Smith, Walter Bedell

Walter Bedell Smith, 1946
By courtesy of the U.S. Army
(b. Oct. 5, 1895, Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.--d. Aug. 9, 1961, Washington, D.C.), U.S. Army general, diplomat, and administrator, who served as chief of staff for U.S. forces in Europe during World War II.
Smith began his military career as an enlisted man in the Indiana National Guard (1910-15) and in 1917 was commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry in the U.S. Army. He fought briefly in World War I, and, advancing through grades, he served in the U.S. and the Philippines and taught in the infantry school. In February 1942 he was named secretary of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and U.S. secretary of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, with the rank of brigadier general. The following September he became chief of staff, European theatre of operations, and chief of staff to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, serving in those posts until Eisenhower's departure from Europe after the war. He negotiated and accepted for the Allies the surrender of Italy (1943) and of Germany (1945).

On returning to the U.S. in 1945, Smith became chief of the operations and planning division of the war department general staff. Shortly afterward he was appointed U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, holding that post from 1946 to 1949. Later he commanded the U.S. 1st Army (1949-50) and was director of the Central Intelligence Agency (1950-53), becoming general in 1951. He retired in 1953 to become undersecretary of state. In October 1954 he resigned from government service and entered private business. He was the author of My Three Years in Moscow (also published as Moscow Mission, 1946-1949,1950) and Eisenhower's Six Great Decisions (1956).

BIBLIOGRAPHY. D.K.R. Crosswell, The Chief of Staff: The Military Career of General Walter Bedell Smith (1991), covers his career through 1945. Ludwell Lee Montague, General Walter Bedell Smith as Director of Central Intelligence, October 1950-February 1953 (1992), discusses Smith's role in the founding of the CIA.

Cunningham, Andrew Browne

Andrew Browne Cunningham
National Archives, Washington, D.C.
(b. Jan. 7. 1883, Dublin, Ire.--d. June 12, 1963, London, Eng.), British naval officer who was an outstanding combat commander early in World War II and served as first sea lord of the Admiralty from 1943 to 1946.
Cunningham became a naval cadet on HMS Britannia in 1897, rose steadily through the ranks in the following years, and commanded the British destroyer HMS Scorpion during World War I. He was promoted to vice-admiral in 1936, and he was serving as commander in chief of the Mediterranean Fleet when World War II began in September 1939. Though his forces were heavily outnumbered by the Italian Navy from June 1940 (when Italy entered the war), Cunningham set out to establish British naval supremacy in the Mediterranean. With France knocked out of the war, he was able to secure the disarming of Admiral René Godfroy's French squadron at Alexandria, Egypt. Cunningham then went on the offensive against the Italian navy. His air attacks on the Italian fleet anchored at Taranto harbour (November 1940) put three Italian battleships out of action, and in the Battle of Cape Matapan (March 28, 1941) his forces sank three of Italy's largest cruisers.

With British dominance over the Italian navy firmly established by 1941, Cunningham's principal opponent became the Luftwaffe (German air force), which inflicted heavy losses on his ships in operations around Crete and Malta and on British convoys bound for North Africa. After spending six months in Washington, D.C., as the Royal Navy's representative to the Combined Chiefs of Staff committee, Cunningham returned to combat command in November 1942 as naval commander in chief of the Mediterranean and North Africa. Acting as General Dwight D. Eisenhower's naval deputy, Cunningham commanded the large fleet that covered the Anglo-American landings in North Africa (Operation Torch; November 1942) and then commanded the naval forces used in the joint Anglo-American amphibious invasions of Sicily (July 1943) and Italy (September 1943).

Having been promoted (January 1943) to admiral of the fleet, Cunningham returned to London in October 1943 to serve as first sea lord and chief of naval staff, the highest post in the Royal Navy and one in which he reported directly to Prime Minister Winston Churchill through the Chiefs of Staff committee. He was responsible for overall strategic direction of the Navy for the remainder of the war. In 1945 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Cunningham of Hyndhope, and in 1946, the year of his retirement, he was made a viscount. A Sailor's Odyssey (1951) is his autobiography.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Oliver Warner, Admiral of the Fleet: Cunningham of Hyndhope (also published as Cunningham of Hyndhope, Admiral of the Fleet, 1967), covers Cunningham's life and career.

Dempsey, Miles,

Miles Dempsey
National Archives, Washington, D.C.
in full MILES CHRISTOPHER DEMPSEY (b. Dec. 15, 1896, New Brighton, Cheshire, Eng.--d. June 5, 1969, Yattendon, Berkshire), British army officer who commanded the 2nd Army, the main British force in the Allied drive across western Europe (1944-45) during World War II.
Dempsey was commissioned in the British army in 1915 and fought in France during World War I. He was a lieutenant colonel when World War II began in 1939, and he commanded an infantry brigade in France that helped to cover the British rearguard during the evacuation from Dunkirk in May-June 1940. Promoted to lieutenant general, Dempsey in November 1942 took command of the 13th Corps of the 8th Army in North Africa under General Bernard Montgomery. Dempsey's corps formed the right wing of Montgomery's forces in the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, and that September it spearheaded the invasion of the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula across the Strait of Messina. Dempsey led the 13th Corps 300 miles (480 kilometres) northward along Italy's west coast in 17 days to link up with Lieutenant General Mark Clark's U.S. forces at Salerno.

Montgomery picked the quietly competent and methodical Dempsey to command the 2nd Army, which contained several Canadian and Polish units as well as British forces, in the invasion of Normandy in June 1944. The 2nd Army landed successfully on Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches on June 6, drove inland to capture Caen on July 9, and then kept up pressure on the bulk of the German armoured forces while the U.S. 1st Army to the west broke out of Normandy on July 25. Dempsey led the 2nd Army in the battles of Mortain and Falaise and then swept eastward across northern France and Belgium. After taking part in the failed British attempt to capture Arnhem in The Netherlands (September 1944), Dempsey led the 2nd Army across the Rhine River in late March 1945 and drove northeastward into Germany, capturing Bremen, Hamburg, and Kiel and reaching the Danish frontier by May 1945.

With Germany's surrender, Dempsey served successively as commander in chief of Allied land forces in South East Asia (1945-46) and the Middle East (1946-47). He was knighted in 1944 and retired in 1947.

Gale, Richard Nelson
(b. July 25, 1896, London, Eng.--d. July 29, 1982, Kingston upon Thames, London), British army officer who commanded the British airborne troops employed in northwestern Europe during World War II.
Gale was commissioned in the British army in 1915 and fought in France, rising to become a company commander and winning the Military Cross. He was stationed in India from 1919 to 1936 and then served in various staff posts. In 1942 he formed the 1st Parachute Brigade, and he assumed command of the British 6th Airborne Division upon its creation in 1943. Elements of this division were dropped behind enemy lines in Normandy during the predawn hours of D-Day, June 6, 1944, on the extreme eastern flank of the invasion zone. After bridges had been secured across the Orne and Dives rivers, Gale landed by glider and commanded subsequent operations to block potential German approaches to Sword Beach, the easternmost of the Allies' landing areas. The 6th Airborne Division later participated in a drop across the Rhine River (March 24, 1945), and by war's end Gale had become commander of the British 1st Airborne Corps.

After the war Gale commanded the 1st Division of British troops in Palestine under the United Nations mandate (1946-47), and he took command of British troops in Egypt (1948-49). He then served as commander in chief of the British Army of the Rhine and the NATO Northern Army Group (1952-57) and as deputy to the NATO supreme Allied commander in Europe (1958-60). Gale was knighted in 1950. Call to Arms (1968) is his autobiography.

Crerar, Henry,

Henry Crerar (left) and Dwight D. Eisenhower
National Archives, Washington, D.C.
in full HENRY DUNCAN GRAHAM CRERAR (b. April 28, 1888, Hamilton, Ont., Can.--d. April 1, 1965, Ottawa, Ont.), Canadian army officer who was that country's leading field commander in World War II.
Crerar graduated from the Royal Military College (Kingston, Ontario) in 1910 and received a commission as an artillery officer. He soon quit the military for better-paying civilian work but rejoined in 1914 to fight in France, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, once again in the artillery. He remained in the army after World War I, holding various staff posts of increasing importance. In 1940, after Canada had entered World War II, Crerar was promoted to major general and became chief of the Canadian army's General Staff. In this post he worked to train and transport Canadian troops to Britain. He was promoted to lieutenant general in 1941 but then accepted a demotion in order to obtain a field command. He became commander of the 1st Canadian Corps, which fought in Sicily (July 1943) and Italy (from September 1943).

He was recalled to England in early 1944 to take command of the 1st Canadian Army, units of which landed on Juno Beach on D-Day (June 6, 1944) during the Normandy Invasion. Operating temporarily under Miles Dempsey's British 2nd Army, Canadian units took part in bitter fighting for the city of Caen (June-July) and then helped to close the northern arm of the Falaise-Argentan gap (August), in which large numbers of Germans were encircled and annihilated. By that time Crerar's army was directly under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery as part of the 21st Army Group. Operating on the extreme left flank of the Allied drive across France, the 1st Canadian Army took the French Channel ports of Le Havre and Dieppe and then cleared the Scheldt River estuary and captured Antwerp in Belgium. From there, they drove into The Netherlands and then breached the northern end of the Siegfried Line (Germany's fortified western frontier). Crerar had been promoted to general in November 1944, and he retired in 1946.

Brooke, Alan Francis

Alan Francis Brooke
Karsh of Ottawa--Camera Press
(b. July 23, 1883, Bagnères-de-Bigorre, France--d. June 17, 1963, Hartley Wintney, Hampshire, Eng.), British field marshal and chief of the Imperial General Staff during World War II.
Educated in France and at the Royal Military Academy (Woolwich), Brooke served in the Royal Artillery during World War I. Between the world wars he distinguished himself in staff duties and was in charge of military training at the War Office (1936-37). Brooke began service in World War II as commander of the 2nd Army Corps in France. After the retreat to Dunkirk, he was responsible for covering the evacuation (May 26-June 4, 1940) of the British Expeditionary Force. In July he took command of the home forces until promoted to chief of staff by Prime Minister Winston Churchill in December 1941. He held this post until 1946. As chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, Brooke represented the members' views ably and firmly to the prime minister and to the United States's Joint Chiefs of Staff, thus exercising strong influence on Allied strategy. Brooke was also recognized as a brilliant field commander, though he was never given any of the great overseas commands--including, to his great frustration, command over the Allied invasion of western Europe.

After the war, published extracts from Brooke's diaries provoked controversy because of their criticism of General Dwight D. Eisenhower's abilities as a military commander and of U.S. strategy in general. For his military services Brooke was created Baron Alanbrooke of Brookeborough in 1945; in 1946 he became a viscount.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Brooke's diaries formed the basis for Arthur Bryant, The Turn of the Tide (1957, reissued 1986), and Triumph in the West (1959, reissued 1986). David Fraser, Alanbrooke (1982), is a standard biography.

Leigh-Mallory, Trafford

Trafford Leigh-Mallory
National Archives, Washington, D.C.
(b. July 11, 1892, Mobberley, Cheshire, Eng.--d. Nov. 14, 1944, in flight over France), British air marshal who commanded the Allied air forces used in the Normandy Invasion (1944) during World War II.

Leigh-Mallory was educated at the University of Cambridge, received a commission in the British army in 1914, and fought in France during World War I. In 1916 he was transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, where he rose to become a squadron commander by war's end. He remained in the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the interwar period, becoming an air vice-marshal in 1938. The previous year he had been appointed commander of the No. 12 Group in RAF Fighter Command, whose main responsibility during the Battle of Britain (June 1940-April 1941) was to defend England's Midlands against German air attacks. A debate over tactics during the battle brought Leigh-Mallory into conflict with the No. 11 Group commander, Keith Park (in charge of defending southern England), and with the head of Fighter Command, Hugh Dowding. In defending Britain against German air attacks, these two commanders stressed the timely, well-directed use of individual fighter squadrons to intercept German planes, whereas Leigh-Mallory advocated the use of massive, five-squadron formations that would achieve an overwhelming air superiority but were difficult to marshal properly.

Leigh-Mallory's intrigues against Dowding contributed to the latter's replacement as head of Fighter Command in November 1940, and Leigh-Mallory took over the No. 11 Fighter Group the following month. He became the head of Fighter Command in November 1942. The following year he was promoted to air chief marshal and then became commander in chief of the Allied Expeditionary Air Forces, which were to be used in the projected Allied invasion of Europe in the spring of 1944. Leigh-Mallory thus became the commander of some 9,000 U.S. and British aircraft allotted to this operation. His great achievement in this role was the Transportation Plan, a massive bombing campaign against German and northern French railroads and marshaling yards prior to the invasion in order to prevent the Germans from bringing up reinforcements to attack the Allies' beachhead in Normandy. Leigh-Mallory expressed grave doubts about the wisdom of dropping paratroops onto the Cotentin Peninsula on the eve of D-Day (June 6, 1944), but, in the campaign that followed, he cooperated with army commanders such as Bernard Montgomery and Omar Bradley in directing the "carpet-bombing" of German defenses in advance of Allied armoured assaults.

Leigh-Mallory was appointed head of Allied air forces in Southeast Asia in November 1944 but was killed in a plane crash en route to his new command. He had been knighted in 1943.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Bill Newton Dunn, Big Wing (1992), written by Leigh-Mallory's grandnephew, is a biography of the air marshal based on his war diary.

Ramsay, Bertram Home

Bertram Home Ramsay
National Archives, Washington, D.C.
(b. January 20, 1883, Hampton Court Palace, London, Eng.--d. Jan. 2, 1945, in flight near Toussus-le-Noble, France), British naval officer who, during World War II, oversaw the evacuation of British forces from Dunkirk in 1940 and then commanded the naval forces used in the Normandy Invasion (1944).
Ramsay became a midshipman in the Royal Navy in 1899 and commanded a destroyer in World War I. During the interwar years he alternated periods of active duty with assignments on the staff of the Naval War College (1927-29) and the Imperial Defence College (1931-33). He became a rear admiral in 1935 and retired as a vice admiral in 1938. When World War II began, he was made flag officer at the Channel port of Dover. With the collapse of the Allied front in northern France in June 1940, Ramsay was put in charge of organizing the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk. Mobilizing every usable military and civilian craft he could find, he oversaw the evacuation of about 338,000 British and other Allied soldiers from Dunkirk and nearby beaches, bringing them to safety in England. He was knighted for this achievement.

Ramsay commanded several major amphibious assault operations in the next two years. Working under Admiral Andrew Cunningham, Ramsay helped to oversee the fleet that covered the American landings in North Africa (Operation Torch; November 1942) and then commanded the British landing operations in the Allied amphibious assault on Sicily (July 1943). In 1943 Ramsay was appointed naval commander in chief for Operation Overlord, the projected Allied invasion of northern France. The ships under his command landed 1,000,000 Allied troops in France in one month starting from D-Day (June 6, 1944).

Ramsay had been made an admiral shortly prior to the invasion. He was killed in an airplane crash while on his way to meet Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in Brussels. His 1944 diary was posthumously edited by Robert Love, Jr., and John Major and published as The Year of D-Day (1994).

Tedder, Arthur William

Arthur William Tedder
Walter Bird--Camera Press
(b. July 11, 1890, Glenguin, Stirling, Scot.--d. June 3, 1967, Banstead, Surrey, Eng.), marshal of the Royal Air Force and deputy commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force under General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who contributed significantly to the success of the Allied invasion of Normandy (June 6, 1944) and to the German defeat on the Western Front during World War II.
Tedder joined the British Army in 1913, transferring to the Royal Flying Corps in 1916. Remaining in the Royal Air Force (RAF) after World War I, he became RAF commander of the Far East Command (1936-38) and thereafter director of research and development. Appointed head of the RAF Middle East Command in 1941, he later took control of all Allied air operations in North Africa and Italy. He was knighted in 1942. Tedder contributed to the German defeat in North Africa and the success of Allied landings in Sicily and Italy (1943) by cooperating with other Allied forces, interdicting enemy supply lines, and giving tactical support to Allied ground troops.

Appointed Eisenhower's deputy in early 1944 and given control of all Allied air operations in western Europe, Tedder repeated his earlier successes by sealing off the Normandy beaches from the air and keeping German reinforcements from reaching the Allied beachhead. His bombing of the German transportation network significantly speeded the Allied advance during the final months of World War II. Elevated to the peerage in 1946 as 1st Baron Tedder of Glenguin, he became the first peacetime chief of the air staff and senior member of the air council, serving until 1951. He wrote With Prejudice (1966), his account of World War II.

Bradley, Omar N.,

Omar N. Bradley
AP/Wide World Photos
in full OMAR NELSON BRADLEY (b. Feb. 12, 1893, Clark, Mo., U.S.--d. April 8, 1981, New York, N.Y.), U.S. Army officer who commanded the highly effective 12th Army Group, which helped ensure the Allied victory over Germany during World War II; later he served as first chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (1949-53).

Bradley graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in 1915. At the opening of World War II he was commandant of the Infantry School, Fort Benning, Ga., and later commanded the 82nd and 28th infantry divisions. After being placed at the head of the 2nd Corps for the North African campaign, under General George S. Patton, he captured Bizerte, Tunisia, in May 1943. This victory contributed directly to the fall of Tunisia and the surrender of more than 250,000 Axis troops. Bradley then led his forces in the Sicilian invasion, which was successfully concluded in August.

Later in 1943 Bradley was transferred to Great Britain, where he was given command of the U.S. 1st Army in 1944. Placed temporarily under the command of British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, he took part in planning the invasion of France. In June 1944 he joined his troops in the assault on the Normandy beaches and in the initial battles inland. At the beginning of August he was elevated to command of the U.S. 12th Army Group. Under his leadership the 1st, 3rd, 9th, and 15th armies, the largest force ever placed under an American group commander, successfully carried on operations in France, Luxembourg, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, and Czechoslovakia until the end of European hostilities.

After the German surrender, Bradley returned to the United States to serve as administrator of veterans' affairs (1945-47) and chief of staff of the Army (1948-49). He was well liked by both officers and enlisted men and, after the unification of the armed forces, was chosen in 1949 as the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. While at that post he was promoted (1950) to general of the Army.

After retiring from the Army in 1953, Bradley was active in private enterprise. In 1951 he published his reminiscences, A Soldier's Story. A General's Life (with Clay Blair) was published in 1983.

Montgomery, Bernard Law,

Bernard Law Montgomery
National Archives, Washington, D.C.
byname MONTY (b. Nov. 17, 1887, London, Eng.--d. March 24, 1976, near Alton, Hampshire), British field marshal and one of the outstanding Allied commanders in World War II.

The son of an Ulster clergyman, Montgomery was educated at St. Paul's School, London, and the Royal Military Academy (Sandhurst). Having served with distinction in World War I (in which he was twice wounded), he was recognized as a first-rate trainer of troops, with a forcible insistence on physical fitness, youth, and efficiency in leadership. Early in World War II he led a division in France, and after the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk he commanded the southeastern section of England in anticipation of a German invasion.

In August 1942, Winston Churchill appointed him commander of the British 8th Army in North Africa, which had recently been defeated and pushed back to Egypt by the German general Erwin Rommel. There he restored the troops' shaken confidence and, combining drive with caution, forced Rommel to retreat from Egypt after the Battle of el-Alamein (November 1942). Montgomery then pursued the German armies across North Africa to their final surrender in Tunisia in May 1943. Under the command of U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, with whom he was to have numerous personal conflicts, he shared major responsibility in the successful Allied invasion of Sicily (July 1943) and led his 8th Army steadily up the east coast of Italy until called home to lead the Allied armies into France in 1944. He was first knighted (K.C.B.) in 1942.

Again under Eisenhower, Montgomery reviewed the plan for Operation Overlord (as the Normandy Invasion was code-named) and recommended expanding the size of the invading force and landing area. Eisenhower approved the expansion plan (code-named "Neptune") and Montgomery commanded all ground forces in the initial stages of the invasion, launched on June 6, 1944. Beginning August 1, his 21st Army Group consisted of Miles Dempsey's British 2nd Army and H.D.G. Crerar's Canadian 1st Army. Promoted to the rank of field marshal, Montgomery led the Group to victory across northern France, Belgium, The Netherlands, and northern Germany, finally receiving the surrender of the German northern armies on May 4, 1945, on Lüneburg Heath.

Following World War II, Montgomery was made a knight of the garter and was created 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein in 1946. He commanded the British Army of the Rhine and served as chief of the imperial general staff from 1946 to 1948. He became chairman of the permanent defense organization of the Western European Union (1948-51) and then deputy commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers in Europe (1951-58). Among a number of theoretical and historical treatises on warfare, he wrote his Memoirs (1958) and The Path to Leadership (1961).

Montgomery was always a cautious, thorough strategist, often to the point of overpreparing his moves and exasperating the patience of fellow Allied commanders. He insisted on the complete readiness of both men and matériel before any attempted strike, a policy that yielded steady, if slow, successes and ensured his popularity with his troops.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Studies of Montgomery's life and military career include Brian Montgomery, A Field-Marshal in the Family (1973, reissued 1987), written by his brother; Richard Lamb, Montgomery in Europe, 1943-1945: Success or Failure? (1984), focusing on his career as a field marshal; and a three-volume biography by Nigel Hamilton, Monty: The Making of a General, 1887-1942 (1981), Monty: Master of the Battlefield, 1942-1944 (1983), and Monty: Final Years of the Field-Marshal, 1944-1976 (also published as Monty: The Field Marshal, 1944-1976, 1986), based on Montgomery's private papers, also available in a condensed one-volume version, Monty: The Battles of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (1994). Examinations of the relationship between Generals Montgomery and Eisenhower include Norman Gelb, Ike and Monty: Generals at War (1994); and Alistair Horne and David Montgomery, The Lonely Leader: Monty, 1944-1945 (1994), offering a British perspective written in part by Monty's son.

George S. Patton, 1945 By courtesy of the U.S. Army
in full GEORGE SMITH PATTON, JR. (b. Nov. 11, 1885, San Gabriel, Calif., U.S.--d. Dec. 21, 1945, Heidelberg, Ger.), U.S. Army officer who was an outstanding practitioner of mobile tank warfare in the European and Mediterranean theatres during World War II. His strict discipline, toughness, and self-sacrifice elicited exceptional pride within his ranks, and the general was colourfully referred to as "Old Blood-and-Guts."

A 1909 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and a descendant of a Virginia family with a long military tradition, Patton became a keen student of the American Civil War (1861-65), especially its great cavalry leaders--an interest that likely contributed to the strategy of bold, highly mobile operations associated with his name. He began his army career as a cavalry lieutenant (1913) and was aide-de-camp to General John J. Pershing in Mexico (1916-17) and in England (1917). After serving with the U.S. Tank Corps in World War I, Patton became a vigorous proponent of tank warfare. He was made a tank brigade commander in July 1940. On April 4, 1941, he was promoted to major general, and two weeks later he was made commander of the 2nd Armored Division. Soon after the Japanese surprise air attack on Pearl Harbor, he was made corps commander in charge of both the 1st and 2nd Armored divisions and organized the desert training centre at Indio, California. Patton was commanding general of the western task force during the U.S. operations in North Africa in November 1942. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general in March 1943 and led the U.S. 7th Army in Sicily, employing his armour in a rapid drive that captured Palermo in July.


The apogee of his career came with the dramatic sweep of his 3rd Army across northern France in the summer of 1944 in a campaign marked by great initiative, ruthless drive, and disregard of classic military rules. Prior to the Normandy Invasion, he was publicly placed in command of the 1st U.S. Army Group, a fictitious army whose supposed marshaling in eastern England helped to deceive German commanders into thinking that the invasion would take place in the Pas-de-Calais region of France. Patton's armoured units were not operational until August 1, almost two months after D-Day, but by the end of the month they had captured Mayenne, Laval, Le Mans, Reims, and Châlons. They did not stop until they hurtled against the strong German defenses at Nancy and Metz in November. In December his forces played a strategic role in defending Bastogne in the massive Battle of the Bulge. By the end of January 1945 Patton's forces had reached the German frontier; on March 1 they took Trier, and in the next 10 days they cleared the entire region north of the Moselle River, trapping thousands of Germans. They then joined the 7th Army in sweeping the Saar and the Palatinate, taking 100,000 prisoners.

Patton's military achievements caused authorities to overlook strong civilian criticism of some of his methods, including his widely reported striking of a hospitalized, shell-shocked soldier in August 1943. (Patton publicly apologized for the incident.) His public criticisms of the Allied postwar denazification policy in Germany led to his removal from the command of the 3rd Army in October 1945.

The controversial general died in a Heidelberg hospital after an automobile accident near Mannheim. His memoirs, War As I Knew It, appeared posthumously in 1947.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Martin Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 2 vol. (1972-74; vol. 2 reissued as The Patton Papers, 1940-1945, 1996), combines and arranges Patton's papers with informative narrative. Biographies of Patton include Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph (1963, reissued 1977), and The Last Days of Patton (1981); Martin Blumenson, Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1885-1945 (1985), a popular account; Robert H. Patton, The Pattons: A Personal History of an American Family (1994), written by his grandson; and Carlo D'Este, Patton: A Genius for War (1995). Charles M. Province, Patton's Third Army: A Daily Combat Diary (1992), covers his World War II battles.

Eisenhower, Dwight D.,
in full DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER (b. Oct. 14, 1890, Denison, Texas, U.S.--d. March 28, 1969, Washington, D.C.), supreme commander of Allied forces in western Europe (1943-45) and 34th president of the United States (1953-61).

The following is a brief summary of Dwight Eisenhower's life. For more detailed treatment of his military career, see the extract from the Britannica article EISENHOWER, by Thomas C. Reeves.
Eisenhower entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1911, graduated in 1915, and during World War I commanded a tank training centre. In 1926 he finished first in a class of 275 at the Army's Command and General Staff School, and in 1928 he graduated from the Army War College. Stationed in Washington, D.C., he was in the office of the chief of staff, General Douglas MacArthur, from 1933 until 1935, when he accompanied MacArthur to the Philippines.

At the start of World War II, Eisenhower returned to the United States, and after the attack on Pearl Harbor he became chief of staff of the war plans division of the Army General Staff. In June 1942 he was named commanding general of the European Theatre, and the following November he assumed command of the Allied Forces in North Africa. In December 1943 he was made supreme commander of Allied Expeditionary Forces for the invasion of western Europe and on June 6, 1944, directed the landings on the Normandy beaches of France. In December of that year Eisenhower was promoted to the five-star rank of general of the army. In May 1945 he received Germany's unconditional surrender, and in November he returned to Washington as army chief of staff. He resigned from active duty on February 7, 1948, to become president of Columbia University.

In December 1950 Eisenhower was appointed commander of the supreme headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but in mid-1952 he resigned from the army to accept the Republican nomination for the U.S. presidency. He defeated the Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson in the November election and was inaugurated on January 20, 1953. Although his first term was marked by a severe heart attack and a major operation, Eisenhower was reelected for a second term, again defeating Stevenson. During his terms Eisenhower was concerned with ending the war in Korea (accomplished in July 1953) and with keeping peace throughout the world. His proposals for the latter resulted in the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency to deal with peaceful uses of the atom and in the formation of alliances such as the South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).

After leaving the White House, Eisenhower retired to his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and returned to his writing, having already published his war memoirs, Crusade in Europe, in 1948. His further works included Mandate for Change (1962), Waging Peace (1965), and The White House Years and At Ease: Stories I Tell My Friends (1967).