Yesterday we went to see Pressure, the movie about the Scottish meteorologist James Stagg who persuaded General Eisenhower to delay the D-Day invasion by one day because his calculations convinced him that the weather on June 5th would be too treacherous for a landing. The film was pure Hollywood – clichéd dialogue, over-the-top dramatization, a (fabricated?) clash of dissenting meteorologists – but it left me in awe of two things: the advances we have made in weather forecasting and the bravery of the men who took part in the operation. Archival footage toward the end of the movie showed troops storming the beaches, many of them getting shot down even before they reached the sand. I will think of them tomorrow with a renewed sense of gratitude.
