[This is the first half of a post that will continue tomorrow.]

It was the night of June 5, 1944, in the town of Neuville-au-Plain in Normandy. Madame Hamel-Hateau had just gone to bed with her mother and grandparents in the house. But their sleep was interrupted by the sound of aircraft flying low overhead. Her mother dismissed it as just another Allied bombing raid on the railway several kilometers away.

As the sound of aircraft engines diminished, she decided to go to sleep. But her eyes remained open. Soon she saw fantastic black shapes like umbrellas floating down from the sky. Before long the whole household was awake, as were the neighbors. Sleepy French townspeople, hastily dressed, went outdoors to see what was happening.

Madame Hamel-Hateau relates,

An impatient curiosity is stronger than the fear that grips me. I leave the courtyard and make my way onto the road. At the fence of a neighboring field, a man is sitting on the edge of the embankment. He is harnessed with big bags and armed from head to foot: rifle, pistol, and some sort of knife. He makes a sign for me to approach him. In English I ask him if his plane was shot down. He negates that and in a low voice shoots back the incredible news: “It’s the big invasion. . . . Thousands and thousands of paratroopers are landing in this countryside tonight.” His French is excellent. “I am an American soldier, but I speak your language well; my mother is a Frenchwoman of the Basse Pyrénées.” [Mary Louise Roberts, D-Day through French Eyes: Normandy 1944, University of Chicago Press, 2014]

Imagine the fear in her heart as this young woman approached the armed paratrooper! He and the thousands who came with him embodied a powerful message: peace and liberation for the French, defeat for the occupying Germans.

What if you were the first to witness the massive invasion of a fearsome army sent to liberate you from the worst of enemies. Would you be afraid? Would you be joyful?