Good Intentions

The decision is made. A few men in London, Washington and Moscow share the greatest war secret of 1942: the time, the place, the nature of second front action in western Europe. The people of the U.S., Great Britain and Russia--and Germany--must now await the act.

They must assume that Winston Churchill, President Roosevelt and the military men have decided to do the utmost that can be done, as soon as it can be done, at the places where it will do the most to hurt Hitler and help Russia. The people will then measure the decision and its consequences against a known record of promises and possibilities--the record by which Churchill, Roosevelt and the generals must stand or fall with their world in their time, and in the judgment of history.

The Record speaks for itself:

P: After the U.S.S.R.'s Foreign Minister Viacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov visited London and Washington in May and June, Downing Street and the White House said: Full understanding was reached with regard to the urgent task of creating a second front in Europe in 1942.

P: On June 18 Foreign Minister Molotov quoted the foregoing joint communique to the Supreme Soviet in Moscow, and added: This statement is of great importance to the peoples of the Soviet Union, since the creation of a second front in Europe "will create insuperable difficulties for Hitler's armies on our front.

P: On June 27 Churchill and Roosevelt said in Washington: The coming operations, which were discussed in detail at our Washington conferences between ourselves and our respective military advisers, will divert German strength from the attack in Russia.

P: In July an official Russian account of a Red Army meeting included this statement: The commissar read the decision of the Allies to open a second front in Europe in 1942.

According to this record, Russia was promised a second front for 1942. On this same record, Churchill and Roosevelt did not make the promise in a burst of unmilitary optimism. They made it with the advice and consent of their military advisers, men who must then have been aware of the facts which were still being cited last week to prove that a second front in 1942 will certainly be difficult, that it may fail, and that it may even be impossible.

The Facts are plain, although some of them have recently been obscured.

P: For both Russia and her allies, the time is now. One of the best U.S. correspondents in Moscow, Leland Stowe of the Chicago Daily News, cabled last week: "A second front any time after August will be very late, if not too late. . . . In the opinion of the best qualified foreign military observers in Russia,* if a second front does not come in time to save the Caucasus, the war will be prolonged from one to three years. . . ."

P: The Allies are not ready. It is still true that the actual U.S. capacity for war on any front in 1942 is less than its apparent capacity. The heralded figures on the production of U.S. tanks, planes and other

items of war are out of proportion to the U.S. ability to put fighting armies on fighting fronts. Furthermore, it is apparently the considered opinion of the U.S. High Command that the total of British troops, equipment and shipping available for continental action is not enough for a second front without great assistance from the U.S. All this does not mean that the Allies cannot open a second front this year. It does indicate that when Churchill and Roosevelt promised to act in time to help Russia, they did not expect a crisis before September or October.

P: Hitler is ready. Or so, at least, the Allies must assume. Last week Nazi Elite Guards and a two-mile column of tanks, troop-carriers and artillery paraded down the Champs-Elysees in Paris. Dr. Goebbels practically invited British and U.S. troops ("those MacArthurs") to invade coastal Europe (see col. j). D.N.B. reported in fearsome detail the strength, depth and impregnability of the Nazi's coast defenses. With all of these noises the Germans were cooking propaganda. But R.A.F. reconnaissance, R.A.F. losses over northern France and underground reports from Occupied Europe all attest to strong German armies waiting in western Europe, a 25-mile layer of heavy guns, pillboxes and concrete fortresses along the Channel coast, air and armored forces waiting at central points to rush to any invasion sector. Germany's "Commander in the West," tough, wrinkled Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, unquestionably had real and formidable defenses to inspect when he toured them last week.

P: Hitler is forearmed. He knows that the main blow of any full-scale invasion must fall somewhere between Brest and Den Helder, where The Netherlands had its chief naval base (see map, p. jo). Over the area where they first seek an invasion bridgehead, the Allies must have absolute command of the air. They must be able to cover the invasion with fighters based on Britain, and the actual offensive radius of Britain's fighter squadrons is much less than most people suppose--about 100 miles. Only the fortified stretch of German Europe along the Channel, the near Atlantic and the North Sea is within that radius.

P: The limitations on all-out invasion do not eliminate an Allied gamble for Norway. By risking the aircraft carriers now available to them in the Atlantic, Britain and the U.S. might cover initial landings, the seizure of a few airdromes, the quick delivery of enough land-based fighters to hold the air over northern Norway while troops tried to secure a real hold. If successful, the Allies could then break Germany's air grip on the convoy route to Murmansk and Archangel, perhaps compel a major German diversion from Russia's northern fronts. If they failed--and the odds against final success would be great --they might still upset the Nazis enough to increase the chances of success along the invasion coast nearer Britain.

Whose Hell Is Paved? Last week, in a Parliament hungry for the evidence and promise of action, Sir Stafford Cripps turned on the Government's critics and cried that only Hitler would be served if the Allies revealed their intentions. "But," said Sir Stafford to a persistent baiter, "I can say that we have intentions."

*The best foreign military observer in Moscow is the U.S. Army's Brigadier General Philip R. Faymonville.

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