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World

How a dead French poet helped the Allies to victory on D-Day

6 June 2024

3:30 PM

6 June 2024

3:30 PM

D Day, 6 June, 1944, saw put into action one of the most unlikely alliances in the history of warfare: that between the largest military invasion of all time, and French poetry. The episode in question concerned the role played by a poem by Paul Verlaine in that momentous event: an episode immortalised in the famous 1962 film, The Longest Day.

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