T H E A R M Y A I R F O R C E S I N W O R L D W A R I 1
planners should be ready with other alternatives: GYMNAST, or
campaigns in Norway or the Iberian peninsula.49Planning responsi-
bilities were divided, with the Americans taking GYMNAST, the
British the other two project^.^'
Actually the Washington conference had postponed rather than
decided the central issue of the second front for 1942, but with only
three months of favorable weather remaining, postponement was al-
most tantamount to refusal. Churchill was back in London by the
27th. In informed circles there it was generally accepted that there
would be no cross-Channel push that year.51 On 8 July the Prime
Minister informed Roosevelt that conditions favorable to SLEDGE-
HAMMER would probably not arise, and suggested that the Ameri-
cans push GYMNAST planning while the British worked on other
agreed alternative~.~~T o the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this message seemed
to endanger ROUNDUP as well as SLEDGEHAMMER. Unani-
mously in favor of BOLERO with either a 1942 or 1943 D-day, they
were equally opposed to GYMNAST as an expensive diversion of
dubious value. Since April, they had sensed a certain lack of en-
thusiasm among their British opposite members for a large-scale
invasion through France, and unless the British would support whole-
heartedly such a venture by 1943, the Joint Chiefs were prepared to
turn to the Pacific for a showdown with Japan.53
These views were communicated to the President on 10 July.54
A week later General Marshall, Admiral King, Harry Hopkins, and
a small staff flew to England to make a last endeavor to persuade the
British to go along with SLEDGEHAMMER. This the British were
unwilling to do. The memory of Dunkirk was still fresh and subse-
quent defeats in Africa had not lessened their respect for the German
army. They pointed again to practical difficulties which had been
urged in April and which they thought the Americans underestimated
-particularly the shortage in landing craft and the time factor. The
American position was the weaker because they could not in 1942
carry their share of the load. O n 2 2 July it was definitely agreed that
there would be no second front in Europe in 1 9 4 2 . ~ ~Discussion then
turned to those alternatives upon which the Combined Staff Planners
had been engaged.
O n the 24th, the U.S. Joint Chiefs presented a new proposal for
operations in 1942-43.56Preparations for ROUNDUP were to con-
tinue without abatement so long as the Russian situation seemed to
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