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Thread: Modern Day D-Day Coverage

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    Default Modern Day D-Day Coverage

    I thought this was hysterically tongue-in-cheek.

    D-Day as covered by today's media

    By William J. Tobin

    Here's how today's media might have covered D-Day, 60 years ago:

    Off the coast of France, June 6, 1944:
    Hundreds of paratroopers have fallen wide of their target zone. (In
    Washington, the Senate Armed Services Committee is demanding an
    explanation. The Army chief of staff may be called to testify.)

    The French village of Cerville has been destroyed by mortar fire from a
    U.S. infantry platoon. Four civilians were killed, including one elderly
    great-grandmother. German defenders had retreated hours before the
    American attack. Army intelligence failures are cited.

    NBC Exclusive: Four bombs dropped by 8th Air Force raiders failed to
    explode when they fell in an empty field close to the village of Le
    Challimond . An examination indicates the duds came from an Iowa
    munitions factory. An unidentified Army corporal said additional
    defective bombs may already be aboard other U.S. bombers heading for
    France.

    Thousands of American casualties were suffered today as troops poured on
    shore at Omaha Beach. (In Washington, a Nebraska congressmen charged
    that many GI's were unprepared for what they encountered during the
    invasion. "Somebody needs to be held accountable," he said.)

    Heavy Navy shelling from battleships and cruisers had little effect on
    Nazi gun emplacements raining fire on U.S. forces, several
    correspondents at the scene reported. (In Washington, a World War I
    veteran interviewed by a reporter questioned the value of troop support
    by warships, saying "the days of naval involvement in battles is long
    past.")

    CBS Exclusive: Bombs falling on the tiny French village of Entierier
    killed all four cows on which residents depend for milk and cheese.
    Severe shortages are feared unless U.S. forces can replace the animals
    by next week.

    A 411-year-old church in the village of Marsuiles was destroyed by Army
    artillery fire after a German sniper was detected shooting from the bell
    tower. The Vichy French government mayor of the town protested to
    advancing GI's, saying the sniper surely would have ceased firing had
    the American soldiers asked him to do so. He demanded an apology from
    Gen. Omar Bradley.

    NBC Exclusive, in a report from Paris: Residents here fear the Eiffel
    Tower might be destroyed by advancing American forces. "They probably do
    not appreciate the beauties of the City of Light," said Pierre Mutrand,
    the mayor appointed by occupying German forces. His sentiments were
    echoed by a number of Parisians and several Nazi SS officers,
    interviewed while sipping aperitifs at sidewalk cafes along the
    Champs-Elysées.

    A river near the French coast has been contaminated by fuel leaking from
    two disabled tanks that advancing GI's pushed over the side of a bridge.
    French puppet civic leaders questioned the need to clear the bridge by
    such drastic action, saying it appeared soldiers could have climbed over
    the wreckage had it been left in place. Correspondents were denied an
    interview by the young Army captain commanding troops in the area.

    CBS Exclusive: American forces bogged down in the hedgerows of the
    French countryside have been calling for reinforcements to help escape
    withering German fire. Communication problems, however, have left
    commanders on the beach unaware that some of their troops are in a
    desperate situation. It makes you wonder whether their training was
    adequate - or even if there was any training at all.

    On the home front:
    As first battle reports indicated heavy casualties on Omaha Beach, a
    Republican leader addressing a Republican rally in Bloomington, Ind.,
    told a group of somber Hoosiers that the invasion losses are evidence
    that President Roosevelt is incompetent. The Indiana congressional
    delegation responded by saying it would begin bipartisan hearings to see
    whether Roosevelt had concealed information that the invasion would be
    more costly than expected.

    In a panel discussion broadcast by NBC Radio, four White House
    correspondents provided illuminating insight into the difficulties being
    encountered by Allied forces in France. Jeremy Jeffords, Washington
    Bureau chief of a small Midwest newspaper, said, "The decision to start
    the invasion this early in June is open to severe criticism. Gen.
    Eisenhower and his planners apparently failed to take into account that
    delaying this assault until August would have found much of the French
    population on a holiday and thus removed from the path of the fighting."

    In Chicago, the Rev. Blakely Elmera, a noted peace activist, deplored
    the violence taking place on the French battlefields. "Apparently our
    government in Washington gave no thought to the possibility of
    negotiating with German leaders in an effort to resolve their
    differences," he said. "We seem to be blindly following Churchill's
    affection for war." In London, the British prime minister lit a new
    cigar and declined to respond.

    William J. Tobin is an editor of The Anchorage Times.
    He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

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    Default Re:Modern Day D-Day Coverage

    Too true,

    The only major omission I saw in the article was casualty figures, i.e. 6,500 GI's were killed during a TRAINING EXERCISE to prepare them for the D Day Invasion 6 weeks prior to the actual invasion. 50,000+ Allied Soldiers died in a single day during the June 6th 1944 Invasion itself.

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