STRATEGIC PLANNING FOR
COALITION WARFARE 1943-1944
by Maurice Matloff
CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY
UNITED STATES ARMY
WASHINGTON, D. C., 1990
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 53-61477
First Printed 1959-CMH Pub 1-4
For Sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents, Mail Stop: SSOP, Washington D. C. 20402-9328
Foreword
Within a generation the attitude and policy of the United States toward alliances have undergone a revolutionary reversal. The nation has passed from its traditional suspicion and fear of "entangling alliances" to a policy that heavily stakes its security and interests on the co-operation of other powers. In World War I the U.S. Government cautiously defined its relationship with the powers allied against Germany as that of an Associated Power. In World War II, though last to join the Grand Alliance, it virtually integrated its resources with those of the British Commonwealth and coordinated its strategy and war aims with the British and the USSR in the most powerful wartime partnership ever forged. Since 1945 it has emerged as the leader in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and has diligently sought allies and built up alliances all over the troubled world. The climax of its most intensive experience with coalition strategy came in the phase of World War II described in this volume, which should therefore have a special interest for all who are concerned with the implications of the revolution in U.S. foreign policy that has taken place in the twentieth century.
|
30 April 1958
Washington, D. C. |
R. W. STEPHENS
Maj. Gen., U. S. A.
Chief of Military History
|
vii
The Author
Dr. Maurice Matloff, graduate of Columbia College, holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in History from Harvard University. A member of Phi Beta Kappa and the American Historical Association's Committee on the Historian and the Federal Government, he has taught History at Brooklyn College and the University of Maryland and has presented papers and lectured on military strategy and international affairs before the Army War College, the Navy War College, and the American Historical Association. While in the Army during World War II, he studied the Russian area and language at Yale and served as an instructor in intelligence and as a historian in the AAF. In 1946 he joined the Operations Division historical project in the War Department General Staff as a civilian member, becoming in 1949 the Chief of the Strategic Plans Section, Office of the Chief of Military History. Dr. Matloff is coauthor of Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare: 1941-1942, and his articles and reviews on modern strategy and statecraft have frequently appeared in various service and professional journals.
viii
Preface
This volume, like its predecessor, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1941-1942, is a contribution to the study of wartime national planning and military strategy. The 1941-42 volume, of which the present author was coauthor, told the story of plans and decisions as they affected the missions and dispositions of the U.S. Army in the defensive phase of coalition warfare, when the Grand Alliance was still in its formative stage.
The present volume deals with strategic planning in the midwar era from January 1943 through the summer of 1944. This is the story of the hopes, fears, struggles, frustrations, and triumphs of the Army strategic planners coming to grips with the problems of the offensive phase of coalition warfare. Basic to this story is the account of planning by General George C. Marshall and his advisers in the great debate on European strategy which followed the Allied landings in North Africa and continued to the penetration of the German frontier in September 1944. During this period the great international conferences from Casablanca in January 1943 to the second Quebec in September 1944 were held and the Allies formulated the grand strategy of military victory. The volume follows the plans, issues, and decisions to the end of the summer of 1944, when the problems of winning the war began to come up against the challenges of victory and peace, and a new era was beginning for the Army Chief of Staff and his advisers.
The presentation utilizes both the narrative and the analytical approach. It sets forth the principal steps in the development of the American strategic case, and seeks the raison d'être behind that case. It attempts to view, through the eyes of the Washington high command, the war as a whole and in its main component parts. The method is to trace the plans, concepts, and ideas of the planners up through the different levels-Army, .joint staff (Army and Navy), Joint Chiefs of Staff, the meetings of the American staff with the President, and of the Combined Chiefs of Staff at the plenary sessions with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill. The chronological and structural framework for the study is provided by the big conferences, Casablanca (January 1943), TRIDENT (Washington, May 1943), Quebec (August 1943), Cairo-Tehran (November-December 1943), and the second Quebec (September 1944). The periods between the conferences are generally divided into chapters treating the planning for the war against Germany and that against Japan separately and topically. At the conferences themselves, where the Allied
ix
planning threads converge and new syntheses emerge from the debates, compromises, decisions, and revisions, the focus is placed on the advocates of the American military case-especially on General Marshall.
The purpose of this volume is to add to the literature available for the study of U.S. strategic planning. Related objects are to shed light on the American contributions to and experience in a great wartime coalition and on the art of strategy, the art of the calculated risk, as it developed in World War II. No attempt has been made to cover in full the position of other partners in the Grand Alliance. That of the British and other English-speaking allies is being disclosed in accounts that they are publishing. Whether the Russians and Chinese will ever publish full, definitive accounts of their strategy is problematical. Considerable information about American strategy is contained in books that have been written about the United States in World War II, but much of it lies scattered in accounts of important decisions, theaters, and campaigns. And unfortunately, despite a flood of personal recollections of World War II, of the two principal actors on the American side, President Roosevelt did not leave any memoirs and General Marshall has yet to write his. It is hoped that this account, in filling some of the gaps in the available literature, will help those readers especially in need of organized information in this field-staff officers, civil officers, diplomatic historians, and political scientists.
In writing this volume the author acknowledges most gratefully assistance from many of the persons mentioned in the Preface to the preceding volume, notably his former colleagues, Dr. Ray S. Cline, author of Washington Command Post: The Operations Division, who introduced him to this field, and, along with Lt. Col. Darrie H. Richards, bequeathed a legacy of ideas and information; Mr. Edwin M. Snell, his collaborator on the i g4 i-42 volume, who provided stimulating discussions during the processes of planning and composition and offered valuable suggestions upon reading the text in manuscript; and Miss Alice M. Miller and Mrs. Helen McShane Bailey who gave unstinted help with wartime planning documents.
The author owes a great debt to Mr. Walter G. Hermes, whose assistance has been invaluable. Mr. Hermes investigated many topics essential to the completion of the volume, particularly in the field of strategy and planning in the conflict with Japan. He assembled and analyzed much statistical information, reviewed for the author countless passages and references, and his broad knowledge and precise understanding of the records kept by the Army are reflected throughout the volume.
A great measure of thanks is due to Dr. Kent Roberts Greenfield, who gave unstintingly of his time, counsel, and scholarly craftsmanship. Others in the Office of the Chief of Military History who were especially helpful were Drs. Stetson Conn and Louis Morton, Colonels George G. O'Connor and Ridgway P. Smith, Jr., Drs. Richard M. Leighton and Robert W. Coakley, and Charles F. Romanus and Riley Sunderland. He is especially indebted to Miss Mary Ann Bacon, who gave the volume a sympathetic, perceptive, and watchful editing throughout and shepherded it skillfully
x
through the various stages to publication. For their generous help he wishes to thank the many records experts who aided him-notably Miss Wava Phillips, Mrs. Hazel Ward, Mr. Israel Wice and his assistants, and Mr. Herman Kahn and his staff at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. Copy editing was done by Mrs. Marion P. Grimes, selection of pictures by Miss Margaret E. Tackley, and indexing by Virginia C. Leighton. Credit for maintaining a correct text of the manuscript through repeated revisions is due particularly to two highly capable secretaries-Mrs. Ella May Ablahat and Mrs. Edna W. Salsbury.
The author is also obliged to those others who read all or parts of the text in manuscript-to Professors William L. Langer and Charles H. Taylor of Harvard University; to Professor Samuel F. Bemis of. Yale University; to Professor Wesley F. Craven of Princeton University, coeditor of the series, The Army Air Forces in World War II; to Dr. Harvey A. De Weerd of the Rand Corporation; to Maj. Gen. Frank N. Roberts, who encouraged the author in this undertaking from the beginning; to General Albert C. Wedemeyer, USA (Ret.); to Maj. Gen. Richard C. Lindsay, USAF; to Cols. William W. Bessell, Jr., George A. Lincoln, Edward M. Harris, William H. Baumer; and to other officers that figured, some of them prominently, in the events set forth.
A special category of thanks is reserved to my wife, Gertrude Glickler Matloff, for her constant encouragement and understanding.
In no way does the recognition of individuals for the assistance they have so generously given imply that they have endorsed or approved the interpretations presented herein. For these, as well as the rest of the book, I must bear the responsibility.
|
30 April 1958
Washington, D. C.
|
MAURICE MATLOFF
|
xi
Contents
Tables
Illustrations
| The Anfa Hotel on the Outskirts of Casablanca |
19 |
| British and American Leaders at Casablanca |
22 |
| Generals Henri Giraud and Charles de Gaulle |
38 |
| High-Ranking Trio in New Delhi |
80 |
| The Federal Reserve Building, Washington, DC |
127 |
| General Dwight D Eisenhower and General Marshall |
154 |
| Lt Gen John E Hull |
165 |
| Chateau Frontenac, Overlooking the St Lawrence River |
218 |
| Top Military Planners at Quebec |
219 |
| Members of US and British Staffs, Quebec, 23 August 1943 |
222 |
| Secretary of War Henry L Stimson and General Marshall |
231 |
| General Arnold With Lord Louis Mountbatten |
237 |
| Roosevelt's Concept of Postwar Occupation Zones for Germany |
341 |
| Aboard the President's Plane |
345 |
| Mena House, Cairo |
348 |
| The Pyramids |
349 |
| Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang |
351 |
| The Big Three in Portico of the Soviet Legation, Tehran |
358 |
| The Combined Staffs Meeting in Mena House, 4 December 1943 |
368 |
| Ismet Inonu, the President of Turkey |
379 |
| Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force |
405 |
| General Marshall With General Douglas MacArthur |
454 |
| Visitors at Normandy Beachhead, 12 June 1944 |
468 |
| President Roosevelt During Pearl Harbor Conference |
483 |
| Guard of Honor on Review at The Citadel |
509 |
| Members of Joint Planning Staff at OCTAGON |
517 |
All pictures in this volume are from Department of Defense files
