Welcome to the Eric Erickson Show podcast, Hour One.

This is London.

London calling in the home, overseas and European services of the BBC

and through United Nations Radio Mediterranean.

And this is John Snagg speaking.

Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, have just issued Communique Number One,

and in a few seconds I will read it to you.

Under the command of General Eisenhower,

Allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces,

began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France.

I'll repeat that communique number one.

Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces,

began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France. I'm lying down at full length here in the cornfield, just in the hedges around me.

I can see many men taking shelter behind the banks wearing their steel helmets while the terrific barrage goes on around me. I can see many men taking shelter behind the banks wearing their steel helmets while

the terrific barrage goes on around us.

To reach the palisade, I joined a column who were waiting across a slew. The water came nearly to their armpits, and they had to hold their rifles and equipment over their heads. The water was rather warm at the bottom of the slimy mess. When a man got to the far side of the slew, he would always stop in a maddening way, holding the rest of us up. We shouted angrily, but when we got there, each one of us stopped

two. The reeds on the far bank were loaded with mines. One man lay at the top of the bank dead. The

mines have been marked with bits of paper and soldiers at the top had just had a coin so as not

to venture into dangerous ground. There were more dead men along the narrow path which led up the

palisade. Suddenly a voice said, watch yourself, fella, that's a mine.

A soldier sprawled on the bank with speaking. He had one foot half blown up.

He stepped on a mine a short time earlier.

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