Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out . . .
-- SEPTEMBER 1, 1939, by W.H. AUDEN
We know, of course, how this great story finally ended. That is told in a series of place names that have become part of the language: Bataan, Midway, Guadalcanal, Stalingrad, El Alamein, Anzio, Omaha Beach, Bastogne, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Hiroshima. In retrospect, it all seems to have a kind of inevitability, and yet there lingers over each battlefield a faint question. What if rains in Poland had mired the German tanks in mud?...
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