This Day in History-May 19, 1943

FDR and Winston Churchill Meet to Plot D-Day Invasion.

On May 19, 1943, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met to set the date of May 1, 1944 as the date for the Cross-Channel invasion that would become referred to as D-Day. That date, however, would be pushed back to June 6th as bad weather became a factor.

British Prime Minister and U.S. President Winston Churchill plot D-Day

Churchill, addressing a Joint-Session of Congress, warned that the real, present danger, was the “dragging out of the war at enormous expense.” Churchill also said that because of the danger that the allies might become “tired, or bored, or split,” that they would play right into the hands of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Churchill pushed for an attack on the “underbelly of the Axis,” meaning Southern France and Italy.

So, to “speed” the timetable up, Roosevelt and Churchill set a date for the cross-channel invasion of Normandy in the northern part of France, for May 1, 1944. This was regardless of the problems that were presented by the invasion of Italy, which was already underway. The D-Day or Normandy invasion would be carried out by 29 divisions, including Free French divisions.

On account of bad weather, which hindered the landing of troops at Normandy, the D-Day invasion, in reality began on June 6, 1944.

Source Article: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/churchill-and-fdr-plot-d-day

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