AMERICANS ASCENDANT
JUNE 6, 1944
D-Day had arrived. Following a furious naval bombardment by the largest fleet ever assembled and supported by air forces with complete control of the sky, our fathers and grandfathers stormed the beaches of Normandy at 6:30 a.m. on June 6, 1944. Meanwhile, highly trained Rangers assaulted the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc. Earlier, at midnight, our airborne infantry had dropped into the thick hedgerows behind the beaches. Children and adolescents of the Great Depression, they were indeed “Americans ascendant.”
COL. DAVID SARNOFF AND COMMUNICATIONS
Meanwhile, the Allied Supreme Commander, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower considered the hundreds of correspondents accredited to Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force as quasi staff officers and responsible for the safety of allied troops on D-Day and beyond. Likewise, Ike considered troop morale and public support vital to winning the war. He put Col. David Sarnoff, peace-time president of RCA and NBC, in charge of communications. Sarnoff created a sophisticated communications center and an allied radio service. Therefore, at 9:30 a.m. on D-Day, as documented in Glenn Miller Declassified and America Ascendant, Col. R. Ernest DuPuy broadcast SHAEF communique #1 to anxious Americans and people around the world: “Under the command of General Eisenhower, allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces, began landing allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France.”
CMDR. JOHN FORD AND FILM
Likewise, offshore the Normandy coast, Cmdr. John Ford and his Navy Film Photographic Unit were busy filming the events. Furthermore, the famed Hollywood director and genuine witness to history had already been present on April 18, 1942, when Army Air Forces B-25s commanded by Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle daringly took off from the USS Hornet to bomb Japan. Ford was also famously on Midway Island in June 1942, where he and his team onshore and with the fleet air arm filmed the decisive Pacific battle. Ford’s Battle of Midway won an Academy Award for best documentary. Ford went aboard a PT boat commanded by Cmdr. John Bulkeley, who Ford memorialized in the 1945 MGM classic They Were Expendable. Bulkeley had evacuated Gen. Douglas MacArthur from Corregidor in March 1942.
FDR’S MEDIA-GOVERNMENT ALLIANCE
President Franklin D. Roosevelt put together and led an extraordinary alliance of American media and government during World War II. Therefore, the alliance defined the exceptionalism that young Americans proved on battlefields around the world, including Normandy. Furthermore, on the evening of D-Day, the president called the nation to prayer for the success and safety of our armed forces in battle in a legendary radio address. Likewise, the previous evening, FDR hailed the liberation of Rome and importance of western civilization. In conclusion, you can learn more about the wartime service of David Sarnoff, John Ford and all the broadcasting, communications, and motion picture details of D-Day in America Ascendant.