Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [154]
Gen. Dwight Eisenhower wrote to his old friend George Patton on July 20, 1942: “This war is still young.” For Americans, this was true. But the British, after almost three years of privation, defeat, intermittent bombardment and enforced inaction, saw matters very differently. Washington was seeking to browbeat Churchill into sacrificing yet another British army with token American participation, as a gesture of support for the Soviet Union. Marshall’s cardinal mistake was failure to perceive that the scale of a battle in France was beyond the power of the Allies to determine. They might seek to launch a minor operation, but the Germans could mass forces to translate this into a major disaster. Marshall never acknowledged that even the fully mobilised U.S. Army of 1944–45 never became large enough to defeat even the one-third of Hitler’s forces then deployed on the Western Front, until these had been drastically weakened by the Russians.
There was never the smallest possibility that the prime minister and his generals would accede to the U.S. proposal for 1942. “I do not think there is much doing on the French coast this year,” the prime minister minuted the Chiefs of Staff on June 1. Britain in mid-1942 had fifteen divisions in the Middle East, ten in India and thirty at home, few of the latter battle-ready. None of the fifteen first-line infantry divisions in the Home Forces was fully equipped, while nine “lower establishment” formations were in worse case.
Churchill was enraged by a Time magazine article that described Britain as “oft-burned, defensive-minded,” and wrote to Brendan Bracken: “This vicious rag should have no special facilities here.”575 The British embassy in Washington reported to London: “Advocacy of a second front has increased576 largely as a result of the Russian reverses. An influential section of editorial opinion … has been insisting that the danger of such an operation now is more than outweighed by the greater danger likely to arise if it is delayed.” The British were constantly provoked by manifestations of American ignorance about operational difficulties. A U.S. officer at dinner in London577 one night demanded of a British general why more fighters were not flown to Malta, to protect Mediterranean convoys. The visitor was oblivious of the fact, irritably explained by his host, that Malta was far beyond the range of Spitfires or Hurricanes flying from Gibraltar.
The British were increasingly troubled by the difficulties of conveying their views to an American leadership of which both the political and military elements seemed resistant to its ally’s opinions. A British official in Washington wrote to London in May 1942: “No Englishman here has the close relationship578 with Hopkins and the President which are necessary. There is no one who can continually represent to the White House the Prime Minister’s views on war direction. The Ambassador does not regard it within his sphere. Dill dare not as he would ruin his relationship with the US chiefs of staff if he saw Hopkins too often.” Brig. Vivian Dykes of the British military mission wrote: “We simply hold no cards at all579, yet London expects us to work miracles. It is a hard life.”
Churchill concluded that only another personal meeting with Roosevelt could resolve the Second Front issue, or, more appropriately, the alternative North African landing scheme—Operation Torch—in Britain’s favour. He took off once more with Alan Brooke, in a Boeing flying boat. By the afternoon of June 19, he was being driven around Roosevelt’s Hyde Park estate, tête-à-tête with his host. Here was exactly the scenario which Churchill wanted, and which the U.S. Chiefs of Staff deplored. Their commander-in-chief was communing alone with Britain’s fiercely