Posted on 12/26/2005 7:15:58 PM PST by doug from upland
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Jonathon Risen, New York Times
Dateline: France
June 1, 1944
The NEW YORK TIMES, always first with breaking news, has discovered that a daring invasion is planned on the coast of France on June 5 in an effort to liberate the courageous and valiant French citizens from the Nazis. If the weather conditions are not right, we have learned that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower may delay the invasion for a day.
OPERATION OVERLORD will be a massive Allied invasion of Western Europe that will include simultaneous landings on five beachheads by U.S., British, and Canadian forces.
When Eisenhower's chief meteorologist, James Martin Stagg, informs the general of a break in the weather, Eisenhower will announce -- “O.K. We'll go.”
Within hours of the decision to go, an armada of 3,000 landing craft, 2,500 other ships, and 500 naval vessels--escorts and bombardment ships--will began to leave English ports. At night, 822 aircraft, carrying parachutists or towing gliders, will roar overhead to the Normandy landing zones. They will be just a fraction of the air armada of 13,000 aircraft that will support "D-Day."
The largest of the D-Day assault areas, Omaha Beach, stretches over 10 km (6 miles) between the fishing port of Port-en-Bessin on the east and the mouth of the Vire River on the west. The western third of the beach is backed by a seawall 3 metres (10 feet) high, and the whole beach is overlooked by cliffs 30 metres high.
Utah Beach is the westernmost beach of the planned five landing areas. It will be assaulted by elements of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division. In the pre-dawn hours, units of the 82nd and 101st airborne division will be airdropped inland from the landing beach. Their plan is to isolate the seaborned invasion force from defending German units.
Sword Beach is the easternmost beach of the five landing areas of the planned invasion. It will be assaulted by units of the British 3rd Division, with French and British commandos attached. Shortly after midnight on D-Day morning, elements of the 6th Airborne Division will launch a daring glider-borne assault, hoping to seize bridges inland from the beach and also silence artillery pieces that could threaten the seaborne landing forces.
H-Hour (the time the first assault wave is to land) at Gold Beach is set for 0725 hours, one hour later than the scheduled landings on the American beaches owing to the direction of the tide, which move from west to east and bring high water later to the British beach.
Juno Beach is the second beach from the east among the five landing areas of the invasion. The Canadian 3rd Infantry Division will invade Juno Beach.
Sources have told us that this invasion could be the beginning of the end for the Nazis. Although TIMES editors held a meeting to discuss whether this information should be reported, it was decided unanimously that it is news and our first obligation is to journalism and reporting the story. We do hope, of course, that Allied casualties are kept to a minimum.
Count on the NEW YORK TIMES for all your war coverage. If it's news, we will have it first.
You are a genius Doug... seriously.
I hate these anti-American traitors. A POX on the house of Slutburg.
No, it doesn't take genius. The truth is that I just loathe the NY TIMES and other traitors.
This fiction about yesteryear is indeed a deadly parody of current fact. Whose side are they on, anyway?
Whose side are those on, who support them?
Send this to Rush, Hannity, Medved and the like. Great comedy is always rooted in truth.
No song here, Karl, but a mocking song of the NY TIMES would be fitting. Along with several of the DemocRAT elected officials, they are among al Qaeda's best friends.
Please send away.
I wonder...during the Cold War when the Soviets had 4,000 missles poised to strike over 500 targets in the United States within an hour from lift-off, did we monitor any conversations pertinent to their imminent firing?
If we didn't then, then our leaders back then, were bigger buffoons that the buffoons of today.
We need one about whether it was "constitutional" to intercept the ULTRA messages.
Doug, there is no doubt that the NYT would have published
the news of the failure of "Operation Tiger" if they could
have found out about it.
Operation Tiger was a mock landing preparitory to the invasion, it was staged to train US troops, several LSTs
were torpedoed by German E boats with the loss of over 750
men.
A disaster no matter how you look at it, with neglect by the Royal Navy having pride of place.
The US Peoples "right to know" would have trumped any
security concerns the NYT might have had.
Look it up.
http://www.sartori.com/nhc/frames/faqs/faq20-2.html
How about Pearl Harbor?
ha ha, when I first read it, I thought I didn't realize it was a parody and thought it was real! I was about to post something like 'no different 61 years later'.
With today's current crop of reporters and editors, it would have happened as I wrote it.
Hard to imagine any Democrat doing that today ....
schu
Thanks for the reference.
Yup, the NYT certainly has a right and really a duty to keep the American citizens (and all people of the world including the Germans and Japanese) informed of anything this radical going on in secret. The people demand to know what their evil war mongering government is doing behind their backs - after all it is the taxpayers money being spent here! We demand do know if you are using "the Navajo code" to pass secrets about US citizens without their knowledge - there has been some rumors in last weeks NYT that the evil Government just might be spying on Ethel and Julius Rosenberg without a warrant and using "the code" to pass such information. You go NYT - print everything ya got so we can vote for NO WAR!!! /sarcasm
No question, WW II was won without the requisite permission of the League of Nations and the Vichy French. The victory lacked legitimacy.
Doug, one addition:
Aides to Gen. Eisenhower told the Times anonymously that Gen. Eisenhower has no exit strategy, a fatal flaw in Overlord. Some retired military men (one, at least, a marine who won medals in the First World War) suggest that Gen. Eisenhower should call off the invasion because it may lead to terrible losses among the Allied troops. He said that the United States military can do no further good on the Continent and should be brought home to guard the home front.
Gen. Bernard Montgomery, hero of El Alamain in North Africa, agreed with this sentiment. "Monty" defeated Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (Germany's "Desert Fox") in tank warfare beginning at El Alamain in Egypt. He drove Rommel and his troops from North Africa.
Gen. Montgomery has been rather vocal in his belief that he should have been chosen to lead Operation Overlord rather than Gen. Eisenhower. He said that he is prepared to lead the remaining Allied armies to victory in Europe if the United States withdraws its troops. General Patton is rumored to have snorted "Montgomery has no exit strategy, either".
There is substantial feeling in the Congress, particularly among some who served valorously with the AEF in the First World War, that the troops should be brought home. FDR is being blamed for many of the losses, along with Winston Churchill.
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