I received a card from Cuthie this afternoon:
“Stalagluft 3. Lager A. 8th April 1944
Dear Folks,
Just a card to say I am o.k. I send my respects. Cuth.”
That’s all, but it is reassuring. Only last month we were told that the Germans had shot forty-seven R.A.F. officers in Stalagluft 3. Seventy-six had escaped, but had been recaptured, and forty-seven shot in attempting to resist capture. All of this happened in March. Mr. Eden gave out this information in Parliament, and we were told that the relatives of the killed had been notified, so for those who had prisoners in Stulaghuft 3 there was no need to worry if we had not heard anything. So we weren’t worrying about Cuthie and now today comes this card. He has now entered on his fifth year as a prisoner. Poor boy! Anyhow he is alive and whole, and he doesn’t have to go out on the damned bombing, thank God. I’m thankful he’s a prisoner, a safe prisoner.
I have been turning through my various Mary Austen books this afternoon. I want to contact a woman’s mind. I am not interested in what any man thinks. The awful thing about life is that we are really alone in it. We can’t live for anyone else, or by anyone else. We can’t understand anyone else. I wanted to. I tried. It didn’t come off. The misunderstanding between man and woman, the blank, the total blank of comprehension between husband and wife, good people who want to understand each other. I think that is the worse thing there is in the world. You can’t really know, you can’t understand, the ones who above all others you most wish to. If I could understand Ted! If he could understand me! We never shall understand each other, our minds function in totally different worlds; only our bodies occasionally speak the same language, the language of mere brute physical love. Animal passion. How surprising! So today, out of the blue I began to remember Mary Austin. I have five of her books, that is all, but they are five treasures. Mary Austen, Mary Beard, Mary Eddy, my three American mind friends; and in Englishwomen, Dorothy Richardson, Evelyn Underhill, Laura Riding, Adela Curtiss.
I was up at six-thirty to get Ted’s breakfast and on the seven o’clock news we heard the announcement of the fall of Rome. Our allied armies entered the city late last night. The German’s did not stay to fight; they are fleeing to the North. So Rome has been taken without destruction, the first of the European Capitals to be freed from the Nazi aggressor and invader. Which will be next? Paris?
Our invasion of the Continent has begun. Early this morning our armies made landings on the beaches of France between Cherbourg and Le Havre.
Communiqué No. 1 issued at nine-thirty this morning:
Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces, began landing allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France.
Mr. Churchill in Parliament gave details of the operation this evening. He was able to announce that the operation is proceeding “in a thoroughly satisfactory manner. “The passage of the sea has been made with far less loss than had been anticipated: the resistance of the German batteries “has been greatly weakened by the bombing of the Air Force, and the superior bombardment of our ships quickly reduced their power to dimensions which did not affect the problem.” He went on to say that the landing of the troops on a broad front has been affected, and that the allied forces have penetrated in some cases several miles inland. The landing of airborne troops took place with extremely little loss and great accuracy.
