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"NORMANDY
INVASION TOP
STORY OF 1944
to Philippines, Rated High
In Press Poll
B7 W. G. Rogers
.... AP News Review Editor
t The invasion of Normandy was
the greatest story of 1944 in the
opinion of 176 American news
paper editors who participated in
the AP Newsfeatures year-end
poll.
The first “break” in the year's
biggest story came early in the
• morning of June 6th, when Ger
mans broadcast that Le Havre
was being shelled and the Atlan
tic Wall being assailed.
The story was quickly con
firmed in London. An armada of
3,200 transports and landing craft,
guarded by 800 warships swept
across the narrow turbulent
channel under an umbrella of 11,
* 000 aircraft. 1
* It Followed Plan
It was history’s greatest am
r
phibious operation and it was
carried out according to plan.
The Allies fed guns, tanks and
men ashore in unprecedented
quantities—1,000,000 men in the
first 28 days . A prefabricated
port was towed across the chan
nel and put into operation, pro
tected by a cordon of ships sunk
to form a breakwater.
Gaining a firm foothold, the
troops turned west and in three
weeks captured Cherbourg,
Stalemated for a time within the
Normandy hedgerows, the Allies
broke out at St. Lo in mid-July
and swept through France in a
drive that surpassed the German
blitz of the lowlands. On Aug. 15
another invasion force from the
Mediterranean swept up the
Rhone valley toward the Rhine.
Hot Election Campaign
Americans were in these jump
off positions when the U. S.
newspapers devoted their next
biggest headlines to a domestic
story—first U.S. wartime election
campaign since 1864. It as a
precedent-making campaign and
one of the hottest in half a cen
tury. Neither Mr. Roosevelt nor
Gov. Thomas E. Dewey admitted
he was a candidate until named
at the conventions.
Organized labor tooK a hand in
national politics for the first
time. The soldier vote was an
imponderable factor, as were
population shifts caused by war
booming industries.
When the smoke of E-day
cleared away, Mr. Roosevelt car
ried 36 states with 432 electoral
votes; Dewey won 12 states and
99 electoral votes. The popular
vote margin (subject to correct
ion with final tabulations of the
soldier vote was 3,100,000—the
smallest since 1916. The country
had its first fourth-term Presi
dent.
MacArihur's Return
The third most important story
was Gen. MacArthur’s return to
the Philippines. The U. S. land
ings on Leyte with Its attendant
decisive sea battle turned the
tides of war strongly against the
Japanese. *
In one week, off Luzon and
Formosa, a mighty task force
under command of Admirals
Halsey and Mitscher, sank or
damaged 146 Japanese ships and
destroyed more than 800 planes.
In the second naval battle of the
Philippines, the U. S. Third and
Seventh fleets sank 24 more Jap
anese warships, probably sank
14 and damaged 22 others.
Superforis Make News
The B-29 raids on Japan
(fourth greatest story of the
year) began July 7. The Super
forts made their first missions
from China, supplied by air
transport over ‘‘The Hump”,’ but
as th^ Navy rolled triumphantly
through the Pacific new bases
became available on Saipan,
Guam and other coral flattops.
On Nov. 24 the B-29s launch
ed bombs on Tokyo for the first
time since Gen. Doolittle’ss “to
ken raid” in April, 1942. The
giant bombers became a dread
familiar sight over the Japanese
capital.
Hitler Plot Ranks Fifth
The attempt to assassinate
Hitler was fifth on the editors*
list. According to Berlin broad
casts, the Fuehrer was the target
of an officer’s bomb while con
ferring with his military staff in
a secret headquarters. One man
was killed and other seriously
wounded but Hitter reportedly
escaped with slight injuries.
It came to be known as “The
Generals’ Revolt” and was the
occasion of a thorough revamj>
ing of the Reich’s military staff.
Estimates of the number of exe
cuted anti-Nazi generals varied
widely; on one occasion Berlin
announced eight had been hang
ed.
The Nazis’ vaunted secret
weapons, V-l and V-2, rated
sixth in the editors’ file. V-l, a
jet-propelled, pilotless plane
with a range of about 150 miles,
descended on Britain ten days
after D-day. Although haphaz
ard, V-l harassed the civilian
‘Continued on Page 7>