Allied Master Strategists: The Combined Chiefs of Staff in World War II
David Rigby
Language: English
Pages: 224
ISBN: 1612510817
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Awarded NASOH's 2012 "John Lyman Book Award for Best U.S. Naval History," Allied Master Strategists describes the unique and vital contribution to Allied victory in World War II made by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Based on a combination of primary and secondary source material, this book proves that the Combined Chiefs of Staff organization was the glue holding the British-American wartime alliance together. As such, the Combined Chiefs of Staff was probably the most important international organization of the Twentieth Century. Readers will get a good view of the personalities of the principals, such as Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke and Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King. The book provides insight into the relationships between the Combined Chiefs of Staff and Allied theater commanders, the role of the Combined Chiefs regarding economic mobilization, and the bitter inter-Allied strategic debates in regard to OVERLORD and the war in the Pacific. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the British American alliance in World War II.
Careful attention is paid in the book to the three organizations that contributed the principal membership of the Combined Chiefs of Staff; i.e., the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the British Chiefs of Staff Committee, and (in the case of Sir John Dill) the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington. After providing a biographical background of the principal member so the Combined Chiefs of Staff, Rigby provides information on wartime Washington, D.C. as the home base for the Combined Chiefs of Staff organization.
Detailed information is given regarding the Casablanca Conference, but the author is careful to distinguish between the formal nature of the big Allied wartime summit meetings and the much less formal day-to-day give and take which characterized British-American strategic debates between the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington and the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Indeed, it is a major contention of the book that it is critical to remember that more than half of the meetings of the Combined Chiefs of Staff took place in Washington, D.C. in a regularly scheduled weekly pattern and not at the big Allied conferences such as Yalta.
The role of the Combined Chiefs of Staff in directing the war in the Pacific and in planning the OVERLORD cross-channel invasion of western Europe, respectively, is covered in detail. These were the two most contentious issues with which the Combined Chiefs of Staff had to deal. Rigby attempts to answer the question of why two combative, fearless, warriors like Churchill and Brooke would be so unwilling to go back across the Channel, and to explain the tug-of-war the British Chiefs of Staff had to conduct with Churchill before a British battle fleet could join the American Central Pacific Drive late in the war.
The book also provides a wealth of information on the role played by members of the Combined Chiefs of Staff in the spheres of economic mobilization and wartime diplomacy. Most of all, what Allied Master Strategists does is to give the Combined Chiefs of Staff what they have long deserved―a book of their own; a book that is not weighted towards the U.S. Joint Chiefs on the one hand or the British Chiefs of Staff on the other; a book that is not strictly a “naval” book, an “army” book, or an “air” book, but a book that like the western alliance during World War II, is truly “combined” in an international as well as an interservice manner.
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health of, 12, 13, 67; JCS membership, 3, 10, 12; King, relationship with, 13, 14–15, 30; Marshall, relationship with, 12–13, 14, 25, 48; military leadership role and rank, 3, 5, 10, 11, 15, 53–54; Pacific campaign strategy, 15; Philippines service of, 11, 14; Portal, relationship with, 40; promotion of, 11, 12, 14; strategic brilliance and organizational ability of, 53; Yalta Conference, 67 Atlantic, Battle of the, 6, 14–15, 22, 42, 61, 76, 78, 92, 96, 197–99 Axis nations, 8, 92–93, 94–95,
of Staff General Marshall wearing five stars. U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive American. Born: December 31, 1880, Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Died: October 16, 1959, Washington, D.C. General George C. Marshall was a man who never laughed at the president’s jokes and who bristled when the president, or almost anyone else, called him by his first name. Marshall was determined that FDR’s considerable charm never sway him from bringing up unpleasant issues that he felt needed presidential
Admiral King, Churchill says Air Chief Marshal Portal.162 Either way, neither King nor Portal was readily replaceable in the Allied war effort, and while many historians find humor in the incident, the entire affair casts serious doubt on Mountbatten’s mental stability, to say nothing of his suitability for high command.163 Even when he was not needlessly endangering lives with such reckless experiments, Mountbatten wasted a great deal of time and money on projects that, like Habbakuk, proved to
the conference, Britain “won” at Casablanca (in that they kept the war effort against Japan limited for the time being without being forced to set a date for a cross-channel invasion in Europe) because in January 1943 the British had more troops in the war against Germany than did the Americans. An important qualification needed here is that calling the North African campaign that was in progress at the time of the Casablanca conference “the war against Germany” is a bit of a misnomer. In the
to a close wartime transatlantic relationship between London and Washington. A common language is the most obvious. Another was the experience of having fought on the same side (and against one of the same enemies) in World War I. There was also, of course, the famous friendship between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill. Their voluminous correspondence leaves no doubt that the two men regarded each other highly. The most important factor, however, for the success of the Western
