South Yorkshire Times — Saturday, 5 June 1943

Keeping Axis Guessing

It is not surprising that hard news about the expected Allied invasion of the Continent of Europe is conspicuous by its absence. President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill, after fourteen days of close conversation on the topic, contented themselves with a twenty-two word statement which amounted to nothing more or less than that they had reached complete agreement on all points under discussion. One or two cryptic phrases have fallen from the lips of lesser Government representatives, such as Mr. Lyttelton’s tantalising, if obvious, remark that he knew where the blow would fall, but on the side of the United Nations all those in the know have been careful to keep this great secret locked in their hearts.

In the joint press conference with Mr. Churchill, President Roosevelt seems to have improved on taciturnity by still further confusing the issue, embracing most of the possibilities with a large impartiality that dragged a veritable shoal of red herrings across the trail.

Informed writers on the subject, while wisely making no claims to prescience, seem to consider June as a probable and propitious month for the undertaking. Certainly it is the time of year when a combined operation of the kind which must be envisaged can anticipate least interference from the elements. But whether zero hour is to-day, to-morrow, or not this month at all, we can be sure that this enterprise, so vital to our cause, has been thoroughly surveyed, prepared, and its chances of success as carefully insured as our commanders-in-chief can guarantee in such conditions of hazard.

Meanwhile the Axis Powers frantically fishing for information make wilder and wider casts into deep waters in which, peer as they may, the eyes of their strategists can make out nothing either useful or good for them. Rome alternates between periods of fatalistic gloom and moods of desperate defiance. Berlin emits a smoke screen of words vaunting the strength of the German coastal defences, and even hazards a forecast of the invasion date: June 22nd in Hitler’s diary.

These somewhat childish propagandist expedients do nothing to dispel the attitude of uneasy suspense which hangs over Europe. With bland inconsistency Hitler forgets that he promised the world that we should never set foot on the Continent again. Now he implies a change of view by suggesting a date. Time will show whether this prophecy is any less inaccurate than most of the Fuehrer’s solemn prognostications. Or perhaps this essay in reading the future has been provided by Goebbels to fill up a most awkward gap in the Nazis’ military intelligence.

One of the dividends already derived by the United Nations from this feeling of uncertainty in Germany and Italy about prospects in the West is the delay imposed on the campaign in the East. Germany has even now lost precious weeks of good weather. Previously the Nazis have made the best of the going during the summer months, and have made equally heavy weather of it during the winter. A mild spring this year found them unable to exploit it due to the heavy drain of bringing to a halt the Red Army’s final winter onslaught.

The collapse of the Tunisian outpost introduced another problem, and May has ended without any signs of movement by what we are told are the reconstituted German armies in the East. Time thus gained is invaluable to our Russian allies. So long as the riddle of the West remains unsolved still more time may be won for Russia; when the answer to the riddle is vouchsafed time will be of more consequence to Hitler than to Stalin.