D-Day, June 6, 1944
June 6, 2009 is the 65th anniversary of the Allied invasion of the Normandy coast, which marked the beginning of the liberation of France and the defeat of Nazi Germany. The long-awaited second front was opened.
The largest Armada of men and ships ever assembled would breach the Atlantic wall at great cost and sacrifice.
The Baltimore Sun on June 6, 1944 published an extra edition with the headline, "ALLIES INVADING FRANCE - TROOPS LAND IN NORMANDY." The Evening Sun headline, pictured above, read, "Invasion 9 Miles Inland - Opposition Weak, Losses Below Expectations." Additional reports were topped by, "Sunpapers Men Report - O'Neil - H-Hour, McCardell - In Air and Watson - Tactics." This headline referred to The Sun's war correspondents Thomas O'Neil, chief of London Bureau, and Lee McCardell ( no relation ) and Mark S. Watson, the paper's military analyst.
Another war correspondent, Holbrook Bradley, was aboard a ship with the 29th Infantry Division waiting to go ashore. Bradley had covered the 29th Infantry Division since 1943 during their training in England and following them across Europe. He wrote a book called " War Correspondent From D-Day to Elbe." He is the Baltimore Sun's last living WW II correspondent.
While Lee McCardell flew over the beaches in Baltimore-built Martin Marauders with the 9th Air Force and sent back his dispatches through military censors to the Baltimore Sun . Holbrook Bradley waited on ship while part of the 29th to which he was assigned was waiting to go ashore.
The Baltimore Sun didn't run its first eyewitness accounts of the 29th on the beach until June 10, 1944, and that came from Baltimore News-Post and INS Correspondent Louis Azrael, a well-respected journalist who, like Bradley, ended up following the 29th across Europe. Azreal's first dispatch was written on paper found beside a dead German soldier since his own paper was ruined when he leapt from a landing barge. Holbrook Bradley's first dispatchs appeared in The Sun on June 13, and on June 14 he wrote a front-page story headlined, "Bradley Describes 29th Division Landing On Normandy Beachhead." It was dated June 7.
Bradley reported that landing craft nearby still had to dodge occasional shells from German batteries. "The scene through which we passed was one of the most desolate we've ever seen. The few houses along the shore were almost blown to bits, evidence of the heavy Navy gunfire early on the first day. Up the hills, German concrete emplacements were completely blasted of the ground, and mazes of barbed-wire entanglements were ripped through huge sections." Bradley saw many bodies, some that had never made it ashore. "Those first few hours on the beach must have been a living hell."
Bradley was equipped with a camera and used it that day to take photos from offshore on D-Day and from the beach on the second day. There were many photos of that day that live on, taken by the US.Coast Guard, Navy and Army Signal Corps and others. Some of the most famous were taken by Robert Capa.
On June 6 we remember the sacrifices made not just that day and not just on that beach but all the places were men and women have fought and still fight for our freedom .
I hope you look at the photo gallery and I also attached other links related to D-Day .
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