“An unforgettable account of D-Day” from the perspective of a young woman who saved the lives of Allied soldiers (New Statesman).
Growing up in the remote, marshy lowlands of Normandy, young Geneviève Duboscq had little concept of war—even after Nazi Germany occupied France. But that would change on the night of June 5, 1944, when the first wave of Allied paratroopers descended on either side of the Paris-to-Cherbourg railway line—virtually in the Duboscq family’s backyard. Throughout that historic night, Geneviève and her father, a hard-drinking peasant named Papa Maurice, saved numerous Americans from drowning and gave them refuge while they regrouped for what was to become one of the most heroic battles of World War II.
This touching eyewitness account, told from the perspective of a twelve-year-old girl, has all the force and beauty of Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl.
“So direct and unaffected that the mot juste is ‘amateur’ in the original sense of the one who embarks on a project motivated by love and conviction rather than for gain.” —Los Angeles Times
“One of the most personal descriptions of D-Day that we are likely to have.” —The Christian Science Monitor
