On December 29, 1940, Franklin Roosevelt used a Fireside Chat to argue more openly for aiding Britain. With reelection behind him, Franklin Roosevelt denounced appeasement, called America the “arsenal of democracy,” and said he believed the Axis would not win. In reality, that confidence rested largely on Franklin Roosevelt’s expectation that Lend-Lease would pass and transform Britain’s chances.

That same night, while millions in America and Britain listened, the Luftwaffe launched one of its largest raids yet against London’s financial district, the City. The timing and conditions favored maximum destruction: it was a Sunday in Christmas week, the Thames was at low tide, the night was moonless, and KGr 100 used radio beacons, incendiaries, and high explosives to start fires and cripple firefighting. The result was the “Second Great Fire of London,” with about fifteen hundred fires, 90 percent of the City destroyed, and St. Paul’s Cathedral only narrowly spared.

In Berlin, Joseph Goebbels raged at Franklin Roosevelt’s speech and exulted in the raid’s apparent success, believing sustained bombing might break London and impress the United States. In Britain, however, Alexander Cadogan and Winston Churchill saw the attack differently: the devastation might strengthen American sympathy at the very moment Roosevelt needed support for Lend-Lease. On New Year’s Eve, Winston Churchill met with Beaverbrook, Anthony Eden, and Kingsley Wood to draft a message thanking Franklin Roosevelt but also warning that Britain still lacked clear, practical help and might soon default on payments for American supplies.

As the year closed, the chapter shifts briefly to private scenes that underline the contrast between public war and personal reflection. Mary Churchill filled diary pages with books, songs, and remembered lyrics, while Joseph Goebbels spent New Year’s Eve in comfort at his country house and admitted unease about that privilege. In London, John Colville and John Martin toasted the New Year on the roof of the Cabinet War Rooms, even as the grim toll of 1940 stood at 13,596 Londoners killed and 18,378 seriously injured by German raids, with worse still to come.