Chapter 13
1:30 AM
December 25, 1939
Outer Courtyard
St. Francis Xavier Church
Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Early December 1939 had been unseasonably warm in central Pennsylvania. When the winter solstice passed, the weather turned cold, but remained very dry. The residents of Carlisle could not look forward to a white Christmas.
The new war had erupted in Europe with the German invasion of Poland in the predawn hours of September 1, 1939. In response, France and Britain had declared war on Germany, but otherwise did nothing to help the Poles. The Nazis made short work of the once proud Polish army.
Unable to resist the modern combined arms onslaught, the Polish government bowed to the inevitable. The Poles capitulated in early October, after being vivisected by the Germans and the Sovie
