World at War, 1944

by Mary Pope Osborne

  “Oh,” said Jack. “But how did he land without our hearing him? And how did he get past the searchlights?”

  “Explanations later,” said Teddy. “I think we are about to take off.” He said something else, but his voice was drowned out by kids still asking questions: “Where are we going?” “Who are you?” “Is Kathleen your sister?”

  As Kathleen and Teddy laughed and tried to answer the children, Jack thought that Kathleen was completely her old self again. Her eyes were bright; her laughter was lighthearted.

  Jack looked out the window. The searchlights were still combing the dark for incoming planes. So how did the SOE pilot land the plane? he wondered. And how will he take off without being seen?

  The large silver plane started moving. It moved across the grass with no bumping and no engine sounds—no whirring, roaring, or rumbling.

  This is so weird, thought Jack. Did they make super-silent spy planes in World War Two? He would have to look it up, he thought. Before he knew it, the plane had lifted off the ground and was gliding through the night with no vibration, rocking, or shaking.

  “Can we open a window?” asked Annie.

  “No, silly, not on a plane,” said Jack.

  “Oh, but on this plane we can open windows,” said Teddy. He leaned over, undid a latch, and pushed open the glass.

  As cool air rushed inside the cabin, Annie grabbed Jack’s field pack. Without a word, she pulled out the flyers made by the resistance fighters, Tom and Theo. She showed the printed message to Teddy and Kathleen.

  They both grinned and nodded.

  Then, one at a time, Annie released the flyers out the open window: one, two, three, four, five…ten sheets of paper flapped into the moonlit night.

  “That’s all,” said Annie. “I wish I had more.”

  Kathleen looked at Annie for a moment. Then she smiled and rose from her seat. She pointed her finger at the flyers fluttering toward the earth below. She whispered some words:

  Ain solas keng dural ay du!

  Annie’s wish shall now come true!

  Through the window, Jack saw the flyers begin to multiply…from ten to a hundred…from a hundred to a thousand…from a thousand to ten thousand!

  “Jack saw the flyers begin to multiply…”

  Everyone gasped and clapped.

  Kathleen’s magic was working again! Now that she was with Teddy, now that she was flying home to England, now that she was saving the children, her joy—her magic—had returned!

  As the plane crossed the English Channel, the flyers kept multiplying across the sea. Like white petals falling from apple trees, the sheets of paper tumbled and swirled through the air. Tom and Theo’s message filled the night sky, gleaming with their bright words:

  HOPE AND COURAGE!

  FREEDOM SOON!

  Soon after the silver plane crossed the English Channel, it landed silently in the field near Glastonbury Tor. Teddy opened the rear door and lowered the stepladder. “Everyone out!” he said.

  Once again, the big kids helped the little kids. Everyone climbed down the ladder and stepped onto the dark, dewy grass. The moon was high in the sky now. Jack could hardly believe that he and Annie had only been away from England—and home—for twenty-four hours.

  “The SOE has arranged to take everyone to London,” Teddy said to Kathleen. “Motorcars are waiting in the parking lot. This way—”

  As Teddy led the group toward the parking lot, Annie carried Daniel and Etty, and Jack carried Leo and Eli.

  “Where are we going?” Eli asked him.

  “To a safe city,” answered Jack. “You’ll live in a nice house soon, I promise.”

  The small boy kissed Jack on the cheek. Then Leo kissed Jack, too. Jack just laughed. “You guys are funny,” he said.

  “Is Jack your brother?” Etty asked Annie.

  “Yes,” said Annie. “He’s my brother.”

  “Is he the best brother in the world?” asked the tiny girl.

  “Yes, he is,” said Annie.

  “Are you and Annie coming with us?” Eli asked Jack.

  “No, we have to go back to America now,” said Jack.

  “How will you get there?” asked Leo.

  “In a magic tree house,” said Jack.

  “Can we play in your tree house someday?” asked Leo.

  “Absolutely,” said Jack. “When you come to America, you can do anything you want.”

  Three big black cars were waiting in the parking lot beside the airfield. Teddy got four of the children settled in the first car, and Jack and Annie tucked their four into the second car. “See ya, guys,” Jack said. “Be good.”

  Jack closed the door and stood in the dark with Annie and Teddy, as Kathleen guided Sophie and Sarah to the third car in the lot. Before they reached it, the doors opened, and a man and woman climbed out. They were tall and well-dressed.

  When the man and woman saw Sophie and Sarah, they both burst into sobs. The man knelt and held out his arms. “My babies…,” he said, grabbing Sophie and Sarah and pulling them close. Sophie and Sarah started crying, too. “Papa, Mama! Papa, Mama!”

  For a long time, Sophie, Sarah, and their parents all held each other and cried. They were still holding on to each other as they stumbled back to their car and climbed into the backseat together.

  Jack felt tears on his cheeks. Kathleen and Annie were sniffling. Teddy cleared his throat and clapped his hands together. “Victory!” he said.

  “Victory,” said Jack, smiling. Then he held up two fingers.

  “What about Eli and Eddie and Leo and all the other kids?” Annie asked Kathleen. “What will happen to them?”

  “The SOE will locate relatives and friends to care for them,” said Kathleen. “I will go to London and protect them until they are all safely placed in happy homes.”

  “Thank you for saving them,” said Annie.

  “Thank you, Annie,” said Kathleen, “for remaining hopeful and helping make a plan when we were almost ready to give up.”

  “No problem,” said Annie.

  “Together, you and Jack saved their lives and mine,” said Kathleen. “You are my heroes.”

  Jack shrugged. “I’m not a hero,” he said.

  Kathleen took Jack’s hand. She looked into his eyes. “You are a hero, Jack. Believe me. And you are a wonderful truck driver, too.”

  Jack laughed.

  Kathleen smiled her radiant smile. “Well, until we meet again, farewell,” she said. “Teddy? Are you coming?”

  “Yes! I will join you for the ride to London,” Teddy said. “Wait for me.”

  “Good.” Kathleen blew Jack and Annie a kiss. Then she climbed into the first car.

  Teddy turned to them. “If you have a minute before you leave, the pilot of the plane would like to see you,” he said.

  “Great!” said Jack. He had lots of questions for that SOE pilot—like what kind of plane was he flying?

  Teddy, Jack, and Annie hurried away from the parking lot across the grounds of the ancient abbey. In the moonlight, Jack looked back at the landing field. The silver plane wasn’t there.

  “Where did it go?” he asked, hurrying alongside Teddy. “The plane?”

  “Ah, yes. The plane is gone, but the pilot remains behind,” Teddy said mysteriously. “Come with me.”

  Through the misty air, they passed the glistening pond and the sheep asleep in the grass. Just beyond a hedgerow were the ruins of pillars and archways.

  “There, on that bench,” said Teddy.

  Jack could barely make out a person sitting on a stone bench. The person’s back was to them, and he was wearing a dark cloak.

  “Ohhh,” Annie said with a grin. “Got it.”

  “Got what?” said Jack.

  “Got the whole thing,” said Annie. “I just figured it out!” She hurried to the bench and sat next to the man in the cloak. The next moment, they were talking softly together. The man had a deep voice.

  “Whoa,” said Jack. Sudden
ly he got it, too. He walked over and sat down next to Annie and the man. “Hi, Merlin,” Jack said as casually as he could.

  “Good evening, Jack,” Merlin said. The magician was wearing a black cloak with the cowl over his head. His long white beard shone in the moonlight.

  “So Teddy sent for you?” Jack asked.

  “Yes,” said Merlin.

  “And you knew how to find and fly a special military plane?” said Jack.

  “No,” said the magician of Camelot. “I knew how to conjure a special plane to suit your needs, one that could carry fourteen passengers and take off and land without being seen or heard.”

  “Cool,” Jack murmured, still trying to sound cool.

  “I know this was an especially difficult mission for you,” said Merlin. “You experienced firsthand what it means to live in constant terror.”

  “Yes,” said Jack.

  “You know what it feels like to be afraid to speak or move about freely,” said Merlin.

  “We do,” said Annie.

  “You have seen cruel people hunt down the innocent—even children,” said Merlin.

  Jack and Annie nodded.

  “But you overcame your fears in order to accomplish your mission,” said Merlin. “Teddy found two excellent recruits in the fight for freedom. There is no way I can adequately thank you. But allow me to try: Thank you. Both of you. And I hope to see you again soon.”

  “You too,” said Annie.

  “Anytime,” said Jack.

  Merlin stood up from the bench. “Well, goodbye,” he said. “Have a safe trip home.”

  “Bye,” said Annie.

  Jack and Annie watched the master magician walk off into the night and disappear like smoke among the ruins.

  “Wow,” Annie breathed.

  “Wow, indeed,” said Teddy, stepping from the shadows. “Now are you ready to go home?”

  Jack and Annie stood up from the bench and followed Teddy to the tree house.

  Teddy’s large duffel bag sat at the base of the tree. Teddy reached in and pulled out their sneakers and Jack’s pack. “You can have your things back now,” he said.

  “Thanks,” said Jack. “And you can have your things back, too.”

  Jack and Annie pulled off their farm boots, overalls, and shirts. Jack shivered in his shorts and T-shirt as he and Annie changed into their sneakers and tied the laces. Then Jack took his pencil and notebook out of the field pack and handed the pack to Teddy. “Thanks for lending this to us,” he said.

  “You are welcome,” said Teddy. “I will have to make up a good story for Winston about how I got all of you out of France. But now I had better catch my ride to London. Until next time—cheerio, chaps.”

  “Cheerio, chap,” Jack and Annie said together.

  “Onward!” said Teddy. Then he slung his duffel bag over his shoulder and headed toward the parking lot.

  Jack and Annie watched Teddy march briskly toward the hedgerow. Just before he rounded the corner, he turned and gave them a salute. Then he was gone.

  Jack and Annie climbed the rope ladder into the tree house. Annie grabbed the Pennsylvania book. “Ready?” she said.

  “Wait.” Jack heard the steady hum of planes overhead. He and Annie looked up at the night sky and saw distant lights.

  “I wonder if those are D-Day planes,” Annie said.

  “Yeah, I wonder if they’re heading to Normandy,” said Jack.

  The planes kept moving through the night sky—more planes and more and more.

  “It’s time for us to go home,” said Annie.

  “Definitely,” said Jack.

  Annie pointed to a photo of the Frog Creek woods. “I wish we could go there,” she said.

  The wind started to blow.

  The tree house started to spin.

  It spun faster and faster.

  Then everything was still.

  Absolutely still.

  Frog Creek was warm in the summer sunset. Jack breathed in the smell of dry wood and green leaves. He felt as if he had never smelled anything so good and so safe.

  “Nice,” said Annie.

  Jack just nodded. His heart was heavy, too heavy to talk about all they’d seen and done. He picked up his backpack and climbed down the rope ladder. Annie followed. In silence, they started through the late-summer woods, crossing in and out of dark shadows.

  “War really is a terrible thing,” Annie said finally.

  Jack nodded.

  “I don’t understand it!” said Annie. “Why would anyone want to hurt people like Sophie and Sarah and their parents? Or Tom and Theo? Or the old man at the train station?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jack.

  “And how could anyone want to hurt those little kids?” said Annie. “What if the Nazis had caught Leo and Eli and all the others?”

  Jack shuddered. It was unbearable to think about.

  “Germany, England, France, Italy, and the United States—they all work together now for peace in the world, right?” said Annie.

  “Right,” said Jack. “They’re all good friends.”

  “And the United States and Japan also fought each other in World War Two,” said Annie. “But now they’re good friends?”

  “Right,” said Jack.

  “Cool,” said Annie. “Let’s think about that instead, and let’s think about Gaston, Suzette, Sylvie, Tom, Theo, and the driver of the milk truck, all trying to do the right thing. During war, I think lots of people try to do the right thing. Don’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Jack.

  Jack and Annie left the shadowy woods and crossed their street to the bright, sunshiny sidewalk. The warmth and beauty of the light lifted Jack’s spirits.

  “I love our lives,” Annie said with a sigh.

  “Yeah, me too,” said Jack. “Especially our freedom.”

  “Like the freedom to ride our bikes to the lake and the library,” said Annie. “The freedom to watch movies and eat popcorn and play Scrabble with Mom and Dad and cook outside on the grill and visit our grandparents…and our great-grandparents.”

  “Yeah, a million things like that,” said Jack. Right now, he had a whole new appreciation for the familiar, ordinary things in life.

  Jack and Annie turned into their yard and climbed the steps to the front porch. Before Jack opened the screen door, he looked at Annie. “Hey, did you think the airplane pilot would turn out to be Merlin?” he asked.

  “No way. I definitely did not see that coming,” said Annie. “Did you?”

  “Not in a million years,” Jack said with a grin. Then he headed inside their house.

  World War II was fought all over the world from 1939 until 1945. The war involved more than thirty countries and was fought between two main groups of powers: the Allied powers and the Axis powers. The chief Allied powers were Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States. The chief Axis powers were Germany, Italy, and Japan.

  At the time of World War II, Germany was led by a brutal dictator named Adolf Hitler, who was the head of a political party called the Nazi Party. Beginning in 1938, Hitler’s Nazi forces quickly invaded many European countries, including Austria, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Denmark, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Norway.

  In the summer of 1940, Germany’s air force attacked Great Britain. But under the leadership of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the British withstood the attack and defeated the Germans in the Battle of Britain. It was the first defeat for Germany in the war.

  The United States did not become directly involved in World War II until 1941. On December 7, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, a US naval base in Hawaii, and the next day, the United States declared war on Japan. Soon after, Hitler declared war on the United States. The United States joined the Allied powers and fought the Axis powers in many countries all over the world for the next four years.

  World War II ended on September 2, 1945, when Japan was the last country to formally surrender to the Allies. The war lasted for
six years and one day. It is estimated that during that time, 50 million to 85 million people lost their lives.

  D-Day

  On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied soldiers invaded the coast of Normandy in France to fight Hitler’s army. D-Day was the largest land, air, and sea invasion in the history of the world. It became the turning point for World War II.

  Spies and the Resistance

  During World War II, spies were sent behind enemy lines to gather information for their side. In Great Britain, Prime Minister Winston Churchill formed a highly secret spy organization known as the SOE, which stood for Special Operations Executive. Both men and women were members of the SOE. They were ordinary people from all walks of life who were willing to risk their lives to defeat the Nazis.

  In Nazi-occupied countries, there were also many hidden groups known as the Resistance, who were trying to fight Hitler’s army. Often working with Allied spies, Resistance groups used wireless radios to communicate secretly with Allied forces. They also resisted the invaders through acts of sabotage, such as blowing up rail lines used by the Nazi soldiers for traveling and for transporting weapons.

  War Pigeons

  During World War II, pigeons were used by both the Allied and Axis powers to carry messages across Europe. The pigeons were known as carrier pigeons or homing pigeons. They were used as couriers because they could fly at high altitudes and find their way home to their handlers many miles away. Soldiers and spies would place a message in a small canister attached to the pigeon’s foot. Then the pigeon would carry the message home.

  Great Britain had a National Pigeon Service, which used over 200,000 carrier pigeons. One of the most famous British pigeons was named Commando. Commando flew more than ninety missions, carrying messages from agents in France to soldiers in Britain. He received a medal for his excellent service and today is remembered as one of the bravest creatures to ever serve in a war.

  The German Enigma Machine

  During any war, military messages are often intercepted by the enemy. In order to disguise their messages, military forces develop highly secret codes. They also train code breakers who try to decipher (or “crack”) the enemy’s codes.