World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF EUROPE: Hope from the Sky

Paris was sorrowfully silent that June morning in 1940. Two-thirds of its people had fled. Only a thin line of tense, motionless Parisians with brimming eyes watched German tanks, guns and troops converge on the Place de l'Etoile. When Nazis clumped around the Arc de Triomphe and past the Eternal Flame sheltered above the Unknown Soldier's tomb, then swung haughtily down the broad Champs-Elysées, France's cup ran over.

Two years later, on June 12, life, even in bitter defeat, went on. In the Marine Ministry and dozens of other ancient Parisian structures Nazi vultures flapped about their task of feeding on...

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