When?

What date the Second Front in Europe? The question would not down.

In vast convoys, superbly protected against Adolf Hitler's U-boats, U.S. troops still streamed into Britain for the Big Show. But before the House of Commons, Seadog & Watchdog Winston Churchill threw more emphasis on the great air-power drive against the Continent than ever he had before (see p. 36). Was the solid date for the invasion, reportedly agreed upon at the Teheran conference, still solid?

In Washington, even before Churchill spoke, insiders' talk was that it was not. The line was that Britain, at least, had bethought herself, after hearing and acceding to Joseph Stalin's blunt demand for land action on the Invasion Coast. Apart from other possible reasons, there was a forceful military argument: give air power one more chance--and a real chance--to knock out the enemy.

Even if the Germans were not knocked out, the air drive would soften Germany, make beachhead losses lighter when the invasion finally came.

For many a British and U.S. citizen with no professional interest in the proof of air power, this was not entirely bad news, if true. Repatriated U.S. citizens--newsmen, diplomats stranded in Vichy, et al--returning from the Reich last week gave no encouragement to the happy thesis that Germany was going to fall on her face this year.

The Baltimore Sun's Philip Whitcomb reported that the German home-front morale had grown stronger; bombings and other reverses had united the German people, stiffened the backs even of the thoughtful who had once regarded the war as a political circus by the Nazi party.

The A.P.'s West Point-educated Taylor Henry wrote that from his observation German morale, far from falling, had risen in the past six months; the determination to fight it out was stronger than ever. Slave labor (40% of productive workers) was being kept in line; work was being speeded on refitting the 2,751-mi. coastal-defense line from Norway's tip to Spain's border in the light of lessons learned in Italy.

United Nations citizens could still recall the flat predictions of two good U.S. fighting men, Admiral Ernest King and General Dwight Eisenhower, that Germany would be finished off this year. But last week Winston Churchill told Commons he could make no such promise. In Washington, Franklin Roosevelt said amen.

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