Gripsholm docks with 51 wounded
Returning soldiers are happy over invasion; only 37 civilians on the ship
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Congress marks day with prayers
Members voice confidence in our arms, then resume old party contentiousness
Washington – (June 6)
Congress was stirred deeply by word that the Allied invasion of continental Europe from the north was on and turned today to prayers for speed and complete victory with a minimum of human losses.
The members voiced confidence in the skills and plans of our military and naval leaders.
“Grant that on this D-Day of liberation,” was the supplication of the Rev. Dr. Frederick Brown Harris, chaplain of the Senate, “weapons of freedom forged in fires of faith may pierce the shields of pagan steel and the cruel invaders’ walls, reared in treachery and tyranny and oppression, may crumble and fall at the boast of Allied might.
Upon our dear boys in this fearful baptism of fire, of whom we think today with special tenderness, lifting them up on the winds of our intercession as knights of Thy Righteous will, and upon the hosts of oppressed now at last to emerge from dark dungeons of thralldom pour thy enabling grave as together they strike the blow on that fair and storied land where the grapes of wrath are stored.
We pray today, this day of days, for our enemies with calloused hearts and warped minds and poisoned conceptions. Forgive them, they know not what they do.
In the House, the Rev. Dr. James Shera Montgomery prayed:
In our prayer, we bring unto Thee our heroic sons and daughters of the battle lines who have surrendered their secret hoys, their aspirations and the blessings of the years. Amid the walls and bulwarks of savage war embrace them in Thy fatherly arms, reveal Thyself unto them in mercy and hide not Thy face from them; comfort them in the face of all adversaries as their swords of righteousness prevail.
In the Senate and House, heads were bowed in silent prayer. Senators joined in reciting the 23rd Psalm. The prayer composed last night by President Roosevelt was read in both chambers.
Senator Alben W. Barkley, Majority Leader, said:
I am sure I speak the sentiment of the Senate, when I say that we all recognize the solemnity of this hour, the great, tragic importance of the events which are now in our minds and hearts, and that all we need to do, and all we probably should do now, or can do, is to pray fervently and devoutly for the success of our troops and those of our allies.
Senator Wallace H. White Jr., Minority Leader, said that the day was shadowed by the possibilities of disaster, but in it there was the substantial promise of a glorious ending.
The spirit of unity left the House as the day progress and as it continued its contest over legislation designed to extend the statute of limitations on court-martial proceedings against RAdm. Husband E. Kimmel and Maj. Gen. Walter C. Short, commanders at Pearl Harbor.
Party lines were drawn as Republicans succeeded in extending the limitation for only three months.
In the Senate, consideration of the bill to extend the Emergency Price Control and Stabilization Acts led to sharp criticism, mostly by Democrats, of the lack of flexibility in the OPA.
City greets news quietly, solemnly
No noisy outbursts, no large crowds, but calm confidence marks reaction to invasion
By Russell Porter
The people of New York City received the invasion news calmly. There was no celebration, no outburst of enthusiasm, no sign of fear or depression. The prevailing mood was one of deep solemnity, of sober realization that this was only the beginning, that the road might be hard and bloody and that many might lose sons and brothers before the battle was won.
At first the atmosphere was charged with anxiety and worry as the majority of New Yorkers awakened to gain their first information on the landings. Later, as the good news came in of initial successes and unexpectedly light losses, a feeling of quiet confidence and encouragement spread throughout the city. In every section of the five boroughs there were faith and hope in victory and the safety of U.S. and Allied soldiers and sailors. This spirit of quiet confidence was typical of the whole nation’s reaction to D-Day.
Churches held special services
Two attitudes were characteristic of New Yorkers on this most momentous day in American and world history. One was the kneeling posture, head bowed, eyes cast down in prayer; the other was the upright stance, head lifted, eyes raised to read the news on bulletin boards and electric signs. These symbolized the city’s principal reactions – a profound intensification of religious feeling, and a great hunger for news.
The first of these reactions was demonstrated in a spontaneous desire for prayer that swept over the entire city. Churches of every denomination were crowded. Special services were held, special masses and special prayers of intercession were said, special candles were lighted. In schools, hospitals, courtrooms, public buildings, theaters, war plants, stores, stock exchanges and other places where people congregate, routine proceedings were halted for brief prayers or moments of silence in tribute and respect to the armies of liberation. Hymns were sung at D-Day assemblies in the public schools, which held one-minute periods of silent devotion. Audiences stood with bowed heads in the theaters.
Mayor leads in prayer
Mayor La Guardia led a prayer in City Hall for the success of the Allied troops and for the comfort of mothers and wives of the soldiers and sailors. Archbishop Francis J. Spellman of St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, read a “Prayer for America” at mass and later over the radio – a prayer he had composed himself, for a “just, merciful and wise” victory, for “guidance for our leaders” and “protection for our sons.” Bishop William T. Manning, officiating at the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, prayed for “speedy victory for the forces of right and freedom for the sake of all mankind,” and for “a righteous peace.” Rabbi Samuel H. Goldstein of Temple Emanu-El gave thanks for the fighting men of this and all the United Nations who have left their homes to liberate Europe from Nazi tyranny and “establish justice among men and righteousness among peoples.”
All the churches and synagogues were open, from the big cathedrals to the smallest houses of worship and meeting halls. Fifty thousand attended a public prayer meeting at the Eternal Light in Madison Square.
The religious fervor was accompanied by a quick upsurge of patriotism, demonstrated particularly in a rush of blood donors to the Red Cross and in accelerated sales of war bonds and stamps.
The overwhelming demand for news from the front made itself felt on all sides. People gathered around the radios in their homes, in stores, in restaurants and bars, in taxis parked in the street and elsewhere, to get the latest bulletins, watched newsflashes on movie screens or waited at the newsstands for successive editions of the newspapers with the details.
Everywhere in the city the same spirit was reported. From the luxury apartments of Park Avenue to the tenements of the Lower East Side and Harlem, the German-American section in Yorkville and Little Italy, Chinatown and all such settlements, all the elements in New York’s melting pot reached in the same way.
Fifth Avenue, the city’s great showplace, was decked with American and Allied flags. The doors of the big churches in the avenue were flung wide open, and people kept going in and out all day long. Some of the big department stores closed at 1:00 p.m., others at 4:00 p.m. – out shut down for the entire day – so that their employees could attend church services. Many business officers closed early or gave their workers long lunch hours for the same purpose.
Large crowds are lacking
Except for the churchgoers, there were no unusual crowds. It was apparent that war workers had stuck to their jobs turning out more equipment for the Armed Forces instead of taking the day off to rush into the streets and demonstrate.
This was also true in Times Square, where people lined the sidewalks to watch the electric bulletins on The New York Times Tower but did not congregate in abnormal fashion; in Wall Street, and in the other main thoroughfares throughout the greater city.
If anything, the street crowds in the center of the city were smaller than normal yesterday and last night, presumably because people were staying home to listen to the radio and read the papers.
President Roosevelt’s invasion prayer was read to the audiences of Broadway theaters, which were crowded last night, as were the nightclubs. The audiences were kept informed of late news developments through announcements from the stage.
In some restaurants, no food or liquor was served during President Roosevelt’s broadcast of his prayer. Radios were turned out so the diners could listen and join in the prayer if they chose, and many did so.
In Wall Street, the buying and selling of stocks and bonds was halted briefly at both the New York Stock Exchange and the Curb Exchange while prayers were offered.
Wounded veterans of the Italian, North African and Pacific campaigns in this war joined in the prayers at the veterans’ hospitals in the city, while veterans of world War I took part in nonsectarian services held by American Legion posts and other veterans’ organizations. They made heartfelt pleas that casualties would be light in the Battle of Europe.
Soldiers and sailors of the United States and the allies, especially British and Canadian soldiers and British and French sailors, appeared on the streets in the usual numbers and were eyed with even more than the ordinary respect. They appeared to share the solemn mood of civilians. There did not seem to be as much skylarking as usual among the men on leave in the big city. Last night, they were not roistering around streets to any great extent. On the contrary, they were sitting in the United Service Organizations and other canteens, their ears glued to the radios, or their eyes fastened on the newspapers, just like everybody else.
Allied rule works smoothly in Rome
AMG pleased with relatively minor damage; Nazi looting believed at minimum
By Milton Bracker
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Bangkok is hit from air in heaviest blow of war
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Dempsey leads in New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico (AP) – (June 6)
Governor John J. Dempsey, seeking renomination on the Democratic ticket, had a lead tonight of 604 votes to 97 for Mrs. Edna Peterson of Albuquerque, on the basis of unofficial and incomplete returns from thirteen of New Mexico’s 900 voting points in the primary. In the contest for the Republican governorship nomination, unofficial, incomplete returns from 11 precincts gave Gallup banker Glenn L. Emmons 129 votes to 117 for former legislator Carroll G. Gunderson.
Allies cut up foe around Myitkyina
Take a Japanese position on edge of Burma city; Chinese gain in Mogaung Valley
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Americans on Biak gain half a mile
Clean up Japanese snipers on ridge blocking path to Mokme Airstrip
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Truk among targets in series of attacks
Army, Navy and Marine fliers hit foe on Pacific isles
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Japanese sinkings by U.S. rise fivefold
Forrestal hails our Pacific initiative; shipbuilding up
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House votes trial for Short, Kimmel
Debates along party lines and then divides 305–35 on courts-martial by fall
By Kathleen McLaughlin
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Eisenhower hails West Point class as 474 get commissions in Army
Invasion chief in message states ‘faith in America and her young leaders’ – Somervell praises equipment of our forces
By Frank S. Davis
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Thousands attend church services
Record of London’s bow bells, heard in Times Square at 4:00 a.m., calls city to worship
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D-DAY SEES SPORTS TAKE A ‘TIMEOUT’
Major and most minor league baseball games off along with boxing programs
No racing at aqueduct; programs at Boston. Chicago, Detroit tracks suspended; will resume today
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FOOD IS READY HERE FOR INVADED LANDS
Butter, cheese and eggs not included in huge stores set aside at start of year
Meat is the chief item; most of it is pork, less than tenth beef; more to be allocated as needed
By Jefferson G. Bell
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Decorations given to 92 war nurses
Col. Blanchfield tells convention of awards for wounds, devotion, heroism
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House women aid poll
Named by Spangler to advise Republican campaign
Washington – (June 6)
The six Republican women members of Congress were named today by Harrison E. Spangler, chairman of the Republican National Committee, to a special women’s advisory committee for the 1944 campaign.
All except Rep. Winifred Stanley of New York, absent on a speaking engagement, attended a luncheon conference with Mr. Spangler at which he expressed great pride in “the largest contingent of women Representatives of any one party serving at one time” and said that it was “fitting they should be the original members of the Woman’s Advisory Committee.”
The others names were Reps. Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts, Frances P. Bolton of Ohio, Jessie Sumner of Illinois, Margaret Chase Smith of Maine and Clare Boothe Luce of Connecticut.
Editorial: Let us pray
The President’s prayer last night was the nation’s prayer. This nation was born in the only revolution in history made in the name of God. It was born of the conception that the rights of man are not conveyed to him by any accident of class or color, race or creed, are not conferred or withheld by any government, but are given him by God as the inalienable birthright of the human being. it is to defend this inherent right of the human being, the right of free will, against the most ambitious tyranny that ever shadowed the earth that we are today storming the beaches of Europe with the legions of all the people, conquered and marked for conquest, who would rather die fighting than live as slaves.
We have come to the hour for which we were born. We go forth to meet the supreme test of our arms and of our souls, the test of the maturity of our faith in ourselves and in mankind, and it is fitting that in this hour we at home, citizens of all confessions and no confession, should follow the ways of our fathers and solemnly place the fate of our country, our cause and our sons, in the hands of God.
We pray for the boys we know and for millions of unknown boys who are equally a part of us. A year, two years ago, they were the grinning, careless youngsters we saw on the campuses and ballfields and streets of every American town. Now they are steeled and exalted into men; they are the heroes in the hardest and most crucial adventure in history. All too literally, their flesh and their spirit are our shield, the shield of the Republic. “Lead them straight and true, O Lord of Hosts; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness to their faith.”
We pray for our country, this country that is ourselves, as strong as we are strong, as great as we are determined to make and keep it great. In the eyes of our soldiers, looking back for one last look at home as they go forward into the unknown dangers before them, we see that “home” means to them all the world is fighting for. In this moment of pure light that burns away all trivial issues, they see the war aims with perfect clearness, and so do we. Our prayer is to be worthy of their courage and their faith in us and the future and brave enough to keep on fighting for peace when they have won it for us.
The cause prays for itself, for it is the cause of the God who created men free and equal. Victory may be hard to win, but it is as certain as the eventual triumph of good over evil is always certain. In this searching hour we are humble as well as proud. We know that we are paying not only for the awful sins of those who willed war but for the sons of those who did not will peace hard enough to take responsibility to maintain it. We are paying also for our own sins. Let us pray for the grace to avoid committing them over again. On our knees let us seek the wisdom to turn the victory we will buy with a great price into a reign of justice.
Editorial: The invasion
The first reports from the battlefront sound like an answer to the prayer that accompanied our troops, smashed by Allied bombers and by the guns of the United Nations’ navies at least sections of the vaunted German “Atlantic Wall” have crumbled, and our troops are established on beachheads along a front from Le Havre to Cherbourg, while Allied parachute and glider troops leaping beyond the “wall” are fighting in Caen, nine miles in the interior, and according to enemy reports even north of Rouen, 41 miles from the coast.
Certainly in the first phases of the invasion, Allied strategy has been brilliant. Instead of striking at the high cliffs opposite Dover, where the Germans expected the attack, and had therefore placed their heaviest fortifications, Gen. Eisenhower struck at the low-lying sandy beaches of Normandy, using methods which had produced such excellent results in Sicily, at Salerno and at Anzio. And the location of the landings also indicates the further plan, which seems aimed at putting the whole Normandy Peninsula into Allied hands as a base for a drive up the Seine Valley directly on to Paris. But the landings in Normandy are merely the first of a series which may now be expected to crash other beaches of France, both north and south, and possibly those of other countries as well.
Yet though the enemy’s “Atlantic Wall” has proved to be quite vulnerable in spots, the German Command has still mobile armies estimated at some 50 divisions in France, in which it has placed its main reliance to bring the Allied invasion to a halt. These armies will counterattack and attempt to drive the allies back into the sea. As Gen. Eisenhower said, the landing is but the opening phase and great battles lie ahead. But the enemy armies can scarcely move until they are certain where the main blow is to come from, and they cannot be quite certain while other invasions are still pending. That is the advantage of the initiative, which is now firmly in Allied hands.
Editorial: France
It is the strange but noble destiny of France to welcome passionately in secret an army of invaders that must bring more destruction and death upon her, who has suffered so much and so long. It will soon be four years since the armistice with Germany was signed after six disastrous weeks. What a monstrous irony it is to recall the strictly “correct” behavior of the Nazi troops in Paris. The Parisians were nit impressed. The artificial, clumsy, Teutonic politeness was soon thrown off. In 1941, Pétain’s “honorable peace” had turned into reneging of the armistice terms. The Nazis put a stranglehold upon French industrial and economic life, made almost two million French captured soldiers do forced labor, refused to reduce the enormous overcharge for the support of the army of occupation.
Violence, sabotage inevitably followed. The slaughter of “hostages” began. It is now in its fourth year. The work of the French groups of resistance has been continuous. In the face of death, they have never flinched. They are now ready and waiting to aid the friendly invaders, not merely by information but by arms. French soldiers are among the friendly invaders. In Africa, in Italy, in the air and on the sea, Frenchmen have fought for us and for themselves.
In these fateful hours, Americans send their wishes and hopes to these brave and enduring fighters for freedom. For the mother of modern freedom, Americans have a kindness that is more than historical. Who that has been in France, that federation, we might call it, of little provinces or countries, each with its individual charm, can help loving it? Unyielding and indomitable people of France, have faith and courage! We are coming.
Editorial: Weapons and the invasion
Where were those “secret weapons” of the Germans when Allied troops swarmed over the sands between Le Havre and Cherbourg? That rocket shell of diabolically ingenious Nazi physicists which was loaded with so lethal a charge of liquid air and uranium salt that it could destroy all life within a range of 500 yards – where was it? And what about the preposterous German bomb which, when it exploded, would freeze everything within a quarter of a mile and clog the Channel with icebergs to block transports? So far as we can tell at this early stage of the invasion, both sides used weapons that have been familiar ever since the Allies landed at Salerno.
When Hitler began his depredations neither side had today’s weapons. The equipment evolved in four years came only in stages, by way of Russia, North Africa and Italy. Hence the invasion was conducted with the aid of an accumulated engineering experience. Bombers of unprecedented carrying capacity and range, troop-laden gliders towed by “locomotive” planes, rocket guns big and small, radio-controlled shells with wings, radar, machines to generate steam and oil fogs that conceal square miles, jet-propelled fighters – the invaders had them all and more to boot. These are the engineering surprises of the present war. In 1918, we could speak chiefly of gas and the tank.
A foothold was gained on the shores of France partly because of these innovations, but largely because of a plan and an organization without a parallel. We have not only to think of 4,000 larger vessels in the Channel, 11,000 planes in support, several hundred naval vessels to cover the transports, tanks, special artillery in every size and for every destructive purpose, balloon barrages, but also of a masterly coordination of movement in three dimensions. Everything had to be thought of – from dehydrated food to typewriters, from mine sweeps to binoculars. We may be sure that the engineer was everywhere the director and coordinator. For this was essentially a stupendous engineering enterprise. If Addison could eulogize Marlborough at Blenheim as he who “rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm,” what shall we say of Eisenhower and a terrific mechanical tornado?
In the swirl of this directed tornado, we must include a mighty armada of transatlantic freight-carriers and the factories of Chicago and St. Louis, the oil refineries of Tulsa, the jeep and tank plants of Detroit and Toledo, the tailoring lofts of New York. No wonder a thrill runs through millions of workers in North America and Britain. They, too, are human gears and levers in a titanic invading machine. The screech of the tool that saws steel 5,000 miles from France is echoed in the screech of shells in flight. Science and technology interwoven with daring on French beaches to fashion a spiritual fabric in which the democracies are wrapped – that is what the invasion means.