Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants & Their War

by Eric Larrabee

Few American presidents have exercised their constitutional authority as commander in chief with more determination than Franklin D. Roosevelt. He intervened in military operations more often and to better effect than his contemporaries Churchill and Stalin, and maneuvered events so that the Grand Alliance was directed from Washington. In this expansive history, Eric Larrabee examines the extent and importance of FDR's wartime leadership through his key military leaders--Marshall, King, Arnold, MacArthur, Vandergrift, Nimitz, Eisenhower, Stilwell, and LeMay.


Devoting a chapter to each man, the author studies Roosevelt's impact on their personalities, their battles (sometimes with each other), and the consequences of their decisions. He also addresses such critical subjects as Roosevelt's responsibility for the war and how well it achieved his goals. First published in 1987, this comprehensive portrait of the titans of the American military effort in World War II is available in a new paperback edition for the first time in sixteen years.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, War, Leadership, Military History, World War II

723 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1987

Reviews

[Aaron Million · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do you ever pick up a book thinking it will be about a certain person or topic, but instead the book ends up not quite being about what you had thought it was going to be? That could work both ways of course - a book might end up being even more than you had expected. But more often these situations - at least for me - veer towards being a negative. And unfortunately that is the case with Eric Larrabee's book. I had thought that it was going to primarily be about FDR's management of his top generals and admirals in WWII. Instead, it was much less about FDR, and even less about the several named generals and admirals, than it was about battles tactics and descriptions. I'm not nearly as interested in military history as I am in political history, although I understand that both impact the other. Nonetheless, when Larrabee writes about left flanks being protected, or armies wheeling around to face another direction, my eyes start to glaze over. There was a lot of glazing here.

Larrabee organizes the book into ten chapters, each one titled with the name of a general, admiral, or in the first one, FDR. These long chapters are bookended by a lengthy prologue and an epilogue. In the prologue, Larrabee somewhat sets the scene for the war and for what was going on in Roosevelt's White House leading up to Pearl Harbor, with the President increasingly wanting to rearm but being held back by a highly reluctant Congress and equally reluctant populace. We are introduced to one of his chief assistants, Harry Hopkins, who appears frequently throughout the book.

FDR

This section I was most looking forward to of all since I figured it would be much less on military matters, and more about FDR's management style. Wrong! Much of the space in this part is actually devoted to the Japanese, and the political turmoil going on in their country. Larrabee discusses the political instability there, and the increasing militancy (more like fanaticism) enveloping the Japanese armed forces. FDR is absent for much of this section, despite his name being on it. Larrabee provides almost no focus on his domestic management of the war or his efforts to get the American people mentally ready for the challenge.

MARSHALL

This section overall was a mixed basket for me. Larrabee is quite good and in-depth on General George Marshall's personality, the near-universal respect in which he was held by most everyone, and his dedication to the war. Marshall was an excellent judge of talent (plucking Dwight Eisenhower from underneath many other officers who were at that time higher-ranking than he was) and also knew what Roosevelt wanted and knew above all that Roosevelt wanted a Chief of Staff who would fight. At the same time, Marshall was not good at overall battle plans and strategy. Larrabee also touches on Marshall's working relationships with Secretary of War Henry Stimson and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Overall I thought that this was one of the stronger sections of the book.

KING

Ernest King was initially the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet, then later the Chief of Naval Operations, replacing Admiral Harold Stark following the latter's retirement. But Stark is largely absent from the narrative. Larrabee admits that there was not a clear delineation of responsibilities between Stark and King. So how did they resolve conflicts? How influential was Stark? Did the two men get along? The demarcation of duties is not clear, and Larrabee makes no attempt to explain it. With King being notoriously foul-tempered and difficult to work with, I wondered how that went. Equally left out of the equation is Navy Secretary Frank Knox. While Stimson, his counterpart at Army, gets a good deal of attention in the Marshall section, Knox gets virtually nothing. Again, did King get along with him? How were conflicts resolved? Knox died of a heart attack in 1944, and Under Secretary James Forrestal then took over. Larrabee does profile him in detail, but it is strange that Knox was largely ignored. Also, King did not see any action during the war; how did he feel about that? Larrabee does not tell us.

ARNOLD

The next section, about the Army Air Forces' Henry Arnold, was also unsatisfying. As he did with the FDR section, Larrabee veers off, instead spending a long time talking about the Battle of Ploesti. Arnold was not involved in this battle, yet it takes up a lot of the space that Larrabee devotes to him. While there are some maps elsewhere in the book, it could have used one here, as this is one the areas where Larrabee went into great detail to describe the bombings. I never got a good sense of Arnold's personality, although one of Larrabee's side jaunts was a mini-biography of Assistant Secretary of War Robert Lovett, and that part was quite good. Larrabee also diverts to talking about Charles Lindbergh and how, thanks somewhat to FDR's antipathy towards him, he was more or less sidelined from active service in the war. Larrabee is clearly sympathetic to Lindbergh, saying that his reputation as being pro-Nazi is way overblown, and that he remained loyal to the U.S. This really seemed odd, especially given that this part was supposed to be about Arnold. Finally, on page 254, Larrabee writes that Arnold "...was not central and essential to the war in the way King and Marshall were." Then why did Larrabee include him?

VANDEGRIFT

General Archer Vandegrift is the Marines' contribution to Larrabee's book. This section is mostly taken over by the Battle of Guadalcanal. Larrabee really goes into detail on this bloody, long battle that occurs on an island. Vandegrift was directly involved in the battle, but much of this section is actually more geared towards the Navy Admirals who had to work in conjunction with the Marines to help support the operation. This is yet another section where: 1) FDR is barely in it, and 2) I wanted to know much more about the title character than Larrabee provided.

MacARTHUR

This was the best section of the book in my view. Not only was General Douglas MacArthur's personality and actions discussed in detail, but Larrabee does a very good job on straddling the difficult line between not taking a hatchet to MacArthur's reputation and in the process recognizing some of his brilliance, but also not for a second buying into the hagiography that already surrounded him by then and only grew during and after the war. Larrabee is objective. Despite this, MacArthur really does come across as an egomaniac who had an unquenchable love for the limelight while possessing a penchant for quickly blaming anyone and everyone else for anything that went wrong. He came across as ill-informed about battle plans, and had poor intelligence. FDR is more prominent here, and Larrabee shows the complicated, difficult relationship between the two men. Essentially, they used each other for their own purposes.

NIMITZ

I found this to be a largely uneven section on Admiral Chester Nimitz, who was Chief of the Pacific Fleet. While this does contain a fair amount of details about Nimitz, there is just as much about two of his direct subordinate Admirals, Raymond Spruance and William Halsey. Most of this section is about two battles: Midway and Leyte Gulf. As in the earlier chapter about Arnold, this part needed some maps. Larrabee spends a lot of time on both battles, but there are no accompanying maps. One theme that did come through quite clear is that the Japanese Navy made many mistakes, and easily could have (and probably should have) inflicted far worse damage on the U.S. Pacific Fleet than it did.

EISENHOWER

This is by far the longest section. Unfortunately, like a few of the earlier chapters, the main character gets lost in the shuffle. In this case, there are three reasons for this: 1) Much time and attention is devoted to the Normandy invasion on D-Day (this part is very detailed and also very good); 2) Eisenhower's subordinates George Patton and Bernard Montgomery take up a lot of writing space; 3) Larrabee himself served in this theatre and talks about some of his own experiences making his way through France and Germany. This was a good section in that the mix of detailed knowledge plus personal remembrances brings a sense of vividness to it. Larrabee shares some personal anecdotes that make this more than just a retelling of a war. But Eisenhower himself seems relegated to the sidelines throughout much of it. The chapter overall is good, especially when Larrabee details the prima donna antics of Montgomery, but I do wish Eisenhower had been featured more.

STILWELL

This chapter was mixed for me. Having read Barbara Tuchman's book about him, I at least knew who General Joseph Stilwell was. He was a highly respected officer, yet he didn't quite get along with FDR and others high up in the War Department, and he was relegated to the Burma/India/China theatre, which got the least attention of all of the theatres of the war. Here, Larrabee is very strong on Stilwell's hard-bitten, salty character and his work ethic. He spreads the story into more of an overarching one about FDR's mishandling of the situation with China and its Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek. In a book that is mostly pro-Roosevelt, this is one area where Larrabee is fairly critical of the President. One sentence where Larrabee really misses the mark though, comes on page 578 when he writes "...the President's treatment of General Stilwell remains the darkest blot on his record as Commander in Chief." While FDR did mistreat Stilwell, nowhere in this book is there a single mention of the hideous executive order that FDR signed imprisoning Japanese Americans into detention centers. How Larrabee never mentions this is beyond me. It was a war measure, so it does belong in the scope of this book. Even if I otherwise liked this book, this glaring omission is enough on its own to result in a big demerit.

LeMAY

The final chapter is on Curtis LeMay of the Army Air Forces. I found this to be one of the worst sections because LeMay's own story is so overshadowed by detailed talk of the emerging Air Force, and the bombing raids both over Germany and Japan, that I did not come away from this really knowing hardly anything more about him (which admittedly is not a lot) than I did prior to reading the chapter.

EPILOGUE

FDR finally returns here, as Larrabee writes about his leadership during wartime. Yet there are a few (quite important) things missing. First, and Larrabee himself admits this, is that he by design did not cover FDR's management of the home front. I can give him the benefit of the doubt by saying that I understand that he solely wanted to focus on the military aspects of the war, but isn't that sort of an incomplete picture when what was happening inside the U.S. itself is almost totally ignored? Second, where is Admiral William Leahy? This guy was the chair of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, and had close proximity to FDR throughout most of the war. He is barely mentioned here, only a few times, and those mostly in passing. I think the lack of inclusion of Leahy is a significant oversight. Finally, speaking of significant oversights, Larrabee does not discuss - at all - FDR's failing health throughout 1944 and into 1945. How did that affect his performance as Commander in Chief? Larrabee, surprisingly in my view, never ventures down this path.

While Larrabee clearly devoted a lot of time to this book, and turned in some good work on certain chapters, overall this work left me mostly disappointed. Between the omissions as stated above, the detailed battle descriptions, the lack of maps in certain sections, and the minimizing of FDR himself throughout much of the book, this was not what I wanted nor expected the book to be about. That doesn't mean that it is a bad book. It is not. But I didn't think it was a good one either.

Grade: C

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I purchased the hardcover edition of this book when it came out in 1987. It is not only a great book, but one of the best books I've read on any subject.

Larrabee is a superb writer of prose -- engaging, lively, and dramatic -- combined with having the historian's knack for a thorough retelling of history. Each chapter looks at one of Roosevelt's top commanders during World War 2. The general thesis of the book is that the the American high command was one of the greatest in recorded history during that war, and Roosevelt's hand in it was neither coincidental nor a matter of luck. The war ran the way he wanted it to, which Larrabee makes clear in a focused, readable, and penetrating analysis. The military men come alive in this book and the war they fought comes into vivid focus.

I would recommend this book to any and all readers. It is history at its best.

[Al · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this was an informative book that consolidated a wealth of information on some of the greatest soldiers and sailors of World War II, it was a great disappointment. The notes and bibliography are especially useful for further reading and research on the personalities covered. The book itself was very difficult to read because Mr. Larrabee uses some incredibly tortured syntax. I'm at a loss to explain why this book would win a prize in anything. Many paragraphs in the book are just very long, convoluted sentences. His poor writing required extra effort by re-reading many passages to ensure that I understood what he was trying to say.

As an example of this poor writing, from page 497: "But the Ljubljana gap, as anyone who has been there knows, is not a gap at all but a heavily forested, narrow, ascending defile nearly two hundred miles long, wound through by a double-track railroad and a single, poorly surfaced road twenty feet wide, with many tunnels, steep gradients, and two mountain passes at about two thousand feet dominated by higher mountains on either side. Room for maneuver is there none; only one way through."

Really?

[Robert Crow · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book presents informative descriptions of major personal qualities and leadership roles of FDR and nine of his "lieutenants" as they conducted the Second World War. War buffs should love this book, but those looking for insights into the remarkable leadership skills of major war-time leaders will be disappointed by seeing only superficial glimpses of how each man did his duty. I enjoyed reading the entire book, but found two passages and the Epilogue to be especially stimulating. On page 6 the author treats us to an astonishingly pithy 2 sentences intended to introduce the concept of strategy, but for me encapsulates the process of battle: "Strategy includes the working out of its consequences. The ranks of martial authority from multiple stars to modest chevron correspond to an ordering of reality in which plans produce orders, orders produce actions, and actions produce isolated episodes of swirling fury where the issue hangs or falls on the skill and fortitude of individual human beings, under conditions of indescribable repulsiveness and stress."
Much later in the book (p.500) the author treats us to a summative perspective on the social-cultural "mechanics" of making war and clarifies these as "political." And, in the Epilogue the author sketches major themes of personal and cultural dynamics that operated during the war and are affecting our lives today.

[Anthony J Nocchiero · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a Revelation! Outstanding History of WW II!

One of the best researched and well written books about WW II I have ever read and I’ve read quite a few. In profiling Roosevelt and his chief commanders during the war, Larrabee tells insightful stories about the key challenges they were picked to address. He offers amazing insights into how these problems were solved and what it took to get the job done. Each commander comes to life as he grapples with his own piece of winning the war. Larrabee’s writing us outstanding-this is a long history that breezes by. I was sorry to reach its end.

[Stan DeGroote · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his NYT obituary, Larrabee was quoted as saying that he read for 30 years in preparation to write this book, and spent three years writing it.

It shows. There is great detail I hadn't seen (e.g. Eisenhower and Patton disassembling and reassembling a tank together), and - especially - a big picture perspective that 'connects the dots' in ways I hadn't seen.

Also, by devoting each chapter to a person rather than by chronology, this book stays interesting and compelling at a human level. Highly recommended.

[Marce Scarbrough · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like I have read most of the great histories of World War II. Somehow I missed this one. I would place it as among the best. This book is an exploration of how great commanders (Army and Navy) acted in World War II. It is also a wonderful exploration of the relationship between these commanders and their Commander in Chief. This is a book well worth reading.

[Patrick Callahan]

I enjoyed the book. However, it is 34 years old. I can't help wondering: what else has turned up? a history teacher once cautioned me: it's not history until 50 years have passed. When the players are all deceased, that's when the truth comes out.

[Kirk Dobihal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding glimpse into the lives of the leaders in charge of the Allied nations during WWII.

[Joe Rushing · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is no wonder why this book is required reading at all US military academies. Mr. Larrabee cuts through all of the myths and preconceived notions and goes beyond the superficial with actual notes and memoranda from the men and their subordinates. While he exposes Douglas MacArthur as little more than a figure head throughout World War II by using his own words and those of his staff, (his failure in the Phillipines, his opposition to the whipsaw strategy and island hopping campaign which he later took credit for), Larrabee doesn't spare FDR's mistakes with Joe Stillwell and the China campaign. His parts on George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower are especially good as to the detail of which both were perfect in their positions of leadership and why. Understanding the decisions before and during the war and why they were made is more than fascinating, it's quintessential history in detail. This has become one of my favorite books.

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply my favorite biography. Concise, original and convincing analytical history wrapped in a compelling narrative. Everything great history should be. My copy is worn to tatters; dog-eared and crammed with margin notes. I return often and always with pleasure. Larrabee stands on the shoulders of other great writers: Manchester, Freidel, Tuchman, Schlesinger, Morison and Pogue, but with great respect and effect. If one wants to understand America's role in the Second World War there is no single volume better than this one.

[Rbolia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fabulous book, detailing Roosevelt's role as commander-in-chief during the Second World War. The intro talks about Roosevelt, Churchill, Allied strategy, etc., then each chapter talks about a specific strategic or operational commander and his relationship with Roosevelt: King, Marshall, Vandergrift, Eisenhower, MacArthur, Stilwell, etc.

[Robert Ayres · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book and enlightning on the leadership during WW2; but,of six hundred pages, only about 56 on Roosevelt. The rest are good chapters on key players in the US leadership during the war. Included are MArshall, King, Arnold, Vadegrift, Macarthur, Nimitz, Eisenhower, Stilwell, and Lemay.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good, well written introduction to many of the key commanders serving under Roosevelt in World War II.

[Bill Wiecking · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best presidential histories I've read, up there with Lincoln and others. Generals and their foibles are seen as never before.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

extraordinary profiles of leadership

[Tom Priestley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly interesting book on how the WWII Military Commanders got command and what they did. Flaws and greatness were both exposed.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books on WWII that I have read and the book that most helped me understand the dynamic between Roosevelt and his high command.