Tragic experience like this is an integral part of war, for friend and foe alike. Many of those tormented women still bear the scars - ten years afterward. For agonizing weeks they could not learn when or where their men would enter the conflict. The women who prayed for them at home knew something of these dangers and imagined more. But they were aware of the perils awaiting them, from overhead, from under the sea from the powerful guns, obstacles and alerted enemy of Hitler's boasted 'Atlantic Wall.' These men were fit and confident from many months of sound training. Embarked, or waiting their turn, were two million young men and they were but the vanguard of the ultimate strength of the Invasion. Out of every port and shelter indenting the Southern coast of England, from Bristol to the Thames, had emerged, or were emerging nearly 5,000 ships and craft.

It gave new life to the men who fought and sweat in the far-spread theatres of the war and to those unhappy ones who starved in the slave labor camps of the enemy. Conviction and resolve were hardened in the minds of free peoples and of those who longed to be free. The news of it brought real, if fearful, hope to unhappy millions under the heel of the 'Axis', from Europe's western border to Cathay and the scattered islands of the Pacific. The Allies had landed upon the captive shores of France. On a Tuesday morning ten years ago, a world already too accustomed to thrills, turned on its radio and stood transfixed.

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