forces. This led to a series of decreasingly tentative agreements and a final decision in November 1943 to launch the attack across the Channel. It was because of COSSAC that it was possible to conduct NEPTUNE/OVERLORD on 6 June 1944. The plan and the process should be seen not only in the context of the debates about strategy and timing but also in terms of the competition for resources between theaters of operation and the political and economic considerations that informed both strategic and operational decisions.
Morgan did not create the OVERLORD outline plan on his own, nor was he the innovator behind the solution to every problem. The development of the concept of the cross-Channel assault was iterative, with false starts, blind alleys, and passionate debates that led to a consensus. Not every problem was solved before Dwight Eisenhower was assigned as the Supreme Allied Commander in early December 1943. No one in Morgan’s position could have accomplished that, and certainly not with the resources he was told to use in creating the plan or with the deadlines he was given. He had to be both manager and leader, ambassador and advocate. He was speaking on behalf of and guarding the prerogatives of a commander whose name no one knew. For a significant amount of time in 1943, the proposal he championed had not gained the full agreement of the Western Allies’ political and military leaders. To succeed, he needed the support of officers senior to him, whom he could not compel to action but only request or persuade. He had to learn to not be bothered by the fact that he was chief of staff to an unnamed commander, writing a plan and taking essential steps to ensure its success, even though it might never happen.
He also insisted that the only way in which this assignment would be successful would be if it were truly an allied staff from the very beginning—British, American, Canadian, South African, and Australian, and drawn from not only all the military services that were to be involved but also the diplomats and politicians whose advice and expertise would be needed. The staff was not created all at once; it was constantly evolving, adding components as new requirements emerged and taking on modifications as circumstances changed. At the end of the process, it finally got a commander, having been built more from the bottom up than one would usually find to be the case. One would expect that a commander would be assigned the mission. He or she would then recruit staff or use existing staff to plan and then conduct the operation. COSSAC developed the other way around. Morgan started with an empty office, recruited staff, formulated a plan, and then, at the last minute, received the commander.
In his task, Morgan had the support of Maj. Gen. Ray Barker, USA, who was his deputy. The two, who met for the first time in the spring of 1943, worked together as if they had known each other for years. This was at a time when coalition staffs were rare, at best.4 With the North African landings (Operation TORCH) that had just occurred, there was now Eisenhower’s headquarters, with both British and American staff, and some inferences could be drawn from the way it operated. Morgan and Barker, however, were creating a different role for themselves and their team of planners. There was no history or experience to draw on to help them shape the structure and purpose of the staff. They made it up as they went along. The success they achieved together in a short period of time was remarkable. The story is, fundamentally, about the individuals who worked eighteen to twenty hours a day, six and a half days a week, for months on end to make it possible.5 It is a story that has its beginnings at the Casablanca conference in January of 1943 and that ends with the arrival of Eisenhower and Montgomery in January of 1944.
In writing this story I have used place names in English as they existed in 1943; hence, for example, Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). In direct quotes, the spelling and punctuation is as the original author wrote; thus, the reader will encounter both English and American versions of words (for example, theatre and theater) as well as occasional peculiarities of spelling (lodgment and lodgement). I have also used both the British and American names for things, so the reader will discover British armoured divisions as well as American armored divisions. If the quote is a translation from the original (as in Hitler’s Directive 40), the translation is as provided by the source material.
The British Chiefs of Staff (Gen. Alan Brooke, Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal, and Adm. Dudley Pound6) are most often referred to as the Chiefs of Staff (COS), while the American chiefs of staff, Gen. George Marshall, Adm. Ernest King, and Gen. Henry Arnold, are the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) was the organization made up of the British and American Chiefs, plus their various staffs and planners. The British Joint Service Mission was located in Washington, D.C., and its personnel served as permanent representatives of the British Chiefs on a daily basis. Headed by Field Marshal John Dill, they made important contributions to the functioning of the alliance.
Other headquarters that figure prominently in the story are the British Combined Operations Headquarters, or COHQ. (The American name for combined operations is amphibious operations.) ETOUSA stands for European Theater of Operations, United States Army.
COSSAC as a term is used both in the singular to refer to Morgan and in the plural to refer to the staff who were creating the outline plan. This was also the practice in 1943. I have chosen to make one exception to the conventions for the naming of army corps. Typically they are identified by using Roman numerals, for example V Corps, for Fifth Corps. Morgan, in his memoirs, referred to his command of I Corps as 1st Corps or 1st British Corps. I have decided to honor his choice here.
A more complete glossary is provided at the end of the book.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As a first-time author there are many people to whom I am grateful for their encouragement, patience, advice, and consideration.
The librarians and staff at the National Archives UK, the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, Kings’ College London, and the Imperial War Museum London, all in London; the Eisenhower Library, Abilene Kansas; the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; and the Harley Library at the University of Southampton have all been both professional and generous with their support and guidance.
Maj. Miguel Lopez, USAF, an instructor at the Air Force Academy, was kind enough to respond to my request to present a paper at the 2017 Society for Military History Annual Meeting and to include me in the panel he was forming. Jay Lockenour, from Temple University, chaired the session, providing helpful feedback on my presentation, which was an early version of one of the chapters.
I wish to thank the sponsors and organizers of the Normandy 75 conference (Global War Studies journal, Brécourt Academic, and the University of Portsmouth, UK) for accepting my two proposals for presentations at the conference, held in July 2019, both of which were based on material from this book.
Glenn Griffith, my acquisitions editor at the Naval Institute Press, has been amazingly supportive during the process and deserves special recognition for encouraging a first-time author to submit a proposal and having the courage to accept it. Everyone at NIP has been great to work with.
A most special acknowledgment must go to Evan Mawdsley, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Glasgow, one of the general editors of the Cambridge History of the Second World War, friend, mentor, and supervisor for my master’s degree, for taking the time to thoughtfully read the manuscript and being generous with his comments and observations. I also want to thank him for his ongoing encouragement and friendship (as well as for leading a wonderful Sunday outing to the site of the Hollywood Hotel, also known as HMS Warren, in Largs, Scotland).
It approaches the impossible to express or explain the thanks I need to give my wife. It was she who first said, “Why don’t you just write the … book.” She has hosted General Morgan and General Barker
