D-Day Anniversary Positivity
With so many soldiers having spent so much time in training exercises and other non-combat activities in England, the importance of what’s described here to the ultimate success of D-Day shouldn’t be underestimated:
The man U.S. war secretary chose to put D-Day force in fighting frame of mind
2007-05-31 17:47:27 - June 6 will mark the 63rd anniversary of D-Day, the World War II Allied invasion of Normandy. To prepare fighting men for that action, U.S. Secretary of War Stimson ordered his head of the Joint Army and Navy Committee to Britain to oversee troop information
ATLANTA, Ga. - In the spring of 1944, three and a half million men in arms were being prepared in the south of England for Operation Overlord, the planned Allied invasion of the European mainland. Shortly after midnight on June 6, 20,000 men of the U.S. 82nd and 101st and British 6th Airborne divisions dropped by parachute well behind German lines. At 6:31 a.m., an invasion armada of 5,000 ships began unloading the first of 170,000 men on the beaches of Normandy. Some 2,400 Americans died in the initial invasion, and thousands more were injured. The successful beachhead was the beginning of the end of World War II in Europe.
According to Atlanta author Noel Griese, putting the U.S. troops in a fighting state of mind was key. To that end, U.S. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson ordered one of his most trusted advisors to Europe to oversee troop information to mentally prepare U.S. armed forces.
Arthur W. Page, the man chosen for the job, had headed the Joint Army and Navy Committee on Welfare and Recreation (JANC) from the beginning of the war. JANC had oversight responsibility for all troop morale activities - USO shows, the Red Cross, the Stars and Stripes newspaper, Yank magazine, radio broadcasts, film distribution and many other activities designed to keep up troop morale.
According to Griese, Page joined Doubleday, Page & Co. after graduating from Harvard in 1905, five years after his father and Frank N. Doubleday created the firm. Page was with Doubleday until 1926, when he left to join AT&T as its first vice president for public relations.
On April 5, 1944, Page departed for England on a secret 100-day mission for Stimson. His main assignment, according to Griese, the author of Arthur W. Page: Publisher, Public Relations Pioneer, Patriot, was to oversee indoctrination of American forces.
Col. Oscar N. Solbert, chief of morale and special services for the European Theater of Operations, had overall responsibility for troop information, education and morale. Page was sent to assist him, particularly with getting troop commanders to cooperate in troop information efforts.
As he had in World War I, when he served on Gen. John “Black Jack” Pershing’s staff, Page declined a commission in World War II. He went to England as a civilian, with the assimilated rank of colonel, knowing he would be better able to work with Solbert if he neither outranked nor underranked him. He stayed in Europe for more than three months, through D-Day and long enough after to make a visit to Cherbourg on the continent.
Page helped Solbert and his staff coordinate troop information through the Stars and Stripes newspaper, Yank magazine, daily broadcasts of the Army News Service (ANS), Army films and newsreels and troop information meetings. He prepared schedules of what was to be said to soldiers each week, sat in on military staff meetings as emissary of the secretary of war and wrote the statement to be given to soldiers as they embarked for the Normandy beaches.
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