D-Day Research Contribution HERE

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History Extra Podcast with a lecture Peter Caddick-Adams on whether D-Day could have failed,

Interesting parts:
1 What was the Plan B (if it would fail), I never heard or read about this part as we all know it didn’t fail. Almost like the inverse of Market Garden who way too many people assumed it had to fail. Also discusses the evacuation plans in that case.

2 He contrasts Tiger to the much bigger exercises that went right. He also mention nasty accidents that would save lives later

Exclusive podcast: Peter Caddick-Adams on whether D-Day could have failed - HistoryExtra

3 Peter also mentions Mikshe who in 1943 wrote a book in which actually had 3 airborne divisions assaulting a coast which looked exactly like Normandy see page 43 (in hindsight by accident). Still effing creepy if you are an Allied planner :slight_smile: Paratroops - Ferdinand Otto Miksche - Google Books

4 Also the massive storm in Normandy in 1905 which was followed by a bigger one on 18th June 1944. Had the 6th June be posponed the next date would be 17th June (which could have spelled disaster for the Allies).

5 Not to forget Bill Millens’ son who took over as the Piper on the sands of Normandy, never forget!
Caddick Adams Also wrote Sand and Steel on D-Day say above and Snow and Steel with many many new yet unpublished events.

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Stating the obvious here but the Juno Beach Center has tons of links, podcasts, interviews and so in. It opened fairly recently in 2003

I linked through their “Educators Resources” as those seem to be the most valuable for TG purposes.

Educator Resources : Juno Beach Centre

Bonus:
One of the links allows researching Canadian newspapers/clips through keywords:
WarMuseum.ca - Canadian Newspapers and the Second World War: The History of World War 2 (museedelaguerre.ca)

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Some more books

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Ah, good to know. I am Dutch myself.
I will look into the possibilities of going there myself (and if it is needed for the series). If so, I will contact you.
Best,
Wieke

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Hello Tommaso,
Thanks for the info.
It would be of great help, if you could take a look at https://www.archivioluce.com and see if you could navigate your way through the archive to see if they have news coverage of June 1944. Because it is all in Italian, I can’t search for it myself.

An indication would really help.

Hope to hear from you again, best,
Wieke

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Hello,

we are from Greece and we found a documentary created by the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (the state-owned public television broadcaster) about the D-Day.
This is the direct link which includes the original video:

and a page that includes information about the video:

All the above are in Greek language but contain images and photographs and recollections from Greek navy personnel that contributed in D-day. If you think that any of it are in interest to you we could translate the video, although we are not official translators.

According to the available information two Greek corvettes were send to help in the naval landing: “Κριέζης - Kriezis” and “Τομπάζης - Tompazis”.

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The Diairy of Anne Frank who listened to the BBC in Dutch. It really shows that the Germans couldn’t keep it silent. At 9 Dutch they got the news.

She also wrote that “the most beautiful was the feeling that friends were on the way”. Sadly she was arrested 59 days later by scum still fighting for an obviously doomed cause​:face_with_symbols_over_mouth:. She died in Auschwitz :frowning:

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Hey thanks for reply, here are the translations: For Turun Sanomat the article “Hitler johtaa puolustusta?” Is very fact based and goes over the attacking and defender commanders (Eisenhower on landing army chief and Montgomery leads the attacking army) The article is as follows :“London 6.6, Reuteurs military assistant reports that according to information that has arrived to England through secret means Hitler has become the commander of the defending forces in Normandy. His Headquarters has most likely been moved to an unnamed town in Northern-France so he can be closer to the theater of war.” To note Turun Sanomat at the time was politically Liberal magazine and a mouth piece of a party that included Risto Ryti. Sadly I could not find more of the actual invasion article itself, expect this quote: " During last night, the enemy has started an attack on Western-Europe, one that they have long planned and one that we have long expected."

The Helsingin Sanomat article has press-releases from both, axis and allies. The Article talks about hard fighting in Rouen and that allies are pushing towards inland. There are also small articles speculating about future allied landings. The big article below “Hermojännitys Berliinissä lauennut.” The subtitle reads " Landings on 400km wide front, new landings are to be expect, The Germans believe they can stop them." The article itself has timings of the attacks such as “1:30AM the Anglo-Saxons landed on Jersey and Guernsey”. Some more intresting parts: “Even though Germany was militarily prepared to defend the landings it seems the 6th day was a suprise to them.” “The attacker has so far not used any new weapons, but it has used many tricks such as parachuting human sized dolls rigged with explosives.” The article also mentions how the landings were done precisely how Germans expected it and compared the parachuting tactic to Axis invasion of Netherlands. Intrestingly this article either talks about the allies as either Anglo-Saxons or the enemy.

Hopefully this was not too long and confusing, and helpful!

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Hello Wieke,

I have looked through the archivioluce website but I could not find any videos or pictures talking directly about the landings.
I was able, however, to find a video describing the way in which German transport ships were supported by battleships when traversing the English channel in 1944: "Canale Manica - Protezione dei convogli tedeschi" - Archivio storico Istituto Luce. They show how they blow up mines and the protection of the convoys by the air force. Most videos on the archive contain Combat Bulletins such as this one: Combat Bullettin n. 18 (111 CB 18 rullo 1) - Archivio storico Istituto Luce. However these do not describe the Italian point of view.
Let me know if you would be interested in a translation of the script of the first video.
I have also sent an email to my local newspaper in Italy, Il Secolo XIX to ask if it is possible to access their archive and if they have any publications regarding the landings published on the 6 or 7th of June 1944.

All the Best

Tommaso

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I received a quick reply from the newspaper saying that they do not have an archive anymore but the local library does. I will try contacting them.

Tommaso

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I went to my local library today and started down the path of finding the right newspapers. Here is a link to images of all the papers I was able to collect, as they are all pdfs so I can’t upload them here directly: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IUgZ9fjyd4Jmbdma2NDrcwUl45KN7PzS?usp=sharing

Something interesting I found for the June 6th paper was that although news of the invasion had arrived by the paper’s printing, only german radio broadcasts were able to be cited. In the article, it says that Eisenhower would only confirm an invasion was taking place, whereas German radio had a lot of information (some accurate and some inaccurate from what I can tell). I included front page and page 15, as page 15 continues the article on page 1. The most interesting tidbits I can find are that according to a 6:30am broadcast, “German naval forces off the coast are engaged in a battle with enemy landing craft”, and that “It is believed that these paratroops have been given the task of capturing airfields to facilitate the landing of further paratroops”. So far that I’m aware, there was an extremely limited and ineffective naval response, and the paratroop objectives were to capture river crossings and not airfields. I think it is interesting how this German propaganda was then reported in the United States as they had no other information.

I also have the articles of June 7th, and I find it interesting that already on June 7th, they had reports of really bad seasickness from the landing troops. It also seems that Allied command had finally talked to the press and they had a lot more information from them, although some information seems to still be coming from German radio broadcasts.

Moving on from directly talking about D-Day newspapers, I had mentioned I was going to look into what I can find on the Bedford Boys. So far, I have found mentions of some of their fates in the Roanoke Times, which are the papers from July in my above link. In one of them, I also found that their regiment was cited for heroism on July 23rd.
I also found more information on who they were and why the tragedy managed to befall the one town in particular. My source for most of this information is from the book “The Bedford Boys” by Alex Kershaw. Most of them were part of Company A of the 116th Infantry in the 29th division which landed in the first wave on Omaha beach which resulted in a high casualty rate. The 116th infantry was a former Virginia National Guard regiment (Bedford is a town in the state of Virginia), and some of the men from Bedford had been a part of that regiment since before the war started.
The town of Bedford itself did not begin to definitively learn of their town’s fallen until July 17th, 1944, although rumors were abound after letters started returning to sender and a few families had seen fallen soldier telegrams in the previous weeks. On this one day, so many telegrams were sent to this town that there was a lack of people to send the telegrams, and the town discovered that the horrible tragedy had happened.
I believe that this story may be an interesting tribute, potentially as part of the On the Homefront series since the news and town’s reaction are well chronicled in the Bedford Boys book. If you need help obtaining a copy, let me know and I can find a way to get one to you.

The only other thing I know I want to do is to get the copies of the Bedford Bulletin (the local newspaper) that I mentioned in my original message was a far distance away. I have put in a request through the Inter-Library loan program here in Virginia, so I hope that I will be able to get access to the microfilm in the coming weeks without the need for the long travel. If there is anything else that you need in relation to the Bedford Boys or anything else in Southwestern Virginia, let me know and I’ll do what I can to find it for you. I live about 45 minutes from the town itself, which has a memorial both to D-Day and a separate memorial for the Bedford Boys themselves. If there is anyone who would have connections for questions that are not easily answered, it would likely be the people who run those two memorials.

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slovenec66

So, besides my first post above from the Radio Vestnik newspaper, I’ve found some other newspapers from other newspapers. What might be most interesting is that Radio Vestnik is an underground newspaper, organized by the Liberation Front of the Slovene Nation (or simply OF for “Osvobodilna Fronta” (Liberation front)), while the other newspapers are controlled by the occupation forces. The differences between them are obvious. Those controlled by Italians and Germans are basically all the same, even containing the same articles and titles across different newspapers. The newspapers published on June 6th don’t mention the invasion at all, but still focus on the capture of Rome. They try to present axis powers in good light, while shoving the guilt for suffering, deaths, etc. on the allies. One such is “Slovenec - političen list za slovenski narod” (The Slovenian (man) - Political paper for the Slovenian nation).

I’ve also found some newspapers of Slovenian settlers in USA. They still used Slovenian language for writing most articles. I’ll link one of them here and you can get back to me if you need something translated.

On the 7th, most “official” papers still don’t report on the invasion. But there are a couple of exceptions. So I’ll separate them in a different response to this post and translate them once I have time.

Keep doing good work. :blush:

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Excellent input Martin, many thanks. It is indeed an interesting angle: the resistance knew much more of the invasion than the official Axis news sources did. And both had their own motivations to share the news. It can create an interesting storyline.

If you have more translations, please post it here.
Best, Wieke

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Info for you on the 320th Anti-Aircraft Barrage Balloon Battalion (VLA) at Omaha Beach. The 320th was the first Black Unit to see combat in World War II and among the first troops to set foot on the Normandy Beachhead. My Uncle was a member. He said that “It seemed like the whole German Army was shooting at me”. He was near by when his Sargent was killed by shrapnel when he looked up from the little cover they had to find a way off the beach.

Hervieux, Linda (2015). Forgotten: The Untold Story of D-Day’s Black Heroes, At Home and at War. United States: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-231379-9.

Protecting the Beaches with Balloons: D-Day and the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion

Here are some of the 320th. Unfortunately my Uncle Jame’s [James Preston Brown] name is switched with Scott’s(?) in the caption. He kept a framed copy of the same photo (minus the names) in his living room in Darlington, S. C.

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Have several links for you, but as I am a new user, I am not allowed to post them to you! I will post them as I am allowed :slight_smile:

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My Father (Tuskegee Airman), his two brothers (Navy SeaBee and 320 VLA Barrage Balloon), & my Mom’s brother (Tuskegee Airman) were all anti-fascists. Uncle James’ 320th VLA Barrage Balloon unit that was the only Black unit at Omaha Beach on #DDay. #DDay76

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Huzzah! I did discuss the Tuskegee Airmen briefly in the second post or so here (a critique of a TimeGhost video):

Also, welcome to the forum, Mr. Brown. :slight_smile:

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I saw it and really appreciated the episode. I noticed some of the little mistakes/pronunciations, etc. I’ll check out your critique in a bit!

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Waverly Woodson & 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion – Keeping The Beachhead Safe From The Luftwaffe

D-Day, and the Very Low Altitude Barrage Balloon Battalion, a story

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Excellent. Though I’m pretty sure some folks will disagree with my analysis, because it’s not the stuff they were taught in schools.

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