LITMIR.BIZ

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      The staff’s initial formation clearly had a certain air of informality to it. There were, of course, requests to British, British Empire, and American authorities for staffing, but there was also a tone that suggested the unconventional approach that Morgan enjoyed. Perhaps it helped that COSSAC took over Norfolk House, which is where many of the planners already worked. Still, because so many plans conceived there were stillborn, all it took was a mention that one worked at Norfolk House to evoke both pity and disregard from one’s audience. This was so noticeable that Morgan asked, unsuccessfully, if they could rename the building Suffolk House. This was not possible because of the history attached to the site. The old Norfolk House, a most palatial structure of the dukes of Norfolk and the birthplace of George III, dated back to the mid-1700s. The original building had been demolished in 1939 and replaced by the modern office building.¹⁰ Morgan took consolation in the fact that it made security easier—no one would expect something as dramatic as a cross-Channel assault to emanate from such a place. Security was a particular concern as COSSAC was explicitly forbidden to have contact with the many allied governments-in-exile located in London, and the French headquarters was also on St. James’s Square just a long block away from Norfolk House.¹¹

      Thanks to Morgan’s friendship with Canadian general Andrew McNaughton, with whom he had served in World War I, COSSAC was able to gain meaningful support from a cadre of highly trained Canadian staff officers. South Africa was also well represented, as was Australia.

      Morgan wanted his staff to be as small as possible—mirroring what he believed was the approach taken by Marshal Foch at the end of World War I—and to function more as a coordinating body, not duplicating efforts but taking advantage of the knowledge base that already existed. In this he was partially successful. Because COSSAC considered all aspects of a cross-Channel assault and the campaign that was to follow, the range and scope of issues to be addressed required that expertise be added to the staff, both formally and informally. There was no useful precedent for a multinational planning staff that was also intended to be the foundation of a coalition’s operational headquarters for the major campaign being planned. As Barker noted, “We didn’t start out with any table of organization…. There was no one to prescribe it for us. We had to develop it as we went along…. There was a certain amount of trial and error.”¹²

      Morgan was well aware of the inherent political challenges of being the chief of staff to an unnamed supreme commander and having to report to the CCS, but through the British COS. His life now changed from that “of a simple British soldier to that of the international half-world wherein there is no simplicity. It had been one thing to serve as a British commander under foreign orders. It was quite another to owe primary allegiance, as [he] now had to, to an allied committee.”¹³

      An early example of this allegiance was demonstrated when he received a memo from the British War Cabinet that sketched out an idea about applying “the whole united strength of Britain and the United States to the Mediterranean” and that asked Morgan to respond with the advantages of a northwestern European strategy compared with the Mediterranean. He understood that this represented just a late-night conjecture of the prime minister, but he was nonetheless obliged to answer. As COSSAC was an Allied staff, neither American nor British, he also felt obliged to share the memo with Barker, who in turn felt obliged to share the memo with ETOUSA. The net result, after everyone calmed down, was that it became clear that if “there should be anything that the British authorities deemed unnecessary for the American authorities to hear about, then they must not send it to COSSAC.”¹⁴

      To be fair, there was at least one occasion when Americans in Washington, talking over a secure line to compatriots in London, exhorted their colleagues: “Don’t tell the British for God’s sake.” Which provoked laughter from the London end of the line as “every word had been keenly listened to by two British generals and one British admiral.”¹⁵ For Morgan, building trust among COSSAC’s staff as well as a strong sense of unit identity were among the highest priorities. In today’s parlance, it was clear from the very beginning that they “had each other’s backs.”

      By the time of the first weekly staff meeting on 17 April, Morgan had gathered enough officers to fill in the top levels of the organization. It helped that he reduced the Combined Commanders’ planning structure from twenty-nine sections down to four, plus an administrative section.¹⁶

      COSSAC was initially formed with an operations planning branch, with army, navy, and air force sections; an intelligence branch; and a logistics (administration, in British Army usage) branch. Major General West was the operations branch head. There were American and British components to each section, each headed by a principal staff officer or deputy chief of staff. For the British Army, that was McLean. The three components of the planning branch (army, navy, air force) were also split into three sections: one for broad concepts, one for cover plans, and one for detailed tactical planning, each with about four officers. There was a parallel American structure. The exception was the intelligence section, which was headed by a British Army officer and provided reports and analyses to all the operations sections. In addition, a central secretariat was established that served all the branches as well as Morgan.¹⁷

      This arrangement quickly proved unwieldy, and modifications occurred along the way. By November Barker, in consultation with Morgan, completed the reorganization into an operational staff with the structure completely integrated, the principal staff officer of each section being either British, American, or Canadian on merit, without regard to national identities. As Barker wrote at the time, “In contemplation of the transformation of this staff from a planning to an operational headquarters, any division along national lines should be abolished.”¹⁸

      Later, sections for civil affairs, press relations, and coordination with governments-in-exile (which was established after the Quebec conference) were created, among others. (On 6 June 1944 the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force [SHAEF], building on COSSAC’s foundations, had expanded to include the following sections: G1, G2, G3, G4, G5 [civil affairs], psychological warfare division, public relations division, signals division, engineers division, adjutant general, medical division, air defense division, political officers as well as naval and air staffs and a European Allied contact section.¹⁹)

      In general, U.S. officers serving in all the sections and RAF officers seemed to rotate through more often than did British Army officers, with the Royal Navy having periods of stability. The shortest tour of duty was that of then rear admiral Sir Philip Vian, RN, who was present for the first COSSAC meeting and back in an operational command the next week, replacing a commander who died in an air accident. One of the most effective combat officers in the Royal Navy, Vian later became the Eastern Task Force Commander for OVERLORD.

      He was replaced by John Hughes-Hallett, who retained command of a small amphibious assault force named Force J, located aboard HMS Vectis—the converted Royal Yacht Squadron facility on the Isle of Wight—while also being Admiral Little’s representative at COSSAC. Morgan noted that Hughes-Hallett, among his other credits, was well known for his motorcycling achievements on the London to Portsmouth road. Barker considered him to be excellent, combat experienced, and “intensely practical.”²⁰ McLean, the practical Scot, thought Hughes-Hallett to be “obstinate and determined. An exceedingly capable man who succeeded in getting everybody’s back up.”²¹ Another writer with knowledge of combined operations described Hughes-Hallett as someone “whose respect for entrenched rank when it was wrong was not conspicuous.”²² The discussions between McLean and Hughes-Hallett must have been interesting. Hughes-Hallett stayed at COSSAC for the critical initial planning period, being replaced by Rear Adm. George Creasy, RN, in the fall of 1943.

      Hughes-Hallett gave an evaluation of the naval planners he encountered in Norfolk House in April 1943: “There was no officer with the authority, or indeed the knowledge and experience, to make even a provisional decision on where the landings should be made or how they should be followed up…. They had become rather cynical and had ceased to believe in the reality of their work.”²³ This cynicism could be found among many of the COSSAC planners as they started working with their new commander.

      It was this serious morale

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