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Show London News Clipping Tells of D-Day Action By Paratroopers By MABEL JARVIS Details of the morning of the invasion were received last week by Mr. and Mrs. Walter Cannon in a lengthy clipping sent from overseas by relatives. The story was by Ward Smith, special correspondent cor-respondent with the American forces, who was on the troop carrier car-rier of the Ninth command. This "eye witness" story begins with the final briefing in England, Eng-land, the take-off on D-Day, and gives dramatically the flight across the channel, the arrival at Cherbourg Cher-bourg peninsula, the release of the paratroopers, and the grim picture along the Normandy coast where the bombers had fired their targets ahead of the troop carriers. Impressed With the Setting As he climbed aboard, the correspondent cor-respondent was impressed with the setting, the paratroopers under un-der the red lights, which gave them an eerie look; and recalls hearing the co-pilot, Major Howard How-ard Cannon, son of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Cannon, reading General Eisenhower's historic message which spoke of the "great crusade" cru-sade" and said "let us beseach the blessings of almighty God on this noble undertaking". He thought on the return to England of those who might not have lost their lives that first morning except for a thoughtless somebody who broadcast the news to America some hours before the allies were really landing, and wondered at such idiocy when so many lives were at stake. Otherwise the report is similar to the news reports we have heard or read frequently since the morning morn-ing of the invasion and helps one to understand more than ever before be-fore what courage it must have taken on the part of those many allied young men, for most of them were young, to go out ink. the dark on the big mission of opening the second front in what was Hitler's Europe. |