“The Dodgers’ll be back in the World Series as soon as the war’s over. Sid was a die-hard Brooklyn Dodgers fan, while Dee rooted for his hometown base- ball team, the Philadelphia Athletics. What had first united them was their shared hatred of the New York Yankees. Dee was blond-haired and pale-skinned, and he couldn’t grow a mustache if his life depended on it. Sid had a long face, curly brown hair, tan skin, and stubble on his jaw. He could have bent Dee into a pretzel if he’d wanted to. Sid was just a year older, but he was six feet, four inches tall and built like Hank Greenberg, the big power-hitting left fielder for the Detroit Tigers. He had spindly arms and legs, and he worried that his baggy green army trousers made him look like a child playing soldier. Though they wore the same uniform, Dee and Sid couldn’t have resembled each other less.
They took their places halfway back, in a row of other soldiers wearing olive-green assault jackets and green metal helmets. “Private Carpenter! Private Jacobstein! If you two knuckleheads are done fooling around, we’ve got a boat to load,” Sergeant Taylor called from above.ĭee and Sid helped each other climb into the small boat.
With his free hand, Dee grabbed Sid’s shoulder. Sid had been right below Dee on the ladder, and now they were face-to-face. “For crying out loud, Dee, you just about killed yourself before the Germans could do it for you,” Sid said. Dee pulled his feet up in time to keep them from getting crushed as the motor- boat drifted back to clang against the side of the trans- port ship.ĭee took a deep breath and closed his eyes in relief. With shaking, frozen hands, Dee fumbled until he was clinging to the side of the ladder. “Grab on!” his friend Sid Jacobstein yelled. Dee jolted, then swung into the side of the ship with a thump. Dee dropped like a stone toward the cold black water of the English Channel.Ī hand shot out and caught the pack on Dee’s back. At the same instant, a gap opened up between the huge transport ship he was leaving and the little motorboat he was supposed to be climbing into. He scrabbled for a handhold, but the weight of his pack and his rifle dragged him down. Just before dawn on the English Channel A-HUNTING WE WILL GOĭee Carpenter’s foot slipped off the wet ladder and his stomach lurched into his throat. Read an excerpt from Alan Gratz's upcoming novel Allies below. On June 6, 1944, Allied forces stormed the shores of German-occupied France in the largest military endeavor in history. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion in Normandy, France, which changed the course of WWII.
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