I am interested that you are fully prepared to bear the strain and I am not interested in the usual rejoinder that you can take it. You will be under terrific strain from now on. Finally with reference to your last paragraph I think you made a mistake by not coming home first. Things have been going ahead in the UK for a long time and under a wise and aggressive man and Smith has already been there. He had also become one of the most famous men in the world. The fifty-four-year-old Eisenhower had been based in Algiers, Algeria, during 1943, while he served as commander of Allied Forces in the Mediterranean. Both edited collections were supported by major grants from NEH.Īware of the immense job that Eisenhower was about to assume, Marshall wanted him to get some rest and see his family before the demands of being Allied Supreme Commander made taking a vacation impossible. Eisenhower, The War Years, Volume III and The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, Volume IV, Aggressive and Determined Leadership. The material was drawn from The Papers of Dwight D. What follows is a selection of the correspondence between the two men in the six months leading up to D-Day. And with each other they could be brutally candid. Both were known for precise writing that rarely left a doubt as to what they were thinking. With Eisenhower in London and Marshall in Washington, D.C., the generals depended upon radiograms, cables, and letters to convey their views, share news, and solve problems. There was a war to be won and the success of OVERLORD was essential to an Allied victory. Marshall had been a leading contender for the job of Allied Supreme Commander, but, following Eisenhower’s appointment, he put aside any hard feelings. Marshall, the stately Virginian who served as the chief of staff of the U.S. One of Eisenhower’s biggest supporters and advocates was General George C. It was an immensely stressful job that involved managing the egos and mindsets of both the American and British military establishments. From London, Eisenhower then ordered, planned, cajoled, and charmed his way to making OVERLORD a reality. The plainspoken farm boy from Kansas received the lofty title of Allied Supreme Commander. Roosevelt selected, with Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s blessing, Major General Dwight D. The previous December, President Franklin D. More than two million Allied soldiers would be in France come August. The invasion of Normandy served as a turning point on the western front in World War II, putting the American and British armies on the road to Berlin and one step closer to defeating Adolf Hitler.

This June marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the first stage of Operation OVERLORD, or D-Day as it is popularly known. The Allies had just launched the largest amphibious operation in history with the goal of ousting Nazi Germany from France. Overhead, more than 1,200 Allied aircraft made 11,000 sorties, dropping 12,000 tons of bombs on the entrenched German army.

Before the day was out, 160,000 Allied troops would come ashore in France, their delivery made possible by a naval task force consisting of 5,000 ships. As June 6 turned from night into morning, American, British, and Canadian soldiers shook off their sea legs, adjusted their packs, and stumbled from the landing craft into sandy reaches of the French coastline.

General served as supreme commander