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THE COMMANDERS

Gen. Walter 8. Smith, had been with him since mid-1942. Eisenhower characterized Smith as "the perfect chief of staff," a crutch to a one-legged man. "I wish I had a dozen like him," Eisenhower told a friend. "If I did, I would simply buy a fishing rod and write

Fh°em;:V.?,r2¥Weekaboutmywonderfulaccomplishmentsinwinning Rommel had never worked with his army commanders, Gen. Hans von Salmuth of the Fifteenth and Gen. Friedrich Dollmann of the Seventh. With Salmuth, he would have shouting arguments. Dollmann had little field experience, was in poor health, and did not much like Rommel. Neither Salmuth nor Dollman were ardent Nazis. Gen. Baron Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg commanded the panzer group in the West. A veteran of the Eastern Front, Schweppenburg was horrified at Rommel's proposal to use the tanks close up; in his view, that was to misuse the tanks as fixed artillery. Their controversy was never resolved, but it hardly mattered, as Rommel did not command the panzer group. Rommel fired his first chief of staff. The successor was Gen. Hans Speidel, a Swabian fr-om the Wtirttcmberg district who had fought with Rommel in World War I and had served with him in the twenties. Speidel was an active plotter against Hitler, more politically adroit and aware than his chief. Eventually he was able to persuade Rommel to support the conspiracy against Hitler, which was growing through the early months of 1944. Here was a profound difference between Rommel and Eisenhower. Eisenhower believed with all his heart in the cause he was fighting for. To him, the invasion was a crusade designed to end the Nazi occupation of Europe and destroy the scourge of Nazism forever. He hated the Nazis and all they represented. Al-

though a patriot, Rommel was no Nazir*ven though at times he had been a toady to Hitler. To Rommel, the coming battle would be fought against an enemy he never hated and indeed respected. Heapproachedthatbattlewithprofessionalcompetenceratherthan the zeal of a crusader.

WHERE AND WHE

L`-MD-MARCH 1943, shortly after the Battle of

nearly two months before the final victory in appointed British Lt. Gen. Frederick Morgan to s=afftothesupremeAlliedcommander(designati -i.ith "cocordinating and driving forward the

thanne] operations this year and next year." VI CCS decided that no such operation could be mt in! directive, issued in late April, ordered Mo =mg for "a full-scale assault against the Contine[ &< }JSsible."I

lt would be hard to imagine a broader ( =-jijJd be anywhere betveen Hblland and Brest; -=t€- could be anytime between March and Sept

SH put tngcther a staff of British and American i r±TckT,RI}'BarkeroftheU.S.Armyashisdeput! CrJSS.\C after the initial letters of his title, an( COSSAC operated under one particu

ffiHi[-the number of landing craft allotted to ca± :he planners to a three-division assault. (

rt==mpdon that the Germans were certain to im T£. hat limitation removed all temptation t( di-ed attacks. From the first, COSSAC comn