<p><strong><em></em></strong>Fiftyyears have passed since the Normandy landing that began the liberation ofFrance from Nazi occupation. This touching eyewitness account, told from theperspective of a twelve-year-old girl, has all the force and beauty of AnneFrank’s<em> Diary of a Young Girl</em>. </p><p>As the first wave of Allied paratrooperslanded behind the lines in Normandy on the night of June 5, 1944, many fellinto the flooded marshlands on either side of the railway line that ran betweenParis and Cherbourg—virtually in the Duboscq family’s backyard. Throughout thathistoric night, Geneviève and her father, a hard-drinking peasant named PapaMaurice, saved numerous Americans from drowning and gave them refuge while theyregrouped for what was to become one of the most heroic battles of World WarII.</p>