Download TO SUPREME COMMANDER ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE

DIRECTIVE
TO SUPREME COMMANDER
ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE
(Issued 12 February 1944)
1. You are hereby designated as Supreme Allied Commander of the forces placed
under your orders for operations for liberation of Europe from Germans. Your title
will be Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force.
2. Task. You will enter the continent of Europe and, in conjunction with the other
United Nations, undertake operations aimed at the heart of Germany and the
destruction of her armed forces. The date for entering the Continent is the month
of May, 1944. After adequate Channel ports have been secured, exploitation will
be directed towards securing an area that will facilitate both ground and air
operations against the enemy.
3. Notwithstanding the target date above you will be prepared at any time to take
immediate advantage of favorable circumstances, such as withdrawal by the
enemy on your front, to effect a reentry into the Continent with such forces as you
have available at the time; a general plan for this operation when approved will be
furnished for your assistance.
4. Command. You are responsible to the Combined Chiefs of Staff and will
exercise command generally in accordance with the diagram at Appendix
[reproduced on opposite page]. Direct communication with the United States and
British Chiefs of Staff is authorized in the interest of facilitating your operations
and for arranging necessary logistic support.
5. Logistics. In the United Kingdom the responsibility for logistics organization,
concentration, movement, and supply of forces to meet the requirements of your
plan will rest with British Service Ministries so far as British Forces are
concerned. So far as United States Forces are concerned, this responsibility will
rest with the United States War and Navy Departments. You will be responsible
for the coordination of logistical arrangements on the continent. You will also be
responsible for coordinating the requirements of British and United States forces
under your command.
6. Coordination of operations of other Forces and Agencies. In preparation for
your assault on enemy occupied Europe, Sea and Air Forces, agencies of
sabotage, subversion, and propaganda, acting under a variety of authorities, are
now in action. You may recommend any variation in these activities which may
seem to you desirable.
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7. Relationship to United Nations Forces in other areas. Responsibility will rest
with the Combined Chiefs of Staff for supplying information relating to
operations of the Forces of the U. S. S. R. for your guidance in timing your
operations. It is understood that the Soviet Forces will launch an offensive at
about the same time as OVERLORD with the object of preventing the German
forces from transferring from the Eastern to the Western front. The Allied
Commander in Chief, Mediterranean Theater, will conduct operations designed to
assist your operation, including the launching of an attack against the south of
France at about the same time as OVERLORD. The scope and timing of his
operations will be decided by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. You will establish
contact with him and submit to the Combined Chiefs of Staff your views and
recommendations regarding operations from the Mediterranean in support of your
attack from the United Kingdom. The Combined Chiefs of Staff will place under
your command the forces operating in Southern France as soon as you are in a
position to assume such command. You will submit timely recommendations
compatible with this regard.
8. Relationship with Allied Governments ― the re-establishment of Civil
Governments and Liberated Allied Territories and the administration of enemy
territories. Further instructions will be issued to you on these subjects at a later
date.
PREFACE
SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS
IN NORTHWEST EUROPE
The broad strategy behind our main effort against the German war machine
included as a highly desirable preliminary the successful conclusion of operations
in North Africa and their extension across Sicily to the Italian mainland. With
these accomplished, with the Mediterranean "flank" freed for Allied shipping, and
with the necessary special equipment built or in sight, we were at last in a position
to prepare for the final cross-Channel assault which had been agreed upon since
April 1942 as our main operation against Germany. It was correctly believed that
only on the historic battlefields of France and the Low Countries could Germany's
armies in the west be decisively engaged and defeated.
America and England ― the Western Allies ― could not be sufficiently strong
to undertake the assault against France until June 1944, but the broad tactical
plans for the operation were completed and approved by the Combined Chiefs of
Staff in August 1943, prior to my assumption of command of the European
Theater in February 1944.
As part of our basic strategy, and in accordance with the task given to the
Strategic Air Force under the Casablanca Directive in January 1943, the bombing
of Germany, begun early in the war by the British Bomber Command, was
intensified in May 1943 and continued with mounting strength to the end of the
campaign. Neither the contemplated invasion of Europe nor the direct attack on
the German industrial and economic system would be feasible until we had
achieved supremacy over the German Air Force. This struggle for air supremacy,
which had been going on throughout the war, was given added impetus by a new
directive (known as POINTBLANK) in January 1943 which aimed at subjugating
the enemy air force by the spring of 1944. In the event, German air might was
thoroughly dominated by D-day and we were free to apply the immense strength
of the Allied air forces in the manner we wished and to launch the invasion
confident that our plans could not be seriously upset by the German air force. In
addition, air bombardment had disrupted the German communications system,
immeasurably aiding our ground forces by impeding enemy movements. Our
main strategy in the conduct of the ground campaign was to land amphibious and
airborne forces on the Normandy coast between Le Havre and the Cotentin
Peninsula and, with the successful establishment of a beachhead with adequate
ports, to drive along the lines of the Loire and the Seine Rivers into the heart of
France, destroying the German strength and freeing France. We anticipated that
the enemy would resist strongly on the line of the Seine and later on the Somme,
but once our forces had broken through the relatively static lines of the beachhead
at St-Lô and inflicted on him the heavy casualties in the Falaise pocket, his ability
to resist in France was negligible. Thereafter our armies swept east and north in
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an unimpeded advance which brought them to the German frontier and the
defenses of the Siegfried Line.
Here enemy resistance stiffened, due primarily to the fact that he had fallen
back on long-prepared defenses. At the same time our own offensive capabilities
were lessened because our forces had, in their extremely rapid advance,
outdistanced supply lines which had been maintained only by herculean efforts.
By mid-September our armies in the north and center were committed to
relatively static warfare and faced the threat of stabilization. This was true also on
our southern Hank, where forces landed from the Mediterranean against the south
of France in mid-August had swept north through the Rhone Valley to link with
the Central Group of Armies and close the Belfort Gap.
At this time we planned to attack quickly on the northern front in an effort to
establish a bridgehead over the lower Rhine while the German armies were still
reeling from our blows, but the airborne operation launched at Arnhem was not
altogether successful in this respect, although considerable ground was gained and
our positions in this area improved. Coincidentally with approving the Arnhem
operation, it was directed that operations be undertaken to clear Antwerp as a
supply port on the north, essential to our continued offensive action. This was
accomplished in November.
While our forces moved slowly in attacks launched at selected points on the
front to close to the Rhine, the enemy on 16 December launched a desperate and
last counterattack designed to throw our campaign into disorder and to delay our
planned advance deep into Germany. The attack was not without its immediate
effect upon us, but the sturdy defense by our forces followed by our rapid and
continuous counterattacks brought home clearly to Germany's military leaders
that this last effort had failed completely and that the Nazi war machine faced
inevitable disaster.
My plan was to destroy the German forces west of the Rhine along the entire
length of the front in a series of heavy blows beginning in the north, and it was
my expectation that the enemy would, as he had done in Normandy, stand without
giving ground in a futile attempt to "fight it out" west of the Rhine. Moreover, the
air forces were used intensively to destroy his mobility. By March, when our
forces crossed the river north of the Ruhr, at Remagen, and at various points to the
south, resistance on the eastern bank was again reduced to resemble that in France
following the breakthrough, particularly because the enemy, mistaking our
intentions, crowded a great part of his remaining forces into the Ruhr area.
Our attack to isolate the Ruhr had been planned so that the main effort would
take place on the front of the Northern Group of Armies with a secondary effort
on the Central Group of Armies' front. This secondary effort was to be exploited
to the full if success seemed imminent. Clearing the left bank of the Rhine
throughout its length released the means required to strengthen this secondary
effort. With the capture of the Remagen bridgehead and the destruction of enemy
forces west of the Rhine, the anticipated opportunity became almost a certainty.
Our forces were now able to bridge the Rhine in all sectors and they fanned
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out in great mobile spearheads through western Germany, disrupting
communications, isolating one unit from another, and in the area of the Ruhr
completing perhaps the largest double envelopment in history, rendering that great
industrial area useless to support what was left of the Nazi armies. As our forces
moved rapidly eastward with the main effort in the center, to establish contact
with the advancing Russian armies at the Elbe, and in turn to swing swiftly north
and south to cut off any remaining refuge, the German High Command reluctantly
recognized. defeat and belatedly initiated negotiations which terminated with
unconditional surrender on 7 May 1945.
In these campaigns the United States of. America and Great Britain worked as
one nation, pooling their resources of men and material. To the Combined Chiefs
of Staff, through whom the directives of the two governments were expressed, we
constantly accorded our admiration for their well-devised system of command by
which they applied the concerted national efforts. Their political leaders, the
President of the United States and the Prime Minister, also contributed
immeasurably to the success of our armies in the field; once they had committed
themselves to a course of action they never failed to give us unstinted support.
References in this document to the operations of Allied and enemy units are
based upon contemporary reports received at SHAEF. Often these reports were
not clear or were fragmentary. The narration of our operations in full and accurate
detail will be more adequately performed by historians, who, aided by the
complete records, will be able to present in their true perspective the magnificent
achievements of each of the manifold units which composed the Allied
Expeditionary Force.
References in this document to the operations of Allied and enemy units
are based upon contemporary reports received at STAFF. Often these
reports were not clear or were fragmentary. The narration of our
operations in full and accurate detail will be more adequately performed
by historians, who, aided by the complete records, will be able to present
in their true perspective the magnificent achievements of each of the
manifold units which composed the Allied Expeditionary Force.
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