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made the most agontzmg decision
of my life. If there were nothing
else in my life to prove the exis–
tence of an almigbty and merciful
God , the events of the next twenty–
four hours d id it .... The greatest
break in a terrible outlay of weath–
er occurred the next day a nd
allowed that g reat invasion to pro–
ceed, with losses far below those we
had ant icipated."
This was almost the same mes–
sage Britain's wartime leader, the
lionhearted Churchill, had deliv–
ered on October
31 , 1942:
" 1
sometimes have a feel ing of
interference.
1
want to stress that.
1
have a feeling sometimes that sorne
Guiding Hand has interfered.
1
have a fee ling that we have a
Guardian because we have a great
Cause, a nd we shall have that
Guardian so long as we serve that
Cause fai thfully."
Commander Antbony Kummins,
in a BBC broadcast titled "The
Greatest Armada in History" saw
the same intervention at the Allied
invasion of Sicily, July
1O, 1943:
" lt
suddenly started to blow, a
real blow, force
6,
half a gaJe. This
meant that the surf would be ter–
rifle, and it would be almost impos–
sible fo r our landing-craft to force
their way through. In spite of all
the elaborate precautions: here we
were, at the merey of the e le–
ments.
" But there was no turning back
now, and as the darkness closed
down and the ships ploughed on,
T
couldn ' t help thinking of sorne of
the miracles of weather which had
already favoured us in this war:
Dunkirk; North Africa. Perhaps
three times was too much to
expect. Pe rhaps ... a nd then it
happened. With barely an hour
and a ha lf to go befare zero hour
the wind suddenly dropped a nd
the swell went down quicker than
1
have ever seen befare.
1
t was so
sudden it was almost unbelievable,
miraculous, and as people stared
into the darkness many a silcnt
prayer of thanks was offe r ed
u
p."
In Sicily, as in Normandy, the
enemy garrisons were lulled into a
false sense of security by the foul
weather that sudde nl y cleared!
How providential for the Allies!
But D-day- the opening of the
July / August 1984
Second Front- was pivota! to
World War
IJ .
l t hastened the
Nazi defeat
before
Hitler's scien–
tis ts could perfect the hydrogen
bomb.
After the triumphant Allied
sweep through France in
1944,
~-
-
cruisers,
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisen–
au,
to escape through the Denmark
straits to devour
115,000
tons of
Allied sh ipping. The
Bismarck
almost el uded her Bri tish adversar–
ies in the fog that same year.
World War 11 saw one of the
-
This photo was taken shortly after D-day from hillside overlooking French
invasion beach. Barrage balloons fly overhead in case of a ir attack.
Field Marshal Bernard Montgom–
ery felt compelled to say: "Such an
historie march of events can seldom
have taken place in such a short
space of time.... Let us say to
each other, 'Th is was the Lord's
doing, and it is marvellous in our
eyes.'"
Stirring events these! Yet tough,
realistic military men were never
bashful about bringing God into
the picture. And with good rea–
son.
National Consecration
Weather is no mi nor factor in war–
fare . The tragedy of Arnhem and
the Battle of the Bulge the fall and
winter following D-day were grim
reminders of the folly of relying
solely on human calculat ions and
material strength. The massacre of
the Second Canad ian Division at
Dieppe in August
1942,
was a
tragic lesson in how amphibious
operations can backfire disastrous–
ly.
Persistent fog in April
1941
helped two of Germany's battle
most dramatic weather interven–
tions in history, the harsh Russian
winter of
1941
that pummeled Hit–
ler 's legions outside the very gates
of Moscow!
How differently might history
have turned out without the peren–
nial overruling factor of the weath–
er (Job
38:22-23).
With millions of lives at hazard
during those crucial summer days
of June
1944,
it is interesting to
study the att itude and tempera–
ment of the Anglo-Amer ican
peoples on the eve of D-day and
afterward :
" [In the United States] there
was a somber, religious mood .. ..
For one entire week tbe most bois–
terous, noisy, rambunctious people
in the West went about with a
restrai nt , a soberly responsible
sense of purpose, that was not only
striking, but without parallel in liv–
ing memory. As an emot ionally
unifying, satisfyi ng experience it
was unique.
It
was the unity not of
grief, but of accomplishment and
hope" (Geoffry Perrett,
Days of
33