oosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill that the priority had to be Germany First. He framed proposals for a 1943 invasion (Operation Roundup), and another (Operation Sledgehammer) for 1942 in the event of a Russian collapse or a sudden weakening of Germanys position. Both plans were presented to the British in London in April 1942, and Roundup was adopted. The British, nevertheless, reserved objective doubts, and at subsequent Anglo-American conferences in Washington in June, and in London in July; squashed all thought of Sledgehammer and then succeeded in persuading the Americans to agree to a North African landing as the principal operation of 1942. Operation Torch as the landing in North Africa was to be code-named, effectively postponed Roundup again, while subsequent operations in Sicily and the Italian mainland delayed preparations for the cross-Channel invasion through 1943 as well. The postponements were a principal cause of concern at inter-Allied conferences at Washington, Quebec, Cairo, and Tehran. At the last gathering, Roosevelt and Stalin combined against Churchill to insist on the adoption of May 1944 as an unalterable date for the invasion. In return, Stalin agreed to mount a simultaneous offensive in Eastern Europe and to join in the war against Japan once Germany had been defeated. The decision taken at Tehran was a final indication of American determination to stage the cross-Channel invasion and a defeat for Alan Brooke, Churchills chief of staff and the principal opponent of premature action. Despite Brookes procrastination, the British had in fact been proceeding with structural plans, coordinated by Lieutenant General Frederick Morgan, who had been appointed COSSAC (chief of staff to the supreme Allied commander [designate]) at the Anglo-American Casablanca conference in January 1943. His staffs first plan for Operation Overlord was a landing in Normandy between Caen and the Cotentin Peninsula in strength of three ...
