The forces were transferred to U. S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower for the duration of Operation Overlord ; but when their control reverted to the Combined Chiefs, Portal still advocated area bombing of German cities instead of specific targets.

Initially providing basic training for World War I units, post-war Dwight D. Eisenhower served at Benning from December 24, 1918, until March 15, 1919 with about 250 of his Camp Colt, Pennsylvania, tankers who transferred to Benning after the armistice.

Control of all air operations was transferred to Eisenhower on 14 April at noon.

As President, Dwight D. Eisenhower often assumed a role aloof from the strife of partisan politics.

His words were the more ungracious to come from a man who lent his name to the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowships dedicated to the same goal of international understanding.

While Communists were undermining United Nations efforts to rescue the Congo from chaos, two other Communist offensives stirred the Eisenhower Administration into emergency conferences and serious decisions.

Other more recent political figures educated at Columbia include U. S President Barack Obama, Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former U. S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former chairman of the U. S. Federal Reserve Bank Alan Greenspan, U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder, and U. S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr .. Dwight D. Eisenhower served as the thirteenth president of Columbia University from 1948 to 1953.

Camp David received its present name from Dwight D. Eisenhower, in honor of his father and grandson, both named David.

Dwight David " Ike " Eisenhower ( pronounced, ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969 ) was the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961.

The Eisenhower home served as the local meeting hall from 1896 to 1915, though Eisenhower never joined the International Bible Students.

Eisenhower ( 2nd from left ) and Omar Bradley ( 2nd from right ) were members of the 1912 West Point football team.

Their second son, John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower, was born on August 3, 1922, while they were in Panama ; John served in the United States Army, retired as a brigadier general, became an author and served as U. S. Ambassador to Belgium from 1969 to 1971.

Eisenhower, far right, with three unidentified friends, in 1919 four years after graduating from West Point.

Indeed, the convoy averaged only 5 mph from Washington, D. C. to San Francisco ; later the improvement of highways became a signature issue for Eisenhower as President.

After a one year assignment in France, Eisenhower served as executive officer to General George V. Mosely, Assistant Secretary of War, from 1929 to February 1933.

The Allied leaders were " thunderstruck " by this from a political standpoint, though none of them had offered Eisenhower guidance with the problem in the course of planning the operation.

Many prematurely considered that victory in Europe would come by summer's end ; but Eisenhower knew from his German roots that the fight would continue.

Eisenhower suffered from a respiratory infection in December 1945 which prevented him from receiving the Order of the Elephant in person from King Christian X of Denmark.

As the 1948 election approached, Eisenhower was repeatedly urged by prominent citizens from both parties nationwide to run for president.

Eisenhower retired from active service on May 31, 1952, and resumed the university presidency, which he held until January 1953.

NATO did not initially have strong bipartisan support in Congress at the time he assumed his command ; Eisenhower unhesitatingly advised the participating European nations that it would be incumbent upon them to demonstrate their own commitment of troops and equipment to the NATO force before it would come from a war weary United States.

The effort was a long struggle ; Eisenhower had to be convinced that 1 ) the political circumstances in the country had created a genuine duty for him to offer himself as a candidate, and 2 ) that there was a mandate from the populace for him to be their President.

Eisenhower defeated Taft for the nomination, having won critical delegate votes from Texas.

The armistice, concluded despite opposition from Secretary Dulles, South Korean President Syngman Rhee, and also within Eisenhower's party, has been described by biographer Ambrose as the greatest achievement of the administration ; Eisenhower had the insight to realize that unlimited war in the nuclear age was unthinkable, and limited war unwinnable.

Eisenhower was severely criticized for the move ; but Darlan was assassinated later that year, and Eisenhower's command position was not affected.

Operation Torch also served as a valuable training ground for Eisenhower's combat command skills ; during the initial phase of Erwin Rommel's move into the Kasserine Pass, Eisenhower created some confusion in the ranks by some interference with the execution of battle plans by his subordinates.

Eisenhower gained his fourth star and gave up command of ETOUSA to be commander of NATOUSA.

From then until the end of the war in Europe on May 8, 1945, Eisenhower through SHAEF had command of all Allied forces, and through his command of ETOUSA, administrative command of all U. S. forces, on the Western Front north of the Alps.

Once the coastal assault had succeeded, Eisenhower insisted on retaining personal control over the land battle strategy, and was immersed in the command and supply of multiple assaults through France on Germany.

The statue is located in front of the current US Embassy, London and across from the former command center for the Allied Expeditionary Force during World War II, offices Eisenhower occupied during the war.

* 1943 – World War II: General Dwight Eisenhower is selected to command the allied armies in Europe.

Alexander presided over Montgomery's victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein and the advance of the Eighth Army to Tripoli, for which Alexander was elevated to a knight grand cross of the Order of the Bath, and, after the Anglo-American forces from Operation Torch and the Eighth Army converged in Tunisia in February 1943, they were brought under the unified command of a newly-formed 18th Army Group headquarters, commanded by Alexander and reporting to Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean at the Allied Forces Headquarters.

The Axis forces in Tunisia surrendered by May 1943, and Alexander's command became the 15th Army Group, which was, under Eisenhower, responsible for mounting in July the Allied invasion of Sicily, again seeing Alexander controlling two armies: Montgomery's Eighth Army and George S. Patton's Seventh United States Army.

* February 5 – Lt. General Frank M. Andrews is selected to command the U. S. armies in Europe, while General Dwight Eisenhower is assigned command in North Africa ; General Andrews will serve only three months before dying in an airplane crash.

While he had been instrumental in advancing the career of the able Dwight D. Eisenhower, he had also recommended the swaggering Lloyd Fredendall to Eisenhower for a major command in the American invasion of North Africa during Operation Torch.

" Eisenhower duly picked him to command the 39, 000-man Central Task Force ( the largest of three ) in Operation Torch.

After consulting Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, and Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, Eisenhower retained Patton in the European theater, though without a major command.

Patton accepted readily, stating that he would like nothing better than for Eisenhower to be placed under his command.

Eisenhower is also credited with giving Patton a command in France, after other powers in the Army had relegated Patton to various unimportant duties in England.

But this unfortunate them-versus-us attitude was becoming more of a problem with the Allied command structure as the war progressed, and this was not helped by pressure put on Eisenhower by President Roosevelt and the US Administration.

The British also had misgivings about the US command, especially Gen. Eisenhower.

On 4 September he recalled Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt from retirement, in which condition he had been since Hitler had dismissed him as Wehrmacht Commander-in-Chief West on 2 July, and reinstated him in his former command, replacing Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model, who had taken command just 18 days previously and would henceforth command only Army Group B. Rundstedt immediately began to plan a defence against what Wehrmacht intelligence judged to be 60 Allied divisions at full strength, although Eisenhower in fact possessed only 49 divisions.