ABSTRACT
Churchill knew exactly where he most urgently needed the application of US force: in the Mediterranean, an area he feared the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff might ‘too casually repudiate as not involving America’s most vital interests’. Afraid that the whole fury of the United States would be turned on Japan, while Britain was left to fight Germany and Italy in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the Prime Minister hastened to Washington. His object was to persuade Roosevelt and his service chiefs that the defeat of Japan would not spell the defeat of Hitler, but that, by contrast, if Hitler were defeated then finishing off Japan would be merely a matter of time and trouble.
