Winter

Autumn had been unseasonably warm. But last week snow fell--in Connecticut and Wyoming. It also fell on the western front--on the Allies and the enemy, on the trucks and tanks, the artillery and the infantry, on the homeless living and on the uncaring dead.

The Big Push was on, bigger in numbers of U.S. soldiers than any in this war, bigger in shells and bombs and obliteration than that of any war. The September optimists, in & out of the Army, had been wrong. Only a military miracle could now bring V-E day by Christmas. U.S. civilians hoped for the miracle, did not expect it.

At home, there was ominous news. A new kind of crisis had arisen, not unsolvable, but vexsome. The torrent of war supplies was thinning, partly because of titanic quantities chewed up by the war machine, partly because of manpower shortages in the plants. War Mobilizer Jimmy Byrnes warned the U.S. that the trickle of reconversion to civilian goods might have to be stopped altogether. The new icebox, the new car and the civilian helicopter were no longer just around the corner. Neither was peace.

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