I Survived the Battle of D-Day, 1944 (I Survived #18)

  For Marilyn Merker Goldman

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  KEEP READING!

  WRITING ABOUT D–DAY

  SOME QUESTIONS THAT MIGHT BE ON YOUR MIND

  SOME VEHICLES USED DURING OPERATION OVERLORD

  A TIMELINE OF D–DAY

  FURTHER READING

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 1944

  THE CLIFFS ABOVE OMAHA BEACH

  NORMANDY, FRANCE

  AROUND 1:00 A.M.

  Eleven-year-old Paul Colbert was running for his life.

  It was D-Day, one of the bloodiest days of World War II. More than 150,000 soldiers from America, England, and Canada were invading France.

  They had sailed across the sea on seven thousand ships, creeping through the dark of night.

  Their mission: to free France from the brutal grip of Nazi Germany. It was time to crush the Nazis, and end the war.

  In the minutes before the ships arrived, Paul was crouched on a cliff above the beach. He was trying to escape before the battle began. But now warplanes were zooming through the sky. And suddenly there was a shattering blast.

  Kaboom!

  Paul looked up in horror and saw that a plane was now in flames. And it was in a fiery death spiral, heading right for him.

  Paul ran wildly as the burning plane fell from the sky. The air filled with the gagging stench of burning metal and melting rubber. The engine screamed and moaned. It sounded like a giant beast bellowing in pain.

  No matter where Paul went, the dying plane seemed to be following him, like it wanted Paul to die, too.

  And then, smack! Something hit Paul on the head. His skull seemed to explode in pain. Paul fell to the ground as the burning wreckage came crashing down.

  For four long years, Paul had been praying for this day — for the war to end, for France to be finally free from the Nazis.

  But now, it seemed, this day would be his last.

  THE DAY BEFORE

  WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 1944

  THE TOWN OF LE ROC

  NORMANDY, FRANCE

  AROUND 11:00 A.M.

  Paul kicked his soccer ball along the winding dirt road. For the first time in months, he wasn’t worrying about the miserable war. He wasn’t wondering whether he’d ever see Papa again. He wasn’t thinking about Adolf Hitler, the evil German Nazi leader, or his soldiers who’d invaded Paul’s country, his town, and his life.

  This is going to be a good day, he told himself. It was his mother’s birthday. Paul was going to buy her some cookies.

  How long had it been since he or his mother — Maman — had eaten a cookie or a cake or a bar of chocolate? He had no idea. With the war in its fifth year, all the best foods had disappeared. Poor Maman made her coffee out of ground acorns mixed with hot water.

  Paul’s mouth watered as he remembered biting into a chocolate éclair, with the sweet, velvety cream that slid down his throat. Or a crepe filled with strawberry jam that made his fingers sticky all day.

  Maman’s favorites were madeleines, little buttery cookies that melted in your mouth. So that’s what Paul would get for her.

  Paul pictured Maman now — her gentle eyes, her warm smile. She worked all the time, sewing and mending clothing to support them. Some mornings she was gone making deliveries before he climbed out of bed.

  Making Maman happy was worth anything to Paul.

  Even his soccer ball.

  He gave the brown leather ball a gentle tap with his toe.

  That’s how he was going to get Maman her cookies. He would sell the ball. Right now he was heading to the dingy little market down by the river. That’s where desperate people from Le Roc went to sell things — their wedding rings, their prized books, their last pair of shoes.

  Nobody played much soccer these days. Practically every young man in Europe was either fighting in the war or was a prisoner of the Germans. But Paul’s soccer ball was leather, which was scarce. Someone could cut it up and turn it into a pair of shoes or gloves.

  Paul flinched as he imagined his ball getting butchered. He kicked it even more gently.

  Maman and Papa had given it to him for his seventh birthday. He’d rushed over to show it to his best friend, Gerard. They were both soccer fanatics.

  “Now we’re going to the World Cup for sure!” Gerard had said, pushing his curls out of his eyes and cracking that bright, lopsided smile of his.

  Over the next few years, this ball had gone everywhere with them.

  They’d chased it thousands of times across their schoolyard. They’d dribbled it through the wheat fields and orchards and down every cobblestoned street of their town. They’d practiced penalty kicks on the beach as the waves crashed, diving into the sand to stop the ball from rolling into the ocean.

  “Race you!” Paul would shout, and he and Gerard would go charging after the ball.

  Paul still loved the game. But he hadn’t touched the soccer ball in months.

  Not since Gerard had disappeared.

  The Nazis had taken Gerard and his family away.

  Paul’s stomach twisted as he thought about it. One cold night in March, the Nazis had arrested every Jewish person in town and shoved them into trucks. Nobody knew for sure where the Nazis had taken them, but there were rumors too horrifying to believe. About children torn away from their parents. About train cars where people were packed so tightly they couldn’t breathe. About huge prisons where people were starved and worked to death.

  Some nights Paul lay in his bed, praying that what he’d heard wasn’t true.

  Paul gave his ball a furious kick. Then he closed his eyes and took a breath. No, he told himself. He wasn’t going to think about the Nazis today. It was Maman’s birthday.

  This was going to be a good day.

  ONE HOUR LATER

  Paul brushed off his soccer ball one last time, then slapped it on the table at the market.

  “I’m not taking that,” the man behind the table said gruffly. Paul knew his name was Boris. He was the only leatherworker left in town. “Nobody wants one of those,” Boris said.

  Paul scrunched up his face, trying to think of what to say to Boris next.

  “But it’s good leather,” Paul said.

  Boris shook his head. “Don’t want it.”

  Paul sighed. He hadn’t thought of what would happen if he couldn’t sell the ball. He grabbed it back and found a quiet spot in the dirt to sit down and think.

  This park near the river used to be a place filled with flowers, where families sat on blankets and ate crunchy bread and soft cheese. Where kids threw their bread crusts to the ducks and floated toy sailboats in the river.

  There were no flowers anymore, no food for picnics. The Nazis had chopped down the trees and sent the wood to Germany. Nobody came here for fun. Even the ducks were gone; people had eaten them out of desperation.

  But Paul had an extra reason for hating it down here. It was something that had happened last fall. Paul picked up a stick and stabbed it into the dirt
as the memory flashed through his mind like a jagged piece of glass.

  He’d come here with Maman that day, to sell the last of the silver cups she’d inherited from her grandmother. They had to sell the cup to buy coal for the winter so they wouldn’t freeze. Paul was waiting for Maman as she bargained with the merchant who bought silver. And then suddenly Paul saw a man walking very quickly across the park.

  Paul instantly recognized him: It was his teacher, Mr. Leon.

  Paul and Gerard loved Mr. Leon. He never yelled at them when they kicked their ball through the hall. He told the best stories about the Castle Le Roc, the crumbling old castle at the edge of town. He told them that many believed there was a dragon that still lived in the tower. It was a huge winged beast with a snake’s head, a falcon beak, and fiery breath.

  “Its glowing eyes peer through the cracks of the tower,” he would say, in that low, smooth voice of his. “Its wings go whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!”

  Most people in town were too scared to go to the castle. But sometimes Paul and Gerard would sneak up there.

  But even better than his stories, Mr. Leon made Paul feel safe. No matter what was happening outside their school.

  That day in the park, Paul was about to call out to Mr. Leon. But suddenly Mr. Leon broke into a run. And two Nazi soldiers came chasing after him.

  Paul closed his eyes, trying to stop the nightmare memory — the three gunshots, the sight of Mr. Leon falling to the ground and then rolling into the river. Paul had watched as his teacher’s body sank down. Even now, he couldn’t believe that Mr. Leon was gone.

  Paul stabbed the dirt with the stick again. He remembered how the Nazis closed down the school after that. They said Mr. Leon was a traitor, a criminal, and a spy.

  But as it turned out, Mr. Leon was a hero.

  What nobody had known before Mr. Leon’s murder was that he belonged to a secret group called the resistance.

  It was like a small army, but not with soldiers. Its members were regular people — writers, shopkeepers, farmers, doctors … and teachers. They stole Nazi secrets for the Allies. They blew up Nazi trains loaded with weapons and tanks. It still shocked Paul that Mr. Leon had been in the resistance.

  It didn’t matter now, though. The resistance had been crushed, in Le Roc and all over France. That’s what Paul had heard. The Nazis had hunted the members down, killed thousands of them. And usually the Nazis didn’t just shoot them. They tortured them first so they would spill the names of others in their group.

  Mr. Leon, people said, had been lucky he died quickly.

  Paul closed his eyes. Mr. Leon had risked his life fighting for something important. Couldn’t Paul at least try a little harder to get a present for Maman? He couldn’t give up so easily.

  Back at Boris’s table, Paul set the ball down once again.

  “I told you,” Boris said, his lips closing in a tight line. “Nobody wants that ball. Take it home.”

  Paul felt a lump forming in his throat.

  “Please … it’s my mother’s birthday,” he said, struggling to keep his voice steady. “I need the money so I can get her a gift.”

  Without a word, Boris snatched the ball. He reached into his pocket and handed Paul ten coins.

  Paul’s heart leaped. He smiled at Boris, then took the coins and ran to the bakery, the one all the Nazi officers went to.

  Paul slapped his coins on the counter. The pretty, young shopgirl, Marie, looked at him with surprise.

  “One dozen madeleines please,” he said.

  Five minutes later, Paul had one dozen cookies warm from the oven, tucked into a little white box.

  He walked home along the dirt road. He breathed in the sweet, buttery smell.

  Maman had said she wouldn’t be home until late tonight, after Paul went to bed. But the cookies would stay fresh until then. Paul pictured Maman’s smiling face when she took her first bite.

  Suddenly the air filled with the ferocious roar of engines.

  Vroom! Vroom!

  Paul whipped around just as a swarm of Nazi soldiers on motorcycles came zooming around the corner.

  They were heading right for him.

  Paul threw himself out of the way and smashed into the wall of thick, towering bushes that lined the road. He held his breath. The soldiers zoomed by. They were a blur of gray metal and black leather and red Nazi flags.

  Those soldiers would have run him down, Paul knew. They would have crushed him under speeding wheels and left him for dead. Like a worm cut in two by a plow.

  Where were those soldiers going? The question stabbed him in the gut. He knew that somebody was about to get arrested — or shot.

  Paul pulled himself out of the thick, prickly bushes and stared at the cookies — or what little was left of them.

  The box lay open a few feet away in front of a gate in the hedge. The cookies were smashed to pieces. Paul desperately tried to scoop up the crumbs.

  But it was useless.

  Hot tears stung his eyes.

  He hated those men! He wanted to chase them down, knock them off their bikes, rip away those swastika flags and stamp them under his boots.

  Of course Paul couldn’t do that. All he could do was sit here in the road, crying like a baby over a pile of cookie crumbs. But Paul knew that wasn’t what was truly bothering him.

  It was this helpless feeling. There was nothing he could do to fight back against the Nazis.

  Nothing anyone could do.

  Papa had tried to fight back … and look what had happened to him.

  He’d joined the French army right after Germany invaded France. Within six weeks, the Germans had killed tens of thousands of French soldiers. They took nearly two million men prisoner, including Papa. France surrendered. Now the Nazi flag flapped over the Eiffel Tower — and most of Europe, too.

  And Papa? He was trapped in a Nazi prison camp somewhere in Germany. Paul and Maman hadn’t heard from him in four years.

  Paul shook his head to clear his mind. He couldn’t just sit here crying all day.

  He was brushing off his trousers when he heard a strange sound.

  “Coo-roo.”

  He looked up, and a plump gray bird was staring at him from the bushes. The bird swooped through the air and landed at Paul’s feet.

  It must have come for the cookies.

  “Go ahead,” Paul said, motioning to the crumbs. “Someone should eat them.”

  But the bird ignored the crumbs. It peered up at Paul. It had very shiny eyes, gold with a dot of black in the middle.

  “Coo-roo,” it said brightly. “Coo-roo, coo-roo, coo-roo.”

  It fluffed its feathers at Paul. And then it flew around in a slow circle, hovering for a moment right in front of his face.

  “Coo-roo.”

  “What?” Paul asked gently. “What do you want?”

  Was he actually talking to a pigeon?

  Yes. And the pigeon seemed to be talking to him.

  “Coo-roo.”

  The bird took off over the hedge into the meadow. And Paul walked through the gate after it. It had been a bad morning. Following a friendly bird into a meadow didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

  The bird flew low, looped around Paul, and headed for a tall apple tree in the middle of the meadow. It circled the tree as Paul walked through the tall grass to join it. Then, all of a sudden, the bird zipped up into the leaves and Paul lost sight of it.

  He gazed up through the branches, searching for the bird.

  Something wet dropped onto Paul’s head. He wiped it away and glanced at his hand.

  It was streaked with blood.

  He cautiously stepped aside, and looked up. Paul froze at what he saw.

  His mouth fell open but he was too shocked to scream.

  High up in the tree, dangling from a branch, was a man in a dark-green army uniform. Paul couldn’t see him from this angle very well. But he knew the man was a soldier. He was attached to the tree by the strings of a parachute, which must
have snagged on one of the upper branches. Paul had no doubt the man was dead.

  Based on his uniform, Paul guessed the soldier was American or British, or maybe Canadian. Those countries were Hitler’s enemies. They had banded together with Russia and other countries, and were fighting against Germany in the war. They had formed a team: the Allies.

  This soldier must have flown here from one of the air bases in England. That’s where the Allies had most of their soldiers and bases now. England was one of the only countries in Europe the Nazis hadn’t been able to swallow up. All that separated France from England was a narrow slice of ocean, called the English Channel.

  Paul tried to get a better look. He stepped slowly, his boots crunching in the grass.

  He used to dream that the Allies would rescue France. But he’d given up on that a long time ago. The Nazis were too strong. They had France all locked up. The beaches here in Le Roc and along the coast were lined with cannons and machine guns.

  Allied planes sometimes made it through to drop bombs. But just as often their planes were shot down over France. Their soldiers sometimes escaped — they bailed out and parachuted to the ground. That’s what must have happened to this soldier. But then he’d crashed into this tree … and died.

  “Hey, kid, can you help me?” a voice called down.

  Paul jumped so high he nearly hit his head on a branch. So this soldier wasn’t dead. He spoke in French, but with a strange twang. American, maybe?

  “I need to cut myself down from here, but I dropped my knife,” the soldier continued. “It’s somewhere on the ground.”

  Paul scanned the grass. There it was, a sharp-looking knife with a wooden handle.

  Paul took a step toward it, but then his body froze.

  A terrified little voice shouted inside his skull.

  Are you crazy?! Stop right now! Get out of here quick!

  Paul knew what happened to people who were caught helping Allied soldiers.

  A couple months ago, the Nazis had found an Allied pilot hiding in a barn near the edge of town. They shot the pilot and the farmer who owned the barn. They sent that farmer’s family — including his little children — to a work camp. Nobody expected them to make it out of there alive.