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Other stations and assignments followed, and in 1933, Eisenhower, always a good staff man, found himself working in Washington for Douglas MacArthur, Army Chief of Staff. Two years later, he followed MacArthur to the Philippines to help prepare the islands' defenses. Worlds apart in temperament, the egocentric MacArthur and the self-effacing staff officer nevertheless grew to respect, if not like, each other. His celebrated commander had one habit that, Eisenhower confessed, "never ceased to startle me. In reminiscing or in telling stories of the current scene, he talked of himself in the third person. 'So MacArthur went over to the Senator . . .' " Ike later-was to direct historians recording his official speeches to avoid "the perpendicular pronoun"—the simple I.
Lieut. Colonel Ersenberg
Brought back to the U.S. in 1940, Eisenhower became Third Army Chief of Staff in 1941. He planned the maneuvers of 270,000 troops in Louisiana that fall so ably that he won the attention of Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, who was searching diligently for men to direct the battles he foresaw. The blunt fact remained that after 30 years as a professional soldier, Eisenhower's permanent rank had gone no higher than lieutenant colonel. So little was he known that photo captions of the exercises listed him as "Lieut. Colonel D. D. Ersenbeing."
He was to remain neither lieutenant colonel nor Ersenbeing for long. In 1941, he was given the temporary rank of colonel, then brigadier general (he was not permanently awarded the B. G.'s star until 1943). Five days after Pearl Harbor, Marshall ordered him to Washington to assess the situation in the Philippines. Next, Marshall asked for a paper on the organization of U.S. forces in Europe. On June 8, 1942, Ike submitted a document entitled "Directive for the Commanding General, European Theater of Operations." On June 11, as commanding general for Europe, he went to work on his own recommendations. Marshall had persuaded President Roosevelt to reach deep down the seniority list for a man to lead the largest army that any nation in history had ever fielded. "Looks like I'm going to London next week," Eisenhower told his wife. "I'm going to be in command there." Mamie asked: "In command of what?" Ike answered: "Of the whole shebang."
It was some shebang. First as Chief of the U.S. forces and then as commander of all Allied troops, Eisenhower led the most awesome military machine the world had yet seen, eventually to number more than 4,000,000 men. Landing first in North Africa, his men stormed the beaches of Sicily, pushed up through Southern Italy, then finally prepared to attack Hitler's Festung Europa itself. Target: Normandy. D-day was set for June 5, 1944, but bad weather over the English Channel, the worst in years, forced postponement. There was only a tiny gleam of hope—better weather forecast for the 6th—and Eisenhower made the most momentous decision of his career: Go.
The Great Crusade