We were quiet at breakfast that morning. The Daily News lay ignored on the kitchen table. It was the radio that commanded our attention as my parents, younger brother and I learned that, while we had slept in our Queens home, Allied troops had begun landing in Normandy. No high fives, no signs of surprise, just serious listening.
Unlike most major World War II events — Pearl Harbor or the invasion of Russia — the assault on Nazi-held Western Europe had been long expected. The questions were when and where. The anticipated assault had been the topic of choice among the guys in our fifth grade class as we clustered each morning in the crowded playground of the Immaculate Conception School before Sister Eunice rang the bell that commanded silence.
Opinions abounded: Southern France in April, Holland in May, the Atlantic coast of France in summer. Guesswork for sure. We were young, too young for movies, baseball or even girls to hold our attention. It was the war that got us going. We were old enough to know that we were fighting some really bad guys and had to beat them. We knew that success on D-Day would help us win that war. Not just "wind it down," but actually win it. Everyone got that. Americans were together then.
Sure, as my schoolmates and I huddled that D-Day morning we were oceans away from real war — the "total" war that kids in Europe and China knew so well. Yet pictures of war had made their mark. The 1937 photo of a Chinese baby crying on the railroad tracks in Shanghai remains sharp in my mind. And at the movies on Saturday afternoons we watched newsreels from Europe.
Then one Sunday in December 1941, as we drove to visit family friends, I learned of a place called Pearl Harbor. My hunger for war news grew. Most mornings I hurried downstairs only to read bad news — Wake falls, Singapore falls, Bataan falls. Then good news. We bomb Tokyo. How great was that? Then things improved.
When illness kept me bedridden for six weeks, I listened to reports from London, Moscow and Chungking. I mapped changes in the battle lines. My classmate Bernie did the same. I wrote comic books on the fight for an imagined Pacific island.
But it was more than a personal awakening. Everyone joined the war effort. My brother and my friend Tom collected used newspapers. Mom saved kitchen fat. Kids saved for war bonds. On D-day everyone prayed.
Support for the war was everywhere. Draft dodgers went to jail. Sure, America had economic disparities, anti-Semitism and racial segregation. But none of that stopped us from doing what we had to do, even at a staggering cost. On D-Day, 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded. The battle for Normandy left tens of thousands of dead civilians.
Now, as we reflect on that "Longest Day," I cannot help but wonder how different my life — and our world — would be if the Allies had not prevailed on June 6, 1944.
Bob Mackin is the author of "Jackhammer," a World War II espionage thriller, and a partner in Mackin & Casey, an Albany government affairs and association-management firm