Giraud, Henri (1879–1949) Zealand coast watchers kept an eye on the chain until the Western Allies took most of it back during Operation GALVANIC That involved bloody fights on Makin and Tarawa in late 1943, supported by long-distance bombers from the Ellice Islands A small Japanese garrison on distant Banaba was bypassed It surrendered at the end of the war in 1945 The next jump took the Western Allies into the Marshall Islands GIRAUD, HENRI (1879–1949) French general He was captured at the Battle of Guise in August 1914, but escaped two months later He fought again in Morocco against the Rif in the 1920s, then became military governor of Metz He commanded French 7th Army in the Netherlands early in FALL GELB (1940), then headed 7th and 9th Armies in a vain effort to stop the German breakthrough in the Ardennes A supporter of motorized infantry but unsure about mobile and mechanized tactics, he quarreled with Charles de Gaulle about both Reprising his Great War experience, he was captured along with his headquarters on May 19 He was held as a prisoner near Dresden until he escaped on April 17, 1942, with aid from friendly agents He met General Dwight Eisenhower in Gibraltar on November 7, a day before the TORCH landings in Morocco and Algeria He agreed to take command of French forces in North Africa, but they would not recognize his authority After Darlan was assassinated, however, Giraud took over both civil and military affairs He immediately alienated Eisenhower by arresting several former Vichyites whose cooperation was needed by the Western Allies Giraud attended the Casablanca Conference (January 14–24, 1943), where Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill moved to elevate him over de Gaulle, then backed down to a copresidency of the Free French with de Gaulle However, de Gaulle easily outmaneuvered the politically clumsy Giraud over the following months Giraud was placed in active charge of those members of the Armée d’Afrique who turned coat from Vichy to join Fighting France He led them well enough in Tunisia, fighting on the American southern flank However, his right-wing sympathies and rivalry with de Gaulle led to personal confl ict with General Philippe Leclerc Giraud was forced out of political office in November 1943 He led the minor French invasion of Corsica but was forced from military office as well in April 1944, just before the “big show” of OVERLORD GISELA See ISABELLA GKO “Gosudarstvennyi Komitet Oborony” (“State Defense Committee”) The “war cabinet” that advised Joseph Stalin on military policy It was established on June 30, 1941, one week into the German invasion of the Soviet Union, or Operation BARBAROSSA Lavrenti Beria, head of the NKVD, sat on the GKO alongside other advisers There was no German equivalent See also General Staff; Stavka 454