L6

L6

Hitler reinforced the defenses in the  Pas-De-Calais region and left only a skeleton force at Normandy. Captain Felix Straub and the Uboat at his beck and call only just made it to Cherbourg in time with Edith and Judith aboard. In the early morning hours of June 6  the Channel  was  filled  with 7,000  vessels  carrying 160,000 men to  the beaches  of  Normandy, and  not Calais,  as Benjamin told  his tormentors. Mr. Margolies's weather forecast had tipped Ramsay into Montgomery's  camp for having a  go, and that in turn convinced Eisenhower.

Two Panzer  tank  divisions,  which  might  have  defeated  the invasion, were kept on a tight leash by Hitler because he didn't trust his own generals. Hitler himself slept until noon on the sixth of June, and didn't release the Panzers until four in the afternoon, by which time the beachhead was relatively secure and Allied aircraft dominated the skies to the point of forcing all German tanks to move only at night.

For two months the Allies were tied down in the Normandy region trying to  break out  of  hedgerow  country while  the  Germans attempted to contain them. When the Allies did break through it was very near to the Saint-Malo area where Judith and Edith were being held.

To prevent their premature liberation the Germans moved everyone in the camp to another one deeper in France, far from the front lines, precisely  what  Felix Straub  threatened  would  happen should Benjamin Margolies prove faithless in his sabotage, when he in fact never was.

Benjamin continued  to operate  the  Clarinet  system when  the nightly orders came in over  the Teletype, but  he deliberately altered the  requested  target  angle  slightly. He sincerely believed Captain Straub that it was the only way  he could save the lives of Edith and Judith.

The deception came crashing to an end in  September when Judith failed to register  for  secondary school. The constable came calling, and  he found  evidence  of  the  raid by  the  German frogmen. He notified  army  intelligence,  and  they  in  turn squeezed the truth  out  of Benjamin. Sir Ramsay successfully intervened to keep Benjamin out of prison, but Sir Arthur Harris of RAF Bomber  Command  insisted  the man  be  sacked from  his lighthouse job. He was forced to move to a small cottage on the beach nearby and  he  was  not even  permitted  to operate  his weather station  inside  St. Catherine's lighthouse. In his isolation Benjamin gradually began to despair  of seeing either one of his loved ones again.