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How great of a commander-in-chief was FDR during World War II?
I think he was excellent in this capacity and deserves to be ranked as the second or third greatest American President largely because of it. '
However, having said that I'd like to discuss these criticisms of him in that role:
1. He consented to putting the Japanese Americans in internment camps.
2. He was very "hands off". The generals and the admirals were left to make most decisions on their own.
3. The decision that was made early on in the war to devote most resources to defeating Germany lead to a scarcity of a military forces and arms in the Pacific Theater. As a result, the invasion of Guadalcanal in late 1942 was conducted with inadequate men, ships, and airplanes. As a result, the campaign there went on for months. Should we have put more resources into the conflict in the Pacific early on than we chose too?
4. Should FDR have been honest with General MacArthur during the early part of the war and simply told him it would have been impossible to send more troops to the Philippines to relieve American forces there?
5. Was the Doolittle Raid on Japan that he ordered an unnecessary expenditure of good pilots and airplanes for little real purpose?
6. Was FDR wrong to insist on unconditional surrender from the Axis forces? Would drawing up specific surrender terms--no matter how harsh--been more to the advantage of the Allies in terms of ending World War II?
7. Was FDR too physically frail at the time of the Yalta Conference to properly represent the USA?
8. Did FDR not do enough as President to prevent or stop the Holocaust and other war-related atrocities by German and Japanese forces?
I would appreciate those commenting to offer background and explanations rather than just providing "yes" or "no" answers. Anyone can have an opinion. Let's see some reasoning.
Well, I would say #2 is not a weakness, but a strength. Compare to Johnson's constant meddling during Vietnam.
As to #3, I think given what FDR and his crew had for intel at the time, never mind that some of it was wrong, Germany was the more dangerous foe. Japan was bottled up on a few islands and was constantly running short of oil and other resources. Even if unopposed, they didn't have the capability to invade CONUS. They barely managed to invade a few Aleutian islands. That said, Guadalcanal could have been done better, in hindsight.
#5 - hard to say. Doolittle's raid was strictly for psychological purposes on both sides. It was too costly in terms of lost crews and aircraft for the military effect of the bombing. As to if the psychological effects made it "worth it", I really can't say. I'm an engineer. To me it looks like a mistake, mostly.
Thanks for kicking off what should be a really good thread, I hope to learn some things from it.
How great of a commander-in-chief was FDR during World War II?
I think he was excellent in this capacity and deserves to be ranked as the second or third greatest American President largely because of it. '
However, having said that I'd like to discuss these criticisms of him in that role:
1. He consented to putting the Japanese Americans in internment camps.
2. He was very "hands off". The generals and the admirals were left to make most decisions on their own.
3. The decision that was made early on in the war to devote most resources to defeating Germany lead to a scarcity of a military forces and arms in the Pacific Theater. As a result, the invasion of Guadalcanal in late 1942 was conducted with inadequate men, ships, and airplanes. As a result, the campaign there went on for months. Should we have put more resources into the conflict in the Pacific early on than we chose too?
4. Should FDR have been honest with General MacArthur during the early part of the war and simply told him it would have been impossible to send more troops to the Philippines to relieve American forces there?
5. Was the Doolittle Raid on Japan that he ordered an unnecessary expenditure of good pilots and airplanes for little real purpose?
6. Was FDR wrong to insist on unconditional surrender from the Axis forces? Would drawing up specific surrender terms--no matter how harsh--been more to the advantage of the Allies in terms of ending World War II?
7. Was FDR too physically frail at the time of the Yalta Conference to properly represent the USA?
8. Did FDR not do enough as President to prevent or stop the Holocaust and other war-related atrocities by German and Japanese forces?
I would appreciate those commenting to offer background and explanations rather than just providing "yes" or "no" answers. Anyone can have an opinion. Let's see some reasoning.
Just a comment on the bolder part above.
While FDR is often criticized for 'giving away the house' to Stalin at Yalta, it should be noted that Churchill was also there, wheeling and dealing. Churchill and Stalin basically came to the agreement that in the Balkans, Greece would fall into the British sphere of influence while Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary would fall into the USSR's. FDR was not party to this bilateral agreement. In Poland, Stalin agreed to open, democratic elections. While he reneged, it is often portrayed that FDR was blindsided while the wily Churchill knew precisely what was happening. In reality, Churchill would return to Britain and tell Parliament that he thought Stalin would abide by his agreement, and would write in his memoirs of that hope.
Of course, it has to be understood that Yalta was not about handing eastern Europe to Uncle Joe. Stalin already had much of it and the western Allies were in no position to stop him from gaining more of it. They tried and failed because they had no leverage and the best they could do, absent leverage, was to hope for the best. What was to be done? War? That wasn't done in 1956 (Hungary), 1968 (Czechoslovakia), 1979 (Afghanistan) or 1981 (martial law in Poland). So it's not like FDR's (and Churchill's) refusal to threaten armed conflict over eastern Europe was some sort of historical anomaly. Simply put, they both recognized the reality on the ground. Neither they, nor the American or British publics, had any interest in going to war with the USSR over eastern Europe.
It is also worth noting that at Yalta, FDR and Churchill extracted agreements from Stalin to enter the war with Japan within 90 days of Germany's surrender. Stalin kept his word here, and the role in the Soviet attack on Japan is widely underappreciated in the West for its role in convincing Japan to throw in the towel. Also, at Yalta Stalin agreed that Manchuria would be returned to China after the war with Japan was concluded. That agreement, too, he fulfilled. His price was the southern half of Sakhalin and the Kuriles.
I love FDR but always felt that his, and many of his generals, advisors, etc., worst weakness was in not seeing the threat/danger of Soviet Russia. In the end, after FDR's death, we got the Cold War and virtually even country/area that the Nazi's occupied was taken over by Stalin.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hulsker 1856
Interesting thread.
Just a comment on the bolder part above.
While FDR is often criticized for 'giving away the house' to Stalin at Yalta, it should be noted that Churchill was also there, wheeling and dealing. Churchill and Stalin basically came to the agreement that in the Balkans, Greece would fall into the British sphere of influence while Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary would fall into the USSR's. FDR was not party to this bilateral agreement. In Poland, Stalin agreed to open, democratic elections. While he reneged, it is often portrayed that FDR was blindsided while the wily Churchill knew precisely what was happening. In reality, Churchill would return to Britain and tell Parliament that he thought Stalin would abide by his agreement, and would write in his memoirs of that hope.
Of course, it has to be understood that Yalta was not about handing eastern Europe to Uncle Joe. Stalin already had much of it and the western Allies were in no position to stop him from gaining more of it. They tried and failed because they had no leverage and the best they could do, absent leverage, was to hope for the best. What was to be done? War? That wasn't done in 1956 (Hungary), 1968 (Czechoslovakia), 1979 (Afghanistan) or 1981 (martial law in Poland). So it's not like FDR's (and Churchill's) refusal to threaten armed conflict over eastern Europe was some sort of historical anomaly. Simply put, they both recognized the reality on the ground. Neither they, nor the American or British publics, had any interest in going to war with the USSR over eastern Europe.
It is also worth noting that at Yalta, FDR and Churchill extracted agreements from Stalin to enter the war with Japan within 90 days of Germany's surrender. Stalin kept his word here, and the role in the Soviet attack on Japan is widely underappreciated in the West for its role in convincing Japan to throw in the towel. Also, at Yalta Stalin agreed that Manchuria would be returned to China after the war with Japan was concluded. That agreement, too, he fulfilled. His price was the southern half of Sakhalin and the Kuriles.
#5. The Doolittle raid was a short term morale booster and had both negative and positive consequences. The bombing of Tokyo was one of the main reasons that the Japanese were convinced to push their defensive line against US forces further to the east at Midway Island. They were humiliated that the Imperial Palace had been threatened. We of course smashed the Japanese carrier fleet in that battle and eliminated many of their most capable naval aviators.
The most serious negative consequence to the raid was the enormous casualties the Japanese inflicted on Chinese civilians in the areas around and near the makeshift landing zone where the Doolittle planes were supposed to land. The Chinese took great risks to aid the fliers with medical treatment and transport to areas where they could escape and return to the US. Accurate statistics are hard to come by but several thousand Chinese civilians were murdered as revenge for giving aid and assistance to our fliers.
Here were the two great military masterminds that led the American war efforts, and Douglas MacArthur often displayed brilliant tactical and strategic command (especially with his post-war rule in Japan), despite great failures at the beginning of the war, and, arguably, in demanding the liberation of the Philippines.
Consider not only that Marshall appointed Eisenhower over many more senior generals, Roosevelt, Churchill and Truman all considered Marshall so indispensable that he wasn't allowed to take a direct operational command.
E.g., how fortunate was the U.S. to have an advocate of air power in the post of Army Chief of Staff. Consider that only the U.S. developed and employed heavy bombers before WWII, and that the revolutionary B-29, along with atomic bombs, ended the Pacific War without an invasion of Japan.
<<Former British prime minister Winston Churchill said:
"There are few men whose qualities of mind and character have impressed me so deeply as those of General Marshall ... He is a great American, but he is far more than that ... He has always fought victoriously against defeatism, discouragement and disillusion. Succeeding generations must not be allowed to forget his achievements and his example."
Churchill also called Marshall the "true architect of victory" in the West European theater of World War II. Here's why, and also why FDR was the greatest of American Presidential war leaders (consider by comparison Lincoln's floundering efforts to establish competent leadership of the Union army and also that Marshall was a VMI graduate and not West Point; not mentioned in the above story is that the iconic John Pershing also had advised Roosevelt of Marshall's excellence, having benefited greatly from Marshall's brilliance in World War I and afterwards).
<<Roosevelt was not opposed to preparedness, however his concept centered on airplanes rather than a balanced force. For his part Marshall proposed a $675 million dollar crash program that called for the creation of a balanced force of 1.25 million men by 1941, the bare minimum needed in his mind for a nation still at peace but prepared for war.
When Marshall and Treasury Secretary Morgenthau went to the White House to ask FDR for the necessary authorization, the president breezily dismissed the program. Morgenthau then asked the President if he would hear Marshall. “I know exactly what he would say,” Roosevelt replied. “There is no necessity for me to hear him at all.”
According to Morgenthau’s diary, Marshall, his face red and his temper barely under control, then asked the president for three minutes to speak. Marshall then passionately presented a warning about the threat faced by the dire straits of its armed forces. “Did the president not understand the danger? Did he not understand that his inaction was putting the nation at risk? If you don’t do something,” he concluded, “I don’t know what is going to happen to this country.” Two days later Roosevelt sent the program to Congress and the Congress soon after appropriated $900 million dollars for it.16>>
In his championship of Marshall's abilities, Pershing in a personal appeal to FDR perhaps scuttled the anticipated replacement of Eisenhower by Marshall for the invasion of France.
<<Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, Army Air Corps chief, remembered that at the outset Chief of Staff Marshall lacked a full appreciation of air power but that he learned quickly and was open-minded, part of “his ability to digest what he saw” and incorporate it into his “body of military genius.” [13] Gen. Omar Bradley recalled a revealing occurrence that took place soon after he joined the secretariat of the new chief of staff in 1939: “At the end of the first week General Marshall called us into his office and said without ceremony, ‘I am disappointed in all of you.’ When we asked why, he replied, ‘You haven’t disagreed with a single thing I have done all week’.” Later, when Bradley and his colleagues questioned the contents of a staff study, Marshall said approvingly, “Now that is what I want. Unless I hear all the arguments against something I am not sure whether I’ve made the right decision or not.” And to Eisenhower, before the North African landings, Marshall declared, “When you disagree with my point of view, say so, without an apologetic approach.” [14]
If it is not clear how Washington came by such qualities, it appears probable that Marshall was significantly influenced by his mentor, General Pershing, for on various occasions in after years Marshall mentioned approvingly Pershing’s remarkable capacity to accept dissent. As Marshall informed Col. Edwin T. Cole in 1939, Pershing “could listen to more opposition to his apparent view than any man I have ever known, and show less personal feeling than anyone I have ever seen. He was the most outstanding example of a man with complete tolerance regardless of what his own personal opinions seemed to be. In that quality lay a great part of his strength.” >>
Marshall, despite his immense accomplishments, was not infallible as a war leader, as described in the above article:
<<But Marshall and the British clashed over strategy a number of times during the war. He had proved himself a brilliant organizer but was less sure footed in his approach to the most important strategic choice facing America in World War II: when and where to deploy U.S. forces on a large scale. He correctly supported the Germany first strategic priority, but the timing he proposed was premature and caused serious misunderstandings with the British. He advocated a cross-English Channel invasion in 1942, when manpower and resources, particularly landing craft, were limited, and which, as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill rightly warned, would have been catastrophic.
Marshall fiercely opposed the North African campaign and pressed again for an invasion of France in 1943. But manpower and resources were still inadequate, the U.S. Army had still not gained enough experience against the hard-fighting Germans, and the Allies had yet to achieve mastery in the Atlantic and in the skies over Europe. A cross-Channel invasion in 1943 would have carried great military risk.>>
Historians often credit Marshall with making Allied victory possible by championing the nation's first peace-time draft in 1940 and its extension in 1941, with the latter passing in the House of Representatives by only one vote.
As to #3, I think given what FDR and his crew had for intel at the time, never mind that some of it was wrong, Germany was the more dangerous foe. Japan was bottled up on a few islands and was constantly running short of oil and other resources. Even if unopposed, they didn't have the capability to invade CONUS. They barely managed to invade a few Aleutian islands. That said, Guadalcanal could have been done better, in hindsight.
As for Guadalcanal,you are forgetting the formidable pressure pressure of Adm. Ernest King to undertake operation Watchtower, eventually gaining our first island foothold in the Pacific, from which the road to Tokyo began. And, yes in hindsight, it could have been done better. It always can. It took 3+ more years to finally isolate Japan in the way you mention, at a very high cost.
Even if unopposed, they didn't have the capability to invade CONUS. They barely managed to invade a few Aleutian islands.
After Pearl Harbor, Japan did have the ability to conduct incredibly destructive air raids and even naval bombardment raids of the West Coast.
That's one reason Nimitz took the successful (and arguably incredibly lucky) gamble at Midway, and it also is one reason that the U.S. engaged the Japanese in the Coral Sea, New Guinea, and at Guadalcanal.
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