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appeal. A landing here would threaten further landings all along the Italian coast and the French Riveria. Large numbers of German troops would be tied down to counter such threats. Additionally, the islands would provide bases for the bomber offensive against southern German targets. To the French, though their influence was not great in Allied councils, Corsica offered the enticement that it was French territory, and could be used as the basis not only for military operations but also for a political offensive to reclaim control of the homeland. Some planners remained convinced that invading the islands would lead to southern France itself, and that a drive up the Rhone Valley and into southern Germany was a more profitable approach than across the Channel and through northern France. Although the idea did not gain sufficient support in late 1942, it came to the surface again later.

Moving east, the next natural target was Sicily. The large island sat like a bone in the throat of the Mediterranean. If Sicily were occupied, the Italian Air Force, or Regia Aeronautica, and the Luftwaffe would lose important air bases from which they had perpetually attacked Malta and the Malta convoys. A clearing of the central Mediterranean would mean an immense saving in shipping, as it would permit the use of Mediterranean routes instead of the long passage around the southern tip of Africa. In early 1943 shipping remained a major problem for the Allies, and eventually it was Sicily on which they agreed as their next target.

The other possibility was the Balkan Peninsula, and it had some attractions, especially for Churchill. The Russians were opposed to this, however, and so were the Americans. Though there was some appeal to a drive through Greece or Yugoslavia to the Danube Basin and the Rumanian oil, neither Russia nor the United States wanted to see the Western Allies involved there. The Soviet Union had its own ambitions, while the Americans had no desire to play what they regarded as imperial games for Britain in the eastern Mediterranean.

Across the world, there were the same kind of choices to be made in the Pacific and in the war against Japan. The offshoot of the Midway operation—the occupation by Japanese troops of Attu and Kiska—opened up the Aleutians as a theater of war. The Aleutians is the shortest route from the United States to Japan. Unfortunately, it also possesses the world’s worst weather, especially for aircraft operations. Though it would not really be a serious contender for priority, the Aleutians nonetheless remained American territory occupied by the enemy, and thereby engendered an emotional reaction that eventually placed several hundred thousand troops up in the north and led to some short but very brutal fighting.

More-realistic possibilities lay to the south and west, and through 1942 the Allies divided up the war against Japan in a way that, though it contained certain anomalies, worked pretty well on the whole. The Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia had cut the British off from Australia, which now became a major base for the American buildup. The British therefore accepted that they should have command over the Indian Ocean and operations originating from there, i.e., the campaign in Burma, and eventually, the return to Malaya. Everything east of that, including China and Australia, was to be under American control.

The Americans divided the Pacific into three commands, though only two of them really counted, the South Pacific Area being beyond the reach of the Japanese. The North Pacific was put under the basic direction of the U. S. Navy, and the area was commanded by Admiral Nimitz. His control was extended south for the Solomons campaign. The Southwest Pacific Area, including Australia, the East Indies, and a lump north of the Equator to include the Philippines, went to the U. S. Army and General MacArthur. China was also placed by the Allies under the strategic direction of the United States, though in practice that did not mean a great deal. The Chinese generalissimo, Chiang Kai-shek,