I had a lot of free time in Normandy, so I got ahold of a branch and made a signpost. I put down the distances of London, Paris, New York, and so on, and at the bottom I wrote, “Shirley: 4,500 miles.” Little did I know that this would become a human interest story. All the correspondents came around with their cameras. Even Colonel Stevens came over and put his arm around me and said—half-seriously—that he had never seen anything so sentimental. The closeup of the sign appeared in films and newspapers.
©Phil Drell