Allies

This chapter begins a new section called “Operation Bathing Suit, June 6, 1944, Night, Omaha Beach” and introduces a new character, Monique Marchand. She is a 13-year-old French girl who lives nearby and has been hiding in a hut on Omaha Beach since going there early in the morning to retrieve a bathing suit she left in the hut the day before. Afraid of the chaos she has heard around her all day, Monique timidly comes out of the hut as the battle is dying down and goes over to a wounded soldier who is calling for a medic.

Monique, who has become interested in medicine after helping an injured classmate, puts a tourniquet on the wounded soldier. She is startled by someone else speaking to her, and she turns to find an American female reporter dressed as a medic. The woman introduces herself as Dorothy Powell, and she and Monique get the soldier onto a stretcher. Dorothy snuck onto a transport ship and dressed as a medic to get closer to the action of the battlefield. After watching Monique help bandage up the soldiers, Dorothy tells Monique she should be a doctor. She and Monique help get wounded soldiers to the medical tents for hours until Dorothy’s helmet falls off in the medical tent, revealing that she’s a woman.