Winston Churchill despatched Lord Louis Mountbatten, the British Chief of Combined Operations, to Washington DC, United States to persuade the Americans that an invasion across the English Channel into occupied France would, at this time, only lead to disaster. As an alternative he proposed an Anglo-American landing in French North Africa later in the year. Mountbatten was authorised to tell the Americans that Great Britain would only agree to a 1942 attack across the Channel if the Soviets were to be in immediate danger of surrendering
