40

Leiston Army Airfield
Monday, June 5, 1944

Luis Camacho showed his ID card to the MP at the entrance to the group briefing room. “Did you hear what OBee said this afternoon?”

“No, what?” Adler showed his card and put on a cheerful face for Doc Barker, the group flight surgeon, who eyed him closely. This was no day to be pulled for signs of combat fatigue.

Cam slipped his wallet into his back pocket. “When he landed, someone told him we had a briefing at eleven o’clock. He said, ‘We get to sleep in.’”

Adler laughed with the rest of the men. He didn’t blame William O’Brien for the error. Who would have expected a briefing at eleven o’clock at night?

In the back of the Nissen hut, he and his friends gathered by a window with its blackout curtains drawn. Nick stood in the front of the room, chatting with the two other squadron commanders.

“A night mission. We’ve never done that before.” Adler inspected the dozens of men in the smoke-filled room. How many were good at flying on instruments?

“This is it, I know it,” Rosie said.

“Me too,” Cam said. “If we’re going to invade, we’ll do so at first light. They’ll need fighters overhead.”

Which meant taking off at night. Which also meant the ships were already streaming across the Channel.

Without a doubt, Clay was on one of those ships. The Rangers were commandos trained for special assaults like this. Was Wyatt at sea, or was he a staff officer safely in London?

Maybe Wyatt and Clay had been able to meet. They had nothing to keep them apart and mutual betrayal by Adler to unite them.

Adler huffed out a breath. He’d repented of his sins and apologized to both brothers. He refused to let shame weigh him down.

“Let’s grab seats.” He led the men down the aisle of the Nissen hut, and they sat in the second row of folding wooden chairs. The curtain was still drawn over the map on the arched wall at the end of the room. Wooden aircraft models hung from the ceiling, but Adler had the silhouettes memorized by now.

“Attention!” someone shouted from the back of the room.

Adler shot to his feet with the rest of the pilots.

The group commanding officer, Col. Donald Graham, strode down the aisle. Only a year older than Adler, but Graham had done a fine job.

“Be seated, please, gentlemen.”

Adler sat, crossing his ankle over his knee. Silence hovered in the room, tense and eager.

Graham held a brown envelope, his expression serious. “Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces, will begin landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France.”

The tension exploded into murmurs. Adler glanced at Rosie and nodded. They’d guessed, and deep inside they’d known—but now it became real.

“Normandy.” As the curtain was opened, Graham pointed to the map, decorated with more blue and red ribbons than ever. “Our troops will land on five beaches between Cherbourg and Le Havre. Even now our paratroopers are about to set foot on French soil.”

Normandy? Adler leaned forward over his knees. Everyone expected the invasion in the Pas de Calais region where the Channel was narrowest.

Graham’s pointer slid from the Isle of Wight on England’s southern coast down to Normandy. “This is the shipping area. P-38 Lightnings will cover the fleet.”

That made sense. The Lightning’s distinctive twin-boomed profile would be easy for naval gunners to recognize.

“RAF Spitfires will provide low cover over the landing beaches, with the P-47s and P-51s of the Ninth Air Force providing high cover. Heavy and medium bombers will drop their loads on the beaches right before the first wave of troops reaches shore.”

He traced the blue ribbon’s U-shaped pattern for the bombers’ course, south to Normandy, west over the Cherbourg peninsula past the Channel Islands, then north to England.

“The P-47s and P-51s of the Eighth Air Force will patrol this area.” Graham traced a larger semicircle outside the bombers’ path. “P-47s to the east, P-51s to the west.”

He tapped a red rectangular box just west of Guernsey assigned to the 357th Fighter Group. Two squadrons would patrol from 0425 to 0830, covering the time of the first landings, and the third squadron would arrive later to relieve them.

If Luftwaffe opposition was heavy, in the afternoon the 357th would escort heavy bomber missions. If not, the P-51s would fly dive-bombing and strafing missions behind the invasion beaches to halt German reinforcements.

“The role of the fighters is to maintain control of the air over the critical area, to isolate the battlefield, and to support the ground troops.”

Adler studied the blackboards at the front of the room with takeoff times, wind information, checkpoints, and call signs, and he wrote the most important information on the back of his left hand.

The group intelligence officer, Maj. Alfred Craven, took the floor. Everyone expected heavy opposition by the Luftwaffe. With eleven thousand Allied planes in the air, the Germans would put out maximum effort. Craven also pointed out areas where flak was expected.

Then the station weather officer, Capt. Leo Miller, took his turn. No good news. Rain on takeoff and heavy overcast all the way.

Not one man grumbled. The soldiers and sailors were already out in that weather, and they needed air cover. Adler would fly in a blizzard today if he had to.

Graham returned to the front. After he had the men synchronize their watches, he encouraged them to turn in and then dismissed them.

Turn in? With takeoff at 0215, a squadron briefing before that, and the excitement of the pending missions, who could sleep?

Nick reached over the row of chairs and clasped Adler’s hand. “I’m glad you’ll be up there with me, buddy.”

“Me too.” Adler’s throat thickened, and he shook Nick’s hand hard. “You take care now, you hear?”

“You too.”

What would Adler have done without Nick’s friendship? Lord, keep him safe.

Why was it that the more Violet needed to sleep, the less she was able to do so?

She rolled over again on the cot in the chilly hallway. She and Kitty had given their room to four of the civilian workers and volunteers. Maybe their presence guarding the door to both bedrooms would reassure anxious parents and jealous husbands.

Violet folded the sheet over the top of the scratchy gray Army blanket and burrowed deeper under the covers. How late was it anyway? It had to be going on two o’clock. With a busy day ahead, she needed her sleep, but how could she with the constant drone of planes—and the knowledge of what that sound probably meant?

“You can’t sleep either?” Kitty whispered.

“No.” Violet flopped onto her back.

“Worried about Adler?”

She hadn’t heard his name for several days, and it hurt. “All the men, really.” If the Luftwaffe fought hard on most days, what would they do on D-day?

“You still love him, don’t you?”

Violet squeezed her eyes shut against the pain of voicing the truth. “Very much.”

For over two weeks, Violet had been enigmatic about what had happened with Adler, but something about the darkness, the fatigue, and the magnitude of the day loosened her tongue. “It isn’t his fault. It’s mine.”

“What do you mean?”

She chose her words with care. “A few years ago, he did something bad. I never knew about it. That day in the office—he received a letter. He found out people were . . . hurt because of what he did. He showed me the letter.”

“And you—”

“I was awful, Kitty. Just awful.” She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. “I judged him, as if I were better than he is, which I’m not—not in the least. And I rejected him and abandoned him when he needed me most. At the hoedown I apologized and he forgave me, but . . .” Her throat muscles strangled her vocal cords.

Kitty murmured in sympathy.

Violet sniffed and hauled in a breath. “He doesn’t want me back.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” If only God had chosen another way to teach her humility and compassion, but she hadn’t learned from her earlier lessons, had she?

“Look on the bright side.” Kitty sounded chipper. “In about a week, you’ll get to escape all this and go home.”

Something about that struck Violet as ridiculously funny, and a wet giggle bubbled up. And another.

Kitty joined in.

Oh no, they were going to wake the ladies! Violet rolled over and buried her laughter in her pillow.

Muffled sounds down the hallway told her Kitty was doing the same.

In a few minutes they stilled. Violet turned onto her side, with a strange sense of cleansing and refreshment. Yes, she’d go home to an unknown future, but she’d go home a changed woman. Surely, God could find a use for her now that she had a proper view of herself and others.

“Do the planes sound different?” Kitty whispered.

They did. Louder and throatier and closer. “I want to see.”

“Me too.”

Violet flung off the covers, dug her feet into her oxfords, and pulled on the wool overcoat she’d draped over her cot in case she needed to use the latrine in the middle of the night.

She and Kitty headed out the side door into the cool night. Raindrops hit Violet’s head, but only a drizzle.

Overhead, aircraft engines droned. RAF bombers passed over Leiston more nights than not, but this was much louder.

Violet shielded her eyes. In the inkiness above, lights flashed, muted by the overcast. “I think they’re signaling each other.”

“There must be hundreds. Thousands. We must have put up anything that can fly.” Kitty pressed her shoulder to Violet’s arm.

In the dark and the rain, Violet watched history fly above her. Lord, give them strength and courage and victory.

The throatier, more distinct sound that had drawn them outside . . . it came from ground level. From the runways at Leiston. “Our boys,” Violet said.

“They’ve never taken off at night before, have they?”

“Not that I know of.” A faint green and red glow rose from that direction, the source blocked by the buildings. They must have broken the blackout to illuminate the runways for the pilots.

“It’s today,” Kitty murmured.

“Today.”

Kitty dropped to her knees on the walkway, pulled out rosary beads, and crossed herself. “In nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti. Amen.”

Violet didn’t know the rosary, and she’d forgotten most of her high school Latin, but the ancient prayer sank into her soul, the repetitive urgency feeling right.

“Pater noster, qui es in cælis.”

Violet dropped to her knees too, the concrete cold and rough and damp through the fabric of her pajamas. “Our Father which art in heaven.”

Kitty peeked at Violet.

Violet dipped her head, motioning her friend back to her rosary.

“Pater noster, qui es in cælis, sanctificétur nomen tuum.”

“Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”

“Advéniat regnum tuum. Fiat volúntas tua, sicut in cælo, et in terra.”

“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”

Violet linked arms with Kitty, linked prayers with her. Tens of thousands of men, maybe hundreds of thousands, were flying and sailing and marching into battle. They could use every prayer they could get.