The Steel Wave - Jeff Shaara [23]
“Rubber tanks?”
“It sounds bizarre, George, I know. But if this works, if the enemy swallows it and believes we are landing at Calais, he will reinforce his position there. It could tie down entire divisions, panzers, artillery. It could mean the difference between success and failure at Normandy. It’s that damned simple. Your headquarters has already been established. It will be fully staffed and there will be considerable communication flowing in and out, just what the enemy would expect to hear.”
“But…the troops. Where are the troops coming from?”
“There are no troops. That’s the point, George. We’re training like hell to put our people across the beaches at Normandy, along the Cotentin Peninsula. Every effort has to go to carrying out that operation. But the enemy needs to believe that we are coming in at Calais. Hell, he should believe it. It’s the most logical place, the closest point to Dover, good beaches, a straight shot into Germany. The Germans read maps as well as we do, George. They’ll want to believe this.”
Patton stared at him and shook his head slowly. “This is the stupidest damned plan I’ve ever heard.”
“Correction. This is the plan. It’s your plan, your mission, your orders. And you will damned sure make it work.”
Patton was scowling, a look Eisenhower had seen before. “But the Third Army…is that real?”
“Yep. But that comes later. We need this first. Otherwise, when we hit those beaches at Normandy, our people might get chucked right back into the damned sea. If that happens, it could be a year or more before we could even try to do something like this again. The Brits…they’ve just about had enough, George. They can’t absorb another kick in the ass, another Dunkirk. If Overlord doesn’t work, the Germans will gain more than a victory. Every Kraut will know they chewed up the best we could give. Churchill? Hell, I don’t know what he’d do. He’s fought this plan from the beginning. And FDR? He’d have to bend to the pressure from MacArthur and put our best strength in the Pacific. And he’d be right.”
Eisenhower paused. Patton was staring at him, serious. He knew what he should say, what would mean more to Patton than politics and grand strategies.
“George, if this thing falls apart, if we don’t put our people across those beaches and hold on…it won’t matter much to you and me. We’ll spend the rest of this war pushing pencils in some closet in Washington.”
* * *
4. EISENHOWER
* * *
TEN DOWNING STREET, LONDON
FEBRUARY 15, 1944
“I had hoped we would land a wildcat that would tear out the bowels of the Boche, but it appears we have instead landed a vast whale, with its tail flopping about in the water. I am not at all pleased with this operation. Not at all.” Churchill took a long drink from a crystal tumbler, set it down in front of him, and glared at the men around the table. “What are we planning to do here? Is there a plan at all?”
Eisenhower had grown used to Churchill’s bellowing his displeasure at any campaign that floundered, any single officer who did not perform. This time the campaign was Italy, the particular operation the invasion at Anzio. The entire operation had in fact been Churchill’s idea from the beginning. The amphibious landing was inspired by the Allies’ lack of success in driving the Germans northward through the Italian peninsula. In fact, Field Marshal Kesselring’s Germans had anchored themselves solidly into a defensive line that made considerable use of the mountainous terrain across central