Nearly all week the skies over Moscow were dull, dripping, cold. One evening, when damp workers were hurrying home or to night-shift jobs, the familiar voice of Announcer Yuri Levitan boomed at them from loudspeakers in the squares: "Govorit Moskva! [Moscow speaking!] Citizens, today at 7:40 there will be transmitted over the radio important news. Listen! . . . Citizens, listen!"
At 7:40, after the Song of the Motherland was played, crowds waiting in the drizzle heard the first order of the day. Bialystok had fallen.
At 8:00, the city's well-worn victory guns boomed, and antiaircraft women on the roofs fired...
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