People of Western Europe speech
The "People of Western Europe" speech was made by
Approximately 47 million copies of the speech were printed, in five languages, for distribution to the peoples of Western Europe. A recording for radio broadcast was made on May 28 but, due to one problematic sentence, had to be re-recorded in the following days. One commentator states that Eisenhower's frustration and fatigue is discernible in the recording, when compared to his June 6, 1944, order of the day recorded on May 28. The speech was broadcast over British and American radio on D-Day, June 6.
The metal disc of the recording was delivered by the Americans to the BBC late at night at 200 Oxford Street, then the headquarters for some operations of the BBC World Service, where it was entrusted to young sound engineer Trevor Hill, who was told to test it for quality. After hearing the content, he was not allowed to go home, speak to anyone, or even go to the washroom without an MI5 escort, until the speech was officially broadcast. After D-Day, Hill attempted to give the disc to the BBC for storage, but was told that, as the recording was not made by the BBC, they were not interested in it. Hill promptly took the disc home and kept it in his father's attic for several years, before eventually turning it in for preservation.[1][2]
Background
The
Content
In the speech Eisenhower asks resistance members to follow the orders of their leaders and for other citizens to avoid wasting their lives in unnecessary acts of resistance without further orders. He notes that the allied forces include
A version of the speech was recorded on 28 May at the same time as his
Free French leader Charles de Gaulle criticised the speech for failing to mention him or the French Committee of National Liberation, though he was only presented a copy of the finished speech and had no opportunity to suggest amendments at draft stage.[5] Some passages of the speech had been carefully crafted (for example noting only that the "initial landing" has been made in France) to leave open the possibility that the landings were a feint and that the main invasion was to take place elsewhere, which had been the intention of the wider Operation Bodyguard deception campaign.[4][7]: 203
D-Day
Airborne elements of the Allied Expeditionary Force landed in Normandy from around midnight on 5/6 June.[8] The official notification of the invasion was withheld until the main landings could be confirmed to have commenced. This event began with the American landings at around 6.30am Central European Summer Time (CEST) and was confirmed to SHAEF headquarters by a radioman broadcasting the codeword "TOPFLIGHT".[6][8] The British and Canadian landings happened around an hour later.[8]
German radio stations in Berlin had been broadcasting the news of the invasion since 6.33 am (12.33 am
References
- ^ "D-Day: Ex-BBC man Trevor Hill recalls Eisenhower speech - BBC News". BBC News. 2022-08-07. Archived from the original on 2022-08-07. Retrieved 2022-10-02.
- ^ a b Kidd, Patrick (4 June 2014). "How a BBC runner was first to hear D Day news". The Times. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
- ^ "Our Documents - General Dwight D. Eisenhower's Order of the Day (1944)". Our Documents. National Archives. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
- ^ a b c Eisenhower, Dwight David (1970). Selected Speeches of Dwight David Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States: Selected from the Three Principal Periods of His Life: as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe During the War Years, as Supreme NATO Commander [and] as President. U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 1–2.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4767-7295-0.
- ^ a b Rives, Timothy. "General Dwight D. Eisenhower's D-Day radio address to the Allied Nations (June 6, 1944)" (PDF). Library of Congress. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
- ^ JSTOR 41212236.
- ^ a b c "D-Day". National Army Museum. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
- ^ Lord, Debbie (June 6, 2019). "D-Day 75th anniversary: How did Americans hear the news of the invasion?". Dayton Daily News. Retrieved 17 June 2020.