DIRECTIVE

TO SUPREME COMMANDER

ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE

(Issued 12 February 1944)

1. You are hereby designated as Supreme Allied Commander of the forces placed

under your orders for operations for liberation of Europe from Germans. Your title

will be Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force.

2. Task. You will enter the continent of Europe and, in conjunction with the other

United Nations, undertake operations aimed at the heart of Germany and the

destruction of her armed forces. The date for entering the Continent is the month

of May, 1944. After adequate Channel ports have been secured, exploitation will

be directed towards securing an area that will facilitate both ground and air

operations against the enemy.

3. Notwithstanding the target date above you will be prepared at any time to take

immediate advantage of favorable circumstances, such as withdrawal by the

enemy on your front, to effect a reentry into the Continent with such forces as you

have available at the time; a general plan for this operation when approved will be

furnished for your assistance.

4. Command. You are responsible to the Combined Chiefs of Staff and will

exercise command generally in accordance with the diagram at Appendix

[reproduced on opposite page]. Direct communication with the United States and

British Chiefs of Staff is authorized in the interest of facilitating your operations

and for arranging necessary logistic support.

5. Logistics. In the United Kingdom the responsibility for logistics organization,

concentration, movement, and supply of forces to meet the requirements of your

plan will rest with British Service Ministries so far as British Forces are

concerned. So far as United States Forces are concerned, this responsibility will

rest with the United States War and Navy Departments. You will be responsible

for the coordination of logistical arrangements on the continent. You will also be

responsible for coordinating the requirements of British and United States forces

under your command.

6. Coordination of operations of other Forces and Agencies. In preparation for

your assault on enemy occupied Europe, Sea and Air Forces, agencies of

sabotage, subversion, and propaganda, acting under a variety of authorities, are

now in action. You may recommend any variation in these activities which may

seem to you desirable.

vi

7. Relationship to United Nations Forces in other areas. Responsibility will rest

with the Combined Chiefs of Staff for supplying information relating to

operations of the Forces of the U. S. S. R. for your guidance in timing your

operations. It is understood that the Soviet Forces will launch an offensive at

about the same time as OVERLORD with the object of preventing the German

forces from transferring from the Eastern to the Western front. The Allied

Commander in Chief, Mediterranean Theater, will conduct operations designed to

assist your operation, including the launching of an attack against the south of

France at about the same time as OVERLORD. The scope and timing of his

operations will be decided by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. You will establish

contact with him and submit to the Combined Chiefs of Staff your views and

recommendations regarding operations from the Mediterranean in support of your

attack from the United Kingdom. The Combined Chiefs of Staff will place under

your command the forces operating in Southern France as soon as you are in a

position to assume such command. You will submit timely recommendations

compatible with this regard.

8. Relationship with Allied Governments ― the re-establishment of Civil

Governments and Liberated Allied Territories and the administration of enemy

territories. Further instructions will be issued to you on these subjects at a later

date.

PREFACE

SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS

IN NORTHWEST EUROPE

The broad strategy behind our main effort against the German war machine

included as a highly desirable preliminary the successful conclusion of operations

in North Africa and their extension across Sicily to the Italian mainland. With

these accomplished, with the Mediterranean "flank" freed for Allied shipping, and

with the necessary special equipment built or in sight, we were at last in a position

to prepare for the final cross-Channel assault which had been agreed upon since

April 1942 as our main operation against Germany. It was correctly believed that

only on the historic battlefields of France and the Low Countries could Germany's

armies in the west be decisively engaged and defeated.

America and England ― the Western Allies ― could not be sufficiently strong

to undertake the assault against France until June 1944, but the broad tactical

plans for the operation were completed and approved by the Combined Chiefs of

Staff in August 1943, prior to my assumption of command of the European

Theater in February 1944.

As part of our basic strategy, and in accordance with the task given to the

Strategic Air Force under the Casablanca Directive in January 1943, the bombing

of Germany, begun early in the war by the British Bomber Command, was

intensified in May 1943 and continued with mounting strength to the end of the

campaign. Neither the contemplated invasion of Europe nor the direct attack on

the German industrial and economic system would be feasible until we had

achieved supremacy over the German Air Force. This struggle for air supremacy,

which had been going on throughout the war, was given added impetus by a new

directive (known as POINTBLANK) in January 1943 which aimed at subjugating

the enemy air force by the spring of 1944. In the event, German air might was

thoroughly dominated by D-day and we were free to apply the immense strength

of the Allied air forces in the manner we wished and to launch the invasion

confident that our plans could not be seriously upset by the German air force. In

addition, air bombardment had disrupted the German communications system,

immeasurably aiding our ground forces by impeding enemy movements. Our

main strategy in the conduct of the ground campaign was to land amphibious and

airborne forces on the Normandy coast between Le Havre and the Cotentin

Peninsula and, with the successful establishment of a beachhead with adequate

ports, to drive along the lines of the Loire and the Seine Rivers into the heart of

France, destroying the German strength and freeing France. We anticipated that

the enemy would resist strongly on the line of the Seine and later on the Somme,

but once our forces had broken through the relatively static lines of the beachhead

at St-Lô and inflicted on him the heavy casualties in the Falaise pocket, his ability

to resist in France was negligible. Thereafter our armies swept east and north in

viii

an unimpeded advance which brought them to the German frontier and the

defenses of the Siegfried Line.

Here enemy resistance stiffened, due primarily to the fact that he had fallen

back on long-prepared defenses. At the same time our own offensive capabilities

were lessened because our forces had, in their extremely rapid advance,

outdistanced supply lines which had been maintained only by herculean efforts.

By mid-September our armies in the north and center were committed to

relatively static warfare and faced the threat of stabilization. This was true also on

our southern Hank, where forces landed from the Mediterranean against the south

of France in mid-August had swept north through the Rhone Valley to link with

the Central Group of Armies and close the Belfort Gap.

At this time we planned to attack quickly on the northern front in an effort to

establish a bridgehead over the lower Rhine while the German armies were still

reeling from our blows, but the airborne operation launched at Arnhem was not

altogether successful in this respect, although considerable ground was gained and

our positions in this area improved. Coincidentally with approving the Arnhem

operation, it was directed that operations be undertaken to clear Antwerp as a

supply port on the north, essential to our continued offensive action. This was

accomplished in November.

While our forces moved slowly in attacks launched at selected points on the

front to close to the Rhine, the enemy on 16 December launched a desperate and

last counterattack designed to throw our campaign into disorder and to delay our

planned advance deep into Germany. The attack was not without its immediate

effect upon us, but the sturdy defense by our forces followed by our rapid and

continuous counterattacks brought home clearly to Germany's military leaders

that this last effort had failed completely and that the Nazi war machine faced

inevitable disaster.

My plan was to destroy the German forces west of the Rhine along the entire

length of the front in a series of heavy blows beginning in the north, and it was

my expectation that the enemy would, as he had done in Normandy, stand without

giving ground in a futile attempt to "fight it out" west of the Rhine. Moreover, the

air forces were used intensively to destroy his mobility. By March, when our

forces crossed the river north of the Ruhr, at Remagen, and at various points to the

south, resistance on the eastern bank was again reduced to resemble that in France

following the breakthrough, particularly because the enemy, mistaking our

intentions, crowded a great part of his remaining forces into the Ruhr area.

Our attack to isolate the Ruhr had been planned so that the main effort would

take place on the front of the Northern Group of Armies with a secondary effort

on the Central Group of Armies' front. This secondary effort was to be exploited

to the full if success seemed imminent. Clearing the left bank of the Rhine

throughout its length released the means required to strengthen this secondary

effort. With the capture of the Remagen bridgehead and the destruction of enemy

forces west of the Rhine, the anticipated opportunity became almost a certainty.

Our forces were now able to bridge the Rhine in all sectors and they fanned

ix

out in great mobile spearheads through western Germany, disrupting

communications, isolating one unit from another, and in the area of the Ruhr

completing perhaps the largest double envelopment in history, rendering that great

industrial area useless to support what was left of the Nazi armies. As our forces

moved rapidly eastward with the main effort in the center, to establish contact

with the advancing Russian armies at the Elbe, and in turn to swing swiftly north

and south to cut off any remaining refuge, the German High Command reluctantly

recognized. defeat and belatedly initiated negotiations which terminated with

unconditional surrender on 7 May 1945.

In these campaigns the United States of. America and Great Britain worked as

one nation, pooling their resources of men and material. To the Combined Chiefs

of Staff, through whom the directives of the two governments were expressed, we

constantly accorded our admiration for their well-devised system of command by

which they applied the concerted national efforts. Their political leaders, the

President of the United States and the Prime Minister, also contributed

immeasurably to the success of our armies in the field; once they had committed

themselves to a course of action they never failed to give us unstinted support.

References in this document to the operations of Allied and enemy units are

based upon contemporary reports received at SHAEF. Often these reports were

not clear or were fragmentary. The narration of our operations in full and accurate

detail will be more adequately performed by historians, who, aided by the

complete records, will be able to present in their true perspective the magnificent

achievements of each of the manifold units which composed the Allied

Expeditionary Force.

x

References in this document to the operations of Allied and enemy units

are based upon contemporary reports received at STAFF. Often these

reports were not clear or were fragmentary. The narration of our

operations in full and accurate detail will be more adequately performed

by historians, who, aided by the complete records, will be able to present

in their true perspective the magnificent achievements of each of the

manifold units which composed the Allied Expeditionary Force.