In the first week of March 1941, Winston Churchill is tense because the Lend-Lease Bill still has not passed and American polling shows support slipping slightly. At a lunch in the newly armored basement dining room at No. 10, hosted for Harvard president James Conant, Churchill arrives late, ill with bronchitis, tired, and bad-tempered. Clementine Churchill tries to keep the gathering going, but Churchill only becomes more engaged after Conant declares strong support for Lend-Lease and says he has urged direct American intervention.

Once encouraged, Churchill speaks enthusiastically about the recent British commando raid on Norway’s Lofoten Islands, Operation Claymore. Publicly, the raid is a success because it destroys cod-liver-oil and glycerin facilities and captures German troops and Norwegian collaborators. Privately, Churchill knows its greater importance: the raiders have seized an Enigma component and German naval cipher keys, giving Bletchley Park a new chance to read German navy traffic and U-boat orders. Churchill then returns to the issue worrying him most and tells Conant that the bill must pass because failure would damage both Britain and Franklin Roosevelt historically and politically.

At the same time, John Colville continues trying to leave his post and join active service. After a ride in Richmond Park on a horse borrowed from Louis Greig, Colville impulsively says during the drive back to London that he wants to join a bomber crew in the RAF, believing Churchill may allow that more readily than service in the army or navy. Greig agrees to arrange the first medical step, and Colville is delighted, despite the deadly odds facing new bomber crews.

Elsewhere, official thinking in Washington and Berlin shows how precarious Britain’s position remains. The U.S. War Department’s War Plans Division concludes that Britain might still fall before November 1941 through blockade, intensified air and naval attack, and possible invasion, even though British production and American aid are rising. In Berlin, Adolf Hitler issues Directive No. 24, signed by Wilhelm Keitel, urging Japan to act in the Far East so British strength is diverted and the United States is pulled toward the Pacific. The directive makes clear that Germany’s shared strategic aim remains the swift conquest of England to keep America out of the war.