American demands

The Americans laid down their own views in a forthright memorandum submitted to their British colleagues the day before. They insisted that there must be no renunciation of the decisions reached in Washington, but on the contrary an end to

<  < Lord Louis Mountbatten. He became Supreme Allied Commander, S. E. Asia in October 1943 after directing Combined Operations.

<  Harry Hopkins, close confidant and adviser of President Roosevelt. Churchill said that he was "the most faithful and perfect channel of communications. ”

A Orde Wingate, whose ideas fascinated Churchill but found little favour in most of the British army.

Previous page: Mackenzie King, host to three illustrious guests. With Churchill and Roosevelt is Field-Marshal Sir John Dill, British military representative in the U. S.A. The Quebec conference laid down the principle of an invasion of Europe in summer 1944, provided that the Germans would be unable to oppose the landing with more than 12 mobile divisions and that their air fighter strength in the West should have been considerably diminished.

What they called "opportunist strategy”. "We must not jeopardise,” they wrote, "our second overall strategy simply to exploit local successes in a generally-accepted secondary theatre, the Mediterranean. . .” They demanded that "Overlord” be given "whole-hearted and immediate support”. Nevertheless they had no objection to further operations in Italy aimed at weakening German strength, bringing about an Italian collapse and at establishing airfields at least as far north as Rome. But they were careful to emphasise that, as between Operation "Overlord” and operations in the Mediterranean, "when there is a shortage of resources 'Overlord’ will have an overriding priority”. With regard to more distant objectives, any surplus Allied forces in Italy should, they stated, be allotted to the invasion of southern France rather than to the Balkans or a march on Vienna.

When in the meetings on August 14 and 15 Brooke and Air Chief Marshal Portal argued that the American proposals failed to acknowledge adequately the importance of an advance in Italy as an essential preliminary to "Overlord”, especially in making it possible to bomb German fighter production, they merely exacerbated the profound American mistrust of British intentions. A key issue lay in the seven Allied divisions which it had been agreed at Washington should be transferred from the Mediterranean to the U. K. by November 1943 as part of the "Overlord” build-up. The American paper wanted this decision re-affirmed, while the British argued that these divisions should be retained in the Mediterranean where they would be more useful.