Joint Responsibility

There had been no blacker week since Singapore. No one vast loss, but a cumulative pattern of loss darkened the anti-Axis world; the fall of Bataan (see p. 18), disasters and failures in the Bay of Bengal and India (see p. 26), unabated retreat in Burma (see p. 26), the consequent peril to China. Heavier than any one of these tidings was the strain of waiting for the Nazis to loose their spring offensive (see p. 28).

As never before, the Allied peoples needed the antidote of aggressive action, or at least the promise of action. In this week of deepest need, the promise seemed to come from London. At No. 10 Downing St., at the War Office, at the U.S. Embassy abruptly appeared Harry Hopkins, the man who more than any other acts and speaks for President Roosevelt, and General George Catlett Marshall, the U.S. Army's Chief of Staff. In the U.S. and Britain, anxious millions forthwith believed what they wanted to be told: that their forces were about to take the offensive and open a second front in Europe.

Two on a Mission. From the moment that a transatlantic bomber deposited the President's messengers in Britain, their doings had the stamp of some great purpose. They conferred and dined at No. 10; they weekended with Winston Churchill in the country, where the cherry blossoms were coming out and spring green touched the trees; and the King & Queen had Sunday lunch with the visitors. Between frequent rests abed, frail Mr. Hopkins conferred with Lease-Lender W. Averell Harriman and the ministers-who counsel Churchill on Britain's policies and potentials. General Marshall passed many hours with keen, brisk General Sir Alan Francis

Brooke, chief of Britain's Imperial General Staff; with the heads of every British military service (including the invasion-trained Commandos' Lord Louis Mount-batten); and with Major General Sir Hastings Lionel Ismay, the Prime Minister's military Man Friday.

Harry Hopkins said that he was in London to discuss confidential matters With Mr. Churchill; what could be more confidential than a plan for counterinvasion of Europe? General Marshall said that his sudden visit was just a long-intended look-see. But the press preferred to accent General Marshall's casual answer to a casual query. Said he (when asked whether soldiers accustomed to U.S. spaces would feel cramped in England): "We want to expand over here."

Which Front? Back in Britain after a visit to Ottawa and the White House, Canada's Lieut. General Andrew George Latta McNaughton was preaching invasion through France and expanding his Canadian Corps into a full army. In Northern Ireland were several thousand U.S. troops, rarin' to go and practicing invasion tactics. More were coming: an Army colonel announced that Boston was to be an embarkation point for many troops and supplies (see p. 16). One subject of discussion was drastically intensified bombing of western Germany by both British and U.S. flyers.

At the War Office General Marshall undoubtedly found several specific, alternative plans for invasion drives: through France into western Germany; through Norway to direct conjunction with Soviet forces; through Italy to Hitler's wobbly flanks in the Balkans.

General Marshall and his good friend in Washington, Field Marshal Sir John Greer Dill, had long since discussed these prospects. All the facts, all the prudent objections to any major continental attempt this year, were known to General Marshall. His hosts in London had little new to tell him. Perhaps he had something to tell them.

Now or Never? The argument for some Allied counterattack in Europe this year was simply that the risks of doing nothing outweighed the grave risks of doing something. Another Dunkirk? Russia's defeat would be immeasurably worse. Shipping short? With a German fleet in being already poised on the profile of Europe, it might be shorter yet, another year. Could Britain afford to weaken its home defenses for continental adventure? Britain could not afford to lose the war this year, as it might be lost, if Russia fell.

Whether or not these arguments were advanced by Marshall & Hopkins, they were the beliefs of the common man in Britain. By their mere presence, Marshall & Hopkins enormously increased the home pressure on Winston Churchill. But, whatever the decision, the visit promised Churchill political as well as military relief and support. For it would now, obviously, be a joint decision. Henceforth the U.S. would share with Britain the responsibility for inaction, or the costs of action.

What Would Be Fatal? The basic fact was still the same, terrible fact: that the Allies had too many fronts already. Soviet spokesmen (including Ambassador Maxim Litvinoff in Washington) no longer cried specifically for a second front in Europe; they insisted that the one supremely vital front was in Russia, that the one Allied task, above all, was to supply that front. MacArthur in Australia, the vital Mid-East, Chiang Kai-shek in China, General Wavell in India, Britain herself, U.S. forces stationed from Hawaii to Iceland-all these called as well for supply. Last week a London naval analyst listed Britain's most important lines (the Indian Ocean, her route to Russia via Murmansk, her north Atlantic route from the U.S.), and said: "If it is not possible to safeguard all three without incurring disastrous losses both in warships and merchantmen, surely it is necessary to decide what it would be literally fatal to lose, and to concentrate on that."

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