| Original caption: “Eisenhower Rides a Jeep in France – General Dwight D. Eisenhower in a Jeep at Front Line Positions in France in September, 1944. Supreme Commander at Front – Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in a jeep on his arrival at a front line position somewhere in France. This is one of several visits made by the general to his troops in the battle zones.” United States Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower (October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969), Commander, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) was photographed in a jeep during a tour of the front. This is likely in late August or early September, as he was injured moving a plane in mid-September. This photo was nationally circulated on September 18, 1944. United States Navy Commander Harry C. Butcher (November 1, 1901 – April 20, 1985), Eisnhower’s aide, wrote in his diary on September 13, 1944: “I spent the week end at Granville with General Ike, who is confined to his bed by a wrenched knee. He is in a small villa named Montgomery overlooking Mont-Saint-Michel, the ancient abbey on a rock, surrounded by water at high tide but by almost flat sand at low. About a week ago, he had flown off from Granville to meet Generals Bradley and Patton. A broken muffler on his [Douglas] C-47 [Skytrain] required a change of planes at Chartres for the return journey. Captain Dick Underwood, copilot to Major Larry Hansen, found a liaison plane, a [Stinson] L-5 [Sentinel], and flew the General back to Granville, intending to land near Jullouville, where there is a strip for liaison planes on top of a hill overlooking SHAEF Forward.” “There was a very high wind and visibility was not too good, so Underwood decided to put the plane down on the beach near Ike’s small villa. The landing was okay, but the tide was rising, and Ike helped Dick push and pull the plane to a spot that would remain dry. Ike said he wondered if this beach had been mined and, if so, if they had been demined.” “But it wasn’t a mine that got him, it was a twist in the soft sand that wrenched his knee. They had walked a mile to the road and flagged a jeep, which took them to Ike’s house. General Kenner has the knee in some sort of rubber gadget. Unfortunately, it is the knee he has always called his good one, the right one. He has to sit with his leg straight and is quite uncomfortable. But worst of all, the stiff leg makes difficult his normal movement around the country to see the commanders.” Short of fuel, tossed by gusty winds, and unable to find an airstrip in the pelting rain, the pilot set down on a narrow beach not far from the supreme commander’s compound. As he helped push the plane toward the dunes to escape the rising tide, Eisenhower slipped in the sand, badly wrenching his right knee. After hobbling across a salt marsh with an arm around the pilot’s neck, anxiously watching for mines, he flagged down a jeep carrying 8 astonished GIs, who lifted him into the front seat and drove him to his villa. 2 aides carried him to a bedroom. Eisenhower had hurt his left knee in the 1912 Army football game against Tufts, a serious injury requiring 7 hospitalizations over the years. But no mishap was more inopportune than this damage to his “good” knee, now swollen and acutely painful. A doctor slathered the joint in a plaster cast and prescribed indefinite bed rest; Eisenhower refused to allow his blood pressure to be read for fear that the persistent ringing in his ears marked some debilitating condition that would get him sent home. For more than a fortnight the supreme commander was largely immobilized, leaving Granville briefly only 3 times in 18 days. The villa was pleasant enough, with a splendid view of Mont-Saint-Michel to the south. 2 resident cows provided fresh milk and cream for the mess, and for 90 minutes each day a therapist baked and massaged Eisenhower’s aching knee. In scribbled notes to Mamie he apologized for being “always a bit off-key when I try to talk seriously,” and he confessed to thinking of their dead son, Doud Dwight (September 24, 1917 – January 2, 1921), who would have been 27. To his living son, John (August 3, 1922 – December 21, 2013), a newly commissioned lieutenant who had proposed they make “an air tour of the United States” after the war, Eisenhower wrote, “Who is going to buy the plane? I am broke and I suspect you are not far from it.” Even for an ambulatory commander, Granville was an ill-chosen headquarters—isolated, remote from the front, and so plagued with signal deficiencies that for 3 weeks Eisenhower could communicate with his armies only by cable, courier, messages jury-routed through the Royal Air Force, or in rare tête-à-tête conferences. His indifference to 7th Army’s exploits in southern France owed something to his sequestration in Granville, but the forced seclusion also allowed him to mull his plan for the push into Germany. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0472.jpg |
| Image Size | 595.20 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2976 x 2309 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | September 18, 1944 |
| Location | |
| City | |
| State or Province | |
| Country | France |
| Archive | |
| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
Author of the World War II Multimedia Database