{"id":33443,"date":"2024-06-05T15:46:40","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T14:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=33443"},"modified":"2025-09-09T11:00:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T10:00:20","slug":"prayer-and-a-girl-saved-d-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/prayer-and-a-girl-saved-d-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Prayer – and a girl – saved D-Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Generals<\/a>
Generals Eisenhower (R) and Montgomery (L)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Why the 80th D-Day Anniversary is not today, 5th June 2024:<\/p>\n

D-Day was planned for 5th June 1944. Its 80th anniversary should have been today. Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), and Bernard Montgomery had already decided the date.<\/p>\n

They wanted a full moon with a spring tide flowing towards high water at dawn. But if the flotilla had set sail in the early morning of the 5th, it would at best have been blown off course and at worst destroyed.<\/p>\n

Two things saved D-Day. One, the most important of all, was the constant prayer led by the God-fearing King George VI. We shall come back to that. Because the other was a young woman in Ireland.<\/p>\n

Ireland passed weather reports to the UK<\/h2>\n

Maureen Flavin<\/b><\/a> was born in the Republic of Ireland on 3rd June 1923. She grew up in County Kerry but she moved to Blacksod, County Mayo, at the age of 18 to take up a position at the post office.<\/p>\n

\"Maureen<\/a>
Maureen Flavin married the postmistresses’s son, Ted Sweeney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After being accepted for the post by postmistress Margaret Sweeney, she discovered the post office also operated a weather station.<\/p>\n

Under an agreement made in August 1939, the station was one of a number in neutral Ireland that provided daily weather readings to the British Met Office via telegraph.<\/p>\n

So it was that among Maureen\u2019s duties were to take measurements from instruments housed on a corner of the nearby lighthouse. It was an important station for forecasting as it lay on one of the most westerly parts of Ireland.<\/p>\n

Readings on her birthday<\/h2>\n
\"Group<\/a>
Group Captain James Stagg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At 1am, on the morning of her 21st birthday, she awoke and went out to take the hourly reading. The station instruments showed a slight drop in air pressure, a 7-mile-per-hour wind from the south-west accompanied by drizzle. Over the following six hours the readings showed a continuing drop in pressure, a steady wind and heavier rain.<\/p>\n

The drop in pressure was the first indication of an incoming severe storm that could make any crossing of the English Channel extremely hazardous. Maureen woke Ted Sweeney, the postmistress\u2019s son, to confirm the readings. Young Mr Sweeney confirmed Miss Flavin\u2019s readings and they sent the report on to Britain.<\/p>\n

Royal Air Force officer Group Captain James Stagg<\/b><\/a> was the chief meteorologist to General Eisenhower. He received the report and was so concerned he called the Blacksod post office direct at 11am. They confirmed their readings, and Captain Stagg immediately reported the incoming storm to General Eisenhower. The commander decided to postpone the invasion.<\/p>\n

Rommel went home!<\/h2>\n
\"General<\/a>
General Erwin Rommel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

During that day and the next, Maureen Flavin continued to take her readings and noticed a steady rising of the pressure. The storm was passing over. Again the readings reached Captain Stagg. So it was that General Eisenhower postponed the invasion by just 24 hours, from 5th to 6th June. How important it is for us, just like Maureen Flavin, to \u2018do the little things\u2019 that only we can do.<\/p>\n

The Germans did not have these weather forecasts. In addition, under \u2018Operation Fortitude\u2019, British double-agents had convinced their German spymasters that the invasion was set for Calais. Field Marshall Erwin Rommel was in charge of the Normandy defences which were manned, lighter than those in Calais, just in case.<\/p>\n

But when he saw the storm, General Rommel convinced himself it was set in for days. He too knew the allies only had a small tidal window if the invasion was to happen there at all. So, as the BBC reports<\/b><\/a>, he left to be present at his wife\u2019s birthday back home in Bavaria, taking her a pair of shoes. That confusion, I submit, is the Lord\u2019s work in answer to all the prayer which had been made, and that which was about to come. Prayer saved D-Day.<\/p>\n

The King\u2019s speech<\/h2>\n

The actual date of D-Day together with its location was kept secret, again by the grace of God. They did, however, tell King George, who wrote a speech and delivered it by radio on the morning of 6th June, as the troops were landing. The Palace uploaded it to their website exactly five years ago today. It is well worth reading in full<\/b><\/a> or you can listen to it here:<\/p>\n