‘This is history; it is a thing I can’t be eloquent about in an aeroplane, because I’ve got engine noises in my ear. But this really is a great moment for us…. I feel detached, and that awful feeling that the great history of the world is unfolding before us at this very moment….’
– W. Helmore, 6 June 1944.

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Hungarian-born cameraman Robert Capa’s photograph showing an American soldier crawling on watery Omaha Beach amidst the rain of hot shells has become the most famous image of D-Day. But virtually no one, outside of the British perhaps, remembers that one of the best eyewitness accounts of that day’s fighting was recorded for BBC Radio by RAF Air-Commodore W. Helmore. Very properly, a great deal has been written about the courage and skills of the troops who fought that pivotal World War II battle. Less well know is the story of the journalists, mainly British and American, who ‘went in’ with the combat troops on the first day of the invasion, and in its aftermath.

Helmore was serving as an RAF observer flying in a Mitchell bomber when the BBC allowed him to record his impressions of the landing. An accomplished professional, he had invented of the Helmore aircraft searchlight and tester of in-flight fueling techniques, and had already earned a Ph.D. and C.B.E., and from 1943-45 he was MP for Watford. In addition, he had composed ‘City of Dreams,’ a song that became a big hit in America.

Back on the news-hungry Allied home fronts, many days passed before the print media published semi-complete details of the Normandy landings. Early on, British and American newspapers ran stories based mainly on official Allied communiqués. For instance, they reported Supreme Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s historic address to his troops: ‘You are about to embark on a great crusade. The eyes of the world are upon you and the hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people go with you. We will accept nothing less than full victory.’

Soon after the landings began, a one-sentence Allied communiqué also received wide distribution: ‘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.’

Billboards, placards, chalkboards–and gossips–announced the assault in Britain. Most reports contained few accurate details, although not for lack of trying. Many Allied newspaper, magazine, and radio reporters, photographers, and cameramen went in at Normandy. But transmitting stories quickly back to the home fronts proved difficult, even after the first few days. Most combat correspondents found themselves engulfed for several days and even weeks in the heavy fighting that followed the landings before they could do the initial clashes justice.

In fact, the German reporting organization, Trans-Ocean, issued the very first journalistic communication about the invasion’s start, at 12:37 Eastern War Time, on 6 June 1944, thus’scooping’ the Allied correspondents.

However, one fortunate Allied reporter beat his colleagues to the punch. A British officer tipped off Ross Munro, of the Canadian Press, that a destroyer was heading back to Britain from a Normandy beachhead to pick up General Montgomery. Munro thus sent back the first dispatch from the coast of France, perpetuating his impressive record of success. Munro’s dispatches had previously become the first eyewitness print stories published from Dieppe, Sicily, and Italy.

One Allied reporter’s fate was similar in its early results to most others. CBS’s Walter Cronkite writes of having met with Canadian print correspondent Charlie Lynch, who had just carried three homing pigeons with him in the assault on Omaha Beach. Soon after Lynch had arrived there, he’d typed up his first dispatch and sent copies with all three birds. All three of them proceeded to fly toward Berlin.

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