The woman who stowed away on a ship to report on D-Day

It captures the nuance of how those who were there might have felt, beyond descriptions of military strategies or commanders’ decisions. So too do her descriptions of the jokes shared by those on the beach. “One of the soldiers remarked that they had a nice foxhole about 50 yards inland and we were very welcome there, when the air raid started, if we didn’t mind eating sand,” she writes. “My companion, one of the stretcher-bearers from the ship, thanked them for their kind invitation and said that, on the other hand, we had guests aboard the LCT [landing craft, tank] and we would have to stay home this evening.”