The doctor, stunned, was about to argue when he realized what Varner was telling him. “Stretcher!” the doctor yelled. “We need a stretcher now! Get the Fuhrer to the clinic immediately. His life may depend on it.”

Hitler’s limp remains were put on a stretcher and covered with a blanket that exposed only part of his head, presenting the illusion that he still lived. The bearers almost ran to the clinic with the doctor alongside. Varner was now comfortable that only he and the doctor knew that Adolf Hitler was dead.

Jack Morgan, Captain, U.S. Army, wondered just what the hell was so important that the naval officer commanding the LST had summoned him. He also wondered just what the hell he was doing on an LST heading for France in the first place. He was an Army Air Force officer, even though he’d washed out as a bomber pilot, and American air bases were in England, not France. He’d assumed he’d be used by the air force in some capacity, but sent to France? Never. Even more important, why?

He had no idea what naval protocol was as he approached the bridge and, in the words of Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind, he frankly didn’t give a damn. The LST was supposed to take him from Dover to the beaches of Normandy where he would depart and find a military unit that wanted a washed-up bomber pilot. This was a complete shock. When he’d been first posted to England, he’d logically thought that he would be assigned as a staff officer at an air base. Now he had no idea what was going to happen to him.

The LST was more than three hundred feet long, and close to five hundred men were jammed in her along with tons of supplies for what was supposed to be a cruise of not more than a few hours from Dover to Normandy. Under those circumstances, the soldiers’ discomfort meant nothing to those in charge. The LST was supposed to land the men after their short journey and that was it.