Eisenhower – Achilles the Heel

Not soon after the United States entered World War II and became a core member of the western Alliance, Washington began to consider ways to invade Nazi-occupied Europe, “Fortress Europa.” The pressure was especially high on the Franklin D Roosevelt administration to launch the invasion before the end of 1942.

But two years would pass before an invasion could be launched, with the delay in time being directly commensurate with the scale of the challenge.

Initially, the US military had few troops available to invade the continent. Only in mid-1942 was US Army Chief of Staff, General George C Marshal, able to initiate a buildup of US forces in Britain for the return to Europe. The buildup, codenamed Operation “Bolero” had the twin objective of allowing Marshal to assemble troops in England to justify Washington’s “Germany First” policy while simultaneously silencing the US Navy, which sought greater resources, troops and equipment for the Pacific Theater of Operations (PTO).

However, the British, especially Prime Minister Winston Churchill, were apprehensive about a cross-channel invasion in 1942 or even 1943 – a prospect made all the more uneasy by the disastrous Dieppe raid of August 1942.

The Dieppe action was an amphibious operation by commandos that was to be a testbed case for a cross-channel assault and prove to the Russians and Josef Stalin that the western alliance was serious about eventually launching a second front in Europe. (Carlo d’Este, Decision in Normandy, Chapter 2, Section 13, Para 29). Unfortunately, the landing in northwestern France, led to most of the Allied landing forces being killed or captured.

That failure strained the Anglo-American alliance as the Americans were then forced to contribute troops and resources to what they considered as “sideshow operations” in the Mediterranean Theater that were so dear to Churchill’s heart. American involvement in the Mediterranean was also driven by the US army’s comparative combat inexperience in 1942 (when compared to Great Britain), which meant that the United States had to follow England’s lead, and so the US found itself engaged in various landings and campaigns — in Algeria, in Tunisia, in Sicily and finally in mainland Italy.

US resentment was growing, fueled by suspicion that Americans were fighting and dying in campaigns for the benefit of Britain which planned to re-establish its Mediterranean empire after the war. From the British perspective, the Mediterranean campaign was to remind the world that England was not yet out of the war and capable of hitting back at the Third Reich.

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Like prodigals returning home, a column of soldiers from a Free French armored division entered the Nazi-occupied city of Paris. It was the night of 24 August 1944.

They were the first Allied combat forces in the capital in four years but their numbers were paltry – only 172 men and three tanks. The column’s mission was paramount: to set up an advanced combat perimeter in the city.

This was intended to boost the morale of the population which had become ensnared in a popular revolt against the Germans for five days. But the column commander, a thick-set, amiable French captain named Raymond Dronne, knew that the mission had more at stake. The detachment was expected to link up with the French resistance and help the rest of their division (the Free French Deuxième Division Blindée or 2nd Armored Division), to prevent what many feared would be Germany’s total destruction of Paris.

The fear was not unfounded. The German dictator, Adolf Hitler, had ordered the German commander of the city, General Dietrich von Choltitz, to leave the capital a sea of ruins. The order was not unprecedented. The Germans had systematically obliterated other cities in Russia and in Europe. At that moment, at the other end of Europe, German forces were obliterating the Polish capital of Warsaw of its resistants, block by block, building by building.

It was 8.45 pm when Captain Dronne’s troops entered Paris through the undefended Porte d’Italie, one of the ancient gateways of the nearly 2,000-year-old city. Seeing the unfamiliar tanks and the strangely garbed men, the locals ran and hid. Then they saw the French tricolor on the sides of the vehicles and erupted into wild celebration. Pushing past the jubilant crowds, the detachment headed towards the city hall, the ornately decorated Hôtel de Ville. The building was, for Dronne, a “symbol of Paris’ freedoms.”

News of the unit’s arrival at the Hôtel de Ville spread like wildfire throughout Paris — triggering a storm of emotions among the people. Church bells began to ring. But the new liberators remained vigil.

All around them were nearly 20,000 German troops, with their leader in Berlin determined to destroy a city which he had likened to the beating heart of France.