Posted on 06/06/2006 5:11:23 AM PDT by AirBorn
("What if" in History - No. 3) June 1, 1944: NEW YORK TIMES breaks OPERATION OVERLORD DFU "what if" in history | June 1, 1944 | Jonathon Risen (fictitious name)
Posted on 12/26/2005 7:15:58 PM PST by doug from upland
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Jonathon Risen, New York Times Dateline: France June 1, 1944
The NEW YORK TIMES, always first with breaking news, has discovered that a daring invasion is planned on the coast of France on June 5 in an effort to liberate the courageous and valiant French citizens from the Nazis. If the weather conditions are not right, we have learned that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower may delay the invasion for a day.
OPERATION OVERLORD will be a massive Allied invasion of Western Europe that will include simultaneous landings on five beachheads by U.S., British, and Canadian forces.
When Eisenhower's chief meteorologist, James Martin Stagg, informs the general of a break in the weather, Eisenhower will announce -- “O.K. We'll go.”
Within hours of the decision to go, an armada of 3,000 landing craft, 2,500 other ships, and 500 naval vessels--escorts and bombardment ships--will began to leave English ports. At night, 822 aircraft, carrying parachutists or towing gliders, will roar overhead to the Normandy landing zones. They will be just a fraction of the air armada of 13,000 aircraft that will support "D-Day."
The largest of the D-Day assault areas, Omaha Beach, stretches over 10 km (6 miles) between the fishing port of Port-en-Bessin on the east and the mouth of the Vire River on the west. The western third of the beach is backed by a seawall 3 metres (10 feet) high, and the whole beach is overlooked by cliffs 30 metres high.
Utah Beach is the westernmost beach of the planned five landing areas. It will be assaulted by elements of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division. In the pre-dawn hours, units of the 82nd and 101st airborne division will be airdropped inland from the landing beach. Their plan is to isolate the seaborned invasion force from defending German units.
Sword Beach is the easternmost beach of the five landing areas of the planned invasion. It will be assaulted by units of the British 3rd Division, with French and British commandos attached. Shortly after midnight on D-Day morning, elements of the 6th Airborne Division will launch a daring glider-borne assault, hoping to seize bridges inland from the beach and also silence artillery pieces that could threaten the seaborne landing forces.
H-Hour (the time the first assault wave is to land) at Gold Beach is set for 0725 hours, one hour later than the scheduled landings on the American beaches owing to the direction of the tide, which move from west to east and bring high water later to the British beach.
Juno Beach is the second beach from the east among the five landing areas of the invasion. The Canadian 3rd Infantry Division will invade Juno Beach.
Sources have told us that this invasion could be the beginning of the end for the Nazis. Although TIMES editors held a meeting to discuss whether this information should be reported, it was decided unanimously that it is news and our first obligation is to journalism and reporting the story. We do hope, of course, that Allied casualties are kept to a minimum.
Count on the NEW YORK TIMES for all your war coverage. If it's news, we will have it first.
Considering that as Conservatives ; and those who are appointed with the tasks of ; educationing, speading the Truth of the News, and awakening John Q Public to the Threats Faced against this Nation that come from WITHIN- that This POST should be re-posted as reminder too--that:
Danger doesn't always come from WITHOUT!
Darth Airborne
No doubt CNN would be on the beach interviewing German soldiers about the imminent invasion.
Good post. It would have been devastating then....just as it is now. I will never understand why leaking of vital information is allowed.
It borders on treason!!
No doubt CNN broadcasters would have been happy to wear swastika arm bands during the news once Nazis overran the United States.
Goebbels would have played them like a fiddle.
Someone IS playing them like a fiddle today!
And they are happy to be played.
A few years later news reporters were asked not to use the words actinide, uranium, plutonium, atomic, thorium, and a host of similar topics, to cover leaks from Manhattan Engineering District.
They all complied.
Reporters were allowed to witness Trinity and asked not to report until after the first few weeks of August- the reporters remained silent until allowed to speak.
All before Edward R Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, et cetera redefined the role of the press and redefined the words "patriot", "duty", "dissent", and without explicitly stating it, "honor".
You got that right. German propaganda newsreels would be run wall-to-wall.
We would have seen non stop coverage of the bombed out German cities along with interviews of weeping German mothers.
In World War II the Chicago Tribune basically gave away that the US had broken Japanese Naval Codes.
Nothing happened to them.
The idea that there was some sort of mythical good 'ol days where American Newspapers didn't give away vital information and if they did they were prosecuted is a myth.
The problem was even worse, on both sides, in the Civil War.
Exactly right. The naval officer who gave it to them was demoted, but nothing happened to the Trib.
You're too kind. It IS treason to leak classified information during a war but just who is going to call them on it? Tick, tick, tick, hmmm, nobody with authority that's for sure.
Quagmire!
They got used to it back during the Cold War, can't ask them to learn a new trade now!
Today's congress would have brought Ike back for hearings on why the casualties were so high at Omaha beach.
The way the media behaves today boggles the mind. It is one thing to be independent and challenge the government on domestic issues but when it comes to a war these same tactics place every American, military and civilian, in extreme danger. Again IMO, only a communist indoctrinated media could behave in this manner during a time of war and TREASON is the proper word and should be punished accordingly.
Sad but true.
Nah, they would have just investigated US soldiers shooting surrendering German soldiers.
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