Operation OVERLORD (1944)

33

COUNTRY IN PRAYER
President on radio leads in petition he framed for Allied cause

Liberty Bell rings; Lexington and Boston’s old North Church hold services
By Lawrence Resner

Led by President Roosevelt, the entire country joined in solemn prayer yesterday for the success of the United Nations armies of liberation.

Over the radio networks at 10:00 p.m. ET, the President read the prayer which he had composed in the early invasion hours yesterday morning, the text of which had already been heard in both houses of Congress.

The prayer had been sent out throughout the country and printed in newspapers so that the millions who listened to the broadcast could recite the words with the President as he spoke.

The President’s prayer that the Allied forces be led “straight and true” in the struggle to liberate the suffering humanity of Europe was the climax of a day marked both by the solemn appreciation of the human values involved and exhilaration over the fact that the great battle had been joined.

His expression of faith that with the Grace of God, “and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph,” was echoed in the hearts of his countrymen, in special prayers offered in great cathedrals and small parishes, and in the ordinary conversation of Americans everywhere.

‘Heartbreaking days ahead’

In Congress, after the prayer was read, Joseph W. Martin (R-MA), House Minority Leader, warned that “many heartbreaking days lie ahead,” and Senator Alben W. Barkley (D-KY), the Majority Leader, said that:

All we need or ought to do or can do is pray fervently and devoutly for the success of our troops and those of our allies.

At Albany, Governor Dewey, accompanied by Mrs. Dewey, attended St. Peter’s Episcopal Church for a few brief moments of prayer, while here in New York City an estimated 50,000 persons who gathered at Madison Square were led in prayer by Mayor La Guardia.

The observance at Madison Square was typical of smaller gatherings called in many American cities and attended by persons of all faiths and creeds.

In Columbus, Ohio Governor John W. Bricker called the landings in France “the beginning of the end of the forces of evil and destruction,” and in Chicago, Bishop Henry St. George Tucker, president of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, suggested the words for a D-Day prayer.

In many communities the news of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s first invasion communiqué was greeted with sirens or whistles.

The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, which heralded the nation’s independence, was rung six times to mark the landings. In Boston and Lexington, services were held in historic churches.

Both the Associated Press and the United Press reported a generally undemonstrative reception of the news. Groups gathered at newsstands, or stood before radio loudspeakers, eager to learn the fullest details of the actual military events, but, with very few exceptions the thousands of war workers in the principal industrial areas were credited with receiving with solemn intentness the confirmation of the Allied invasion, and in many instances were said to have worked with extra zeal thereafter.

The news was brought to workers on nightshifts over plant loudspeaker systems, but there was little shouting or any other demonstration.

Donald M. Nelson, chairman of the War Production Board, called upon the country to exert its “supreme effort.” He said “we’ve got a long way to go,” but also made the reassuring statement that the Allied forces were using secret weapons that “the public has never seen or even heard of” and which match “everything the enemy has been able to devise.”

In Washington, two men who might have been expected to be the busiest persons in the capital, Gen. George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff, and Secretary Henry L. Stimson, were reported to have left their offices around 5:00 p.m. Monday and not to have returned until their usual hours yesterday morning.

Gen. Marshall’s work was said to have been done before the invasion started, a fact which seemed to sum up the War Department’s D-Day.

Gen. Marshall had gone to the Soviet Embassy Monday night to receive the Order of Suvorov, First Class, the Soviet Union’s highest military decoration, while Secretary Stimson was at home during the first stages of the landings.

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34

Landing puts end to 4-year hiatus

Fiery renewal of battle for France; Britain recalls grimness of Dunkerque
By Raymond Daniell

London, England –
This was D-Day and it has gone well.

At daybreak, Anglo-American forces dropped from the skies in Normandy, swarmed up on the beaches from thousands of landing craft and renewed the battle for France and for Europe, broken off four years ago at Dunkerque.

And when darkness fell, on the word of no less than Winston Churchill, the King’s First Minister, who is still this country’s best reporter, they had toeholds on a broad front and were fighting as far back from the coast as Caen, which is eight and a half miles behind the Channel beaches and 149 miles from Paris.

At the time he spoke, the Prime Minister said that the battle which was just beginning was progressing in “a thoroughly satisfactory manner.” But even he, like most people in this island, had his fingers crossed.

The Germans’ resistance until now has been surprisingly, perhaps ominously, slight. Several obstacles to any amphibious operation have been surmounted. The concentration of ships has escaped serious bombardment from the air and the huge armada has crossed the Channel without encountering real enemy naval opposition. Submarine obstacles and shore batteries, which had been pounded relentlessly by the Allied air forces, were less lethal than had been expected.

Weather not favorable

The weather was uncertain but possibly a decisive factor. It was not favorable to the attacking forces. It was revealed at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force that the great blow had been postponed one day because the barometer had started to fall – not an unusual occurrence in this land of fickle weather.

On the basis of reports from his meteorologists, Gen. Eisenhower postponed the launching of his attack 24 hours. Then the weathermen assured him that an improvement was coming and he was faced with the problem of gambling on their science or postponing the attack another month. His was a grim decision, for it was learned at Supreme Headquarters that had the meteorologists been wring, the whole expedition might have met with disaster.

As it was, the weather was not good, but it improved. At the start, clouds obscured air targets and winds swept the Channel into one of its hellish moods, so a large part of the invading force must have been seasick when they landed to do battle with the enemy.

The tides of the Channel, which in the days of the Spanish Armada favored England, changed in the crucial hours between dark and daylight. Minesweepers had to switch their gear from one side to the other and never slow down or stop lest the cutting tools they drag behind them sink to the ocean floor.

The first communiqué merely said Allied troops had landed in northern France. Later, this was expanded unofficially to mean Normandy, where the apple trees have just shed their blossoms and begun to bear fruit.

Enemy describes arena

The Germans were more explicit and perhaps more tendentious. They identified the fighting zone as stretching from Cotentin Peninsula to the estuary of the Seine.

The Germans doubtless would like to know what the Allies planned to do next. It would help them a lot in their order of battle if they knew whether this landing was intended to become the main beachhead for a march on Berlin or whether it was the forerunner of new attacks along the coastline that stretches from the Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean.

The answer to that question is a military secret, but Prime Minister Churchill, who said when the Anglo-American forces landed in North Africa that it was the end of the beginning, hinted today that the assault in Normandy was only a foretaste of what was to come.

The Prime Minister, who about four years ago described the heroic retreat of the British Army from Dunkerque in terms of a strategic victory, reported twice in the course of the day to the Commons. In his morning address, completely factual and devoid of rhetoric, he said that “the first series of landings in force upon the European continent” had taken place.

Later, he said it was the hope of the Allied commanders to furnish “a succession of surprises” to the enemy. The battle now beginning, he said, would grow in scale and intensity for weeks to come.

Bares total of ships

In his speech, Mr. Churchill dealt specifically with many matters which newspaper correspondents had been told only a few minutes earlier were taboo. For instance, he disclosed that an armada of 4,000 ships, not counting the smaller landing craft, had crossed the Channel carrying the spearhead of the attack – Canadian, British and U.S. troops commanded by Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, who, Supreme Headquarters disclosed, was to lead today’s combined United Nations force.

The Prime Minister told the House of Commons – whose many empty seats bore witness to the success with which military secrets had been kept – that mass airborne landings had been “successfully effected” behind the enemy lines, and he said that the fire of shore batteries having been “largely quelled,” landings on the beaches were taking place.

Obstacles in the sea, he said, had not proved so formidable as had been anticipated. The Anglo-American offensive, he disclosed, was being supported by 11,000 first-line aircraft which would be thrown into the fray as they were needed.

“The commanders say everything is going according to plan – what a plan!” he said.

Between Mr. Churchill’s first statement in the morning and his postscript at the close of the parliamentary session, the people of this island worked a lot and prayed a little. There were services in the cathedrals and village churches, but everywhere work went on as usual, turning out planes and tanks to take the places of those lost in battle.

The people, who have worked and sweated and waited, seemed relieved that at last the die was cast and the Rubicon crossed.

These people, who four years ago accepted the collapse of France and decided to carry on the fight alone somehow, felt that their instincts had been justified and that their old decision was the right one. They know trouble may develop later, but they went to bed remembering these words of Mr. Churchill, who has never looked at wat through rose-colored glasses:

Airborne landings are well established and landings and follow-ups are all proceeding with much less loss than we expected – very much less. We have captured various bridges which are important and which have not been blown up by the enemy, and fighting is even proceeding in the town of Caen.

The attempt at liberation of the continent has begun auspiciously. Later the allies will count upon the help of the resistance movements of Europe but radio broadcasts by Gen. Charles de Gaulle (head of the French Committee of National Liberation), Dr. Pieter S. Gerbrandy (Dutch Premier), Hubert Pierlot (Belgian Premier) and Gen. Eisenhower have made it clear that the time is not yet. All these speakers advised the people of occupied Europe to wait for orders to rise against the Nazi occupation.

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35

PLANES BLAST OUT PATHS FOR ASSAULT
Full U.S.-RAF air cover given after 10,000-ton bombing of coast by ‘heavies;’ Luftwaffe is wary

Allied mediums, fighters wreck foe’s communication, even shoot it out with tanks
By Harold Denny

London, England –
The Allied air forces hammered out the paths for yesterday’s invasion blow and held a shield over our forces at sea and ashore with an unprecedented power and skill that kept our losses well below the cost Allied commanders had been prepared to pay.

Beginning with attacks by more than 1,000 British heavy bombers on the French coast Monday midnight and followed at dawn by 1,300 U.S. Flying Fortresses and Liberators on the same targets, Allied planes of all sizes and types shuttled in and out of battle all day and were still at it last night.

About 31,000 Allied airmen flew on 7,500 sorties between Monday midnight and 8:00 a.m. yesterday. As many more sorties were flown over the French coast up to dark last night, and Supreme Allied Headquarters reported 1,000 troop-carrying planes had ferried the greatest airborne force in history into France. The total Allied loss for the day was 20 planes.

Aerial action unceasing

The air assault went on last night. The London sky throbbed with the passage of more great British bomber formations heading toward the continent.

The Royal Air Force struck in strength over France through Tuesday night in support of the ground operations, the Associated Press reported.

All day Tuesday, according to American air officials, our fliers over the invasion area encountered only about 50 Nazi planes and they shot down at least 26 of the foe. U.S. air losses our of more than 9,000 sorties by daylight were 50 planes: 25 bombers and 25 fighters.

In closely coordinated attacks before dawn and all day, U.S. and British airmen blasted German defenses and gun positions to silence them with bombs and rockets and diving machine-gun bursts.

Medium and light bombers and fighter-bombers of the U.S. 9th Air Force and the RAF roared down to treetop level far behind the German frontlines and smashed bridges, disrupted traffic centers, shot motor convoys and railway trains into flaming disorder, wrecked radio stations and made the greatest mess they could of enemy transport and communications.

Our fighters formed so tight an air cover that our advancing sea convoys and assaulting ground troops gained the beaches virtually unhampered by the Luftwaffe.

Fighters do thorough duty

Some fighters even shot it out with German tanks. And in all these operations, including the towing of thousands of parachutists and airborne infantry deep behind the enemy’s lines, our aircraft met astonishingly little opposition. The Luftwaffe hardly appeared, although sometimes there was sharp enemy fire from the ground, including rifle fire by enraged German infantrymen.

Fighter planes of the 8th Air Force shot down three Me 109s in a chase over Paris rooftops, the Associated Press reported.

The first wave of 9th Air Force Marauders, 350 strong, that bombed Nazi beach defenses met a few Me 109s that were soon routed, said a United Press dispatch. Two Marauders were missing from this operation.

In addition to their big dawn attack, the 8th Air Force’s Fortresses and Liberators made three attacks on targets near the French coast during the day.

The failure of the Luftwaffe as yet to fight gratified the Allied commanders, but it did not lull them into any confidence that the Nazi Air Force would not appear later in formidable numbers. The Luftwaffe is believed to have 1,500-2,000 fighters in the west and perhaps 500 bombers, and can still deliver a considerable sting.

Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and his German air aides face a difficult dilemma. The Allied aerial forces are strong enough to strike simultaneously deep inside Germany and give full support to the invading forces. The Luftwaffe must choose whether to protect the heart of the Reich or try to stem the invasion. It apparently cannot do both at once.

U.S. and British heavy bombers, in planting the aerial barrage ahead of our landing forces, rained more than 10,000 tons of explosives on hundreds of German defensive targets between Monday midnight and 8:00 yesterday morning.

Following up the great work of the 8th Air Force and the RAF’s Bomber Command, the mediums and fighter-bombers of our 9th Air Force had flown more than 2,500 sorties before 1:00 p.m. (local time). Commanders described it as “the most violent 12 hours in the history of aerial warfare.”

By 10:00 last night, the 9th Air Force had increased its total sorties to 4,750. The largest number ever flown before in one day was about 1,600.

In providing its share of air cover, the RAF’s Second Tactical Air Force flew more than 2,000 sorties yesterday.

As part of the all-out operations, additional formations of RAF “heavies” during Monday night bombed the major rail center of Osnabrück in Northwest Germany without loss of a plane.

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First prisoners arrive

Nazi seamen reach Britain along with Allied wounded

An invasion port, England (UP) – (June 6)
The first German prisoners and first casualties to reach this port were landed late this afternoon. The prisoners, who had been fished out of the Channel after their German craft was sunk by invasion warships, were brought in aboard a British light cruiser at 7:00 p.m. (local time).

They were immediately herded into a compound to be questioned by intelligence officers. These Nazis, who were among the first to fee the sting of the second front, straggled along the pier like half-drowned rats.

It was clear from the expression on their faces that they had had enough. In a subtle way, they seemed happy to be in the safety of Allied captivity.

The first wounded to be disembarked at this port were soldiers brought back from the French beachhead in a minesweeper. They were carried ashore by litter bearers and taken to an emergency hospital near the pier.

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37

PT boats shepherd invaders to France

Tiny craft, in wake of sweepers, made surprise possible

Aboard a U.S. PT boat, off France (UP) – (June 6)
Thousands of vessels arrived safely at their rendezvous off the French coast this morning, and although the operation began in broad daylight yesterday, the Germans were kept so busy by our planes they never knew what was happening.

The tactical surprise was so complete that an hour after British and U.S. battleships and cruisers opened a gigantic shore bombardment the enemy had not fire one answering shot. Not until 5:30 a.m. did a lone enemy reconnaissance plane, with the help of flares, discover the Allied armada. And there was little its pilot could do by then.

So completely off-guard were the German defenders that British minesweepers, which were escorted by the PT squadron, cleared a broad highway right up to the French shoreline. A maneuver unprecedented in naval history, it was carried out without the loss of a PT, despite the extreme hazards. Without the run by the minesweepers and PTs to clear the Channel directly to the coast, the invasion would have been a most costly operation.

The rough seas left the PT crews battered and some acutely seasick, but the plywood navy shepherded the minesweepers along the charter route all night. Because of the slowness of the minesweepers, it was necessary to begin the operation in broad daylight yesterday.

The barrage began at 5:40 a.m., when the dreadnoughts let loose their first salvos. It was more like maneuvers than a historic invasion and a big disappointment to the PT crews, who were spotting for a fight.

Ralph Gaetter, a quartermaster from Malden, Massachusetts, said:

It’s more like the Poughkeepsie regatta than an invasion.

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Rome calm to news

Populace sees invasion as another sign of Allies’ victory

Rome, Italy – (June 6)
The news of the invasion was announced to bewildered Romans over public loudspeakers at 1:00 p.m. CET today.

The people were prepared to believe it would succeed quickly after having seen the evidence of the power of the 5th Army. A few days ago, they saw a bedraggled, beaten army of Germans stream back northward. That has given them another idea of the outcome of the war.

There was no excitement. Yesterday the Romans had their excitement and today they were back to normal.

However, there is no doubt where the hearts of virtually all Italians lie, and that is with the allies. They hate the Germans and they hate war.

At the Vatican, the British Legation gave the news to the secretariat and the Pontiff. No one will follow the course of events more closely. The Pope received a large group of Allied officers this morning, greeting each one personally.

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Spitfires do a job on enemy mortars

U.S. unit cut down on a beach until British pilot spots guns

A U.S. fighter-bomber base, Britain (UP) – (June 6)
“It was wonderful. There they were, marching in to die, just as if they were going to a ball game,” was the report of the opening of the invasion brought back by 1st Lt. Roy L. Saux, 23, of Gretna, Louisiana, a Thunderbolt pilot, who watched the drama on the French beaches from 4,000 feet.

With 1st Lt. Jay C. Bloom, 21, of Troy, Pennsylvania, Lt. Saux told how the determination of American infantrymen and the sharp eyes of British Spitfire pilots saved one landing group from being blasted back into the sea on the Normandy coast.

Lt. Bloom said:

The Germans had hidden themselves in cliffs facing the beach and were pouring deadly mortar fire down upon the advancing Americans.

They did not have any cover except bomb-made mounds, but they pushed forward, with men falling every way you could look. It was heartbreaking to hear their leader calling through his radio: “For God’s sake, get those mortars quick! Dig them out, boys, they are right down our necks.”

A Spitfire pilot was then heard reporting that he had sighted the mortar positions, and he was ordered by an Allied controller in a landing craft to blast them out. Several Spitfires did that quickly, and the infantry continued to push inland.

The troops also encountered landmines, and Lt. Saux described their devastating effects as one group of infantrymen rushed from the boats.

He said:

Suddenly there was a large blast and when it was over many soldiers were strewn on the ground. Others got up and just kept right on going.

Göring to Luftwaffe: Halt invasion or perish

London, England (UP) – (June 6)
Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, in an order of the day to the German Air Force, said today:

**The invasion must be fought off if it means the death of the Luftwaffe.

Stockholm, Sweden – (June 6)
A German military commentator in Berlin late tonight talked of “very extensive Allied landings, backed up by aerial forces vastly superior to ours.”

This is the first time that the Germans have made such an admission about the inferiority of the Luftwaffe in Western Europe.

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40

Tighe: Invaders rush up Norman shore in storm of steel from sea and air

British and Canadians at Bernières-sur-Mer protected by huge force of warships, bombers and fighters
By Desmond Tighe, Reuters correspondent

Aboard a British destroyer, off Bernières-sur-Mer, France – (June 6)
Guns are belching flames from more than 600 Allied warships. Thousands of bombers are roaring overhead and fighters are weaving in and out of the clouds as the invasion of Western Europe begins.

Rolling clouds of dense black and gray smoke cover the beaches southeast of Le Havre as the full fury of the invasion force is unleashed on the German defenses. We are standing some 8,000 yards off the beaches of Bernières-sur-Mer and from the bridge of this little destroyer I can see vast numbers of naval craft of all types.

The air is filled with the continuous thunder of broadsides and the crash of bombs. Great spurts of flame come up from the beaches in long snake-like ripples as shells ranging from four to 16 inches find their marks. In the past ten minutes, more than 2,000 tons of high-explosive shells have gone down on the beachhead.

At 7:25 a.m., through glasses, I could see the first wave of assault troops touching down on the water’s edge and fanning up the beach. Battleships and cruisers were steaming up and down drenching the beaches ahead of the troops with withering broadsides. The guns flashed and great coils of yellow cordite smoke curled into the air. Great assault vessels were standing out to sea in their hundreds and invasion craft were being lowered like beetles from the davits and heading toward the shore in long lines. They were crammed with troops, tanks, guns and armored fighting vehicles of all types.

Constant fighter cover

Fighters kept up a constant patrol protecting this great invasion fleet. Spitfires and Airacobras streamed overhead below cloud level. So far there has been no enemy air opposition at all.

The invasion fleet came over to the shores of northwestern France unmolested. Just ahead of us lay the little town of Bernières-sur-Mer; we could see the spire of the belfry rising out of the swirling smoke.

Some German shore batteries opened up on us, but their fire was ineffective and ragged. Away on our port beam, a destroyer had a dingdong duel with one battery, and great coils of water rose around her as the German gunners tried to find their mark.

Other destroyers were streaking up and down close inshore protecting the landing troops and plugging shore batteries with shells. the gunfire was so terrific that we were deafened.

The plans for the invasion allowed for four separate phases: landings by airborne troops and paratroopers in the rear; a tremendous full-scale night bombing by the Royal Air force on the landing beaches; a sea bombardment by more than 600 battleships, cruisers, monitors and destroyers, and finally a daybreak bombing attack by the full strength of the U.S. Army Air Forces just after dawn and before the initial landings went in.

As we plunged through the Channel on the last stages of our trip late last night, we heard the roar of plane engines as wave after wave of airborne troops passed overhead. It was just after 4:00 a.m. when we reached a position some 18 miles off France. The night bombing was in full swing, and from that distance we could see enormous blood-red explosions and hear the rumble of bursting bombs.

Diary of invasion kept

What followed is described by the diary kept on the bridge. It was cold and, wrapped in duffle coats and thick mufflers, we watched the dawn come in and the invasion start in all its intensity. The times are British Double Summer Time.

5:07 a.m.: Lying eight miles from the lowering position for invasion.

5:20 a.m.: In the gray dawn the great shapes of innumerable assault ships appear smudgily on our starboard beam.

5:27 a.m.: The night bombing has ceased and the great naval bombardment begins. The wind is high and from our position we can hear little sound.

5:33 a.m.: We move in slowly and the coastline becomes a thin smudge of gray.

5:36 a.m.: Cruisers open fire on our starboard bow. We can now recognize the Belfast and the Mauritius. They are firing tracers and we see the shells curving in a high trajectory toward the shore.

5:45 a.m.: The big assault ships start lowering their boats, crowded with troops. There are at least 1,000 ships of all sizes in our sector. The naval bombardment intensifies.

The big battleships join. On our port bow, we see HMS Warspite, the Old Lady of Salerno fame, belching fire from her 15-inch guns. The Orion, the Mauritius and the Black Prince are belting away with all they have. Fleet destroyers are darting around us.

5:50 a.m.: I saw the first flash from a German shore battery. Above us we hear the sweet drone of our fighter cover. The sky is cloudy but has a fairly high ceiling. Four Spitfires pass overhead. So far not one German plane has put in an appearance, but it is early. It appears that we have taken the Germans by surprise.

Minesweepers pull away

5:55 a.m.: On our port beam, I can see a thin line of stout tank landing craft heading toward the shore. Gray minesweepers that have been close in shore sweeping are returning.

6:00 a.m.: The coast is clearly visible. German batteries are opening fire spasmodically. The cruisers continue to belt away, taking on shore targets. One of Britain’s brand-new Captain-class frigates passes. The bombardment continues and by now big fires are burning ashore. Clouds of black smoke rise hundreds of feet into the air.

6:30 a.m.: The whole invasion fleet is now waiting just seven miles offshore.

6:50 a.m.: The destroyers are now close in on the shore, bombarding any target that they can see. A string of tank landing craft passes us. The troops wave. Weather is growing worse, the sky is turning grey and big clouds are coming up. Spitfires and Airacobras roar over.

The first wave of Fortresses – their wings gleam through small patches of clouds. Mostly they are invisible. The roar of the Fortress engines, coupled with the shriek of bombs and the crashing of shells is terrific. The coastline is by now covered with palls of smoke. One pattern of bombs flattens out the beach section opposite our destroyer. An inferno of battleships, cruisers, monitors and destroyers are giving the Germans all they’ve got. It is by now quite light. I can see the spire of the Bernières belfry. We are 900 yards from the shore and still closing. The town is covered the smoke. Buildings appear to be smashed and crumpled. Now 800 yards offshore.

The first wave of landing craft has reached the shore. I see them touch down. Red tracers from close-range enemy weapons are searing across the beach. Men leap out of the craft and move forward. Tanks follow them. By now, everything is an inferno. The Fortresses have moved their bombing behind the beachhead and continue to plaster the Germans. One little destroyer on our port beam starts a duel with a shore battery. I see splashes from the German shells as they fall wide of the mark. We move out on patrol.

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‘Chutists disrupt enemy rear lines

Record-setting number of airborne heralds of invasion leap ‘Atlantic Wall’
By Frederick Graham

London, England – (June 6)
The greatest airborne invasion of all time accompanied the Allied assault on Hitler’s “Atlantic Wall” today. And tonight, almost 24 hours after the first airborne troops had hit French soil behind the German lines, the operation appears to have been spectacularly successful.

Thousands of tough, specially-trained U.S. and British airborne troops who floated to earth under silk parachutes or swooped down in gliders, bringing hundreds of tons of heavy equipment, arms and supplies with them, are now consolidating in the enemy’s rear areas.

Only the barest facts of the gigantic airborne operations, which dwarf similar efforts by the Germans in Crete and the Allies in Burma, have been released by Allied headquarters. But those facts are enough to show the skeleton of one of the most amazing stories of the first day’s operations.

Losses of men and planes, which some military men had contended would be too costly for the results obtained * if not suicidal – have been surprisingly low. One report is that only about a score of the hundreds of tow planes that participated in the initial “drop” were lost. Glider losses are not more than a small percentage.

Opposition was light

The first airborne troops to hit the ground in France landed early in the morning, and almost two hours later the last were on the ground.

Flying out of bases in Great Britain, the airborne army was transported in planes nine abreast. The formation stretched nearly 230 miles from end to end, and took almost one hour to pass over the target area. Some of the planes carried British and U.S. paratroops; others towed gliders.

Brilliantly and carefully planned, the entire operation was termed by Brig. Gen. Paul E. L. Williams, chief of the 9th Air Force Troop Carrier Command, as a “magnificent success, reflecting credit on pilots and crews.”

Most of the crewmen returning in tow planes reported no flak at all, no fighters and only ground fire from small arms – mostly .50 caliber machine guns.

The first three groups to return reported no losses, and said the landings had been made with neater precision than in practice missions flown here during the past few months. Most of the troops were put down in predetermined “drop zones.”

Doctors go with ‘chutists

The Germans announced that four divisions of airborne troops had been “badly mauled.” There is neither confirmation nor denial of this report here, naturally, but it is known that in addition to the thousands of fighting men, medical men and other troops with equipment and supplies were flown in by gliders shortly after the paratroops had landed. Jeeps, artillery and even motorcycle troops were included in the force now on the ground and fighting.

Col. G. M. Jones, operations officer for the mission and a resident of Lafayette, Louisiana, who worked with Gen. Williams in planning the troop carrier operations in Sicily, said this afternoon, “The whole thing is satisfactory beyond expectations.”

Other veterans of the Sicilian campaign said that the timing, navigation and dropping accuracy surpassed even the best practice tests under chosen weather conditions. To a man, pilots of the tow planes expressed amazement at the weakness of enemy opposition.

Chutists raise havoc in rear

SHAEF, England (AP) –
Prime Minister Churchill told the House of Commons that airborne heralds of the invasion had been “successful” in the final softening up blow against Hitler’s “Western Wall” just before the huge waterborne force surged ashore under naval guns and air bombs.

Wielding sheath knives and Tommy guns, thousands of U.S. and British paratroops and glider troops swept down on sleeping Cherbourg Peninsula out of the pre-dawn blackness and immediately set about the task of disrupting Nazi rear lines by destroying key bridges, railyards and enemy strongpoints.

A military spokesman today praised the troop-carrier planes that had navigated through a rainy, stormy night to drop thousands of these specially-trained soldiers on vital objectives. He said:

The operation was on a very large scale and was carried out with great precision. Our losses in aircraft were extremely small. It was a fine job – very fine indeed.

Attack bombers flying back over the area in which the airborne troops had landed reported seeing a number of demolitions and many burning buildings.

Americans first on the beaches

Aboard HMS Hilary, off the invasion coast (UP) – (June 6)
The first ground forces to land on the French beaches today were Americans. They went ashore at 6:30 a.m., followed by Canadians and British an hour later.

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Populace in France surprised but calm

Nazi officials join inhabitants at radios for landing news

Berne, Switzerland – (June 6)
France has taken the invasion calmly but with great satisfaction, according to reports. The landing was more of a surprise to the French than to the Germans, whose propaganda in France has insisted that the main Allied attacks would be between Cherbourg and Le Havre. The only unknown factor was the day.

Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain’s message beseeching the French to refrain from acts that might have tragic consequences and appealing to all workers to remain at their posts was not the only one the French heard today. In villages near the Swiss border, radio sets were used publicly; the Germans and the French police were just as anxious for news as were the patriots.

Reliable details of recent bombings tend to show that railroad communications were interrupted with Italy and with Germany through Alsace. Traffic between the Riviera and the north is delayed considerably.

From this morning the German military police had charge of all communications in France with the assistance of the militia. The entire male population between 16 and 65 is under virtual arrest.

Recent private reports were that the section of Normandy where fighting is raging was the most strongly Anglophile part of France.

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600 ships drilled shells into coast

British, U.S. and lesser navies aided invasion – merchant seamen in landing craft

SHAEF, England – (June 6)
Guns of Allied battleships, monitors and cruisers fought a violent duel with the batteries of coastal guns that stud Adolf Hitler’s Atlantic Wall in the early hours today while destroyers and special assault craft crept in to hammer beach defenses and mortar and machine-gun position.

The pre-invasion shelling was thundered by 600 British warships, the Associated Press reported from London. In the greatest minesweeping operation in history, 10,000 British and Americans guided the assault forces.

The naval bombardment which followed the opening aerial assault was provided by men of war of both the United States and the Royal Navies. Under its cover, landing craft manned by U.S. bluejackets and British sailors and marines swept toward the shore. Some of the larger landing craft were manned by men of the British and Norwegian merchant navies.

All the landing craft were provided with dual-purpose guns, which can be used against either enemy aircraft or shore defenses. The main protection against the Luftwaffe was offered, however, by Allied fighters which spread an air umbrella over landing craft and transports.

Lurking on a flank

The navies were also prepared to counter enemy surface craft, which in the last three weeks had been concentrating off the south coast of the Brittany Peninsula, which placed them on the flank of the first landings.

The enemy forces known to be available were made up of destroyers, E-boats and R-boats as well as a number of U-boats, which, however, are difficult to operate successfully in the shallow waters of the Channel. Most of the submarines, however, are further south in the Bay of Biscay ports.

The proportion of naval vessels, including landing craft, is about three British to each two American craft. A substantial contribution has been made by the Royal Canadian Navy and ships of the Norwegian, Polish, Dutch, French and Greek navies as well. In all the American landing craft the guns are manned by the U.S. Navy, but the British have pressed Royal Marines and gunners of the Royal Armored Corps into service.

U.S. Fleet trained in Britain

A British port – (June 6)
U.S. men-o’-war and landing craft were trained and prepared for the invasion at U.S. naval stations in the British Isles.

From many of the bases the gigantic invasion armada that attacked the coast of France today had sortied in an endless procession of ships – ships of all types wearing the Stars and Stripes and Union Jack, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, minesweepers and landing craft.

The U.S. Navy’s part in the invasion has been months in the making. Several large naval bases, particularly the one at Londonderry, Northern Ireland, have been used by our Navy since shortly after the U.S. entry into the war. But soon after the Québec Conference last September decided definitely upon the tremendous operations which have now been started, the U.S. naval forces in Europe under Adm. Harold R. Stark, commenced a great expansion of the base and of training facilities available in the British Isles.

In less than a year, naval stations and base facilities of various kinds were secretly built, organized or established and through them have been “processed” thousands of officers and bluejackets.

Crews have been trained in the special techniques of landing groups of flotillas; officers and men have been taught protective measures against gas; thousands of the famous Seabees practiced the construction of docks, causeways, jetties, barges and ferries, and in cooperation with the Army, many actual landing exercises and full-dress rehearsals were held in preparation for D-Day.

2,000 tons every 10 minutes

London, England (AP) – (June 6)
British warships alone loosed a tornado of fire west of Le Havre, pouring 2,000 tons of shells every ten minutes, with 600 ships firing everything from four- to 16-inchers, surprising and stunning shore batteries, whose return fire was sporadic.

Six of Britain’s greatest battleships defied coastal batteries by moving into the Channel’s narrow waters to add their devastating salvos to the tumult.

A British naval commentator revealed today that 300 naval vessels in amphibious exercises sailed within ten miles of the French coast last September.

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Weather outlook in Channel is uncertain; invasion postponed a day because of storms

London, England (AP) –
The weather, which caused a 24-hour postponement of D-Day, is still one of the biggest invasion worries, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force chiefs disclosed early today.

At midnight a strong wind blowing from the northeast raised whitecaps in the Dover Strait and high waves swept the beaches, and the wind showed no signs of moderating.

Although the weather will not be permitted to halt the flow of reinforcements, improvement in the weather would make operations very much easier, for there was a great amount of seasickness among the first troops crossing. Many got wet disembarking.

A naval officer just returned from the beaches said that, taking the operation as a whole, the weather probably was worse than at the time of the Sicily landings.

Deteriorating weather during the day yesterday forced the bombers of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force to attack at low altitudes, risking heavy flak.

The temperature dropped to 50 degrees at 10:30 p.m. and the sea was smooth, although a haze reduced the visibility, which in the afternoon afforded glimpses of the French coast.

In the morning, when the signal was given, the wind was blowing from the west and northwest so hard that a few tank landing craft had their engines swamped and could not go on, and headquarters said that other ships reported considerable seasickness among troops in the crossing.

Toward dawn the wind lost some of its strength and the sea was moderate and, after a daybreak shower, the sun broke through the clouds and there were intermittent sunny period throughout the morning.

The weather may have affected the reception received by the aerial attackers. Supreme Headquarters sources said that weather, as the attack started, was “very bad” for flying, the fliers ran into such hazards as brief thunderstorms over the Channel and clouds in some places 5,000 feet thick.

London, England – (June 6)
Weather reports from the scene of the invasion of Europe are notably absent from Allied and German dispatches tonight. In the Strait of Dover nearly 200 miles northwest of Gen. Sir Bernard Montgomery’s beachheads, however, rain fell at dusk. The sky became heavily overcast in the afternoon and the French coast, once visible during the day, vanished from sight. It was hazy over the sea at nightfall but the surface was still smooth as a light northwesterly wind blew toward France.

Security regulations prohibit reports of weather in the English Channel where the invasion is now underway, but they do allow mention of conditions in the Strait between Dover and Calais, the narrowest strip of water between Britain and France.

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Germans predict further landings

Sudden stab at Paris feared by military spokesmen; surprise admitted

London, England (AP) – (June 6)
Berlin military spokesmen predicted in broadcasts tonight that further Allied landings would be made in Western Europe and suggested apprehensively that there might be a sudden stab for Paris.

Describing the situation as “still obscure,” Capt. Ludwig Sertorius said that:

Maybe the bulk of the enemy invasion troops are still at sea or at this moment are engaged in landing.

A commentator for Transocean declared:

Further Anglo-American transports are en route, partly in the Channel and partly north of Cherbourg. The Bay of Saint-Malo is thought to be a particularly likely target for major sea and airborne landings. The coastal areas between the estuaries of the Somme and the Seine are another candidate for invasion.

He added that an attack on the Boulogne-Calais region was not anticipated “for the time being.” This portion of France is the closest to England.

Caught napping, German says

A German war correspondent, Heinz Priet, in a broadcast from “the Normandy front,” painted a gloomy picture of the German situation. He said that the Germans had been caught napping.

Earlier, German propaganda had harped on the theme that the Germans were glad that the final test had come in the west and were confident that the outcome would mean German victory.

German radio commentators and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels acknowledged that this attack was no mere sham and that the real test in France had come at last. According to the German radio:

The enemy believes the situation in Germany to be the same as in 1918, but he is mistaken. The ears of the Germans are shut against enemy propaganda and slogans. The nerve campaign recently launched by the enemy in connection with the question if invasion likewise failed to impress the German people. We are ready to receive the enemy.

Aware of Allied strength

Underlying the torrent of words was a note of relief that the war of nerves was finally at an end, but, despite the vaunted confidence in ultimate victory, the commentators were aware of the might of the Allies’ assaults. One said:

It need not be specially emphasized that superiority at sea as regards size and number and kind of naval forces is clearly on the side of the two strongest naval nations – the United States and Great Britain.

Another remarked:

The invasion propaganda that the Anglo-American news services began today and Monday morning leaves no doubt that the Anglo-American military leaders are pursuing very big aims… Anglo-American war correspondents have already given detailed descriptions of last preparations for the invasion of Western Europe. They reported in the past 24 hours that gigantic concentrations of troops and material were taking place in the south of England.

A speaker for Transocean reported that life remained “normal” in Berlin and there were “no excitement, no extra editions, no special radio announcements.” DNB quoted a Foreign Office spokesman

Various German broadcasts reported by the Office of War Information said that the occupied countries had taken the news of the invasion quietly.

Dr. Goebbels unleashed a long-prepared assortment of anti-invasion propaganda on the French. Its theme was “Don’t help the Allies, for you will be sorry when all your country is handed over to the Bolsheviks by the Allies.”

For German consumption, Dr. Goebbels said:

The German nation is listening to one single command and this is the Führer’s command. Under his command, we have overcome even the most serious crisis.

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Eisenhower gave signal in trailer

Directs operations from camp in country; weather was his biggest ‘headache’

London, England – (June 6)
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower pressed the button for the invasion of France from a camp set deep in the heart of the sleeping English countryside. There, in a motor trailer, he is directing the first phase of the most gigantic amphibious operation ever conceived.

Surrounded only by a nucleus of his field commanders and staff officers, the supreme commander made his decision after the final weather forecasts had been handed to him. The general had had little sleep in the preceding 24 hours. But it could never be guessed, watching his stride, fresh and alert, between his office on wheels and his wardroom lined with maps.

Prior to making his momentous decision, Gen. Eisenhower called at the mansion headquarters of one of the airborne units, where the big Douglas airliners were assembling with their loads of troops, destined to land in France. Then it was only a few hours to the “hour.” The ships were in mid-Channel, the Navy was concentrating a bombardment power never paralleled and every airfield was reverberating with the sound of aircraft.

Radiating calm confidence, Gen. Eisenhower spent a great part of yesterday laughing and chatting with troops waiting to cross the Channel by sea and air to open the assault on German-occupied Europe. Later, he watched from a rooftop the mighty airborne armada form up preparatory to winging its way toward France.

Yesterday afternoon, Gen. Eisenhower met a small group of British and American press and radio representatives in his command shack, a plain, bare-walled structure about 20 feet square, with canvas roof and walls of stained pine boards. The general told his audience that the weather had been the biggest Allied headache in the selection of D-Day.

Gen. Eisenhower, slouched in a chair behind his big, tattered desk, talked with the correspondents for nearly two hours. The only sign of the weighty decision on his mind was an occasional tap of his finger for emphasis and the lighting of one cigarette after another.

London, England (AP) –
Gen. Eisenhower is directing the invasion of Western Europe from an advance outpost in England, SHAEF said early today, denying a report broadcast by the Brazzaville radio that the commander had established headquarters on French soil.

Patriot armies put at 8 million

London, England (UP) – (June 6)
The Allies placed on the alert today – ready for action when needed – an underground army estimated at eight million European patriots organized to strike mighty blows for the liberation of their own countries.

A statement broadcast by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against premature uprisings, counseled patience and ordered the patriots to prepare and stand ready for the signal. Reports from underground leaders said that the underground armies were prepared and awaited only the Allies’ signal.

Soon afterward, the first broadcast orders to underground forces since the invasion began went over the air. They advised the peoples of Northern and Western Europe that a new phase of the air offensive had started in which special leaflets would be dropped, perhaps only one hour before attacks were made, warning populations of areas to be raided.

Patriots were ordered to leave towns when such leaflets were dropped and to go into the country, keeping off main roads. All residents within 22 miles of the coast were told to leave this area, taking only what they could carry.

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Special hospital vessels evacuate Allied wounded

London, England (UP) – (June 6)
U.S. and British soldiers wounded as the first waves of Allied invasion forces surged across the beaches of France today have already been evacuated in special hospital landing craft that penetrated to the shore closely behind the assault troops.

Many lives have been saved by naval doctors who performed emergency operations on operating tables anchored to the decks, while on shore, under fire, Army surgical teams have established first-aid stations on the battlefields.

Wounded men unable to return to the fight were carried swiftly by litter teams to the landing crafts, after having received initial treatment in the frontline first-aid stations.

As soon as the hospital craft were full, they turned back and plowed their way through the crowded beachhead seas to big ships, aboard which the wounded were lifted in slings and taken to base hospitals in England.

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Montgomery sees a Rommel riposte

Gauges foe on desert victory; message to troops is full of confidence

Gen. Montgomery’s HQ (AP) – (June 6)*
Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, leading Allied armies in the grand assault on France, believes Field Marshal Erwin Rommel – the Desert Fox he trapped on Africa’s sands – will try at once “to knock us back into the sea.”

The little gray general who chased Marshal Rommel across North Africa predicted to correspondents on May 15 that the German general entrusted with ground defenses in the West “will commit himself on the beaches.”

Gen. Montgomery said:

He is a disrupter and to disrupt the invasion he will try to hit us early.

The general based his prediction, made public today, on a long study of Marshal Rommel’s methods in battle, and of the man himself.

“I have supreme confidence,” declared the hero of El Alamein, who broke the back of the German desert army there and then pursued him to the ultimate Afrika Korps disaster at Cap Bon, Tunisia.

Gen. Montgomery studied the characteristics, habits and fighting methods of Marshal Rommel – he even kept a picture of the Nazi general above his table in his desert caravan – and came to know him at an impulsive commander who preferred the quick decision to slow slugging.

Gen. Montgomery told the correspondents that his battle plans were based on a study on human nature.

He said:

It is important to know human nature and what men can do – to get men into the right places doing the right job.

As no two men are alike, so Gen. Montgomery believes no two divisions are alike.

He said:

You may think so, but I assure you they are different. The commander who thinks divisions are all alike will lose battles. No division is equally good at everything. One division does one thing well, another does another thing best. And it is the commander’s responsibility to see that the right divisions are in the right places at the proper time.

Gen. Montgomery praised the leadership of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in drawing the British and Americans close together, asserting:

We are the only two peoples in the world who could have done it – teamed up for this great show.

Gen. Montgomery expects a hard fight, sees the German soldier as good as any in the world, but he believes the German High Command is not up to its old standard.

He said:

Put the German on some ground and let him stay there long enough and it takes a bit of doing to get him off – it takes a bit of doing.

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80 cartridges, three grenades given each American for initial assault

Flamethrowers and dynamiters prepared – poker teaches men value of franc – 125 million maps guided forces

London, England – (June 6)
As U.S. invasion assault units moved to their assembly points each man was a walking arsenal. Besides his 80 rounds of ammunition, he carried three grenades. Some were armed with rifles, some with Springfields which had grenade launchers; others had Browning automatic rifles, flamethrowers and TNT pole charges.

U.S. troops each had 200 francs to spend on the other side. To get the hang of the value of the France, they played poker and other games in the little spare time they had while waiting.

They learned German for “Halt! Put up your hands” and French for “Which way is the Boche?” Civilians were not allowed to talk with them.

Three hundred square miles was the area of one marshaling area in England from which the troops were sent to embarkation points. Miles of new roads were made. Others were widened and strengthened. New bridges were erected and 150 miles of new railway track were laid.

A new system of telephone exchanges and lines was set up. In one area alone, the Army laid down three new landing fields and extended seven more for the Air Force.

Pre-invasion staff conferences were held in specially guarded buildings within sight of France. Staffs had detailed maps showing the landing areas. Every other item connected with the invasion was worked out to the second.

Security measures in “invasion” areas were not only thorough but severe on the soldier who offended against rules. According to one security officer, an unbriefed soldier talking to one who had been briefed for the invasion was out behind barbed wire until the initial assault was over to prevent “harmful talking.”

U.S. invasion forces had the use of 125 million maps, most of which were based on aerial photography.

In the last two years, the War Office directorate of military survey has produced more original maps of France than that country has made since the days of Julius Caesar. The largest-scale maps produced for the invasion were on a scale of 1 to 25,000.

Nine training centers were available in Britain for British and U.S. assault troops. Many square miles of populated countryside had to be cleared so live ammunition could be used.

One hour before they left for the invasion beaches, many soldiers had a good meal of pork chops and plum pudding. Some even had this meal immediately after a substantial breakfast of bacon and eggs. As they left for embarkation points, each received a “landing ration” and a bag of chocolate candy.

Radio program for invaders

London, England (UP) – (June 6)
A broadcasting service to provide entertainment and keep the invasion forces informed on developments on all war fronts will be started at 5:55 a.m. tomorrow, SHAEF announced today. The program, to be called the AEF Program, will be broadcast over one of the overseas services of the BBC.

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Fires of France dim golden moon

Blazes on coast described by fliers who photographed first assault wave
By Gene Currivan

Somewhere in England – (June 6)
As the large golden “invasion” moon was sinking this morning and shafts of dawn touched the eastern sky, great fires raged on the northern French coast, where the Allied armies had established a beachhead.

Offshore great armadas of warships, with air cover the like of which had never been seen, fired continuous broadsides over the sandy beaches and onto the land beyond. Below the trajectory of shellfire, fighting men representing many of the nations of the earth scrambled ashore.

From the coast of England to the French beaches of the Channel, the relatively calm water was churned by wave after wave of ships, some large enough to cast their eerie shadows in the early morning glow and others darting through like so many water-bugs. As they neared the shore great bombing salvos roared from gun emplacements on the land. As the ships moved relentlessly forward, the larger ones firing as they plowed ahead, tremendous geysers mushroomed from the sea. It looked as if the Channel were dotted with a strange assortment of fountains.

Shells fail to halt invaders

While the early waves of landing craft disgorged their passengers on the beaches and equipment rolled forth from others, shells from German guns concealed in ridges and embankments became intense, but there was no slackening in the stream of men and materials. It seemed that no power on earth could impede the momentum of this unending flow. At one point, at least, they continued in through meadows and woodlands.

This bird’s-eye view of the start of history’s greatest invasion as pieced together here this morning from the reports of the first two U.S. reconnaissance-photograph pilots to return to England. Still in their flying suits, they sat around the briefing room, while more than 1,000 photographs that they had taken were being developed, and told their stories even before Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower had broadcast to the world the announcement of the invasion.

Best German radio

They knew before they took off that they were to photograph the initial movements of D-Day. A couple of hours later, the German radio broadcast the news, but it was not until after they had returned with history already recorded on their films that the world knew certainly that the long-awaited day had arrived. The pilots were Lt. Col. G. A. Shoop of Beverly Hills, California, a former Army test pilot and commanding officer of an air station, and Maj. Norris E. Hartwell of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

These men cruised over the invasion area for almost two hours, photographing sometimes from only 500 feet in the face of deadly anti-aircraft fire. Not only did they encounter German fighter opposition. Everywhere they looked they saw fighters, but they were always Lightning, Thunderbolts, Mustangs, Spitfires or some other kind of Allied plane. They saw swarms of troops moving ashore and scurrying for cover and at other points they saw them walking nonchalantly along the beaches as if they had just completed tiresome maneuvers and were taking in the sights.

On another beach where the men had come under direct and withering fire, there were casualties and several trucks could be seen blazing. But equipment and men continued to pour ashore and, as soon as a ship had unloaded, it backed out and started away for another load. Meanwhile, the Navy kept up an incessant barrage, firing like artillery into the inner reaches and preparing the way for the advancing columns.

First flight as commander

Col. Shoop, who came to England as a test pilot a few months ago and expected to return to the United States last week, but was held here by the Army, was making his first flight as a commanding officer. When he first crossed the French coast at about 7:00 p.m., he said, there were a few fires burning, but about an hour later, when the Navy laid down its barrage, the coast was a mass of flames and most of the small villages along the shore were crackling to destruction.

Maj. Hartwell said that he had seen no sign of a naval battle and it seems that the Allied navies had complete control of the waters. It was obvious, he said, that the Germans had cluttered the water near the beaches with all kinds of obstacles, but nothing appeared to hinder the passage of the landing craft for long.

Col. Shoop and Maj. Hartwell were the first to go out and the first to return. All day long, other teams followed them on similar missions and they themselves were looking forward to another flight over the invasion coast this afternoon.

Realism tempers Algiers jubilance

French realize that beginning of liberation means new ordeal for country
By Harold Callender

Algiers, Algeria – (June 6)
In this temporary capital of France, where a half-million persons or more have relatives in France and thousands have homes there, the invasion, so long and so impatiently awaited, was greeted today with joy tempered by the realization that the beginning of liberation was another ordeal for France.

Frenchmen clung to their radios as fragments of news trickled through all day long. Clusters of people read bulletins in newspaper offices. Crowds stood in the central square to listen to Gen. Charles de Gaulle’s speech to France, relayed by loudspeakers.

The French recently out of France were far more excited than those long resident in Algiers, who have been largely on the margin of the war. Some of those from France have fought in resistance groups and been arrested by the Gestapo, fired on by German troops or locked in German prisons. There are some 23,000, mostly youths, who have recently escaped from France, while the émigrés who have swollen the North African population since the beginning of the war may number 400,000.

Many of these Frenchmen know intimately the parts of the coast invaded today. Many have homes that will be engulfed by the tide of battle. Many have wives and children in the area between the Allied landings and Paris. Yet they are glad that the landings have come at least, for they have long awaited it as an ordeal indispensable to liberation.

Some of these Frenchmen have helped to organize the underground, which is now officially called the interior French forces and forms part of the army. It embraces some 200,000 organized armed combatants who have awaited this day to coordinate their efforts with those of the Allies. Their role is not unlike that of parachutists behind the enemy’s lines.

The presence of Gen. de Gaulle in London became known to the public only after the invasion had begun. It seemed appropriate that he should be there to speak to the French nation with encouragement and advice in what was called today the second battle of France.

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French, Belgians see hope revived

But feelings on D-Day are mingled with fear for safety of relatives

Frenchmen, Belgians and Netherlanders now in New York – members of those nations whose homelands lie directly in the path of the invasion – learned yesterday of the Allied landings in Europe with mingled hope of victory, fear for their friends and families in the new battle zone, and relief that the long waiting had finally ended.

Many prayed at home or in their national churches. Some sang their patriotic songs. Some celebrated, drinking toasts to the invasion and the rapid liberation of their homes. Some speculated grimly on the battles still ahead.

At the French Canteen, 63 W 44th Street, the French Military Mission gave the news to André Czerwinski, the “concierge,” at 9:00 a.m. ET.

A member of the French Army in the last war, round, white-aproned M. André kept busy all morning announcing D-Day to men who came in for coffee or beer and sandwiches. Grouped about a large wall map of France, sailors and merchant seamen pointed out their towns, speculated about military advances, worried aloud about their families. At 9:30, a group of 30 sailors on their way out of New York stopped at the canteen, heard the word “invasion.” They broke into “La Marseillaise.”

Jan François and Marcellin Fiquet, officers of the French Merchant Marine, learned at the canteen that D-Day had come.

Said prayer, then beer

“I wondered if I should go to church,” François explained. “But I am too happy. I said a prayer here by myself and then we ordered beer.” As he talked, he took a hostess’ red hat, perched it on the back of his head, and began to sing “Les Bérets,” a song in praise of the girls in northern France. Marcellin Fiquet has not been home in four years. His wife and son are in Caen.

“They say the Allies are there today,” he said soberly.

Then he and Jan François clicked their beer mugs again, “au succès de l’invasion!”

At the Church of St. Vincent de Paul, 123 West 23rd Street, the Rev. Henry V. Hall said the 8:30 mass. Ignorant of the invasion, he was puzzled by the constant sound of feet as he faced the altar. As he turned toward the people halfway through the ceremony, he found the number of his congregation doubled.

So many worshipers bought six-day candles at the Church of Our Lady of Notre Dame, 40 Morningside Drive, early in the day that, later in the day, requests could not be met, said the Rev. Thomas J. Brown, the pastor.

In the Netherlands Club room of the Seamen’s Church Institute, one man said, “We’re glad it’s started. The beginning of the end. But how long will it take even yet?”

Diamond workers quit

Belgian relief organizations redoubled their work and business stopped in the diamond industry centers as workers clustered in whispering groups in W 47th Street. But many feared to discuss the news of the day with strangers, lest harm overtake their relatives at home.

Henri Fast of the Belgian Information Center, 630 5th Avenue, was at his telephone by 5:00 a.m., giving the news to his compatriots.

All morning, Belgians came into St. Albert’s Church, 433 W 47th Street, the only Belgian church in New York. A sobbing woman dabbed her eyes as she reached the vestry.

She said:

I just wound a kerchief about my head this morning. I didn’t even brush my hair this morning. I have a son in the Army. All I want to do today is pray.

At the Diamond Center, Inc., 15 E 47th Street, president Marcel Ginsburg, who in pre-Hitler days was president of the Beurs voor Diamanthandel in Antwerp, said all Belgian and Dutch workers observed a minute of silence at 11 o’clock.

He declared:

All business has stopped. They are praying and listening to the radio, thinking about their families abroad, and wondering where and how they are.

Aerial aerobatics a Nazi claim

London, England (AP) –
The German radio asserted today that German parachutists were used in combating Allied airborne troops even before they landed in France. These Nazi parachutists, the Germans said, “dropped onto Allied gliders and set them afire, as well as shooting their occupants.”

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Invasion’s greatest problem was shipping of huge supplies

700,000 separate items needed, many of these in millions; planning began here and in London two years ago

London, England – (June 6)
The battle now raging on the beaches of Western Europe was fought – and its planners believe won – in the war rooms of London and Washington two years ago.

For the U.S. Army, now attacking side by side with the British in the greatest military venture of all time, this is the beginning of the end for Adolf Hitler, just as the turning of the tide in North Africa in 1942 was the end of the beginning for the Allies.

Plans for this operation were roughed out while we were still young in this war. It was recognized then that the difficult problem would not be men. Our commanders knew they could raise and train enough troops and that they could count on a certain high standard of skill and courage. The great problem was furnishing supplies and getting them to the battlefield with the men.

When Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower called Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee to be deputy commander in the European Theater of Operations and head of service of supply over here, he handed him the biggest job of its sort that has ever fallen on the shoulders of any man.

As our operations on the continent progress and expand we in time will have fighting forces there that will dwarf the American Expeditionary Force of the last war and this machine age war requires double the amount of materiel for each man needed in the last war.

It requires, for example, 700,000 separate items, ranging from tanks to watch-springs and many of these must be provided in millions. For instances, there is one vehicle to each six men.

Counting in everything, such as trucks, clothes and weapons, it takes ten tons of organic equipment to get one man into the European Theater of Operations and it takes 60 pounds of supplies per day to keep him here. Under combat operations, each man will need one ton of supplies a month, ammunition, clothing, food, medical supplies, etc.

In combat, one pair of shoes lasts on the average only two weeks and clothes are quickly torn to rags,

So overshadowing is the logistical factor in warfare that Gen. Lee believes that when Germany collapses it will be a logistical breakdown.

The landing on the continent was originally conceived on a large scale. But as Gen. Eisenhower got down to detailed work on it, he enlarged its power and rate of acceleration. A year ago, supply services were called on to step up greatly their preparations to keep up with the greater tactical demands. It has been stepped up since then and undoubtedly will be again.

Lest anyone in America think that now that we are breaching Hitler’s fortress we can let down, it is worth knowing that our commanders here recognize that our needs in most items will become greater and our supply problems more difficult in direct ratio to the progress of our invasion.

Gen. Lee and his subordinates have left nothing to chance and have calculated all quantities of the myriad items needed to a scientific nicety, based on statistics of past operations and allowing a liberal safety margin. Cargo ships have brought supplies to these islands according to a rigid timetable and they have been handled at ports with a celerity that has given them a remarkably quick turnaround.

British railways have operated with similar precision and so have truck convoys, which day and night one sees or hears rumbling through the highways. Gradually a surplus was built up in depots scattered everywhere, on which the Armed Forces can draw in an emergency.

Until now, streams of supplies from the United States have been funneling into this country. They will now be siphoned out onto continental beaches.

With the invasion comes a radical shift in the whole supply line. As soon as we are well established and have continental ports functioning the bulk of supplies will go directly from American ports to the continent, bypassing Britain.

This correspondent spent a considerable time in the period just preceding D-Day at Service of Supply headquarters, watching Gen. Lee and his key men handling their gigantic affairs. Their officers were going 24 hours a day.

Messages came and orders were dispatched and officers moved in and out on vital errands. Yet there was no tearing of hair, no shouting. Everybody was abreast or ahead of his job and they even had time to tell how they were doing it.

At the end of one especially strenuous day, Brig. Gen. Royal B. Lord, Gen. Lee’s Chief of Staff, relaxed and said:

Yes, each problem does look formidable when you first approach it. But I try not to see it as one big problem but as a combination of a number of little ones, each of which is easy enough to solve.

U.S. chiefs show optimism on push

Marshall, King and Arnold at White House for conference with the President

Washington – (June 6)
While giving out no fresh information on the progress of the invasion, the reaction of both the War and Navy Departments today was that the first phases seemed to be “going well.”

Gen. George C. Marshall (the Chief of Staff), Adm. Ernest J. King (the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations) and Gen. H. H. Arnold (Air Forces commanding general), the “big three” of the American invasion planners on this side of the Atlantic, were summoned to the White House this morning for an hour and a half conference with President Roosevelt.

They exchanged greetings with newsmen as they left the White House, but outside of a remark by Adm. King that the big push is “doing all right so far” they made little pertinent comment.

Navy’s prayers with boys

At his morning press conference, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal said, “The Navy’s prayers and hearts are with the boys who are doing the job over there.”

At the Pentagon, a formal request of War Department correspondents for some comment from Gen. Marshall was answered by Maj. Gen. A. D. Surles, Director of Public Relations, with the following note:

In view of the fact that neither the Secretary of War nor the Chief of Staff has anything to add to the news coming from Supreme Allied Headquarters for the present, neither will hold a press conference today.

Secretary of War Stimson, passing a correspondent in the corridor, remarked that the first reports indicated the invasion was “going very well.”

Informed military sources here seemed convinced that the progress of the Allied armies would become more difficult as the Germans were able to oppose their full available strength against the sectors where we are advancing. No one holds out any hopes of easy going.

Big Allied force indicated

There was encouragement in the reports from Allied headquarters that indicated we had followed what some military men call “Rule No. 1” for a successful invasion: We had applied sufficient force to the points where we made our initial landings. The tremendous numbers of ships, landing craft and planes employed, implying the movement of a sizable number of men and the materiel with which to back them, indicates that this was the large-scale venture that will be necessary for victory.

Observers conceded there was nothing in the first reports to indicate that all the pressure would be applied in the section of northern France where the landings were made, but they discouraged excessive speculation on this point.

The War and Navy Department’s officials promised to supply as much background as possible on the invasion, although they have stressed that the main news will break from Europe. The background supplied today was more in the nature of description of preparations rather than interpretation on what is taking place, although spokesmen admittedly were handicapped by a lack of information.

At the War Department, Brig. Gen. John Magruder, newly-appointed press spokesman, made plans to see reports between 10:00 and 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 and 4:00 p.m. ET each day to attempt to explain developments.

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