| In June, 1944, a thirty-nine-year-old New Yorker writer named A. J. Liebling boarded an American landing craft and waited to set sail for the coast of France. Days later, the first Allied forces would gain a foothold on the Continent during D Day, the bloody surprise invasion that began seventy-nine years ago on Tuesday. D Day would turn the tide of the Second World War and break the Nazis’ grip on Europe—but, at the time of his reporting, neither Liebling nor the soldiers knew the fate that awaited them. In “Cross-Channel Trip,” a three-part dispatch published in the weeks after the invasion, Liebling records the sights and sensations of the men who would change the course of the twentieth century. Part 1 unfolds at an unnamed British port, amid uncertainty about when Liebling and his shipmates can follow the Allied forces embarking first for Normandy. Weather conditions are less than ideal; the Associated Press has published a “premature invasion report,” and the men fear that the Germans will be all too well prepared for their arrival. Various coping mechanisms emerge: Liebling, a native of New York City, looks at the water and is fleetingly reminded of the Sheepshead Bay channel, visible from Brooklyn. Some men play poker, and one sings a song he’s written: “I’m going over to France and I’m shaking in my pants.” Liebling had previously reported on the war from France, Britain, and North Africa, and his descriptions remain potent, nearly eight decades on. The window to launch is closing, and then the moment is arriving. “The port,” he writes, “didn’t look like Sheepshead Bay now.” | 
No comments:
Post a Comment