VER-SUR MER, France — Along with the generals and the paratroopers, the pilots and the infantrymen, spare a thought for the young Irish woman who may have played the most important role of all in making the D-Day landings a success.
Maureen Sweeney was a postal clerk at Blacksod Point on the northwest coast of Ireland, where one of her duties was to record data that fed into weather forecasts for the British Isles.
In early June 1944, Sweeney sent a series of readings that helped persuade Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe, to delay D-Day and avoid potentially disastrous weather that could have wrecked the landings. She didn’t learn of her role in history for more than 10 years.
“It’s something to remember for a lifetime,” Sweeney told her grandson in an interview filmed before she died last December. “It’s the only time they ever noticed our forecasts. The one that counted. And set the world alight.”
As D-Day loomed, Eisenhower faced a dilemma.
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Almost 160,000 troops had gathered on the south coast of England in preparation for the long-awaited invasion that was scheduled for the early hours of June 5. The ships that would deliver them to the beaches were already warming up their engines. And 12,000 aircraft were ready to pound the Nazi defenses and provide air cover for the landings.
But the success of Operation Overlord…
