CHAPTER XV

Links With the Overseas Theaters

As the war moved into the period of maximum effort on the part of American forces, the Army command system stretched out from Washington to encompass theaters of operations in every part of the world. Most of the time during the later war years the Army system of tactical organization included at least a half-dozen major overseas headquarters reporting directly to the Chief of Staff. The overseas commanders and their staffs, faced with practical military problems on the spot, were called upon to play an ever greater part in planning and in advising the Chief of Staff and the JCS in the strategic direction of the war. The growth of the overseas theater headquarters in size and influence was one of the two main developments of the later war years that affected OPD's work, ranking in this respect with the expansion of the JCS-CCS committee system.

The growth of theater headquarters meant that there was an ever-increasing amount of military business to be conducted between Washington and overseas, and more and more it was necessary to reckon with political and economic consequences of military action. A great many Army organizations had to fit into the intricate combined (Allied) headquarters and theaters such as the North African (later the Mediterranean) Theater of Operations, the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), the Southwest Pacific Area Command (which reported to the U.S. JCS but was an Allied headquarters), and the Southeast Asia Command. Others had to participate in joint American theater headquarters staffs, in some of which, as in the Pacific Ocean Area, a Navy officer was in superior command.1 Collaboration between OPD and each of these theaters necessarily went on within the framework of joint and combined staff deliberations, which were being conducted simultaneously and in which OPD officers were participating. In this situation, with military operations so widespread and the machinery for directing them so intricate, it was more important than ever that OPD keep in touch with actual conditions in the theaters of combat, where the war had to be won.

The military staffs in Washington, and particularly OPD, used every available means of establishing close working relations with their theater counterparts. Above all, they depended on the elaborate wartime system of signal communications, both radio and cable, including facilities for direct group discussion in overseas "conferences."2 In addition they made extensive use of officer couriers, by whom they could send papers of the highest classification as well as personal letters commenting frankly on

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their problems. But even the most modern methods of communication could not take the place of personal visits and informal face-to-face talks. A meeting of the individual men who were planning and fighting created a bond of common experience with the problems encountered at each stage of waging war that went far toward insuring agreement on the business of military operations. Fortunately, with the development of a world-wide system of air transport, it was possible for staff officers to travel back and forth between Washington, London, and the various other headquarters with considerable frequency.

Officers from War Department agencies during their trips overseas (and theater officers while present in Washington) were able to take up many questions which were too debatable, too complicated, or too delicate to settle promptly and satisfactorily by means of formal correspondence. Personal association of officers from the War Department, particularly from OPD, with theater commanders and their staffs hastened the work of planning and the process of reaching decisions, and reduced the accumulation of erroneous impressions with regard to the what, why, and how of actions taken outside the immediate field of vision of any single command or staff.

The need for personal visits back and forth had been great from the beginning of hostilities because so few officers had had wartime service both in Washington and in the field. As operations became larger and more complex, the need made itself felt more and more. Agency chiefs in Washington tried to get officers for their staffs with overseas experience as they became available, and in exchange assigned their own officers overseas. This rotation of assignments, which in peacetime had been the principal means of bringing about a general correspondence between views in the field and in Washington, could not take effect rapidly enough to produce uniform results until late in the war. Commanders were reluctant to weaken their newly formed and still expanding staffs by releasing their most experienced officers. Yet the military situation was everywhere changing so fast that exchange of personnel was far more necessary than in peacetime.

It was some help to familiarize officers with current War Department views, plans, and procedures before they went overseas, as was done in OPD, for example, in the briefing of commanders and officers with special missions, and in the orientation of junior officers in a staff school conducted by OPD.3 Effective liaison with the theaters, however, depended a great deal on personal association among officers with closely related jobs. All of OPD's general officers and a great many of its field-grade officers were sent overseas for short periods to teach and be taught, as well as to settle a wide variety of specific issues. The principal interest of OPD officers on such trips was the development of greater understanding and cooperation between the theaters and Washington, particularly in regard to strategic and tactical operations. They were not supposed to adopt the attitudes or perform the duties of War Department inspectors or investigators.

The Assistant Chief of Staff, OPD, and his group chiefs usually visited overseas theaters on their way to or from international or interservice conferences, partly to discuss conference agenda with the theater commanders and their staffs, and partly

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to get firsthand impressions of local situations. Occasionally they went on trips to talk over the myriad matters of concern to the Army—problems of internal organization, appointment of American officers to important posts, and deployment and employment of American forces. They also, of course, were very much interested in theater plans for future operations.

OPD junior officers very often took part in planning and carrying out operations in the theaters, "earning their way" while they gained invaluable experience to bring back to their work in Washington. They went in various capacities, singly or in groups, by themselves or accompanying senior officers. Sometimes they went as mere assistants or observers but more often either to serve on overseas staffs or to complete some particularly urgent piece of business. Even though theater commanders preferred to deal with senior officers who could commit themselves, rather than with subordinates who on their return could only report impressions and make recommendations, they acknowledged that visits by junior officers from the OPD sections did help to get things done and to avoid misunderstandings. The visits undoubtedly contributed to a better understanding in the theaters of the extent to which wartime Washington staff work, both in plans and in operations, depended upon the initiative and discretion of field-grade officers.

Even the junior officers sent on such missions had duties in OPD or in the joint planning system which gave them an exceptionally broad view of the war and required them to express their opinions freely and at length. Their visits were therefore useful not only for what they accomplished and what they gained in practical experience but also for the frank statement of their views to overseas staffs and commanders, and their outspoken reporting of their impressions when they returned to Washington. OPD set a high value on such frankness in its junior members as a necessary condition of effective interservice and international planning, as well as a protection against the accumulation of erroneous impressions at higher levels. Given so much freedom to think and speak for themselves, OPD officers felt morally obliged to do so, even though they realized that they might sometimes cause trouble for themselves.

OPD had sent section officers into the field since the beginning of the war, but it was not until mid-1943 that the practice finally became systematized, mainly as a result of recognition of its value in North Africa.4 On the basis of this experience, General Eisenhower informed the War Department in June 1943 that he could temporarily place fifteen or twenty majors or lieutenant colonels in key planning positions. He recommended that, if possible, a few officers be sent from the Theater Group.5 On 20 June General Handy announced the inauguration of a continuing policy of exchange with all the theaters, whereby at all times at least one officer from each OPD theater section would be serving overseas.6 Pursuant to this policy, the War Department sent overseas several groups of officers, including a considerable number from War Department agencies other than OPD, to get firsthand experience with battle conditions. The need for such trips

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ultimately was reduced by the normal turnover in the War Department. By the end of 1944 the composition of OPD began to be affected visibly as a result of the assignment of more and more officers with firsthand experience in combat. Nevertheless a great many trips were made in 1945, some of them in connection with important phases of the war against Japan. Liaison between Washington and the combat theaters was essential until the last shot had been fired, and OPD continued to try to help supply it for the Army.

Special Trip for the Chief of Staff, 1943

There were some confidential missions to the theaters which only officers in important positions were well qualified to undertake. While the Chief of Staff placed great confidence in his theater commanders and left them a broad area of authority and independence in their respective theaters, he wished to maintain close personal contact with them. Since he could not leave Washington for extended periods, the next best thing was to designate one of his staff assistants to make the circuit of the theaters for him. These trips not only served to strengthen the informal relationships between the Chief of Staff and the theater commanders but also provided an opportunity for exchange of informed opinion by general officers in positions of authority on such matters as the appointment or relief of officers holding key positions in the theaters, the practical workings of international and interservice commands, and the employment of U. S. Army troops in joint or combined operations. The Chief of Staff did not want to leave questions connected with these matters entirely up to the theater commanders, yet could not or would not settle them in Washington. On several occasions General Marshall used the Assistant Chief of Staff, OPD, his subordinate most concerned with such questions, to transmit his opinions, form impressions for him, and make recommendations to him concerning them. General Eisenhower, as Assistant Chief of Staff, had gone to the United Kingdom in May 1942 on such an errand. General Handy had made a short, exploratory visit there in August 1942 at the most critical stage of planning for TORCH, while preparations were still very much up in the air. In the spring of 1943 General Handy made his most extended trip overseas during his tenure as OPD chief, going to the United Kingdom, North Africa, the Middle East, India, and China. He traveled in the company of Maj. Gen. George E. Stratemeyer, Chief of Air Staff, Army Air Forces, who represented General Arnold in much the same way in which General Handy represented the Chief of Staff. The record of the conversation he had with General Marshall before going, and the reports he made while he was away, provide a glimpse of the part General Handy played in maintaining personal contact with Army commanders overseas.

General Marshall did not issue detailed instructions for the 1943 trip, on the specific grounds that General Handy was "familiar with his views" and knew "how he felt about things." General Marshall did say what he thought on a few questions about which he was especially troubled, beginning with the North African theater. He was afraid that General Eisenhower might, "to make things go smoothly [with the British], be going too far in agreeing to disruption of American command and organization." He did not want General Eisenhower to "lower himself to make too many explanations" of decisions made, such as on the celebrated Darlan

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episode of the previous autumn, believing that he should "simply listen and smile, taking the attitude 'I am the Commander; I did it and that is the end of it.' " General Marshall went on to various other matters, involving persons or policies, for General Handy to take up very informally with General Eisenhower, Lt. Gen. Frank M. Andrews (Commanding General, U. S. Army Forces in the European Theater), General Stilwell (Commanding General, U. S. Army Forces in China, India, and Burma), Maj. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton (Commanding General, U. S. Army Forces in the Middle East), and Maj. Gen. Donald H. Connolly (Commanding General, Persian Gulf Service Command).7

General Handy and General Stratemeyer left the United States on 8 April 1943 and arrived in the United Kingdom on 15 April.8 General Handy found waiting for him additional instructions, cabled by OPD. The British staff in London had reopened the question, raised in January at Casablanca and settled early in March, of setting up a new staff (COSSAC) to plan for an emergency operation across the English Channel, suggesting that it might be just as well not to set up a large planning staff to begin with, since there was such a shortage of qualified planning officers and since American forces were not being concentrated in the United Kingdom as rapidly as had been expected. According to an S&P officer just back from a tour of duty in London with the British planners, the Prime Minister was responsible for reopening the question. General Wedemeyer and his planning staff were dismayed, fearing that any reconsideration of the matter would prejudice the invasion in the spring of 1944. Accordingly General Marshall urged General Handy to make sure that General Andrews understood that the President and the JCS wanted to do nothing to compromise the American position.9

General Handy remained in England until 26 April, conferring with General Andrews on this question and the other questions of command and organization that General Marshall had discussed with him in Washington. These included the question of the prospects as a corps commander of General Gerow, one of General Handy's colleagues of WPD days.10 He also observed units and installations of American forces in the United Kingdom.

From the United Kingdom General Handy and General Stratemeyer went to Algiers. In North Africa, General Handy spent some time in trying to give General Eisenhower a clear impression of General Marshall's views on organization and

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command of American forces, but spent most of his time with the II Corps at the front. His visit came during the closing stages of the North African campaign. He observed the operations and morale of American troops, formed impressions of the efficiency of American commanders, and watched the progress of HUSKY (Sicily) planning. He wrote to General Marshall that in his visit to the front he had seen a good deal of Maj. Gen. Omar N. Bradley, of division commanders, and of several regimental and battalion commanders, and had had a chance to watch the operations of American troops "rather closely" for a few days. In his opinion, the 1st, 9th, and 34th Infantry Divisions and the 1st Armored Division had become seasoned divisions. He reported that General Bradley was doing a "wonderful job" and enjoyed the best of relations with the British, who regarded him highly. He also praised the work of Maj. Gen. Terry Allen of the 1st Division, and of Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt, his assistant commander.11

The notes on which this letter was based, taken on the back of a mimeographed itinerary for one of his visits of inspection in Great Britain, showed even more plainly the main interests of General Handy and General Marshall:

Spent 5 days with II Corps. Had a chance to talk to all Div Comdrs, several Rgt and some Bn Comdrs. Morale high but troops tired. Some in since Dec—short combat inf strength—We can feel sure of the Divs in line—There had been some doubt as to 34th Div—But while I was there this Div took Hill 609 which was really the key point of German position. Its capture was followed by general withdrawal—This apparently made the Div. They now believe they are good & Bradley used them for main effort in May 5 attack.
Believe Div Comdrs are all OK.
There has been some trouble re air support and some unfortunate messages have been sent. However it appears to be on way to solution—Discussed it with Spaatz, Kuter, Alex, Anderson & Cunningham.
General opinion US Troops has changed most markedly since moved to North—not much expected as terrain extremely difficult but they did [advance] and are advancing—The fact that 8th Army was stopped by same type of terrain has tended to raise very much the opinion of all concerned re our troops—
Husky plan accepted then changed on Montgomery's rec.12

In addition to his discussions with General Eisenhower and his observations in the field, General Handy acted on a War Department request to investigate what troops ought to be sent to North Africa after HUSKY in case a large-scale cross-Channel invasion should be launched from the United Kingdom in 1944. He was able to make his recommendations on the basis of observation in both theaters.13

Prior to his departure from North Africa in early May, General Handy wrote to General Marshall that the trip was taking longer than he had expected but that it had been, in his opinion, altogether worth taking. He said that he would go on unless he received instructions to cut the trip short.14 General Handy made no further formal report during the rest of his trip. The principal question with which he had expected to deal, that of General Stilwell's returning to Washington, had already been settled, General

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Stilwell having arrived in the United States at the end of April. However, General Handy went on with General Stratemeyer, stopping at Cairo, Tehran, Karachi, New Delhi, and going as far as Chungking, where they arrived on 21 May. There on 22 May they met Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. On 28 May General Handy was back in Africa, at Eritrea, whence he planned to proceed to Accra, but he was instructed to go on to Algiers to take part in a conference with the Prime Minister, General Marshall, and General Eisenhower on the next move to be made in the Mediterranean after the HUSKY operation. After taking part in meetings of this conference, 31 May and 3 June, General Handy returned to his desk in Washington, from which he had been absent two months.15

Preview of Amphibious Assault

In mid-1943, during and after General Handy's long, world-survey trip on behalf of General Marshall, OPD was following with special attention the progress of the North African operation and the preparations for invading Sicily. Members of the Division made a number of trips directly and exclusively to the North African theater, the first proving ground of a major combined British-American offensive. The campaign required continuing large-scale support from the zone of interior, and the situation in North Africa was a major factor in the strategic planning for subsequent operations with which OPD was preoccupied. By sending out officers to the North African theater, sometimes several at a time, OPD tried to maintain all the way down the line an approximation of the close understanding which had always existed between General Eisenhower and General Marshall.

Senior officers in OPD were particularly interested in the invasion of Sicily for the precedents it might establish and the practice it would afford as a forerunner of a more important amphibious operation, the invasion of the Continent. The Division had long held as something of an article of faith that the early invasion of the Continent, by way of the English Channel, was both practicable and necessary. But in order to reach a firm agreement with the British and carry it out, the American planners had to examine in detail the methods of conducting an amphibious operation on such a scale, against such opposition as might be expected to develop, and to show how it could be done while continuing major campaigns on other widely separated fronts. The S&P chief and Army planner, although his duties were as heavy and as vital as any in the Division, did not always have continuous, day-to-day operating responsibilities comparable with those of the Division chief or the Theater Group chief. Accordingly, in the summer of 1943, General Marshall was able to send General Wedemeyer on extended temporary duty in North Africa with the staff of Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. His aim was to become acquainted with lower echelon planning, particularly for landing operations and to gain actual experience in the coming amphibious assault. He was instructed to come back to the United States only when he had learned everything that would serve him as the "Head War Department Planner." 16

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General Wedemeyer arrived at Algiers on 12 June. He joined General Patton's staff and on General Patton's request analyzed the entire operational plan for HUSKY. He reported the plan to be weak in two respects, namely that it provided neither direct air support nor a tangible diversionary movement or feint. He took issue with the air leaders in the theater (General Spaatz, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, and Air Vice Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham) who believed that air power should be used in direct support of troops only when enemy air forces had been neutralized. With General Patton's support, General Wedemeyer argued that this doctrine was unsound when applied to the situation expected in Sicily, where the defenders would be numerically stronger and would have the advantage of prepared fortifications. As it happened, Gen. Sir Harold Alexander, General Eisenhower's British deputy, was also concerned over the lack of direct air support, and so were a number of British ground and sea officers, as became evident in a final conference of commanders. General Alexander directed the HUSKY air commanders to provide for direct air support. Nothing was done on General Wedemeyer's suggestion for providing a diversionary effort, probably because General Patton himself did not actively support the idea.

Besides entering into the staff preparations for HUSKY, General Wedemeyer was busy, during his first three weeks in the theater, in what he called "strenuous observation" and "innocuous participation" in amphibious exercises "from Tunis to Oran" involving all the American units due to take part in HUSKY. At times he went with the units on landing craft. At times he hiked along the beaches to watch the debarkation and advance inland. He went inland with the landing units to see how they handled themselves, and once he found a cub plane from which to observe the landing operations as a whole. Although he confessed, writing to General Handy shortly before the operation came off, that he had been a "little vague" about what he was to do in the theater, he had tried, he said, to see everything that went on from top to bottom without getting in the way, and he had tried to be useful.17 At the end of this period of familiarization, General Patton wrote back to General Handy: "We are delighted to have him [General Wedemeyer] and have given him a complete run of our staff, and have also sent him to see several of the divisions and to watch three landing operations. At the moment he is learning what he can (if anything) around AFHQ and will come aboard this ship the night we sail." 18

Soon after the landings on Sicily, General Wedemeyer asked to be reduced in rank to a colonel so that he might take over a regimental combat team. The Army command at once accepted his offer of service (without reducing him), and he commanded a regiment of the 45th Division during part of the early fighting in HUSKY. General Patton in a letter to General Marshall described the offer itself as "very inspiring," and testified that General Wedemeyer, while in command, "by his courage, in-

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telligence and enthusiasm helped materially to correct a confused situation."19

On 22 July, after almost a month and a half of duty in the North African theater, General Wedemeyer started home, by way of Fifth Army Headquarters (at the invitation of Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark) and the United Kingdom. General Handy suggested that General Wedemeyer make his stop in London short, not over two days, and bring back with him all he could find out from the British planners on their preparations for the coming Quebec conference (QUADRANT). He spent four days in London (26-29 July) talking with the British planners and with the other principal British and American officers in London, and was able to report in some detail on their various attitudes, notably on operations in Burma (ANAKIM) and on OVERLORD (the cross-Channel invasion). On the latter he said the British planners appeared divided while the Prime Minister seemed to be "seeking every honorable avenue" of escape. General Wedemeyer was back in Washington early in August.20

As General Eisenhower had anticipated, General Wedemeyer brought the War Department a great deal of useful information.21 The long informal report which he had sent to General Handy on 4 July expressed his views not only on the conduct of amphibious operations but also on the organization of American forces in a theater, training of American commanders in the field, and the use of War Department staff officers as working members of overseas staffs. He concluded that in getting ready for future operations employing air, ground, and sea forces, responsible representatives of the commander of each of these forces should be brought together early in the planning and should remain together on the staff of the force commander. He had observed that it was only with great difficulty that General Patton's staff had been able to get in touch with authorized representatives of air and naval commanders in planning for HUSKY. He had suggested to Admiral Henry K. Hewitt, in command of American naval forces in the Mediterranean, that it might be a good idea to move his staff, or send a few of his trusted subordinates, to a place near General Patton, but Admiral Hewitt apparently did not see the need for it, preferring to remain near General Eisenhower. General Wedemeyer also recommended that the military resources, the "means" for carrying out an operation, should be made available early and then "frozen," and that the commander should have, besides this security, complete control over the training, movement, discipline, morale, and employment of all forces under him.

On the basis of his own experience, General Wedemeyer became thoroughly convinced of the value of observing overseas preparations and operations. He stated that it would have been a good thing to send

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division commanders from the United States to see how divisions worked in the final phases of training and in combat, and suggested that in the future the War Department should send not only staff officers but also division commanders or even potential division commanders.22 General Patton, for his part, said of General Wedemeyer: "I believe that we derived as much benefit from him as he did from us." 23 In strategic planning in Washington, General Marshall at once made use of General Wedemeyer's experience. Early in August, during JCS discussion of the outline plan for OVERLORD just received, the Chief of Staff called upon General Wedemeyer to say whether, on the basis of his experience in HUSKY, he considered the OVERLORD operation practicable. General Wedemeyer replied that he was "very optimistic" about the prospects of success, was greatly impressed by the Navy's efficiency in HUSKY, and was convinced that the difficulties foreseen relative to maintenance over the beaches could be surmounted in OVERLORD.24 He had paid particular attention to this problem and had helped in preparing a long report on it, submitted to General Patton by a British observer, Col. W. E. V. Abraham, with whom General Wedemeyer had previously worked in Washington. 25 The confidence gained by General Wedemeyer in his HUSKY trip strengthened the American stand at the first Quebec conference, at which a firm commitment to OVERLORD was made.

The Overlord Period and After

The successful invasion of Normandy in June 1944 by British and American troops was an occasion long anticipated by OPD officers. OVERLORD was finally an accomplished fact rather than a future plan. During the preceding six months of uncertainty, the principal officers in OPD for the most part had stayed close to Washington. General Handy and General Tansey had taken a brief tour in December 1943 returning home from the Cairo-Tehran conferences by way of the Far East and the Pacific. Similarly at the end of February 1944, General Hull and Colonel Lincoln, then Ground deputy chief of S&P joined U.S. Navy planners in informal British-American conferences in London. These sessions dealt primarily with the availability of landing craft, particularly for the invasion of southern France (ANVIL) and helped a great deal to support American strategic arguments with respect to the feasibility of ANVIL.

With the successful launching of OVERLORD, the strain of debating and waiting was over, and none of the great anxieties of the present and future could obscure the consciousness of accomplishment on the part of everyone who had worked on the operation, above all, those officers who saw their convictions of 1942 translated into action. General Handy expressed the feeling of the "old hands" among OPD planners after a visit to the front. Late in May he went to London with Rear Admiral Charles M. Cooke, Jr., and Maj. Gen. Laurence S. Kuter, as an advance party

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for the American Chiefs of Staff, who participated in the brief conference of the CCS in London at the time of OVERLORD. Colonel Lincoln and Colonel Freeman from OPD also went to London and, with General Handy, saw the final preparations for the assault.

General Handy was much impressed with the initial obstacles to be overcome and with the "quiet, confident attitudes" of the commanders who appeared to fear only the weather. On D Day General Handy and Admiral Cooke went into the Channel on the invasion flagship, moved to a fire-support destroyer, and went ashore on Omaha Beach. D plus 1 they spent on Utah Beach, and inland, going both to Maj. Gen. J. Lawton Collins' (VII Corps) headquarters and to the position of the 4th Division. They spent D plus 2 making a round of the beaches. The following week they spent a day in the American sector between Assignee and Traverse, and at General Bradley's (First Army) headquarters. General Handy noted the work of some of his personal friends, among whom were several former members of the Division, particularly General Gerow, who commanded the V Corps in its assault on Omaha Beach. General Handy, upon his return, described the high points of the first days' fighting in a letter to General Wedemeyer, who, with General Handy, felt a kind of paternal pride in the invasion.

General Handy recalled that the OPD planners had been told, in 1942, when they were talking of only three divisions for the assault, that every beach in southern England would have to be used for loading. Actually, he observed, only three port areas and the Bristol Channel had been used, and the job was done "without any great difficulty." He noted the encouraging lack of fighter opposition, stating that he had become "convinced from what happened during the attack and particularly afterwards, when there were literally miles of ships at anchor in restricted areas, that the German Air Force is pretty well whipped down." He spoke of the fine work of divisions then for the first time in action. The order and efficiency shown, in the midst of such danger and confusion, particularly impressed him, and he admitted that he could not "but think back to our Tennessee maneuvers in 1941 and note the difference." In conclusion, he reflected:

It really was a great undertaking. During the day before it there was, of course, a tense feeling that permeated from the highest to the lowest. However, we did not take the chances here that we did in TORCH. I doubt if we ever have one where there are as many uncertainties as there were in that operation. Events, I believe, have established conclusively that our ideas basically were sound from the beginning on this operation, and I want to tell you again that you would have had a great feeling of satisfaction and pride in the performance of our commanders and our troops.26

During the summer and autumn of 1944 the problems confronting OPD began to be very different from those of the OVERLORD period. It was still necessary to follow closely the progress of operations in Europe, but OPD was more and more concerned with preparing for a new series of decisions, primarily on occupation policy in Europe, and on the timing and direction of operations in the Pacific.

Soon after General Handy's return from Europe, General Hull took a long trip to talk to U. S. Army commanders about

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readjustments due to be made in the immediate post-OVERLORD period. Of General Handy's immediate subordinates in OPD in mid war, General Hull was the one whose responsibilities most nearly corresponded in extent with those of General Handy. He was not only chief of Theater Group but also General Handy's deputy. To use General Hull's own words, he was captain of the "second team" in OPD, taking over when the "first team" was busy preparing for and attending major conferences or, alternately, going to the conferences while General Handy stayed in Washington.27 When he went overseas, as when he remained in Washington, he was General Handy's representative, but he had a more specific interest than General Handy in the operational details of deployment of forces and support of overseas theaters, his special concern as chief of Theater Group. General Hull had been away from Washington only once since attending the Casablanca Conference of January 1943, and that was when he had gone to London more than a year later for the informal landing craft conference. On his summer trip in 1944 General Hull went around the world, stopping in Italy, the Middle East, Australia, and Hawaii. He was away from Washington for nearly six weeks, from mid-July to the end of August.

General Hull traveled with a party which included Lt. Gen. Barney M. Giles (Chief of Air Staff) and Maj. Gen. Wilhelm D. Styer (Chief of Staff and Deputy Commander, Army Service Forces), although he had misgivings that it would be an "inconvenience to the people in the theaters for a large mob of brass hats to drop in on them all at once." 28 The party made its first main stop in Italy, to which nearly all of Allied Force Headquarters had by then been moved. Although the party stayed only three days in Italy, General Hull had a chance to talk with General Clark, spend a day with the 88th Division, visit the Fifteenth Air Force, and attend conferences at Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers' (NATO) and General Patch's (Seventh Army) headquarters. He reported his impressions of these conferences, and in particular detail discussed the possibility of moving the Fifth Army out of Italy, as well as the projected organization of Sixth Army Group headquarters in France (General Devers).

From Italy the party went to Cairo and, after a short stop there, to Jerusalem, Baghdad, Tehran, and Basra. At Cairo, General Hull got the "distinct impression" that there were more American troops in the Middle East garrison than were any longer necessary. On the basis of his admittedly superficial observation, he suggested that the War Department ask the American commander what effect it would have if about 3,000 men were withdrawn. In Iran, on the other hand, General Hull felt that the American command had its hands full and was working very efficiently, and therefore he "seriously doubted" that it was yet time to cut down the forces of the Persian Gulf Command. Nevertheless, he observed that it was easy in that area to get "localitis" and recommended, with the concurrence of General Styer, that General Connolly, Commanding General of the Persian Gulf Command, be ordered home to tell officers in the War Department how things

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looked to him and to see how things looked from Washington.29

After their hurried trip through the Middle East, which lasted only about four days, the party went on to India, across to Burma, up to Chungking, and back to Calcutta. Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten was out of India, and at Chungking they failed to see Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. Otherwise they talked to most of the military leaders in India and China. General Hull saw Maj. Gen. Daniel I. Sultan, General Stilwell, and General Wedemeyer, visited the front at Myitkyina in Burma, and sent back various observations on policies and persona1ities—the confusion of responsibilities, the failure of the Chinese to make use of planes assigned them, and the apparent effectiveness of the Services of Supply in the theater in setting up communications from Calcutta to Assam. He again observed that he had seen too little to have firm opinions and that General Wedemeyer might well disagree but gave it as his impression that the War Department might have been "unduly harsh" in handling General Stilwell, who seemed to him to have the "patience of Job." 30

Leaving India at the end of July, the party went on to Ceylon and Australia, being met at Exmouth Gulf by Col. William L. Ritchie, deputy chief (Air), S&P, who had arrived in the Southwest Pacific to take part in conferences with General McArthur and his staff. General McArthur had just returned from Hawaii, where the President, accompanied by Admiral Leahy, had discussed with him and Admiral Nimitz (26-29 July 1944) the next move to be made in the Pacific, particularly whether to go from Mindanao to Luzon or, instead, to Formosa, and the future role of the British in the war against Japan.31

When General Hull arrived at SWPA headquarters, it was urgent to get General MacArthur's views on future operations in the Pacific beyond the Palaus. As General Marshall had informed General MacArthur, directives were being held up to give General MacArthur a chance to go over everything with General Hull who had received "all the available data on the present status of studies of operations in the Pacific." 32 On 7 August General MacArthur held a conference, attended by his principal subordinates (Lt. Gen. George C. Kenney, Lt. Gen. Richard K. Sutherland, and Maj. Gen. Richard J. Marshall), by Generals Giles, Hull, and Styer, and by Colonel Ritchie. General MacArthur summarized the Pearl Harbor conference with the President and then went on to answer General Hull's numerous questions on what was best to do, what was possible, and what additional military resources were necessary. General MacArthur explained his views on joint planning for coming operations, Army-Navy relations, and command arrangements, and General Giles, General Kenney, and General MacArthur discussed Air operations.33 On the same day General Hull and Colonel Ritchie conferred with the SWPA planners on operations in the

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Philippines.34 General Hull had a long "overseas conference" that day with General Handy, reporting on the results of the discussions and attempting to answer questions that Colonel Ritchie had brought out with him from Washington.35

After the Australian visit, the party proceeded to the Marianas, primarily to study the feasibility of locating VLR bomber bases in that area. They arrived in Hawaii on 18 August. During the three days spent there before returning to the United States, General Hull discussed future operations with Lt. Gen. Robert C. Richardson, Jr., as well as the eternal question of Army-Navy relations in the Pacific.36 To General Richardson's chief of staff, General Hull expressed the opinion that "too many formal letters were being written by. the two commanders and that if they and their staffs would confer together more often and on an informal basis, they would not only get along better with each other, but would accomplish a great deal more."37

General Hull, who became chief of OPD not long after his return from this long trip, did not leave Washington again until he attended the international conferences of January-February 1945 at Malta and Yalta (ARGONAUT). After these conferences were over, General Hull accompanied the party of the Chief of Staff to Allied Force Headquarters at Caserta and went on to France to confer with General Eisenhower on projected operations (beginning with the Roer crossing), returning to the United States on 19 February.

Liaison With Commands in the Pacific and Far East

The work of OPD in midwar was less closely related to plans and operations in the Pacific and Far East than to plans and operations in the European area. Until the attainment of the first objective of Allied strategy, the defeat of Germany, was in sight, plans for the defeat of Japan were of necessity largely exploratory, and the theater headquarters in the Pacific and the Far East had to solve current operational problems within allotted means. A good many officers in OPD were always completely occupied with Army operations against Japan, and the peculiar difficulties of their work were fully appreciated in the Division and, ultimately, by the theater commanders directly concerned. But the provision of adequate means for prosecuting the war in the Pacific was contingent on the defeat of Germany. Only the availability of such means could bring the Washington staff as a whole close to the daily work of the theater staffs and relieve the long-existing tensions among the proponents of divergent views on strategy and command in the war against Japan. Even then the much greater distances between the United States and the fighting fronts were bound to make for a slower readjustment in Washington to changes in the theaters, and to leave the theater commanders and their staffs more on their own.

The result was that OPD officers, in dealing with Army commanders and staffs in the Pacific and the Far East, spent more of their

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time trying to improve relations with them and less in "getting things done" than was necessary in similar dealings with Army commanders and staffs in the European area. It was their main business to listen, to understand, and, when they could, to do something about the grievances of the Army headquarters in the Pacific and Far East, as well as to try to explain what was going on in Washington and to reassure theater commanders that their time would come. This work tied in closely with the major conferences of the President and the Prime Minister with the CCS, and with the major staff conferences at which the Pacific commanders (or their representatives) presented, and partially reconciled, their plans. OPD officers handled for General Marshall the preparations for the two Pacific commanders' conferences held in Washington, one in March 1943 and the other in February and March 1944, and kept the Chief of Staff in touch with the joint conferences held at Pearl Harbor in January 1944, at Hollandia in November 1944, in Guam at the end of February 1945, and in Manila in July 1945.

From the beginning of the war OPD had benefited from the firsthand experience of several officers recruited from the Pacific, and in turn had released a number of officers for assignments in the Pacific. In addition, since the spring of 1942, OPD regularly had sent out observers to headquarters in Hawaii, New Caledonia, and Australia, to see what the Army forces in the Pacific were doing and what they needed, and especially to explain the policy of limiting the deployment of Army forces to the Pacific as a necessary corollary of the policy to concentrate Army forces against Germany.

The officers who went to the Pacific carried on the tradition of taking an active part in operations. During the early summer of 1943 two officers from the Pacific Section, Col. Charles S. Miller and Maj. William R. Frederick, Jr., were sent to the South Pacific to accompany the force seizing New Georgia. The force commander commended these officers for what they had done:

Both accompanied the expedition to New Georgia and in addition to making observations which will prove of benefit to themselves and to your division they were of much help to my headquarters. They visited all parts of the area occupied by our troops, including the front lines, and closely observed our activities. Soon after landing in New Georgia our G-2 became a temporary casualty and Col. Miller took over and handled the assignment in a highly satisfactory manner. Major Frederick proved of value in assisting the G-3 division. Both were most cooperative and it was a pleasure to have them with us.38

Lt. Col. Russell P. Reeder, Jr., SWPA Section, was sent to the South and Southwest Pacific as an observer early in October. On his return he wrote an account of his interviews with soldiers who had been in the bloody fighting on Guadalcanal, later published and widely circulated throughout the Army. General Marshall was much struck with the value of this pamphlet as a means of bringing home to troops in training the realities of jungle warfare.39 Observers were also sent to Alaska, and accompanied forces that seized Amchitka (December 1942-January 1943) and those landing on Attu (11-31 May 1943).40

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An indication of the range of OPD's interests, and the range of its officers' interests when they were in the theater, was given by Col. Godwin Ordway, Jr., assistant executive officer, who took a month's trip to the South and Central Pacific in the fall of 1943. His mission was to check performance by zone of interior agencies on theater requests, and he had a great many details to take up with War Department staffs on his return. Among them were a request for two ships to send troops on leave to New Zealand, the need in jungle fighting for an abnormal proportion of 81 mm. mortar ammunition of the heavy type, complaints on a new Table of Organization for ordnance companies, a project for establishing an engineer pool in the South Pacific, the theft of desirable components of rations before they reached troops at the front, a shortage of parachutes for dropping food, the reclassification of officers, measures for improving the morale of infantry troops, objections to War Department training pamphlets, revision of censorship regulations, slowness in getting service troops and replacements, increase in number of regimental aid stations, and of course, Army-Navy relations.41

Again and again OPD officers on trips tried to explain to theater commanders the strategic background for the limitations imposed by the War Department on their operations, principally through the allocation of units, critical equipment, and shipping. A full and personal explanation of the reasons behind these allocations was of practical value, both to the theater commanders and their staffs as well as to the War Department. OPD officers had frequent occasion to make such explanations, not only in the earlier but also in the later stages of the war, when the Division was busy with what the War Department called "rolling up" the less active theaters.

To explain, as well as to learn, as always, several officers visited the China-Burma-India theater, which was the most difficult of all to supply, to direct, and to understand. General Marshall indicated the extent to which he relied on such visits in a letter to General Stilwell in October 1942, sent with Col. Thomas S. Timberman, chief of OPD's Asiatic Section. He began by saying that since Colonel Timberman was going out to the theater, he did not think it would be "necessary for me to elaborate on the state of affairs at this end of the line," Colonel Timberman being "completely familiar with all the circumstances." After a short statement of his views on relations with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and with the British, and the hope of sending air reinforcements to Burma, he concluded: "Timberman can talk over all these things with you. About all I can say is to develop more of patience and tolerance than is ordinarily expected of a man and much more than is your constitutional portion. You have had an almost overwhelming task to perform, with little aid from us, and we are deeply aware of what you have accomplished and the extreme difficulties of your present position." 42 When Colonel Timberman came back to Washington, General Stilwell sent with him a letter to General Marshall. He expressed the hope that when Colonel

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Timberman reported he would "not dwell on . . . troubles" of the CBI area "because I know you have plenty of your own." Nevertheless, he emphasized how important it was to him to be sure that General Marshall knew what he was up against and did not "expect miracles." 43

The service that trusted intermediaries could perform between the Chief of Staff and the commanders and staff officers representing the Army in the Far East, was particularly great and particularly useful to OPD before General Wedemeyer and his planning assistants from OPD were assigned to the Southeast Asia Command in the fall of 1943. Only in 1944, after the invasion of Normandy, was the Division in a position to exchange staff officers with the Far Eastern theaters as frequently as it had with other headquarters.44

The most frequent and most important occasions for seeing and explaining in person, despite the multiplicity of problems in China and Southeast Asia, arose in connection with operations in the Southwest Pacific. Of the various officers sent to the Southwest Pacific at one time or another, the one who established particularly close relations with General MacArthur was Colonel Ritchie.45 In 1945 General MacArthur voiced his "appreciation that the Chief of Staff would send a staff officer to give complete and frank answers to his questions about matters in Washington and the war in other theaters." 46 Similar expressions of appreciation were in many instances given to other officers who served to link the Chief of Staff's command post with the firing lines everywhere.

Strategic Planning Liaison

Strategic planning officers in OPD, interested primarily in the processes and results of theater planning, as well as theater section representatives who were more concerned with operations, played an important part in keeping in touch with overseas staffs, particularly with the British Joint Planners (the interservice staff of the British Chiefs of Staff) and with other planners, American and British, in London. OPD sent a steady succession of officers to the United Kingdom to work with the British Joint Planners, beginning early in 1942. Their absence from Washington on this duty lasted from two to three months, and with the overlapping of their tours in London, frequent extensions to go to North Africa and the Middle East, and the time taken in coming and going, two of them were absent much of the time.47

The Division attached a high value to the experience gained by planning officers overseas, not only the value to the officers themselves and to the theaters but also to the War Department. General Handy emphasized the point in a message of January 1944 to General Eisenhower, who had requested the assignment to Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, of Lt. Col. William H. Baumer, Jr. This officer, a

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member of the Strategy Section with several months' experience in the JWPC, had been in London working on future plans, and was then given an assignment to temporary duty in the Soviet Union as a member of Maj. Gen. John R. Deane's staff. General Handy told General Eisenhower that Colonel Baumer could not be released and explained that his tour of duty overseas had been as extended as it already was, not because OPD could well spare him but merely to supplement his already extensive experience and thereby fit him for further work in Washington.48

One of the most ambitious strategic planning trips taken by OPD officers was a world-wide tour in February and March 1945. A group of Washington planning officers attending the ARGONAUT Conference continued around the world at the conclusion of the conference. The party included Admiral Cooke (Chief of Staff, COMINCH), the three directors of the JWPC, three officers from the Air Staff, and two OPD officers, Brig. Gen. George A. Lincoln (Army planner and S&P chief) and Col. Vincent J. Esposito (chief of Projected Logistics Section, Logistics Group, and senior Army member of the JLPC). The purpose of the trip was to confer with the principal American officers along the way, in particular with the commanders in India, China, and the Pacific, on the results of the conference, especially as they bore on the war against Japan. The party left the Crimea on 10 February.49 General Lincoln made his first report from India on 17 February, covering a conference that he and Admiral Cooke had that day at Bhamo, Burma, with Admiral Mountbatten and General Sultan, Commanding General, India-Burma Theater of Operations. The conference dealt with short-range tactical plans, theater needs in transport aircraft and naval lift and especially landing craft, and long-range expectations, such as Admiral Mountbatten's plan to take Rangoon by 1 June.50

For the rest of the trip, the movements of the Washington planners were co-ordinated with those of a party (headed by Ambassador Patrick Hurley and General Wedemeyer, then Commanding General, U. S. Army Forces in China) scheduled to confer with General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz on the enormously complex problems of the war against Japan.51 Before leaving the Crimea, General Lincoln had received instructions from General Marshall to talk to General MacArthur specifically about "oil in north Borneo, the Chusan-Ningpo operation, and the entry of Russia into the Pacific War." 52 Admiral Cooke and General Lincoln had a long conference with General MacArthur on 25 February, in which they discussed Iwo Jima, the Philippine campaign, command in the Pacific, oil in Borneo, ending resistance in the Southwest Pacific, and plans for turning over to the British responsibility for operations in the Netherlands East Indies and New Guinea. Later, General MacArthur talked with his chief of staff, General Sutherland, and General Lincoln, mainly on command in the Pacific,

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emphasizing his opposition to giving the Navy supreme command of the final operations against Japan. General MacArthur spoke of the strength of the opposition to be expected in invading the Japanese home islands. He declared that planning should start at once, that heavy fire power would be needed to cover the beachheads, and that as many Japanese divisions as possible should first be pinned down on the mainland, principally by Soviet forces.53

After these conferences the planners' group and the party with Ambassador Hurley and General Wedemeyer went on at once to Guam, the advance headquarters of Admiral Nimitz, where they arrived the following day. 54 The conference held at Guam brought to light a major difference of opinion, the Navy officers there wishing to proceed against Korea while the Army officers preferred an attack against Kyushu, the southernmost of the Japanese home islands. The conferences completed, the Washington planners left for the United States, with only a brief stop at Hawaii. In reporting the substance of the Guam meetings from Hawaii on 2 March, General Lincoln directed Col. Thomas D. Roberts in OPD to get to work at once studying the timing for various courses of action against Japan, in particular as affected by the date of cessation of hostilities in Europe. Finally, he declared, OPD should start making logistic studies to cover whatever proposals CINCPAC, through COMINCH, would be making shortly to JCS.55 Soon after arriving in Washington, the first week in March, General Lincoln completed his long and comprehensive mission by reporting fully on it to the Chief of Staff.56

The last long planning trip to the Pacific came in the early summer of 1945. The original party of seven, which left Washington near the end of June, was headed by General Ferenbaugh, newly appointed chief of the Troop Control Section of OPD, and included two other OPD officers, Lt. Col. Fred C. Smith, also of the Troop Control Section, and Lt. Col. Andrew J. Goodpaster, Jr., of the Strategy Section. Several other officers joined the party en route to Manila, including two OPD officers, Col. Kenneth B. Hobson of the Pacific Section and Lt. Col. Paul J. Long of the Troop Control Section, who joined the party at Hawaii. The main party spent nearly two weeks in Manila, discussing redeployment, command, personnel, co-ordination among Army, Navy, and Army Air Forces, movement and storage of supplies, relations between the War Department and theater headquarters, artificial harbors for the invasion of Japan, British and French participation, and standardized loading of cargo shipping. On the party's return to Washington, Colonel Goodpaster wrote a report, beginning with a classic statement of the purposes of any such trip:

To reach a closer understanding with the theater on redeployment.
To obtain first-hand information on important theater problems.
To obtain information on future plans currently being developed by the theater.

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To observe the scale and progress of preparations for future operations, including those for the reception of redeployed units and the mounting out and support of expeditionary forces.
To become acquainted with the officers who are developing the plans and directives for the theaters' operations.

Colonel Goodpaster ended with a reminder of the principles that should guide the Division in dealing with overseas commands to give "every consideration" to theater requests for trained personnel and other stated needs, to "avoid arguments over generalities," and, if correspondence failed to "get down to specific cases on a complicated subject," to send out a party of staff officers to talk things over "before blood pressures begin to rise." The experience of the Division throughout the war testified to the wisdom of this final prescription.57

Attitudes of the Theater Commanders

OPD thought highly of what its representatives learned overseas, highly enough in fact to try always to have them report back ill person, even though they were to be permanently assigned overseas. The Division took special pains to explain in each case to the theater commanders and staffs why officers were sent out, whether to gain experience, to observe, or to handle some special mission. In the beginning, theater commanders doubted the value of sending comparatively junior officers, as distinguished from group chiefs and the Division chief. Lt. Gen. Millard F. Harmon's chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Allison J. Barnett, said as much in a letter to General Hull in reference to the activities of an OPD officer in the South Pacific in the spring of 1943. General Barnett began by declaring that he understood that the Division was trying to be helpful: "As to your statement that the Operations Division is not trying to find fault with people in the field, but is sending people out here with the sole purpose of finding out how you can assist the troops, this area has not one complaint to make with your Division. As a matter of fact, the Operations Division has gone much further than might be expected, in co-operating with us." He observed, nevertheless, that first impressions by visitors were very often unreliable, and went on: "There is usually a reason for every condition. Most assuredly we are not entirely satisfied with the set-up at this time, but the kinks are being ironed out with regularity." He explained that his headquarters made an "honest effort" to help the War Department by "showing people around who are ordered over here in order to get a picture of the set-up," but noted that he preferred visits by "heads of sections and departments rather than the secondary assistants who are unable to be of any help to us." He strongly urged visits by General Handy, by General Hull himself, and by "high-calibred assistants." 58

General Eisenhower wrote General Marshall to much the same effect in the summer of 1943. He said that he encouraged "all military visitors to report to the War Department fully and frankly whatever they have seen, the bad as well as the good," but that he doubted the value, from the theater point of view, of trips by junior officers. His words were: "I remain of the conviction that visits to an active theater by officers

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of influence and energy and in responsible positions cannot fail to have a beneficial effect in our war effort-the only thing that is really trying is a visit by an ordinary sightseer or by a junior staff officer whose influence at home cannot compare to that of a division commander or a branch chief." 59

General MacArthur also distinguished between visits by senior and by junior officers. An officer from OPD who talked with him early in 1945 reported that General MacArthur was disturbed that "except for a brief visit of General Marshall and General Hull to the Theater, no persons other than those in the lower level had ever visited the Theater to inquire as to the difficulties, problems, and plans." 60 On the other hand the theater commanders and their staffs appreciated the value of exchanging staff officers with Washington for temporary duty, whatever reservations they may have had about visits from junior officers for strictly observation purposes. It became increasingly evident that OPD officers were really anxious to understand the theater's needs as seen in the theater, making allowances for the inevitable "localitis," which they realized no one could escape if stationed long in any theater headquarters. OPD officers themselves, including the senior officers, repeatedly emphasized that they went out principally to learn. Just after returning from the Pacific in the summer of 1944, General Hull told General Sutherland, in a radio conference: "We had a marvelous ten days with you. It was an education. It was of immense benefit to us. . . . We don't know all the answers, of course, we don't even say that we do, but we do have a little better appreciation of your problem." 61

In time statements of appreciation began to come in from the theaters. For example, Maj. Gen. Ray W. Barker (senior U. S. Army officer in the early OVERLORD planning headquarters in London, called COSSAC), wrote to General Handy about the "helpful attitude of everyone in O.P.D." He went on: "I have told all and sundry hereabouts that if they do not in future get what they want from you, one of two things is wrong: Either they haven't got a good case, or they haven't stated it clearly." 62 Such recognition came most readily, of course, from commanders who themselves had served in Washington during the war. General Harmon, for example, wrote to General Handy soon after he had taken command of U. S. Army Forces in the South Pacific in 1942 to explain that he held to his original estimate of forces required: "What goes to U.K. cannot influence the determination of our needshere. I can only tell you what we believe to be our requirements in this area to accomplish the mission. My experience in Washington makes it easy for me to understand the difficulties confronting you in making these requirements available." 63 Much later, reviewing his experience as Commanding General, USA-FISPA, General Harmon wrote to General Marshall about his relations with the War Department:

There never was a time during this entire period in which I did not feel that the utmost consideration was given to all recommenda-

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tions submitted by me and that the maximum assistance possible, consistent with other commitments of the War Department, would be rendered to the South Pacific Forces. General Handy's attitude in these respects was reflected throughout the echelons of the Operations Division, and contributed in great measure to the effectiveness of the operations of Army Forces under my jurisdiction.64

In the Southwest Pacific, likewise, theater officers came to appreciate the value of frequent trips back and forth, as was shown by General MacArthur's acknowledgement of the value of what he had learned directly from Colonel Ritchie about other theaters and Washington problems. Overseas headquarters officers in general came to realize that visits to the theater by officers from the War Department were the best possible assurance that theater views would be presented effectively and taken seriously in Washington, whether in connection with relatively trivial matters or in connection with the most important decisions. In February 1945 General Sutherland told Colonel Freeman, OPD member of the JWPC then visiting General MacArthur's headquarters, that visiting officers were always welcome: "He [Sutherland] wished many visitors from Washington would come to the Theater and spend as much time as possible. They would be shown everything that they desired, would be taken into full confidence, and he was sure the education of the individuals would prove of great value not only to the Theater but to their home offices." 65

The overseas trips helped OPD make itself literally the Washington headquarters of every theater commander. The trips themselves were only interludes in the liaison between OPD and the staffs overseas, normally maintained by an enormous and varied correspondence carried by high-speed transmission messages. The personal link between Washington and the combat theaters helped to build up confidence in all quarters that OPD, especially its theater section officers, sympathetically studied and faithfully represented theater needs, even when they could not be met within the framework of current strategic policy and military resources. In this way OPD succeeded in maintaining its orientation toward military operations in the theaters through the whole war, while at the same time integrating theater plans with worldwide strategy.

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Endnotes

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