World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseDwight David Eisenhower was born at a two-story house at Lamar Avenue and Day Street in Denison, Texas, United States in 1890, and later moved to Abilene, Kansas, United States where he would grow up. He was the third of seven sons, very athletic and hardworking, and was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York United States in 1911. He graduated and was stationed in Texas, United States as a second lieutenant. While at Texas, he met Mamie Geneva Doud, whom he married in 1916. In his early career, he served under General John Pershing, General Douglas MacArthur, and General Walter Krueger. Eisenhower and George Patton were close friends decades before they both became household names, both playing a part in the development of tank warfare in the United States Army; they were loyal to each other and were trusting of each other, and it was a understanding that if there was to be a war, they would fight side by side.

ww2dbaseAfter the Pearl Harbor attack that formally brought the United States into WW2, Eisenhower was called to Washington DC by George Marshall to serve as a war planning staff officer. His experience in Philippine Islands led him to become an early advisor for the Pacific Theater in Washington. Although he had no field command experience thus far in his career, he was appointed the top Allied commander in North Africa; while Marshall believed that Eisenhower could perform well as a strategist, Eisenhower's growing political skills and unquestioning loyalty played a central role in this appointment. As he saw success in North Africa and then on the Italian island of Sicily, he was initially fearful that he would be pulled back to the United States to replace George Marshall (who was a candidate to lead the planned Cross-Channel invasion from Britain into France) and again be stuck behind a desk, but ultimately he was chosen to command the invasion of France and the campaigns beyond.

ww2dbaseAround this time, Eisenhower and Patton began growing apart. While Patton's aggressive personality changed little, Eisenhower, as observed by Patton, was growing less humble as Eisenhower's responsibilities and name recognition grew. Patton was also critical of Eisenhower's Anglophilia, as Patton thought that Eisenhower would often put down his own countrymen in order to advance US-British relations. Most of Patton's criticism for Eisenhower were tucked away in his private diary, however; for example, he had written on 18 Feb 1944 that "I wish Ike was more of a soldier and less of a politician" and on 1 Mar 1944 "Ike drank too much and is lonely".

ww2dbaseBernard Montgomery was very much Eisenhower's counterpart on the British side. Despite being an Anglophile in Patton's eyes, Eisenhower and Montgomery did not get along well, with the first unpleasant chapter dating all the way back to the first day they met, during which Eisenhower smoked a cigarette in Montgomery's headquarters without realizing Montgomery despised cigarette smoke, and Montgomery scolded Eisenhower to put it out as if Eisenhower was much his junior. The tension between them would grow in as Eisenhower eventually became Montgomery's superior officer, but they would remain as cordial toward each other as much as possible, as shown in this letter written by Montgomery after the European War had ended:

ww2dbaseEven before the war ended, Eisenhower was certain that he wanted to punish Germany for her aggression. In a conversation with US Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Eisenhower said that "there must be no room for doubt as to who won the war. Germany must be occupied. More than this, the German people must not be allowed to escape a sense of guilt, of complicity in the tragedy that has engulfed the world." He insisted that Germany must be punished fairly and justly, and the occupation must install a sense of guilt in the minds of the German people, and the occupation must be done without draining American resources.

ww2dbaseEisenhower was known for spending time with the front line soldiers to make them feel that the superiors cared about their conditions. He felt strongly that if commanding officers did not take the time to speak with the soldiers, the commanders would become alienated by the troops, therefore losing battle efficiency and losing the ability to maintain morale. His time spent with men of the US 101st Airborne Division before the troops took off for a paradrop in Normandy, France had been made popular, but there were numerous other occasions where the Allied Supreme Commander visited the front lines. On one such trip he visited troops of the US 29th Infantry Division in France, where the foul weather turned the soil into mud, and brought the general on the ground flat on his back after a slippery misstep. "From the shout of laughter that went up I am quite sure that no other meeting I had with soldiers during the war was greater success than that one", he recalled, deeply knowing that the fall, however embarrassing, made him look like he was no different than the ordinary soldier, therefore closing the gap between the general and his troops. His popularity with the troops were not an instant hit, however; it took a long time for him to develop the ability to bond with his front line soldiers. One of his first attempts at mingling with the troops as a general was rather disastrous. As American troops boarded their transports at Bizerte, Tunisia for Sicily, Italy, Eisenhower showed up at the dock in a perfectly pressed uniform in a shiny car complete with an attractive British female driver, Kay Summersby. He waved from a distance in encouragement, but received curses from the American troops in return. With the way he presented himself, he was falsely giving the troops the impression that he was of a higher social class, too good to dress like the common soldier and too important to mingle with them; it only reinforced the men's thinking that generals were gods sitting in the safety of the rear, living a totally different war than what the front line men were fighting. His message to the Allied personnel who were "about to embark upon the Great Crusade" at Normandy also achieved much less than what he aimed for. "It was meaningless, impersonal, and nothing to most of the men", wrote Robert Rogge. "Ike was in England, and England belonged to another, safer world. [The men] were aboard [ships], sailing into they knew not what."

ww2dbaseEisenhower was rumored to have had an extra-marital relationship with his driver Kay Summersby. This was suspected by many of the generals who Eisenhower worked closely with during the war, and it was later claimed by Summersby in 1969 after Eisenhower's death. Whether a romantic relationship existed between Eisenhower and Summersby is still debated today.

ww2dbaseEisenhower's relationship with the press was an interesting one. While believing that a commander must maintain secrecy to perform his duties, he was known to be the commander who kept the least amount of information from the press. Eisenhower believed that information disseminated to the American population in a timely fashion gives the civilian home front effort a boost in morale. "Civilians are entitled to know everything about the war that need not maintain secret through the overriding requirement of military security", he said. At one time in the war, as many as 943 journalists, either on the front lines or in rear areas, were working in the European Theater of Operations during WW2.

ww2dbaseAfter the war, Eisenhower was the president of Columbia University in New York, New York United States and then the supreme commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces. In 1953, he became the 34th President of the United States. In that role, he tried to de-escalate the Cold War. In 1953, he was able to bring the two factions in Korea to sign a truce, dividing Korea into two countries at the 38th Parallel. With both the United States and the Soviet Union stockpiling destructive hydrogen bombs, Eisenhower purposed plans such as the sharing of military plans between the two rivals, though it was not to be accepted by the Soviets. On the domestic front, Eisenhower continued the New Deal and Fair Deal programs, backed the desegregation effort in schools and the military, and started a program to lend American uranium to nations who could not enrich their own radioactive material for energy generation purposes ("Atoms for Peace" program).

ww2dbaseEisenhower passed away on 28 Mar 1969.

Famous Quote(s)

• "This is a long tough road we have to travel. The men that can do things are going to be sought out just as surely as the sun rises in the morning. Fake reputations, habits of glib and clever speech, and glittering surface performance are going to be discovered."
      » In a letter to Vernon Prichard, 27 Aug 1942
• "Kinship among nations is not determined in such measurements as proximity of size and age. Rather we should turn to those inner things — call them what you will — I mean those intangibles that are the real treasures free men possess."
      » London Guild Hall Address, 12 Jun 1945
• "I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity."
      » In a speech in Ottawa, Canada, 10 Jan 1946

Dwight Eisenhower Interactive Map

Photographs

Videos

Dwight Eisenhower Timeline

Visitor Submitted Comments

Show older comments

1.  Hobilar says:
18 Sep 2007 06:52:16 AM

Despite having been given a suite of rooms in the luxury Claridges Hotel, General Eisenhower never really felt very comfortable in London. He was unused to the formality and rigour of British etiquette and longed to be away from the continuous round of dinners with the ambassador, meetings with the King and overnight visits with Winston to Chequers.

Soon after arriving in England Ike asked his friend and naval aide, Commander Harry S. Butch Butcher, to find him a quieter location outside of the capital. One where the Supreme Commander could concentrate on his work of planning the TORCH landings.

After an extensive search, Commander Butcher discovered Telegraph Cottage. This small, unpretentious building, remotely sited in a ten acre wooded tract, was ideal. Commander Butcher knew instantly that his Chief would most heartily approve, for Telegraph Cottage was wonderfully sited between two golf courses. He took it on the spot.

It was only later that he discovered that the discreet Telegraph Cottage lay only half a mile from an important decoy for enemy aircraft.

6.  Alan Chanter says:
9 Aug 2019 08:11:50 AM

General Eisenhower did everything he could to foster Anglo-American co-operation. He warned that any US officer finding it impossible to establish cordial relations with the British or was caught running them down could expect to find himself on the next boat home regardless of how high a rank he held. This was no idle threat. Lieutenant-Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, the second son of the US President, refused to be deterred. He threatened to take a co-operation dispute directly to his father to settle even after James Winant, the US Ambassador in London warned him bluntly that his stubbornness might jeopardize the whole future of Anglo-American relations. In November 1944 he was recalled to Washington and reassigned to the Pentagon.