Wednesday, 5 June 2024

Synchronicity

On television as I type this: celebration of the eightieth anniversary of D Day.

In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol, which I have just consulted for a reference:

"London, 1944. The early winter night had fallen..."
-Poul Anderson, "Time Patrol" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, December 2010), pp. 1-53 AT 6, p. 44.

A few months later: 17 November.

Fiction and reality resonate. As an sf reader, I anticipate the ninetieth and hundredth anniversaries although not all of us here now are going to live that long.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

D Day was a very near run thing, as the Duke of Wellington said about the Battle of Waterloo. If the Germans had not been deceived into thinking the Anglo/American attack would be elsewhere, D Day could too easily have been a catastrophe for the Allies. Because the Germans would have shifted reinforcements to Normandy quickly enough to prevent an Allied breakout. The war might have easily lasted two more years, esp. as the new tech Germany was developing came into wide use (V bombs/rockets, fighter jets, etc.). The consequences of a UK/US defeat at Normandy would have been catastrophic, and probably include Stalin expanding Soviet domination all the way to the Atlantic.

Ad astra! Sean