Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.Īnd for us at home - fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas - whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them-help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.įor these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won.
Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph. Lead them straight and true give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
#WHAT DAY IS D DAY FREE#
It has come to pass with success thus far.Īnd so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:Īlmighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. "My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far." Text of Radio Address - Prayer on D-Day, June 6, 1944: They read: "Last night, when I spoke to you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. Shortly before he went on the air, he added several handwritten lines to the opening of his speech that addressed that point. When he spoke to the country on June 6, the President felt the need to explain his earlier silence. During a national radio broadcast on June 5 about the Allied liberation of Rome, President Roosevelt made no mention of the Normandy operation, already underway at that time. The date and timing of the Normandy invasion had been top secret. On the night of June 6, 1944, President Roosevelt went on national radio to address the nation for the first time about the Normandy invasion. It took the form of a prayer, which he read on national radio. That evening, he delivered a statement to the American people. Its success left Hitler’s armies trapped in a vise, fighting the Red Army in the East and an expanding Anglo-American-Canadian force in the West.ĭuring the tense early hours of the invasion, FDR monitored reports from the front. The Normandy invasion established a solid “Second Front” in Europe. The invasion was the culmination of Franklin Roosevelt’s Grand Strategy, especially his decision to pursue a “Germany First” policy and his insistence-in the face of Churchill’s preference for a peripheral strategy-that the operation go forward in 1944. But troops of the Free French and many other nations also participated. The invasion force consisted chiefly of Americans, Britons, and Canadians. Hundreds of thousands of men and millions of tons of weapons and equipment were transported across the Atlantic Ocean to Britain in advance of the operation. The giant invasion had taken years to organize. The long-awaited invasion of northwest Europe was underway. A song entitled D-Day Dodgers was written to the tune of Lili Marleen by Lance-Sergeant Harry Pynn to let people know that, just because they weren’t in France at the time of the D-Day we all commonly refer to, they weren’t ‘always on the vino, always on a spree’.As dawn broke on June 6, 1944, German soldiers defending the French coast at Normandy beheld an awe-inspiring sight-the largest amphibious invasion force in history massed in the waters of the English Channel.
Those who had seen several D-Days while fighting in North Africa and Italy deeply resented their efforts being overlooked. ‘D-Day' was a common military term and was applied to any operation whose starting date was unknown or secret. This was written by 24 year-old Keith Douglas, who tragically didn't get to complete it, as he was killed three days into the campaign. However, some pieces did emerge, like Actors Waiting in the Wings of Europe. Yet, while poetry helped shape the popular view of the Great War, it played a less significant role in the Second World War. It seems appropriate to start with verse, as the BBC alerted France to the imminent invasion with a coded message comprising three lines from Paul Verlaine's poem, Autumn Song.