COSSAC. Stephen C. Kepher
was no disagreement about BOLERO. From the British perspective, having a buildup of American forces in Great Britain would be beneficial in any conceivable set of circumstances, either offensively or defensively.
SLEDGEHAMMER was rejected by the British in relatively short order. The Americans would have been able to provide and support perhaps two and a half divisions and some air assets. The rest of this sacrificial force would be British and Canadian, and they had by this time little interest in intentional operations of this type. Indeed, SLEDGEHAMMER resembled many proposed cross-Channel operations that suffered from the same flaws, most notably Operation IMPERATOR.
In response to a paper submitted by the British Joint Planning Staff in March 1942 that pointed out that the Russian situation was critical and a major diversion in the West might be required, the British COS proposed IMPERATOR as a response to an anticipated Russian cri de coeur. They suggested sending a reinforced infantry division across the Channel as a raid-in-force, to stay for about a week, hoping to draw German air force units into battle under favorable conditions.
This prompted a scathing reply from Churchill:
1….Certainly it would not help Russia if we launched such an enterprise, no doubt with world publicity, and came out a few days later with heavy losses. We should have thrown away valuable lives and material, and made ourselves and our capacity for making war ridiculous throughout the world. The Russians would not be grateful for this worsening of the general position. The French patriots who would rise to our aid and their families would be subjected to pitiless Hun revenge…. It would be cited as another example of sentimental politics dominating the calm determination and common sense of professional advisors.
2. In order to achieve this result, we have to do the two most difficult operations of war—first landing from the sea on a small front against a highly prepared enemy, and second, evacuating by sea two or three days later the residue of the force landed.
… When our remnants returned to Britain a la Dunkirk, [the result] would be that everyone, friend and foe, would dilate on the difficulties of landing on a hostile shore. A whole set of inhibitions would grow up on our side prejudicial to effective action in 1943.
I would ask the Chiefs of Staff to consider the following two principles:
(a) No substantial landing in France unless we are going to stay, and
(b) No substantial landing in France unless the Germans are demoralized by another failure against Russia.8
SLEDGEHAMMER, while championed by the Americans who wanted to go on the offensive in Europe in 1942, was never realistic in terms of tactics, troops, supplies, or shipping. It did, however, constitute a beginning of sorts that had some practical effects. Vital logistic preparations, needed before any such undertaking could be attempted, were begun. “The first of these was to reactivate some of the south and southeasterly commercial ports [the Falmouth, Plymouth, Southampton group, and some of the London docks].”9 These facilities had been closed as part of British anti-invasion preparations in 1940. There was also planning, particularly the start of logistic planning regarding the troops that were expected to arrive.
ROUNDUP had a longer life but ultimately suffered the same fate, albeit for different reasons. When General Marshall presented the three concepts to the British COS, there was agreement in principle that planning should go ahead for a major cross-Channel operation in 1943 as well as the short-lived possible emergency operation in 1942. Agreements in principle do not, as a rule, include specific, detailed plans for their execution, and so it was in this case.
As plans began to be made, and without any agreed-on offensive operation planned against Germany for 1942 that involved U.S. troops, a series of debates began in Washington and London. The Russians needed support. The Western Allies were anxious to demonstrate that support. FDR was anxious, for domestic political reasons, to have the United States take the offensive against Germany in 1942. Britain needed to secure the Mediterranean, while gaining the whole of North Africa was part of Britain’s plan from the beginning. The U.S. Army needed to have Europe be an active theater of operations to counter the U.S. Navy’s demands for resources in the Pacific, especially after the victory at Midway.
This and more led to a decision by FDR and Churchill in July 1942, against the strong advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and counter to an earlier agreement between the CCS, to launch Operation TORCH, the invasion of Morocco and Algeria, in November of 1942. Churchill proclaimed that the operation would be cheap, that it was the “true second front of 1942 … the safest and most fruitful stroke that can be delivered this autumn.”10 A consequence of the decision, known at the time but not accepted by all participants, was that troops and material needed for a cross-Channel attack would now not be available before the spring of 1944. As U.S. chief of naval operations Adm. Ernest King and Marshall wrote into the Combined Chiefs of Staff document, “Options in 1942–43” dated 24 July 1942, “A commitment to this operation [TORCH] renders ROUND-UP in all probability impractical of successful execution in 1943.”11 Eisenhower held a briefing for Churchill in September of 1942. There Churchill “and certain of his close personal advisors” became “acutely conscious of the inescapable costs of TORCH.”12
Eisenhower wrote to Marshall after the meeting:
The arguments and considerations that you advanced time and again between last January and July 24th apparently made little impression upon the Former Naval Person at the time, since he expresses himself now as very much astonished to find out that TORCH practically eliminates any opportunity for a 1943 ROUNDUP.13
The planning for ROUNDUP to take place in 1943 became an academic exercise, and the code name with variations (ROUNDHAMMER, Super ROUNDUP) became a generic title for plans relating to crossing the Channel at some point. There was, of course, no agreed-upon plan for a cross-Channel assault, and the British particularly continued to hope that such an invasion would prove unnecessary or would occur only when Germany had been fatally weakened by air bombardment and defeats on the Russian Front. In part this was because the forces available in Great Britain were, in 1942, neither fully equipped nor particularly well trained.
In June 1942 now Major General Eisenhower was sent to London by Marshall to evaluate and report on the Special Observers Group, whose work was of some concern now that BOLERO had been approved and needed to be implemented. He returned with serious concerns about the leadership there and declared, “It is necessary to get a punch behind the job or we’ll never be ready by spring [1943] to attack [that is, launch a cross-Channel invasion].”14
While there was not going to be a 1943 cross-Channel assault, Marshall took Eisenhower’s advice to heart and sent him back to London to take command of the newly created European Theater of Operations, U.S. Army. By late July, with TORCH now the operation that was to be executed, the question of who was to command was raised. On the advice of Admiral King, newly promoted Lieutenant General Eisenhower was ironically designated the commander, and yet another new command was formed, Allied Force Headquarters, housed at Norfolk House, on St. James’s Square, just off Pall Mall, in the center of London.
TORCH’s shambolic but successful landings on 8 November 1942, fortunately opposed by Vichy French and not veteran Germans, got the United States into the war against Germany and allowed for the next meeting on the strategic direction of the war, code-named SYMBOL, to be held at Casablanca, in what was then French Morocco from 14 to 24 January 1943.
Much has been written about the strategic debates at Casablanca and the commitments reached to continue operations in the Mediterranean for 1943, setting aside potential opportunities in Northwest Europe.15 The disagreements reflected those deeply held beliefs that showed themselves early in the coalition and were never fully resolved until the middle of 1944. The essential basis for the serious disagreements that continued to exist between allies stemmed from different approaches to the issues at hand.
Churchill, as demonstrated at a meeting at Chequers, the prime minister’s country house, prior to the Casablanca conference, deliberately disdained all attempts to establish any overall strategic concept. He wrote, “In settling what to do in a vast war situation like this,