Return of the Natives

Along Devonshire's cliff-hung coast, between Plymouth and Brixham, 3,000 Britons, ousted from their seaside homes by the invasion, began to move back to villages and farms.

They had been moved out last November. Farmers grumbled, drove cows and horses inland. Grannies whimpered, packed their shabby, precious gewgaws in cardboard cartons, rode away triumphantly in limousines provided by the Government. Vicars did their vicarish best to spread cheer, dismantled stained glass windows with leaden hands. Then U.S. troops moved in, practiced landings with tanks under live shells. Those Americans are in Normandy now.

The Devonians found their cottages windowless, their churches damaged, their schools partly demolished by shellfire. The hedgerows were tattered and ragged, the lanes churned deep by tank tracks. Prim cottage gardens and the rich red fields were overgrown with weeds. Rabbits, multiplying by the thousands, played and fed with unchecked abandon, while the rooks wheeled and cawed overhead. Flies foraged in impudent battalions.

Grey, stooped Miss Edith Brooking inspected her wrecked cottage in Shillington. Said she: "We are thankful that our sacrifice has been worth while. We are proud that it was on our beaches that the Americans practiced the landings they made so gallantly on the beaches of Normandy."

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