Remembering D-Day: Honoring A Personal Story from June 6, 1944

My mother grew up fast, as did the other kids born in 1924.

She was a senior in high school when Pearl Harbor was bombed and World War 2 broke out. By the time her class graduated in June, 1942, forty students strong, three or four boys from it had been killed in battle. Several more had been drafted and sent to fight. Not the farm boys, though, as part of the defense effort they got deferments to stay behind and work family farms.

My mother married an Army officer right out of high school. A speed demon of a typist, and accurate, she got a civilian job with the Army, for the Post Commander of the base. A transfer to the typing pool a few weeks into the job seemed like a demotion. The Commander assured her it wasn’t and said she would understand the move when the time was right.

The typists worked long hours in round-the-clock shifts, seven days a week. As all of their work was in code, which changed every few days, they had no idea what they were typing but they knew something big was coming up. Armed soldiers stood guard over them.

On the morning of June 6, 1944 my mother listened to the radio, as she did every morning, anxious for new about the war. Thousands of Allied troops had invaded Normandy in a massive operation devised to liberate Western Europe from the Nazis.

She went to work as usual, but there was little work for the typing pool and none for the extra typists who had been brought in with her. When the officer in charge appeared, she knew what the Post Commander hadn’t been allowed to tell her. The pool had been typing orders for the invasion. He thanked the typists for their role in the liberation effort. But always in the back of her mind remained the boys she had sent into harm’s way.