Flags of D-Day 1944
Seventy years ago, perhaps the most significant invasion in world history took place – and flags went along. The event was D-Day, June 6, 1944, when Allied forces hit beaches on the coast of France with the intention of not stopping their progress until they ended Nazi Germany’s reign over Europe.
Newspapers of June 6 and succeeding days, which included Flag Day on June 14, tell stories of flags both familiar and created for the occasion.
JUNE 6: The headline on the Springfield Republican in Illinois told the story: “Allies Drive Steadily Into France; One Town Falls; Nazis Fail To Hit.”
“NBC heard,” the accompanying article said, “the London radio quote an allied pilot as reporting that he saw the Stars and Stripes flying over a French town.”
JUNE 7: General Dwight Eisenhower, who was in charge of Allied planning and gave the go-ahead for the invasion, followed the troops, at one point coming within five miles of the enemy, so that he could better understand what was happening.
For the occasion, two flags flapped on the ship carrying the general and other military leaders. One was the Saint George’s Cross flag of Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay, Allied naval commander. The other was a flag especially created for the general. The New York Times reported that “our yeoman of signals made this flag: four white stars on a red ground.”
The stars declared that a four-star general was aboard the warship.
JUNE 11: The Boston Globe informed its readers that “unless the Germans can now come up with something that absolutely stupefies the imagination, there’s every reason to believe that our flag is on its way….Hitler, for the first time in this war, will be meeting something that’s ready for him.”
JUNE 14: In New York City, The Times’ coverage of Flag Day began with this statement: “With the principles of democracy and freedom symbolized by the Stars and Stripes under attack by dictators, the observance today of Flag Day…is expected to be impressive and widespread. The Flag will be displayed on all public buildings and outside many homes and places of business.”
That same day, across the continent in California, the chaplain of the Disabled American Veterans wrote a poem that began:
Yes, ‘tis your flag, and my flag;
To it we must ever be true;
Your flag, and my flag,
With its red, white and blue.