American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - 34.1 Dwight Eisenhower

Episode Date: July 31, 2021

Eisenhower may have become supreme commander of the world (or something like that) before becoming president, but what was his life like up to that point? Did he blind anyone? Did he get to know his driver? Did he invent the stealth tank? Find out!

Welcome to Totalus Rankium. This week, Dwight Eisenhower, part one. Hello and welcome to American Presidents Total's Rankium. I am Jamie. And I'm Rob, ranking all of the presidents from Washington to Biden. And this is episode 34.1. It's Dwight Eisenhower. See, I've heard of him. I know some things about him. Nickname Ike. Yeah. He was apparently 6'8 tall, possibly 7'1.

That might be true. You never know. He had apparently six foot eight tall, possibly seven foot one. That might be true. You never know. He had a pet blue-tongued skink as well. Yes, definitely. And he was commander of the entire world at one point. Yes, yes he was. And we will go into all of that. But before we do, let's have a quick chat about Truman, shall we? Because some people were not happy with our judgment on Truman no they weren't no they weren't um yeah perhaps in retrospect maybe maybe I could see we maybe gave him a couple too many points in uh in Disgrace Gate but not that many more not enough that it would like change his standings in particular I still maintain he's an Americant. I'm fairly happy with that decision. I think what was left out though was we debated that Disgrace Gate section for I think almost

40 minutes, just that section alone. And because of the size of the episode, I heavily, heavily edited that section. So maybe it comes across as we just throw out some points with very little consideration. But yeah, we talked about it for quite a while, didn't we? One area I do feel like perhaps I should have mentioned was him desegregating the army, which is something that we perhaps didn't give him enough credit for. Yeah, there's about five people on Twitter telling you off for that.

That was the one section where I thought, OK, fair enough, maybe I should have uh mentioned that so there you go i'm mentioning that part now uh which is why i think maybe he would have earned a couple more points if i talked about that but nothing huge would have changed i'm still relatively happy with uh our score yeah of truman i'm not willing to change i don't see what the big deal about him is, to be honest. Sorry if you're a massive Truman fan. But anyway, we're moving on and onwards and upwards. That's what we're doing.

Yeah, we are. Eisenhower. But let's start today's episode with an interesting introduction. You plan one this time? No. Oh, OK. I completely forgot until literally just now. Excellent. completely forgot until literally just now excellent let's go with dodgy brown 70s wallpaper like orange and brown stripes going down with disco music playing in the background oh yeah

throw that in okay start with uh with brown wallpaper disco music it's the bgs yes that's what's happening john travolta struts across the screen in his white suit and he's doing a dance I mean we've all seen the film we know what's going on here but this is the extended version and the camera pans around halfway through the dance and there's just a an old vet in the corner just he gets stressed he sometimes likes to go to the discotheque yeah and he's just there sat in the corner still in his uniform because he's like a vet in a film and you've got to show that he's a vet somehow the trouble is when you ever say vet i'm just thinking of a veterinarian no no i am okay brilliant yeah yeah that horse by his side kind of thing

and the vet is on a table with another man who is also in full uniform, but this one's a military uniform instead of the veterinarian uniform. Nice. The aforementioned veterinarian uniform. The two vets are talking. And the first vet talks to the second. They're shouting over the music, obviously, because staying alive is just blaring out. Everyone else is just staring at john travolta's moves because why not wondering

why he's so bruised in the face and the vet turns to the other vet and says so what did you get up to in the war and uh the other vet goes i was just training to treat animals. How about you? There's a lot of vet confusion going on. It's hilarious. And the military vet says, well, and then there's lots of tinkly noises and the Bee Gees sort of go all high pitched and wobbly, which I mean, it's the Bee Gees, so it's like even more so. And then you realize you're going into a flashback and over the the twinkly music the the the military vet says my time in the war was spent mostly with a man named ike and it goes ike ike ike ike in time to the music and then in disco ball lights dwight eisenhower yes across the screen. Ike, Ike, Ike, Ike, stay in it, Ike. Yeah, and then just slam Kansas in 18 such and such.

That's possibly in my notes. So there you go. That is the start. Nice. Yeah. You rescued that one really well. I was quite impressed, actually. Well done.

I was genuinely in my head going to do a World War II start. Well, that's natural. You threw me into a 70s discotheque, so I had to work with what I had. Oh, yeah. Well. Yeah. There we go. Anyway, let's start, shall we?

Yes. We're starting in Kansas. That's where we're starting. In Kansas lived Ida and David Eisenhower. Yes. David had owned a store in Kansas, but it had gone under, leaving him in dire straits. Good band. Yeah, good band.

But he didn't appreciate that at the time. No. Now, David and Ida already had a son called Arthur. And Ida was six months pregnant. When David just did a runner. Dad just ran away. Yeah, he went down to Texas to earn a fortune. When he got there, did he say, we're not in Kansas anymore? That's what he said every step he took as soon as he moved out to Kansas. As soon as he passed the border. Yeah, it really frustrated people. Yeah, we don't have all

the details, but it would seem that david fearing the struggles of the world just simply attempted to run away from them well for me so so there you go he's he's in texas making a fortune ida remained with david's brother and then gave birth to her second son three months later. So it's like David's not completely out of the picture. There's still family ties there. Yeah. He's gone for a while. But over time, it would appear David and Ida made up their differences or whatever was

ailing David, he managed to overcome because eventually Ida followed her husband down to Denison in Texas. The hope was they were to be able to start a new life there. No, the only thing they managed to make in Texas was another child. Hey. Yes, this one was called David Dwight Eisenhower. We're not in Kansas anymore. They said as the baby popped out.

Whee! Yeah, Ida changed her mind soon afterwards and swapped the two names around however so it became dwight david eisenhower it's great you can just do that yeah yeah back then it's like you know what no yeah didn't like it let's go for dwight instead uh anyway life became so hard in texas that they were living in a shack next to the railroad. Things were not good. Extended family finally came to bail them out and the family moved back to Kansas with the equivalent of $600 in modern money to their name. That's literally all they've got. To get back home, do they have to say, there's no place like home? There's no place like... I'm doing this all the way through,

sorry. Yes, that's what they said. Excellent. Ike admitted that he had no idea that he was poor, as most children just accept what's going on around them, don't they, without questioning. It's normal. Yeah. He did know, however, that his father was quite distant

and cold towards the family. He'd frozen to death the day before. Well, apparently he was bitter over his lack of success in Texas. And generally, he wasn't a happy man. Well, the streets aren't paid with gold in Texas, are they? No. Oil. Yes.

Yes, exactly. He was looking for the wrong stuff. Ike's mother was a far greater influence on him and what would become his six brothers. Sorry. Seven-brother family. That's a his six brothers. Sorry, seven brother family. That's a lot of brothers. That's defying the odds, that is, isn't it?

Yeah. Yeah. She guided their morality. She looked after them when they were ill to make sure that their iron levels were high enough. Very sensibly, she made sure that they ate all of their gunpowder when she offered it to them. What? Yeah. Just feed them gunpowder.

That'll keep their eye levels up. Ike credited his mother with showing him how to control his temper as well. And exploding every time he sneezed. Quite an explosive temper he had, apparently. Well. Not sure why. One day, around the age of 10,

he was not allowed to go out with his friends, with his elder brothers. And he was so angry that he punched a tree in the yard until his fists were bleeding that's his own fault yeah he then received a damn good thrashing from his dad for being so stupid i'll teach you not to punch things and then he was sent to bed ida then arrived with a wet cloth and calmly explained to him that open displays like this only harmed himself. Yeah. And I'll quote here, I've got angry many times since then, but I've certainly tried to keep from showing it.

I punch things a lot softer. Yes. So his childhood was what you'd expect from a childhood where you've got six brothers. It was full of play fighting, water fights, small mischiefs. One day Ike and his brother tried to get a hen blind drunk just to see what would happen. What did happen? The hen got blind drunk. There's a great video of a pig getting drunk and it just ends up just rolling down a hill

for ages. It doesn't stop. It just doesn't care. Just rolling and rolling after eating fermented apples. It's really funny. Oh. I'll send it to you later. Think of the poor piggy hangover.

Oh, yeah. Oh, not good. Oh, I need a bacon sandwich. No! No, Severus. That's bad. Do all pigs call each other by Latin names? Yes.

Cool. Anyway, one day something went wrong, not with Severus the pig in Ike's family. Was it the chicken? No, it wasn't the chicken. Drunken rage. Ike was playing with a knife. Well. Like you do.

His three-year-old brother, Earl, wanted it for himself, so Ike very sensibly put it out of reach but not quite carefully enough. The three year old was just about able to reach up and grab the knife. It fell off the windowsill and into the boy's eye. Oh! Nasty. That'll put it down on your day. It will. You're there, your three year old brother's bleeding With a knife in his eye

There's a drunk chicken in the corner How are you explaining this to mother? Oh dear Blame it on the chicken Drunken rage, yes, there you go Earl lost his eye Ike felt guilty for the rest of his life Apparently he was quite nervous around sharp edges

For the rest of his life as well Earl or Ike? Ike, but probably Earl as well. Yeah. Yeah, and chickens. Anyway, Ike was sent to school, like his brothers, in the hope that they would be able to make something from themselves. It was soon clear from an early age that he was an academic coaster.

He put very little effort in, but he came out with reasonable results. That's a bit like me yeah it's the best way uh he particularly liked baseball and football those were his two passions in fact i'll quote here he was just another average chap said one classmate so that's considering it's so american that's so british that is very british isn't it you're such an average little chap oh yes Can you say chap in an American accent? It doesn't work, does it? Well, you got your chaps you wear when you're riding a horse.

Horse. Horse. Horse. Horse. Horse. Horse. That's how it's pronounced. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, the biggest event of his high school life was when his leg became infected, which is never fun. The doctors told him that it was going to have to be amputated. Oh. If they don't take the leg, he will probably die. Sounds a bit like Henry VIII there. Yeah, Ike refused. Not taking my leg, and

soon afterwards, made a full recovery. I'm glad you didn't say died, because that's a short episode. It's a real episode. He recovered Doctor, egg on his face Anyway, he finished school Which is nice

And then he worked for a couple of years Him and his brother made an agreement They'd work one year on, one year off To support the other one going to college Because the family were too poor That's nice, isn't it Ike pulled the short straw And did the first year of work going to college because the family were too poor. That's nice. Yeah, that's nice, isn't it? Ike pulled the short straw and did the first year of work,

and then his brother begged for a second year, so Ike agreed. So Ike, unfortunately, is doing all the work. But he desperately wants to go to college, and as he is working, he happens to meet an old school friend called Swede. Must be a nickname. It was a nickname. I tried to find out why he was called swede and i couldn't uh but swede let's say he looked like a swede as in the root vegetable yeah i'm trying i always get like turnips swede's the round one isn't it past it's the long thin one sweet like round with red on it yes okay oh sweet is Swede quite... I don't know. He looked like a root vegetable, let's say that.

Yeah. Anyway, Swede told Ike... I mean, he's only in this bit. We don't need to worry too much. He doesn't come back in the story, so picture him how you want, really. He can be played by George Clooney if you want. Who knows? Far too upstanding.

Steve Buscemi. Okay, Steve Buscemi told I Steve Steve Buscemi told Ike that if they were going to progress in life, what they needed to do was not go to a normal college, but a military one, and Ike liked the sound of this I mean, he read history books

he knew all the heroes in history were military men yeah, and more to point, it doesn't matter where I go because all I want to do is play football and baseball when I get there. That is it. So I don't care. Military, normal, whatever.

I'm in it for the sport. So he decides that's what he's going to do. However, one snag, he didn't know anyone to give him a leg up. You kind of needed to know the right person to get into a military college. However, he was in luck because the state of Kansas had just changed the law, and now competitive examinations were put in place of the old patronage system.

So there you go, anyone can apply now. Yeah, look at that. This wasn't true throughout the whole country, but in Kansas it happened to be true, so he looked out. Is that because they just wanted more people in the army? It just makes it easier for people to... If you remember, this is the time where they were pushing against the Gilded Age, trying to get reforms through.

So this is all part of that. That makes sense. So Ike applied. He sat the exams over two days with eight others, and he came second out of those eight. That's pretty good. And although he said he didn't mind where he went, as long as it was a military college,

he was delighted that he was sent to the best of them all, which is West Point. Oh, West Point, heard of that. Yes, well, we've come across it before a couple of times, if you remember. Yeah, most recently with Grant and his episode. So a fair while ago now, but... Yeah, and West Point is now a very different west point from when grant was there for too long there hadn't been a war that which necessitated modernization

and west point it kind of sunk into a system of learning about old battles by rote learning the names of every single commander off by heart and things like that that just really aren't actually very useful all the important stuff, yeah. Yeah. Still, it was the premier school for the advancement in the military. It was mostly attended by those like Ike. The majority of the country, so the very poor, simply starved or worked to avoid starving. Very rich went to Harvard or Yale.

West Point was full of those somewhere in the middle. Yeah. They had enough support that they could get into a college, but they couldn't get into one of the high-fancy ones. So after a rough start that all new cadets go through in a place like West Point, Ike then settled in well enough, soon learning how to smoke and play poker like no other.

He was a chain smoker to some degree, getting through four or five packets a day kind of thing. Well, back then it wasn't. They just thought it cleared the lungs. Just how do you have time? Apparently later on in life, he genuinely believed that cigarette ash was good for carpets. He would happily just sprinkle his cigarette ash

all over the carpets whenever he walked over them. Why would it be good for carpets? I think the word is excuse. Ah, OK. But, yeah. Being a couple of years older than most of his classmates due to his years off to work, he fitted in quite well as a leader of his peers. He was, in his own words, not a troublemaker, but he often saw the rules more as guidelines.

One example, for instance, was when he and a friend were caught for an infraction, they were ordered to appear in a corporal's room in full dress coats. So they did. Full dress coats. Yeah. And literally nothing else.

Yeah. Yeah. Flapping in the breeze they were. Yeah, the couple was not impressed. I mean, in Ike's defence, he did follow the rule. Well, exactly. He did what he was told. And that's what teachers really like.

Students who technically follow the rules and then look smug. Yeah. It's hilarious. It really is. Yeah, he was regularly involved in pranks, but he also got his work done and he did it well. In particular, anything linked to literacy, he was very good at. He was very good at writing.

But most of all, most important to him was sport. I mean, the whole reason why he was there was so he would be selected for a varsity football or baseball team. And for a while, things were going well. But then, like what happens to many who try and follow this path, an injury playing football one day just put an end to the dream before it began. It's amazing. They tear like an ACL or a tendon or something and it destroys the whole career. Yeah, that's exactly what happened in his knee.

It went, yeah. Yeah, I mean, he was able to recover enough that he could walk, but competitive football's out. And it didn't work with the baseball either. So that dream's over, which is a shame. But Ike graduated 61st out of a class of 164. Okay, top 100. Yeah, 267 had started the year so like 100 had dropped out

so 61st it's not bad not bad but it's not amazing is it no one's boasting about being 61st in the year no so that's it he's done but now what the football plan has failed so what does he do But now what? The football plan has failed. So what does he do? Oh, law. Or just join the army. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Carry on in the military. That's what he's trained to do. It's a job. Let's carry on. Ike wanted to see the world, so he requested a post in the Philippines.

Instead, he was sent to San Antonio on the Mexican border. Not quite what he had in mind, but oh well. However, he was delighted when he arrived. There was a local prep school who was in need of a football coach, and his reputation had followed him from West Point. He was approached, do you mind coaching the football team? And he wasn't sure if he could do this. I mean, I've got duties. I'm in the military. So he turned it down. But soon afterwards, those higher up let him know that you're an officer. So you can have more than enough time. You can do whatever you want, sir. The grunts do like all the work.

You just need to oversee stuff. So, yeah, there we go. He starts training football for the next 10 years. Wherever Ike went, he would be coaching a football team. It was a huge passion of his. However, he discovered something even more important in Texas. A young lady called Mamie. Mamie.

Two hit her off immediately, and within a year, he proposed. And they were wed a few months later, in July of 1916. That's fast work, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. No big long story about this one. They met, they fell in love, they got married. So there you go. 1916?

Well, if this was a war film, I mean, you're going to be seeing that ominous date, aren't you? Yeah. He's in the military. It's 1916. He's just got married. Yeah. They're on a train station. Oh, she just tells him, I'm pregnant. Yeah. All these things. He's just got married. Yeah. They're on a train station. Oh, she just tells him, I'm pregnant.

Yeah, all these things. He's twins. No, no, don't forget, this isn't Britain. This isn't the United States. The US Army is still very much not worried about the war at this point. So he's not going to be shipped off abroad immediately. But as we've seen, events do slowly move in that direction. The United States obviously do get involved at one point,

and the military are starting to expand at this point. So, good news, because that means promotions for anyone already in posts. Yes. Yes. Eisenhower became a captain. Hooray. He was training with the men when he received a letter that Mamie had given birth to their son.

Called it. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, oh yeah, he totally called it. That's what she said on the train station. It's just he wasn't going to war, he was just getting the train to the next stop down to pick up some groceries. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, little Ikey, that's his name. Oh. Yeah. I'll quote Ike here. You could have knocked me over with a feather, he wrote to Mamie. I've sent you, hang on, let me get this right, 100,483,491,342 kisses since I've been gone. He wouldn't have had time to do that.

Especially in between the cigarettes. Oh, yeah. And getting the chickens drunk. I mean, it's an action-packed day i mean a billion seconds is like 33 years anyway isn't it so yeah it's so that's not that's not plausible he's lying i think that's that's a fib i think so i think disgrace gate minus two already for that i think maybe should have seen this as a sign warning signs yeah i can't trust him he signed off the same letter with your lover dash you bet betting capital letters ike oh he's full of confidence isn't he yeah

anyway soon after this ike was restationed to maryland where the cookies come from in camp Mead. Sorry, I'm saying that I already know people are going to correct my pronunciation of Maryland. Maryland. Maryland. Maryland. Yeah, just make some sounds. The land of Mary.

He was in Camp Mead. It was an unusual post, this one, because it was a new unit that was going to be in charge of all those newfangled tank thingies. Oh, the horses covered in metal. Yes, yes. Someone's got to look after them, so... You there! Yes, you, Captain.

You're in charge, okay? Spitspot! What? No, no, of course we don't have any tanks. Just make sure that when you get some tanks, you and the men in the unit know how to operate them. So Ike jumped at the task. Why not? All right.

He was personally convinced that tanks were the way of the future. I mean, these original prototypes were awful, but Ike could see it's like, but things are going to improve. We could actually use these as like instead of cavalry kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Because at the moment our cavalry is getting shots at pieces by the machine guns. Yeah, exactly.

Not great. So he was enthusiastic. Ike was told that they would ship out in June. so he was enthusiastic ike was told that they would ship out in june and once they were in europe they would be given some big willies tanks yeah british mark sixes obviously yeah of course willies just utter proof that people were idiots back then like they're idiots now oh yeah you just know there's a huddle meeting so okay so we've covered the name for the tags yes what are they called

so you didn't go with my massive roger idea then that's the max seven yeah yeah i do love coming across things like this where you just go oh people are idiots because from what i remember on the on the actual side of the tank it's actually just got it painted on in big letters as well just says big willy and big white paint i'm pretty sure i'm i have no idea if that's true but that is obviously true 100 you heard it here uh anyway uh so he's going to go over he's going to operate a big willy in europe he's very excited however orders were changed last minute ike was promoted which is nice but he was told he was now in charge of training the men to use the tanks stateside no no we still don't have any

tanks just get on with it okay fetch more horses and more cardboard we need more cardboard but this was brand new this wasn't quickly get together and try and work out how to use a tank this was you're now in charge of this whole division and they are going to be using tanks one day it was growing rapidly. 10,000 men were soon under his command. So yeah, this was huge responsibility for him from pretty much nowhere. And it was brand new. There was no precedent or anything for something like this. He was just told get all of these men ready to use tanks. No, you don't have any tanks so he jumps into it he gets uh trucks he gets mounted machine guns like you say probably lots of cardboard i'm guessing at least one day a week was dedicated to

tank naming because oh yeah you've got to get it right don't you yeah yeah and uh things things were going so well that he was soon promoted once again to major. So that's nice. Yeah. Eventually, in June, when he was originally meant to leave, a tank arrived. Hooray! This is where he turns and goes, what is a tank? I'm not 100% sure.

Oh, so that's a tank. Oh. Right, back to the drawing boards, lads. Yes. A French Renault is what came over. Apparently they did tanks boards, lads. Yes. A French Renault. It's what came over. Apparently they did tanks back then, not just cars. Nice.

Yeah. Like the 90s car, like the Megane. Megane. Medan. Megane. I think it's a Megane. I don't know cars. It's blue. It's green.

It's green. Yeah. Green car. That's what Renault do. Anyway, later that summer, four more tanks came along, a couple more Renaults and a couple of British tanks, which I'm now really regretting not checking to see whether they were big willies or not.

But let's say they were. They were big willies, yeah. They were big willies. So everyone very excited. They've got five tanks to play with now. This is great for 10,000 men. Right, lads, that's 2,000 per tank. Get in.

And then the pandemic hit, which is a shame. Yeah, Ike and the camp's chief surgeon, a man named Scott, shut down the camp and shut it down hard. Military police made sure discipline was maintained. Daily examinations of all men took place, and the floors were scrubbed with kerosene daily. Just don't drop your cigarette. Yes. Yeah. Once the flu pandemic had passed through, 147 men had died, despite all the crackdown. However, this was much better than the average of other camps around the country

in fact the war department was so impressed that they sent people out to see exactly how it had been done so uh that's nice ike received a promotion as well he's doing very well he's now a lieutenant colonel huzzah yeah you get promoted rapidly when a country's gearing up for war and you were already in the army. Yeah. Yeah. So that's great. Lieutenant Colonel. And then finally, the orders he was waiting for. They were going to go to France and take part in the largest war in all of history. For now.

Ike was over the moon. Yes! He said, and I'm not making this up, a tearful goodbye to Mamie on a railroad platform. Oh. Yeah, so that scene now does actually play out. Then a bit of confusion. But isn't Europe over the sea? Ignore that.

That's just minutia. I'm heading straight to Paris, don't you know? He gets on the train. He waves to Mamie, not knowing when he would see her or their son again. And then as the train leaves, the camera pans with it, and it carries on panning until it settles on a newspaper left on a bench. And there's the date.

November the 10th, 1918. Splendid. The train just starts to go into water. Oh no, wait! The call for holding breath had just been announced. Ike was devastated, as you can imagine. Yes.

I suppose we'll spend the rest of our lives explaining why we didn't get into this war, he wrote. Because there's not going to be another one. No, it's true. The war's over. The army obviously stripped back rapidly, back to be another one. No, it's true. With the wars over, the army obviously stripped back rapidly, back to its bare bones. Most, therefore, were demoted to pre-war levels. Ike, for example, went back to captain.

So, yeah, that's a shame. But he had impressed a lot of people with his general organisation skills, so he was very quickly promoted back to major shortly afterwards. So he got something out of it he spent the next three years at camp mead still commanding a tank battalion still learning about tanks and how good they would be one day he really pushed hard for their use like really pushed hard kept sending memos and stuff to the top brass to the point that he was one day told in no uncertain terms stop pestering us about tanks or you will face a court martial fair enough yeah you know

you've gone too far with a suggestion box when you're facing a court martial yeah maybe in a little like he came to stay at the camp and ike finally got to know his son for the first time, because I hadn't really been around his son much. But it didn't last long, because in December 1920, little Ike got a fever and rapidly deteriorated. Ten days later, he died of scarlet fever. Oh.

I have never known such a blow. I blamed myself because I had taken his presence for granted. Oh. Yeah. As often happens, the relationship between Ike and Mamie suffered after this. They both saw blame in each other. So Ike threw himself into his work. He did all he could to learn about the importance of tanks because that was his passion.

But he also learned generally about military history and generally studied stuff. He also developed a mentor at this time, General Fox Connor, which is a damn good name. Fox Connor. He never speaks. He doesn't need to. Just some black cigarettes.

Connor was seen as the thinking man's general. He was soft-spoken, not that he ever spoke. He was polite. He was good-spoken, not that he ever spoke. He was polite. He was good at his job. Yeah, Ike really got on well with Fox. And yeah, a sort of mentor-mentee relationship developed. Fox Connor was heading down to Panama on assignment,

and he wanted Ike to go with him. Hmm. So off they went. Ike and Mamie arrived in January 1922. Mamie, who was recently pregnant, hated it from the get-go. Utterly despised being there. The strain on their marriage almost broke it at this point. I mean, they were barely talking to each other. You thought scarlet fever was bad?

Wait till you get yellow fever. Soon we'll collect all the fevers. Eventually Mamie's parents came down to visit, saw how utterly despondent their daughter was, and also heavily pregnant, so they just packed her up and took her back home with them. She gave birth soon afterwards. John was his name.

And perhaps the distance, and also the birth of a new child, perhaps they helped, because soon the couple were writing frequent letters to each other. They seemed to be mending their relationship. So after a couple of years, Ike returns to the United States, and with the recommendation of Connor, he attended the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavensworth. This basically is where you go to break into the higher tier of the armed forces. Right. You've got your grunts at the bottom and then you've

got your west pointers. Yeah. But then you've got to go through a few more hurdles if you want to really get to the top and this was one of them. This is where you train your butler and, you know, choose your cigar and whiskey. Whiskey cigar matching. Yeah, you know, choose your cigar and whiskey. Whiskey cigar matching. Yeah, you've got to get these things right.

Now, this time, Ike did not coast. This wasn't like school. It wasn't like West Point. He had decided what he wanted to do, so he went for it. Out of 245 officers in the class, he ranked first. Wow. Yeah, that is impressive. Yeah.

So he's doing well. But if he thought he was on the fast track, he was soon disappointed. Turned out his track was very much medium because he was assigned to the American Battles Monuments Commission. Brilliant. Which I can only imagine was a room in a basement somewhere. flickering light yeah he spent his time sorting through the official records in order to provide a clear and cohesive narrative of the american forces in france during the war posted it on top we won let's get a beer guys done no that's probably what he found when he first started that's the person before him no he was going to do this he was going to do it properly. He was given six months to create a guidebook for anyone who wants to go to France and see what happened over there. So there you go.

Important military business. So he threw himself into it. After the work was done, Ike had arguably one of the best understandings of the positive and negatives of the tactics used by the United States forces during the war in the entire military i mean who else had the time to spend six months studying in depth exactly what happened in france so he's sort of become a strategist strategist hasn't he yeah on the face of it go and make a guidebook for tourists seems like

a waste of everyone's time for a military man, but this really gave him an insight of what it was like to plan strategy. Anyway, he then attended the Army War College. This is another tick in the box for those climbing the ladder. This one's a bit easier. There was no, like, coursework or examinations. Basically, turn up, get a tick, job done. Once he got that tick, he was then assigned to France.

So he's finally going to get to go. Yay! Take his own guidebook with him. Yeah, exactly. Well, he was asked to expand his guidebook. The guidebook had gone down really well. There were a lot of high-ups in the military going, you know what this is?

Pretty good, this is. I didn't know we did all this. What's a tank? And why are they mentioned so often? What's a stealth tank? Apparently they were in all of the battles. Yeah, the guide had gone down so well, he was asked to improve it, essentially.

Go and expand it, make it even better. So to do that, go over to France essentially go and expand it make it even better uh so to do that go over to france go and actually visit the sites and like do more so the family left to go to france no tearful goodbyes on the train station this time um they arrived in july of 1928 ike enjoyed his time in france he learned learnt how to read and write French. It took him a while, but he persevered. He was awful at speaking it, however. It's weird that, isn't it?

I'm guessing he's like me, just cannot get on with accents, can't do accents. So I struggle to speak other languages because it just sounds like an Englishman saying, Sprechen the Deutsch, which does not sound German. Hello, I am from Merkel. I am speaking fluent French. You are obviously one of nature's gifted. I am, yes.

What's the word for people who can do accents? Accentors. Yes, that is true. That's what you are. Perfect accents for everything. So it'll be easy for you. Just name a place I can speak in. Let's go for newtown there's no more to that i want you to do a newtown accent

hello i am from america that's good that's good i like it yeah anyway what are we talking about oh yeah he's in france yes he's in france he can't speak the language that's it but he can read and write it he can certainly communicate in it he can understand people speaking it so he's got a good understanding of french which will become useful later on i've never understood that you can listen you can hear and understand what people are saying to you in french but you can't say it back i see i totally get that if you can't if your tongue doesn't wrap around it, you just end up doing

another language in your own accent and it's incomprehensible. Oh, yeah, okay, maybe. To speak another language, you've got to put the accent on for it to be understandable. I've got a few children I've taught who've said the same things. They can hear Albanian, they can read it,

they can write it, but they can't speak as a how cow how not and i just start shouting at them what's wrong with you just say it but they can't they just start crying it's terrible how did that lesson observation go not well that's a shame anyway uh mamey is enjoying enjoying herself. She gives up on trying to learn French quite early on. She just decides it's not for her. But what she doesn't give up on is just the wonderful lifestyle that Paris had at the time. I mean, Paris was the place to be. We're in the late 20s here.

I mean, if you're going to find some roaring 20s action, it's going to be Paris, isn't it? So, yeah, she's enjoying the shopping, the fashion and all sorts. Ike got to know the country and the sites that he'd been spending months writing about, which was nice for him. Oh, another field. Splendid. This one's got a tree in it. Oh, no, no, that's just a corpse.

It's a dead horse. But he was worried. He might be enjoying himself, but he couldn't help but look around and think, is this a dead end or a cul-de-sac? As obviously he now knew. Is that what cul-de-sac means? It means like the bottom of the bag, doesn't it? I think so.

I mean, it's a dead end. Anyway, he was worried. He's not going anywhere fast. I mean, he wanted to get promoted. He wanted to lead troops. He wanted to be a military man, and here he was. I mean, it's nice writing books about France, but it's not really what he wants to do.

So he contacts Fox Connor. Any chance I can come back? Can you pull some strings? Can I do something else for a while? So papers were put through. It's good to know people. He was assigned to the War Department itself in Washington. So right into the hub. He became executive assistant to one of Connor's closest friends, Major General Moseley. I'm hearing the word Moseley. I'm thinking that. Wasn't he like a Nazi person in the UK?

Yes. Yes, he was. Yeah, it must be something in the name. Oh, okay. Ike found a new mentor, one he got on with just as well as Connor, as long as no one talked about race. Oh dear. Yeah, yeah. Mosley, massive, massive racist. Pesky habit of saying things like

any Jews fleeing Hitler should be sterilized before entering the country, and I quote, only that way can we protect our future. Yeah, obviously this is later on, but those are the kind of views that Major General Moseley had. And he certainly wasn't alone in the military at this time. Oh. Yeah. Ike generally steered clear of these kind of conversations. So he said. So he said.

I don't know, based on things that he did and said later, you get the impression that he probably did. So there he is. He's working for Moseley. However, it's not only Moseley who would dominate Ike's career at this point. Because the new army chief of staff has just been put in place. And he is a man we have come across before in the last episode. It's Douglas MacArthur. Oh, MacArthur. Aye, Scots.

I don't think he was Scottish in the last episode. Wasn't he? Why not? No, no, I don't think so. He's the guy who went rogue in Korea after the war and tried to invade China. Oh, was he Scottish? Maybe he was.

Maybe I've forgotten. I mean, Douglas MacArthur is a very Scottish name, isn't it? So you're right, he probably had a thick Scottish accent. Anyway, MacArthur made Moseley his number two, and this was good news for Ike, because Ike officially was working directly for one of Moseley's assistants. However, soon enough, he was mostly working directly for the deputy chief of staff, Moseley. And because he was doing such a good job for Moseley, he was soon spotted by MacArthur,

and soon enough, he was working directly for him also. His way with words and his ability to quickly and concisely sum up situations was invaluable to the heads of the army. So he gets into a routine. He's working flat out six days a week, 12 hours a day. He is the grease that keeps the wheels of the head office moving, basically. Now, after a couple of years, Ike was given an office that was between MacArthur and Mosley's with direct access to both of them. So they could literally just throw open the door, shout for Ike, and he would come along and fix their problems. Now, at this time, Ike saw MacArthur as a brilliant leader.

He was ten years old of an Ike, and everything that Ike wanted to be in ten years' time. It was around this time that the Bonus Army debacle that we have covered happened. Now, this is back in Hoover's episode. If you remember, veterans from World War I who were struggling to live through the Great Depression had descended upon Washington in the hope that they would get their bonuses early. Well, we're starving here. Can we have our bonuses, please? Now, if you remember, the army chief of staff at the time decided to don a uniform and ride them down, all of them.

That Chief of Staff obviously is MacArthur. Ike was there as well in uniform. Several people were killed as the US Army attacked its own citizens. Yeah. Now Ike's not in a position of command at this time, there's no way he could have changed the outcome of this, but he apparently was very much in support with what his boss had done and was very angry with the press at the time for demonizing macarthur he would later on however really play this down going as far to say that he suggested that macarthur not put a uniform on which uh just apparently it's not true his rank there's no way he would have given a suggestion to the army chief of staff so we see a few times in ike's life he kind of airbrushes certain things out that he's he's not quite so happy with now soon after this mccaff was four years uh as chief of staff ended and he was

sent to the philippines to run things over there and eisenhower now a firm fixture at his side was going to go with him. To begin with, Ike was delighted by this. He's finally on the fast track. He's a permanent fixture with one of the highest up men in the army. I mean, he's bound to go places now. He's got MacArthur on his side as a mentor. However, things start to go a little bit wrong. To begin with, Mamie just refused to go. She had hated Panama, and she figured that the Philippines would probably be the same.

Well, I mean, they're perhaps identical, so... I mean, they're almost the same place. Neighbours, yeah. The amount of times I've gone to the Philippines instead of Panama, by mistake. Well, yeah. It just happens. Yeah, so she refused to go.

She didn't want to do it. Still, on the bright side, MacArthur gave Ike's permission to choose who would go with them. Essentially, choose one of your mates to come along, and he can work with you under me. So Ike chose an old classmate, Major James Ord. The two friends were going to serve under MacArthur and generally help him run things in the Pacific, or the military things anyway. However, like I said, things don't quite go the way that Ike envisioned they would. In a story of political intrigue that for time reasons I'm not going to go into, FDR, who is now

president by the way, managed to replace MacArthur as chief of staff with one of MacArthur's rivals. MacArthur was in a foul mood when he got to the Philippines. And then, over the first few weeks, it became very clear to Ike that MacArthur had very little interest in the details of his job, and expected Ike and Ord to pick up the slack. In fact, I'll quote here, the general is more and more indulging in the habit of damning everyone who disagrees with him over any detail in extravagant, sometimes even hysterical fashion. MacArthur starts to just lose it and show his tyranty side, which we have already seen in the last episode. He shows in later life as well. If you keep doing this i'm gonna invade china again

yeah exactly not again because he's not done that yet remember in the past i'll do it macarthur was insisting that ike and ord put together a force three times bigger than the budget would allow that's what he wanted he wanted a big military to run in the philippines but sir we only have a budget of five dollars yeah essentially it's not. Yeah. We could maybe get a parrot. Call him Charlie. MacArthur attacked... The parrot. Not the parrot.

MacArthur attacked... Feathers everywhere. MacArthur attacked Ike and Ord, calling them small-minded when they pointed out that it simply wasn't possible. Excuse me, it's Ike, Ord and Charlie. Yeah, things aren't going well. MacArthur also saw it as below his rank to meet with the president of the Philippines,

leaving that to Ike. Really? Wow. Yeah. Ike was also very miserable at reports that Mamie seemed to be enjoying herself at home. She was going out to parties and stuff in Washington. Ah. Sometimes escorted by a man.

A man? Yeah. A man? Yeah, you get the impression Ike wanted Mamie to stay at home doing nothing, because that's the proper thing to do. He wasn't happy that she was going out and having a social life. Oh, dear. So to take his mind off things, he learnt to fly.

With Charlie. Charlie, dear. So to take his mind off things, he learnt to fly. Oh, with Charlie. Charlie, teach me how. Yes. Maybe that was the inspiration, but no, he used a flying machine. That's what he used. He wasn't amazing at it, but he got the job done. He learnt how to fly a plane, which is nice. He also made good friends with the wife of his aide,

a woman named marion huff the two played bridge together they played bridge played bridge often we we don't know how far the bridge plane went it probably went quite farther so he's there he's not very happy with the political situation he's not happy with the fact his wife isn't there and is having a social life. But he's found someone to take his mind off it. Eventually, however, he receives a letter from Mamie saying, I'm coming to the Philippines. You're right. I should have come over with you.

I'm coming to join you. Neither were too happy about it, however. Mamie didn't particularly want to go, but Fauci should. And by this time, you get the impression that Ike would have rather played bridge. Yeah. In fact, when she arrived, Ike said to Mamie, I gather I have reasons for a divorce if I want one. Oh.

Yeah. I mean, to be fair, she was three months pregnant, but... Yeah. Tense. So, like I say, not a good time for Ike. He came to the end of his tether with MacArthur. By this point, he could not stand the man. I quote,

I've got to decide soon whether I can go much further with a person who deceives his boss, his subordinates, and his self. Hey, that'd be true. That'd be true. And then Ord dies in a plane crash. Oh. His best mate over there. Oh, no. Ord had left the island, and then he had returned.

And he wanted to let one of his friends know that he'd returned. So he told the pilot to fly really low over his friend's house so he could drop a note how low did he fly too low ground level you could say yeah as odd leaned out of the window the engine stalled it must have like messed up the uh the airflow or something i'm guessing i don't know how planes work we'd have to slow down so maybe that's the reason just went too slow yeah maybe maybe it was slowing down maybe it was too low something happened he was leaning out of a window to drop a note on his friend and the plane span out of control crashed and or dies to make things worse for ike charlie was in the plane as well no charlie

yeah charlie was flying so he's gone now to make things worse Ord's replacement came along and did everything he possibly could to undermine Ike with MacArthur and because things had become frosty between them, MacArthur was more than willing to believe anything the replacement said

Ike, furious about the situation wrote about MacArthur in his diary, he is a fool but worse, he is a puking baby. So, not going well. He decides once more to write to good old Fox Connor. Any chance you can get me away from MacArthur, he's losing it. I don't want to be near him anymore. So once again, it's good to know people, papers were put through.

And he said later, I got out clean, and that's that. Anyway, Ike knew what he wanted to do at this point. He wanted a command. He wanted to become a general, and he couldn't become a general without having some kind of command experience. And that's what he got. He was put in charge of a battalion, which is nice. He was a lieutenant colonel, and as a lieutenant colonel, he was the highest ranking in that particular battalion. So he became the executive officer, which is good. And he loved it. I'm having the time of my life, he wrote to a friend at this point.

Things are much better than dealing with MacArthur's madness in the Philippines. And then World War II starts. Oh, hello. Yeah, very much like Grant. I mean, Grant started as not much at the start of the Civil War and ended up leading the whole thing. Yeah. Well, World War II starts. Ike is a lieutenant colonel, which isn't particularly high.

He's never led any troops in battle. He's never even seen action. That's a good point. And he ends up leading the whole thing. Spoiler alert there. Now, just like with the First World War, when World War II started, there soon followed an intense period of promotions for people. And Ike was swept up in this once more over a period of a few months that I'm not going to go into details about because it would just be listing promotions and dates. He soon just gets promoted up the ladder, essentially.

He was worried at one point when he learned that MacArthur had been pulled out of a recent retirement to lead the war effort in the Pacific. He did not want his old mentor to remember him and request him. But fortunately for Ike, that request never came. Then Pearl Harbor happens. Short version of that. And at this point, he was finally promoted

to general. So there you go, he's a general now. And he was sent to Washington to work in the war plans department. Which suits him, obviously. I mean, that's his bread and butter. That's what he's been doing most of his military life. When he arrived, he met with the current chief of staff, George Marshall.

He's not the Marshall Plan Marshall, is it? Yes, no, that's exactly it. This is Marshall Plan Marshall. He was the Chief of Staff for the Army at the... well, for the entirety of World War II. He's in charge at the moment. There was no small talk when they met.

Lovely, well, shut up! Yeah, it's a bit like that. What should our general line of action be in the Pacific? Win. He was asked as a way of an introduction. Win would be good. Well, Ike realised immediately what this was.

This was a test to see if he was up to the job. So he replied, give me a few hours. Fair enough. Get yourself some thinking space. Yeah. Never answer straight away. Of course, after a few hours, if you come back with just the word win, perhaps that's no longer a good answer.

Yeah. Yeah, he went away for three hours and he returned to Marshall. He had three pages of writing in his pocket, but he didn't use it because he'd heard that Marshall didn't like people reading things. He liked people to just know them. Ike kept it very brief brief but to paraphrase even further what he said was it's going to take a long time to get reinforcements into the area our allies in the area have to have faith in us and we need to build a base in australia oh because

it's yeah it's the east yeah that makes sense so i mean if you're attacking germany that's probably not the best place to station yourself. No, no, remember this was the Pacific he was asked about. Yeah. It makes sense because obviously I could have been in the Pacific for a few years. Yeah. So we should build a base in Australia. We also need to take risks and we need to spend as much money as we possibly can to get this done as quickly as possible.

Marshall was very pleased with this. Marshall didn't like it when people came to him with options. What he wanted from his subordinates was for people to come with him with a fully formed plan that they had decided was the one plan that they were going to do. So he could say yes or no. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it's quicker. So he's impressed, Marshall. Enough that Ike became Marshall's deputy overseeing the Pacific.

So it was Ike who was organizing basically all the troops going over there. He set about planning how to send large numbers of troops on unprotected ships to Australia. Tanks! No! No, Eisenhower! No, apparently his love for tanks seems to have waned by this point. He doesn't talk about them as much anymore. That's probably a good thing, to be fair. Probably a good thing. The risk was great, but the ships did make it,

although there was one time where it was very tense because Eich and his fellow generals received word that the Germans had gained intel on the movements of one of the transport ships. They waited very anxiously, not telling Marshall that the ship had been compromised. They didn't want to stress Marshall out. He had a war department to run. I knew we shouldn't

have put the US flag on the side and called it an unwritten troop ship in 50-foot letters. Damn it! Eventually, however, word came through. The ship was safe. It arrived in Australia, which was nice. It was good. Ike breathed a sigh of relief and then went to tell Marshall that the ship had been in danger. Weralia which was nice it was good uh ike breathed a sigh of relief and then went to tell marshall that the ship had been in danger we didn't tell you

you were busy marshall replied that he had also received that information and he hadn't told ike not wanting to stress ike out oh they laughed and hugged yeah i mean it's it's nice but also this is the the top tiers of the military keeping secrets from each other because they don't want to stress each other out. Is that a good thing? I'm not sure. I mean, you're running a war. It's a stressful job. Now, by this time, it had been decided that the Pacific and European theatres of war had to be run by a supreme commander. Having different wings of the military from different countries working together

simply wasn't going to work. You need to consolidate everything charge everything yeah exactly however slight problem with this what exactly is the job of a supreme commander that position didn't exist ike write that up would you of course sir what just just the the jobs and responsibilities of a Supreme Commander. Yeah. Someone's going to do it in the Pacific. Write that up. What would a Supreme Commander of the Pacific look like? Number one, cape.

Cape, definitely. There wasn't a point to. No. That's all you need. Ike, however, decided he needed to go further than this. He spent several hours on his desk on Christmas Day in the evening, writing out a draft of what the job of the Supreme Commander of the Pacific would look like. The draft was tweaked ever so slightly by Marshall.

He crossed the word cape out. One of history's greatest, greatest mistakes, obviously. But it was largely kept the same. Just basically a photograph of Eisenhower. This is what I should look like. Me. Well, no, at this point he had no, no, I'm sure he would have loved the job,

but there was no way. He's far too low to be considered to be a Supreme Commander at this point. Fair enough. Yeah. But everyone seemed to like what he'd created. This was, like I said before, he was good at writing things down,

complex things in a concise way to make it make sense. Yeah. So Marshall read it and went, yeah, this is, this is good. It was sent to the the white house people read it there yeah this is good it was sent to roosevelt he read it love it great send that over to the foreign office in britain yeah they were happy churchill had a peruse all good and there you go.

It was decided that this is so good, we'll actually use it as the blueprint for all Supreme Commanders in any theatre of war for the rest of the war. So there we go. The job role is defined. Sensitive villain. What do you think? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, it's very good. Good. Everyone's happy. Yeah. Ballywood show. Ike then was promoted to Director of the War Plans Division and made a Major General, which is nice. I am the very model of a modern-day general.

He said. Over and over again, it got quite annoying. Stop! This meant that he was the War Department's chief planner, but it also meant that he was essentially Marshall's right-hand man. He's pretty much become number two in the army. Yeah. I mean, there are still a lot of men who outrank him,

but he's there next to... But those men that outrank him wouldn't cross him because he just has to say a few words and then they're gone. Exactly. Yeah, he's close to the hob. He's close to the power. Yeah. Anyway, Ike then works on the hitler first approach uh which had been agreed if you remember from roosevelt's episode it was uh his job essentially to try and make sure everyone was happy people in london

people in washington i mean you're trying to coordinate two countries armies at the same time it's it's all it all going to be messy. Tempers are going to get frayed. And now Britain's using metric, US is using pure. It's confusing. It's very confusing, and he's got to keep track of everyone. And he does very well at this.

He was all in favour as well of a cross-channel attack. This was the way we are going to defeat Germany. We need to attack Germany at a point of strength, break them, and watch them fold. That's how we do it. It's like going for the biggest bully in the yard.

Yeah, exactly. Just hit them. None of this softened the belly of Europe nonsense. No, we go through France, we take back France, and then we go into Germany. Direct line. That's how we're going to have to do it. So looking at a map of France, I mean, into Germany. Direct line. That's how we're going to have to do it. So looking at a map of

France, I mean Normandy looks pretty good. Normandy? Normandy. Not many people are a fan however. People in Britain mostly, although a lot in America who didn't like the plan either. But Britain in particular,

to put it bluntly, rightly realised that this wasn't going to work at that time it's like we we can't do this our forces said britain are far too weak we've been fighting too long in too harsh conditions and your forces are too green i mean when did they last fight so when they fought us hey and you work so it, to be fair. So it's not going to work. We've not got the strength. I mean, it's all very well saying break Germany at a point of strength, but we can't break Germany at a point of strength.

So no, we're not going to attack over the Channel. What year are we talking, roughly here? Like, 43? Yes, start of 43, end of 42, we're in that region. Ike was pushing for this, however. He was convinced it was the way forward. He convinced Marshall he was on board. D-Day, as it was going to be called eventually,

was going to happen on April the 1st of 1943. Oh, April Fool's Day. Brilliant. It's like, imagine that. Oh, got a cannon, got a cannon. World's best April Fool's joke. imagine that oh got a cannon got a cannon it's the opening of Saving Private Ryan with all the boats coming up to the beach

all the German soldiers looking quite nervous because they're about to be attacked and eventually the doors come down and there's just one clown with a party popper looking very scared April Fool's there's just one clown with a party popper. Looking very scared. People fall. Ripped to pieces.

Yeah, okay. So we're doing it. We're doing it. April the 1st, 1943. Troops were sent to Britain to get ready. Let's start building up our forces. However, there was a problem. Marshall went to Britain to check himself how the US military were faring over there he did not like what he saw was it the corned beef yeah they didn't like corned beef baked beans yeah

there's all sorts of stuff for breakfast yeah yeah the worst thing was uh the leadership over there was a bit of a state those high high up in the US military in England were still wearing civilian clothes to work. They were still having weekends. I mean, they didn't seem to understand that there was a war on, damn it. They were treating England like a bit of a holiday. Well, they apparently didn't make any effort to coordinate with their British counterparts. They saw themselves as the US military in Britain. We don't need to talk to the British. Anti-British feeling was rife in the US military at this time. I mean, feelings went both ways on that, definitely. And as I've said before, Ike's job was essentially trying to get the sides to talk to each other. So he was navigating that a lot. Anyway, so Marshall's

not happy with what's in Britain. This won't do. So he went back to America and spoke with Ike. Any chance, Eisenhower, you can go over to London? First of all, go over there, give me a second opinion. Is it as bad as I fear? Because I did not like what I saw, but maybe I got unlucky. The second thing, just make some connections over there, would you? Because you're going to be with me when I'm made Supreme Commander of Europe, because, I mean, that's going to happen, isn't it? We all know that's going to happen. So it would be good for you to have those connections that I could use once I'm over there. So off you go. Ike arrived in London with a fellow Major General

and friend called Mark Clark. It's always good when your two names rhyme. And they were picked up by a uniformed driver from the British Motor Transport Corps, a volunteer unit that did things like drive ambulances around during the Blitz. Ike and Mark Clark were very happy to see that their driver was a former fashion model called Kay Summersby. It did not take Ike long before he realised that he was as attracted to Kay's personality as her looks.

Ike took a liking to Kay, shall we say. Ike and Clark were soon inviting her to eat and drink with them, as well as drive them around. She essentially became their tour guide of England. But apart from the company, things were not good in Britain. The man in charge of the United States forces in Britain was a man named Cheney, and soon enough Ike and Clark agreed that Cheney had to be replaced. The man didn't know what he was doing, but who to replace him with? Another friend was drafted into the brainstorm, and after a few hours of discussion, no real decisions had been made,

and Ike went to bed. Clark and this other friend agreed it should be Ike. If someone's got to come over to Britain and like smooth the political landscape as well as organise the troops, Ike could do that. He could do that well. Ike and Clark then went back to America, reported to Marshall. Ike made a recommendation to Marshall of who could replace Cheney. And then Marshall asked Ike to just draft a directive specifying the duties of whomever got the post. Just write up a job spec, again, if you could. So, Ike did. This was his bread and butter. This is what he did. He wrote up his report. Marshall read it and asked Ike if the directive suited him. Yes, sir, but you might have

some suggestions, Ike replied. I'm glad it suits you because these are the orders you are going to operate under. You've got the job. Yeah, he was promoted to commanding general and was put in charge of all the United States forces in Europe. This is rapid promotion, as you can see. This has taken months from, like, not really. From office boy to ruler of Europe. Yeah, all United States forces in Europe. Off you go.

So off he goes, off to London. Eisenhower knew he had a big job in front of him. I mean, reforming how the US military operated in England was going to take a lot of work, Off he goes, off to London. Eisenhower knew he had a big job in front of him. I mean, reforming how the US military operated in England was going to take a lot of work, but there was one job right at the top of the list he had to get on with straight away. Also, big job was the name of the new tanks coming out of Britain at the time. Yes, it was. What do you think this big job was? Beat Hitler.

No, it was finding Kay and making sure that she was his driver of course yes he he literally he sent out word she was tracked down by a large number of men she was eventually found uh working in the air force the guy who she was driving for pleaded with ike not to take her away from him but Ike just went nope she's mine now so there you go so as you can imagine as the man in charge of all the US forces he met Daley with one of the top men in the British government usually one of Churchill's chief of staff but sometimes Churchill himself or the foreign minister he he's up there in the upper echelons now it soon became very clear that the

British simply were not going to go along with the 1943 D-Day date. It's just not going to happen. Eisenhower was frustrated. He's still convinced that across the channel is the only way to break the Germans. But he couldn't deny that the British had a point. They simply weren't strong enough yet. If they attempted it now, they'd probably fail. So keep building up our strength, but we can't sit here and do nothing for two years. So let's go and get Africa, someone suggested. All of it?

No, just the top bit. Okay. Marshall, back in America, just as Eisenhower knew, knew that Marshall would be the man in charge of D-Day when it happened. I mean, that was just a given. He was mostly going to be American troops in the end. It was going to be an American who led it, and Marshall was the highest-up man.

So, I mean, it's going to be Marshall. So, as you can imagine, neither Marshall or Eisenhower were very happy about the delay to D-Day. But FDR pulled rank. Well, he can, to be fair. He can, because the system of government is that the supreme commander is the president. And when Marshall and Eisenhower grumbled and tried to keep pushing for D-Day and try to delay the African invasion, eventually Roosevelt stepped in and told them to sort themselves out essentially. Eisenhower years later admitted that actually that was the right thing to do. We should, delaying D-Day was definitely the right thing.

Needs to be prepared. They start to plan out the largest amphibious assault in history, the invasion of North Africa. It had a name. I know you've got it on your thing, but I want to try and remember it. Is it Operation Something? What, North Africa one? Yeah. Or D-Day?

D-Day one's Overlord. Yeah, no, the African one. It had a name. Oh, the North Africa one. Don't tell me, don't tell me, I'll kill you. I can't. I've been reading it all week, but I didn't bother putting it in my notes and it's gone out of my head like it's gone out of yours. Torch. Yes yours. Torch. Yes, Operation Torch.

There we go. There we go. Yes, so planning of this takes place. Eisenhower was installed in a place called Telegraph Cottage just outside of London. Various people were there at all times of the day, keeping the place in order. It was obviously always full of important military men of some description. Reports and plans were going on. But two additional members of the household were the most important to Eisenhower, because Kay essentially moved in, and together they got a dog.

Well, she's gone from driver to official masseuse, so... Yeah. Yeah, gotta get a dog. Well, I mean, technically assistant at this point point if i remember correctly but i it's she was just she she she was just around she was there uh they had a dog eisenhower called the dog telek which was an amalgamation of telegraph cottage and k and i'll quote two parts of my life that make me happy oh Oh, that's sad. Well, no, he's good in a way.

It's happy for him, but... Yeah, it's going to end in tears, though, isn't it? It really is. Yeah. Anyway, he was then informed that he was going to be the supreme commander of this operation into North Africa. So he's in charge. Marshall's not going to come over for this. Marshall wants D-Day.

So you run this smaller operation you're in charge of the American and the British troops so yeah there we go another promotion he's now a powerful man he's the king of Europe so the assault on North Africa begins and as tempting as it is to go into details as I've had to do before, I've got to remind myself we are not a World War II podcast. So this is going to be for some people painfully brief, the section on World War II. But we simply

cannot go into the rabbit hole that is World War II. There are many, many, many, many podcasts out there if you want more details. However, brief overview, Ike went to Gibraltar to begin with because it was the only part of mainland Europe held by the Allies. So there we go, we've got this little rock in the Mediterranean, so let's go there. The problem with taking North

Africa at the time, it was the fact that most of it was held by the French, and the French were currently being controlled by the Germans. There were a lot of factions in France arguing about who should do what and when and what side we should be on. Going into French-controlled territory essentially meant invading a country that wasn't part of the war, but kind of are, sort of on the Allies' side, but also sort of on the Germans' side. It was all a bit of a mess. No one really knew what was going on politically. It's afield i mean you could argue we're invading nazi territory you

could argue that i'm sure that's what they did those in the south of france who were technically independent certainly would have had a different view yeah well yeah i know the nazis essentially left the france south of france alone because like you just got sunflowers you can just do your own thing it's fine why didn't sunflowers you carry on yeah yeah essentially it's like yeah fine independent france whatever um just we've got paris that that's the political problems going on and eisenhower's having to deal with all of this the plan at this time was attack at three points across the coast take morocco and algeria and then move east into tunisia long story story short, as I've said, the first step works easily enough. The only snag was that in order to make the transition smoother, Eisenhower

allowed the French leader in the area, a man named Dahlin, to keep power. This was a man who technically kind of sided with the Germans, because he'd accepted this position from Nazi Germany. So he was sort of defecting. When FDR, and in particular Churchill, found out about this, they were not happy. It was seen as a political capitulation. The Nazi German regime must be destroyed. We can't allow people in that regime to maintain positions. Eisenhower received a slap on the wrist, although most could see the advantage of not having to fight the French forces in the area, and no one had a better solution. Why wear down your forces even more if you don't need to? Yeah, it was a political setback for military gain. Yeah. It was the decision, essentially.

Eisenhower, like I say, received a bit of a black mark, but nothing he couldn't handle. While this was going on, you'll be pleased to know that Ike had figured out a way to send for Kay, because she and various other, shall we say, admin staff were sent for. These essentially were the girlfriends and mistresses of many of the high ops in the army. Right. A typing pool, I believe they were described as, because they're on official business, honest.

Yeah. However, the boat that they were on after leaving Britain was attacked and it sank. I know, a typing skill, go on. You'll be pleased to know, however, everyone survived. They got on lifeboats. Yay! It sank slowly. Yay!

You'll be pleased to know, however, everyone survived. They got on lifeboats. It sank slowly. Yay. This story was big enough that it reached the United States, where reports of Eisenhower's sweetheart surviving a shipwreck was reported. Mamie was not pleased. We don't have the letter that she sent to Ike,

but the one returned insists that Kay was in love with one of his underlings. That's why she was sent for. The papers have got wrong yeah but they were totally doing it at this time oh they yeah the the the history books that I've read say things like nothing can be proven because obviously no one was recording it uh but I mean they obviously were they very obviously were if not quite at this stage then they soon will be anyway. Anyway, there's a war on, don't forget. The push to Tunisia began, and to begin with, it did not go well at all. There was much talk of Eisenhower being in over his head. I mean, he's never seen action. Does this man really know what he's doing? General Patton said of Ike and

Clark at the time, neither have been to the front, so showed great lack of decision. They're on their way out, I think. So, I mean, there's rumour that this isn't going well enough. Ike clearly is just a stand-in for Marshall until he gets here, and, yeah, he'll be out soon. And this was sort of true. Marshall started to lose confidence in his general. I mean, there was no doubt that Eisenhower was the best man in the army

for all the political stuff. Dealing with Washington and London, no one better. But commanding troops in the field, surely we've got a better man to do that. Why he's not done it? Fortunately, there was a solution. Ike was promoted to a four-star general, and then three British generals were drafted in to run the fighting

while Ike oversaw the whole thing. Ah, clever. He was kicked upstairs to make room for people who knew what they were doing, and he knew it. But still, he became the 12th ever four-star general, so that's nice. Eventually, North Africa was taken. This was very much more due to the fact that the United States managed to outproduce the Axis powers rather than any fighting ability. The United States forces came out of North Africa with a very poor reputation.

Those high up in the British army described them as, and I quote, physically and mentally soft and very green. They're going through their early days just as we had to go through ours. The British troops at this time had seen a lot of war and those that were still alive had got very good at staying alive. The Bee Gees. Yeah. The American forces were still finding the ropes and it really showed. It was not a good display. However, because they just outproduced the Axis powers, they managed to win. If you can just keep putting planes and tanks on the field and keep supplying guns and replacement shoes

and things like that, then you're going to eventually win. So, yeah, there you go. They managed to get North Africa. And despite the patchy record, Eisenhower was gaining the respect of Roosevelt and Churchill, because Eisenhower was genuinely good at the political side of things. Whenever the United States suffered a defeat, for example, he knew how to spin the report to make it sound like a victory. There was one dodgy moment during the North African campaign where the American

troops had to retreat rapidly over 85 miles. I mean, this was a clear defeat. However, the report stated how wonderful it was that they were able to put pressure on Rommel's supply lines by stretching the enemy out so thin. It wasn't a retreat at all. It was a planned stretching of the enemy. That's good. That's turning a defeat into a seeming victory. Like I say, Eisenhower was good at airbrushing, turning things that didn't look good to something that maybe seemed a bit more positive.

And this is exactly why Roosevelt and Churchill liked him so much. They knew they had someone in charge of the forces who could get a defeat and make it look to the masses like they're achieving things. He's almost a politician. He's the connection between the military and the politicians, and you need someone to be able to do that. You need someone who can get all of these different orders

coming in from Washington, from London, and turning them into something the military can actually do like i say patchy record in some ways but there are areas that he is excelling in and because of that it was decided that eisenhower would carry on as supreme commander and lead the next step which is the taking of sicily. Oh, the Romans tried that. They can manage that. They did. They came across the laser beams. Yes.

Yeah, and the giant forks of death. Yeah. But they managed to get past the lasers and the giant forks of death. Nice. They did. Short version of this, they took Sicily. Britain led the push this time because it was very obvious to everyone

that the British forces were simply doing better. So let's send our best forces in. But obviously American forces were involved and the more they did the more experience they got and one person said essentially that the North Africa and Sicily was when the US armed forces learned to crawl. It's like they're starting they're just starting up. But they're getting there, they are. Things are starting to get better. Mussolini is overthrown, and Hitler was forced to divert a lot of resources to take Italy back.

So everything's getting better. Sicily is taken, North Africa's taken. It's time to go back home and plan D-Day. Because whilst all this was happening, everything's still being poured into Britain. Build up the troops, build up the troops, build up the troops. Marshall asked Eisenhower, just think, who's going to lead the US forces when D-Day does happen? Because obviously I'm going to come over to be Supreme Commander, but we need someone to lead the US forces.

Now, it was assumed by everyone that Marshall would indeed come over, and Ike would probably go back home. He's done his work now. Who knows, maybe he'd stay as Marshall's number two. But, I mean, there's no way he's going to be leading the ground troops. It's been decided by this point that's not Eisenhower's role. So, Eisenhower thinks about it. Patton was an obvious choice. He was a big name in the military.

But there's a slight problem. He had been going around slapping soldiers and calling them cowards recently which uh it's not great was he slapping cowards though i mean no no he was uh slapping soldiers suffering from ptsd oh yeah yeah not not great that is a scandal waiting to erupt, thought Eisenhower. Best not promote him. And then the scandal erupted. The press found out. It was said that he wasn't reprimanded by Eisenhower. So Eisenhower got a slap on the wrist for that as well. It all got a little bit messy. Yeah. So not Patton, basically. Instead, a man named Bradley was chosen. Now, whilst Eisenhower was deciding on who's leading what and when,

what he didn't know was that President Roosevelt was having second thoughts about his chief of staff becoming the supreme commander. After a rocky start, thought Roosevelt, things are actually going quite well between the United States and Britain. Like, we're cooperating. And that's largely in part because, unlike most people in the military, Eisenhower didn't resent the British and got on with quite a few people high up in Britain. Yeah. It's like, yeah, if I just drop someone new in there, thought Roosevelt, are we going to lose that? Essentially, don't fix what's

not broken. So, trying to get his head around things, and on a visit for the big three, Roosevelt passed through North Africa, and he met with Eisenhower, and obviously Kay, and little Telek, the dog, which is nice. Kay drove them out to a picnic, and they had a lovely time. The old Roosevelt spent his time outrageously flirting with Kay, which he enjoyed. And I'm playing with the little dog, because he had his own little dog, which, yes, I didn't mention his dog in his episode,

which I got a few comments about, which perhaps I should have done. You're a monster. I am a monster. I'm not convinced he would have got more points for having the dog, though, but maybe he would have done. I'd have gotten more points. Anyway, Roosevelt left the meeting with Eisenhower

with two firm impressions in his mind. One, Eisenhower is definitely the right sort of chap to be doing this job. And number two, he is totally doing his driver. He even wrote to a friend about it he's which uh yeah literally at my desk right now as i'm writing this letter that's why the handwriting is so shaky anyway shortly after this visit uh like i say he was off um meeting uh churchill and stalin for the first time. And whilst he was meeting Churchill and Stalin, Marshall was there as well.

Marshall and Churchill exchanged heated words about the wisdom of the crossing of the Channel. FDR started to fear that Marshall would be a bad choice if he goes to London and Churchill already doesn't like the guy. That's not great. Roosevelt at one point said one of Eisenhower's greatest achievements is being able to get on with Churchill. Because no one else can. Just understanding

what the man's saying. It's tricky. Anyway, shortly after this, another meeting of the Big Three took place, and at this time, Stalin asked who is going to lead this cross-channel attack. Because unless you know who's leading it, it's not going to happen.

You need one man in charge, organizing it from this point forward. Roosevelt and Churchill both realized the wisdom of Stalin's words. It's like, yeah, you can't argue with that. But Roosevelt also still hadn't decided who he wanted to lead. But he's going to make a decision. So he made his decision. He used the excuse that he did not want Marshall out of Washington. He was invaluable to the war effort there, and instead Eisenhower would be the supreme commander of Operation Overlord.

Kay remembers the time that Ike found out about this. Apparently he burst into a huge grin. He was over the moon about it. Roosevelt then, on his way home, spent some more time with Eisenhower, just going over what Ike was going to do. So they got to spend more time with each other. And then at that point, Ike was ordered to go home for two weeks to have a break. You've been working very hard. You're about to launch the biggest amphibious invasion in world history after you have just launched the biggest amphibian invasion in world history. So take a break. Take a break. That's a good idea. Yeah.

Ike did not want to take a break. He, at this point, was living in North Africa, essentially living with Kay and a dog. I mean, they were very much a couple at this point. He didn't want to go home to Mamie. He left Kay at the plane and passed her a slip of paper that read, Think of me, you know what I will be thinking. Yeah.

It was a frosty reception at home because Ike and Kay hadn't done their best to keep it a secret and rumours certainly had spread back at home and Mamie had had to put a brave face on everything. Yeah, they met and they soon realised they had very little to say to each other. Marshall, being the and they soon realised they had very little to say to each other.

Marshall, being the kind man that he is, had organised a retreat for the two of them for a couple of days. Get away, just the two of them together, you know. You know, one locked room on your own. Yeah. Two solid days, 48 long hours. Time to see your wife for the first time in a year and a half, Ike. I'm sure you want to spend a couple of days with her, Ike. Surely. Off you go. No, don't thank me. Don't thank me. Off you go. Enjoy yourselves. Yeah, Ike later said, I kept calling her Kay. Every time I opened my mouth to say something to Mamie, I'd call her Kay. She was furious. Well, you're gonna be, aren't you? Yeah. He was very relieved when he was allowed to go back to london very busy in his absence was montgomery good old monty who was in charge of the ground forces for d-day and essentially was ike's uh count british counterpart and number two for the d-day invasion

ike and monty didn't particularly get on hugely well, in particular to begin with, but they were professional enough that they worked together. They had a few arguments, but nothing that, like, endangered proceedings. What Ike spent most of his time doing was fighting politically with Washington and London, attempting to get everything he could. He argued with Roosevelt about the role of the French, about who would lead France after it's been liberated. Eisenhower thought de Gaulle should lead the French. Roosevelt was not happy with that. Maybe the French decide?

The French couldn't decide. That was the problem. They were all arguing with each other. Many feared that they were going to go into a civil war as soon as they were liberated. I like that. That's very optimistic, though, isn't it? If you're french going well

when when this was over we should have a civil war because i mean this is french history i mean it would make perfect sense to as soon as you are finished with being invaded to start a civil war because but they haven't finished being invaded that That's the optimism that I like. To be honest, they've not finished their revolution yet. No. Still haven't to this day. You've always got to feel sorry for French historians. There's too much history in that country. Anyway, yeah, there's a lot of debate going on.

Eisenhower and Roosevelt didn't see eye to eye with this and quite often butted up against each other. Eisenhower also argued with Churchill about the command of the air forces and who was going to lead the air forces in D-Day. That got so heated that Eisenhower threatened to resign. Fortunately, that got pulled back. Long story short, D-Day arrives after lots of planning. Lots and lots of planning.

Ike was stretched thin by this point. was smoking hard he was sleeping little he had been forced to make some huge decisions all on his own none bigger really than loans such as where to send the air force behind enemy lines but no decision was bigger than the actual pulling of the trigger of the starting gun. Because they had a date, they were all set to go, but bad weather. Cancel the clown! Well, they can't keep delaying. I mean, element of surprise is one of the most important things here. I mean, they've got to get across. The bad weather conditions were due to end, got to get across. The bad weather conditions were due to end, but no one was exactly sure when. No one could give a clear answer. So should we give the signal to go? It needs to be made within the next half an hour. We either do this now or we don't, but if the weather doesn't clear, we are

in trouble. Ike, Montgomery, and various other high-ups in the military sat in a tent, discussed things for a while, and then silence descended upon them and they all stared at Eisenhower. Apparently, five full minutes went by in silence, which I'm struggling to believe. Five minutes is an insanely long time to sit in silence. I think it just be maybe thinking times that they all just know she was just thinking.

Well, at this point, it wasn't just staring. Well, at this point, they've said their their pieces they're waiting for ike's decision so they are waiting on eisenhower he just is staring into the distance thinking thinking that clock is ticking down it needs to be called eventually he looks up and says okay we'll go so that was it the trigger's pulled the success of the entire war now depended on the outcome of the next couple of days. Eisenhower spent the time before the troops set off talking to as many men as possible.

I'll quote him, it's very hard to look a soldier in the eye when you fear you're sending them to their deaths. Hello, you're soon to be dead. Nice to meet you. Don't worry, some very clever chaps in the War Department have drawn up some figures and they're expecting 70% casualties.

So it's wonderful. Fingers crossed for 30%, hey? Next one. Yeah, Ike then returned to camp. The troops set off, the invasion started, and Ike went into his trailer, essentially a caravan. He just went in there with Kay. It was just the two of them.

Yeah, it was. What did they do, Rob? What did they do? Kay, not making this up, Kay gave him a massage. Yeah, I told you. Masseuse training coming out. He was very knotted in the shoulders. He was very tense.

I'm sure he was. Yes, very tense. Need to relieve the stress, I think. One subordinate remarked at the time that he was amazed that during the D-Day invasion, the Supreme Commander was not with Churchill. He was not with those high up in the government of either country. He was in a caravan with Kay.

Very stressed, very stressed. Yeah, he wanted solitude. He couldn't face the idea of being around people apart from Kay, apparently. Over the next few hours and days, reports start to trickle in. There were some problems. Can't go into everything, obviously. I mean, there could be, could do a whole season on just the D-Day invasion alone. I mean, there could be a whole season on just the D-Day invasion alone. But mostly things were going according to plan. There's very little Ike could do at this point, apart from watch events unfold. Monty crossed the Channel to lead things personally, because he was in charge of the ground troops.

But Eisenhower wasn't needed. He was the overseer. However, he soon followed. He went across the Channel at one point, unable to just sit back and wait for reports. So he went over, he was briefed, he learned that apart from a couple of last minute changes to the plan, everything is still working. So back to England he goes. There's still not much he can do. Back in his trailer, he's in there for a bit. According to Kay, he became very depressed at this point. After so much pouring of himself into the invasion, there's simply nothing for him to do anymore. He got that sort of post-party depression. But after the initial success of D-Day,

the hard fighting to liberate France began, and soon enough, Eisenhower's back doing what he did best, because the generals under him were in charge of taking various different regions of France, and obviously they all knew that their task was the most vital part of the war effort. So Ike was juggling the demands of the generals whilst at the same time juggling the demands of Roosevelt and Churchill. Now, arguably the biggest impact he had on the world stage at this point is the fact that he was, as I mentioned earlier, on the side of de Gaulle. Now, as mentioned, not everyone is in favour of de Gaulle leading the Free France movement. Roosevelt in particular saw it as

undemocratic. He saw it as installing a tyrant. No one's voted for de Gaulle. But Eisenhower was convinced that de Gaulle was the man who would be in the best position to raise up the defeated nation. France needs to be back on its feet as much as possible, as quickly as possible. From a military standpoint, de Gaulle made the most sense, at least according to Eisenhower. Once France was taken, short version of that, Eisenhower deliberately stayed out of Paris so it could be de Gaulle who walked in first. It's just a show. Once that was done, using the power of supreme commander, he then initiated a civil affairs agreement with de Gaulle putting him in charge of the country Eisenhower did this without authorization from anyone that's quite a big thing though isn't it that's a big thing yeah that changes the the

history of France yeah that modern France would not look the same now if Eisenhower hadn't have done that. I mean, arguably, it might look quite similar, but the airport would have a different name for a start. Yes. Yeah. As you can imagine, de Gaulle very much happy with Eisenhower after this. I've always said good things about Eisenhower. Yeah, that's what he said. So there you go.

He's installed a government in France. Now, I've said this a couple of times. There's just no way to cover in detail what happened on the march to Germany in any detail. I tried a couple of times and realized the word count would just spiral out of control. So I'm just not going to. I'm not going to. The Allies win. There you go. Right. Eisenhower continues to disagree with Montgomery over strategy as they move through Europe, but they still are able to continue to work together. Eisenhower and Kay move into a new headquarters in France,

and they are pretty much in an open relationship by this point. Mamie is furious back at home as the rumors spread across the sea. She sent him a letter at this point saying just how furious she was. We don't have that letter again, but again we have the reply. It's a long letter, but it ends with, I'd rather you didn't mention any of this again. Oh yeah, things are not good between them. Yeah. Anyway, the war effort continues. The Germans counterattack. The Battle of the Bulge happens. Things look bad for a while. One general, Bradley, who I've mentioned before, threatened to resign when given orders to work under the British. He didn't like that idea. Eisenhower replied, Brad, not you, but I am responsible to the American people. Your resignation means absolutely nothing.

Those are my orders. Which is awesome. I'll resign. So. Take care. Go for it. Either follow my orders or you're out. Yeah.

So Eisenhower, as you can see, he's grown into his role. He knows what he's doing at this point. Anyway, the Bastogne episode of Band of Brothers happens, which is obviously hugely important. And then the rest of Band of Brothers happens. So if you want more detail of this, go and watch that. The push into Germany occurred, and Ike makes his final big decision of the war,

which is allowing Russia to take Berlin. Berlin had no strategic purpose. I mean, it was pretty much bombed out city at this point after all the bombings. Having Berlin would not help them at all. It was just to say, we got Berlin. And some numbers were crunched and it was decided an obscene amount of American troops would die if they went to get Berlin, just to say they did. So Eisenhower decides, no, we're not going to do this. Instead, let's go to the Swiss Alps and make sure they don't hold up there. What's that? All the booties there. Coincidence. No, we're stopping a guerrilla war. That's what we're doing.

Oh, found another piece of artwork. Whoops. Oh, look, a wine seller nazi gold yeah anyway so yeah big decision there uh the russians take berlin roosevelt dies and then hitler commits suicide and there you go victory in europe the war is over as long as you ignore the other half of the world that's still going on in the Pacific. But the war is over in Europe. Yes. Yes. And that is where we are going to leave it today.

He did a lot, didn't he? Yeah, yeah, he does a lot. Maybe his driver, but he did a lot. But is that what you were expecting from the Supreme Commander of the European Theatre? Today? Yeah, pretty much. Just admin, really. I'm sure that's what the soldiers thought as they were being gunned through.

Oh, just admin for Eisenhower. I was expecting more fighting. I did not know of Eisenhower that he pretty much never sees action at all. I mean, he does a couple of times during the war which i've glossed over at one point a plane came by and started spraying bullets where he was uh he he wasn't hit um i don't know about seeing action that's just being a survivor he was shot at though the uh soft top my head it's not in my notes but there was a i think it was a british general uh was in charge of the sector that he was in, and he came rushing over to make sure that Eisenhower was okay.

Eisenhower was quite touched by this. It's like, oh, wow, you really care. And the British general just went, no, I just wanted to make sure you didn't die in my sector. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. It's very British. Can you imagine the paperwork, sir?

Holy risk assessment. So, yeah, I mean, he did see some things, but generally his life was doing admin and rising through the ranks spectacularly. Rose through the ranks, yeah. Yeah, he joined the army, he did. Great. Anyway, that's this week.

But before we go, quick message. We've said for the last few episodes that something new is coming its way. It is now ready but we are going to announce what it is in a separate little mini announcement thing that we'll be releasing shortly and we should delete the post that makes this announcement earlier yes we yeah i have i've put a teaser up of what's uh what's to come so some people have already guessed what's to come but there's going to be a change in release schedule and we have some different episodes on their way more variety which is

very exciting more variety to be fun i'll just say i will now be regularly jumping into four distinct different time zones instead of two it's like back to the future. In fact, thinking about it, it's going to be 2,000 years ago, 1,000 years ago, 300 years ago, 50 years ago. It's very exciting. It is very exciting. Okay, thank you very much for listening then.

And until next time. Goodbye. Bye. Lieutenant Sebastian, please do come in. No, at ease, soldier, at ease. Brandy? Oh, if you will. Splendid, thank you. Right. Terrible business, this. Terrible. be splendid, thank you. Right, terrible business, this, terrible. It truly, truly is.

Weapons of war. Back in my day, we used to ride horses and then get shot to pieces by machine guns. Yes, not anymore. War changes. That's the saying. Anyway, I've got your list of recommendations for the Mark VII here.

Yes, I hope you'll be happy with that. Me and the boys spent a few hours in the pub coming up with some of these names. Yes, it does show... What shows? That you were at the pub. Oh. Now, when I approved of Big Willie...

Yeah. It was definitely under the unwritten agreement, a gentleman's agreement, that they would be referred to as Big Williams. But I can't help but notice this hasn't happened. No, no, sir. And I also, I'm worried and I can't help but feel that some of these new names that you're suggesting

for the Mark VII, we might have a similar problem. We don't want to be a laughingstock out there now, do we? I don't know. I think having a Big Roger heading towards you is quite terrifying. Big Roger was one of the names that I wasn't certain about. This one here, Little Richard.

I know what you're doing there. Don't think you can get it past me. I know what you'll call that. Little Richard. I'm what you'll call that. Richard. I'm just going to veto any names that talk about the general area. The chap, shall we say. Let's go for something a bit more patriotic this time.

Patriotic. Okay. How about Big Boy? No. Chuck Dickens? No. Disco Stick? Disco Stick.

What? No. Excalibur. Ooh. Excalibur. Disco Stick. Disco Stick. What? No. Excalibur. Ooh. Excalibur. I like it. Also, what my girlfriend called my... No, no, no. We're not having it.

Let's cross that one off. Indiana Bones. Literally no idea what that's in reference to, but no. Ooh. Long Dong Silver. No. Meat Stick. No, no.

We're demonstrably getting worse at this point. One-Eyed Pete. No. Meat Stick. No, no. We're demonstrably getting worse at this point. One-Eyed Pete. No. One-Eyed Trouser Snake. No. No, move away from the whole one eye. Schlong. No.

Skin Flute. We are not naming the Mark Seven the Skin Flute. The Twig and Berries? No. Sounds very agrarian. Wang. No. Weenie.

No. Weenie Schnitzel. No. Rod. No. Aperies? No. Sounds very agrarian. Wang? No. Weenie? No. Weenie Schnitzel? No. Rod? No. Apeka? No. You've heard of a hobgoblin, right?

Little tiny creature that... Yes. Knobgoblin? That is possibly the worst idea yet. John Johnson? No. John Johnson? He's a good friend of mine and a very well-decorated war hero.

Oh, is he? No, no, no. It's not the name for a penis. Bulge. What? No, no. Anaconda. No.

Baseball bat. No. Captain Beefheart. No.