Did Eisenhower fight in World War I?

No. He commanded tank training camps in the United States, and the war ended before he could be sent overseas.

What was Eisenhower's role on D-Day?

As Supreme Commander he chose the Normandy coast, approved the enlarged plan with five landing beaches, and early on 5 June 1944 made the decision to launch the invasion in a short break in bad weather. He also prepared a note accepting full responsibility in case the landings failed.

How did Eisenhower rise so fast?

In March 1941 he was a lieutenant colonel; by February 1943 he was a four-star general. General George C. Marshall picked him for war planning after Pearl Harbor and then for command in Europe, impressed by his strategic grasp, organizing talent and ability to work with others.

Why did Eisenhower not take Berlin?

He left Berlin to the Soviet army, which was closer and stronger, kept to the zones agreed among the Allies, and wanted to avoid heavy American casualties. The decision was criticized at the time and later.

What did Eisenhower warn about in his Farewell Address?

In his Farewell Address on 17 January 1961 he warned Americans against the growing influence of the "military-industrial complex."

When did Eisenhower die and where is he buried?

He died on 28 March 1969 and was buried at Abilene, Kansas, his boyhood home, beside his first son, who had died in 1921.

Dwight D. Eisenhower: the general who commanded D-Day

Q: Who was Dwight D. Eisenhower?

An American general and president (1890 to 1969). He commanded the Allied landings in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force for the invasion of Normandy and the defeat of Germany, became NATO's first supreme commander in Europe and served as the 34th US president from 1953 to 1961.

US Army photograph, 1944, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain (US government work).

Quick answer

Who was Dwight D. Eisenhower?

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 to 1969) was the American general who commanded the Allied invasions of North Africa, Sicily and Italy and then, as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944, and the campaign that ended with Germany's surrender in May 1945. He later became the first supreme commander of NATO's forces and the 34th president of the United States (1953 to 1961).¹

Eisenhower was not a battlefield commander in the old sense. World War I ended before he could reach the front, and in March 1941 he was still a lieutenant colonel. Yet within three years he commanded the largest amphibious invasion in history and an alliance of nations whose generals often disliked each other. His gift was to hold that alliance together, to decide, and to take responsibility. Britannica credits his rise not only to his grasp of strategy and talent for organization but to his ability to persuade, mediate and get along with others.²

Early life

David Dwight Eisenhower was born on 14 October 1890 at Denison, Texas, the third of seven sons of David and Ida Eisenhower. The family soon returned to Abilene, Kansas, where his father worked in a creamery. They were poor and religious; his mother was a Mennonite and a pacifist. Young "Ike" loved sports and hunting and read military history, but was an indifferent student.³

In 1911 he entered the US Military Academy at West Point, a decision that left his mother in tears. He played football until a knee injury ended his playing days, and he graduated in 1915, 61st of 164 in his class. Posted to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, he met Mamie Doud, whom he married on 1 July 1916. Their first son, Doud Dwight, died of scarlet fever in January 1921 at the age of three; a second son, John, was born in 1922.⁴

Studio portrait of young Dwight Eisenhower as a West Point cadet in a gray uniform with a high dark collar. — Cadet Dwight Eisenhower at the US Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated in 1915. Studio portrait from the collection of the Eisenhower Presidential Library. Yearbook portrait from The Howitzer, the 1915 United States Military Academy yearbook. Public domain.

The long apprenticeship

In World War I he commanded tank training camps in the United States and never reached the front. In 1922 he went to the Panama Canal Zone as executive officer to General Fox Conner, who became his mentor and helped him into the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth. He graduated first in his class in 1926, of 275 officers according to Britannica, of 245 according to the Eisenhower Library and the Miller Center. The Army War College followed in 1928, along with a guidebook to the American battlefields of World War I written for General Pershing's monuments commission.⁵

From 1933 he served as an aide to the Army chief of staff, General Douglas MacArthur, and in 1935 went with him to the Philippines to build the Commonwealth's army. The two men were very different and often disagreed. Eisenhower came home after war broke out in Europe, became chief of staff of the Third Army in 1941, and made his name in its great maneuvers in Louisiana, which involved more than 400,000 troops in the Miller Center's figure and almost 500,000 in Britannica's. In September 1941 he was made a brigadier general.⁶

From war plans to command

Days after Pearl Harbor, the Army chief of staff, General George C. Marshall, called him to Washington to work on war plans, and in 1942 put him at the head of the War Department's operations division. In June 1942 Marshall chose him over hundreds of more senior officers to command American forces in Europe. On 1 March 1941 he had been a lieutenant colonel; by February 1943 he would be a four-star general, a rise the National Park Service calls phenomenal even in wartime.⁷

North Africa and the Mediterranean

His first great command was Operation Torch, the Anglo-American landings in French North Africa on 8 November 1942. The campaign stalled in the Tunisian rains, and in February 1943 inexperienced American troops were thrown back at Kasserine Pass. Eisenhower learned fast: he replaced the corps commander, General Lloyd Fredendall, with George S. Patton and insisted that future ground operations be strongly supported from the air. On 13 May 1943 the Axis forces in North Africa surrendered.⁸ › Operation Torch, 1942

Two American soldiers in helmets wade through shallow water toward the camera carrying rifles, as more soldiers climb down from a landing craft behind them and a transport ship stands in the haze — American troops wade ashore from an assault boat on a North African beach during Operation Torch, November 1942. US Army Signal Corps photograph SC 149955, published by the National Museum of the US Navy (courtesy of the Library of Congress). The US Army had never before made large landings under fire. Public domain (US Army Signal Corps)

He then directed the invasion of Sicily in July 1943 and the landings on the Italian mainland, before he was called to England.⁹

Overlord and D-Day

At the Tehran conference in late 1943 Stalin pressed for a commander to be named for the cross-Channel invasion, Operation Overlord. Roosevelt chose Eisenhower on 7 December 1943, telling him, in the National Park Service's account, "Well, Ike, you are going to command Overlord"; Britannica dates his appointment as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force to 24 December. In January 1944 he was in London.¹⁰

Seven Allied commanders of the D-Day supreme command, Eisenhower seated in the center between Tedder and Montgomery, four more standing, in front of wall maps in London, 1 February 1944, in color — The Allied supreme command for the invasion of Europe in London on 1 February 1944: Eisenhower sits in the center between Air Chief Marshal Tedder and General Montgomery, with Bradley, Ramsay, Leigh-Mallory and Bedell Smith behind. British official color photograph. Public domain

He settled on the Normandy coast and approved Montgomery's recommendation to widen the landing to five beaches. The weather nearly wrecked everything. Early on 5 June, told by his meteorologists that a short break in the storms was coming, he gambled and gave the order: "OK, let's go." That evening he talked with paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division before they boarded their aircraft.¹¹

General Dwight D. Eisenhower in uniform and peaked cap talking with paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division in jump uniforms and netted helmets, faces blackened, one with a number 23 card on his chest, tents behind, 5 June 1944 — General Dwight D. Eisenhower talks with paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division in England on the evening of 5 June 1944, before they board their aircraft for Normandy. Public domain. U.S. Army photograph, Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons.

He also wrote a short note to be released if the landings failed, praising his men and accepting the whole responsibility himself. On 6 June 1944 the invasion went in, the largest amphibious attack in history; Britannica counts more than 156,000 troops landed on D-Day, the National Park Service over 160,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen committed.¹² › D-Day, 1944

Map of the English Channel and Normandy with Allied task forces crossing from England and German divisions in France — The Allied invasion force and the German dispositions in northwestern France on 6 June 1944. Map from the US Military Academy atlas. Public domain (US government work). Department of History, US Military Academy, via Wikimedia Commons.

Victory in Europe

The Allied armies broke out of Normandy and swept across France and Belgium. On 16 December 1944 Germany struck back in the Ardennes, and the Battle of the Bulge lasted until mid-January 1945; that December Eisenhower was promoted to the new five-star rank of General of the Army. In the spring the Allies crossed the Rhine, and Germany surrendered in May 1945.¹³ › Battle of the Bulge, 1944

His decision to leave Berlin to the Red Army was criticized then and later. He defended it: the Soviets were closer and stronger, the zones had been agreed, and the city was not worth the lives it would cost. After the surrender he became military governor of the American occupation zone in Germany.¹⁴

Command style

Eisenhower commanded a coalition, and he treated that as the heart of the job. He kept British and American commanders who often disliked each other pulling in the same direction, and the National Park Service notes that he was trusted and admired by most of the British. The Miller Center credits his sympathetic handling of Allied leaders with the cooperation that made D-Day possible.¹⁵

He also learned to be hard. North Africa taught him, as the National Park Service puts it, that a close friend or a West Point classmate was not necessarily fit to lead men in combat, and he removed commanders who failed. He showed confidence in public whatever his private doubts, listened to subordinates who argued with him, shared credit, and, as the note he carried on D-Day shows, kept the blame for himself.¹⁶

NATO, the presidency and death

In November 1945 he succeeded Marshall as Army chief of staff and oversaw the demobilization of the wartime army. In 1948 he became president of Columbia University and published his war memoir, Crusade in Europe. When the Korean War made Western Europe's defense urgent, President Truman recalled him, and in December 1950 he was named the first Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO.¹⁷

Dwight D. Eisenhower, NATO's first Supreme Allied Commander Europe, walking between ranks of Dutch sailors holding rifles with fixed bayonets at Hilversum, May 1951 — Eisenhower, then NATO's first Supreme Allied Commander Europe, inspects Dutch naval personnel at the naval training station in Hilversum in May 1951. SHAPE photograph, Rijksmuseum. CC0 (public domain)

In 1952 he resigned his commission and ran for president as a Republican, with the slogan "I like Ike," and won. He served two terms, from 1953 to 1961, brought an armistice in Korea, and in his Farewell Address on 17 January 1961 warned the nation against the influence of the "military-industrial complex." He retired to his farm at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, wrote his memoirs, and died on 28 March 1969. He was buried at Abilene, beside his first son.¹⁸

Legacy and memory

As a soldier, Eisenhower is remembered less for any single battle than for making a coalition war work: the Supreme Commander who chose Normandy, launched D-Day in a gap in the storm, and saw the campaign through to Germany's surrender. The Miller Center notes that in a few years he rose from an obscure lieutenant colonel to command one of the greatest military forces in history. His Farewell Address, a warning from a five-star general against the power of the defense establishment, is listed by the National Archives among the milestone documents of American history.¹⁹

Read how he worked with and against his difficult British subordinate in Eisenhower vs Montgomery, meet George Patton and Omar Bradley, or explore the greatest American commanders.