Night had fallen. The President's train coursed northward through the moonlit Shenandoah Valley, bearing him back to Washington from Charlottesville. At the State Department in Washington, a message marked "Personal for the President" awaited him. It was French Premier Paul Reynaud's last appeal for "clouds of war-planes." The U. S. had no such clouds to give. At Charlottesville. Mr. Roosevelt had already said: the U. S. would throw into World War II. on the Allies' side, all that it had except its man power.
Events soon outpaced the 90 Navy bombers, the...