Britain’s popular newspapers greeted Christmas 1943 with the fond hope that it would be the last Christmas of the war. Daily Mail columnist Simon Harcourt-Smith wrote: “We will have only ourselves to blame if by Christmas 1944 our victory in Europe is not several months old.”
The popular left-wing weekly Picture Post was equally optimistic: “Christmas 1943 brings promise,” it declared, adding: “The day we are looking for is coming – perhaps sooner than we all expect.” And writing for Picture Post, Dorothy Crook, an American experiencing her first Christmas in England, thought Britons were enjoying “the brightest and most hopeful Christmas season in five years”.
