World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF ITALY: Ike's Way

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The Troops. For a massive blow, Eisenhower had the troops. Correspondents in Algiers, London and Washington freely reminded the world, including the enemy, of the forces available to him. There was British Lieut. General Kenneth Anderson's First Army, trained for conquest of Northwest Africa and hardened in victory there. Only one of Anderson's divisions had been used in Sicily, the hill-taking 78th. There was U.S. Lieut. General Mark Wayne Clark's Fifth Army, built and trained behind the lines during the Tunisian and Sicilian campaigns, undoubtedly poised. Possibly included in the Fifth: two infantry divisions, the 9th and the 34th; and the 1st Armored Division, which have not been heard from since they fought Arnim south of Bizerte. There was Lieut. General George Patton's great Seventh Army—three infantry divisions, an airborne division and an armored division thoroughly experienced in overwater invasion. There were also General Henri Honore Giraud's 200,000 Frenchmen, equipped with U.S. weapons, ready and eager to fight for the liberation of France.

There were more than 700,000 men in these forces, and General Eisenhower may have more than the five armies. Any recent reinforcements from the U.S. and Britain have been secret. Correspondents in the Middle East reported last week that practically all U.S. troops except airmen and technical personnel had left Persia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt.

A.F.H.Q. This was the military power which the Axis faced in the south and which the world knew about. Behind that power was Ike Eisenhower, whom the enemy and the world had gradually come to know. Beside him, part of a sensitive, interlocking mechanism of responsibility, were such top commanders in the theater as British General Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander, chief planner and strategist; Admiral Sir Andrew Brown Cunningham, boss of the Mediterranean fleet; Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, strategist of the air. They made the specific plans, which had to be shared with President Roosevelt, with Prime Minister Churchill, with General Marshall and the Anglo-U.S. staffs in Washington. But the ultimate responsibility was Eisenhower's. And to accomplish his job Eisenhower must lean heavily on his British-American headquarters staff, the unsung heroes who attend to the complex, dull details that are an inevitable and vital part of fighting a war.

Allied Force Headquarters, which operates in Algiers, is, to the field soldier, fantastically enormous. Attached to it are some 1,100 officers and 15,000 enlisted men to work its communications, gard its sprawling area, cook its meals, drive its cars, guard its billets and offices on more than 2,000 pieces of Algiers real estate. Its Signals center handles in 1,000 code messages a day. A newly arrived U.S. officer, previously accustomed to the spaces and complexities of Washington's Pentagon Building, took a preliminary look at A.F.H.Q. and gasped:

"It's a hyperthyroid War Department!"