On June 6, 1944, the largest seaborne invasion in history began across the English Channel toward the French coast to establish bases and retake occupied Europe from Nazi Germany.
Known as D-Day and codenamed Operation Overlord, more than 5,000 ships and landing craft transported 156,000 Allied troops to storm the well-defended German beaches of Normandy.
The Nazi command had long anticipated the invasion and fought fiercely, using artillery, tanks and infantry units to counter wave after wave of Allied attacks.
More than 500 journalists participated in the invading force. They received no special treatment and were unloaded from landing craft with the troops. As soldiers rushed to the shore with weapons, reporters were armed only with laptops, cameras and typewriters. They tried to keep the kit dry, but they weren't always successful.
Hours earlier, just before dawn, a small group of reporters had parachuted behind the lines along with 18,000 paratroopers to disperse German firepower from approaching Allied ships.
leave a record of what happened
The BBC created a special reporting team to cover the invasion and dispatched 17 journalists who joined the landing force on D-Day. Radio reporters arrived, along with engineers operating the Midget recording device (a misnomer), which all used portable gramophone technology. The Midget only weighed 18 kg (40 lb), but it captured the sound of the scene more clearly than audiences had ever heard before.
Many journalists covered the landings in Sicily and Anzio, Italy. Other American and British reporters accompanied Allied aircrews on missions over Germany to report on bombings and attacks by enemy fighter planes on German cities and Nazi military targets.
Almost every journalist has experienced air raids as German bombs were dropped on British cities. But few journalists experienced the firepower raining down on the soldiers advancing onto the beaches of Normandy.
One of the most experienced combat journalists was Robert Capa. His years filming the Spanish Civil War made him famous.
Working for the popular American magazine Life, Capa landed with the first wave of American troops in some of the fiercest fighting on Omaha Beach. Armed with two 35mm cameras, he took more than 100 images, but only 11 of his photographs survived due to an accident in the processing room when the film was shipped back to London. It remains the most iconic image of D-Day.
There is no freedom of speech during war.
All reporters had to be certified and follow strict procedures. Journalists, including writers, photographers, and sound engineers who operated bulky recording machines, were required to wear military gear that identified them as ‘war correspondents.’
Newspapers also had to agree to strict censorship rules before reports could be published. Reporters could not mention the exact location of troops, weather conditions, or anything else that might be helpful to the enemy. Even radio reports by the BBC and American stations were careful not to include details about battle groups, numbers of soldiers or casualties. That is why early reports from the Allied High Command in London soberly announced D-Day as “the landings on the northern coast of France.”
NBC Radio News added more details about the military. “Leaving the landing barge, we headed along the beach to the strongholds of Nazi Europe… under a huge cloud of fighter planes, under the screaming cannonade of Allied warships.”
The German positions were overwhelmed by the Allies' overwhelming air and naval superiority by the end of the day, but more than 4,000 Allied casualties were lost and twice that number for the Germans.
Given that speculation was extremely heated about when the Allies would launch a major assault into Europe, the date and location of the landings were kept secret. Restrictions on speech and self-censorship were universally accepted and enforced.
Another restriction imposed on journalists was the ban on female reporters from the front lines. Allied command said the women “did not know how to dig a toilet.” This excuse was ridiculed, but all journalists depended on the military for transportation. No freelancer avoided the rules.
Capturing iconic images
Martha Gellhorn reports on the rise of the Nazi Party and Hitler in Germany and will not be left behind in the invasion of Normandy. When her press credentials were denied, she secretly boarded a hospital ship in London and took a water ambulance to shore. She helped medics return the wounded to the ship and then interviewed them.
American journalist Lee Miller received rare American military certification (granted to only four women) to report from the field and arrived in Normandy a few weeks after D-Day with a typewriter and camera.
After an early career as a fashion model, Miller was a professional photographer who participated in the Surrealist and abstract art movements in Paris in the 1930s.
Miller's report of “Unarmed Fighters” on the American evacuation hospital near the Omaha Beach landing site remains one of the most famous accounts of the aftermath of the assault. , dedication and perseverance. Grave faces and tired feet walked up and down the aisles of the tent.”
She was credited as a correspondent for British Vogue, which didn't expect such a shocking report, but they published a full article with dozens of photos of her.
A few weeks later, Miller was reporting on the Battle of Saint-Malo further up the French coast.
Although women were strictly prohibited from covering combat, she was mistakenly assigned to visit what she thought was a liberated French village. Miller was the only reporter there and made the most of her scoop with her powerful reporting and front-line photos.
She was later 'provisionally arrested' by the Allied command, but they quickly relented and Miller accompanied the army through the liberation of her old hometown of Paris and the discovery of the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps.
The D-Day landings, which began on June 6, 1944, are now celebrated as a symbolic moment that turned the tide for Nazi Germany. It was also the day that hundreds of reporters began accompanying Allied soldiers throughout Europe.