Read D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II Online
Authors: Stephen E. Ambrose
Tags: #Europe, #History, #General, #France, #Military History, #War, #European history, #Second World War, #Campaigns, #World history: Second World War, #History - Military, #Second World War; 1939-1945, #Normandy (France), #Normandy, #Military, #Normandy (France) - History; Military, #General & world history, #World War; 1939-1945 - Campaigns - France - Normandy, #World War II, #World War; 1939-1945, #Military - World War II, #History; Military, #History: World
In Helena and New York, throughout the nation, they sat and wondered and listened to the radio and dashed out on the streets for the latest edition of the newspaper with a front-page map of the French coast. The home front heard and read about World War II. What Americans heard and read on D-Day was dismayingly lacking in details.
The official Nazi news agency, Transocean, was first to announce the invasion. The Associated Press picked it up and put it on the wire. The
New York Times
had it on the streets at 0130, but it was a headline only—no story. At 0200 Eastern War Time, the networks interrupted their musical programs with a flash announcement: "German radio says the invasion has begun." The Germans reported a naval battle off Le Havre and airborne landings north of the Seine (these were the dummy parachutists). Commentators quickly pointed out that there was no confirmation from Allied sources, and warned that it might well be a trick designed to get the Resistance in France to rise up prematurely and thus expose the organization to destruction.
At 0932 in London (0332 Eastern War Time) SHAEF re-
* Britain and America utilized their womanpower to the fullest in World War II. In Japan, women were urged by the government to stick to their traditional role and have more babies. In Germany, Hitler's romantic notions led him to give cash awards to German women who had more babies, and in Germany womanpower was not utilized until the very last months of the war.
leased a brief communique from General Eisenhower, read by his press aide, Col. Ernest Dupuy: "Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces, began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France."
SHAEF also sent by radio to New York a recording of Eisenhower reading his order of the day. It was a marvelous reading, rich in tone, resonant, and it provided a unifying experience, since it had been broadcast over the loudspeakers on the LSTs and transports in the southern England harbors before D-Day, so the American people heard what the invading force had heard.
By 0415 Eastern War Time NBC had an eyewitness report from London by a reporter who had flown with the 101st Airborne. Through the morning, more eyewitness reports came from reporters who had been at sea and returned to London. They had seen a lot of smoke, ships, and planes, little else. There was nothing from the beaches.
People listened to each new announcement breathlessly, only to be disappointed. To Eustace Tilley, pseudonymous "Talk of the Town" correspondent for the
New Yorker,
it was maddening: "The idiot babble of the radio followed us wherever we went."
6
The incoming news was so slow there were long periods, hours and more, when nothing new came over the wire. But the tension was so great that people wanted to hear something, so the broadcasters kept repeating themselves and quoting each other.
The commentators had a terrible time with French place-names. They needed some geography lessons. Their attempts at military analysis ranged from misleading to silly. They chattered away, with little to say except that it was on. They talked about everything except the one thing that was uppermost in the minds of many in the audience, casualties. That was forbidden by the Office of War Information (OWI).
Radio's shortcomings were caused primarily by OWI, but the SHAEF censorship policies contributed. SHAEF refused to give out the information the American people most longed to hear— what divisions, regiments, squadrons, ships were involved. It would not be more specific in its identification of the site of the landings than to say they had taken place on "the French coast." The reason for this strict censorship was to keep the Fortitude operation alive; the price in the United States was heightened anxiety.
Radio could not provide information, but it could provide inspiration. After the recording of Eisenhower's reading of his or-
der of the day, the king of Norway spoke to his people, followed by the premiers of the Netherlands and Belgium, then the king of England. All these were repeated throughout the day.
Thin as the news was on the radio, it was a comfort. A California woman wrote Paul White, a CBS announcer: "It is 0321 here on the Pacific Coast. I was fortunate enough to hear the first radio news of D-Day break from CBS this morning, as I have spent all my evenings waiting at the radio these past two months. . . .Your London report from Mr. Murrow gave me a feeling that though I'm at least one world's distance from my husband and alone, I will not feel that way as long as you and your staff keep on the job."
7
On D-Day, Franklin Roosevelt used the power of radio to link the nation in a prayer. Throughout the day the networks broadcast the text, which was printed in the afternoon editions of the newspapers; at 2200 Eastern War Time the president prayed while Americans across the country joined him:
"Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor . . .
"Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. . . .
"These men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. . . . They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
"Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom. . . .
"And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other. . . . Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen."
8
"What does the 'D' stand for?" a passerby asked Eustace Tilley.
"Why, it just stands for 'Day,' " the
New Yorker
correspondent rightly answered.* Writing about the incident, he went on: "D-Day was a unique experience, a colossal moment in history."
His stroll about town took him to Times Square, where a crowd watched the electric news bulletin. "AND ONE GERMAN
*
Time
magazine reported on June 12 that "so far as the U.S. Army can determine, the first use of D for Day, H for Hour was in Field Order No. 8, of the First Army, A.E.F., issued on Sept. 20, 1918, which read, 'The First Army will attack at H-Hour on D-Day with the object of forcing the evacuation of the St. Mihiel salient.' "
GUN IS STILL FIRING," it read. "Nobody seemed to think that the one German gun was trivial; it was solemnly weighed along with the other bits of news from the beachheads." A reporter for the
New York Times
noted that "people stood on the sidewalk near the curb or against the plate glass windows of shops and restaurants on all sides of the little triangle looking up, always looking up to catch even a glimpse of the invasion news."
Tilley joined a hundred or so citizens outside the Rialto Theatre. Men were "clustered together and were talking about the course of history during the past twenty-five years. . . . Everybody waited his turn and made his points without raising his voice more than was necessary. . . . The sober talk was still going on when we left."
He went to one of the network broadcasting studios "and found the corridors full of radio actors, all somewhat upset by the cancellation of the soap-opera programs."
Over the radio, he heard once again the Eisenhower recording. "General Eisenhower's words are tied up with the image of D-Day that will, we think, remain in our mind the longest. Up in the Modern Museum, an old lady, seated on an angular plywood chair, was reading the General's message aloud to several other old ladies who stood clustered around her. 'I call upon all who love freedom to stand with us,' she read, in a thin voice, and a shiver ran through the group."
9
New York City on June 6, 1944, was a bustling, prosperous place. Everyone had jobs and more cash than there were products to buy. Apartments were hard to impossible to find; people doubled and tripled up. Bars and movie theaters were jammed. The spring season on Broadway was a big success, topped by
Oklahoma!
by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, Paul Robeson in
Othello,
Milton Berle in
Ziegfeld Follies,
and Mary Martin in
One Touch of Venus
(with music by Kurt Weill, book by S. J. Perelman and Ogden Nash, staged by Elia Kazan, with dances by Agnes de Mille)—those were the days.
Broadway shut down on D-Day. The actors went to the Stage Door Canteen to perform a scene or two from their plays for servicemen. Only one table, "The Angel's Table," was available to nonservicemen; it was reserved "for those civilians whose mildly royal donations win them the privilege of admission to the Canteen." The donations went to the servicemen's organizations. °
The
New York Daily News
threw out its lead articles and
printed in their place the Lord's Prayer. The
New York Daily Mirror
eliminated all advertising from its columns so as to have room for invasion news.
Stores shut down. Macy's closed at noon. Still there was a large crowd around it, because the store set up a loudspeaker that carried radio programs. When one announcer read a dispatch that warned Americans against rejoicing, according to a reporter for the
New York Times,
"the faces of those who stood listening were grim and subdued."
Lord & Taylor never opened at all. President Walter Hov-ing said he was sending his 3,000 employees home to pray. "The store is closed," he announced. "The invasion has begun. Our only thought can be of the men who are fighting in it. We have closed our doors because we know our employees and customers who have loved ones in battle will want to give this day to hopes and prayers for their safety."
11
Baseball games and racing programs were canceled. In his column "Sports of the Times," Arthur Daley raised the question of whether all sports events should be canceled until the war was won and decided not. "Once the stunning impact of the invasion news has worn off," he wrote, "there will not be the same irresistible urge to glue ear to radio for last-minute bulletins and human nature again will demand entertainment as a distraction from the war— movies, the theater and all other diversions, including sports." Daley said no one resented the "youths playing games" while others died, because everyone knew that the baseball players were either 4-F or too old. The entire Yankee starting lineup of 1941, he reminded readers, was in uniform—military, not baseball. But bad as the replacements were, Daley wanted the season to "struggle along as best it can. After all, it still is part of our American way of life and that is one of the things we are fighting for."
12
Wall Street went about its business. The New York Stock Exchange called for two minutes of silent prayer at the opening, then went to work. The headline in the June 7 edition of the
Wall Street Journal
read: "INVASION'S IMPACT; MARKS BEGINNING OF END OF WAR ECONOMY; NEW PROBLEMS FOR INDUSTRY." That might be characterized as putting first things first.
The market had suffered a case of "invasion jitters" for two months. According to
Time
magazine, "The New York Stock Exchange has quivered on every D-Day rumor. But on D-Day, taking its courage firmly in hand, the Exchange: 1) had its busiest day of
the year, turning over 1,193,080 shares; 2) saw the Dow-Jones industrial average rise to 142.24, a new peak for 1944." AT&T, Chrysler, Westinghouse, General Motors, Du Pont, and retail-store stocks all hit new highs for 1944.
13
As always, Wall Street was concerned with the future. As the
Journal
put it, "Invasion has raised the curtain on reconversion." As soon as it was clear that the invasion had succeeded, "a limited reconversion to civilian production will be possible. Contract cancellations will increase, freeing manpower, materials and facilities for a small-scale start on production of new consumer goods. Assuming all goes as planned, that time is thought to be two to four months off."
14
(In December 1944, the GIs paid for this unrealistic optimism. Orders for artillery shells were cut back during the summer; when the great German counteroffensive in Belgium began, American batteries were always short of and some ran out of ammunition.)
The
New York Times
financial section gave a patriotic cast to its report on Wall Street's day: "The stock market gave a salute of confidence to the Allied invasion forces in a buying splurge. . . . The motor issues continued to attract the greatest speculative demand, while other industrials with high post-war ratings shared in the advance, which found support from all sections of the nation."
15
New Yorkers more concerned with the present than the future came in large numbers to the Civilian Defense Volunteer Office on Fifth Avenue, to sign up for bandage rolling, administering vision tests, checking prices for the Office of Price Administration, nurses' aides, day-care, aides at Red Cross and other servicemen's centers, the USO, and the dozens of other jobs volunteers were doing all across the city. Record numbers gave blood.
16
The mayor, Fiorello La Guardia, talked to reporters at Grade Mansion at 0340. He said: "We can only wait for bulletins and pray for success. It is the most exciting moment in our lives."
17
The editors of the
New York Times
tried to put some perspective on D-Day in their lead editorial for the June 7 edition. "We have come to the hour for which we were born," they wrote. "We go forth to meet the supreme test of our arms and of our souls, the test of the maturity of our faith in ourselves and in mankind. . . .