(5 of 10)
That morning, Eisenhower spoke by radio to his troops: "Soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force. You are about to embark on the great crusade toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory. Good luck, and let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking." Ike kept in his pocket another communique he had written in case of disaster: "Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold, and I have withdrawn the troops. If there is any blame or fault attached to the attempt, it is mine alone." As Eisenhower lay dying at Walter Reed, plans were nearly completed for the celebration on Normandy's beaches of the invasion's 25th anniversary.
The communiqué explains in brief why he was one of the 20th century's great military leaders. He may not have been a grand master of strategy or tactics; yet, better than any other commander of his time save George Marshall, Ike understood what is most important in modern warfare: organization and coordination. He was, as Winston Churchill noted, a great "creative, constructive and combining genius." It is doubtful that anyone else, again save Marshall, could have melded the competitive British and American forces—not to mention the Canadians, Free French, Poles, Czechs, Dutch and assorted others—into so formidable a fighting machine.
In his role as statesman-soldier, Ike was not hurt by his famous modesty. Somehow, in his slow, frustrating progression as a peacetime Army officer, he had gained such self-confidence that he could let subordinates win glory and medals, taking to himself the satisfaction of achievement. "Your job," Eisenhower told S.L.A. Marshall, the European theater's chief historian in 1945, "is to determine the truth, and I will settle for that. You are not here to protect my reputation." Well aware of his worth, he was not falsely humble, but the bravura of a MacArthur, a Patton or a Montgomery distressed his sense of proportion. He did not need to shout, and as General of the Army or President he betrayed not the slightest trace of pretension or vainglory. There was, to be sure, a terrible temper, but as Field Marshal Lord Montgomery, a former subordinate and sometime critic of Eisenhower, said last week, "He had only to smile at you, and there was nothing you would not do for him." Even as a five-star general, Ike could extend his hand to an enlisted man and say: "My name's Eisenhower." He was also, perhaps, the only President who ever apologized (in 1955) for the length of his State of the Union address.
In time, says Historian Marshall, Eisenhower's reputation as a military innovator will be higher than it is now. The decisive moves of the Normandy landings, Marshall notes, were all Eisenhower's. It was he who rejected the original conception of a knifelike, five-division strike into Europe and insisted instead on a broad, seven-division assault. Against the advice of his own deputy, he insisted on a paratroop landing behind enemy lines. Only at the end, the historian relates, did Churchill accept Ike's battle plan.