These D-Day News Flashes appeared in the New york Times

June7, 1944



All Landings Win
Our Men Are Reported in Caen and at Points on Cherbourg Peninsul
Big Air Armada Aids
10,000 Tons of Bombs Clear the Way
--Poor Weather a Worry

All Landings Win; Sea Wall Broken

Latest Communique By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSRELATED HEADLINES 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"Let Our
Hearts
Be Stout" A Prayer by the President of the United States Italian Drive
Gains
On 70-Mile Front: 2,000 Germans Captured Near Mouth of Tiber--French
Take
Tivoli JunctionRoosevelt and Churchill Pleased by Invasion Gains Landing

Puts
End To 4-Year Hiatus: Fiery Renewal of Battle for France--Britain
Recalls
Grimness of DunkerqueTurks Hear Report Of Landing in Greece Russians
Poised
to Attack in East; Moscow Joyous on 'Second Front' Invasion and Other
War
News Summarized


Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, Wednesday, June 7
--Allied
forces continued landings on the northern French coast throughout
yesterday
and "satisfactory progress was made," headquarters announced today.
United
States Rangers and British Commandos formed part of the assault forces,
the
third invasion bulletin said."No further attempt at interference with
our
sea-borne landing was made by enemy naval forces," it continued."Those
coastal batteries still in action are being bombarded by Allied
warships,"
the bulletin said."At twilight yesterday and for the fourth time during
the
day Allied heavy bombers attacked rail communications and bridges in the

general battle area, and "there was increased air opposition," the
announcement added.By Drew MiddletonBy Cable to The New York
TimesSupreme
Headquarters,

Allied Expeditionary Force, Wednesday, June 7--The German Atlantic Wall
has
been breached.Thousands of American, Canadian and British soldiers,
under
cover of the greatest air and sea bombardment of history, have broken
through
the "impregnable" perimeter of Germany's "European fortress" in the
first
phase of the invasion and liberation of the Continent.Communiqué 2,
issued at
the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, before last
midnight,
reported that all initial landings, which had earlier been located on
the
coast of Normandy, in northern France, had "succeeded." The Germans told

of
heavy fighting with Allied air-bone troops in Caen, road and railroad
junction eight and one-half miles inland from the Seine Bay coast, and
the
enemy said there was heavy fighting at several points in a
crescent-shaped
front reaching from St. Vaast-la-Hougue, on the west, to Havre, on the
east.[The German Transocean News Agency said early Wednesday that the
Allies
had made "further landings at the mouth of the Orne under cover of naval

artillery," according to The Associated Press. The agency said "heavy
fighting" was raging.[A British broadcast, recorded by Blue Network
monitors,
said Wednesday that "another air-borne landing south of Cherbourg has
been
reported." Another British broadcast said that Allied bulldozers were
busy
"carving out the first RAF airfield on the coast of France."]

At last midnight, just over twenty-four hours after the beginning of the

operation, these were the salient points in the military situation:1.
Despite
underwater obstacles and beach defenses, which in some areas extended
for
more than 1,000 yards inland, the Atlantic Wall has been breached by
Allied
infantry.2. The largest air-borne force ever launched by the Allies has
been
successfully dropped behind the Atlantic Wall and has attacked by second

echelon of German defenses vigorously. The Germans estimate this force
at not
less than four divisions, two American and two British, of paratroops
and
air-borne infantry.3. Most of the German coastal batteries in the
invasion
area have been silenced by 10,000 tons of bombs and by shelling from 640

naval ships. The shelling was so intense that H M S Tanatside, a British

destroyer, had exhausted all her ammunition by 8 o' clock yesterday
morning.4. Against 7,500 sorties flown from Monday midnight to 8 A.M.,
Tuesday, by the Allied Air Forces during the first day of the invasion
the
Luftwaffe has flown fifty, and the main weight of the enemy air force in

the
west, estimated at 1,750 aircraft, has not entered the battle.5. The
first
enemy naval assault on the Allied invasion armada was beaten off with
the
loss of one enemy trawler and severe damage to another.There is
reasonable
optimism at this headquarters now, but there is no effort to disguise
concern
over several factors, among them weather and the shape of the first
major
German counter-blow.Navies 100 Per Cent Effective Admiral Sir Bertram
Ramsay,
Allied naval commander in chief, declared the Allied navies had "in
effect"
been 100 per cent successful in the task of landing the invasion troops
in
France. These troops have now become the most important of the fighting
services involved in the invasion, for there are indications that the
enemy
to some extent is withholding reserve formations for a general
counterattack
once he is certain yesterday's landings constitute the main threat in
northwestern Europe.The heaviest fighting in a 100-mile battle area
appeared
to revolve around Caen, according to the German News Agency, DNB.

The enemy also admitted the establishment of an Allied bridgehead on
both
sides of the Orne estuary, and another in the area northwest of Bayeux,
and
the Germans said an Allied paratroop formation had a firm grip on both
sides
of the Cherbourg-Valognes road.A group of light Allied tanks and armored

scout cars was placed northeast of Bayeux by the enemy. [Bayeux is about

six
miles inland from the southwest shore of the Seine Bay.] Earlier Allied
tanks
had been reported fighting in the area of Arromanches on the south coast

of
the Seine Bay. This group was attempting to join the main beachhead
forces
northwest of Bayeux, the enemy said.A German military spokesman reported

fifteen cruisers and fifty to sixty destroyers were operating west of
Havre
last night covering a large number of Allied landing craft. The two
naval
task forces that led the invasion were commanded by Rear Admiral Sir
Philip
Vian, who won fame while commanding the destroyer Cossack early in the
war,
and Rear Admiral Alan Goodrich Kirk of the United States Navy. The two
naval
forces plus a third force, which came from the north, included one
fifteen-inch gun battleship, the British Warspite; an American
battleship,
the Nevada, a veteran of Pearl Harbor; the American cruisers Augusta and

Tuscaloosa and the British cruisers Mauritius, Belfast, Black Prince and

Orion, and shoals of destroyers flying the Stars and Stripes and the
White
Ensign.Steaming through the English Channel, swept by 200 British
minesweepers, the men o' war escorted thousands of landing craft,
transports
and assault craft bearing Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery's landing
forces to
the beaches.Shortly before the first soldiers "hit the beach" three
German
torpedo boats and an undisclosed number of armed trawlers attacked. They

were
driven off with withering fire. One trawler was sunk and another
severely
damaged.Then the destroyers turned their guns on enemy defenses, while
the
ships engaged enemy batteries already battered by high explosives
dropped
from the air.The large air-borne forces that were dropped and landed in
the
night were already assembling behind the Atlantic Wall as the first
troops
scrambled up the beaches. Dawn was the climax of the first phase of the
invasion. Wave after wave of American bombers- -at least 31,000 Allied
airmen
were in the air between Monday midnight and breakfast Tuesday--took up
the
task of flattening the German defenses and silencing guns. Fighters
circled
over the beachheads on defensive patrol, while fighter-bombers darted
inland
to attack German troops moving up to attack the air-borne and sea-borne
invaders.So feeble was the German Air Force opposition that one fighter
force
swept seventy-five miles inland without meeting opposition. In one of
the few
clashes 300 Marauders ran into twenty Focke-Wulfe 190s, destroying a
single
enemy plane without loss. A great fleet of more than 1,000 planes,
including
gliders and towplanes, went almost unmolested when it carried the
air-borne
force to its objectives, while some Flying Fortress groups reported
neither
fighter interference nor flak fire.All day the weather forced medium and

light bombers to attack at low level, 300 Marauders bombing from 3,000
feet
during yesterday afternoon. Havocs on a similar attack jumped and halted

a
column of eight German armored cars. Road junctions and railway yards
behind
enemy lines were bombed repeatedly.Allied Integration of Arms
Yesterday's
operations, the greatest yet undertaken by the Western powers, were
marked by
a complete integration of all striking arms. Tens of thousands of bombs
and
shells tore at the German defenses as air force and Navy gave maximum
support
to the infantrymen struggling ashore or the airborne forces attacking
the
"Atlantic Wall" from the rear.The Bomber command of the Royal Air Force,

the
first Allied force to strike at the heart of Germany in this war, had
the
honor of opening the assault. At 11:30 o'clock Monday night the first of

ten
waves of Lancasters and Halifaxes swept in from the sea to begin
bombardment
of the German batteries along the French coast.There were more than a
hundred
bombers in this and subsequent waves, and the total number of "heavies"
involved was more than 1,300. Since on such a trip each of these heavies

can
carry at least five tons of bombs, the batteries were hit by around
7,000
tons of bombs before the sun rose to reveal the great invasion fleet
gently
rolling on the choppy waters of the English Channel.

The batteries attacked were of two types, with two different functions.
There
were long- range rifles--mostly 155 mm. and 177 mm. weapons--to engage
shipping far out at sea. Equally important to the success of the landing

were
batteries of heavy howitzers sited on beaches or on areas just off the
beaches where landing craft might congregate. Both types of batteries
were
strongly protected, with most of the 155's in casemates of reinforced
concrete. The howitzers were in sandbagged emplacements or newly
constructed
casemates.The preliminary air attacks appear to have been successful,
for
reports from the front stressed the failure of German batteries to
maintain
determined fire. Many of the casemates were blown apart, while some of
the
howitzers were knocked over by the blasts and their gunpits were
smothered
with dirt torn up by the bombs.This destruction was well under way by
dawn
yesterday, when more than 1,000 Flying Fortresses and Liberators of the
United States Eighth Air Force roared out from Britain to maintain the
bombing. At the same time far out at sea gunfire flickered along the
decks of
battleships, monitors, cruisers and destroyers as they engaged not only
gun
batteries but strongpoints and blockhouses along the Normandy beaches.By

this
time troop carriers and gliders of the United States Ninth Army Air
Force and
the RAF had flown paratroops and air-borne infantry to their objectives
and
the two-sided battle of the so-called Atlantic Wall had begun on the
ground
as well as in the air and at sea.All day the big guns roared from the
sea to
shore and from the shore to sea. All day Liberators, Fortresses,
Marauders,
Mitchells, Typhoons, Havocs and Thunderbolts of the Allied Air Forces
bombed
the German coastal defenses and troop concentrations sheltered in the
lush
orchards of Normandy.All day Allied fighters patrolled the battle area
and
spread an air umbrella above the invasion fleet.Air Chief Trafford
Leigh-Mallory, General Eisenhower's deputy commander for air, was so
proud of
the work done by the Allied air forces that yesterday morning while the
battle was still developing he congratulated his forces on the
"magnificent
work* * *done in preparation for the invasion."As this order was flashed

to
the far-flung squadrons of the RAF and USAAF the battle on the ground,
where
it will eventually be fought and won, was beginning with the first air-
borne
landings.

According to enemy radio reports, these were made "in great depth" in
the
area of the Seine Bay. British airborne units were dropped in the Havre
area,
while Americans floated to earth in the Normandy district.The enemy has
already identified the First and Sixtieth British Air-Borne Divisions
and the
Eighty-second and the 101st American Air-Borne Divisions, according to
Axis
broadcasts. Air-borne troops landed at Barfleur, east of Cherbourg;
Carentan,
five miles from the Seine Bay on the Cherbourg peninsula, and northeast
of
Caen between the estuaries of the Seine and Orne, the Germans said.Air
and
naval losses for the first day were considered remarkably low at this
headquarters, although it was emphasized the enemy had not attacked
strongly
in either element. One American battleship, risking unswept mines and
shore
torpedo tubes, moved in to short range in order to silence a troublesome

battery that was holding up operations with its fire.The Allied seaborne

landings began to develop along the coast of Normandy at the same time.
The
Germans placed the first attacks between the mouths of the Seine and the

Vire, a stretch of coast about seventy-five miles long, beginning in the

east
at Trouville and Deauville, once filled with holiday crowds from all
over
Europe, and reaching to the Bay of Isigny in the west. The stretch of
coast
is the nearest to Paris and is connected with the capital by good rail
and
highway communications. American tanks poured ashore in the area of
Arromanches, a small fishing village about fifteen miles northwest of
Caen,
and Asnelles, in the middle of the Seine Bay south coast, the Germans
said,
adding that thirty-five tanks had been destroyed in the fighting around
Asnelles. What the Germans described as "particularly extensive
landings"
also were made at the small coastal village of St. Vaast-la-Hougue,
close to
the tip of the Cherbourg peninsula. The enemy also claimed the Allies
had
landed on Guernsey and Jersey in the Channel islands, the last bit of
British
Empire held by Germany. As the infantry scrambled over the beach
obstacles
from the sea, air-borne invaders were fighting a hot battle in the
district
of Caen, according to the enemy reports. Caen lies on the main railroad
line
running from Cherbourg to Rouen, Evereux and Paris and is a junction of
nine
highways. Other large air-borne concentrations were around Havre and
Cherbourg, and the enemy claimed they had been made in order to seize
those
ports for the invasion fleet.The enemy claimed a battleship had been
badly
damaged and a cruiser and large transport sunk during a duel between
shore
batteries and the Allied naval escort. The enemy put the escort at six
battleships and twenty destroyers, with well over 2,000 landing craft,
some
of them of 3,000 tons, participating in the landings along the Seine
Bay.Enemy Claims Hits [President Roosevelt said at his Tuesday press
conference that General Eisenhower had reported the loss of two American

destroyers and one LST, a tank-carrying landing ship.]Sea-borne landings

overcame intricate and elaborate German obstructions, mainly because
General
Eisenhower took a chance and landed his forces at low tide when naval
engineers' parties could deal with underwater obstacles. These included
mines
moored below the low-water line, beach mines and hundreds of obstacles.
The
latter included a section of braced fences, concrete pyramids, and wood
and
steel "hedgehogs."All these obstacles were extensively mined, either
with
Teller mines or specially prepared artillery projectiles. But before the

invasion armada could reach these defenses some 200 Allied minesweepers
manned by 10,000 officers and men had to sweep a passage through
extensive
minefields with which the enemy had masked the approaches to the
beaches.It
was officially called the biggest and probably the most difficult,
certainly
the most concentrated, minesweeping operation ever carried out. The most

delicate and dangerous work was done at night in a cross-tide of two
knots.When dawn came the landing craft moved slowly toward the beaches
through the swept channels, and the minesweepers were sweeping new
areas.It
was through this sort of sea defenses that the invasion ships had to
make
their way before they grated on continental beaches.Ashore the engineers

and
infantry found a variety of new obstacles. The entire beaches were
guarded by
bolts of wire. The exits from the beaches were blocked by an adaption of

existing seawalls to become anti-tank walls, and steel obstacles were
set up.
Anti-tank ditches fifty to sixty feet wide were extensively employed and

minefields had been laid up to a depth of more than 1,000 yards from
shore,
while inundations were employed wherever the ground was suitable.Allied
Reinforcements Pour In Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force,

Wednesday, June 7 (AP)--Allied troops swiftly cleared Normandy beaches
of the
dazed Nazi survivors of a punishing sea and air bombardment, and
armor-backed
landing parties ranged inland today in a liberation invasion.
Reinforcements
streamed across the white-capped Channel.Some reports reached here that
Gen.
Sir Bernard L. Montgomery's men had cut at Caen the Paris-Cherbourg
railway,
a main route supplying Hitler's defense forces in the Cherbourg
peninsula.Prime Minister Churchill first disclosed that Allied troops
were
fighting in Caen, on the River Orne. He said the invasion was proceeding

"in
a thoroughly satisfactory manner," and with unexpectedly light
casualties.The
German High Command asserted that no Allied troops had penetrated
Caen.Returning RAF pilots said:"We could easily tell the beaches were
secure--we could see our soldiers standing up."Caen was the only point
specifically named here as a scene of fighting, although penetrations as

deep
as thirteen miles were reported. Nazi-controlled radios, however,
reported
Allied landings at a dozen points, with the most important on both sides

of
the estuary of the River Orne.From west to east along the 100-mile
shoreline,
Axis accounts said Allied sea-borne and air-borne forces struck at:The
port
of Barfleur, fifteen miles east of Cherbourg; the fishing village of St.

Vaast-la- Hougue, five miles south of Barfleur; both sides of the
Valognes-Carentan highway, a section of an important supply road to
Cherbourg
running five miles inland from the peninsular coast; the
twenty-seven-mile-long area between Carentan and Bayeux; the River Orne
estuary; a fifteen-mile stretch of beaches in the Villers-Trouville
region
across the Seine estuary from Havre; and the town of Honfleur, on the
Seine
six miles southeast of Havre.The German-controlled Vichy radio also said

that
a vicious fight developed last night north of Rouen, on the Seine,
forty-one
miles east of Havre, "between powerful Allied paratroop formations and
German
anti-invasion forces."

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