On May 19, 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (left)
and U.S. U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt (right) set a date for
the cross-Channel landing that would become D-Day, May 1, 1944
but, that date would prove a bit premature, as bad weather became
a factor.
Addressing a joint session of Congress, Churchill warned that the
real danger at present was the “dragging-out of the war at enormous expense” because of the risk that the Allies would become “tired or bored or split”—and play into the hands of Germany and Japan. He pushed for an early and massive attack on the “underbelly of the
Axis.”