Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-09-16

Congress to acknowledge this ma
tlonal emergency" 1t was Gen,
Marshall who went to Capitol Hill
and talked to the legislators behind
closed doors. And while the Senate. on
August 7, approved amendment of the
draft act by margin of Is votes, the
House approval on August l2-less than
four months before Pearl Harbor-was
by single vote, 2o3-202
The victory was won by small mar
gin, But 1t was an important victory
and it saved the Army. There are
those who were in the thick of the
fight at that time who attribute to Gen.
Marshalls own efforts the fact that it
was won at all. A more complacent
Chief of Staff might have sat tight and
said nothing.
Gen. Marshall played a leading role
in our dealings with the Birthstone
that far overshadowed the duties asso-
ciated with the Chief of Staff. He seems
to have won the confidence of Churchill
and his ministers to an unusual degree
More than once he was sent abroad
as an American ambassador without
portfolio to the Prime Ministerial one
time to guard our more impressionable
Army commanders from the willy win
someness of Mr.. Churchill, who has
way with him.
In January. 1912, the meetings which
preceded formal establishment of the
Combined Chiefs of Station February
7-adopted basic conceptions of global
strategy which guided the future con-
duct of the war. One of these con-
cerned operations in Northwest Africa.
Morocco and Algiers, but at the time
we lacked the necessary forces and sup
plies to support them
In April Gen. Marshall went to Eng
land for conferences with the Prime
Minister, the war cabinet and the Brit
ish chiefs of staff and it may have been
In the course of that visit that he began
advocating a cross-Channel operation
later that year-1942-or early in the
next.
In June the Prime Minister, accom-
panied by Gen. Sir Alan F. Brooke.
chief of the imperial general staff,
came to Washington for conferences
with the American Joint Chiefs of Staff
and the cross-Channel operation was
tentatively agreed to. But it was dur
ing these conferences-June 21-that
Tobruk fell and it was Gen. Marshall
who brought the bad news to the White
House and gave it to Churchill, who
had to take it on the chin again.
The British retreat began toward the
Ell Alamein line and the situation in
Egypt looked more desperate all the
time. Here Gen. Marshall did one of
the things which brought down on his
head the demnation-because the
facts could not be made known-of
many of his own Army colleagues. We
were just beginning to get our own
divisions decently armed with full
equipment. Some of our divisions were
on maneuvers, equipped for the first
time. They were robbed of armored
equipment to send it to the British.
The LIST Armored Division was waiting
for embarkation, bound for North Ire
land. Its equipment was already aboard
ships, ready to sail. Some sailed, but
they carried the equipment to Egypt.
1t was one thing that saved the day for
the British. But there was plenty of
grumbling from our own Army.
In July the President was notified
by Mr.. Churchill that the cross-C Channel
operation was off. Gen. Marshall and
Admiral King were sent to England to
try to save the original invasion plan,
of which Marshall was an unrelenting
prepayment But the British feared
blood letting which would deplete, dis
astrously perhaps, their already shrunken
manpower. Gen. Marshall and Admiral
King were unable to make the Channel
plan stick and the North African inva-
sion, which took place in November,
was adopted as an alternative. Some
Of his associates say Gen. Marshall
still believes the Channel invasion would
have worked at that time and perhaps
shortened the war,
The general and the Prime Minister
evidently had some knock -down-and-
drag-out fights, but they seemed to
tsee MARSHALL, Page Gill;