Mission Command Analysis

In 1943 the British and American Allies shared a common language and a common enemy, but they disagreed on the war’s grand strategy. (site) These strategic differences culminated in the Sicily Campaign, with Allied command and control exercise by Allied Commander, General Eisenhower, failed to employ the three essential attributes of mission command: commander’s intent, full understanding, and mutual trust among partners, as discussed in General Dempsey’s white paper. These failures in Mission Command also limited the Allies’ ability to effectively integrate the vital joint functions like Fires, Maneuver, and Protection. This essay will evaluate the Allies’ Command and Control and the other vital Joint Functions and expound on General Eisenhower

and General Alexander’s failure to ensure commander’s intent, full understanding, and mutual trust among partners and how these deficiencies denied them a decisive victory during the Sicily campaign.

As discussed in General Dempsey’s Mission Command white paper the inclusion of commander’s intent, Commanders understanding and Mutual Trust among Commanders are essential to an affective Command and Control. (site) The lack of these essential attributes crippled the Allies ability to truly integrate their joint forces along with other joint functions. As a result, they failed to exploit the initial success of the 15th Army Group’s amphibious landing or to utilize their air and naval superiority to trap the bulk of the Axis army on Sicily and thus conclude the operation in a decisive manner. (site) In fact, early in Operation Husky these deficiencies courted disaster as the Axis tanks moved within several hundred yards of splitting the 15th Army Group’s very fragile beachhead. (site)

Operational struggles with commander’s intent and commander’s full understanding had strategic roots. The compromise nature of strategic decision to conduct Operation Husky clouded commander’s intent and limited its strategic objective of capturing the island, securing the Mediterranean and pressuring Italy’s commitment to Axis war efforts. (site) But realistically, the Americans wanted a dress rehearsal for the invasion of France and the British wanted an initial step toward exploiting the Axis’s “soft underbelly”. (site) Operationally, General Eisenhower failed to clarify the strategic ambiguity and provide clear operational intent, understanding or trust among their senior commanders during the planning of Husky. He did not ensure close proximity between subordinate commands to support planning, integration and coordination. He never offered or promoted a vision of the operation or the operational end state these deficiencies led his senior subordinate to develop their own diverging commander’s intent. Admiral Andrew Cunningham, Air Chief Marshall Arthur Tedder and General Harold Alexander all constructed their own Commander’s intent and operational understanding of Husky to facilitate their own operational end state. Admiral Cunningham wanted to ensure the safety of his fleet in the contested waters near Italy. (site) Air Chief Tedder, above all else want to protect his Air Force’s independence. (site) General Alexander based on his initial impression of the U.S. Army during Operation Torch did not trust General Patton’s 7th Army to carry the main effort during Husky. The committee style of operational planning Eisenhower conducted failed to recognize or push to quickly capture Messenia or the southern tip of Italy trapping the German and Italian Armies on Sicily, possibly changing the trajectory of the war. (site)
Instead these Mission Command deficiencies transformed Husky into a competition between Allies instead of an opportunity to deliver a decisive blow.

Patton’s unauthorized push to Palermo offers a superb example of the pitfalls of Mission Command without Dempsey’s three essential attributes.

Early in the operations Alexander’s vague commander’s intent encouraged Patton to develop an independent understanding, different from Alexander’s, to the point that he assumed he would push north, beyond phase line blue, along with Montgomery to protect his flank all the way to Messina. (site) Mission Command crises culminated when General Alexander shifted the boundaries between the 7th and 8th Armies.(site) Alexander made his decision based on lack of trust in the 7th Army and his own clouded commander’s intent and incomplete understanding of the follow-on effects of a quick capture of Messina. His decision denied the Allies an opportunity to execute a quick breakout through the Axis defenses. But more importantly, it motivated General Patton to abandon his disciplined initiative and ignored Alexander’s directive to push north to protect Montgomery’s flank. Instead, he drove to Palermo seeking to reclaim this army’s prestige and later with a secure port of Palermo beat Montgomery to Messina. (site) The Allies’ poor foundation of Mission Command delayed a promising advance and replaced it with a rogue commander this allowed the German General Hube, a very competent combatant, time to concentrate and consolidate his forces to stiffen his defensive positions to delay the Allies until he was able to evacuate the bulk of his forces

to mainland Italy. (site)

In 1943, Operation Husky represented the world’ largest joint operation. (site) The size and novelty of Husky contributed to many struggles in Joint Function. Along with Command and Control the Allies executed the Joint Functions of Fires and Movement and Maneuver inconsistently.

JP 1 defines fires as forces from two or more components in coordinated action to produce desire effects in support of a common objective. The Joint Function of Fires offers an excellent example of the inconsistent integration between joint partners. Naval fire support provided the best example of joint functions during operation Husky. Naval fires proved decisive in preventing the German 15th Panzer DIV from driving the 45th IN DIV into the Mediterranean (site) After the battle of Gala, with naval fire support, but without large numbers of tanks or anti-tank weapons, the 45th IN DIV reached its objective and position itself to drive north to push toward Messina. (site) Furthermore, coordination between Allied Special Forces (SOF) and Naval fires allowed a badly scattered and degraded SOF to maintain its combat power and badly damaged the Axis communication and movement in support of the 15th Army Group’s amphibious landings on the southern beaches of Sicily. (site)

Conversely, the Allied Air Force proved ineffective in the exploitation of their air superiority. Although they flew thousand’s of sortie, they never concentrated their combat power on the interdiction of the strait of Messina, destruction of the port of Messina or retreating Axis Armies. The precious few sortie directed toward Messina all designed to harass not prevent or destroy the evacuation. (site) The ironies are a bound, the Allied Air Forces flew many more sortie’s bombing mainland Italy than directed toward the evacuation of Messina. (site) If properly applied Allied Fires may have proved decisive on preventing or delaying the Axis retreat form Sicily. (site)

Movement and Maneuver is complementary function of Fires and defined in JP 1 as the employment of forces through movement in combination with fires to achieve a position of advantage in respect of the enemy.

(site) In many ways the Allied Navy’s execution Movement and Maneuver provides a model of join function inconsistency during Operation Husky. First, Task Force 88 a Joint amphibious task force designed to conduct amphibious operations to outflank the German defensive positions provides an excellent foreshadow of modern joint doctrine and proved useful to Patton’s drive to Messina. (site) Stands in contrast with perhaps the greatest joint failure of the campaign. True to the nature of Husky, the Navy refused to operate in the restricted waters of the Strait of Messina. This greatly aided the Axis retreat form

Sicily.

Operation Husky provides a luminous and cautionary example of the pitfalls of joint warfare and stands in stark contrast of today’s joint doctrine as expressed in Joint Publication 1 and General Dempsey’s white paper on Mission Command. The Allied Command and Control function failed to ensure all senior commanders understood both Commander’s intent and the problem (and opportunity) present in Sicily, and most importantly, they failed to foster mutual trust among the Senior Allied Leaders. The Allies failure to effectively integrate the complementary functions of fires and movement and maneuver allowed General Hube to evacuate his army to the Italian mainland and begin preparing defensive positions to defeat the impending Allied invasion. (site) These failures stood at the heart of Husky’s struggles, with these deficiencies in hand, the Allied Senior Leaders traded a quick drive to Messina or blockade of Strait’s of Messina to capture over 150,000 Axis soldiers and tons of equipment, for a hard protracted fight against a skilled but out gunned enemy that produced limited strategic or operational fruit. At the time, the Allies considered the Sicily Campaign a great victory and success; the Americans especially enjoyed the victory as proof of their skill and valor in Arms against the Germans. Looking through modern Joint Doctrine; it now more closely resembles a self inflicted limited victory and lost opportunity much like the German victory of Dunkirk.