Supreme Commander by Stephen E. Ambrose Read Free Book Online Page B

supporting the single thrust.
    The logistical argument could work both ways. The problems Com Z faced when Eisenhower decided to leap the Seine were multiplied many time over as the AEF raced across northwest France. The armies required a million gallons of gasoline daily. Each division ate thirty-five tons of field rations per day. Every man in the AEF wore out shoes and clothes, expended ammunition and other material, and lost or wore out equipment. Port capacity was minimal, transport ability stretched to the absolute limit. The situation was made worse because transport airplanes were called off supply missions to get ready for air drops, which in turn were canceled because the armies overran the ground objectives before the paratroopers were ready to jump. Paris required 1500 tons of supplies per day. Com Z did what it could, with the famous Red Ball Express truck line, the construction of as much as forty miles a day of pipe lines for carrying fuel, and the reconstruction of railway lines, but all of this was insufficient to meet the constantly pressing supply needs.
    Every mile that the advancing troops moved away from the Normandy ports added to the problems. For example, forward airfields had to be constructed if the armies were to have air support from short-range fighters. But to construct them it was necessary to move men and materials forward, at the expense of other supplies. After the war the chief of staff of IX Engineer Command pointed out that if Patton had gone across the Rhine in September he would have done so without any logistical or air support at all. “A good task force of Panzerfaust, manned by Hitler youth, could have finished them off before they reached Kassel,” he said in analyzing Third Army’s chances. 4
    Montgomery, with the Belgian airfields for support, could have done better. He might have crossed the Rhine while the Germans were still unprepared and the shock of that event might possibly have caused a general German collapse. But if it had not, it is doubtful that Montgomery could have been maintained either, since he would have been forced to operate without Antwerp, and even had Patton stayed in Paris the transportation system was inadequate to the task.
    Forrest Pogue points out that a real failure on the part of SHAEF was the lack of optimism on the part of the pre-OVERLORD planners. They had built Com Z with a slow, ponderous advance in mind. No one was prepared for what happened, and largely for that reason Eisenhower could not take advanage of the AEF’s great victory. 5
    The situation was not unlike that which had faced the Germans in thesummer of 1940. The Allies had achieved something tremendous, but the results turned out to be disappointing, largely because they had not expected to score such an overwhelming success. In 1940 the Germans defeated the French Army, but they did not win the war because they were not prepared to invade Britain, and they were not prepared because they had not dreamed they would win in France so quickly. Similarly, in 1944 the AEF defeated the German Army in France but it did not win the war, for the Allies were not primed for their own victory.
    “In hardly any respect were the Allies prepared to take advantage of the great opportunity offered them to destroy the German forces before winter,” Pogue writes. “Virtually the whole intricate military machine was geared to a slower rate of advance than that required in late August.” If Com Z was behind in performance of its tasks, so was the civil affairs division. Not until three weeks after the Allies crossed the German frontier did SHAEF have occupation money for Germany to issue. Eisenhower spent much of his time in the first week in September desperately working on a handbook for occupation policy in Germany. 6 There was a great deal of preparation for the problems that victory would bring, but meanwhile that victory itself was slipping away. “There was not sufficient time,” Pogue