EDITOR'S NOTE:

The newsflash came on a slip of paper in a red-and-white striped courier pouch: "EISENHOWERS HEADQUARTERS ANNOUNCES ALLIES LAND IN FRANCE."

The Associated Press had some two dozen writers and photographers among the Allied forces as they landed on Normandy's coast on June 6, 1944. From Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's London headquarters, Wes Gallagher — who later went on to become AP's general manager — wrote up the first Allied official dispatches announcing D-Day and sent them in the sealed pouch to AP's London office by military courier, after the military censor authorized their release.

They arrived at 9:32 a.m. and were sent to the rest of the world by teletype one minute later.

In France, the AP team included Don Whitehead, who was making his fifth landing with Allied troops, and Bede Irvin, a photographer who would soon be killed by friendly fire while covering the American forces.

Months of planning went into that flash and subsequent dispatches, from securing a dedicated phone line and berths on planes and ships, to reconfiguring the office furniture in London to ensure AP would be fastest at getting out word of the expected invasion of France. At the end, an editor ran down the hall to intercept the courier and bolted back into the newsroom. Subsequent detail on the invasion made its way back to England in a variety of ways — including radio transmission, messages tied to the legs of carrier pigeons, and hand-carried dispatches from Henry Jameson, who returned to England with the wounded after an exploding shell dislocated his shoulder.

Seventy years after its original publication, the AP is making Gallagher's original report available.

_____

SUPREME HEADQUARTERS ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE (AP) — Allied troops landed on the Normandy coast of France in tremendous strength by cloudy daylight today and stormed several miles inland with tanks and infantry in the grand assault which Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower called a crusade in which "we will accept nothing less than full victory."

German broadcasts said the Allies penetrated several kilometers between Caen and Isigny, which are 35 miles apart and respectively nine and two miles from the sea.

Prime Minister Churchill told the House of Commons part of the record-shattering number of parachute and glider troops were fighting in Caen, and had seized a number of important bridges in the invasion area.

German opposition apparently was less effective than expected, although fierce in many respects, and the Germans said they were bringing reinforcements continuously up to the coast, where "a battle for life or death is in progress."

The seaborne troops, led by Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, surged across the channel from England by 4,000 regular ships and additional thousands of smaller craft.

They were preceded by massed flights of parachute and glider forces who landed inland during the dark. Eleven thousand planes supported the attack.

The German radio said the landings were made from Cherbourg to Le Havre — a strip of coast roughly 100 miles long — and later said additional landings, were being made "west of Cherbourg," indicating the Allies intended to seize the Normandy peninsula with its ports and airdromes as the first base.

Germans Expect More Invasions Hourly

The initial landings were made from 6 to 8:25 a.m. British time. The Germans said subsequent landings were made on the English channel isles of Jersey and Guernsey and that invasion at new points on the continent was expected hourly.

Aside from confirming that Normandy was the general area of the assault, Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force was silent concerning the location.

From Moscow came word that the Russian army was massing in preparation for another great attack from the east as its part in defeating Germany.

All reports from the beachhead, meager though they were in specific detail, agreed that the Allies had made good the great gamble of amphibious landing against possibly the strongest fortified section of coast in the world.

Reconnaissance pilots said the Allied troops had secured the beaches and were slashing inland, some of them actually running in a swift advance. The unofficial word at headquarters confirmed this, while the Vichy radio admitted the Allied drive inland was going right ahead.

Naval Guns Shell Fortifications

More than 640 naval guns, ranging from 4 to 16-inch, hurled many tons of shells accurately into the coastal fortifications which the Germans had spent four years preparing against this day.

Prime Minister Churchill was able to tell parliament the shore batteries had been "largely quelled," the underwater obstructions had proven less dangerous than feared and the whole operation was "proceeding according to plan."

Allied planes preceded the landings with a steady 96-hour bombardment which reached its pinnacle in the hour before the troops hit the beaches.

The absence of German aerial opposition was remarked by nearly all returning fliers and correspondents. The Germans are known to have about 1,750 fighters and 500 bombers available for the western front, but it was supposed they had chosen not to risk them in an all-out first-day battle.

German naval opposition was confined to destroyers and motor torpedo boats which headquarters said were being "dealt with."

The Germans, as expected, blared on their radios all sorts of claims of vast destruction done to Allied fleets and forces, but with no confirmation. In one defiant gesture, some of the German cross-channel guns opened a sporadic fire on Dover during the afternoon.

Supreme headquarters kept silent on the locations, to exploit, to the fullest whatever element of tactical surprise the Allies may have gained. A superior officer at supreme headquarters said frankly he did not know yet what amount of surprise there was, but Allied air forces were in control of the skies over the channel and the coast despite unfavorable flying weather.

May Head Up Seine River To Paris

If the Germans were correct about the locations, the Allied plan apparently was to seize the Cherbourg peninsula and make Normandy the initial beachhead for a drive up the Seine valley to Paris.

The German radio began broadcasting a constant stream of invasion flashes almost as soon as the first troops landed, and continued with extensive reports of the gigantic naval and air bombardments that covered the assault. Allied headquarters, however, kept silent until 9:32 a.m. British time when the following communique was issued:

"Under the command of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Allied naval forces supported by strong air forces began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France."

A high officer explained that Gen. Eisenhower had kept resolutely silent until he was absolutely certain the landings had "taken hold."

Gen. Eisenhower broadcast during the morning an announcement to the peoples of western Europe, telling them of the landings and declaring, "all patriots, young and old, will have a part to play in the liberation."

Urges Patriots Just To Be Patient

He urged against premature uprisings, however, saying, "be patient. Prepare. Wait until I give you the signal."

The Allied commander also issued an order of the day to his forces, telling them:

"You are about to embark on a great crusade. The eyes of the world are upon you and the hopes and prayers of all liberty-loving peoples go with you ... Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well-trained, well-equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory."

It was disclosed that a number of unannounced feints had taken place in the pre-invasion period, so that the Germans would not know when the real blow was coming.

A senior officer at supreme headquarters said rough water caused "awful anxiety" for the sea-borne troops but that the landings were made successfully, although some soldiers were undoubtedly seasick.

Sun Breaks Through Heavy Clouds

The sun broke through heavy clouds periodically this morning after a daybreak shower. The wind had blown fairly hard during the night but moderated somewhat with the dawn. The weather outlook remained somewhat unsettled.

Aside from Gen. Montgomery, no other Allied commanders were announced for the thousands of battle-trained Allied troops, although Gen. Omar Bradley has been in command of American ground forces in England for several months. Gen. Bradley participated in the Tunisian victory.

The Allied forces had been ready for days, but were awaiting the best moment from the weather standpoint.

"We have been months and years waiting for this," said a senior officer giving correspondents the story at headquarters.

"Geography made it evident to the Germans as well as us that the shortest way to Europe was across channel."

First reports from across the channel, however, indicated that the Allies controlled the air over the scene of operations. The Allied officer commented that landing against fixed defense of western Europe was a task quite different from that in the Mediterranean and sketched briefly the German defensive plan of underwater barriers and shore guns.

Nazis Report Dunkerque Attacked

He said the German had possibly 1,750 fighter planes and bombers to oppose the Allies.

For three hours previous to the Allied announcement, the German radio had been pouring forth a series of flashes reporting that the Allies were landing between Le Havre and Cherbourg along the south side of the Bay of the Seine and along the north coast of Normandy.

Thousands of battle-trained American, British and Canadian troops hurled themselves at Hitler's western defenses after months of preparation. Huge troopship armadas slipped out of English ports in the darkness and sped toward Europe where four years ago almost to the day Britain brought back the last battle-worn defenders of Dunkerque.

The German radio gave the reports of the invasion while correspondents were hurriedly summoned from bed to supreme press headquarters and locked in a press conference room until the communique was released several hours after the landings were made.

It was made known that the supreme command felt it necessary to yield the initiative in the war of words to the Germans in order to retain the initiative on land and keep the German high command in the dark as long as possible.

The great Allied armadas dwarfed anything yet seen on the sea. Huge transport planes filled with paratroopers and pulling airborne troops in gliders roared over the German West all to drop their cargos in the rear.

All night long London and England resounded to the roar of thousands of airplanes, some carrying bombs, some carrying men. Returning R.A.F. bombers met big fleets of Flying Fortresses on their way out.

The forces thrown into operation were by far the greatest ever used in an amphibious operation. They had to be. An estimated million German troops waited in their fortifications for the great onslaught under crack Nazi field marshals, Runstedt and Rommel.

It was reported earlier this week that Adolf Hitler himself had a special train ready to rush him to France to take over personal command as he did on the east front. Despite these reports, Allied military men expected Rommel to be the main tactician on German defense.

Although amphibious attacks are the most difficult in war, a quiet feeling of confidence characterized the Allied generals.

No Chance To Hide Great Allied Convoys

The fleet included several battleships which the Germans said set the whole Seine bay area ablaze with their fire.

The Germans announced also that American reinforcements began landing at dawn, aided by artificial fog, and that in some places dummy parachutists were dropped to confuse the defense.

French patriots previously had been warned by Allied radio broadcasts to get out of areas within 35 kilometers (22 miles) of the coast to escape the shock of battle and the gigantic aerial bombardment.

An Associated Press correspondent flying over the French coast in a B-26 Maurauder reported seeing the fields inland strewn with hundreds of parachutes and dotted with gliders, while great naval forces fired into the coast fortifications.

The western front opening climaxed years of patient preparation by the top military minds of America and Britain, and hard work in factories and munitions plants by millions of Americans and Britons.

The plan of attack was the same which Gen. Eisenhower had when he came to England in June 1942, but which was shelved during the improvised North African operation.

Sweat And Toil Of Factory Worker Pay Off

This morning the sweat and toil of the factory worker of America and Britain, and the cool planning of the military men of both countries bore fruit. Every weapon that has proved its worth since Pearl Harbor was in the hands of the fighting men of the United Nations.

What success they would meet no one could say with certainty. No such attempt has been made in warfare before on such a huge scale — to storm a continent from the sea against fixed defenses. Gen. Eisenhower and the supreme Allied staff had left as little as possible to chance. Several weeks ago all the air forces in the United Kingdom were placed under the strategic command of supreme headquarters to pave the way for the landings.

The strategic air forces under Lt. Gen. Carl A. Spaatz were assigned the task of smashing the German aerial reserves by bombing aircraft factories deep in Germany. Theirs was the job of making the Nazi air force's once mighty fleet incapable of sustained effort against our ground forces. The Fortresses and Liberators also were given the task of breaking up the rail system of western France.

The R.A.F. under air chief Marshal Sir Arthur T. Harris was given a similar order, only its primary targets were railroads.

The Ninth air force under Lt. Gen, Lewis Brereton, along with the Second R.A.F. tactical air force, was assigned selected targets along the West Wall itself.

The Allies did not hope to knock out everything from the air, but to cripple and hamper German troop movements.

This morning a shattering barrage such as reduced the defenders of the Mediterranean island of Pantelleria last summer was laid down by the combined air forces.

In the landing craft were men who knew the beaches on which they were to land like the hacks of their hands. For months in English camps they had drilled down to the finest detail for their task. They had been formed into combat teams, some of a dozen men, some of several thousand.

SEE ALSO: CBC is tweeting a blow-by-blow account of D-Day, and it's incredible

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Seventy years after D-Day, 97-year-old Jean-Louis Cremieux-Brilhac remembers the days leading up to the operation perfectly. He was, after all, the man responsible for creating the D-Day orders for the French people, BBC reports. 

These orders, a scant four pages in length, were to be read over the French version of the BBC telling the general population how to react once the Allies had stormed Normandy. The message was intended for all men and women in France not currently attached to a resistance group. 

"The policy we decided on was of a gradual, phased insurrection, developing in accordance with the advance of Allied forces," Cremieux-Brilhac told the BBC. "In the end this is exactly what happened."

Although the orders warned against a sudden nation wide insurrection, for fear of harsh Nazi reprisals, the document stated that all French should consider themselves soldiers fighting for the freedom of their homeland. 

"Every Frenchman who is not, or not yet, a fighter must consider himself an auxiliary to the fighters," Cremieux-Brilhac's document stated. However, citizens were warned against suddenly joining the Resistance movements in mass so as not to overwhelm them. 

French citizens living in Normandy were given special instructions on the day of the invasion. They were specifically told to delay German soldiers by causing traffic jams, as well as serving as guides for Allied soldiers and parachutists. 

Looking back on writing the document 70 years ago, Cremieux-Brilhac describes the entire experience as "remarkable." 

Check out Cremieux-Brilhac's entire remarkable story at the BBC»

h/t Mark Colvin

SEE ALSO: These crossword clues nearly gave away the D-Day invasion

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While German propaganda claimed their military defeated the June 6, 1944 Allied invasion at Normandy, German military leaders recognized how much they had lost.

In November, 1944, Commander-in-Chief West, Field Marshal Karl R. Gerd von Rundstedt's issued the following report on the "[s]ystematic, almost scientifically conducted" invasion.

About the invasion, he wrote, four facts must be emphasized:

(1) The enemy's complete mastery in the air.

(2) The skillful and large-scale employment of enemy parachute and airborne troops,

(3) The flexible and well-directed support of the land troops by ships' artillery of strong English naval units ranging from battleship to gunboat.

(4) The rehearsal of the enemy invasion units for their task; most precise knowledge of the coast, of its obstacles and defense establishments, swift building up of superiority in numbers and  material on the bridgehead after just a few days.

Just how much the Germans were put on the defensive is clear in Rundstedt's recommendations.

Given the Allied air superiority, "marches by day are obviously excluded in good weather," he writes. "The troops must constantly be prepared for low flying attacks so that all means of protection for them against air attacks can be immediately put into effect." For the same reason, he writes, "[c]amouflage in all forms must be stressed again and again."

Given Allied naval power, "[t]he movement of tanks by day, in open country, within the range of these naval guns is hardly possible.

Rundstedt also expressed frustration that many German troops had not adapted to the new paradigm: "I have purposely had these experiences set down in detail, because many formations in the West, are newly arriving forces, still do not know the practice of battle, in spite of all previously received orders and instructions."

Still, he makes note of German heroics during the Normandy invasion: "By holding out to the last they helped their own leaders very much to gain time and to prevent a breakthrough of the enemy from the bridgehead."

The war in Europe ended with an invasion of Germany by the Western troops and the capture of Berlin by Soviet and Polish troops, leading to Germany's surrender on May 8, 1945.

Here's Rundstedt's full report:

H. Q., 20.6.1944. Commander-in-Chief West, (High Command, Army Group D) Operations 
Section No. 5050/44

Experiences from the Invasion Battles of Normandy

A. Preliminary Remarks

1. Experiences fulfill their purposes only when they are quickly brought to the attention of the 
troops. This happens from time to time through the medium of individual teletype messages.

2. The following experiences summarize what has happened so far. It is left to the duty stations 
named under "Distributor" to make the evaluation and to fill in details according to their own 
judgment.

B.

The following most recent battle experiences confirm in broad outlines all the experiences which 
were made known regarding Sicily, Salerno, Nottuno and those other heavy defensive battles in 
Italy.

The proximity of the English mother country and thus also of all the embarkation and supply 
bases afforded to the Anglo-Saxons in their first great land attack against the Western Bay of the 
Seine and against the peninsula of the Cotentin the opportunity of employment on the greatest 
scale so far of men, material and technical means. Systematic, almost scientifically conducted 
preparations in all fields for this attack were rendered more easy in every respect by a 
far-reaching network of agents in the occupied area of the west. The orders for the preparation 
and the carrying out of the landing are books with numerous enclosures

The following most important battle experiences are to be passed on as the subject of instruction 
and drill in all fronts not yet attacked for the attention of the troops and command authorities in 
the battle area and for the instruction of all duty stations, protective forces, etc., in the entire 
protecting area.

I

I--Four facts which must be emphasized:

(1) The enemy's complete mastery in the air.

(2) The skillful and large-scale employment of enemy parachute and airborne troops,

(3) The flexible and well-directed support of the land troops by ships' artillery of strong English 
naval units ranging from battleship to gunboat.

(4) The rehearsal of the enemy invasion units for their task; most precise knowledge of the coast, 
of its obstacles and defense establishments, swift building up of superiority in numbers and 
material on the bridgehead after just a few days.

Opposed to this stands the quality of the German soldier, his steadfastness and his unqualified 
will to fight to the fast with army, navy and air force.

All three branches of the service have given their best and will continue to give it.

II -- The Enemy Landing Procedure in Broad Outlines:

(a) The enemy had hoped to be able to surprise us. He did not succeed. The beginning of landings from the air on the Western Bay of the Seine and in the Cotentin was on June 6, 1944, at about 0100, under conditions of cloudy, overcast weather with a rather strong wind, intermittent showers and rough sea up to four degrees; at the same time at various sectors of the front strong enemy air formations delivered bombing attacks in the rear area. The enemy thereby wished to bring about an air raid alarm and make us take cover in order to be able to drop his parachute troops with as little risk of observation as possible. In several places parachutists turned out to be dummies (with boxes containing explosives). Purpose: Splitting up of local reserves and withdrawal from the decisive spot, involving loss of time for the defender.

Airborne troops in many transport gliders of various sizes cut loose, in accordance with a precisely worked out plan, over the sea or at widely separated points over land, and on the whole they found their designated landing spots accurately. Nevertheless, these landings from the air were no surprise, since our own command and troops had counted on them for weeks and were prepared. Thus the enemy parachute and airborne troops suffered heavy--and in parts even extremely bloody--losses, and were in. most, places annihilated in the course of the battle. They did not succeed in breaking up the coastal defense from the rear. Only in the American bridgehead north of Carentan--by our own attack on three sides--were the enemy airborne troops compressed in the direction of the coastal defense after tough fighting for days, and thus they could link up with their own land forces which had already broken in and in this way were able to get reinforcement and relief.

The technique and tactics of the enemy airborne forces are highly developed. Training for battle Was also on a high level--tough fighters, skilled in adapting themselves to the terrain!

We must reckon with the possibility that, apart from proper parachute troops, special troops with particular tasks will also be dropped (reconnaissance and reporting on command posts, munition depots, communications to the rear, etc., demolitions, disruptions and attacks, or detailed from the airborne forces upon landing. These troops keep themselves perfectly quiet in order not to be discovered or involved in the battle. We must reckon with their exact knowledge of places and with employment of all possible means of assistance.

(b) The actual landing from the sea began four or five hours after the airborne landing. The enemy had changed his landing plans for coming in with the rising tide--plans which had hitherto been regarded by us as likely--and had adapted his landing operations to low tide because of the strong underwater obstacles along the beach, about which he had information.

This was recognized weeks before the actual landing by trial landings carried out in England. The enemy could thus discover gaps in the rows of underwater obstacles along the beach, by-pass the obstacles with his tanks, and for the rest open up passages and overcome in part these beach obstacles by his own special troops.

Where these obstacles were not discovered because they were under water, heavy enemy losses in landing craft and in men resulted, But obstacles on the dry beaches also noticeably delayed the tempo of the landing and consequently increased the enemy's losses by our fire.

Time of the landings from the sea.--Starting from 0600 hours in the morning, fully visible. Before the landing there was a heavy bombardment of extraordinary intensity from the sea and the air, with weapons of all calibers. The consequence was that all field defenses were more or less knocked out and "ploughed down," so that for the most part only the solid fortifications remained intact. The enemy seeped in through the gaps without trying to attack the fortifications and big strong points. These strong points held out in cases for over a week and therefore split up enemy forces. By holding out to the last they helped their own leaders very much to gain time and to prevent a breakthrough of the enemy from the bridgehead.

(c) Enemy air force,--Almost unlimited in radius, it controls in numbers not only the main battlefield but also the approach and supply roads to a depth of 150 to 200 km. Moreover, the enemy carries the battle right into the home-battlefront with his tactical bombers, in order to destroy the large railway systems, especially railway junctions, marshalling yards, locomotive shops, bridges and important works connected with the war industry.

Notwithstanding the highly developed railway system and the numerous good main and secondary roads, the enemy succeeded by attacking in force and uninterruptedly with his air force to interrupt supplies and replacements and cause so many casualties in rolling stock and motorized columns that supply and replacements have become a very serious problem. The nearer the battle area, the more frequently appear the fighters and bombers employed in "road-chasing," By their attacks they interrupt all major movements in good weather by day and by using flares at night. The emphasis of the enemy air attacks lay at first on the main highways. but now they are attacking every form of movement, covering an area of at least 20 km. behind the main line of resistance, as well as by-roads in the battlefield. Wherever the enemy's reconnaissance shows a disposition of troops, an attack by bomber formations follows within a short time. It is absolutely essential that motor vehicles keep long distances from each other within the columns.

Command posts are being given away by their wireless stations.-- Radio stations must therefore be at such a distance from the command post that the post is not covered in the bombsight or by sticks of bombs. Where the command posts are not fortified, they must be changed frequently. Planning reconnaissance is therefore essential; so is notification to the respective commanding authorities, so that the command post concerned can be found.

Within two and a half days, at a depth from the enemy bridgehead of about 65 miles, 29,000 enemy sorties were counted; of these, about 2,300 aircraft a day dive-bomb and strafe every movement on the ground, even a single soldier.

(4) Further Effects--Railroad transport which anyhow, because of the total traffic situation, has been reduced to a certain minimum, can scarcely be brought nearer than 200-250 kilometers from the front and this too, without any planned schedule. The sections of railway lines change hourly, according to the weather conditions; the trains may be in close succession (buffer to buffer) or they may travel only at night. Also, as was at once recognized, violent air attacks often lead to the blocking of transports within sections of railway lines. Railway terminals, and consequently the unloading of units or the setting up of supply bases, are constantly changing and require extraordinarily flexible leadership and mobile labor battalions for swift unloading the moment messages arrive.

Marches by day are obviously excluded in good weather. The short summer nights must be used from dusk to the morning shootinglight for exact reconnoitering of streets and crossings, for the preparation of smooth engagements, for quick marching in loose formation, for avoiding main streets and smoothly seeping into the rest areas where reconnoitering has been carried on. The troops must constantly be prepared for low flying attacks so that all means of protection for them against air attacks can be immediately put into effect. Long overland marches of half-track units and the bringing up of supplies in marches over long stretches lead also to losses though enemy action, to great wear and tear, and to technical defects. The elimination of these must be carefully organized in order that the calculations made by the command may be at least adhered to in some degree and that troops, supplies and replacements may be brought up to the appointed place in proper tine.

Our own systematically organized counter-measures must be applied to meet the methodical operational strategy of the enemy's warfare.

I--(a) In the safety belt, new units to be brought up on transports through all the designated transport duty stations must be instructed about the air situation, about their conduct when there is danger from the air and when an alert is sounded, and also about their actions during unloading.

Advance patrols cannot be sent ahead too soon. As it is, they will be held up by many circumstances. The Quartermaster of every advance patrol must regularly report to the High Command in the West or to the High Command of the Army.

According to the ruling of the General Commanding Troops in the West, great quantities of maps (small size) must be held ready at all unloading stations, which are to be given out by representatives of the transport commands to the incoming transports. (The same procedure to be followed in the case of quartermaster, High Command the Army, etc.)

On march, army patrols are to be detailed to provide guides familiar with the local areas and also other support to the relevant units. Reconnoitering of bridges to be carried on regularly in proper time, since in the interim new and unreported destructions may have taken place. The order of march and the guarding of the streets in the safety belt are the concern of the military commanders who have to be Informed in proper time by the appropriate command concerning the bringing up of units, concerning the march objectives and the march patrols, etc.

(b) In the battle area all the movements on the battlefield by day--the shifting of troop dispositions or the formation of new pivotal Positions--require much more time than was allocated originally even in a careful estimate, Therefore, movements and battles come into the foreground at dusk and during darkness in order to block out the effect of the enemy air force and the direct observation by enemy artillery.

The organization of the whole battle area (as a rule approximately the area of the "battle zone") requires the most rigid planning from the rear area up to the main battle line.

Street commanders are to be appointed to watch over all the traffic from and to the front, Circuitous routes around villages are to be mapped out and to be posted with signs. Signpost materials are to be prepared at destroyed crossings, roads in great danger from air attacks are to be provided with warning signs, and traffic shall pass through in very loose formation only in darkness or in weather conditions corresponding to darkness. Channels for the incoming and outgoing of supplies are to be fixed, as well as reconnoitered parking places for columns outside of the camps. At these places small intermediary supply depots, well dispersed, are to be set up at suitable places and to be made secure.

The employment of responsible officers (mostly from the fortress engineer staffs) are necessary for the continual repair of the streets; these officers along with our assigned units and with the help of the inhabitants must keep the streets in constant state of serviceability. Every light flak weapon not absolutely needed in the safety belt behind the battle zone--from objectives already destroyed or which now play a secondary role--is to be so used at supply bases in the battle area; low-flying aircraft will be warded off under all circumstances.

II--Camouflage in all forms must be stressed again and again.--Troop and column leaders must know that once a unit or column has been discovered by enemy aircraft it will be attacked from the air until put completely out of action, Therefore tank cover holes must be provided at irregular intervals to the right and left of the, road, under the direction of the officers who are responsible for the road columns, with the help of all available labor from the inhabitants and with the active, participation of the troops themselves, There is always need for camouflage adapted to the terrain. The roads should be cleared of damaged vehicles in the quickest possible time through the organized road clearance service.

III--The enemy had deployed very strong naval forces off the shores of the bridgehead. These can be used as quickly mobile, constantly available artillery, at points where they are necessary as defense against our attacks or as support for enemy attacks, During the day their fire is skillfully directed by observation balloons attached to the ships, by aircraft observers, and by advanced ground fire spotters. Because of the high rapid-fire capacity of naval guns they play an important part in the battle within their range. The movement of tanks by day, in open country, within the range of these naval guns is hardly possible.

IV--In one case the enemy broke into the attack of one of our own divisions which had gained good ground by employing airborne troops in such a manner that the supporting forces of the division were tied down in local fighting while moving up. This deprived the division of the success of its attack. We must reckon with the fact that the enemy will continue this practice, whenever our tanks are attacking. Therefore all units in the rear must be prepared for immediate defense in order to destroy airborne forces.

V--The enemy prepares smaller-scale attacks with barrage-like firing by using many trench mortars, which is followed by tank thrusts supported by motorized infantry.

VI--Strict control of the population must be exercised, especially of the "road bums" in the battle zone and in the rear areas. If every alarm unit is properly employed the road situation will soon become a different matter.

Suspicious persons, especially young men with "small suitcases," may have arrived secretly. Whoever does not belong in a particular place, whoever cannot give a clear account of the destination and the purpose of his wanderings, should be arrested and delivered to the labor forces.

VII--Means of Communications.--Wire connections in the battle area break down to the point of uselessness. Apart from radio, only the overland mechanical means of sending messages are left--the cyclist, the motorcycle messenger, the officer in the sidecar or in the light armored car, and for short distances the runner.

All troops and all commanders must strive to get a clear picture of all happenings and seek to establish contact with the higher and lower units, especially at times when the normal means of communications are lost. This is particularly important in the case of commanders who are receiving troops or larger formations. The commanders must be continually informed as to the position of the vanguard of such formations at any given time, and regarding the arrangements for rest and further marching. It is specially important for the command to be continually informed about the location of half-track units, which are a part of land movements.

Such formations or parts of formations are to be sought by detailed liaison officers, accompanied by them and when necessary have orders transmitted to them. The liaison officer knows where these formations will be during the next hours and can report it to his commander. He can also transmit the wishes of the troops in regard to provisions and supplies and attend to them.

During the first days of the big battle it follows of necessity that under certain conditions formations will be missed, or else in cases of need they may go into battle split up. This is only a passing emergency solution, As soon as conditions permit, clear formations and thereby clear orders are to be re-established.

I have purposely had these experiences set down in detail, because many formations in the West, are newly arriving forces, still do not know the practice of battle, in spite of all previously received orders and instructions.

Supreme Commander in the West,                     
(Signed) von Rundstedt,                     
Fieldmarshal.    

SEE ALSO: D-Day was a success because Allied meteorologists saw an opening that the Germans missed

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Today is the 70th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy during World War II, but a speech given on its 40th anniversary by President Ronald Reagan is one that everyone should hear.

Standing on top of a cliff on the northern coast of France, Reagan detailed the story of the American Rangers, who had to scale sheer cliffs to take Pointe Du Hoc from the Germans, who were shooting down on the them with machineguns and cutting their ropes.

"When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again," Reagan said, to an audience of world leaders and veterans of D-Day at the Ranger Monument there. "They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After 2 days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms."

Roughly four miles from Omaha Beach, where soldiers were also landing on June 6, 1944, Pointe Du Hoc was vital to the American effort, as the Germans had placed heavy artillery at the position that could rain fire down on the beaches.

"These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc," Reagan continued, looking toward the Rangers from that campaign sitting before him. "These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war."

Now 30 years after Reagan finished his speech, and 70 years from that terrible day in World War II, his closing remarks still ring true:

"Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their value [valor], and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died."

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Several hours into the D-Day invasion, General Eisenhower sent a cable about the apparent success of the operation back to the War Department in Washington. 

At the time, Eisenhower had scant details of how well the beach head invasions had actually went. But based on reports he was receiving, the legendary general and future president was fairly certain that the invasion was proceeding well and would result in an Allied victory. 

Eisenhower's message begins: 

Local time is now eight in the morning. I have as yet no information concerning the actual landing nor our progress through beach obstacles ... All preliminary reports are satisfactory. Airborne formations apparently landed in good order with losses out of approximately 1250 airplanes participating about 30.

The last paragraph from the classified message reveals that June 5 was actually Eisenhower’s original planned date for D-Day. However, stormy weather moving over the Channel from England made a landing on the target beaches 'impossible.'

The weather considerably improved by the morning of June 6th. Allied infantry began landing on the coast of France at 06:30. By the end of the day, the Allies had gained a foothold in German-occupied Western Europe that was critical to winning the war.

Eisenhower wrote that the preliminary reports of the invasion were satisfactory: "The enthusiasm, toughness, and obvious fitness of every single man were high and the light of battle was in their eyes." 

Here is the full classified message from Eisenhower on D-Day, made available from the FDR Presidential Library: 

SEE ALSO: D-DAY: Here's how the Allies began to win the Second World War 70 years ago [PHOTOS]

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Seventy years ago, they were young men thrust into one of the most significant events of the twentieth century. Now in their late 80s and early 90s, the veterans of D-Day are living connections to the military gambit that helped liberate Europe from fascism and set the stage for the conclusion of the most destructive conflict in human history.

This 88 year-old veteran, pictured during a re-enactment of a paratrooper landing near Normandy, participated in a glider-borne attack on German artillery positions during the D-Day invasion.

One British veteran arrived in France much the same way he did seventy years ago: by parachute.

American Jim Martin of the 101st Airborne arrived by parachute too.

To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landing, 93-year-old veteran Jim "Pee Wee" Martin parachuted down onto Utah Beach in a recreation of the same jump he took 70 years ago, Jim Bittermann and Greg Botelho of CNN reported.

Martin first parachuted onto Utah Beach with the U.S. 101st Airborne Division under cover of darkness the night before the D-Day invasion.

Despite his age, Martin was eager to recreate his jump.

"I just want to show all the people that you don't have to sit and die just because you get old," Martin told reporters. "Keep doing things."

Martin said that the second jump was easier than the first since he did not have to worry about enemy fire. 

Below is the full CNN video of his jump. 

SEE ALSO: D-DAY: Here's how the Allies began to win the Second World War 70 years ago [PHOTOS]

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An 89-year-old Second World War veteran told he could not attend today’s D-Day events in France went AWOL from his care home and was found 12 hours later in Normandy with comrades police have confirmed.

The unnamed veteran decided to disregard his carers’ orders, put on his medals under his raincoat and set off to join events on the beaches of Northern France for the 70th anniversary of the landings.

After the alarm was raised at the care home in Hove, Sussex, police searched the area and checked hospitals and bus and taxi companies.

But the extent of the veteran’s resolve became clear on Thursday evening when police were informed by another veteran that the missing man had joined a coach party and made his way to Ouistreham.

Ch Supt Nev Kemp, police commander for Brighton and Hove, said the man was “reported missing to us by a care home who said he can't go to Normandy for D-day remembrance. We've found him there!”

A spokesman for Sussex police said: “We were called at 7.15pm yesterday (Thursday 5 June) by staff at a nursing home in Hove who said an 89-year-old who lived there had gone out at 10.30am that morning and had not been seen since.

“The nursing home received a phone call from a younger veteran from Brighton at 10.30pm who said he had met the pensioner on a coach on the way to France and that they were safe and well in a hotel in Ouistreham.

“We have spoken to the veteran who called the home today and are satisfied that the pensioner is fine and that his friends are going to ensure he gets back to Hove safely over the next couple of days after the D-Day celebrations finish.”

SEE ALSO: 93-year-old D-Day vet commemorates the invasion's 70th anniversary by parachuting into Normandy again

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During United Nations-sponsored climate change talks in Germany, the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands said 26 skeletons of World War II soldiers washed up after their graves were exposed by rising sea levels. Said Foreign Minister Tony de Brum:

"There are coffins and dead people being washed away from graves— it's that serious. Even the dead are affected."

The soldiers are believed to be Japanese.

The Marshall Islands are particularly precarious in their perch; the nation, made up of 29 atolls, is roughly just six feet above sea level. With sea levels predicted to rise by three-to-six feet by the end of the century, the alarm is obviously growing. 

In an interview earlier this year, Marshall Islands President Christopher Loeak described how the beaches where he fished as a child have vanished and how the country's roads are being moved inland. 

“The island is not only getting narrower, it is getting shorter," he added.

As the conference tries to sort out issues like how to deal with curbing emissions and delegating different responsibilities between bigger powers and emerging economies, the deck already seems a little stacked.

Yesterday, it was reported that several delegates from major countries failed to show at the conference, prompting a public shaming by environment advocates.  

#SB40 Many ministers missing the ministerial roundtable during the Bonn Climate Change Conference. #missingministerspic.twitter.com/AxsRuy9Gih

— Michalina Golinczak (@mgolinczak) June 5, 2014

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Former comrades of U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl are accusing him of deserting his unit before his 5-year captivity by the Taliban. Recently released in a controversial prisoner swap, Bergdahl might not be court martialed for desertion, and Pentagon officials have said it's unlikely he'll face charges because he has suffered enough as it is.

Desertion or the attempt to desert during war is punishable by death, states the U.S. military's Uniform Code of Military Justice. But only one soldier, Private Eddie Slovik, has actually been executed for desertion since the Civil War.

Trial for Desertion

An earlier brush with the law, for theft, initially precluded the Detroit-raised Slovik from serving in World War II, but he was later drafted after the standards for personnel were lowered, according to The History Channel.

Although Slovik hated guns, he was assigned to the 28th Infantry Division in 1944 as a 24-year-old replacement rifleman to make up for high casualties the unit was suffering in Europe. 

A detailed account of Slovik's trial and execution was recounted in American Heritage in 1987 by one of the military judges who convicted him, a staff officer named Benedict B. Kimmelman.

The first time Slovik was faced with enemy fire, the Army private hid and became separated from his unit, according to Kimmelman. He then spent six weeks with Canadian soldiers before they handed him back over to the Americans. 

Upon his return, Slovik asked his commander if leaving the unit again would be classified as desertion and received a reply that it would be. The next day Slovik walked away from his company, but he didn't go far before presenting a note confessing his desertion to soldiers at another American position.  

"I was so scared nerves and trembling that at the time the other replacements moved out I couldn't move," wrote Slovik in that confession, explaining why he hid during his first combat experience (we've kept the spelling and punctuation errors). "... I told my commanding officer my story. I said that if I had to go out their again Id run away. He said their was nothing he could do for me so I ran away again AND ILL RUN AWAY AGAIN IF I HAVE TO GO OUT THEIR."

The division's chief legal officer gave Slovik another chance to avoid all punishment by agreeing to serve, but Slovik refused. After a psychiatrist found Slovik was mentally fit, he faced a court-martial for desertion.

At the November 11, 1944 trial in a war-damaged building near the frontline, Slovik chose not to speak, although his non-attorney defense counsel pleaded him "not guilty." That was probably because Slovik didn't want to say anything that would prevent a guilty verdict, since he believed he'd face a prison sentence rather than execution, according to Kimmelman. Slovik was given another chance to return to combat and have the charges dismissed, but he was steadfast.

An hour and 40 minutes after the trial began, Slovik was sentenced to death by firing squad after a unanimous vote by the nine staff officers serving as judges. Although Slovik wrote an apologetic letter to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the general upheld the sentence.

Before his execution, Slovik said these words, reported The Spectator:

"They're not shooting me for deserting; thousands of guys have done that. They just need to make an example out of somebody and I'm it ... They're shooting me for the bread and chewing gum I stole when I was 12 years old."

Execution

In a French garden on January 31, 1945, 12 riflemen aimed eleven bullets at Slovik's heart from 20 paces away, with none knowing who fired the designated blank. Witnesses reported Slovik stood straight without any emotion, but the shots didn't kill him until the firing squad was in the process of reloading.

One witness, Nick Gozik, said seeing the first and only U.S. military execution for desertion since 1864 was troubling. "It was very unnerving. ... [T]he reason this was so bad was that the Germans didn't do it," he said in 2005, according to Philly.com. "We had executed one of our own."

Between 1942 and 1948, 2,864 U.S. Army soldiers were tried for desertion, and Slovik was one of 49 sentenced to death, Kimmelman said. His was the only sentence carried out.

The nine staff officers who sentenced Slovik to death had never served in combat until weeks later when the Germans launched a massive counterattack in the Battle of the Bulge that overran the American lines. During that battle, Kimmelman witnessed "rampant" desertions among his own comrades and eventually surrendered to the Germans.

The experience made Kimmelman regret the outcome of Slovik's trial. "Our lack of firsthand, close-up battle experience disqualified us as a jury of Slovik's peers," he said.

In retrospect, he also had second thoughts about Slovik's inexperienced defense counsel, which had no legal training, and didn't call witnesses to speak in Slovik's defense or question the psychiatrist's assessment of his client. "The legal inexperience of his defense counsel amounted to a failure to grant him the full benefit of his day in court," he said. "He did not receive a fair trial."

The uncertainty of Allied success in the Battle of the Bulge and high American casualties led reviewers to uphold Slovik's sentence to maintain discipline among the ranks. "Slovik, guilty as many others were, was made an example — the sole example, as it turned out," Kimmelman wrote. "An example is a victim. His execution was a historic injustice."

The military didn't publicize Slovik's execution and told Slovik's wife Antoinette only that he had been killed in Europe, according to Philly.com. She didn't learn he was executed for desertion until nine years later when William Bradford Huie wrote a book about the incident, "The Execution of Private Slovik."

Because of the circumstances of Slovik's death, the government never paid his wife $70,000 in benefits she otherwise would have received. She petitioned seven U.S. presidents for a pardon, without success.

SEE ALSO: This 74-Year-Old Is The Only US Soldier To Defect To North Korea And Return To America

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On November 30, 1939, the Soviet Union declared war on Finland.

The odds, you could say, were against the Scandinavian country. Only independent for 22 years, it had a total population of 4 million people.

On the other hand, the Soviet army was 2.5 million soldiers strong — with 810,000 of those sent Finland's way. 

But by March of the next year, what became known as the Winter War was over, as the Soviet Union and Finland signed a peace treaty.

How did such a tiny country hold off one of the greatest superpowers in history?

It wasn't only a matter of mastering wintry terrain.

It was a matter of attitude.  

"The Finns have something they call sisu,"the New York Times reported in 1940. "It is a compound of bravado and bravery, of ferocity and tenacity, of the ability to keep fighting after most people would have quit, and to fight with the will to win. The Finns translate 'sisu' as 'the Finnish spirit,' but it is a much more gutful word than that."

Emilia Lahti researches that gutful mindset. A graduate from the University of Pennsylvania's Applied Positive Psychology master's program, she's now pursuing doctoral research on sisu at Aalto University School of Science and Technology in Helsinki. 

While the workplace outcomes of sisu are yet to be confirmed in lab results, an understanding of the concept is instructive for our understanding of success. 

"We've had this concept for 500, 600 years in our culture," says Lahti, who grew up in the small city of Seinäjoki, Finland. "It is not so much about achievement as it is about facing your challenges with valor and determination. It's the psychological strength capacity that enables individuals to power on when they've reached the end of their psychological or physical resources."

Lahti contrasts sisu with other parts of human strength, like resilience, conscientiousness, or grit, which psychologists say is the best predictor of success. But while grit is maintaining passion and performance in the pursuit of a long-term goal, sisu is your ability to take action against long odds.

But there are more examples than Finns and Reds. You're tapping into sisu when you determinedly go after your next job after your company abruptly downsizes, get back into the dating scene after the collapse of a relationship, or literally run an extra mile more than you planned to jog that morning. 

When less resilient people run into difficult situations, they can't imagine that opportunities will come afterward.

Sisu is the determination to find those opportunities. 

"Sisu isn't just a thought in our head," Lahti says. "It's how we orient toward these situations: Are we able to endure, persevere, and grow, or are we limited by the situation we are in?"

So instead of just thinking that everything will turn out OK, a person with lots of sisu has the conviction that she'll be all right and takes the necessary actions to shape those outcomes. 

If you want to cultivate your sisu, Lahti recommends the following: 

Run long distances. It gives you a chance to practice pushing yourself. 

Reflect on your most sisu-filled times. Finding the evidence of your own ability to overcome long odds will embolden you the next time the Red Army invades. 

Think about historic examples of people going beyond their limits. It helps show the real range of human possibility. 

Why do all this? Because the more you get comfortable with the discomfort in stretching yourself, the more able you'll be able to bring sisu into your life. 

"Give yourself the opportunity to be in a situation to push beyond what you normally can do," Lahti says, because "what you experience in one situation translates into other parts of your life." 

SEE ALSO: This Is The Personality Trait That Most Often Predicts Success

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"I started this war killing Germans in Africa, now I'm killing Germans in Germany."

After 2009's "Inglourious Basterds," Brad Pitt is back to killing Nazis in new movie "Fury," except this time it's a much more serious film in tone.

Here's the official synopsis from Sony Pictures: 

"April, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theatre, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) commands a Sherman tank and her five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Outnumbered and outgunned, and with a rookie soldier thrust into their platoon, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany."

Don't expect Pitt to necessarily be the main star of the film. Director David Ayer ("End of Watch") previously told People Magazine he "set out to make the ultimate tank movie."

Ayer told People an authentic German Tiger tank was loaned from a museum for use in the film.

Here's an idea of what one of those looks like:

The film also stars Shia LaBeouf, Michael Peña, Jon Bernthal ("The Walking Dead"), and Scott Eastwood.

"Fury" is in theaters November 14.

SEE ALSO: Chris Pratt reveals the plot for "Jurassic World"

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Louis Zamperini, an American prisoner of war in World War Two and Olympic runner whose life inspired the book and upcoming feature film "Unbroken," has died at age 97.

Zamperini died after a 40-day bout with pneumonia, his family said on Thursday in a statement released by Universal Pictures, the studio behind the film.

"It is a loss impossible to describe," said Angelina Jolie, who is directing the film. "We are all so grateful for how enriched our lives are for having known him. We will miss him terribly."

The film, which is to open Dec. 25, is based on the best-selling 2010 book "Unbroken" by author Laura Hillenbrand on the life of Zamperini, particularly the harrowing time he spent as a prisoner of war under the Japanese.

An American-born son of Italian immigrants, the Southern California athlete surpassed more experienced runners to qualify for the U.S. team for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. He ran the 5,000-meter race, finishing eighth, but with a fast final lap that drew a personal compliment from German leader Adolf Hitler.

"His fighting spirit was a true representation of Team USA and our country, both in Berlin and throughout his life," the U.S. Olympic Committee said.

After the 1940 Olympics were canceled due to war, Zamperini enlisted as a U.S. Army airman and began flying missions as an officer and bombardier over the Pacific in late 1942.

In 1943, his plane crashed into the ocean and he spent 47 days in a life raft battling sharks, with only a scarce supply of water and food, with a fellow survivor before they were picked up by a Japanese boat.

For two years, until the war ended, Zamperini was held by the Japanese at camps where beatings, starvation and hard labor were common.

"Louis was truly one of a kind," Universal Pictures said. "He lived the most remarkable life, not because of the many unbelievable incidents that marked his near century's worth of years, but because of the spirit with which he faced every one of them."

Zamperini had been active up to this year, doing television appearances early in the year with Jolie for the movie.

In May, Zamperini was named grand marshal of the 2015 Rose Parade, in Pasadena, California.

Parade organizers Tournament of Roses indicated that Zamperini will be honored as the marshal despite his death.

"We will remember and honor the courage and grace that made Louis who he was, and hope that by sharing his life's story, we can uphold the values which built his strength, perseverance and his ability to forgive others," the organization said in a statement.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Kaminsky; Editing by Eric Kelsey and Leslie Adler)

SEE ALSO: Angelina Jolie-Directed 'Unbroken' Previewed During Olympics

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American G.I. John Frankemolle was guarding a group of captured German soldiers in Europe during World War II when an intelligence officer handed him an interrogation of prisoner of war (IPW) report. The officer told Frankemolle to keep the papers to himself and give it back to him after reading it — but that was the last time the two ever saw each other.

Seventy years later, 90-year-old Frankemolle still has that report, which he stored in his Long Island home alongside photos and mementos from his period of service with the U.S. Navy Armed Guard. The two-page Special IPW Report, titled The Odyssey of Goetz Von Berlightngen, is an English translation of a first-hand account written by an unnamed Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) staff officer in the presence of his American interrogators.

Frankemolle believes he may have one of the last copies of that forgotten document, which his family agreed to share with Business Insider. 

Nazi SS combat troops were Hitler's most diehard and elite soldiers, still notorious for their wartime atrocities. But this officer's account reveals that he and his comrades fought hard — but suffered from waning morale in the months following the Allies' successful D-Day invasion of the European mainland on June 6, 1944. 

You can find the full document at the bottom. But here are the highlights of a jarringly intimate glimpse into the enemy camp during World War II. 

Heading to the front

The officer's unit, the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division — named after a spelling variation of the medieval German knight Götz von Berlichingen — headed from Thouars, France, to Normandy to fight the Allied forces landing there. "Everyone was in a good mood and eager to see action again — happy that the preinvasion spell of uncertainty and waiting had snapped at last," the German SS officer wrote.

As the motorized column traveled along French roads, it was ambushed from the air by an enemy it had never encountered before.

"Something happened that left us in a daze," the officer wrote. "Spouts of fire flicked along the column and splashes of dust staccatoed the road. Everyone was piling out of the vehicles and scuttling for the neighboring fields. Several vehicles already were in flames."

The startled soldiers only continued their march after 15 minutes of strafing and bombing. "The men started drifting back to the column again, pale and shaky and wondering that they had survived this fiery rain of bullets. Had that been a sign of things to come? This had been our first experience with the 'Jabos' (Fighter bombers)."

An hour later a second and more effective air attack left the French road strewn with destroyed vehicles and equipment. The officer had this to say:

It dawned on us that this opponent that had come to the beach of Normandy was of somewhat different form. The march was called off, and all vehicles that were left were hidden in the dense bushes or in barns. No one dared show himself out in the open anymore. Now the men started looking at each other. The first words passed. This was different from what we thought it would be like. If things like this happened here, what would it be like up there at the front? No, this did not look like a feint attack upon our continent. It had been our first experience with our new foe — the American.

Declining Morale

The division now traveled only in darkness and on secondary roads. When the soldiers reached their assigned sector near the French town of Periers, they began wondering why the German air force, known as the Luftwaffe, hadn't appeared, according to the officer's account:

But now the "Jabo" plague became even more serious. No hour passed during the daytime without that nerve-frazzling thunder of the strafing fighters overhead. And whenever we cared to look we could see that smoke billow from some vehicle, fuel depot or ammunition dump mushrooming into the sky. The common soldier began to think. What would all this lead to, and what was being done about it? Where was the Luftwaffe, and why had it not been committed during the past few days?  

Officers lied to lower-ranking soldiers that the German planes were operating in adjacent sectors where they were needed even more.

Complaints arose that the division's fighting capabilities were deteriorating while the enemy's was strengthening.

"The hope of driving the Americans back into the [English] Channel had already given way to a hoping of being able to hold our own against the invaders," the officer wrote.

Defeat

An American ground advance near Coutances, France, forced the unit to pull back.

The decisive blow came on July 26, when 2,000 heavy bombers annihilated several German sectors and the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division ceased to exist in anything more than name.

Here is the officer's amazing description of the chaotic retreat:

No human account ever could describe the hardship, the sacrifice, the misery the men of this division alone experienced. No one who finished this retreat still alive will ever forget this Gathsename [place of suffering], because each village, each road, even each bush seared into his brain the memories of terrible hours, insufferable misery, of cowardice, despair and destruction.

The German officer found a regrouping area away from the destruction. There, he rounded up stragglers and deserters from other units and forced them to join the ranks of the beleaguered SS division as replacements for all those lost.

"And that is the history of the 17 SS Pz Gren Div GOETZ VON BERLIGHINGEN up to my capture (1 Nov 44)," concludes the unnamed German officer's account.

Frankemolle himself landed on Omaha Beach shortly after the initial invasion waves to deliver ammunition to the advancing troops. However, he spent most of his service in Europe as a gunner aboard a supply ship.

He believes the German SS officer who wrote this account was among the group of prisoners he guarded for one night, although he was not involved in his capture. 

Read the original document with much more detail below.

SEE ALSO: Amazing Color Photos Of America Preparing For World War II

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Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk, the last living crew member of the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan at the end of World War II, died Monday at his Georgia home at the age of 93, reports The New York Times.

Van Kirk served as the navigator for a crew of 12 aboard the Enola Gay, helping to guide the aircraft to Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The city was home to 250,000 people, as well as an important army headquarters.

He had a lot on his mind the day before the mission. When their superiors advised them to get some rest after one of their last briefings, Van Kirk played poker with his crew mates instead. "How they expected to tell you you were going out and dropping the first atomic bomb and it might blow up the airplane and go get some sleep, is absolutely beyond me," Van Kirk said in a video interview with the Witness to War Foundation.

The plane carried Little Boy, the nickname for the first of two atomic bombs dropped over Japan — actions which forced Japan's surrender. The first nuclear weapon used in warfare, Little Boy weighed 9,000 pounds and detonated 1,800 feet over Hiroshima with an explosive force that equaled 20,000 tons of TNT, according to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.

Van Kirk, who also saw action in a B-17 in Europe and North Africa, described the Hiroshima mission as an easy one because the plane faced no enemy opposition and was flying in perfect weather. The bomb detonated 43 seconds after it was dropped from the Enola Gay, as the pilot turned the plane away from the blast.

Two shockwaves, measured at 3 Gs each, caught up with the plane, Van Kirk recalled. "In a B-29 at 30,000 feet it seems like a hell of a jolt," he told the Witness to War Foundation.

After the shockwaves had passed, the B-29 turned around to examine the destruction below. But all Van Kirk could see was black smoke, dust, and a mushroom cloud that had already risen above the plane.

Van Kirk was struck with the sudden certainty that the Japanese would have to surrender.

"This war was over," he said. "We didn't see how the Japanese could stand up to such power and such force and everything else very long after we saw what had happened."

After the war, Van Kirk maintained his belief in the necessity of the mission and said he'd do it again given the same circumstances. In his view, America was fighting an enemy known for never surrendering.

"Number one, there is no morality in warfare — forget it,"he told The New York Times in 1995. "Number two, when you're fighting a war to win, you use every means at your disposal to do it."

He elaborated on his view of the importance of the mission during a 2005 interview with Time:

You fight a war to win. There were over 100 numbered military targets within the city of Hiroshima. It wasn't a matter of going up there and dropping it on the city and killing people. It was destroying military targets in the city of Hiroshima — the most important of which was the army headquarters charged with the defense of Japan in event of invasion. That had to be destroyed.

The Hiroshima bombing and its lingering effects killed approximately 140,000 people by the end of 1945, including 20,000 soldiers, according to the Hiroshima Day Committee. Of around 76,000 buildings in the city, 92% were destroyed by the explosion and subsequent fire.

"It's too bad that there were so many casualties, but if you tell me how to fight a war without killing people then I'm going to be the happiest man in the world," Van Kirk told the Witness to War Foundation in another video interview.

"In war you do fight, you kill people, and that's the way you win a war. And that's what we did."

SEE ALSO: This Never-Before-Seen WWII Document Offers An Inside Account Of An Elite Nazi Combat Unit's Collapse

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A 94-year-old World War II veteran born in modern-day Armenia has started a Reddit AMA, with the help of his granddaughter, in which he provides a startling look at his time as a conscript in the Soviet Red Army. 

Posting under the name OldSoldierOpa, Michael Mirson shared the incredible story of his experiences during the deadliest war in history. Mirson was an ethnic Azeri born in Armenia and was drafted into the Red Army, where he suffered under terrible conditions along the Eastern Front during WWII. Mirson was eventually captured by the Germans and was ultimately liberated by the Americans. Over 3 1/2 million Soviet soldiers died in Nazi captivity.

Mirson now lives in the U.S. His answers in the AMA provide some eye-opening insight into the struggles soldiers faced during the last world war. We have highlighted some of his most interesting responses below. 

Mirson shared his dreams and aspirations from before the conflict: 

According to Mirson, the German Wehrmacht Army treated him just as inhumanely as the Red Army did: 

At first when I was a prisoner, they didn't treat us too well. They captured us in the mountains in November, late in the afternoon. There was snow on the ground, and it was cold. Even though we were wounded, they took our overcoats, and covered their own soldiers. A lot of people froze to death at night.

When I marched with them, they treated us pretty well. They were more gentle than the Soviets. They didn't beat us, and fed us three meals a day. They were pretty nice people. 

His most intense memory of the war had to do with a single, young victim of its horrors that he encountered during a forced march to a Nazi prison camp: 

SEE ALSO: 92-year-old New Zealand veteran shares another side to World War II in a fascinating Reddit AMA

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Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, just over a million are alive today, according to the National World War II Museum. Each day, 555 of them die.

Business Insider recently spoke with two combat veterans who grew up in New York City and fought in the Pacific as teenagers near the war's end. Bob Mulcahy and Victor Westiner are easy to find; they meet twice a week for coffee with a handful of other aging veterans in the basement of their local American Legion post in St. James, New York.

"It's mostly camaraderie," Mulcahy said of the twice-weekly meetings. "It's like a men's club. Most of them lost their wives."

They'll tell old war stories or banter over the latest sports news. "It's a good feeling," Mulcahy said.

'For Me It Was Like Watching A John Wayne Movie'

That's how Mulcahy describes the sights and sounds he witnessed for 59 days aboard the USS New Orleans off the coast of Okinawa, during the last major battle of World War II in spring 1945. 

Bob Mulcahy grew up in Queens and joined the U.S. Navy in October 1944 at 17. He followed in the footsteps of his older brother, who joined a month after the Japanese launched a surprise aerial attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the event that brought the U.S. into World War II. 

The USS New Orleans arrived off the coast of Okinawa in mid-April 1945, while the Marines were still fighting a bloody battle to wrest the island out of Japanese hands.

"Everything to me was like a moving picture, because the first day we got there that sky was all full of the smoke from the cannons going off and from the planes," Mulcahy recalled.

He normally served as a radar operator in the ship's combat information center (CIC), the "eyes and ears" of the ship. But whenever the ship came under attack, Mulcahy served on an elevated lookout deck where he watched for kamikaze planes — aircraft flown by Japanese pilots trying to intentionally crash into U.S. ships.

American planes formed a defensive ring around the ships to protect them from kamikazes, who mostly targeted aircraft carriers but could occasionally go after heavy cruisers like Mulcahy's ship. They never hit the USS New Orleans, although one flew so close past Mulcahy's lookout tower that he could see the pilot in the cockpit. 

Although the heavy cruiser was in the middle of the fray, it sustained damage on only one occasion, when the captain brought the ship closer than usual to bombard Japanese shore batteries.

"You can see the guys running up and down the beaches," Mulcahy recalled. 

During the maneuver, a Japanese gun emplacement fired back and hit the rear deck of the ship, wounding at least one sailor with shrapnel, Mulcahy recalls.

Mulcahy's most memorable act of the war came when he received an order that was rare for a 5-foot-7, 121-pound, 17-year-old nicknamed "Chick" on account of his young age and small stature.

He was in the CIC mapping the progress of the front line as Marines advanced into Okinawa when a commander approached him. 

"He says, 'Hey sailor how we doing today?'" Mulcahy recalled. "I say, 'I guess all right, sir.' He says, 'OK come over here, I want to start firing at the beach.' Again, I'm 17 years old, just out of high school."

The commander communicated with the ship's crewmembers in charge of aiming and firing its massive naval guns, while Mulcahy relayed precise instructions from a spotter aircraft for adjusting their aim. Then he felt the whole ship shake as its nine biggest guns fired simultaneously at the coast.

"They make a lot of noise," he now says with a laugh.

Through his ongoing communication with the spotter plane, Mulcahy learned his ship was firing on a Japanese column moving along a road containing about 300 enemy troops and three tanks. His coordination with the plane ensured the column's destruction. 

"After we destroyed them completely, the pilot said, 'Job well done, there's nothing left of that place.' So I said to myself, 'Well, I did my part in the war, rather than just being a lookout.'

"I think anybody that enlisted during that wartime are all heroes, because nobody knew what was coming when they joined up," Mulcahy recalled. "My brother joined up and for four years was in Florida. I was in 10 weeks and I was on my way to Okinawa at that time. So you don't know where you're going to go."

Nowadays, Mulcahy is the commander of the American Legion Sherwood Brothers Post 1152. "Every day I get a notice one of my shipmates has passed away, almost every day," he said. "It's pretty sad, with the statistics and all."

'Not Everybody Came Back'

Victor Westiner repaired damaged P-51 Mustang fighter planes at an Iwo Jima airfield. The fighters flew missions to the Japanese mainland that sometimes lasted up to 16 hours.

Westiner, now 90, grew up in Brooklyn and was drafted into the military in January 1943, shortly after his 19th birthday. Because he had learned aircraft maintenance at a technical school, Westiner was placed in the U.S. Army Air Corps and became an aircraft mechanic in a P-51 fighter aircraft unit.

He landed on Iwo Jima in late March 1945, after the Marines had captured an airfield from the Japanese for the mechanics to operate on. "The beach was a mess. It was filled with holes and debris and wrecks"— and bodies, Westiner recalled.

The P-51s typically provided protective escorts for American B-29 Superfortress bombers on their way to Japan, but Westiner also helped equip the fighter planes with new rockets, which they routinely fired at Japanese railroad tunnels.

"Of course, not everybody came back," he said. Other fighters returned to base with damage that Westiner and his fellow mechanics fixed by riveting metal patches over the holes.

He and his comrades lived in two-person tents, commonly known in the military as "pup tents." 

Westiner experienced two Japanese air raids, but they were ineffectual and had little impact on the base. "One was very, very poor for them because we had some pretty good antiaircraft guns all over the island," Westiner said. "The Army came in with a bunch of these anti-aircraft, and they hit one or two and of course they crashed in an area that we knew about."

Nevertheless, he recalled some casualties on the American side from rare air raids.

"We had a couple of guys killed. They had these little anti-personnel bombs. It's a small bomb and the shrapnel, believe it or not, was old nails, razor blades, all kinds of junk in a shell that would blow up and spread out."

On other occasions, Japanese bombers came near the airfield but never attacked, although it was enough to send Westiner and his comrades running for cover in foxholes after the alarms sounded. "Of course, they kept everybody awake," he recalled.

But those losses were minimal compared with those inflicted on the last remnants of Japanese troops hiding out in caves beneath the island.

An Army unit was assigned to blow up the caves to prevent Japanese holdouts from launching guerrilla attacks on the airfield.

The Americans made the few survivors they found strip down at a safe distance before taking them prisoner. "They had grenades and tried to blow themselves up," Westiner said.

Westiner recalls seeing only two Japanese stragglers surrender, after they were forced out of the caves from heat and dehydration. 

"I don't think they had hardly any prisoners at all. The Army guys had captured these two who had come out of a cave and they were a short distance from where we were, and they were taking them away," Westiner remembered.

During the war, Westiner felt lucky to be able to pursue his interest in aircraft while serving his country, "even though it was not in a very nice area," he said with a laugh. He was less interested in the intricacies of the war. "I didn't really care either way at that age ... probably some at the time, but I really don't remember."

SEE ALSO: This Never-Before-Seen WWII Document Offers An Inside Account Of An Elite Nazi Combat Unit's Collapse

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A cabinet reshuffle poses risks for Japan's ties with its neighbours.

SHINZO ABE, Japan's prime minister, has reason to feel chuffed ahead of his first cabinet reshuffle on September 3rd. He has the same 18-member team he began with in late 2012: a record of continuity unmatched in post-war Japanese politics.

But as he now succumbs to pressure from members of his party to inject new blood, he also has reason to worry: about the possibility that the cabinet's cohesion may unravel and that right-wingers, if appointed, might push him into even greater dispute with the country's neighbours over Japan's wartime atrocities.

The current cabinet's longevity is remarkable given that Mr Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) shares power with New Komeito: a party that disagrees with most of his policies, not least those that reopen war wounds in China and South Korea. The coming months, it is safe to bet, will not be so smooth.

Recent polls suggest Mr Abe's popularity is falling, largely because of concerns about the economy. His decision in July to reinterpret Japan's pacifist constitution to allow for "collective self-defence", in other words for Japan to help its allies should they be attacked, has not helped either.

Pressure from the right is already growing. Shigeru Ishiba, a powerful hawk in the LDP and a rival to the prime minister, believes Mr Abe's approach to collective self-defence is wishy-washy. Mr Ishiba is likely to reject an offer by Mr Abe that he step down as the LDP's secretary general in exchange for a security portfolio in the cabinet. Many analysts believe Mr Ishiba, who is popular with rank-and-file party members, is preparing to challenge Mr Abe for the leadership of the LDP next year.

The right has been emboldened by a stunning admission this month in the Asahi, a flagship liberal newspaper, that some of its reporting on "comfort women" (those forced into prostitution for Japanese soldiers during the war) was wrong. It published now-discredited testimony by a former soldier in the wartime army who said he had helped to abduct 200 women on South Korea's Jeju Island during the conflict.

Some influential politicians in the LDP, including Mr Ishiba, want a revision of a statement issued by the government in 1993 that accepted Japan's responsibility for corralling thousands of Asian women into wartime military brothels. Worryingly, one likely appointment to the cabinet is Sanae Takaichi, who is head of the LDP's policy research council.

Mr Abe sees her as an asset, not least because he has made such a big fuss over the need to boost female participation in the workforce (there are already two women in the cabinet; Mr Abe reportedly wants half a dozen). But Ms Takaichi has publicly called for a new statement on "comfort women" next year, the 70th anniversary of the war's end. She has said the rewrite must "dispel false information" that "undermines Japan's honour".

Doing so would plunge deeply troubled relations with China and South Korea to new depths. Asahi may have been wrong on the Jeju Island case, but Japan's responsibility for forcing women into prostitution during the war is beyond doubt.

Sensitive to the risk, Mr Abe has tried to stay aloof. But he is no dove himself and has a long history of sympathy with the revisionists. He told the Sankei newspaper that "many people had suffered" because of the Asahi's reporting.

Mr Abe is hoping to mend fences with Japan's neighbours at a regional summit in Beijing in November. The annual meeting is a chance for him to hold his first talks with China's President Xi Jinping since the two leaders came to power in 2012.

But Mr Xi will be in no mood to talk if Japan's hard-line revisionists get their way. Prospects will not have been improved after an admission by Mr Abe's spokesman on August 27th that the prime minister sent a message of condolence to a ceremony at a Buddhist temple in April honouring wartime soldiers. Some of the "martyrs" were convicted war criminals.

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BERLIN (AP) — A 93-year-old man has been charged with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder for serving as an SS guard at the Nazis' Auschwitz death camp, prosecutors said Monday.

Oskar Groening is accused of helping operate the death camp in occupied Poland between May and June 1944, when some 425,000 Jews from Hungary were brought there and at least 300,000 almost immediately gassed to death.

In his job dealing with the belongings stolen from camp victims, prosecutors said among other things he was charged with helping collect and tally money that was found.

"He helped the Nazi regime benefit economically, and supported the systematic killings," state prosecutors in the city of Hannover said in a statement.

Groening's attorney, Hans Holtermann, declined to comment on the charges.

Groening himself has openly talked about his time as a guard and said while he witnessed horrific atrocities, he didn't commit any crimes himself.

In 2005, he told Der Spiegel magazine he recalled one incident on "ramp duty" when he heard a baby crying. "I saw another SS soldier grab the baby by the legs ..." he said. "He smashed the baby's head against the iron side of a truck until it was silent."

Groening, who lives in the Hannover area, is one of some 30 former Auschwitz guards who federal investigators recommended last year that state prosecutors pursue charges against under a new precedent in German law.

Groening is the fourth case investigated by Hannover — two have been shelved because the suspects have been deemed unfit for trial, and one was closed when the suspect died.

Holtermann said, however, his client is in good health.

Thomas Walther, who represents 20 Auschwitz victims and their families as co-plaintiffs in the case against Groening as allowed under German law, said it's their last chance "to participate in bringing justice to one of the SS men who had a part in the murder of their closest relatives."

"Many of the co-plaintiffs are among the last survivors of Auschwitz," he told The Associated Press.

SEE ALSO: Interactive map shows the names and photos of Holocaust survivors around the globe

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Technology and manpower never guarantee a military victory by themselves. And neither can tactics and strategy — sometimes, it takes an extra measure of trickery and subterfuge to swing the tide on the battlefield. 

A group of Quora users sought to answer the question "What are the most mind-blowing tricks used during any war?" The answers provide a fascinating insight into some of the minds responsible for the most ingenious successes in the history of war. 

1. Operation Mincemeat

During World War II, the British launched a successful disinformation plan called Operation Mincemeat. The operation was created in an effort to convince the Germans that the Allies planned on invading Sardinia and Greece — instead of Sicily, where they actually landed in July of 1943. 

The operation was carried out successfully by obtaining the corpse of a homeless man in London, who was then given a false identity as a Major in the Royal Marines. This man was then given false plans documenting an invasion of Sardinia and Greece, before being thrown to the tide off the coast of Spain. 

The British alerted the Spanish, who were nominally neutral during the war, to be on the lookout for a British Marine carrying documents that had to be recovered. The papers were promptly handed over to the Nazis by the Spanish, and convinced Hitler to reposition troops away from Sicily. 

2. Heroin-Laced Cigarettes 

The British and Ottomans were locked in extremely slow-moving trench warfare during World War I's Palestine Campaign. Eventually, the British learned that the Ottomans had run out of cigarettes. In an attempt to demoralize their enemy, the British began sending cigarettes wrapped in propaganda to the Ottomans. 

Instead of surrendering, the Ottomans threw away the propaganda and smoked. So, before the British scheduled one raid, they switched tactics and threw over cigarettes laced with heroin.

The British met little opposition from the Ottoman forces during their assault.

3. Moving A Naval Fleet Over Land

During the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the invading Turks faced a major challenge. The Byzantines had erected a giant chain across the Golden Horn, a stretch of water that connected Constantinople to the sea. This chain effectively blocked the Ottoman navy from making their way to the enemy capital.

In order to overcome the chain, the Ottomans moved their navy overland using log rollers. This allowed the Ottomans to bypass the chain and attack the Byzantines from multiple fronts, ultimately aiding in the capture of the city that's now called Istanbul. 

4. Cats!

In 525 B.C., the Persians were pushing their empire into Egypt. Knowing that the Egyptians held cats in extremely high regard — and even considered them to be sacred animals — the Persians made use of the felines as a weapon of war, at least according to one ancient source. 

During an invasion of Egypt, the Persians painted cats on their shields and brought hundreds of actual cats and other sacred animals onto the front lines during the siege of the Egyptian city of Pelusium.

The Egyptians refused to attack the Persians out of fear that the might injure the cats, allowing the Persians to seize the city.

5. High-Class Treatment Of POWs — With A Twist

During World War II, the British housed captured senior Nazi officials in a country mansion in England as opposed to a prison camp. The officers were given plenty of food and drink, were allowed to listen to German radio, and were allowed to speak to each other freely. 

Unbeknownst to the Nazis, the British had wired the entire mansion and had intelligence personnel working in the basement recording their conversations. The British learned about Nazi strategy and tactics, as well as about relationships between commanders and Hitler within the Nazi army. 

6. Deceptive Marching

During the American Civil War, Confederate General John B. Magruder faced off against Union General George B. McClellan at the Siege of Yorktown. Magruder and the confederate forces were outnumbered by an estimated 4 to 1. In order to overcome the Union forces, Magruder marched his troops in a repetitive back-and-forth in an effort to convince Union scouts that the Confederate force was larger than it appeared. 

The Union was deceived, and halted the assault instead of pushing its advantage. This allowed Magruder time to reinforce his position, leading what would have been a certain Union victory to an inconclusive finish. 

SEE ALSO: 7 unbelievable military weapons most people have never heard of

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