New York City had over 7.5 million residents on June 6, 1944. It is fair to say that most of the residents were praying on that day. 50,000 gathered at Madison Square Garden for a Catholic-Jew-Protestant prayer meeting under the leadership of Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia, a Protestant who was very active in bringing religious people together. The Christians and Jews had first started meeting in mass together in 1933 to oppose antisemitism.
LaGuardia asked the city and its government offices to join together in public prayer or silent meditation. The New York Times editors gave a prayer list for its readers. Every worship site opened, usually for all-day and all-night prayers.
Then, at 12 Noon on June 6th, the city quieted and prayed.
It was a stunning moment in the city’s history. Nothing like it had happened before. Thousands stood in Times Square watching the news of the landing in Normandy scroll in the news ticker around the building. People prayed, and many joined after coming out of religious services nearby. The silence filled the square like a mighty call to heaven.
Millions of prayers overwatched the battlefield.
During World War II (1939-1945), the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British, and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region.
Many soldiers said that they felt some greater presence as they landed. The war against Nazis and antisemitism and antidemocracy was a religious war won in the Heavens through prayer, several city leaders and many city lay people said.
