- Chapter XIV:
-
- COUNTING THE COST OF TORCH
- August-November 1942
-
- The plan for Operation TORCH, as it finally took shape after the
compromise of early September 1942, left London some room to hope for a
quick victory in North Africa, while providing Washington with some
assurance against the fear of a demoralizing defeat.1
The most likely
result of the compromise was a long, expensive operation. The plan
adopted was unfavorable to the prospect not only of a short, cheap
campaign in North Africa but also of a campaign of any kind in Europe in
1943. A long campaign in North Africa would use the men and munitions,
the ships and naval escort, needed for a great sustained operation of
the kind the War Department has proposed to launch in Europe in 1943.
And the steadfast unwillingness in Washington to risk everything on
speed and surprise in North Africa did not favor the Prime Minister's
hope of carrying out bold attacks by small mobile forces against other
positions on the periphery of German-controlled territory.
-
- The effect of TORCH on British and American strategy gradually
became apparent in the late summer and the fall of 1942. First, the
military staffs had to recalculate the initial requirements-in
particular naval escort and air support-for the three simultaneous landings. These increases did not, of course,
measure the increase in the total cost of the operation, which the
staffs could not even estimate until after the landings, when they could
at last decide what to expect, for the purposes of planning, from
French authorities in North Africa, the German High Command, and the
Spanish Government. If there should be serious initial opposition on the
part of the French forces in North Africa, if there should be a strong
German reaction in Tunisia followed by the movement of large
reinforcements to the front, or if the Spanish Government should allow
the movement of German forces into Spain and Spanish Morocco, the entire
operation might be endangered and would certainly be prolonged.2
But even
while so much remained uncertain, the two governments
- [307]
- and their military staffs had to begin reckoning the costs. If these
were higher than the British staff had estimated as necessary to obtain
the objective and higher than the American staff had believed the
objective to be worth, it was also true that the costs could in part be
charged off to the delays and compromise accepted for the sake of
reaching agreement. If the two governments set a high value on
agreement, they had to stand ready to pay the price for it.
-
- The actual and prospective costs of TORCH, as they were calculated and
recalculated from August through November 1942, had effects not only
on planning for later British and American operations in Europe but also
on making and fulfilling commitments to Allied forces in the other
theaters of war. In the Middle East the threat of a renewed attack by
the Afrika Korps, though eased by the arrival of British and
American reinforcements in the late summer and early fall, remained real
and immediate until the great British victory at EL Alamein, just
preceding the TORCH landings. elsewhere the Allied situation remained
precarious throughout the period.
-
- On the Russian front German forces had overrun the Don and were
penetrating the valley between the Don and the Volga. The Battle of
Stalingrad, begun in August, lasted throughout the period. The Battle of
the Atlantic was still going badly. The Chinese war effort was almost
completely demoralized, and the prospect of a counteroffensive in
Burma, based on India, was still very uncertain. in the Pacific the
battle for, control of the Solomon Islands had become a desperate test
of the troops engaged and of the intentions of the Japanese and
American high commands. The initial and subsequent requirements of TORCH
limited and unsettled American plans for helping all Allied Powers and
conducting all American operations and thus gradually blurred the
outlines of American strategic planning.
-
-
- The principal projects for shipping American troops and materiel
abroad that were bound to be affected by TORCH were five: (1) all
BOLERO movements of ground and air force units to the United Kingdom;
(2 ) the movement of U . S. Army Air Forces units and missions personnel
to the :Middle East and India; (3) the convoys to the USSR; (4) the
relief of British troops in Iceland by part of a U. S. division; and (5)
the movement (under CCS 94) of a U. S. division and fifteen air groups
(to be diverted from BOLERO) to the South Pacific. On 4 August the
British Chiefs of Staff recommended a revised order of priority for
shipments, as follows: (1) TORCH, (2) convoys to the Middle East, (3)
movement of U. S. Army Air Forces units to the United Kingdom, (4) the
relief of Iceland, and (5 ) BOLERO.3
This proposal, which seemed to the
U. S. Army planners reasonable, was brought before a meeting of the CCS
two days later by Sir John Dill.4
The combined planners recommended that
a high priority also be assigned to the Pacific theater.5
As
- [308]
- amended and approved by the CCS on 13 August, the new order of
priority read:
- 1. TORCH-(To take precedence over other shipping in the Atlantic while
being mounted).
- Middle East
- Pacific Ocean
- Russian supplies shipped by way of the southern route.
- 2. U. S. Army Air Forces to the U. K. and to China.
- 3. Relief of Iceland.
- 4. BOLERO
- 5. India and China
- NOTE.-If supplies are to be sent to Russia via the northern route,
priority 6 is recommended.6
-
- The fulfillment of the requirements of TORCH had a direct bearing on
the execution of the rest of the program of shipping U. S. Air Forces
units and missions personnel to the Middle East and India. Taking into
account the primary needs of TORCH, the CCS on 13 August approved the
recommendation of a committee of British-American transportation
experts that the rest of the shipments scheduled for the Middle East and
India be carried out, but that they should not be accelerated even
though they had fallen behind schedule. These shipments could be
accelerated only by using the Queen Mary and the Queen
Elizabeth, which were the only ships left that were fast enough to
make the North Atlantic run for BOLERO service unescorted. Since TORCH
would for some time take up all available escort, the two Queens were
the only troop-carrying ships that could be used on the run during the
North African operation. Further interference with that run the CCS
were not then prepared to accept.7
As it later turned out, the schedule as then approved for Middle East
shipments left too little leeway for TORCH requirements.8
However, as
King pointed out at the time of the decision, the CCS must then reserve
ships for sending units to the Middle East in order to retain the option
of sending them.9
-
- The withdrawal of shipping and naval escort from the sea lanes in time
to mount TORCH was certain to call into question other important
commitments of the United States and United Kingdom. A striking example
was the interruption of the convoys that went by the northern route to
the Soviet Union. How long to continue sending these convoys depended on
what date would be set for TORCH. On 12 September, when the
mid-September convoy had sailed and the next was half loaded, the
question as formulated in London was how likely it was that TORCH might
be postponed beyond 8 November 1942. If that were likely, it might be
desirable to run at least one convoy, accepting the postponement of
TORCH until 15-19 November or perhaps later, if losses during the voyage
were unusually great.10
While the mid-September convoy was still in
dangerous waters, reports came in that
- [309]
- twelve ships had been lost.11
When the mid-September convoy was
run, thirteen out of forty ships had been sunk, even though there had
been an escorting group of seventy-seven ships of various types
protecting the convoy. The Prime Minister attached so much
importance to the continuation of the northern route convoys that even
then he considered proposing that TORCH be put off long enough to allow
for one more convoy.12
The Prime Minister ended by proposing
instead to inform Stalin that, though large-scale convoys like that of
mid September would be impossible for the rest of the year, he and the
President were looking for some way to keep on sending supplies by
the northern route on a smaller scale. -At the same time he brought up
again the possibility of operations in northern Norway. The chief
strategic purpose would be to secure the northern route to Archangel and
Murmansk. And to open staff conversations with the Soviet military
staff on those operations, he believed, might in the meantime help
offset the effect on the Soviet Government of interrupting the
convoys.13
-
- Both proposals received a cool reception in Washington.14
Nothing
more was said, for the time being, about operations in northern Norway. Shipments
were reduced to the movement of unescorted merchantmen, one at a time.
from Reykjavik, to the Russian White Sea ports. In mid-December,
convoying began again on a smaller scale.15
-
- Pacific requirements were not so readily reduced. To the
continued heavy demands of the Pacific bases were added, during the
'PORCH period, the requirements for sustaining the Solomons operation in
the South Pacific.16
The. Solomons operation was in direct
competition with TORCH for- combat loaders.17
Arid the needs for naval
support of TORCH, as finally planned, were so great that it was out of
the question to transfer from the Atlantic to the Pacific: any C. S.
Navy units to help meet the critical situation in the Solomons. The
situation was so tight that it was not until early September, when the
President and
- [310]
- the Prime Minister were about to agree on a compromise version of
TORCH, that the Navy finally furnished a definite list of U. S. naval'
vessels available for TORCH.18
-according to that list, the most
that the -Navy could spare for the North African venture was one modern
battleship, two old battleships, one aircraft carrier, two converted
aircraft carriers, two 8-inch cruisers, three large 6-inch cruisers,
forty destroyers, and six fast minesweepers.
-
- The most dangerous weakness in both oceans, as Admiral Turner had
feared, was the want of aircraft carriers. By October 1942 four of the
seven carriers with which the United States had entered the war had been
Sunk in the Pacific-- the Lexington, the Yorktown, the Wasp,
and the Hornet.19
The latter two carriers were lost
during the contest for Guadalcanal.20
In addition, the Saratoga and
Enterprise had been damaged by the Japanese during the naval
battles for Guadalcanal. In November the Pacific Fleet was down to its
last active aircraft carrier, the Enterprise, and even that
survivor was damaged and out of action for most of the month. The only
large aircraft carrier remaining was the USS Ranger of the
Atlantic Fleet, and since the Ranger was the only carrier at all
likely to be available to protect General Patton's forces during the
landings on the Atlantic coast of French Morocco, it could not be
withdrawn from the Atlantic to reinforce the U. S. Pacific Fleet.
-
- The new urgent demands for shipping and escort affected other claims
on shipping and escort, lower on the list of strategic priorities, until
the success of operations in -North Africa and the Solomons was assured.
It was necessary once more to put off the long-planned relief of the
British troops that remained in Iceland.21
The movement of service
troops to Iran had also to wait on developments in North Africa, in
spite of the desire of the President and the Prime Minister to
accelerate the movement of Soviet lend-lease traffic through the congested
Persian Gulf ports to northern Iran.22
-
- The want of ships and naval escort furnished the War Department
strong grounds for pleading once again that the United States could not
give substantial military Support to China, much less satisfy Chiang
Kai-shek's "three demands" of 28 June 1942. These three
demands represented Chiang's summary of requirements in terms of ground
and air forces, and lend-lease tonnage for the maintenance of the China
theater- three American divisions, 500 planes, and 5,000 tons monthly
airlift into China.23
The War Department recommended to the President
on 9 October 1942 that
-
- . . . the extremely serious shortage of ocean shipping for troop
transport, including Naval escorts for such convoys through dangerous
waters, not to mention the long turn around to India. snake it utterly
impracticable this fall to send and maintain United States Divisions
in the China India theater . . . . .Be United States is waging this war
on far flung
- [311]
- fronts and demands for men and particularly materials and ship tonnage
are now beyond our present capacity.24
-
- Similar restrictions also had a direct bearing on postponing
operations for ejecting the Japanese from the Aleutians. At a time when
all available means were being used either to mount TORCH or to bolster
the precarious position in the southwestern Pacific, the United States
could not afford to begin operations in what was, by common consent,
an indecisive theater. During October and November 1942, General
Marshall repeatedly refused General DeWitt permission to assemble
forces for an operation in the Aleutians. The Army and Navy agreed that
neither the shipping nor the troops could be made available.25
-
- The search for escorts for TORCH focused the attention of U. S. Army
planners and the military chiefs on Allied programs of shipbuilding and
ship allocation, which needed to be reviewed in the light of the new
plans and the heavy toll of Allied shipping still being taken by
German submarines in the Atlantic.26
The program for producing landing craft under the BOLERO plan had delayed the
completion of aircraft carriers and superseded the construction of
escort vessels. It seemed clear that U. S. naval construction should be
shifted back from landing craft to escort vessels.27
In early
October the CCS approved allocations of American production of landing
craft to cover the revised operational needs for the rest of 1942.28
Before the close of 1942 the JCS took measures to secure a review of the
whole Allied shipbuilding program, and an increase in the production
of escort vessels and merchant shipping.29
-
- These actions at the end of 1942 constituted an acknowledgment that
the effects of TORCH on the Allied shipping situation would be prolonged
far into 1943. Allied operations in North Africa, at first severely
limited by existing port and overland transport capacity, and still
limited by the size and frequency of the convoys that the British and
American naval commands would run with the available escorts, could not
- [312]
- as yet be sustained on a big enough scale to overcome the large forces
the Germans were moving into Tunisia. In North Africa, as in the
Solomons, the issue became a test of the willingness and ability of both
sides to meet the demands of air operations for which neither side was
well prepared-to maintain the flow of their own supplies and
reinforcements and to interdict the flow of enemy supplies and
reinforcements to the front. The effects of haste and waste, the rate of
attrition, and the scale and duration of the effort in North Africa
depended largely on the willingness of the German High Command to
invest in the continued defense of a position that must sooner or later
be abandoned. It was, therefore, impossible to calculate with any
certainty just how serious the limiting effect of TORCH on Allied
shipping schedules might be. But it was evident that the demands of
TORCH and the losses incurred would bear heavily on Allied shipping
schedules. The War Department planners concluded that in any event,
unless current commitments were altered or canceled, no new operations
could be launched by the United States for several months to come.30
-
-
- The problem of making ground strength available for TORCH was
complicated for planners on both sides of the Atlantic by their
uncertainty how many divisions would be used in the operation, and what
would be the precise composition of assault and follow-up forces. The
original decision that only American troops should be used in the
assaults soon had to be changed. Only ten regimental combat teams, two
armored combat commands, and a Ranger battalion were available.31
Few of these troops, moreover, had received the necessary amphibious
training. In setting aside ground forces in the United States for TORCH
and in allocating the necessary priorities, Army planners in the United
States calculated in the summer of 1942 on a basis of seven divisions
from the United States.32
In one combination or another, these
almost always included the 3d, 9th, 36th, and 45th Infantry Divisions,
2d and 3d Armored Divisions, and the 4th Motorized Division, in
addition to the 1st and 34th Infantry and 1st U. S. Armored Divisions in
the United Kingdom. Accepted political strategy and logistical
considerations required that the United States furnish as large a part
as possible of the total expeditionary force. A more definitive
determination of the total number of troops to be employed-both British
and American-was introduced with the promulgation of the 20 September
outline plan. According to that plan the United States was ultimately
to furnish about seven divisions and two regimental combat teams; the
British would furnish four to six divisions.33
-
- The problems of furnishing fully trained and equipped troops for the
assault forces
- [313]
- from the United States and United Kingdom continued to plague the
planners almost to the eve of the actual launching of the operation.
Combat-loading troop transports were to be available in time for the
operation-at the immediate expense of troop shipments to the United
Kingdom-but there was all too little time to train and rehearse crews
to handle the debarkation of men and equipment and the assault troops
themselves.34
The need for such training affected not only the date of
launching the operation but also the choice of troops, for it required
the use in TORCH of all available Army troops that had had any training
in landing operations.35
-
- Informal agreement had been reached on 18 July between War and Navy
Department representatives on "amphibious" training and
organization.36
This arrangement provided for training three Army
engineer amphibian brigades and an amphibious corps of two or more
Army divisions.37
The original reason for the Army's undertaking
to train amphibian brigades was the anticipated need for the projected cross Channel
operations (SLEDGEHAMMER ROUNDUP) and the inability of
the Navy to provide sufficient boat crews within the prospective time available.38
After the shift to TORCH, the need
for training amphibian brigades continued to exist-and with time
pressing more heavily on Army authorities than ever. Though the Army
Navy understanding of 18 July was never formally approved by the JCS, it
continued to serve as if it had been, so far as preparations for TORCH
were concerned.39
-
- Even before the terms of the agreement were presented formally to the
JCS in early August, three amphibian brigades had been activated and
were in training. One of these brigades, with a strength of about 7,000,
was set tip to load, man, and unload assault craft for an entire
division. As a result of the TORCH decision, however, the Army postponed
the organization of two additional brigades that it had scheduled for
activation in August.40
- [314]
- The training of Army divisions for assault landings-which was also
subject to dispute with the Navy-was thrown into even greater confusion
by TORCH, confusion aggravated by the uncertainty that existed during
August over the composition of TORCH forces, and especially over the
composition of the assault forces that were to sail from the United
States. As Handy observed on 7 August, the assault force I from the
United States must consist either of two infantry divisions or of one
infantry division and one armored division.41
These possibilities
affecting the disposition of the 3d and 9th Infantry Divisions raised a
number of corollary questions for the Army planners. If only one of
these divisions were used in the assault landings, which one would be
chosen:' Should the other be used in the follow-tip for TORCH or be
dispatched to meet commitments to the Pacific? 42
Faced with the
necessity of speeding amphibious training for the assault forces for
TORCH, the Army planners in early August disregarded, for the moment
at least, possible far-reaching consequences of setting aside both
divisions for possible use in TORCH landings.43
Making allowance for the
uncertainty of the composition of the assault force from the United
States, military authorities moved quickly to set tip the Atlantic
Amphibious Corps (Maj. Gen. Jonathan NV. Anderson, commanding) with
the 3d and 9th Divisions and the 2d Armored Division.44
-
- There was no unity of command in TORCH until the expedition set sail
from the United States. For training, the Atlantic Amphibious Corps,
designed as part of Patton's task force for TORCH, came under the
general supervision of Admiral Hewitt, Commander Amphibious Force
Atlantic Fleet. Army and Navy authorities tried in the summer of 1942
to straighten out the lines of command for that corps-- -a test case in
joint Army-Navy planning and training.45
The temporary arrangements
adopted for amphibious training and organization in preparation for
TORCH by no means settled, but rather drew attention to, the
jurisdictional problems that would have to be resolved .if training
for assault landings was to keep pace with plans for amphibious warfare
in the Atlantic and the Pacific.
-
- Problems of training, equipping, and utilizing amphibious forces for
the TORCH landings arose also across the Atlantic, in the British Isles.
In the summer of 1942 Eisenhower's headquarters had to decide whether
the 1st Infantry Division, already in England, could be used in the
amphibious assault force sailing from the United
- [315]
- Kingdom. It was better trained than the 34th Division, stationed in
Northern Ireland, and was, therefore, the choice for leading the
assault force. In mid-August, however, a ship carrying nearly all its
medium and about a third of its light artillery, weapons together with
other equipment went aground off Halifax on the voyage from the United
States to the United Kingdom. Eisenhower was at that time planning
on an early or mid-October date for launching TORCH. This mishap
required him to train assault troops from the 34th Division instead of
from the 1st.46
In Washington the Army planners speedily set in motion
War Department machinery to send to the New York Port of Embarkation
weapons to replace those carried in the ship which had run aground.47
Even so, the schedule left so little leeway that Eisenhower was
unwilling to commit himself to using the 1st Division though he ordered
it held ready to be trained in the event the invasion was put off until
November.48
Late in August, when it became clear that the operation
would not be launched until November, plans were made to use the1st
Division along with elements of the 34th Division in the assault force
sailing from the United Kingdom. These plans were confirmed upon the agreement of the President and the Prime Minister on 5
September.49
-
- Equipping and training armored forces introduced further problems of
urgency and difficulty for the Army planners. In, early August planning
for TORCH generally began to assume that the assault force for
Casablanca would probably be one armored division and one infantry
division instead of two infantry divisions, even though this change
would require additional combat loading vessels.50
Besides the probable
use of the armored division for the assault, all plans called for
another armored division from the United States. In order to provide
another trained armored division besides the 2d then receiving
amphibious training, the 3d Armored Division was transferred from
Camp Polk, Louisiana, to the Desert Training Center, California, for
training and maneuvers. On 2 September it was designated for General
Patton's Task Force "A." After completing maneuvers in
mid-October 1942, it was transferred on 24 October to Camp Pickett,
Virginia, for assignment .to the Western Task Force. Shortage of
shipping, however, finally precluded its being used in TORCH.51
-
- The shuttling of the 3d Armored Division back and forth across the
country illustrated the difficulties of planning during the summer and
fall of 1942 as a result of uncertainty over the probable deployment
even of major combat elements. The movement of that division was one of
three large rail
- [316]
- movements to which the Chief of Staff in the fall of 1942 called the
attention of his staff. Though he conceded that sudden demands, state of
training, and deficiencies in equipment had forced such moves in the
past, he believed that there were more of them than necessary.52
The
Army planners explained the shuttling of the 3d Armored Division on the
grounds that no similar unit near the east coast had had desert training.
53
The two other large-scale transcontinental movements noted by the
Chief of Staff were also related by the Army planners to the uncertainty over TORCH. Both the 43d and the 29th Divisions, involved
in these shifts, had been moved to new stations in the uncertain
period before the final determination of requirements for TORCH. The
tentative allocation of seven divisions to TORCH left very few divisions
available in the United States for other uses.54
-
- The build-up for TORCH drew heavily on U. S. ground and supporting
units in the United States and in the United Kingdom. As Marshall
pointed out at the close of October, eight or nine divisions in the
United States had been stripped of so many trained men to fill units for
TORCH that six to eight months would be required to restore them to
their former level of efficiency.55
Efforts to meet Eisenhower's needs for service troops,
he added, had resulted "almost in the emasculation" of
remaining American units.56
The reserves of the Army were drained
for TORCH. To the demands of TORCH on units in the United States were
added the heavy demands on American strength in the British Isles-the
1st and 34th Infantry Divisions, the 1st Armored Division, and the 1st
Ranger Battalion, with supporting troops transferred to North Africa
in the fall of 1942 for service with II Corps.57
-
- Of course, with the heavy demands for troops went correspondingly
heavy demands for equipment. According to the calculations by Army
planners on 2 August, two infantry and two armored divisions in the
United States would be equipped on or about 10 October, and three
additional divisions (one motorized) could be equipped later in the
fall.58
In effect, the only divisions in the United States that
would be fully equipped before the close of 1942 were divisions that had
to be ready for TORCH. The actual demands of TORCH on divisional
equipment. in the summer and fall of 1942 confirmed-in large
measure-these calculations. Divisions in training in the United
- [317]
- States and available for shipment to other theaters were stripped of
equipment.59
The extent of that depletion led Marshall to observe
in the fall of 1942 that in mounting TORCH the War Department had
"scalped" units in the United States for equipment.60
The
demands of TORCH also cut deeply into the American supplies and
equipment that had been accumulated in the British Isles, arid were due
to limit accumulation during the next few months.61
-
-
- It was evident from the beginning that most of the American air units
for operations in North Africa. like most of the ground and service troops, would have to come from resources previously allotted for the
projected major cross-Channel operation. CCS 94 expressly provided
that all American heap N arid medium air units in the United Kingdom
would be available for TORCH. It had soon thereafter been accepted that
TORCH could not be carried out on any other basis.62
The rest of the TORCH air force would come
from the United States, from units scheduled to go to the United Kingdom
arid to the Middle East..
-
- In early August Army planners estimated that withdrawals for TORCH
would leave very little air strength in the United States for other uses
in 1942. 63
Activation of new units in the United States would have
to be deferred to provide replacements for losses in TORCH.64
All
that could be shipped to England during the rest of 1942, over and above
TORCH requirements, would be five bomber groups in September and six
troop carrier groups from August through October. Of the fifteen
groups to be diverted from BOLERO to the Pacific (under CCS 94), the
first would not become available till December.
-
- The TORCH air force, as projected in mid-August, was to consist of
two heavy bomber groups, three medium bomber groups, one light bomber
group, four fighter (two P-38 arid two Spitfire) groups, and one troop
carrier group.65
The Eighth Air Force, that in the early stages of
testing the American doctrine of high altitude daylight
- [318]
- bombing, held the main A AF' resources as Well as the most highly trained men available for service in
Africa.66
The Eighth -Air
force was charged with the organization, planning, and training of the
new air force for North Africa. The Eighth was also to contribute, its
heavy bombers, and on an order from Eisenhower on 8 September it had to
discontinue operations from the British isles, notwithstanding the
protests of the Army Air Forces.67
Except for heavy bomber units, most
of the commands of the Torch air force the Twelfth) were activated in the United States from units
previously designated for
the Middle East.68
These had to be hurriedly prepared and sent to
England in time to be indoctrinated and assimilated, a task hard in
itself and made harder by bad weather in the North Atlantic, which played havoc with the
ferrying of medium and light bombers.69
-
- The most pressing and serious problem in allocation of air units for
TORCH was a shortage of fighters and observation planes, particularly
long-range models. General McNarney stated the problem on 5 September
in response to a proposal from the Navy that P-38 reinforcements be sent
to the South Pacific
-
- The reinforcements which propose can only be effected by diversion front TORCH. All
the P-38's now in the U. K. or being organized in tire U. S. for movement to U. K. are
allotted to Torch and the number is believed to be insufficient. other
tighter planes can make the long initial flights required across, the
Atlantic or from U. K. to Casa Blanca [sic] and Oran but the- P--38
type. If we withdraw these planes we, in effect. impose a
drastic change, if not the abandonment of Torch.70
-
- The shortage of fighter planes was so serious that it could not be met
by using all American units in the United Kingdom together with those
in the United States available for BOLERO. American planning for a Torch
air force-pushed by Patton and Doolittle --proposed, therefore,
using P-39's in England in transit to the Soviet Union and the 33d
Pursuit Group (P--40's) which w as in the United States and awaiting
shipment to the Middle East. 71
The release to TORCH Of the P-- 39's
en route to the Soviet Union was arranged by Eisenhower with the Prime
Minister. The United States undertook to replace them via Alaska as soon
as practicable.72
-
- The release to TORCH of the 33d Pursuit Group was less readily
arranged. On 8 September the formal proposal was submitted in a War:
Department letter to the JCS.73
The letter stated that the reallocation
of the 33d Group was required for the U. S. air force planned for TORCH.
Reaction in Washington to this proposal-as in London to a similar
proposal of General Doolittle-
- [319]
- was mixed, because of a rather general belief that Allied air
superiority in the Middle East would help assure the success of TORCH.74
But the JCS agreed to recommend the War Department proposal to the CCS
and at the same time authorized General Arnold to seek the informal
concurrence of the British Chiefs of Staff. 75
Arnold thereupon
wrote to Air Marshal Douglas C. S. Evill of the British Joint Staff
Mission for his concurrence. Evill did not concur, in view of the
need for fighter planes for the Middle East.76
In order to resolve the
problem the CCS agreed on 18 September to refer it to Eisenhower for his
views.77
Following a discussion with Doolittle, commander of the
Twelfth Air Force for North Africa, Eisenhower agreed that the 33d
Pursuit Group should be diverted to TORCH as proposed, but he also
recognized the need for sending fighter planes as reinforcements to
the Middle East and the bearing on TORCH of air superiority in the
Middle East. The British Chiefs of Staff, concurring, called attention
to Eisenhower's reservations.78
The 33d Group was assigned to the
Twelfth Air Force and its P40's were launched from an auxiliary aircraft carrier accompanying the assault
convoy to Casablanca.
Though the Middle East had been given a priority in shipping second only to TORCH
itself, the limited Allied resources available in the summer and fall
of 1942 left little leeway beyond the fulfillment of requirements of the
number one priority, TORCH.
-
- In meeting the claims of TORCH the Army also left unsatisfied the Navy's
continued demands for substantial air reinforcements for the
Pacific. In August 1942 the problems of immediate and eventual air
reinforcements for the Pacific were merged with the question of TORCH
requirements. Since August General Marshall had conceded that one group
of heavy bombers should go to Hawaii and had relaxed restrictions on the
use in the South Pacific of bombers assigned both to Hawaii and to
Australia.79
But there remained as a source of disagreement between the
services the broader question of priorities to govern the assignment
of the remainder of the fifteen groups scheduled for withdrawal from
BOLERO as they became available in succeeding months. Army planners-in
accord with AAF views-continued to argue in September that there be no
further diversions to the Pacific--beyond the heavy bombardment group
currently authorized for Hawaii until the requirements of TORCH, the
Middle East, and the United Kingdom had been met.80
In supporting
the AAF position in joint planning discussions, Army planners observed
that there was some doubt that facilities available in the South Pacific
could support more aircraft than were en route or present. Navy
planners, agreeing that
- [320]
- TORCH and the Middle East should hold top priorities, countered that
diversions to the Pacific should precede further deployment to the
United Kingdom (BOLERO).
-
- The decision to invade North Africa was not at all hard to reconcile
with the great aim of the Army Air Forces--strategic bombing against
Germany. Through the use of alternate air bases in the Mediterranean
to complement long-range strikes from the United Kingdom, the Air staff
hoped to minimize the effects of the change in plans. A difference of
opinion arose with the Navy over the relations of the strategic air
offensive to ground operations in Europe. The Navy held that the
projected bomber offensive from the United Kingdom could not be
considered apart from a European invasion and that TORCH had postponed
the one as well as the other, thereby permitting the release of aircraft
for use in the Pacific and elsewhere. The Air staff argued strongly that
strategic bombardment, as originally conceived and as it must still
-be conceived, was a separate offensive operation, related to but
distinct from a European invasion. Delaying the invasion had left a
theater that, in the immediate future, would become purely an Air
theater, requiring more than ever the concentration of air power
against Germany.81
-
- These divergent views were further elaborated on the JCS level.
Arnold maintained that air forces operating in the United Kingdom and
the :Middle East were directly complementary to TORCH and must be kept
in the same priority.82
He cited the view of Eisenhower, Patton, Clark, and Spaatz to support his argument. King
continued to maintain, as in August, that the CCS had released the
fifteen groups for deployment to the Pacific, and that the situation
there demanded they be sent.83
Arnold replied that the decision to
launch TORCH had not altered the Allied strategy of concentrating
against Germany, and that TORCH-in conjunction with the development of
strategic bomber offensive-promised the most decisive results of any
pending Allied operation. He held that the withdrawal of any of the
fifteen groups would preclude the success of the operation.84
Marshall
and Leahy held to a middle-of-the-road policy: TORCH and the Middle East
were to take precedence, and the allocation of new units would be
decided as they became available.85
Marshall added (as he had
earlier told Eisenhower) that he regarded the main purpose for the
American proposal to withdraw the fifteen groups from BOLERO as the
transfer of jurisdiction over their final assignment back to the JCS.86
Further discussions were postponed until Arnold, accompanied by
Brig. Gen. St. Clair Streett, Chief, Theater Group, OPD, could make an
inspection of the facilities available in the Pacific.
-
- The upshot of the discussions in the joint staff and of the Arnold-Streett
survey was
- [321]
- an agreement reached by the end of October 1942 that the uncommitted
balance of the fifteen groups withdrawn from BOLERO was to form a part
of a general United States strategic air reserve precisely as Marshall had intended.87
Claims on. air units for operations
against Japan would, as before, be weighed against claims for operations across the Atlantic. In effect, General Marshall had
regained some of the freedom of action he had lost in the spring by
proposing to give absolute priority to the concentration of American
forces in the British Isles.
-
-
- The War Department Thesis
-
- The great initial withdrawals of BOLERO units for Torch, the
related withdrawal of BOLERO air units for future disposal, the
improbability that the American version of TORCH would allow of a
quick victory and the corollary probability that many deferred claims
against Allied resources would accumulate for several months, all
tended to confirm the contention of American military leaders, expressed
in the London conference of July, that TORCH would almost certainly
entail the postponement of the major cross Channel effort scheduled for
the spring of 1943.88
In early August, Marshall and his staff restated this view. They believed it probable that TORCH would
not merely delay ROUNDUP but would be, in effect, a Substitution for
that undertaking in 1943 They were quite certain that in any event the movement of troops to
the British Isles would be considerably reduced for at least four months
after the assembly of shipping and escorts for the assault ,landings for
TORCH began. And, in Marshall's opinion, the invasion of French North
Africa, undertaken with due allowance for the uncertainties involved
and with a determination to sec it through to a successful conclusion,
would preclude the "offensive" operations "directly"
against Germany contemplated in the original document on "American British
Grand Strategy," dating from the ARCADIA Conference.89
-
- Slowdown of Bolero
-
- By the late summer of 1942 the War Department had a fairly
well-defined idea what revisions must be made in the BOLERO troop basis
down to the spring of 1943 and how the mission of Army forces during
that time should be redefined to fit the new conditions produced by the
deviation from the strategy Of SLEDGEHAMMER-BOLERO-Roundup.
According to the revised Army planning for its forces in the United
Kingdom to the spring of 1943, the U. S. air force was to be built up in
the United Kingdom to increase offensive operations against the
Continent; a balanced ground force was to be maintained in the United
Kingdom as a reserve for TORCH, for the defense of the United Kingdom,
and in preparation for emer-
- [322]
- gency action on the Continent. Toward the close of the summer the
Chief of Staff accepted the Army planners' proposal for a balanced
ground force of 150,000 U. S. troops in the United Kingdom.90
They had pointed out to him, on 27 August, that the change in strategic
policy from BOLERO to TORCH had by that time resulted in stopping the
movement of major ground force elements to the United Kingdom.91
A
great number of supporting combat and service troops had been prepared
for movement to the United Kingdom on the basis of the BOLERO
requirement of an over-all force of about one million men by April 1943.
The continuation of shipments of these troops would not only result, his
staff planners observed, in stripping the United States of such troops
but would also lead to an unbalanced ground force in the European
theater. They therefore called for a balanced ground force, similar to
the one envisaged early in the war-for the purpose of relief or defense under
the MAGNET (Northern Ireland) plan.
-
- According to the revised War Department estimates of the late summer
of 1942, the air forces in the United Kingdom would total
approximately 95,000 by 1 April 1943.92
That number represented the
original air force figure set up for BOLERO, less 100,000 to be
diverted for TORCH. Services of Supply troops (about 60,000 to support this air force, as well as the projected balanced ground
force) would give the United States a total force of about 305,000 in the United Kingdom by
1 April 1943. By 30 September 1942 the Army would have 160,000 troops in
the United Kingdom or en route, over and above the forces required for
TORCH. In order to bring the force in the United Kingdom up to the total
strength of 305,000 by 1 April 1943, it would be necessary to ship
145,000 troops there. The use of the fast-sailing and unescorted Queens
on the North Atlantic run appeared to be the most practicable means
of expediting these shipments without interfering with TORCH.
-
- In early November 1942 the War Department tentatively approved, for
planning purposes, a new reduced strength for American forces in the
United Kingdom set at approximately 427,000.93
This figure represented
an increase of over 100,000 above the original estimates of the late
summer. Shortly thereafter-on 12 November-in submitting his revised
estimates for the European theater to General Marshall, Maj. Gen.
Russell P. Hartle, Deputy Commander, European Theater of Operations,
stated that, as of about 30 November 1942, there would be slightly
more than 25,600 U. S. Services of Supply troops left in the United
Kingdom.94
About 84,800 more men would be required to meet the
estimated figure of 110,463 SOS troops. He indicated that after the withdrawals
for the North African operation, United States ground forces
in the United Kingdom would total, as of about 30 November, only 23,260
troops-including the 29th Infantry Division. Over 136,000 more ground
- [323]
- force troops would be needed to reach an estimated total of
approximately 159,000. In an accompanying note General Spaatz, the
commanding general of the Eighth Air Force, stated that combat units of
the Eighth Air Force that would remain in the United Kingdom after the
departure of the Twelfth Air Force would be seven heavy bomber groups,
one single-engine fighter group, and one observation group. Additional
combat units scheduled for the United Kingdom in November and December
included one medium bomber group, one twin-engine fighter group, and
one troop carrier group. General Spaatz pointed out that the Twelfth Air
Force had priority in the European theater. The only ready source from
which replacements for the Twelfth could be drawn was the Eighth Air
Force, which was also actively engaged. The process of withdrawing
aircraft and combat crews from the operating organization of the
Eighth Air Force, he observed, had already begun. Unless steps were
taken to counteract this trend, the Eighth was likely to be bled of its
operating strength. He recommended that a sustained air offensive
against Germany be made the principal mission . of American forces in
the British Isles, and that their growth be controlled accordingly.
-
- Thus the trend in Army planning during the fall of 1942 was to
increase the proportion of air and supporting service troops in the
British Isles, although the staff still planned to have a
"balanced" ground force of about 150,000 there by the spring
of 1943. The tentative plans for increasing American forces in the
British Isles in part reflected the close dependence of they Twelfth Air
Force on the Eighth. In part, they also reflected the agreement of
Marshall, Arnold, Eisenhower, Spaatz, and their advisers that air operations against Germany should be resumed
and intensified during the North African campaign.
-
- Even on this reduced scale, the schedules for the BOLERO movements
could not be met with the trained and equipped ground combat units and
cargo shipping then available. In the latter part of October Army
planners estimated that the troop lift of the four remaining convoys to
the United Kingdom for the balance of 1942 would be only 4,000, 3,300,
8,000, and 8,000, these figures representing the maximum which cargo
shipping could support.95
In early December the Chief of Staff called
the attention of the President to the fact that the monthly flow of
United States troops to the United Kingdom was then only 8,500.96
Troops were moving even more slowly than the Army had wished or
expected.
-
- The Army planners had not given up the idea that the United States and
Great Britain must save their strength to engage and defeat the German
Army in northwestern Europe.97
But this idea, the polestar by which the
planners had steered, had been obscured; they had been thrown off their
course; and they were no longer even sure of their position. The day of
landing in France seemed as far away as it had six months before, or
further. To gather huge ground forces in England to await a hypo-
- [324]
- thetical break in German military power appeared neither possible nor
desirable, particularly in the light of other and more immediate
demands. If the British remained unwilling to agree to a cross-Channel
offensive until German military power was broken, there remained the
"Pacific Alternative," and the Army planners once again
argued for its adoption in that event. Clarification of the subsequent
lines of strategic action in the European theater for 1943 for the
ultimate defeat of Germany would have to await the outcome of current
operations and basic decisions of top Allied political leaders.
Meanwhile, the War Department staff strove to keep alive the idea that
it would finally prove necessary to undertake a very large cross-Channel
operation against a still formidable German Army, while the Air staff
further explored the idea that in any event a great air offensive over
the European Continent from bases both in the British Isles and in the
Mediterranean-should have the first claim on American air forces.
-
- Churchill on Bolero-Roundup
-
- In a conference with General Eisenhower and his staff during the
latter part of September, the Prime Minister took notice of the effect
of the North African operation on the War Department's plans for
1943.98
As Eisenhower wrote to Marshall immediately after the
conference, it appeared that "for the first time the Former Naval
Person [Churchill] and certain of his close advisers" had
"become acutely conscious of the inescapable costs of TORCH."
Eisenhower went on to observe:
-
- 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 that time, since he expresses himself
now as very much astonished to find out that TORCH practically
eliminates any opportunity for a 1943 Roundup.
-
- The Prime Minister could no longer simply assume, Eisenhower pointed
out, that TORCH could be reconciled with Soviet expectations of a second
front and of material aid
-
- Although the memorandum prepared by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. when
you were here, and later approved by both governments, definitely
states that the mounting of TORCH would in all probability have to be a
substitute for 1943 ROUNDUP, while the several memoranda you presented
called attention to the effects of TORCH upon the possibilities of
convoying materials to Russia and elsewhere, these matters have now to
be met face to face, and with an obviously disturbing effect upon the
Former Naval Person.
-
- The Prime Minister was still quite unwilling to acknowledge that TORCH
would strain United States and British resources to the utmost, for that
would be, in effect, to acknowledge that the United States and Great
Britain would remain in 1943-as they had been in 1942-unable to meet the
expectations of the Soviet Government with reference either to the
shipment of supplies or to the establishment of a "second
front." He declared that the United States and United Kingdom could
not confess to an inability to execute more than a thirteen division attack in the Atlantic theater during the next twelve
months.99
They
must not acknowledge that TORCH left nothing to spare.
-
- The Prime Minister wrote to the President that the conference with
Eisenhower
- [325]
- and other American officers had left him much troubled on that score,
saying "I gained the impression at the conference that Roundup was
not only delayed or impinged upon by Torch but was to be regarded as
definitely off for 1943. This will be another tremendous blow for
Stalin. Already Maisky [Soviet ambassador to Great Britain] is asking
questions about the spring offensive." The Prime Minister ended his
message by saying, "To sum up, my persisting anxiety is Russia, and
I do not see how we can reconcile it with our consciences or with our
interests to have no more P Q's [northern route convoys to Russia]
till 1943, no offer to make joint plans for Jupiter, and no signs of a
spring, summer, or even autumn offensive in Europe.100
-
- The Prime Minister's discomfort over the probable elimination of
ROUNDUP as a possibility-- not necessarily to be realized for 1943
was all the greater when he learned, in the fall of 1942, of the War
Department's definite plans for scaling down the BOLERO preparations in
the United Kingdom. In the latter part of November there came to his
attention a letter from General Hartle stating that under existing
directives from the War Department any construction in excess of
requirements for a force of 427,000 would have to be done by British
labor and materials.101 Lend-lease materials, the War Department had
stated, could not be furnished for these purposes. The Prime Minister
took the occasion to sound out the President on the meaning of this
great reduction from the original estimates tinder the BOLERO plan to
have 1,100,000 American troops in the British Isles by 1 April 1943. He took the reduction to indicate that the
United States had given up planning for an invasion in 1943. To abandon
ROUNDUP, he declared, would be "a most grievous decision." He
pointed out that 'PORCH was no substitute for Roundup and only employed
thirteen divisions against the, forty-eight projected for ROUNDUP.102 He
reported that although his previous talks with Stalin had been based on
a postponed ROUNDUP he had never suggested that a second front should
not be attempted in 1943 or 1944. One of the arguments he himself had
used against SLEDGEHAMMER, the Prime Minister added, was that it would
eat tip in 1942 the "seed corn" needed for a much larger
operation in 1943. Only by building up a Roundup force in the United
Kingdom as rapidly as other urgent demands on shipping permitted could
the troops arid means be gathered to come to grips with the main
strength of the European enemy nations. The Prime Minister conceded
that, despite all efforts, the combined British-American strength might
riot reach the necessary level in 1943. In that case, he believed that
it became all the more important to launch the operation in 1944. He
asked that another British American conference be held, either in London, with Hopkins representing the
President (as in July), or in
Washington as in June.
-
- General Smith, Eisenhower's chief of staff, reassured the Prime
Minister that the War Department directive on authorized construction in
the United Kingdom referred only to the necessity of keeping BOLERO
preparations in the United King-
- [326]
- dom in line with the revised estimates in the anticipated troop
build-up.103 He pointed out that, as had been agreed during the July conference in London,
Torch commitments made ROUNDUP
improbable in 1943 and necessitated revision of BOLERO Estimates
based on the temporarily reduced troop lift. Other operations that the Prime Minister Was urging could only be
mounted at the expense
of Torch and would have the same effect. lie reassured the Prime
Minister that none of these considerations, however, implied any change
in the American conception of the BOLERO-ROUNDUP plan.
-
- This was not the kind Of assurance the Prime Minister needed. The
Prime Minister wanted to continue operations in the Mediterranean after gaining
control of the coat of North Africa, with an operation against Sardinia
(BRIMSTONE).104 American officers had therefore some reason to go
on discounting the Prime Minister's assertions about Roundup . They
knew that lie was anxious lest American forces be committed to larger offensive
operations in the Pacific, and lest it be alleged he had dealt
in bad faith with the Soviet Union. The kind of operation actually being
undertaken in French North Africa, over the protests of London, was hard
to reconcile with the idea of undertaking an operation of am kind on the
Continent in 1943. The Prime minister could hardly expect, therefore,
unqualified reassurance that the President still thought that TORCH did
not rule out ROUNDUP. But he could expect and wanted a declaration
leaving open the possibility of some such operation.
-
- Such a reassurance he soon received from the President.105
The President reminded him that the mounting of Torch
postponed necessarily the assembling of forces in the British
Isles. The North African operations MUST continue to take
precedence, against the possibility of adverse situations developing in Spanish Morocco or in Tunisia. The United States, the
President added, was much more heavily engaged in the Southwest
Pacific than he had anticipated a few months previously: nevertheless, a
striking force should be built tip in the United Kingdom as rapidly
as possible for immediate action in the event of German collapse. A
larger force for, later use should be built tip in the event that
Germany remained intact arid assumed the defensive. Determination of
the strength to be applied to BOLERO in 1944 was a problem, the
President observed, requiring "our joint strategic considerations." The Prime Minister accepted the
American
explanations and wired the President that lie was completely
reassured.106
The idea of a cross-Channel operation in 1943 thus
remained alive for purposes of negotiation arid of the staff planning
associated therewith. It was evidently out of the question to plan on
undertaking in 1941 the kind of cross-Channel operation the war
Department had proposed, and necessary to defer to 1944 the great
decisive campaign on the plains of northwestern Europe that the American
planners, unlike the British planners, had always believed unavoidable.
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