had a chip on my shoulder, sort of semi joking chip on my shoulder. For me, I think less joking for my dad who would complain that he had been doing some interesting things on June 6th, 1944 with tens of thousands of his close friends, namely liberating Rome, but nobody cared about that. And he would kind of joke about it, but also be kind of annoyed.
And I only went to Normandy for the first time in my life a couple of years ago, and it is something else. I mean, to stand there at Omaha Beach or any of the beaches really, it's difficult to describe what is so powerful about it. Maybe it is Spielberg, maybe it's that I saw those movies in my relative youth, and then to see it in person, I'm not entirely sure. I'm very envious of anyone who's there right now for the anniversary celebration. It's probably going to be the last major anniversary with any actual veterans present. But I think that plays a role.
Can I, sort of a multi-stage question for you here. At what point in the conduct of the war does the invasion of Europe become central to the discussion and to the planning? And then, what are the major schools of thought or opinion on how to go about that? Because of course, as you talk at some length in the book, Churchill is opposed, and the Brits are generally opposed to the straightforward, straight-line Britain to Northwest Europe to Northwest France invasion. That's always something the Brits are skeptical of at best. Talk about this planning process and then we'll bring Eisenhower back into it as he comes into the story.
Michel Paradis:
Yeah. Well, in some ways I have to bring Eisenhower back in and not just because an over-fascination with him as a biographer at the moment. So, very early in the war in December of 1941, the British and the United States form a... At that point, historically unique military alliance with what becomes called Combined Chiefs of Staff, the top Navy Army and Air Force generals from each of the two countries essentially form a standing war council to dictate the terms of the war.
And there's a lot of popular interest in pressing the war in Asia, particularly on the United States for obvious reasons. Japan attacks Hawaii, not Germany. Germany declares war on the United States, arguably with strategically foolish, foolishly strategically. But ultimately, interest of the United States is very much directed towards the Pacific, and particularly the Navy's interest is much more heavily in the Pacific than in Europe.
But given the United States is precarious, and if nothing else green economic or military position at that time, and it's not entirely clear that the United States could even mobilize economically for war. But the British very much do take the helm and the British have an overweening interest in Europe. And so, the joint chiefs, the Combined Chiefs agree on a Europe-first strategy. And Roosevelt goes along with that in Churchill's behest.
And so, the early question in 1942 is, well, how do we pursue Europe for a strategy? And one of the first things Eisenhower does as a planner in the war department is draft up the most straightforward plan to win it beating Hitler, and that's crossing the English Channel, charging across France and attacking Berlin. And the British hate this idea.
They hate this idea for a few reasons, some of which are good, some of which are bad. The good reasons are the British are, have just been ousted from Dunkirk. They understand how bitter the fighting can be and have serious and frankly legitimate outs of the United States' ability to fight as an organized military. It's at that point rapidly increasing its size from a size of about 200,000 people at the start of Second World War, which at that point is smaller than the army of Holland.
The British are also quite concerned about a bloodbath. There is a longstanding British aversion to large land wars that part of British military doctrine. The one time, they violated that doctrine was this First World War. And so, there are very fresh memories in Great Britain of the flower of British youth as Churchill would call them, just being turned to waste meat and trenches for nothing.
And so, those are very strong, visceral cultural oppositions that the British have to mounting a large land war across the European continent. But the British also though have a much broader view of things. They've been at the Empire game at that point for quite a while. They're at that point, still the largest empire in the world by orders of magnitude.
And so, they see that the Germans are much weaker in the Mediterranean and North Africa where Britain could also have the secondary advantage of being able to expand its imperial reach. And so, in the summer of 1942, the British essentially get their way and overcome the United States' interest to just charge into Europe all over with by advancing the idea to first attack in North Africa and operation known as Torch, which Eisenhower is ultimately put in charge of almost in a ceremonial role at the end of November or to launch at the end of November of 1943 or '42.
And all the major commanders on the ground are British. A lot of the direction of the war and planning is even done by British and United States are primarily just the arsenal of democracy at that point. The fighting in North Africa turns out to be much, much harder than anyone planned for. The rain alone just slows the fighting down all through the winter of 1942, 1943. But ultimately, after a few failures, people like Omar Bradley and George Patton are promoted on the American side. And the fighting effectiveness of the United States in North Africa becomes much, much more efficient.
And so, by the spring of 1943, the allies have now cleared. The Germans out of North African are beginning to move north. And again, the question comes of, "Okay, shall we go through the English Channel? Or should we keep pressing our advantage in the Mediterranean?" And the British interest is clear, they agree to continue to plan for cross-channel invasion, which by this point is given the portentous name Overlord.
But ultimately, the British are far more interested in hunting and pecking and jabbing like a boxer as they would describe it all throughout the Mediterranean. And that leads through the summer of 1943 through a series of island attacks in the Mediterranean, the largest of which being Sicily. And then, in September of 1943, the first land attack against Italy, the boot of Italy at Salerno, which ultimately, comes off but is very close and is much closer than people remember.
And so, over the course of the end of 1943, there have been no major expansions of the operating theater. That's in part because there is a debate about where to go next, should they continue to press their advantage further East in the Mediterranean, the British are very keen to attack the Balkans and to put a much more heavy investment in Italy to capture the ancient city of Rome, for example. Whereas, the Americans are far more interested in finally returning to this Overlord plan.
And so, that by the time the Cairo Conference comes around in November of 1943, there's a great debate about, "Okay, what is the future direction of the board? Do we go across the English Channel? Do we open a new front and attack France? Or do we continue to press our advantage in the Mediterranean?" The British are adamant about continuing to press their advantage in the Mediterranean. They never really come around to Operation Overlord.
But the big change by the end of 1943 is that the United States is no longer clearly the junior partner. It may still be at the kid's table, but it's a very big kid to say the least. It's producing two to three times the number of airplanes and ships that the British or airplanes and trucks and tanks that the British are producing seven times as many ships.
So, even Britain's preeminence as the navy of the world is now, if nothing else doubted as a material matter, if not as a matter of prestige. And frankly, the British just need the United States. And so, are in a position or more or less forced into a position to at least come to a compromise. Compromise is also facilitated by FDRs burgeoning relationship with Joseph Stalin because as the war has continued, the Russians are the ones carrying out the land war and absorbing massive casualties as a result.
You have millions of men in combat from Ukraine all the way up to the Baltic. And the Russians are very eager to open a Western Front that will take pressure off of their lines. And so, at the Tehran Conference, which basically happens in the middle of this meeting between the British and American Chiefs of Staff in Cairo, Stalin goes all in and says, "The Mediterranean is a waste of time. Please send some men to France."
Stalin also, just to be clear is not entirely military oriented in that opinion either. He just as Churchill does, as designs on the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean. And so, there's a lot of power politics going on here. And FDR obviously goes, wanting to... It has a strong interest in strengthening the alliance with the Soviet Union is deeply skeptical of the British imperial ambitions to begin with. And so, puts his full backing behind Overlord. And so, what you get is a compromise where half of the allied forces will cross into France with the other continuing to fight up the boot of Italy.
Aaron McLean:
There's this fascinating collision between two strategic cultures here. You're deep in the weeds of all of this, and I'm not. So, I'll just make a series of assertions and you tell me. If I'm off, it's a privilege of being a podcast host. You have the Brits who as you very eloquently describe, have this tradition of avoiding pitched continental engagement, and indeed have only a generation earlier failed to abide by that dictum and suffer grievously.
And always, I mean, a defining realization for me on the significance of World War II, excuse me, World War I and British life comes when we were... It's probably, we can reveal to the audience we know each other. But when we were graduate students together and the arcade outside the chapel at Balliol College, Oxford, this dim dark, gloomy passage and it's covered with the names of warden.
And as you walk in, you see a panel devoted to the Balliol dead of World War II. And it's a lot of names. I mean, it's a healthy little chunk of wall that also all these names of these mostly young Balliol men who died in the Second World War. And then, you peer down the rest of the hallway, which goes on for like 20 more feet, and then you realize the whole rest of the hallway is covered in the World War I names like the classes of, if you will, 1912, 1913, 1914, 1915. They just all died. They all died. I mean, almost none of them made it out.
And the psychic impact of that on the nation was greater in some ways than that of the Second World War. And so, you have this aversion to another Western Front. You have this British strategic concept of being the offshore influencer of things on the continent of having a plane where you face the Atlantic Coast and a plane where you face the Mediterranean Coast and the dominance of naval power means you can play games offshore.
They're more politically sophisticated as you point to going into the Balkans would've had the advantage of had it succeeded, which I think there were real doubts about the feasibility of such an operation just because of the terrain and everything. But it would've been a real chip in the competition with the Soviet Union, which Churchill quite rightly saw coming and was more attuned to I think, than FDR.
And then, the American plan is very American, it's very West Point, it's very Germany, it's very military and less political. Germany, not the oversimplify straight lines, short lines, checklists, let's go. And whatever Eisenhower's campaign in Northwest Europe was, it was not a brilliant war of maneuver. It was a straight-line progress on a broad front, which brought superior resources to bear on an enemy that was in a doom loop at a series of levels. Is that reasonably fair as a characterization?
Michel Paradis:
It is. It is. And it was a drive and as you said, it was a very much military-driven strategy. But both countries were looking to where their comparative advantages were. The British army, it's not that big. But the British have their insular historical culture, which has given them... I literally mean insular. They're an island, which historically has made them reliant on the Navy. But also, very early, much earlier than anyone else, made them heavily in air power.
And they made the judgment. There's a lot of debate about this. I don't think I know enough, a super sophisticated opinion on it. But that they made the judgment that they could strangle the Germany's death through a combination of sea power. By that point, the Kriegsmarine had been basically wiped out of the Atlantic with the exception of U-boats, and increasingly superior air power that they could use to indiscriminately bomb Germany into the Stone Age.
And they figured, as long as we're doing that and the Russians are taking all the casualties on the Eastern Front, it's only a matter of time before Germany is so weak that we can then come in for the killing blow like a bullfight. And that very much is Britain using all of its strategic advantages. Whereas, the United States, I mean, we can produce a ton of stuff.
We didn't make the best tanks. We didn't make guns. We didn't make airplanes by any stretch of the imagination, but we made a hell of a lot of them and we got them to the front quickly, right? We're America and we're very good at delivery. We're very good at getting people what they want when they want it. That's how we got to El Dorado in the first place.
And so, we just had far better logistics, and a far better ability to amass strength onto very fine points of the battlefield. So, that a straight line made a lot of sense because yes, the German's Panzer tanks had a 10 to one advantage over our Sherman tank. We had 50 Sherman tanks. And so, we could get them to the battlefront quickly.
And so, it did just make a lot more strategic sense, especially when, again, this is something that's also easy to forget in the context, especially when the United States public was never really that bought into the European War. It's almost a perverse irony of history. The European War has received far, far more attention and interest. The fight against Hitler and the Pacific War does.
But at that time of the war, most people wanted to go kill Japanese people and anything that was distracting from that was not popular as a matter of public opinion. And so, the idea that the Americans would try go in beat Hitler, and then get moving on to Japan where everyone cared about, had a domestic political component of it as well.
Aaron McLean:
Right. Once the decision to do Overlord is taken, what are the major decision points in the design of the operation itself? And what role does Eisenhower's education and study of things play in those decisions? Or even just his observations of things that are happening elsewhere in the war, amphibious landings that are happening in the Pacific, for example, or Torch or Salerno. How does this all play into the planning of the actual invasion?
Michel Paradis:
Sure, I'll do a couple. One, I think probably the most important that actually precedes Eisenhower, and that's in the selection of the commanding general in the first place because when the allies finally do cut the deal to split the forces between the Mediterranean and Italy and Operation Overlord against France, which also had a Southern France originally that got dropped, that ultimately got postponed until later in the summer. The expectation was that George Marshall would come over to England to lead that operation.
At that time, Marshall was the preeminent military figure in the United States as the Army Chief of Staff. And quite unexpectedly, for reasons that I try to unpack a bit in the book, Roosevelt changes his mind and picks Dwight Eisenhower to lead the invasion instead. And that choice was extremely consequential in a few ways that lead to the more specific answers to your question.
The first is that Eisenhower had no great investment in the existing planning for Overlord. The existing plans had been made essentially on a compromised basis to be a fairly small attack that would punch through what ultimately became the British beaches in a direct attack on the Northern French city of Caen. And then, using Caen as a base to do a buildup, and then charge East towards Berlin.
That plan, when Eisenhower first saw it in October of 1943, and he was asked for his general opinions, he was like, "This is a pretty weak plan. It's just not... You're only essentially putting in a three-division attack, which is smaller at that point than what they were doing in Sicily or in Salerno." And so, Eisenhower, when he gets put in charge of Overlord, immediately looks for ways of expanding the operation into what would ultimately be a seven-division in the first day.
And that itself was an extremely controversial move precisely because the British were looking to make Operation Overlord small enough to drown in a bathtub. And the idea that more resources would be poured into Operation Overlord was again contrary to British overall interests in the war, but also would put a much greater strain on Britain itself since the United Kingdom was the staging area for the operation.
And so, Eisenhower's first decision is to look for ways of ultimately doubling the operation in its initial strength. And to do that, he, I think, makes probably one of the canniest political moves of the war, which is to bear hug Bernard Montgomery, who at that time was probably one of the most famous, probably still is, one of the most famous British generals, the Great British hero of the Battle of El Alamein and of Second World War to that point. A celebrity figure unlike any other who Eisenhower never got along with at any point in either of their lives, almost maybe with the exception of the invasion of Normandy, when they briefly formed a much warmer relationship.
Monti was deeply skeptical of Eisenhower because Eisenhower had never really fought in combat. He saw him as just a glad-handing mayonnaise on white bread type figure. And Eisenhower thought Monti was an obnoxious prima donna. And they both, I think grossly underestimated one another and caricatured one another. But Eisenhower understood that he needed this, if they were going to enlarge the Operation Overlord, essentially contrary to the interests of the British government, he needed that decision to seem like it was coming from a British General, and Montgomery was probably the best of all.
And so, he meets secretly with Montgomery in December of 1943 before Montgomery is officially supposed to have been given the Operation Overlord plans, and basically says to Montgomery, "I want you to be my General. I want this to be the great invasion of Bernard Montgomery." But don't you think it's a bit small? Don't you think Bernard Montgomery should have a much bigger invasion force under his command? And Bernard Montgomery is very up to say, "Well, of course I do."
And so, Montgomery becomes fully invested in enlarging the operation. And Montgomery being the celebrity that he is able to sell this to the British government. And from then on, Eisenhower grits his teeth and put stamps down the ego of all his American compatriots to call it the Montgomery plan for Operation Overlord. And Montgomery does do some incredible planning. I don't mean to minimize Montgomery's role.
But Eisenhower had the political instincts to understand that in an allied warfare, it was very important that the British be fully invested in something that was going to be very costly, not just materially to the British, but also politically as well. So, that I think was probably one of his most crucial decisions. And George Marshall would never have made that decision, wouldn't have made any of those decisions. There's no reason to think Marshall would've immediately turned around and said, "No, this plan that I've been approving for the past year is inadequate. We're going double the size of it."
George Marshall's personal instincts as savvy and as stoic as he often was, was not to glad-hand. He was not a glad-hander. There's a famous anecdote where FDR first meets him and says, "Hey, can I call you George? And General Marshall said, "It's General Marshall, Sir."
And so, George Marshall, for all his great virtues, politics was not one of them, or at least the glad-handing politics that Eisenhower is a master of. But on the granular level, I think some of Eisenhower's more tactical choice, I'll run through a couple very quickly. One is the decision to embrace a very controversial plan to bomb a European or primarily French railways, which have very high civilian casualties associated them with allied casualties.
These are French people and they're attempting to invade France, but he's very concerned. He very much understands that in an amphibious invasion, you essentially have a race. You're racing to get as more forces across water as you can get across land. And land is just a much easier media to move large, heavy equipment like tanks across.
And so, he understands that in that zero-sum calculation, they need to do everything possible to slow the Germans down, even if it has very high civilian casualties, which is again, very politically costly to him. And he stands by that plan even when he's getting all sorts of hell, both from the domestic American public and especially the British foreign office who he's having to deal with infrequently.
He also unifies command over the theater, which was controversial. It was not something that George Marshall embraced, even after they enlarged it. He stuck to the idea of making it Montgomery's operation, even though Omar Bradley was primarily responsible for the British beaches. But he very much made sure that both Montgomery was seen as the leader of the whole operation. In part, that was because the political issues I talked about before.
But he also wanted to make sure there was an integrated operation across a couple of 100 miles of French beaches. And it was a narrow enough area that they needed combined air support, but it was also a broad enough area that you needed to have relatively localized command on the ground. And so, understanding that the integration of forces in combined arms operations is actually a pretty difficult thing. That's actually a management problem more than it is a on the field battle tactics problem, is something that he had learned really over the previous year and a half of fighting combined operations in North Africa, and then in the Mediterranean.
And then, the third all just hit. There are a bunch of others. But the third all just hit, which I think is probably one of the more remarkable forms of insight, is the weather and understanding that when you're doing combined operations, particularly combined operations that depend on air power, that the weather is its own form of terrain.
He looked back at the landings in Salerno, which had almost been catastrophic because of the German counterattack and remembered that the only reason they were able to gain the foothold and push the Germans back was because they could deploy the airborne, which they couldn't have done had the weather been bad. And so, he understood very early that the weather was going to dictate the pace of operations.
Same thing in North Africa. The rains in North Africa in late '42, 1943 had turned the entire Maghreb desert into mud, and that had slowed the advance. And so, he wanted to have a very clear understanding of the weather. But when he got there in January of 1944, there were a dozen different weathermen. One for the British Navy, one for the American Navy, one for the British Army, et cetera.
And so, he appointed, essentially made a command level decision to make a weatherman the head of a command. So, he got consolidated reports on the weather, and then dragged this guy who was a civilian Scottish meteorologist in ordinary life, put him in a uniform, and then dragged him to his commander's meetings each week and made him predict the weather in front of everybody for the next week.
And they would just test him week after week. And not only did that give Eisenhower, I think, a very clear sense of, okay, how reliable are these predictions? But it also made the weathermen take their job much more seriously, and to think about that they're not just there to provide intelligence, but they're really one of the almost combatant commanders. And that had incredible importance in D-Day itself because the weather predictions about the weather ultimately was what made the operation go from a potential disaster to the victory that it was.
Aaron McLean:
Well, we only have a minute or two left. But on this point of the weather, I mean, I've been to Southwick House where the final conference occurs, and Eisenhower has to make this decision. As you describe, it's this incredibly dramatic sequence of events, which you'll correct me if I'm misremembering any of the details here.
But basically, the operation is supposed to be on June the 5th, if I'm not mistaken, and the weather on June the 4th is some of the nicest weather that Northwest Europe has had in some time. And the weatherman says, "You can't do it," and he has to pull it down. And, of course, they're right. In the next day, June the 5th, the actual day prior to the invasion is one of the nastiest is just so dramatic storms. And Eisenhower has again, essentially advised that you'll have a brief window tomorrow where you could just pull it off.
And, by the way, if you don't roll the dice on that window, we're going to be postponed to July. And now, you're talking about delaying D-Day. You're talking about many more lives lost. I mean, this is a decision of great consequence. And last thing I'll ask you to reflect on is for all that his role was on some important level political and about personality management and about planning and about guiding the major muscle movements of this operation, he has this central, essential moment where he has to make this tactical decision, the go no go decision, which is basically as you point out a weather decision.
And just imagine, I mean, just imagine being in that seat after all these years of preparation and everything hinging on getting this call, right? Imagine being him with a minute or two to go here, did he write about that later? Did he reflect on it? What was his self-understanding of himself in that moment?
Michel Paradis:
So, I think that the best window I could find into his mind in that moment is a draft speech that he wrote immediately after he made the decision. Because there, they're sitting, and as you describe it's in Southwick House. They're in this library that's been converted to a conference room. They get the predictions about the weather. Everyone gives their various assessment of what they should do, and then he just sits there for a moment and says, "Okay, we'll go."
And it's like a gunshot going off. The team is running out onto the field, and then he's just left there alone, and he's just sitting with that decision. And the rain is racking the windows. You can hear the wind. And he writes a short speech that he gives planning for the invasion to fail, and he takes full responsibility. It's actually, quite a beautiful window into his mind because you can see particularly from what he crosses out each time when he starts to say, "People did the best thing. I made the decision."
He increasingly takes all the blame onto himself. And every time he's making excuses or somehow trying to justify himself, he just crosses that out and just says, "I made the decision. Everyone involved in everything they could. They are the heroes. I'm to blame." And it's just this beautiful moment where he understands exactly the gravity of the situation, the lives at risk. And that at the end of the day, you can make good decisions or bad decisions, and the good decisions will turn out to be wrong, and the bad decisions might turn out to be right. Ultimately, it's just on you and you just make the best decision you can. And he did. And thankfully, for the world it worked out.
Aaron McLean:
Someone told me it's too good to check story. I hope it's true. But that later in life, post-presidential Eisenhower is asked maybe by a family member or something, are you worried it's going to rain today? Or something like that, and just normal conversation. He responds, apparently, "Young lady, I haven't worried about the rain since June the 6th, 1944. I'm worried about the weather since June the 6th, 1944.
Michel Paradis, author of The Light of Battle: Eisenhower, D-Day, and The Birth of the American Superpower. Thank you for making the time today, and thanks for the great conversation.
Michel Paradis:
Thank you. Good to see you.
Aaron McLean:
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