Franklin D. Roosevelt's Christmas Eve Fireside Chat On The Teheran And Cairo Conferences,

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. My friends, I have recently returned from extensive journeyings in the region of the Mediterranean and as far as the borders of Russia. I have conferred with the leaders of Britain and Russia and China on military matters of the President, especially on plans for stepping up our successful attack on our enemies as

quickly as possible and from many different points of the compass. On this Christmas Eve, there are over 10 million men in the armed forces of the United States alone. One year ago, 1,700,000 were serving overseas.

this figure has been more than doubled to 3,800,000 on duty overseas. And by next July 1st, that number overseas will rise to over 5 million men and women. That this is truly a world war was demonstrated to me when arrangements were being made with our overseas broadcasting agencies for the time for me to speak today to our soldiers and sailors and Marines and

merchant seamen in every part of the world. In fixing the time for this broadcast, we took into consideration that at this moment here in the United States and in the Caribbean and on the northeast coast of South America, it is afternoon. In Alaska and in Hawaii and the the Med Pacific, it is still mourning in Iceland, in Great Britain, in North Africa,

in Italy, in the Middle East, it is now evening. In the Southwest Pacific, in Australia, China, and Burma, and India, it is already Christmas Day. So we can correctly say that at this moment in those eastern, those far eastern parts where Americans are fighting, today is tomorrow.