COSSAC
Morgan established his COSSAC headquarters in Norfolk House at St. James Park, London. (An earlier building at the same site was the birthplace of King George III, the King of Great Britain during the American War of Independence.) Morgan was charged with planning three operations for future use. Operation Cockade was a feint attack to keep German forces pinned to the French coast, preventing them from helping the war effort on the Eastern Front or in the Mediterranean; Operation Rankin was an opportunistic intervention in the case of a sudden German collapse; Operation Overlord was the full-force landings in Normandy. Morgan’s version of Overlord was similar to the final draft: it already placed the landings in Normandy, called for portable Mulberry Harbours to receive supplies, and placed U.S. forces on the right flank and Commonwealth troops on the left. The biggest difference was that it used far fewer forces as Morgan could not count on having enough landing craft available. Later consultations with to-level British and American officers led to the widening of the landing beaches and a significant increase of troops as more landing craft were built to carry them.

Located in the middle of a metropolis, Norfolk House was not quite suitable for the planning of such an important operation. Security was one concern, even though the building had its private bar so staff could talk freely without anyone overhearing in a pub. One day in the summer of 1943, a draft blew a copy of the Overlord plan out of an open window. Fortunately, it was picked up by a man whose eyesight was so bad he couldn’t read what he found and turned it in with the authorities. Norfolk House also turned out to be too small, and part of the COSSAC staff was moved to another building, while yet others moved to the South Rotunda, an underground bomb-proof “citadel” connected to several British ministry buildings by an underground tunnel.
 
A flaming sword
In the autumn of 1943, Morgan decided that a badge should be designed for the incoming Supreme Commander. He set up a committee which in turn directed the Royal College of Heralds to come up with the design. The first version included a flaming sword and “some sort of waves.” It was rejected on the grounds that the waves might imply an amphibious operation and thus tip off the enemy, but the sword was accepted as a base for further development. The final design was steeped in symbolism. The black field represents the darkness of Nazi oppression, the crusader’s flaming sword stands for avenging justice, the rainbow above the sword is emblematic hope and contains all the colors of the Allied national flags, the blue field at the top symbolizes “a state of peace and tranquility the restoration of which to the enslaved people is the objective of the United Nations.” The sword itself was based on the Second Division Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The next apparent candidate was George C. Marshall (George C. Marshall), who was serving as the U.S. Army Chief of Staff at the time. There was significant support for Marshall, including from President Roosevelt, who wanted to give Marshall a chance to win historical glory as an officer in the field. Once news that Marshall was under consideration reached the public, however, the media quickly embarked on low-handed speculation, with some sources claiming that Roosevelt wanted to get Marshall out of the way as Army Chief of Staff and replace him with someone more compliant with his political maneuvering for reelection. Others, including John Pershing (The General of the Armies), commander of the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I and the highly respected “elder statesman” of the Army, pointed out that Marshall was too important in his current position to remove. In the end, Roosevelt came to agree with this assessment and picked Eisenhower for Supreme Commander instead.

One thing speaking for Eisenhower was his experience at the Allied Force Headquarters (AFHQ) in the Mediterranean. Many lessons learned in North Africa and Italy, such as cooperation between British and American forces, the coordination of air and ground forces, the recognition of French political authority in formerly French-held areas, the handling of civil affairs and military governments, and the handling of the press, would come in handy in France. Eisenhower also developed good working relations with many high-ranking officers and insisted on bringing them along to his new command.
 
Eisenhower’s arrival in London in early 1944 caused some friction between the staff he brought with him and the COSSAC staff. The former thought the latter was too academic in their plans and had little practical experience, while the latter resented the former’s constant boasts of their African exploits. Nevertheless, the two groups got used to each other and worked as a well-oiled machine by the summer of 1944.
 
The headquarters
Eisenhower was first housed in Norfolk House, the earlier COSSAC headquarters, but he established the SHAEF headquarters in another, more suitable location. 1,100 acre Bushy Park, the second largest royal park of London, had already housed a hospital in World War I, and nearby Bushy House hosted the National Physical Laboratory, which participated in the development of the Supermarine Spitfire (Supermarine Spitfire), the special bouncing bomb used in the Dambusters Raid (The Dambusters Raid), the Mulberry floating harbors and the PLUTO pipeline. (Operation PLUTO) In 1942, a U.S. military camp was built in the park for the European headquarters of the U.S. Army Air Forces. Camp Griffis was named after Lieutenant Colonel Townsend Griffis, the first American airman to die in the line of duty (in a friendly fire incident) in Europe after the U.S. entered the war. Many Americans posted to Camp Griffis believed it was built in error, and the base war originally supposed to be in the town of Bushey.

SHAEF was established in Camp Griffis, pushing out the Army Air Forces. Little remains of the headquarters and the camp today except for a few memorials, a gate named Shaef Gate and a nearby street called Shaef Way. As the Normandy landings were drawing close, SHAEF also established a presence in Southwick House near Portsmouth, the Allied Naval headquarters, so the top-level officers could be closer to the troops during the final preparations. SHAEF left Southwick House in August 1944. The building is now an officer’s casino and is located on ground used by British armed forces for training. A small museum and the large map that was used to follow the landings is preserved but can only be visited by appointment.

As the liberation of Europe got underway, the headquarters moved several times to stay in proximity to the advancing frontline. It moved to the Trianon Palace Hotel in Versailles near the former French royal residence by December 1944; to Reims in Eastern France by February 1945, and to Frankfurt in Germany on May 26, 1945. SHAEF also maintained a number of missions in Belgium and Luxembourg, in France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway as these areas were occupied by Allied forces.
 
SHAEF was dissolved on July 14, 1945, after the surrender of Germany, but it had several successors during the Cold War and, in fact, even today. SHAPE, “Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe” was formed in 1951 and is the headquarters of NATO’s Allied Command Operations. Its first supreme commander was the same man as the one who commanded its ancestor: Dwight Eisenhower.