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England, at least three, possibly four, times the shipping needed for a force of similar strength in the Western Atlantic.” The United States had to “seek for the shortest possible line of overseas communication to our major effort.” 22
    Marshall read and approved Eisenhower’s memorandum. It, and other studies, became the basis on which the Joint U. S. Strategic Committee, an agency of the JCS, considered future strategy. On March 6 the committee accepted Eisenhower’s arguments and declared itself in favor ofthe general principle, “If the war is to be won in Europe, land forces must be developed and trained which are capable of landing on the continent and advancing under the support of an overwhelming air force.” This required “strict economy of force in other theaters.” 23
    The United States now had a strategic solution to the problem of victory in World War II. The British had accepted the major organization concepts, an over-all directing committee composed of the Chiefs of Staff, and unity of command within a theater. The task now was to throw out the rather vague agreements about closing the ring that the Americans had accepted at ARCADIA and get the British to adopt Marshall’s strategic formulation of an early assault on the Continent. To that task the War Department began to devote its energies.

Part II
LONDON TO GIBRALTAR
[
June 1942–December 1942
]

Part III
OPENING THE MEDITERRANEAN
[
January 1943–July 1943
]

    A S 1943 opened, the initiative everywhere lay with the Allies. A year earlier Germany, Japan, and Italy had decided where and when to fight. The United States, Russia, and Great Britain had reacted to their thrusts. By January 1, 1943, the situation was reversed. This was due primarily to the courage, fortitude, and effort of the British and Russian people, for the United States was not yet totally mobilized and had less than one field army in contact with the enemy throughout the world. But at Stalingrad, El Alamein, Tunisia, and Midway the Allies had stemmed the flow of the Axis advance. Now the Allies could decide the time and the location of the battles, and the Americans were almost ready to play their full role.

Part IV
THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN
[
July 1943–December 1943
]

    T HE story of the second half of 1943 in the Mediterranean is one of missed opportunities. Because the Allies were unwilling to abandon Roosevelt’s unconditional-surrender formula, deal once again with a Fascist like Darlan, or even move quickly, the Italian campaign was long, slow, bloody, and sterile.
    The caution of the Allied governments on the diplomatic front was matched by the caution of the Allied soldiers on the battlefield. One of the reasons Eisenhower and his deputies were unwilling to take risks in Italy was the steady relegation of the entire Mediterranean theater to a secondary status. For a year the Allied warriors in the Mediterranean had been directing the major offensive in what had then been the primary theater and for the most part they were accustomed to getting from the CCS the men and supplies for which they asked. From the early fall of 1943 onward, however, preparations for OVERLORD took precedence over operations in the Mediterranean, a situation which Eisenhower and his subordinates found frustrating. This, however, was only a psychological factor that could not be accurately measured. What could be counted were acute shortages in vital equipment, especially bombers and landing craft. Eisenhower could not persuade the CCS to provide him with his minimal needs and therefore had constantly to reduce his objectives—in short, to be cautious. The key figure in the refusals of support was George Marshall, who would do almost anything for Eisenhower except provide him with equipment that would have to be taken from the cross-Channel build-up.
    The best thing that could be said for the campaign was that in the end the Allies did conquer the Italian Peninsula. The generals and admirals