Essay On Operation Torch Landing

Eisenhower in November of 1942, Operation TORCH started, with the proposal of landing troops in North Africa. The Combined Chiefs of Staff appointed him as Commander in Chief for the invasion. However, both Marshall and Eisenhower resisted the operation as it would divert resources from the landing on Europe. The operation did delay the invasion of Europe. Nevertheless, it did have some positive benefits with testing the equipment along with the troops and their training. The leaders also learned from the different lessons and learned to work together as a unified force. They also received a better understanding of how amphibious landing and the planning involved. Churchill and the other Allied forces had concerns for keeping control over the Mediterranean and a campaign in North Africa would do this. They decided that it was the best option they had and it caused a lot of worry for Eisenhower due to the complexity of the amphibious landing. The landing was the US first campaign in Europe and was the debut

of Eisenhower commanding over the Allied forces. The landing was risky and was unsure how Vichy France would react to the US. Eisenhower gained self-confidence and developed administration and logistical support needed for the coalition.
As commander of the military forces he also learned the importance of diplomacy and the politics that influenced the situation. In North Africa is when he emerged as a diplomat as he viewed problems as a time to learn. By the end of 1943, they had successfully landed in Sicily and Italy and lead to the surrender by the Italians in September. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin meet at the Teheran Conference in November. They concluded the need for opening a second front in Europe. This lead to devising of Operation OVERLORD and the general plan was devised by the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force. This was the most important operation the Allied forces would conduct in the war. The object was to destroy the Nazi regular army by seeking a decisive battle against them. Eisenhower also selected the Ruhr, which was the industrial heart of Germany, as an attack that would cripple the German forces. To do this they planned to land on the Normandy coast and move to the interior of France. They used two armies on a broad front. With an emphasis on the left of the front they planned to take out ports and the right front was to move towards southern France. They planned to move west towards the Rhine River and then to surround the Ruhr, forcing Germany to surrender.
To carry through with the strategy of taking Germany out with the invasion of Normandy involved a lot of organization and administration.

Harmony between the forces was again stressed and Eisenhower needed a staff that would follow through with this. Eisenhower now left the operation into the hands of the soldiers on Gold, Sword, Juno, Omaha, and Utah beaches. Operation OVERLORD was the largest amphibious landing ever in history. The previous operations and landing in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy helped prepare the leaders and troops for this day. By the end of June, the Allied forces had landed over one million men and near 585,000 tons of supplies to support them, Operation ANVIL in southern France was also helping with them sending men to Europe. Then by then of August some two million men were in France and heading toward Paris. Eisenhower was optimistic about the success of the operation and was determined that the work after it would also be

successful.
He turned his attention to attacking the Germans and exposing their weaknesses. After crossing the Seine River, he continued to push instead of pausing due the weakening resistance of the Germans. He continued to advance in a broad front as to use all the Allied power against them while giving them more chances to end the war. Author R. Alton Lee states that, “On December 16, two German armies of twenty-four divisions suddenly struck the three American divisions in the Ardennes, smashing through and crushing two of these divisions. The following battle, known as the Battle of the Bulge, was the last German effort.” He was able to quickly respond to the situation and the Germans were unsuccessful in their attempts to push back. At the town of Remagen, the Allied forces took the Ludendorff railway and Eisenhower decided to cross the Rhine River from this point. This helped with the encasement of the Ruhr valley and they captured more than 325,000 German prisoners. This ended most organized resistance and Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. Then on May 7 the Third Reich officially surrendered.
With the war over, Eisenhower returned to the US in November 1945. He became Chief of Staff, replacing Marshall, and was now in charge of the postwar demobilization of the Army. The US Congress passed the National Security Act of 1947 helping to restructuring of the United States government's military and intelligence agencies. This also created the unified Joint Chiefs of Staff and Eisenhower became the first Chief of Staff to participate. Kennedy Hickman points out that, “Departing in 1948, Eisenhower became President of Columbia University. While there, he worked to expand his political and economic knowledge, as well as writing his memoir Crusade in Europe.” Then a few years later in 1950, President Truman recalled Eisenhower to be Supreme Allied Commander of Europe and to oversee the buildup of military forces for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. While working with NATO, he helped establish a partnership among the different nations while also pursuing peace.
In 1952, he became the nomination for the Republican Party and went on to defeat Democrat Adlai Stevenson. He became the 34th President of the United States of America. All his hard work and preparation from his military service helped him to become a great leader as a president for America. He brought some of his practices from the military over to the white house like the use of a chief of staff to help with the day-to-day business. He was also concerned about the issue of international peace and continued to focus on this in his presidency. In following this pursuit of peace, he had the Korean War ended. He also proposed the Atoms for Peace program, which had the different nations using their nuclear information in a productive and positive way. This program leads to the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Eisenhower also tried to reduce tension between America and the Soviet Union. To help, he proposed the Open Skies plan, which allowed aerial inspection of the other’s military bases. In 1957, the Eisenhower Doctrine was created and promised aid to the Middle East, which was dealing crises, that asked for assistance against Communist invasion. The President became involved in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, and the islands of Quemoy and Matsu. However, the relationship with Russia stalled with the U-2 incident in 1960, which lead to the breakup of a conference in Paris. The relationship continued to harden.
Eisenhower created the New Look program and cut military spending while also managing the budget. This resulted with smaller forces and the push for deterrence. He also created the new cabinet office of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Congress and Eisenhower helped the economy, and passed the Federal Aid Highway Act in 1956 and this became the biggest peacetime construction program at the time. Eisenhower was also involved with the use of federal troops with the desegregation in Little Rock after their refusal to follow the 1954 Supreme Court ruling. Eisenhower also created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) after the launch of the Explorer 1, the first American satellite. Then in January 1961, he turned the presidency over to John F. Kennedy. He soon retired to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. On March 28, 1969, he died of heart failure and was buried in Abilene, KS after his funeral in Washington D.C.