Total War, 73%

When U.S.-British troops land on the bristling beaches of northwestern Europe, will American boys do most of the fighting and dying? Three U.S. Senators, none of them notably internationally minded, asked the nation to pause and think it over.

Colorado's Edwin C. Johnson had reduced it all to neat percentages. Said he: the invasion army would be 73% American, only 27% British. Speaking as a Military Affairs Committeeman, Senator Johnson blurted out his statistics without any special criticism of anyone. But he thought they "might be a shock to some Americans."

Promptly and vocally shocked was Montana's British-baiting Burton K. Wheeler, who still suspects that Franklin Roosevelt "meddled" the U.S. into a war which was none of its business. Said he: the second front, at best, would be a "tremendous gamble." Why rush into something rash? And why settle for anything but a strictly 50-50 partnership? The British were not yet ready for a cross-Channel assault, anyway. The U.S., said Burt Wheeler, once took orders from Britain, but now seemed to be "following the demands of Mr. Stalin. . . . We ought to be extremely cautious before calling on American boys to make these tremendous sacrifices."

Kentucky's strategy-minded Happy Chandler, current spokesman of the fretful little group of ex-isolationists who dislike almost everything about the way the United Nations are fighting the war, promptly chimed in: "It's little short of murder."

All this talk added up to two strong implications: 1) the British were shirking, and 2) the U.S. High Command was foolhardy, at the expense of American lives. The Axis radio, delighted by the whole discussion, purred the inevitable question at U.S. listeners: "Is British blood too precious to spill on the sands of the Channel or the North Sea?" (With reverse reasoning, the Axis taunted Britain: "Whatever the initial contribution of the Yankees ... it will rest with the British to reinforce the failure of the enterprise or else to take the responsibility for its liquidation.")

Far Enough. The very next day the U.S. High Command decided that the talk had already gone far enough. To reassure the nation and to soothe its British ally (and, incidentally, hoping to shut off Burt Wheeler) the Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Army & Navy met and issued a joint rebuke to the Senatorial strategists:

"The exact proportion of American to British troops, in joint operations to be conducted in northwestern Europe, is a military secret which the Germans would like to know, but will not learn from any official source in this country. . . .

"There has been no disagreement between American and British Chiefs of Staff on that proportion. . . . Both countries are going to hit the common enemy with everything available. ..."

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