If Eisenhower were in Pacific and MacArthur in Europe

Deleted member 97083

Now I am picturing all the World War II generals walking a runway and being judged.

"and here's Dougie 'the Mac daddy' MacArthur, look at the way he throws the scarf one way and swirls the jacket in the other direction, its breathtaking isn't it Derek?"

"That's right Hansel, and now he ends it with what all the fashionista this side of Signal have dubbed Eye of the Dragon!"

"Goosebumps Derek, goosebumps."

♪♫ Set to Soul Coughing's Super Bon Bon ♪♫
"But why male marshals?"

For that matter is Europe big enough for the egos of MacArthur and Montgomery to be on that continent at the same time?
Europe would have to be at least... 3 times bigger.
 

Driftless

Donor
His political prestige in the GOP means that he has to be given some job, somewhere. Preferably somewhere far away from the American press. He would be the perfect Ambassador to say Spain or Portugal (close enough to Europe to actually analyze things) and something tells me he would get along reasonably well with Franco. Although a devious and somewhat mean part of me would want him to take the place of General Stilwell

The Spanish ambassador assignment might fit Mac's sense of importance, especially late 1930's. I can see Mac & Franco as getting on well together. Could that sympatico and Mac's headstrong nature have created some bumps of it's own?
 
Churchill would have swallowed his pride and put up with whatever general FDR inflicted on him. He was in no position to do otherwise.

In 1942 he was. His favored project, the Gymnast>Torch operations became the center of Allied strategy for the latter half of 1942. In January 1943 at the Symbol conference he backed Brooke & got Roosevelt to direct the US Chiefs of Staff to go with the British strategy for 43. As late as December 43 he was able to order the execution of the Shingle operations and get it rolling despite the objections of US Gen Clark & Marshal. Eisenhower objected as well, but removed from SACMED & distracted by leave in the US from taking up the control of SHAEF he lost that battle.

In 1944 Eisenhower had solid backing from Marshal, Roosevelt, & quite a few others & was able to ignore Churchills worst. Also Brooke was in a good enough position he could undercut Churchill as well.
 
In 1942 he was. His favored project, the Gymnast>Torch operations became the center of Allied strategy for the latter half of 1942. In January 1943 at the Symbol conference he backed Brooke & got Roosevelt to direct the US Chiefs of Staff to go with the British strategy for 43. As late as December 43 he was able to order the execution of the Shingle operations and get it rolling despite the objections of US Gen Clark & Marshal. Eisenhower objected as well, but removed from SACMED & distracted by leave in the US from taking up the control of SHAEF he lost that battle.

In 1944 Eisenhower had solid backing from Marshal, Roosevelt, & quite a few others & was able to ignore Churchills worst. Also Brooke was in a good enough position he could undercut Churchill as well.

All very true. However, these actions occurred because Roosevelt was willing to tolerate them. None of them involved Churchill refusing to accept a particular American general. Tossing a general because Churchill dislikes him is another matter entirely. Especially one that is a Republican hero who is being touted as a potential candidate for the White House. Dumping Mac-n the middle of an election year no less-would cause FDR no small degree of political pain. Hes not going that route if it can be avoided.
 
Are you sure no US generals were 'tossed' because Churchill disliked them? ;) Ike was snatched out of a staff position in WPD because Churchill insisted & elevated over 60+ US generals senior to him. You dont think Marshal had a list of others to appoint to commander of Operation Torch?
 
I'll dig around & try to find some source material on this. My memory is aging as well. Fredendall as commander of US II Corps in the UK had already gotten crossways with the Brits. He had a good service record in the US, but after a few months in England was seen as a Limey hating ass unsuitable for joint commands.
 
I'll dig around & try to find some source material on this. My memory is aging as well. Fredendall as commander of US II Corps in the UK had already gotten crossways with the Brits. He had a good service record in the US, but after a few months in England was seen as a Limey hating ass unsuitable for joint commands.

my reading seems to indicate that Eisenhower was profoundly unimpressed when he found that Fredendall had assigned most of an engineer battalion to build him an underground bunker 40 miles from the front.

A mere few days from Kassarine.

So Ike fired Fredendall without needing any nudge from above.

Lucas was not under Eisenhower's command at the time of Anzio... his chain of command was Clark and Alexander but there was most definitely pressure from above in that case.
 
Lucas? Fredendall? My aging memory is betraying me here!

I can't speak to any others but Fredendall got tossed because he was a straight-up incompetent.

Regarding MacArthur, he would have ended the war in disgrace if he had ended up in command in North Africa. He was an incompetent combat leader whose failures IOTL in the Philippines got papered over by his dramatic escape, political connections, and the fact that a lot of evidence got erased because the Japanese took over his entire theater. After that debacle, he spent most of the war doing a poor job leading men against an inferior enemy he couldn't really lose to just because of logistics (the Navy had gotten the upper hand on the IJN by that point).

North Africa wouldn't have offered the special circumstances that allowed him to escape scrutiny. He would have been fighting peer countries in straight line combat in a theater that had a lot of spotlight and press attention on it. He wasn't up to that task.
 
Top