456 A Bridge Too Far

On October 20, 1944, Douglas MacArthur made good on his famous promise.

Bernard Montgomery proposed a risky operation that just might have allowed the Allies to break through the German defensive line. Meanwhile, Adolf Hitler was planning a risky operation of his own.

The Western Allied advance in August 1944 was breathtaking, but it stopped short at the German border as the German Army rebuilt its defenses and Allied supply lines became strained to the limit.

By 1944, a German defeat seemed inevitable. In August, Romania defected from the Axis and joined the Allies. Within weeks, Bulgaria followed suit, while Finland agreed to an armistice with the USSR. This left Hungary as Germany's sole remaining ally in Europe, and Hungary only stayed loyal because of German military intervention.

The British view on aerial bombing over Germany held that area attacks on German cities were the only effective form of attack. The Americans preferred to target specific sites crucial to the German war effort, an approach the head of RAF Bomber Command dismisses as "panacea targets."

The Second World War offered African Americans new opportunities and new political clout.

The United States had its Manhattan Project. Germany had its rockets.

By 1944, the United States had developed the facilities to produce U-235 and plutonium in sufficient quantities. The last problem was how to design and build a bomb that would detonate an atomic explosion when you wanted it, but not before.

The war made life in the Soviet Union very difficult. Even by Soviet standards, the government took an unprecedented degree of control over the allocation of labor and of food. Despite food shortages, there was no mass opposition as there had been in 1917.

The British had to deal with many more shortages of food and fuel and consumer goods than did Americans. And they had to worry about the Luftwaffe.