On December 12, 1941, five days after Pearl Harbor, newly promoted Brigadier General Dwight Eisenhower, chief of staff of the U.S. Third Army in San Antonio, Texas, received a telephone call from the War Department in Washington. Colonel Walter Bedell Smith, Secretary of the General Staff, asked, "Is that you, Ike?" "Yes," Eisenhower replied. "The Chief says for you to hop a plane and get up here right away," Smith ordered. "Tell your boss that formal orders will come through later."
- From The Supreme Commander: The War Years of Dwight D. Eisenhower by Stephen E. Ambrose
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