Memories of General Eisenhower

Memories of General Eisenhower Rich Hamilton interviews Wayne C. Temple on General Eisenhower. Wayne C. Temple is a retired U.S. Army General and one of the leading historians in the state of Illinois on the subject of President Abraham Lincoln. During the end of World War II he served as a junior officer assigned to General Eisenhower’s headquarters. He was part of a twelve-man team that set up the complicated communication arrays that the Allied commander needed to stay in contact with the vast army under him. Although Dr. Temple did not serve in close proximately to General Eisenhower on a daily basis his position did place him in a position to gain some insight into character of the general and some of the challenges he faced. Mostly through Dr. Temple’s eyes we can see the living quality of a man who for most of us is only some distant figure, a name and picture in a book or newspaper from days gone by. I had the great honor of interviewing Dr. Temple at his office in the state capitol of Springfield and it was truly a great experience.

Dr. Temple made only one request during the interview and that was to not talk about what he called “the bad stuff” and this request was gladly honored. When the subject of General Eisenhower was brought up Dr. Temple was more than happy to speak about his former commander.

The General “No one ever called him Ike, at least not to his face. We just called him the General. When ever someone said ‘The General’ everybody knew who you were talking about.” With these first words on the subject of the General it was clear that even after 62 years Dr. Temple is deeply affected by Eisenhower. The impression I got of the General when listening to the stories about him was that Eisenhower must have been a very kind, humble, and considerate man. It was this consideration for others that appears to be the source for the great loyalty his men clearly felt.

Any one who disagrees with this conclusion should look into the eyes of Dr. Temple. “He always knew who I was. He never forgot the guys.” Dr. Temple expressed disappointment that he did not have his signed picture of Eisenhower with him for the interview. He repeated several times that the General was always very considerate of his troops.

Whenever Eisenhower went on an inspection of a base the first place he went was to check the food the soldiers ate. “He said he had to learn how to cook because Mamie didn’t know how to cook. The general was always interested in what the troops ate and he was very interested in cooking.” Eisenhower would have a meal with the soldiers to make sure the food they were eating was up to standards. The General would show his consideration for his men in other ways as well. General Eisenhower flew in a plain C47 transport plane that was not dress up in any way to which Dr. Temple exclaimed “you wouldn’t see MacArthur flying around in anything so austere!” During one incident the General’s plane was having trouble finding its way in a storm. The ground crew had to use radar to guide the plane safely into the airfield.

After the plane landed General Eisenhower came over to the control room and personally thanked the men on duty there. Many of the stories Dr. Temple has about Eisenhower’s actions are second hand as one would expect having been a part of the headquarters but not part of the inner circle. One such story does give a clue as to what the General was actually thinking on D-Day. In private General Eisenhower had no doubt that the invasion would be a success, but what he was fearful of was the causality rates. He thought the causality rates could be as high as 50% and was greatly relieved that the rate of causalities was nowhere near what he thought they would be. On the subject of the controversy surrounding the General and his war time driver, Kay Summersby, Dr. Temple has very strong feelings. His feelings were based upon his own personal observations of the relationship. Kay Summersby was a nice looking woman, but she never stayed with Eisenhower. Dr. Temple witnessed that she always stayed in the nurses’ quarters, and this observation was confirmed by one of the nurses years later. The main reason Dr. Temple felt nothing happened was because of the deep love Eisenhower felt for his wife, Mamie.

The General left the deep impression in Dr. Temple that he was totally devoted to Mamie, and that the stories were just opportunist besmirching the General’s name in later years for their own gain. Patton Of all the other famous generals Patton was the one Dr. Temple saw coming and going the most at Eisenhower’s headquarters, but he never had any person interaction with him. However when asked about General Patton, Dr. Temple’s reaction was unexpected. He paused for a moment and then said Patton was “a little strange.” “Oh he was a great tank man, but he was a little strange.” One of the stories he heard second hand was of Patton in Africa. One day out of the blue Patton suddenly stood up, placed his thumbs in his belt at his hips and declared ‘I’ve been hear before.’ He then told his bewildered staff how he had been a Carthaginian general in a previous life. Another incident involved Patton and a friend of Dr. Temple’s that happened in England. Patton used to go hunting a lot so he would ride around in his car with the sirens blaring making an awful racket. Well this guy drove past General Patton’s car on the highway one day and Patton chased him down and pulled him over. Patton then fined this guy $50 because when he passed Patton’s car he didn’t say ‘by your leave sir.’

Montgomery Dr. Temple said that Field Marshal Montgomery never came by the headquarters and that he had the impression that the General and Montgomery did not like each other. However, talking to Dr. Temple did give me an insight as to why the American staff did not much care for Montgomery. “He’d get in front of the reporters and brag about what a great general he was like he couldn’t do anything wrong. Well I don’t think he was anything special. What he wasn’t telling people was that we were feeding him all the German communications because we had cracked the Enigma code. He knew exactly where the enemy was! It makes things easy when you know where the enemy is.” Montgomery’s press conferences were clearly the source of the feelings as far as Dr. Temple was concerned. From his point of view Montgomery was taking all the credit for the success he was having and pretending, at least to the press, that he was doing it with out any help. When in reality it had been a team effort between the Allies.

Kilroy was here! “Everywhere you went someone had scrawled on the wall ‘Kilroy was here’.” Dr. Temple was offered a chance to go to Zürich Switzerland to see a lecture, but it was really to get a little leisure time since he hadn’t had any since coming to France. “I was among the first American’s to get to go there. The only American’s that had been there before me were downed pilots.” While he was there he went to see the famous monument to the Swiss Guards. He looked up at the great regal lion filled with the drama and tragedy of the death of the Swiss Guards and at the lion’s feet was a plaque. Upon the plaque read “My heart leapt up and bounds with joy for here stands before Kilroy.”