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Here’s how today’s media
might have covered D-Day, 60 years ago:
On the coast
of France, June 6, 1944:
 Hundreds
of paratroopers have fallen wide of their target zone.
(In Washington, the Senate Armed Services Committee
is demanding an explanation. The Army chief of staff
may be called to testify.)
The French village of Cerville has been
destroyed by mortar fire from a U.S. infantry platoon.
Four civilians were killed, including one elderly great-grandmother.
German defenders had retreated hours before the American
attack. Army intelligence failures are cited.
NBC Exclusive: Four bombs dropped by
8th Air Force raiders failed to explode when they fell
in an empty field close to the village of Le Challimond.
An examination indicates the duds came from an Iowa
munitions factory. An unidentified Army corporal said
additional defective bombs may already be aboard other
U.S. bombers heading for France.
 Thousands
of American casualties were suffered today as troops
poured on shore at Omaha Beach. (In Washington, a Nebraska
congressmen charged that many GI’s were unprepared
for what they encountered during the invasion. “Somebody
needs to be held accountable,” he said.)
Heavy Navy shelling from battleships
and cruisers had little effect on Nazi gun emplacements
raining fire on U.S. forces, several correspondents
at the scene reported. (In Washington, a World War I
veteran interviewed by a reporter questioned the value
of troop support by warships, saying “the days
of naval involvement in battles is long past.”)
CBS Exclusive: Bombs falling on the
tiny French village of Entierier killed all four cows
on which residents depend for milk and cheese. Severe
shortages are feared unless U.S. forces can replace
the animals by next week.
A 411-year-old church in the village
of Marsuiles was destroyed by Army artillery fire after
a German sniper was detected shooting from the bell
tower. The Vichy French government mayor of the town
protested to advancing GI’s, saying the sniper
surely would have ceased firing had the American soldiers
asked him to do so. He demanded an apology from Gen.
Omar Bradley.
 NBC
Exclusive, in a report from Paris: Residents here fear
the Eiffel Tower might be destroyed by advancing American
forces. “They probably do not appreciate the beauties
of the City of Light,” said Pierre Mutrand, the
mayor appointed by occupying German forces. His sentiments
were echoed by a number of Parisians and several Nazi
SS officers, interviewed while sipping aperitifs at
sidewalk cafes along the Champs-Elysées.
A river near the French coast has been
contaminated by fuel leaking from two disabled tanks
that advancing GI’s pushed over the side of a bridge.
French puppet civic leaders questioned the need to clear
the bridge by such drastic action, saying it appeared
soldiers could have climbed over the wreckage had it
been left in place. Correspondents were denied an interview
by the young Army captain commanding troops in the area.
CBS Exclusive: American forces bogged
down in the hedgerows of the French countryside have
been calling for reinforcements to help escape withering
German fire. Communication problems, however, have left
commanders on the beach unaware that some of their troops
are in a desperate situation. It makes you wonder whether
their training was adequate — or even if there
was any training at all.
On the home
front:
 As
first battle reports indicated heavy casualties on Omaha
Beach, a Republican leader addressing a Republican rally
in Bloomington, Ind., told a group of somber Hoosiers
that the invasion losses are evidence that President
Roosevelt is incompetent. The Indiana congressional
delegation responded by saying it would begin bipartisan
hearings to see whether Roosevelt had concealed information
that the invasion would be more costly than expected.
In a panel discussion broadcast by NBC
Radio, four White House correspondents provided illuminating
insight into the difficulties being encountered by Allied
forces in France. Jeremy Jeffords, Washington Bureau
chief of a small Midwest newspaper, said, “The
decision to start the invasion this early in June is
open to severe criticism. Gen. Eisenhower and his planners
apparently failed to take into account that delaying
this assault until August would have found much of the
French population on a holiday and thus removed from
the path of the fighting.”
In Chicago, the Rev. Blakely Elmera,
a noted peace activist, deplored the violence taking
place on the French battlefields. “Apparently our
government in Washington gave no thought to the possibility
of negotiating with German leaders in an effort to resolve
their differences,” he said. “We seem to be
blindly following Churchill’s affection for war.”
In London, the British prime minister lit a new cigar
and declined to respond.
William J. Tobin is an editor of
The Anchorage Times. |
