The History Buff's Guide to World War II (35 page)

In 1939 he led the Red Army against the Japanese in the battle of Kalkhin Gol on the border of Outer Mongolia. Using superior force through armor, his battalions inflicted more than 70 percent casualties, including eighteen thousand dead. Imperial Japan never ventured against Soviet Russia again. Promoted to the general staff, he warned of an impending German invasion and called up seven hundred thousand reservists months before his prediction came true. Assigned to save surrounded Leningrad, Zhukov redoubled defenses and pulled guns off of Baltic warships and used them as artillery. He also pushed soldiers into relentless counterattacks. Aided by Hitler’s last-minute decision to lay siege rather than enter the city, Zhukov became Leningrad’s savior.
²⁹

Shuttled to Moscow while German panzers were within sight of the city, Zhukov reformed flagging lines in the suburbs, drafted women and children to dig rifle pits and build roadblocks, and lofted balloons to snare low-flying planes. Several times Stalin expressed doubt that Moscow would hold; Zhukov assured him it would. Throwing reserves against the German center, Zhukov sacrificed thousands but spared millions in the process.
³⁰

Though not the sole architect of the plans, he helped design the counterattacks that saved S
TALINGRAD
and K
URSK
. When the Red Army marched on B
ERLIN
, Zhukov directed the middle of a three-pronged offensive, took the city, and accepted the formal surrender.
³¹

Vaunted as “St. George,” Moscow’s patron saint, the marshal fell fast at war’s end. Burning with covetous suspicion over Zhukov’s international fame, Stalin demoted him to a backwater command and swept his name from official histories. But Zhukov’s success would not be forgotten. Though callous and vainglorious, he was at the head of affairs for every major Soviet victory. G
EN
. D
WIGHT
E
SIENHOWER
befriended the man and said of him: “In Europe the war has been won and to no man do the United Nations owe a greater debt than to Marshal Zhukov.”
³²

Like Hitler and Stalin, Georgi Zhukov was the son of a cobbler.

2
. GEORGE C. MARSHALL (U.S., 1880–1959)

His was the literal translation of a soldier’s code of conduct. Humorless, cold, and formal, Marshall believed wholeheartedly in self-discipline and the pursuit of perfection. His commander in chief called him “George” once and never made the mistake again. He left no memoirs, feeling that any self-promotion was unbecoming an officer.

A graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, George C. Marshall performed logistical miracles in the First World War and later served as Gen. John Pershing’s top aide. Though he longed for a field command, Marshall excelled at staff work and was named U.S. Army chief of staff the day war started in Poland. Roosevelt selected him over thirty-four senior candidates.

Widely respected and utterly credible, he personally convinced an isolationist Congress to pass the first
PEACETIME DRAFT
in U.S. history. Before P
EARL
H
ARBOR
, he helped transform a paltry army of two hundred thousand into a modern force of nearly two million. From the outset, he endorsed a cross-channel attack as the surest way to defeat Germany. He considered assaults on North Africa a waste of time and resources, if not a British ploy to maintain imperial control. But he accepted consensus and executed his orders to the utmost, regardless of whether he agreed with the directives or not.

When the time came to invade France (the strategy and tactics of which Marshall helped formulate), the general was the obvious choice to command. But Roosevelt decided against it, unwilling to part with his chief military adviser for any length of time.

Throughout the war, Marshall exacted from others what he demanded from himself: commitment, action, and accountability. Under his direction, the U.S. armed forces went from the eighteenth most powerful in the world to the first and achieved victory in large part because of his ability to direct, delegate, and inspire. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson once said to the general, “I have seen a great many soldiers in my lifetime, and you, sir, are the finest soldier I have ever known.”
³³

As Truman’s postwar secretary of state, Marshall helped rescue Europe once again, coordinating the economic aid program that became known as “the Marshall Plan.” For this, he was awarded the 1953 Nobel Peace Prize.

3
. HEINZ GUDERIAN (GERMANY, 1888–1954)

“When his eyes flash,” a fellow officer said of Heinz Guderian, “Wotan seems to hurl lightning.”
³⁴
Inventive, unassuming, and good to his men, Guderian was also intense and driven to the point that he became known as “Hurrying Heinz.”
³⁵

A middle-ranking officer during the reformation of the German army, Guderian pioneered the blitzkrieg concept. He envisioned the use of tank brigades as spearheads, backed by mobilized infantry and field guns, with dive bombers acting as a form of artillery. He believed the orchestra could stay in unison, as well as be flexible to new movements, by using something he had been studying since the First World War: radio communication.
³⁶

Promoted up the command chain for his initiative as well as innovations, Guderian led a panzer corps in the scything of Poland in 1939 and was one of the most successful commanders in the 1940 invasion of France, where his tactics became de facto Wehrmacht policy. He repeated his performances in leading the 1941 advance on Moscow until Hitler intervened and redirected Guderian’s divisions southward toward Kiev. Guderian’s armor helped capture six hundred thousand Soviets, but the commander was incensed at the lost opportunity to take Moscow by storm, and he let his Führer know it. Guderian was relieved of duty soon after for withdrawing troops from an exposed position without Hitler’s approval.
³⁷

For more than a year, the alchemist of blitzkrieg sat on the sidelines, until a desperate Hitler made him inspector general of armored troops. What Guderian saw repulsed him.

In the factories, tank production had slowed to a crawl, each over-complicated design worsening with endless modifications. In the field, Hitler schemed to renew the failed Russian offensive near K
URSK
, with neither the armor nor the right plan to accomplish the task. The general demanded an end to such wasteful practices. He streamlined tank production, endorsed gradual withdrawal from the East, and insisted on stronger defenses in the West, the front on which an Allied attack was sure to come. Yet every idea the general put forth his warlord either rejected or altered beyond recognition. The relationship ended in March 1945 when Hitler dismissed Guderian for good, just weeks before the fall of B
ERLIN
.
³⁸

A prisoner of the Allies until 1948, Guderian spent the next two years writing his memoirs. Titled
Panzer Leader
for English audiences, the book became a worldwide bestseller and was translated into ten languages.

4
. DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (U.S., 1890–1969)

A no-name lieutenant colonel when war began in Europe, Dwight Eisenhower was nonetheless the owner of a pristine reputation among elite figures. Creator of the U.S. Army’s first-ever tank units during World War I, he went on to serve under Gen. John Pershing after the war and then graduated first in his class at the U.S. Army Staff College. He served in the Philippines, where he earned hard-fought admiration from his commanding officer and polar opposite, Douglas MacArthur. G
EORGE
C. M
ARSHALL
only met him twice and was so impressed by his humble yet responsible demeanor that the chief of staff assigned the Kansan to the War Plans Division immediately after December 7, 1941.
³⁹

By June 1942, Eisenhower was in London as the commanding general of the European theater of operations. British officers noted that the American had never heard a shot fired in anger, a fact that vexed Eisenhower to no end. But he proved to be a quick study. When his North Africa and Sicily campaigns faltered from low morale and disunity, Ike reacted straightaway. He fired poor generals, promoted the best ones, took greater control of strategic planning, and, above all else, he forced cooperation.

Ike hit his stride with the N
ORMANDY
invasion, to which he committed months of planning. From stubbornly independent branches of air, army, and navy, he forged a force involving more than 4,000 ships, 10,000 aircraft, and a landing force of 150,000 international troops. Despite imperfections, the invasion was an unqualified success. However, Eisenhower’s true greatness showed in the months that followed, when limited resources and a tenacious enemy nearly brought the campaign to a standstill.

His infectious smile and pleasant demeanor disappeared when he encountered infighting or defeatism. When British Gen. Bernard Montgomery pushed him one too many times, Ike scolded back, “Good will and mutual confidence are, of course, mandatory.” His frequently criticized broad-front strategy kept fragile alliances together and likely minimized casualties. Only once did he permit a diversion from his grand strategy, O
PERATION
M
ARKET
-G
ARDEN
, and it broke down with disastrous results.
⁴⁰

His levelheaded, meticulous nature helped prevent a similar breakdown during the B
ATTLE OF THE
B
ULGE
, where he turned a problem into a victory. His methodical push into Germany, also frequently criticized as too hesitant, may have prevented an armed confrontation with the Soviets, whose leader viewed the American and British presence as a threat as much as a blessing.