For Good or Ill

We have now a complete plan . . . and this plan we are going to carry out according to our policy during the next nine months, before the end of which we will make efforts to meet again. . . . For good or ill we know our minds.--Winston Churchill.

Last week Mr. Churchill and his collaborator, Franklin Roosevelt, in separate but carefully correlated accounts, reported on the war and made some prophecies. Mr. Churchill dealt mostly with immediate problems and gains; Mr. Roosevelt, with the grand objectives (see p. 15). Doubtless the Prime Minister and the President intended some of their words to hoodwink the enemy.* But they also gave the Allied world some information and much encouragement.

The first necessity, according to Mr. Churchill, is to overcome the U-boats--the "prelude to all effective aggressive operations." The second objective, according to Mr. Roosevelt, is to drive the enemy from Tunisia into the sea--the prelude to invasion of continental Europe.

Somber Panorama. In the U-boat war, said Mr. Churchill, "we shall be definitely better off ... at the end of 1943." U.S. and Canadian shipbuilding exceeded losses by 1,250,000 tons/- in the last half of 1942 ("It is not much but it is something"). In the past two months sinkings were the lowest they have been in over a year. Every U-boat afloat in the first year of war averaged 19 sinkings; in the second, twelve; in the third, only seven and a half. Casualties among U-boats, on the other hand, have steadily increased. But they do not yet equal Germany's production of new submarines, and at the present rate will not before 1943's end.

Nevertheless, said Mr. Churchill, the war at sea constitutes a "repulsive and somber panorama." Shipping losses must be reduced by the production of more escort vessels, even if production of merchantmen has to be decreased. Said the Prime Minister: "The more sinkings are reduced, the more vehement our Anglo-American war efforts can be. ... The greater the weight we can take off Russia and how quickly the war will end all depend upon the margin of new building and forging ahead over losses which are, although improving, still lamentable and . . . grievous."

Tunisia. "I do not wish to encourage the House or the country to look for speedy new results," Mr. Churchill warned. "They may come or may not come." The harbor of Tripoli must be cleaned up so that it can be used as a supply base for the Eighth Army, of which Mr. Churchill said: "I have never seen troops march with the style and air of this desert army. Talk about spit & polish! The Highland and New Zealand divisions paraded after their ordeal in the desert as though they had come out of Wellington Barracks, and there was an air on the face of every private, a look of that just and sober pride which comes from victory after toil."

General Montgomery, that "vehement, formidable, austere, severe, accomplished Cromwellian figure," is now 1,500 miles beyond his starting point in Egypt. British and U.S. forces in central and northern Tunisia are many long sea-miles from home. The Germans must operate across the Mediterranean, and they are losing one-fourth to one-third of everything they try to transport. But they have nearly a quarter of a million Axis troops (the highest estimate yet) established on strong lines only 30 to 40 miles from their immediate bases.

Mr. Churchill did not specifically indorse Mr. Roosevelt's North African political policy--as a policy. But he approved its results:

The Allied armies enjoy a tranquil countryside, Mr. Churchill said. Their land communications, though long, are unimpeded. Their power of reinforcement is far greater than the enemy's. The Allies have landed half a million men. The Axis is losing nearly two planes to every one of the Allies'. Even if it were the other way around, "it would pay us ... to wear down the German Air Force and draw it away from the Russian front."

Mr. Churchill once more pointed out that North Africa was Mr. Roosevelt's enterprise. With fine Churchillian sarcasm, he said: "It is indeed remarkable that the Germans should have shown themselves ready to run the risk and pay the price required of them by their struggle to hold the Tunisian tip. While I have always hesitated to say anything which might afterwards look like overconfidence, I cannot resist the remark that one seems to discern in this policy the touch of a master hand, the same master hand that planned the attack on Stalingrad."

The Southern Door. Of troubled Turkey, teetering on the Allies' southern doorstep into Axis Europe, Winston Churchill said:

"It is no part of our policy to get Turkey into trouble. . . . Disaster to Turkey would be disaster to Britain and all the United Nations. Hitherto, Turkey has maintained a solid barrier against aggression from any quarter, and by doing so even in the darkest days, she rendered us invaluable service. . . . It is of important interest to the United Nations and especially Britain that Turkey should become well armed in all the apparatus of a modern army, and her brave infantry shall not lack the essential weapons which play a decisive part on the battlefield today. These weapons we and the United States are now, for the first time, in a position to supply. . . . We can give them as much as they are able to take, and we can give them these weapons as fast or faster than Turkish troops can be trained to use them. ... I am sure it would not be profitable to pry more closely into this part of our affairs. Turkey is our ally. Turkey is our friend. We wish to see her territories, rights and interests effectively preserved, and we wish to see in particular warm and friendly relations established between Turkey and our great Russian ally to the northward to whom we are bound by a 20-year Anglo-Russian treaty."

Asia and the Pacific. Messrs. Churchill and Roosevelt know that the Pacific is primarily a U.S. theater. Mr. Roosevelt said that the U.S. no longer expects to inch its way from island to island across the Pacific ("It would take too many years") and that air action in China will be stepped up.

Military men know that an effectual air force, much less a large ground army, in China cannot be supplied by air alone, and that really "important actions" may have to await the reconquest of Burma and the development of overland routes of supply. But the Churchill-Roosevelt statements, and the presence of General Arnold and Field Marshal Dill in Chungking, suggested that positive action is in prospect. Said Mr. Churchill: "The Generalissimo [Chiang Kaishek] also concurs in the plans for future action in the Far East, which we have submitted to him as a result of our deliberations." Nothing less than a campaign to reopen the Burma route to China could satisfy the Generalissimo.

Who Are the Allies? Messrs. Roosevelt and Churchill paid due tribute to Russia's armies. Mr. Churchill recalled that Joseph Stalin had said that the North African campaign was "militarily correct." Mr. Roosevelt said: "Remember there are many roads that lead right to Tokyo and we are not going to neglect any of them" --a reference which could be read as a bid for access to Russia's Vladivostok area, only 700 air miles from Tokyo. The Moscow press featured the Roosevelt speech--a sure sign of the Kremlin's approval. But in the accounts of the President and the Prime Minister, there was more warmth toward the Russians than certainty about Russia's future as an ally (see p. 20).

Two Allies. Said Mr. Churchill: In the event we knock Germany and Italy out first, all forces of the British Empire will be moved to the Far Eastern area, until unconditional surrender is forced upon Japan.

Said Mr. Roosevelt: You can be quite sure that if Japan should be the first of the Axis partners to fall, the total efforts and resources of all the United Nations would be concentrated on the job of crushing Germany.

*Said Winston Churchill last November: "I hold it perfectly justifiable to deceive the enemy, even if at the same time your own people are for awhile misled."

/- Mr. Churchill's figures were in gross tons. U.S. shipbuilding in that period totaled some 4,000,000 deadweight tons, or 2,500,000 gross tons. Net losses, therefore, were half of U.S. production. British production in the same period is unrevealed.

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