BW - EP152—001: D-Day's 80th Anniversary—The Invasion Begins

Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting

Tuesday, June 6th, 1944 at about 12:45 in the morning. We’re at Bill Pogue’s Bar on the Corner of 88th street and Columbus Avenue in Manhattan. I just finished a twelve hour shift. I need a nightcap before I go back into that low-hanging fog. Did you hear the President tonight? We took Rome. One up and two to go. ____________ Only the German outlets that are saying the invasion has started. Paris radio just aired news bulletins and didn’t say anything. London radio told Hollanders to stay off bridges and roads, but that could be normal instructions. You want to know something? I don’t think the Germans are lying. I think this is it. This is D-Day, June 6th, 1944. ____________ It’s 3:30 in the morning on June 6th, 1944. I’ve just left CBS news headquarters at 485 Madison Avenue. I parked in Times Square on purpose. I wanted to see if there was any reaction. A few servicemen came out of a bar. I told them the news. They joined others in front of cabs who were tuned to either CBS or NBC. The news cutaway from band remotes sounded haunting. There are scattered lights in apartment windows and one radio shop, closed for the evening, has a loudspeaker blaring CBS. I won’t be sleeping tonight. I’ve been assigned to take the temperature of the emotions people are feeling. The long and short of it is that we still have no allied confirmation about a French coastline invasion. The president was on the radio last night with one of his fireside chats talking about the allies taking Rome. If he knew something about France, he didn’t tip his hand. Bob Trout should be on the air right about now. Bob’s a good man. To kill time he was going to take his microphone into the CBS newsroom, giving a taste of what a nerve center is like with chaos brimming. 10PM New York time on June 5th was 4AM on the morning of the 6th in France. At that moment seven-thousand allied ships left England under cover of darkness. They were loaded with allied troops, primarily from Britain, the US, and Canada for Operation Overlord. The soldiers were split up to invade five landing points along the coast of northern France. The beachheads were code named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Sword, and Juno. At midnight, while I was drinking at Bill Pogue’s allied bombers were bombarding the coastline. Personnel carriers flew inland to drop off paratroopers. The paratroopers' job was to attack bridges and seize several key points to cut off the Nazi supply lines. An hour later, while distracting the Germans at Pas-de-Calais, allied warships dropped anchor off the coast of Normandy to wait for dawn and provide cover for the landing ships. By 2AM, more than thirteen-thousand paratroopers had been dropped into France, with four-thousand more flying in on gliders. They continued landing troops for the next two hours. The Germans saw the paratroopers, but failed to grasp just how big the invasion was to be. By 5AM, Allied battleships had begun firing on the Nazi defenses while the first landing ships went ashore. German and Allied ships clashed in the first skirmishes at sea. As the sun rose, the landing operation was fully underway. The Allied battleships stopped firing as their landing boats approached the shore at 6:30AM, dubbed “H-Hour” for the designated moment of the invasion. The landing ships were tightly packed together. Allied troops dealt with heavy gunfire. Many men were killed before they could reach the beach. Nevertheless, the Allies managed to land their troops, and the fight for the beaches began.