America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (June 13, 1944)

Communique No. 15

After two days of hard fighting, U.S. troops have liberated CARENTAN, the possession of which materially strengthens the link established between our two major beachheads.

In the TILLY sector, strong enemy resistance continues. Steady progress has been made in other areas although there have been no marked advances.

The buildup is progressing satisfactorily.

Railway targets and enemy troops and vehicles were the main objectives of our aircraft which struck again in great strength throughout the afternoon and evening yesterday.

Attacks were made by medium fighter bombers at various points on the railway system behind the enemy. The railway bridge over the SEINE at MANTES-GASSICOURT was attacked. Tracks radiating from NOGENT-LE-ROTROU and LE MANS were cut at several places and oil tank cars and goods wagons were destroyed.

Other targets included troops and motor transport in the battle zone, radio installations and gun positions. A tank concentration in the FORÊT DE GRIMBOSQ, southwest of CAEN, was heavily bombed; in the course of this attack, an ammunition dump blew up.

Fighters patrolled the beach areas and the Channel; other fighters destroyed a number of enemy aircraft on the ground.

Last night, heavy bombers in great strength attacked the railway centers of AMIENS, ARRAS, CAMBRAI and POITIERS and bridges at CAEN. Twenty-three of these aircraft are missing, medium and fighter bombers bombed ferry installations over the SEINE and CAUDEBEC, the rail center at MÉZIDON, and other rail and road targets in the same area during the night. Four of these aircraft are missing.

Our night fighters destroyed nine enemy aircraft over the beachhead and battle area.


Communique No. 16

Allied troops have advanced generally in all sectors, particularly south of BAYEUX between the FORÊT DE CERISY and TILLY-SUR-SEULLES.

Two more towns have been liberated. They are TROARN, on the left, and LE HAM in the CHERBOURG PENINSULA.

More than 10,000 prisoners have now been taken.

Attempts by enemy light craft were made last night to approach our lines of communication. The enemy was intercepted and driven off by our naval patrols.

Deteriorating weather today slowed down our air offensive. Nevertheless, escorted heavy day bombers continued their attacks on airfields to the west of PARIS at ÉVREUX-FAUVILLE, DREUX and ILLIERS-L’ÉVÊQUE. A fuel dump at DREUX was set afire. Medium bombers were also active and again attacked the RENNES Airfield.

Ranging from the Channel to TOURS, fighter bombers swept the area for two and a half hours, destroying seven locomotives and some 50 vehicles, and strafing encampments.

E-boats, which had been attacked off BOULOGNE early in the morning by coastal aircraft, were again hit later in the day by rocket and cannon-firing fighters. In these engagements, at least three enemy ships were sunk and others were left on fire or badly damaged.

Reconnaissance photographs show that severe damage was done to the railway centers of ORLÉANS and RENNES, which were attacked by heavy bombers on the nights of June 10 and 11.

U.S. Navy Department (June 13, 1944)

CINCPAC Communiqué No. 47

Supplementing POA Communiqué No. 46, the following information is now available concerning operations of Pacific Fleet forces against enemy installations at Guam, Saipan, Tinian, and Rota Islands in the Marianas. These objectives were attacked by carrier aircraft on June 10 and 11 (West Longitude Dates).

On June 10, our fighter planes swept the objectives in force and destroyed 124 enemy aircraft. A large majority of these were destroyed in the sir. Our losses were 11 Hellcat fighters and eight pilots.

On June 11, our attacks were continued, resulting in the destruction of 16 enemy aircraft, two small cargo ships at Saipan, and a small oiler north­west of Saipan.

A formation of enemy ships apparently attempting to escape from Saipan was brought under attack on June 11. One large oiler, one destroyer, three corvettes, one large cargo ship, one medium cargo ship, and three small cargo ships were sunk; five medium cargo ships and five escort vessels were damaged.

A second formation of enemy ships several hundred miles away was at­tacked and heavily damaged by our aircraft on June 12. These were: three destroyers, one destroyer escort, and two cargo ships.

In the operations on June 11, our losses were four aircraft and seven flight personnel.

On the night of June 10, several enemy planes approached our force, but failed to drive home an attack, and one of them was shot down by anti-aircraft fire.


CINCPAC Press Release No. 442

For Immediate Release
June 13, 1944

Truk Atoll was bombed by Liberators of the 7th Army Air Force be­fore dawn on June 12 (West Longitude Date). Thirty‑eight tons of bombs were dropped on airfields and the seaplane base. Three enemy fighters inter­cepted our force, and damaged one Liberator. Anti-aircraft fire was meager. All of our planes returned.

Ventura search planes of Group One, Fleet Air Wing Two, bombed Nauru and Ocean Islands on June 11. Gun positions and barracks were attacked. Moderate anti-aircraft fire was encountered.

Ponape Island was bombed by 7th Army Air Force Mitchells on June 11, meeting light anti-aircraft fire.

In the Marshalls, Navy and Marine fighters and dive bombers attacked Maloelap and Wotje Atolls on June 11.

The Brooklyn Eagle (June 13, 1944)

MONTEBOURG SEIZED ON WAY TO CHERBOURG
Enemy masses for all-out fight

Yanks also take town near west coast railroad
By Virgil Pinkley

Bulletin

SHAEF, London, England (UP) –
U.S. invasion armies slashed halfway across the narrow neck of the Normandy Peninsula today and captured Pont-l’Abbé, only eight miles from the enemy’s west coast railway, in a drive to isolate Cherbourg.

SHAEF, London, England (UP) –
U.S. infantry captured the bypassed enemy stronghold of Montebourg, 14 miles southeast of Cherbourg, and drove on less than a dozen miles from the big port today as the Germans massed one-quarter of all their armies in Western Europe for an all-out attempt to smash the Allied invasion.

U.S. patrols, operating in advance of the main forces, were reported already probing the approaches to Cherbourg, one of France’s best ports and the main objective of the first phase of the invasion.

Farther to the southeast, other U.S. forces pushed to within less than six miles of the 11th-century citadel of Saint-Lô, halfway across the Normandy Peninsula, in a developing drive to split the peninsula in two and isolate Cherbourg.

A British broadcast said a U.S. spearhead was engaged east of Saint-Lô, presumably in a flanking move.

British and Canadian tanks and infantry also gained new ground between Saint-Lô and the eastern perimeter of the 80-mile-long Allied beachhead beyond Caen, but both Caen itself and Tilly-sur-Seulles, 11 miles to the west and 21 miles east of Saint-Lô, remained in German hands in fierce see-saw fighting.

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 15th communiqué – marking the start of the second week of the invasion – reported “steady progress” in all but the Tilly-sur-Seulles sector.

Nazi general killed

The German High Command announced in its communiqué that a Gen. Marcks, identified as “commanding general of an army corps and brave defender of the Cherbourg Peninsula,” had been killed at the front during heavy fighting. The general may have been Lt. Gen. Erich Marcks, formerly commander of a German infantry division.

A front dispatch from Henry T. Gorrell, United Press war correspondent in Normandy, disclosed that U.S. infantry had occupied Montebourg on the main Cherbourg-Paris highway yesterday afternoon after several days of street fighting.

Elements of the 4th Division also drove to the east coast near Fontenay-sur-Mer, on a parallel highway three miles due east of Montebourg, Gorrell reported.

Nazis mass forces

Official estimates that the Germans have drawn off one-quarter of their entire strength in Europe to combat the invasion followed disclosure that 14-15 enemy divisions – 250,000 troops – were already known to have been brought up to front. Two of the divisions, the 716th and 352nd Infantry Divisions, have been mauled so severely, however, that they can no longer be considered fighting units.

The latest estimate of Allied strength in the beachhead came from the Paris radio, which said the arrival of additional Anglo-American troops in “great strength” last night boosted the number of divisions to 30 – 450,000 men at full strength.

The Vichy radio reported a new landing attempt at Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, near the northeastern tip of the Normandy Peninsula 14 miles east of Cherbourg.

A broadcast by the clandestine Radio Atlantic, reported by NBC, asserted that two U.S. divisions with tanks had gone ashore under a naval bombardment at Barfleur, four miles north of Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue.

In view of the huge forces committed by both sides on the peninsula, Jean Paquis, Paris radio commentator, said the battle of Normandy was capable of deciding “the future course of the war.”

The heaviest fighting of the beachhead continued in the hills and valleys of the Tilly-sur-Seulles area between Saint-Lô and Tilly-sur-Seulles itself has changed hands a number of times in the no-quarter battle, but at last reports, the Germans still held the town.

Use French tanks

The British sent spearheads probing southwest and southeast of Tilly-sur-Seulles in a possible move to surround it. Three German panzer divisions were defending the area, but some units were armed with vulnerable French tanks, no match for the Allied armor and a sign that the enemy may be suffering from a shortage of tanks.

British units were reported strongly emplaced in hills overlooking Tilly-sur-Seulles.

Allied headquarters said the British 6th Airborne Division was holding firm to its beachhead across the Orne River and canal east of Caen in the face of almost continuous German counterattacks.

U.S. troops advanced to within a half dozen miles of the ancient hilltop fortress town of Saint-Lô, 20 miles inland, after clearing the enemy from the Cerisy Forest, the site of an important enemy fuel and ammunition dump, and cutting the Saint-Lô-Bayeux road northeast of Saint-Lô.

Has ancient defenses

Saint-Lô was originally fortified as a key stronghold for the defense of Normandy in the 11th century and some of its ancient defenses still remain. The town and its surrounding terrain in many respects resemble fortified villages encountered by the Allies in Sicily and Italy.

Northwest of Carentan, U.S. forces steadily widened and deepened their bridgehead across the Merderet River and were believed rapidly extending their penetration across the narrowest part of the Normandy Peninsula.

Two battleships shell area

The battleships USS Texas and USS Nevada and other Allied warships under RAdm. Alan G. Kirk of the U.S. Navy supported the ground forces with shattering bombardments of enemy strongpoints, troop concentrations and other targets on the approaches to Cherbourg.

German reinforcements had also moved into line below Cherbourg as the enemy sought at all cost to keep open his sole remaining first-class highway and single-track railway from the port. The Americans and, farther southeast, the British and the Canadians have cut the main Cherbourg-Paris railway and highway at a number of points between Valognes and Caen.

Northeast of Normandy, Allied bombers have cut every bridge across the Seine west of Paris, forcing the Germans to detour around the capital any reinforcements drawn off from northern France or the Lowlands.

The number of German prisoners captured in the first week of the invasion was estimated by Allied headquarters at 10,000, including a handful of Japanese, Spaniards, Dutch and Poles.

Gorrell: ‘It’s hell down there,’ parachuting chaplain says of Carentan fight

Parson praises accuracy of our artillery as it wipes out cluster of German pillboxes
By Henry T. Gorrell

The following dispatch inaugurated the first direct transmission of news from France to the United States since the invasion.

With U.S. assault troops, Carentan, France (UP) – (June 12, delayed)
The parachuting parson and I were watching the fighting in the outskirts of Carentan.

Chaplain Raymond Hall said:

It’s hell down there; I know because I’ve been with those kids for several hours.

We lay on our stomachs at an advanced observation post and watched the artillery go after a cluster of German pillboxes which had been pinning the American boys down in gutters. Two panting runners were giving the colonel the position of the German posts.

The colonel barked the orders into the radio. We heard his sing-song “okay, fire!” then, “on the way.” The shells went over with a freight train rush. We watched the German pillboxes disappear in clouds and dust, with flashes of vivid red flame.

The parson whispered:

Thank God for that one. That had to be placed just right because otherwise it would have hit our kids lying out there in the gutters.

Landed on D-Day

The parson knows his fighting, because he has been in the thick of it since he parachuted down on D-Day. Doctors and stretcher-bearers told me later he had stayed in the frontline, holding shattered arms and legs, injecting morphine and adjusting splints under fire.

Just then, Lt. Jack A. Borchert came in for a personal report because his portable radio had been knocked out. He gave a closeup description of the parson’s “hell.”

He said:

We were in the leading assault company. We crossed three of the four bridges and were making good progress. But then the Germans rallied, reoccupied prepared positions and began to counterattack with bayonets and grenades. I haven’t seen many of my outfit since the last time they hit us.

Raked by mortars

Another liaison officer, Lt. Robert Dixon, said:

They pinned us down with mortars and 88s in the narrowest front. I fought in water up to my hips and then crawled to the forward command post. I mean, I half-walked, half-crawled because if I’d gotten down on my belly, I’d have drowned. Men were falling all around me. I don’t know why I wasn’t shot.

The fighting around Carentan spared neither beast nor man. Through field glasses, I saw cows, mules and horses fall with men in khaki and field gray.

I moved along to a first-aid post where I found the men still able to joke after being pinned down for hours in the swamps.

The wounded came in with teeth chattering, drenched to the skin. First-aiders held cigarettes to their teeth while their blood-soaked clothing was cut away from the wounds. For some, it was the last cigarette. They just puffed silently, shut their eyes and died before me.

Among the first-aid men with whom I talked and who had been out under fire for many hours was H. P. Taylor of Brentwood, Long Island. Taylor is a denial technician, but he volunteered as a stretcher-bearer because heavy casualties created a sudden need for bearers.

Nazi supply lines pounded in Normandy

Allies’ steady air blows forcing enemy planes to move bases back
By Walter Cronkite

London, England (UP) –
U.S. Flying Fortresses attacked three enemy airfields in France today and fighter-bombers soared out over the Channel as clearing weather permitted increased Allied aerial assaults on German communications leading to the Normandy battlefront.

The steady daylight blows on the enemy’s rear lines followed a smashing attack by more than 1,000 RAF bombers last night, when they dropped six-ton super-blockbusters on the German synthetic oil center at Gelsenkirchen and four important rail junctions in France.

Targets singled out by the 8th Air Force Fortresses this morning were the airfields at Évreux-Fauville, Dreux and Illiers-l’Évêque, midway between Paris and the fighting lines in Normandy.

Dive bombers hit targets

Mustangs, Thunderbolts and Lightnings, which formed the escort for the heavy bombers, also carried out offensive patrols behind the enemy positions and dive-bombed a wide variety of targets.

At dawn, Marauders and Havocs headed across the Channel only four hours after the last Marauders returned from yesterday’s attacks on railways, fuel dumps and other military targets in a wide arc stretching from just behind the battle lines to far inland.

A German Transocean News Agency broadcast from Berlin reported fierce air battles over the entire invasion area early today and said the intensity was likely to increase through the day. Transocean claimed that up to 11:00 a.m. this morning (local time), 43 Allied planes had been shot down in combats as furious as any previous invasion air battles.

Transocean also reported that U.S. bombers from Italy penetrated southern Germany today and bombed the Munich area.

Nazis forced from front airdromes

Thunderbolt pilots, returning from early morning operations over France, reported meeting a group of 15 Fw 119s equipped with exterior wing tanks, indicating that the German fighters had been forced out of the frontline airdromes by incessant Allied attacks and forced to operate from far behind the lines.

The big force of RAF Lancaster and Halifax bombers which struck into Germany last night for the first time since the invasion delivered the biggest blow ever made against Gelsenkirchen, just north of Essen in the Ruhr Valley, and made a smaller subsidiary attack on the rail center of Cologne, to the south.

Large fires were set among the sprawling synthetic oil works and pillars of dense smoke whirled 17,000 feet high. The billowing columns were so dense that Pathfinder pilots had to return to drop more markers.

Hammer rail centers

The night bombers also hammered the French rail centers of Arras, Cambrai, Amiens and Poitiers and vital tactical targets only a few thousand yards in advance of Allied troops in an effort to block German military and supply movements from Flanders to the Normandy battlefront.

The railway junction of Poitiers, on the main line from the south, has become the new bottleneck in the Germans’ steadily deteriorating communication system. Because of the destruction of junctions farther north along the Loire, Poitiers has been carrying the heavy burden of traffic bound for the front.

Lancaster bombers also ranged over Caen and laid sticks of bombs squarely across two bridges.

Nazi resistance stiffens

German fighters put up stiff resistance during the night and the skies of Germany and France were filled with tracers. The RAF lost 23 bombers, including 17 in the attacks on Gelsenkirchen and Cologne, while 10 German fighters were shot down.

A tactical force of Mosquitos also operated during the darkness, hitting transport facilities behind the enemy lines, including the Seine ferry installations. Railway stations east and south of the beachhead were attacked by both Mosquitos and other medium bombers from the 2nd Tactical Air Force.

British, French and Dutch-manned Boston Mitchell bombers caught a huge panzer marshalling area in the Forêt de Grimbosq and dropped 150 tons of bombs on the section within a few minutes.

The 8th Air Force announced that among the 16 airdromes hit yesterday by 1,400 heavy bombers, seven were severely damaged and others considerably damaged. Enemy airplanes appeared over London, southeast and southern England last night for the first time since the invasion of France and dropped bombs, causing a small number of casualties and some damage, it was announced today.

London hears Rommel has been removed

London, England (UP) –
A dispatch from the 21st Army Group’s headquarters to the Evening Standard today that it was believed Marshal Erwin Rommel had been removed from command of German troops facing the Allies in France.

No definite news about Rommel has reached the headquarters since the invasion started, but all indications are that he is no longer in command, the dispatch said.

The dispatch said:

Detailed reports beginning to arrive from the front showed that Rommel’s plan for the defense of Hitler Europe had even graver consequences than at first believed. It is now known that when Rommel was in Normandy shortly before the invasion, he moved forward coastal defense zone troops which Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, commander of Western Europe, had placed some distance behind the frontline.

He was so confident that by strengthening the coastal defenses, he could make the landings so costly that the invaders would be thrown into confusion.

Then he would bring up panzer divisions and hurl the invaders back into the sea. This was the plan that Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery anticipated.


Claim three U.S. soldiers tortured by Germans

NBC correspondent Stanley Richardson reports that Army officers have authenticated at least three cases of U.S. paratroopers being tortured and murdered by Nazis in the early hours of the Normandy invasion.

In one instance, the bodies of three paratroop enlisted men were found piled against a wall of a former German command post near Carentan. The men had been stripped to the waist and their hands had been bound before they had been executed.

Richardson says that many other cases are under investigation.

Nazis stiffen resistance in Italian hills

Fresh German divisions reported fighting back savagely at 5th Army
By Robert Vermillion

Defeat of Nazis seen hastening doom of Nippon

Roosevelt predicts invasion victory will speed Jap surrender


$95 billion needed this year for war

americavotes1944

War vote cards swamp election officials here

Vacations canceled as clerical shortage becomes very serious
By Joseph H. Schmalacker

The arrival of the first substantial load of war ballot applications for the 1944 elections has caused a manpower emergency in the Board of Elections, which threatens apparently to become worse as the flood of applications increases, it was learned today.

Harassed officials of the board have been forced to order cancellations of all vacations of the board’s clerical employees and to appeal to the city administration for at least additional temporary clerks to keep pace with the influx of applications.

The first batch of applications, including the names of about 9,000 of the Brooklyn men in the Armed Forces, has reached a total of 35,000 for the five New York City boroughs.

“And this,” said S. Howard Cohen, president of the board, “is only a beginning.”

250,000 estimated

According to present estimates, he said, this was expected to grow to at least 250,000, which would be about 33⅓% of the total number of individuals now in the Armed Forces from New York City.

Each applicant’s name as it is received requires an examination of old and new voting lists and maps to determine the election, as well as the assembly district where the serviceman’s ballot would be cast. The process has been complicated by the State Reapportionment Act, which revised, consolidated or abolished old districts and established a series of new ones, with all district lines being changed.

The applications pouring into the board’s offices are being transmitted from the State War Ballot Commission at Albany, which is receiving them from men in the Armed Forces in the continental United States and from foreign war stations. The Dewey war ballot law enacted by the Legislature at Albany requires Board of Elections to begin sending out war ballots and envelopes to the men in the Armed Forces on Sept. 7, with Oct. 16 as the deadline. The ballots, to be counted, must be returned no later than Nov. 3 – four days before the date of the presidential election.

Overtaxing staff

Commissioner Cohen said the influx of applications was overtaxing the capacity of the board’s staff to handle them. He said the board’s clerical forces were undermanned and that, in all probability, the employees would be forced to work at night. On top of the huge flood of war ballots, he said, the board faced the problem of handling requests for 40,000 or 50,000 absentee ballots from New York City voters who are entitled to vote although their business affairs make it necessary for them to be out of the state at the time of the election.

The board’s clerical staff has been undermanned since the city administration dropped eight clerks several years ago without replacing them. Hiring temporary clerks represents a problem in itself, according to officials, because of the low pay which the city provides for such work.

Army officer, charged with rape, leaves stand

Gorrell: Liberty ship named for ace war writer plays invasion role

By Henry T. Gorrell

Congress to lower money order rates as revenue dips


Southern Senators fight FEPC grant

Air offensive speeds drive against Japs


Japs’ mandated islands likely to be U.S. prize

McGlincy: Best, or worst, still awaits Germans in French sector

By James McGlincy

Churchill and Eisenhower inspect beachheads in separate parties

By Phil Ault

‘Fantastic’ future seen in electronics

Corby: Warner Bros. still manages to find men to outnumber women in their films

By Jane Corby

Editorial: France battles to regain freedom against defeatist counsels of Pétain

Two voices have counseled France within recent days as to the course which she should follow for her own interests and security. The old marshal who now does Hitler’s bidding at Vichy, a pitiable figure from whom every last vestige of heroism and honor has fallen, is guilty of his final gesture of betrayal.

For four years, the “Hero of Verdun” has watched the oppressors of his people steal the food from their mouths, line free spirits against a wall, forcibly take men from their homes and hearths to slave in the mills of Germany and hold as prisoners the soldiers captured in the debacle that preceded capitulation.

He has seen no sign of mercy or magnanimity, nothing to justify the hope that one day freedom would be restored by the victors. Yet, his counsel to the people of France, with their great tradition of liberty, is to bend to the oppressor’s yoke. “Follow me,” he pleaded, knowing that he could lead them only deeper into slavery. “Do not get mixed up in the affairs of others.”

The other voice is that of de Gaulle, who has told the people of France that the time has come to prepare for their part in their own liberation – a part which calls for sabotage, a general strike in factories working for the enemy, for the guidance of Allied forces and eventually for a mass uprising.

This is a call to war by civilians who will be given short shrift by the Nazi executioners who overrun the land, who have marked their suspects and will strike ruthlessly when the slightest justification arises. France will soon be ablaze with war, with its towns and villages wrecked by the fire of friend and foe, with more acute misery than the people have known since 1918, even including the years of enslavement.

Out of this new agony will come, however, the deliverance which the French have craved, the freedom more precious to them than life itself, the arrival of their day of glory.

White House Statement on Approving the Joint Resolution on the Pearl Harbor Trial and Investigation
June 13, 1944

I have today approved the Joint Resolution passed by the Congress, extending for the further period of six months all statutory and other provisions that might prevent the trial and punishment of any persons involved in the Pearl Harbor catastrophe of December 7, 1941, and directing the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy to make an investigation into the facts surrounding the catastrophe and commence proceedings against such persons as the facts may justify.

The Secretaries of War and Navy have both suggested that I withhold my approval from this resolution, on the ground that the investigation and action therein directed might require them to withdraw from their present assignments numerous officers whose services in such assignments are needed for the successful prosecution of the war, and also on the ground that such proceedings would give publicity to matters which national security requires still to be withheld from the enemy.

If there were any doubt in my mind that the resolution might require such action by the Secretaries of War and Navy as would interfere with the successful conduct of the war, I would have withheld my approval from the resolution. I am confident, however, that the Congress did not intend that the investigation of this matter or any proceedings should be conducted in a manner which would interrupt or interfere with the war effort. On the strength of this confidence, I have approved the resolution.

The Pittsburgh Press (June 13, 1944)

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

Normandy beachhead, France –
On our first morning after leaving London, the Army gave us assault correspondents a semi-final set of instructions and sent us off in jeeps in separate groups, each group to be divided up later until we were all separated.

We still weren’t given any details of the coming invasion. We still didn’t know where we were to go aboard ship, or what units we would be with.

As each batch left, the oldsters among us would shake hands. And because we weren’t feeling very brilliant, almost our only words to each other were, “Take it easy.”

The following morning, at another camp, I was called at 4:00 a.m. All around me officers were cussing and getting up. This was the headquarters of a certain outfit, and they were moving out in a motor convoy at dawn.

For months, these officers had been living a civilized existence, with good beds, good food, dress-up uniforms, polished desks and a normal social existence. But now once again they were in battle clothes. They wore steel helmets and combat boots, and many carried packs on their backs.

They joked in the sleepy pre-dawn darkness. One said to another, “What are you dressed up for, a masquerade?”

Everybody was overloaded with gear. One officer said:

The Germans will have to come to us. We can never get to them with all this load.

The most-repeated question, asking jokingly, said, “Is your trip necessary?”

These men had spent months helping to plan this gigantic invasion. They were relieved to finish the weary routine of paperwork at last, and glad to start pulling their plans into action. If they had any personal concern about themselves, they didn’t show it.

I rode with the convoy commander, who was an old friend. We were in an open jeep. It was just starting to get daylight when we pulled out. And just as we left, it began raining – that dismal, cold, cruel rain that England is so capable of. It rained like that a year and a half ago when we left for Africa.

We drove all day. Motorcycles nursed each of our three sections along. We would hail every two hours for a stretch. At noon, we opened K rations. It was bitter cold.

Enlisted men had brought along a wire-haired terrier which belonged to one of the sergeants. We couldn’t have an invasion without a few dogs along. At the rest halts, the terrier would get out in the fields to play and chase rocks with never any worry. It seemed wonderful to be a dog.

The English roads had been almost wholly cleared of normal traffic. British civil and army police were at every crossing. As we neared the embarkation point, people along the roads stood at their doors and windows and smiled bon voyage to us. Happy children gave us the American OK sign – thumb and forefinger in a circle. One boy smilingly pointed a stick at us like a gun, and one of the soldiers pointed his rifle back and asked us with a grin: “Shall I let him have it?”

One little girl, thinking the Lord knows what, made a nasty face at us.

Along toward evening we reached our ship. It was an LST, and it was already nearly loaded with trucks and armored cars and soldiers. Its ramp was down in the water, several yards from shore, and being an old campaigner, I just waded aboard. But the officers behind me yelled up at the deck: “Hey, tell the captain to move the ship up closer.”

So, they waited a few minutes, and the ramp was eased up onto dry ground, and our whole convoy walked around. Being an old campaigner, I was the only one in the crowd to get his feet wet.

We had hardly got aboard when the lines were cast off and we pulled out. That evening the colonel commanding the troops on our ship gave me the whole invasion plan in detail – the secret the whole world had waited years to hear, and once you have heard it you become permanently a part of it. Now you were committed. It was too late to back out now, even if your heart failed you.

I asked a good many questions, and I realized my voice was shaking when I spoke but I couldn’t help it. Yes, it would be tough, the colonel admitted. Our own part would be precarious. He hoped to go in with as few casualties as possible, but there would be casualties.

From a vague anticipatory dread, the invasion now turned into a horrible reality for me.

In a matter of hours, this holocaust of our own planning would swirl over us. No man could guarantee his own fate. It was almost too much for me. A feeling of utter desperation obsessed me throughout the night. It was nearly 4:00 a.m. before I got to sleep and then it was a sleep harassed and torn by an awful knowledge.