Chapter V:
The New Look in Strategic Planning
In the early months of 1943 General Marshall and his staff began to seek
new and firmer long-range bases upon which to plan for victory. The
Washington strategic planners conducted an exploratory search in three
principal directions: the development of planning techniques and
tactics; the calculation of the ultimate size and "cutting edge" of the
Army; and the designing of strategic concepts and plans. Gradually
recovering from the confusion that had marked its deliberations at the
turn of the year, the Army staff applied itself to these problems in
the spring of 1943 with renewed vigor. To reorient British-American
planning toward longer term and more decisive military goals became its
chief concern. The meeting of the President and Prime Minister with
their military staffs at the international conference in Washington in
May (TRIDENT) offered both incentive and opportunity. Army preparations
for the TRIDENT Conference indicated a growing awareness of the new
realities in the multi-front coalition war and a firmer grasp of its
problems.
Reorienting Staff Planning
The U.S. military planners were determined to make a more effective
presentation of their cast at TRIDENT than they had at Casablanca. The
Casablanca Conference had focused their attention on weaknesses in U.S.
staff preparations and had driven home the need for reorganizing and
reorienting U.S. staff planning-a need apparent to some of the War
Department planners before the end of 1942.1
The definite agreement at Casablanca to undertake an operation in
1943 against Sicily, as urged by the British, and the inability of the
U.S. delegation to secure a correspondingly firm British commitment for
a major cross-Channel effort had left General Wedemeyer, General
Marshall's principal adviser at the conference, keenly disappointed. He
wrote: ". . . we lost our shirts and . . . are now committed to a
subterranean umbilicus operation in mid-summer . . . . we came, we
listened and we were conquered." General Marshall, he observed, had
performed magnificently for the Americans, but had received little
effective assistance from his colleagues in the JCS. The small U.S.
delegation had, in fact, appeared disorganized in contrast to
[106]
the large, well-prepared and united British delegation. General
Wedemeyer admired the way the British had presented and argued their
case:
They swarmed down upon us like locusts with a plentiful supply of
planners and various other assistants with prepared plans to insure that
they not only accomplished their purpose but did so in stride and with
fair promise of continuing in their role of directing strategically the
course of this war. I have the greatest admiration .... and if I were a Britisher
I would feel very proud. However, as an American I wish that we might be
more glib and better organized to cope with these super negotiators.
From a worm's eye viewpoint it was apparent that we were confronted by
generations and generations of experience in committee work and in
rationalizing points of view. They had us on the defensive practically
all the time.
2
To meet the British on more nearly equal terms at subsequent formal
conferences, the Americans would have to match them in thorough,
skillful preparation of their case, or accept British proposals. The
Americans saw that they would have to lay the groundwork on an inter-service basis and pave the way for binding agreements by the JCS on
the military courses to be followed. They would have to provide joint
studies to serve as a basis for understanding between the JCS and the
President and at the same time to anticipate and minimize difficulties
in coming to a firm agreement with the British.
Before the TRIDENT Conference, the U.S. military staff put some of
the lessons of Casablanca into effect. General Wedemeyer suggested to
the JCS that the United States "take the offensive" at
TRIDENT by requesting the British to consider papers agreed upon by the
JCS. In this way the U.S. representatives would not find themselves in
the position of "considering all British papers."3
Generals Marshall and McNarney approved and the joint Chiefs accepted
the recommendation. Brig. Gen. John E. Hull's proposal for increasing
the number of representatives in the American delegation was also
approved by General Marshall and put into effect by the JCS.4
Just before TRIDENT, moreover, the JCS approved the major wartime
reorganization of the joint committee system. The movement to regularize
and reorganize the system, initiated before the end of 1942, was given
an impetus by the experience at Casablanca.5
A basic aim of that movement was to breathe new life into the joint
system. New agencies, relationships, and divisions of
[107]
responsibilities began to appear in the joint planning field.
Already, in November 1942, in order to fill a keenly felt need, the
joint Strategic Survey Committee (JSSC) had been set up to advise the
JCS on long-range strategic planning.6 This
high-level strategic
committee was composed of Lt. Gen. Stanley D. Embick, former chief of
the War Plans Division (WPD) and Deputy Chief of Staff; Maj. Gen. Muir
S. Fairchild of the Army Air Forces; and Vice Adm. Russell Willson.7 Throughout the rest of the wartime period this independent group of
"elder statesmen" continued to advise the JCS on broad questions of
national policy and world strategy.
The principal achievements of the reorganization movement were the
steps taken to increase the effectiveness of the joint Staff Planners
(JPS), a committee that was bogging down under innumerable functions,
directly and indirectly relating to strategy, that it was attempting to
perform. A more or less co-ordinate committee was chartered in May 1943
to take part of the burden. Initially called the joint Administrative
Committee and subsequently the joint Logistics Committee (JLC), it dealt
on a full-time basis with procurement, allocation, transportation of
supplies and equipment, and Deputy Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet.
and other activities in the field of logistics.8 The most significant
measure taken to relieve the JPS was the delegation to a working body
directly under it of the responsibility for making tentative inter-service agreements on the subsequent deployment and employment of
U.S. forces. Hitherto "war plans"-below the scope of broad strategy-had
been prepared by the Army and Navy staffs largely without benefit of
joint action. A reconstituted working committee, now named the joint War
Plans Committee, was established in April 1943.9 It was designed to
answer the need for timely, detailed, joint deployment and operational studies.10
Key personnel changes accompanying the transition to the revised
planning system brought new vigor into U.S. military planning. In the
process, the Army Air Forces gained the voice in joint strategic
deliberations on the working level that it had previously won in the JCS
and JPS. Col. William W. Bessell, Jr., of the War Department's
operations staff was named senior Army member of the JWPC and held the
position until
[108]
after the defeat of Japan.11 The three senior JWPC planners (or
"directors"), representing the Army, the Navy, and the Army Air Forces,
actually controlled the detailed functioning of the JWPC. In effect, the
Army representatives of the JWPC worked within the JCS committee system
to relieve the Chief of Staff and his planning advisers of much of the
detailed exploratory conversations with the Navy.
From its establishment in April 1943 until the end of the war, the JWPC
prepared a broad variety of studies, papers, and plans. Its main
function was the development of joint outline plans for future
operations, which were especially valuable as a basis of agreement by
the JCS and as a guide for theater headquarters staffs. Reorganization
of the joint staff system in Washington paralleled the simultaneous
adoption of a system of command for unifying Army and Navy action in the
field. Broadly considered, the two movements sprang from the same basic
needs-to unify and hasten joint efforts for the accelerating phase of
the war-the one in reaching strategic decisions, the other in executing
them.
Just before TRIDENT the JWPC hurriedly took over the task of drawing
up the papers and plans necessary to prepare the JCS for the conference.
This foreshadowed the trend after TRIDENT, when preparations for such
conferences were more and more to be systematically centered in the
joint planning staff. The interrelated efforts of the military planners
to perfect the U.S. joint committee system and the staff work, representation, and procedures for
the formal international conferences began to bear fruit in the spring
of 1943.12 Increasingly, from the spring of 1943 onward, Army strategic
planners worked through the committee and conference network toward the
realization of their strategic objectives. Staff education in the
processes of waging a global coalition war was to be continually
extended and broadened.
In addition to the expansion of the JCS-CCS system, other
characteristics of the military planning processes of the later war
years that affected Army staff work were beginning to appear. The Army
Air Forces accompanied its efforts to gain more direct control over air
operations and air planning with more and more frequent presentation of
independent views of strategy. Also, with the tempo of operations in
the multi-front war accelerating and questions of magnitude and timing
becoming more important, the strategic planners recognized the need to
turn for logistical advice to qualified staffs and committees in the
Army and in the joint system. The special contributions of logistical
experts in ASF as well as in the JLC-in reaching decisions on strategic
choices and combinations began to be taken into fuller account.
At the same time, with overseas headquarters growing in size and
influence, the theater commanders and their staffs were acquiring
greater weight in councils on the strategic direction of the war. The
President, the Prime Minister, and the CCS came increasingly to rely on
the commanders' judgment and experience
[109]
and to seek their opinion on important matters of strategy. The
commanders' advice was particularly needed in planning the utilization
of forces and resources already in the theaters. With the overseas
staffs assuming heightened importance in military planning, as
operations in the theaters became more complex and widespread, the War
Department sought to perfect methods of keeping the Washington staff in
close touch with the overseas Army headquarters. War Department links
with the theaters became further diversified and personalized.13 Face-to-face deliberations of officers from the War Department with
theater commanders and their staffs supplemented communication through
regular channels to speed the process of reaching decisions on
debatable, complicated, and delicate problems. Personal visits of the
Chief of Staff and his strategic advisers, becoming more frequent from
early 1943 on, hastened the correlation of theater and inter-theater
planning with decisions of the international conferences and with
Washington military policies and plans.
Finally, in recognition of the fact that wartime military planning was
inextricably involved with foreign policy, the Army planners
intensified their efforts from the spring of 1943 onward to improve
liaison with the White House and State Department.14 By and large, the
Army remained preoccupied both before and after the spring of 1943 with
the more strictly military aspects of national policy. This reflected
staff acceptance of the code, on which it had been working since before
the war, that civilian authorities determine the "what" of national
policy and the military confine themselves to the "how" Yet it is also
apparent that the fine line between foreign policy and military policy
was becoming increasingly blurred as the war went on. The President felt
compelled to take an active part in military affairs, and the Army staff
found more and more that it could not keep foreign and political affairs
out of its military calculations. It had become painfully clear to the
staff since the summer of 1942 that political policy might not permit
the armed forces to follow the quickest and most direct road to victory
according to its lights. In fact, shortly before TRIDENT, General
Wedemeyer concluded that the U.S. staff could not win British staff
support for a major cross-Channel operation without "the full weight of
national policy opposed to the British."15
The growing concern with political considerations was summed up by
General Marshall, speaking for the JCS, in an appearance before a
subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations two days
before the conference opened. Denying that the U.S. military staff had
discussed political matters at Casablanca, he went on to say, however,
that "the thought of political matters" was "necessarily" continuously
on their minds. The U.S. Chiefs were aware, he stated, of the "united
front methods and ideas" presented by the British Chiefs of Staff, the
Prime Minister, and the War Cabinet and were in process of organizing
themselves to match the British at the forthcoming meetings. There was
no doubt in his mind, he
[110]
added, that the needs of military strategy should dominate the conduct
of the war.16 Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg recorded his own impression
of Marshall's testimony:
In deciding joint questions with the British, he [Marshall] said we
were always handicapped by the fact that when the British come to a
conference with an idea, it is completely developed to the last degree
and has the completely integrated support of the British from Churchill
down -including, frequently, a 'softening up' of our own American
situation through the activity of all of the British 'Secretaries' here
in Washington. He said that this often puts us at a disadvantage.17
The implications of Marshall's stand were clear. Better staff work
behind the JCS and closer collaboration between the JCS and the
President were needed to present and to win support for the American
military case.
Though the forms that staff planning and liaison between the
military authorities and their Commander in Chief assumed from the
spring of 1943 onward remained essentially American, they reflected the
impact of British patterns, models, and performance, which the Americans
were attempting to match on more equal terms. The demands of coalition
warfare in its offensive phase
appeared to be making the comrades-in-arms more nearly similar in
planning techniques and methods. Whether the U.S. staff would thereby be
able more effectively to "sell" its strategic ideas to its partner in
the Grand Coalition remained to be seen. In any event, on the eve of
TRIDENT It was clear to the U.S. staff that, in order to gain and keep
support for the American military case, greater attention would
henceforth have to be paid to mastering the "tactics" of strategic
planning.
In the readjustment of planning functions, Army planners were to
capitalize on their broad, over-all vantage point in the Washington
headquarters, on their influential links with the maturing joint and
combined systems, and, above all, on their peculiar staff
responsibilities to the Chief of Staff. The basis of their contributions
in the planning hierarchy lay largely, as before, in advising on the
deployment and employment of U.S. Army forces. In attempting to maintain
the delicate balance of strength and resources between the European and
Mediterranean theaters and between these areas and the Pacific and Far
East, the Army staff planners in Washington continued directly or
indirectly to exert a strong influence on over-all strategic thinking.
Within the changing framework of strategic planning, they sought with
renewed vigor, in the spring of 1943, once more to take the initiative
and keep their planning ahead of the Chief of Staff's needs.
Strategy and the Manpower Problem
Behind their concern for an effective formulation and presentation
of the
[111]
American case at TRIDENT lay the growing uneasiness of General Marshall
and his staff over the American manpower problem. To continue what
appeared to them to be essentially a policy of drift in Allied strategy
raised grave issues about mobilizing and deploying U.S. forces. To
support a war of attrition and peripheral action, in place of
concentrated effort, raised serious problems about the size and kind
of Army the United States should and could maintain.
Back of the War Department's original proposal in early 1942 for
concentrating forces in the British Isles lay its fundamental aim of
committing the bulk of U.S. Army troops to one major front at a time,
and thereby of realizing the advantages of long-range planning over a
single major line of overseas communications. The presumption was that
in order to defeat either Germany or Japan it would probably be
necessary to defeat their forces on their home soil. For the War
Department, the danger-in 1943 as in 1942-of opening and supporting
additional fronts was to be measured not so much in terms of the combat
units initially committed as in the terms of the ultimate effect on the
employment of U.S. manpower and more specifically on the Army troop
basis. Well aware how quickly military situations could change and how
important it was to have uncommitted reserves, the planners had also
regarded the forces built up in the British Isles in 1942 as a strategic
reserve against a sudden turn of events on the Eastern Front. By early
1943 their fondest hopes had been disappointed and their worst fears
were being realized. Not only were diversionary peripheral operations
generating pressures of their
own and sucking in more troops than originally anticipated, but, in the
process, the margin of safety represented by the strategic reserve
assembled in the United Kingdom had also been largely dissipated. At the
same time the conviction was growing that it was finally becoming both
necessary and possible to plan on a more realistic, long-range basis for
mobilizing the manpower-and resources-needed to win the war. The
transition to the initiative appeared to present the opportunity as well
as the compulsion to define with greater certainty the main outlines of
subsequent operations and to make more dependable estimates of how many
trained and equipped units would be required.
To establish a proper manpower balance for the United States in wartime
was as difficult as it was important. The absolute ceiling on the number
of men physically fit for active military service was estimated to be
between fifteen and sixteen million.18 On the surface it was hard to
understand, in the light of the available manpower pool, why there
should be any U.S. manpower problem at all. Why, if Germany could
maintain a military establishment of 9,835,000 or 10.9 percent of her
population and Britain could support 3,885,000 or 8.2 percent of hers,
did the United States manpower officials insist in late 1942 that
10,500,000 or only 7.8 percent would be the maximum force that the
country could sustain without incurring serious dislocation to the
American economy?
19
[112]
The problem as well as the answer stemmed basically from the fact that
the Allies had from the beginning accepted the proposition that the
single greatest tangible asset the United States brought to the
coalition in World War II was the productive capacity of its industry.
From the very beginning, U.S. manpower calculations were closely
correlated with the needs of war industry.
The Army had therefore to compete for manpower not only with the needs
of the other services but also with the claims of industry. By 1943 the
"arsenal of democracy," as the United States had come to be called, was
just beginning to hit its full productive stride. To cut too deeply into
the industrial manpower of the country in order to furnish men for the
Army and Navy might interfere seriously with arming U.S. troops and
those of the Allies for the successful conduct of the war. Furthermore,
the United States was fighting a global conflict. To service its lines
of communications extending around the world required large numbers of
men, and great numbers of troops were constantly in transit to and from
the theaters. To carry the fight across the oceans demanded a powerful
Navy and large merchant fleet, which also had to be given a high
priority for manpower. Each industry as well as each theater commander
was continually calling for more men. The problem for the Army was not
only how much should it receive for its share of the manpower pool but
also how to divide that share most effectively to meet the diverse
demands made upon it.
How to calculate the total strength as well as the combat
divisions-"the cutting edge"-needed to win the war had long troubled
military authorities. The computations made on the eve of the U.S. entry
into the war and through 1942 had necessarily been little more than
educated guesses. The unknown quantities were many, the strategic
assumptions sometimes proving to be far wide of the mark. Through most
of the first year of American participation in the war, the trend had
been toward the rapid and, to a considerable degree, chaotic expansion
of the various parts of the Military Establishment. Fluctuations in war
plans, shipping, and other critical logistical factors, and the heavy
requirements for building up numerous headquarters overseas had greatly
affected the strategic deployment of the Army. The authorized troop
basis for 1942 had been constantly exceeded and changed.20
Meanwhile, the progress of the war on the Soviet front and the
prospective air bombardment over the European continent still left
uncertain, at the end of 1942, the Army's ultimate size as well as the
number of combat divisions necessary to win the war. It was still
difficult to predict with exactitude the casualty rates to be expected
and the amount of reserve strength needed to be built up. Postponement
of the plan to launch a major cross-Channel operation made the need of
mobilizing a large U.S. ground Army less immediate. Instead, greater
emphasis was to be placed on first developing U.S. airpower. Given the
anticipated limitations in shipping, it appeared at the end of 1942 that
the projected deployment of a huge air force
[113]
overseas by the end of 1944 would definitely restrict the number of
divisions that could be sent overseas by that time. It was clearly
undesirable to withdraw men from industry and agriculture too long
before they could actually be employed in military operations. Allowing
a year to train a division, the mobilization of much more than a hundred
divisions by the end of 1943 appeared to be premature. In late 1942,
moreover, procurement plans for the armed services for 1943,
particularly for the Army ground program, were revised downward by the
JCS in response to a War Production Board recommendation. All these
limiting factors pointed to the need for scaling down previous
long-range calculations, as well as for effecting economies in manpower
within the Army.21
The process of reducing earlier long-range estimates, begun on the
War Department and joint planning levels toward the end of 1942, was
clearly reflected in the approved Army Troop Basis for 1943, circulated
by G-3 in January of that year.22
This troop basis
set the mobilization program for 1943 at 100 divisions. It called for a
total Army strength of 8,208,000, a figure previously approved by the
President. This troop basis marked the turning point in War Department
and joint Army-Navy calculations. In place of limited objectives that
would be greatly exceeded in time, these estimates were approaching the
ultimate ceiling strengths of the Army.
Soon, however, the War Department began to foresee difficulties in
meeting even the 100-division goal. At the beginning of 1943 divisions
were moving overseas much less rapidly than had been anticipated. With
ground units accumulating in the United States, the activation schedule
for divisions was slowed down. The modification of the procurement
program sharply curtailed production of both housing and equipment for
U.S. troops in training. The decision to arm French troops with weapons
of U.S. manufacture threatened to cut still further into equipment
available for the U.S. forces. As a result, War Department authorities
were greatly concerned by the spring of 1943 over the question of a
balanced mobilization for the remainder of the year.23
At the same time, efforts to formulate troop bases for 1944 and
beyond pointed to the need for drastic reductions in earlier estimates
of ultimate air needs. The initial Victory Program, which represented
the Army's most searching prewar examination of long-term strategy and
requirements should the United States become involved in the global
conflict, had assumed a total of
[114]
10, 199,101 men, including 213 divisions, for the Army alone by June
1944
24 Even as late as November 1942 the joint planners were estimating
that 10,572,000 men would be needed for the Army by December 1944; the
estimated number of divisions had risen to 334.25 When the requirements
of the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard were also added,
over-all totals were in excess of 13,000,000. A scaling down toward
the lower figures advocated by the manpower chiefs was clearly
necessary.
The planners were working from the bases of the late 1941 and early 1942
period, which assumed that the USSR might be defeated by the Germans,
thus forcing on the Allies a far greater and more costly ground effort.
Since the effects of the planned bomber offensive from the United
Kingdom were also an unknown quantity, the planners had had to take its
possible failure into consideration. Viewing the two factors
pessimistically, it was inevitable the planners should produce high
estimates envisaging a very large ground force. They calculated that it
would be far easier to decrease an over-expanded army than it would be to
build up an inadequate one, especially since it took a year to train a
division for combat. Add to their dilemma the uncertainties of shipping
and production and the lack of firm strategic decisions to guide them
and it was small wonder that the planners were overshooting the mark.
The JCS, on the other hand, faced with criticism of their use of
manpower, had realized that the planners' figures would not be accepted
and had turned the manpower problem over to their senior advisers. The
Joint Strategic Survey Committee concluded that the joint planners had
gone astray in trying to match Allied forces, division for division,
with the enemy. They held that proper consideration had been given
neither to the relative efficiency of forces nor to prospective Allied
air superiority and the effect of the bomber offensive on German morale
and war effort. While recognizing that shipping would determine the
amount of force that could be applied, they believed that Allied
superiority in production would also be a controlling factor and should
be exploited in every possible way.26
In line with this more optimistic outlook, the Army planners suggested
that the most realistic approach to the manpower problem would be to
agree upon the maximum number of men that could be inducted into the
armed services without impairing the development of U.S. war production
capacity. The figure would represent the final troop basis, and strategy
would be devised in conjunction with it.27 Since the President in
September 1942 had approved an army of 8,208,000 for 1943, 8,208,000
appeared to be the logical figure with which to work.28
By the end of 1942, most of the large force of unemployed existent
in prewar days had been drawn into the ranks of the employed. This had
served to cushion the rapid and large withdrawals
[115]
of able-bodied men for the services, but it was manifest that if the
high induction rate were maintained much longer, the bottom of the
barrel would have to be scraped. Congress had given agricultural
workers a blanket deferment from the draft in November, thus cutting off
one large source of supply, and local draft boards showed a constant
disinclination to draft fathers into the service.29 Essential workers
in war plants and in Government were also given special consideration.
Some relief from the dwindling pool of manpower resources came when
eighteen and nineteen year olds were made available in November, but
they gave only temporary respite.30 Although increased use of women and
Negroes, establishment of longer working hours, and improved efficiency
in war plants eventually served to augment production, the manpower
situation by early 1943 appeared grave.31
In January 1943, G-3 warned that the 8,208,000-man Army might
approach the limit of manpower available and that some adjustments would
have to be made from within to secure the kind of army needed to win the
war.32
Faced with the prospects of a declining manpower reserve and an
improving strategic situation, the Army decided to review its employment
of men in the continental United States. During the same month Marshall
set up the War Department Manpower Board, with Maj. Gen. Lorenzo D.
Gasser as its president, to make specific recommendations for reducing
the forces assigned to the zone of interior.33
Marshall regarded the work of the Gasser Board, which he had established
as a manpower watchdog for the Army, as but a part of the effort to be
made by all the services to conserve personnel. He advocated surveys by
the JSSC of all garrisons in the Western Hemisphere, including Iceland,
with a view to making defensive troops available for more active roles.
The JCS endorsed his suggestion, and King indicated that he would look
into various Navy shore installations that he believed were
overmanned.34 The JSSC
found that the strategic considerations demanding large garrisons in
the Western Hemisphere during 1942 had altered sufficiently to permit
personnel cuts on a wholesale
[116]
basis. Only in the Aleutians, Phoenix Fanning, and Tonga-Samoa Island
groups should the status quo be preserved or small increases be made.35
Carrying out the JSSC recommendations, the Army was able to effect a
savings of nearly 150,000 men by the end of 1943 and planned to recover
more than 120,000 others by the end of 1944.36
In consonance with this economy drive, Marshall also approved-in
February-a new Army troop basis that called for an enlisted strength of
7,500,000, including 150,000 WACs and between 120 and 125 divisions,
for June 1944. The over-all goal for 1943 of 8,208,000, which included
officers, was retained on the ground that such a force would be
necessary to take advantage of any favorable opportunities that might
come to pass.37
Defense of these manpower requirements before the Senate and against
such critics as Herbert Hoover was made somewhat more difficult by the
unofficial opposition of certain Navy officers.38
In early February there were actually
five investigations going on in the Senate and one in the House on the
subject of manpower. The position of the Army in the face of this
Congressional probing rested upon the heavy preponderance of divisions
at the disposal of the enemy and the possible disaster that might ensue
if the size of the Army were reduced and the disparity in combat
divisions increased.39 The War Department correctly gauged
Congressional reaction at this juncture. Maj. Gen. Alexander D. Surles,
Director of the War Department Bureau of Public Relations, put it
succinctly: "Despite all talk, Congress isn't sure, and members will
not risk their political necks by taking a position where they might be
charged with sabotaging the war effort. They will talk, but they won't
act."
40 In order to fortify its own thinking and planning on
mobilization, the Army decided that it should also conduct an
investigation.
The Bessell Committee
In accord with the earnest efforts of the Chief of Staff to trim Army
requirements, the operations staff in February designated a special
committee, headed by Colonel Bessell, to survey the current military
program and to recommend changes indicated by shifting strategic
conditions. The main question to be investigated by the committee
concerned the efficacy of building up foreign forces -such as the Free
French-as opposed to arming U.S. troops, and the possible effects of
either alternative on the U.S. manpower situation and on Allied effi-
[117]
ciency in prosecuting the war.41 This was a rephrasing of the thorny
problem -how far to go in aiding Allies-that the Army planners had faced
from the very beginning and were to continue to face.
The ensuing survey made by the committee revealed , that little could
be gained by increasing the volume of international aid to the Allies
at the expense of the development of U.S. forces. Equipping the
manpower of various nations, other than the Soviet Union and Great
Britain, with arms and munitions would not substantially increase the
total amount of effective manpower that could be placed in combat, nor
would it succeed in putting troops into combat more quickly than the
current program for preparing U.S. troops for active service overseas.
In regard to aircraft, the British could not man additional planes;
plans had been made to take care of French needs; and there was no
indication that the USSR could use heavy bombers effectively in her
current circumstances. Beside these factors, any allocations to other
nations would slow down the 273-air-group program-which had been
approved in September 1942 and endanger adequate support of U.S. forces.
The members of the committee felt that the aircraft, shipping, and
U-boat problems should have top priority and recommended that the
optimum over-all strength of 11,000,000 men should be reached as soon as
possible.42
In effect, the United States was to continue its dual role in the war as
the "arsenal of democracy" and a significant
source of trained and equipped manpower.
The limiting factor in manpower would be the ability to replace civilian
and military losses. The committee had accepted as reasonable the
estimates of Col. Lewis Sanders of the Selective Service System that an
armed strength of 10 million to 10.8 million could be maintained
indefinitely without undue strain upon the nation and that a peak
strength of 12 million could be kept in being for eighteen months if
necessary, but would entail some disruption of civilian economy.43 In
late April the Bessell Committee scaled down its estimates of the
ultimate strength from 185 to 155 divisions and accepted an
8,200,000-man total as the ceiling figure for planning the "maximum
strength" for the Army imposed by manpower limitations. It recommended
that the U.S. Army, and especially the Air Forces, be developed to the
maximum strength practicable within the estimated limitations on armed
forces and be deployed as quickly as possible.44
Since the existing facilities in the United States allowed the training
of sixty divisions a year, the committee recommended that the forces
necessary for the defeat of Japan be established concurrently with those
for the defeat of Germany but without prejudice to that objective. The
273-air-group program could be carried to completion by the late summer
of 1944. It was essential, the committee believed, that every means,
including the use of limited service personnel in supporting and
service
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elements, be employed to produce maximum combat strength.
The committee concluded that the time had definitely come for long-term programing to guide the war machine that was developing in the United
States. With adequate training for the Army requiring a year,
mobilization and production had to be planned well in advance.
Mobilization and production had, therefore, to be linked to national
policy and strategic planning. The basic strategy of the United States
was still sound and should be adhered to, and "any tendency to disperse
our forces to other than the main effort [should] be avoided." What was
required, the committee decided, was a broad and long-range strategic
plan for the defeat of the enemies of the United States whereby
requirements might be balanced against means and resources and then
translated into a realistic military program. In this connection, the
committee warned that the American public wearied quickly of war and
would not countenance any slow process of attrition.
45
In April the need for careful manpower budgeting was further
emphasized. Upon informing the services that approximately 1,500,000 men
could be furnished to them in 1944, the War Manpower Commission stated
that the figure would be close to the limit of the number of men that could be withdrawn from the manpower pool without
jeopardizing war production, transportation, and essential civilian
services. The Army estimated that by vigorous economy it would be able
to save about 485,000 men during the balance of the year 1943. Since
the Army-Navy requirements for replacements alone would run about
971,000 for 1944, there should be a cushion of about one million men to
fill the need for new units and to meet emergencies. At this time the
War Manpower Commission estimated 11,300,000 men, and the JPS 10,900,000, as the number that could be kept in uniform indefinitely.
The JPS went so far as to recommend no increase in the Army for 1944
over the approved 1943 Army Troop Basis goals-8,200,000 total strength
and 100 divisions (though the latter was already a somewhat dubious
figure).46
The emphasis on re-examination and retrenchment that characterized
the early months of 1943 was a natural result of the improved strategic
situation of the Allies. Accenting the need for a significant change in
the contemplated size and kind of Army required to defeat the enemy were
the many pressures at home to reduce the large totals earlier projected
by the services and to establish manpower ceilings for the armed forces.
The efforts of the Army to cut back its own personnel needs were a clear
indication of the trend toward economy and a portent of the leveling-off
to come. Though the trend toward a final linking of manpower demands of
the military with strategy, production, and manpower capabilities of the
country was still in an
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exploratory stage, the need for arranging the union was gaining
strength.
To secure and maintain a manpower balance for the remainder of the
war had become an all-important question.47
The military as well as civilian authorities recognized that no undue
strain must be put on the American economy-central to the whole Allied war effort-by overdrafts
on the manpower pool for military service. In this sense, the threat of overmobilization in the full tide of coalition war appeared as
dangerous as undermobilization had once seemed in the earlier stages
(and as too rapid a demobilization upon the war's conclusion would later
appear). Though to the end of the war manpower officials would not be
able to establish with any certainty absolute limits on American
manpower capabilities for military or industrial purposes, relative
limits at least were becoming clearer. Even before the entry of the
'United States into the war, the Army staff had conceived of the United
States as the "final reserve of the democracies both in manpower and
munitions"-a reserve to be conserved for "timely employment in a
decisive theater and not dissipated by diversion in secondary theaters."
48
With retrenchment and economy now the watchwords in military policy,
the Army staff was all the more reluctant to accept plans that might
dissipate the combat forces in being or prevent the husbanding of a
strategic reserve. Unless over-all strategy embodying the principle
of concentration were made sufficiently firm and manpower and production
requirements for victory were definitely tied to it, the staff feared
the disarrangement of the American economy and a stalemate in the war.
By May there was every reason to believe that, as U.S. production
bottlenecks and the U-boat menace were increasingly surmounted, the
shipping shortage-the "limiting factor" in planning to date
would in
time be overcome. But the manpower problem was beginning to loom as an
even more significant restriction on subsequent war planning and gave a
powerful stimulus to the U.S. staff for putting long-range strategic
plans on a firm basis once and for all.
The Army planners were therefore urging, on the eve of TRIDENT, the
matching of long-range mobilization and logistical plans with
long-range strategic plans.49 In that way they hoped to achieve an
equilibrium in the programs of production and mobilization in the United
States and in the distribution of forces and means among the theaters
for the stepped-up operational phase of the war. To strike a proper
balance among strategic plans, manpower, and other resources for
victory in the global combat, fundamental decisions would first have to
be reached with the British.
Preparations and Rehearsal for
TRIDENT
To meet the "always well-prepared British" on more even terms, the
JCS directed the joint Staff Planners on 27
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April to prepare outline plans of "all reasonable courses of action"
that might follow HUSKY. U.S. strategic planners JSSC as well as
OPD-were urging that the time had come to merge the strategic concept
for 1943 with that for 1944 and that the probable courses of action be
studied to provide the JCS with plans for the approaching conference.
Accepting as unquestioned the Allied objective of defeating Germany
decisively and as quickly as possible, the U.S. Chiefs of Staff called
for special emphasis to be given to planning for cross-Channel
operations.50
In the hectic days that followed in late April and early May-before the
British arrived-the Army planners in and out of the newly developing
joint staff machinery were exchanging views, preparing data, and
formulating plans for the meetings. Especially revealing was an exchange
of ideas that took place between the War Department planners and the JSSC on an estimate of the global strategic situation-an exchange of
which the Chief of Staff had knowledge.
On the Army side, the operations staff's Strategy Section maintained
that 1943-44 would be the "decisive period of the war." The mobilized
and trained manpower of the United States would reach its peak in 1944,
and most major items would be in full-scale production in the United
States by early 1944- On the other hand, Great Britain was already
mobilized to the hilt; the bulk of its forces would shortly be fully
trained and equipped for offensive action; and its productive capacity
could be expected to increase only slightly. To defeat Germany it was
necessary to retain the USSR, still containing the bulk of the German
forces, as an active participant in the war. The Strategy Section felt
that the Germans would probably attempt to resume the offensive against
the Soviet Union at the earliest practicable moment, while holding to
the defensive on other fronts. The outcome of the conflict on the
Eastern Front would be the determining factor in estimating the military
situation that might exist in 1944.
The course of action to be undertaken after HUSKY, according to the
Strategy Section, would be largely determined not only by Soviet versus
German capabilities but also by the effectiveness of the Combined
Bomber Offensive. On the Allied side, the rapid development and
application of airpower was regarded as the most encouraging feature of
the war effort to date. Air superiority, which was being won in
practically all areas, would increase even more rapidly in the months to
come. If properly coupled with other undertakings, it could be made the
most effective strategic weapon of the Allies.
The Army planners echoed the fundamental War Department faith in a
major cross-Channel operation at the same time that they revealed their
caution toward continued operations in the Mediterranean. In their
opinion forces could be built up in the United Kingdom to initiate
cross-Channel operations on a small scale late in 1944, but the
operations could not reach major proportions
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before the spring of 1945. Difficulties of terrain and logistics made a
cross-Mediterranean approach to the Continent less desirable than an
attack via the Channel. They were prepared to admit that by continuing
limited offensives in the Mediterranean in 1943 the Allies could contain
strong Axis ground and air forces and possibly cause diversions from the
Soviet front. The OPD planners therefore left the way open for
accepting further Mediterranean offensives, though their position on
post-HUSKY Mediterranean operations was by no means clear-cut. Without
interfering with prospective operations in the European-Mediterranean
area, the Allies in 1943-44 could and should neutralize the German
U-boats, increase the bomber offensive against Germany, and furnish
munitions to the USSR and the French in North Africa.
The Army planners called for adherence to the basic strategic aim of
defeating Germany before Japan, so long as the USSR remained effectively
in the war. In the event of the defeat of the USSR in Europe, however,
the planners advocated the application of the "Pacific
Alternative"-which had been advanced by them on various occasions since
early 1942. In that case the Allies should reverse their basic strategic
concept, secure their positions in the European-Mediterranean area, and
wage an all-out offensive against Japan. In line with their
recommendation that the main effort for 1943 be made in the
European-Mediterranean area, they urged that operations in the
Pacific-Asiatic area be restricted to limited offensives designed to
retain the initiative and intensify the attrition of Japanese shipping
and air resources. Operations in that area should be in line with
whatever plan the Allies adopted for the ultimate defeat of Japan.
Meanwhile, the continued participation of China in the war must be
insured by furnishing to it the maximum supplies and air support
possible.51
In general the JSSC agreed with the Army planners' conclusions and
recommendations. General Embick indicated that he, too, was inclined to
believe that 1943 would indicate the direction, if not produce an actual
decision, in the Russo-German conflict. The result would, he agreed,
improve or preclude the chances of an effective Anglo-American invasion
of the Continent. If the premises were correct, however, added weight
should be given to the possibilities of the air offensive as advanced,
by General Fairchild, the Air member of the JSSC. General Fairchild
held that the Allies would be able to support the USSR most effectively
during the critical summer months of 1943 by avoiding all further
commitments in the Mediterranean and by concentrating the available
resources in the United Kingdom. On the basis of his optimistic
estimate of the effectiveness of the Combined Bomber Offensive in 1943
and early 1944, he felt that the way could be paved for decisive
operations against Germany in 1944 rather than 1945.52
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Events were soon to show that General Marshall was much impressed by the
air argument. It was to furnish him with valuable support in advancing
the case for a full-scale cross-Channel offensive in 1944 and for
relying more on air forces and less on ground troops in Mediterranean
operations.
Meanwhile, the operations staff was sifting into the joint planning mill
its plans for post-HUSKY operations. The dilemma confronting the Army
planners in reconciling long-term strategic aims with short-term
capabilities and opportunities in the war against Germany came to the
fore. On 3 May General Hull, Acting Assistant Chief of Staff, OPD,
acquainted General Marshall with the fact that alternative proposals he
had just submitted to the joint planners on post-HUSKY operations
represented a difference of views within his staff. His planners,
desirous as they were of a major operation across the Channel, were in
favor of a plan calling for limited post-HUSKY operations in the
Mediterranean. He himself did not agree. His preference was for the
alternative-no further advance in the Mediterranean after HUSKY and a
concentration of forces in the United Kingdom for a cross-Channel
operation in 1944.53
Out of the joint staff planning mill in early May came a series of
specific proposals and suggested courses of action for the joint Chiefs
to follow. Working hurriedly and under great pressure to reconcile
conflicting views among U.S. military planners, the newly created JWPC
developed outline plans, studies, and recommendations that, upon
approval at higher inter-service levels, were merged into a pattern of
strategic objectives acceptable to the JCS for the conduct of the war
in 1943-44
54 In May the JCS approved, for submission to the President, a
proposed line of action to be followed by the United States at the
coming conference.
The Joint Chiefs emphasized the importance of considering strategic
concepts beyond 1943. The U.S. representatives must emphasize the close
relationship between the war in Europe and that against Japan. For the
United States, a progressively intensified air effort in preparation for
the cross-Channel operation, followed by the cross-Channel operation
itself in 1944, should constitute the basic strategy against Germany,
and its fulfillment must not be delayed or jeopardized by other
operations. But the JCS recognized, as had the various Army and joint
planning committees, that there were certain merits in operations in the
western Mediterranean immediately after HUSKY-to maintain the momentum
of HUSKY, utilize resources in
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the area, furnish support to the USSR, and threaten southern France and
Italy. U.S. representatives must be prepared to discuss western
Mediterranean operations as an "alternative or compromise," provided
any such operation involved a reduction rather than an increase of
Allied strength committed to the area, supported the Combined Bomber
Offensive, and did not interfere with the cross-Channel operation. U.S.
representatives were to emphasize that such operations were acceptable
primarily as emergency undertakings in support of the USSR. Tentatively,
the occupation of Sardinia was regarded as more acceptable than other
Mediterranean possibilities. Sardinia would draw less from resources
needed for concentration in the United Kingdom. The United States must
not become involved in operations east of Sicily, except possibly for
special air operations. Eastern Mediterranean operations would absorb
resources needed for the cross-Channel attack and for operations against
Japan; would lead to difficult problems of logistics in an area lacking
suitable routes to the decisive theater of war; would arouse Soviet
suspicions as to the future of the Dardanelles; and would be difficult
to maintain in popular acceptance in the United States, particularly in
view of the continuing threat in the Pacific. If the British insisted
on ground operations east of Sicily, they would have to proceed alone.
In the event the British insisted on Mediterranean commitments that in
American opinion would jeopardize the early defeat of Germany and the
ultimate defeat of Japan, the U.S. representatives were to inform the
British that the United States might be compelled to
revise its basic strategy and extend its operations and commitments in
the Pacific. The JCS expected the British to deprecate the importance
of the effort against Japan and the necessity for supporting China.
Specifically, in the war against Japan, the JCS approved ANAKIM. If the
British refused to support ANAKIM, or ANAKIM otherwise proved
impracticable and no satisfactory alternative could be agreed upon,
then the United States must expand and intensify its operations in the
Pacific in order to offset Japanese gains resulting from failure to
support China adequately.55
Also on 8 May the JCS, who had had preliminary discussions with the
President and Harry Hopkins at the White House just a few days before,
held their final meeting with the President in preparation for the
conference. Admiral Leahy has since recorded that at that meeting:
It was determined that the principal objective of the American
Government would be to pin down the British to a cross-Channel invasion
of Europe at the earliest practicable date and to make full
preparations for such an operation by the spring of 1944.
Less decisive and far-reaching appeared the agreement on operations in
the China-Burma-India theater:
I recommended to the President that he grant Chiang Kai-shek's request
to use all available air transport in the next three months to send
aviation material from India to China, but I had no support from the
other Chiefs of Staff. The decision for the moment was to try to send
essential
[124]
equipment to both the air and ground forces
56
The President decided to unite with his staff in seeking British support
for an early cross-Channel operation. This was one of the most
far-reaching decisions of the war. His motives for taking the step at
this time are still difficult to determine. The unusual bareness of the
record, added to the usual "fog of war," in this case descending over
the action of a complex, flexible personality, whose motivation is
difficult even at best to assay with any certainty, shrouds the
decision in mystery.57 Was it the fact that the President's military
staff was showing a disposition to accept a continued, if limited,
advance in the Mediterranean region in which he had always shown an
interest secondary only to that of the Prime Minister? And was he
thereby given a welcome pawn with which to trade in order to bring the
British to terms? Was it that he was awakened by his staff to the danger
of continuing a war of attrition and peripheral action-a long, drawn-out
conflict or stalemate that might in the process endanger plans and
dreams, already forming in his mind, for a brave new world after the
war? Was he impressed by arguments on the necessity for long-term versus
short-term planning in the conduct of the war? Did the exponents of
airpower turn the tide? Had he become strongly impressed with the need
of getting on with the war against Japan? Or was it, as is quite
likely, a combination of all these factors, whose end product in
strategic terms-a cross-Channel "power-drive"-fitted his unconditional
surrender formula announced at Casablanca?
Certainly with the impetus the President had given the unconditional
surrender concept, and with the encouragement he had given his staff
to work along the lines of the cross-Channel attack, he had already
indicated that he would be behind it. The time for the decision was the
question on which he had hitherto disagreed with his staff. In 1942 he
had hazarded the opinion that it might not even be necessary to beat
Japan. By the spring of 1943 the Allies had, in the American view,
poured about as much as they could into the Mediterranean without
getting into trouble. It was no longer a question of waiting for the
development of U.S. power; that power was available. The problem was what to do
with it. In short, the arguments had practically all been advanced
before, but the circumstances, it may be conjectured, now seemed
appropriate for the President to accept the arguments and to crystallize
the world-wide effort in these terms.
Whatever the effective pressures upon the President and whatever his
motive, the U.S. delegates entered the conference united on
cross-Channel operations. A year of deviations and diversions had passed
since the President's military advisers had first set out with his
blessings to win British support for the plan for an early major attack
against northwest Europe (the so-called Marshall Memorandum of April
1942). At last the President and his staff were firmly united in trying
to pin the British down to such a decision and plan.
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Endnotes
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