June 4, 1943, Norfolk Naval Base, Virginia. Petty Officer Herman Butcher, his legs trembling after a fourteen-day transatlantic crossing, gripped the ship's railing as he descended the gangway. Through the morning mist, he witnessed a scene that contradicted three years of Nazi propaganda. American dockworkers, both Black and white, worked side by side with machinery that looked like it came straight out of another century. Women in overalls operated cranes. Children sold newspapers at the gates