World War 2: Propaganda, Reporting and Pigeon Fanciers

A Reuters reporter and a winged hero deliver news of the D Day Landings

The Second World War's victory for the Allies hinged significantly on the crucial contributions of numerous civilian men and women. Whether it was the renowned engineers like RJ Mitchell and Geoffrey de Havilland, to the multitude of women labouring in armaments factories, or the men comprising the Home Guard, each played a vital role in the collective effort. Telling the war for public consumption was a serious business, and of those brave men and women of the civilian sector were the news reporters.

For the average American for example, the war could be very detached. Likewise, those living in the North West highlands of Scotland would have had a very different war experience to those living in the conurbations of Britain’s cities and towns. Ernie Pyle, Ernest Hemingway and Richard Dimbleby were among the most famous war reporters.

It had all been so easy it gave you a jumpy, insecure feeling of something dreadfully wrong somewhere. We had expected a terrific slaughter on the beaches and there was none. Instead of thousands of casualties along the 14-mile front of our special sector we added up a total that was astonishingly small. By sunset of the first day the Army had taken everything we had hoped to get during the first five days. Even by midafternoon the country for miles inland was so saturated with American troops and vehicles it looked like Tunisia after months of our habitation instead of a hostile land just attacked that morning. Ernie Pyle, on the Sicily landings for 1943.

As with all aspects of conflict, reporting is a high-risk operation, both for the reporter, and for the politicians. Bad news travels far. According to the BBC, Winston Churchill became so disaffected with the the British Broadcasting Corporation that he referred to it as ‘the enemy within the gates’.

On June 5th, Martha Gellhorn boarded a hospital ship, where she hid, because she didn’t have an official capacity for covering the D Day landings. Covering the landings for Collier’s magazine was her husband, Ernest Hemingway. According to the Imperial War Museum, Gellhorn witnessed casualties being brought back to the hospital ships. Gellhorn later went ashore with the ambulance teams.

Arguably, reporters witnessed more than most during World War 2. Richard Dimbleby had been with the British Expeditionary Force in 1939. Having reported on the D Day landings, Dimbleby crossed the River Rhine during OPERATION VARSITY, the last airborne operations of the war.

In 1945, Dimbleby reported on the horrors of Bergen Belsen, one of the many Nazi Concentration camps. 55 years later, and during my service with the British Army, I served in Bergen Hohne, adjacent to Belsen. I can can’t comprehend how difficult it must have been to report on the horrific situation.

I have just returned from the Belsen concentration camp where I drove slowly about the place in a Jeep with the chief doctor of the Second Army. I had waited a day before going to the camp so that I could be absolutely sure of the facts now available. I find it hard to describe adequately the horrible things that I’ve seen and heard but here unadorned are the facts. There are 40,000 men, women and children in the camp, German and half a dozen other nationalities and thousands of them Jews. Of this total of forty thousand, four thousand two hundred and fifty are acutely ill or dying of virulent disease. Typhus, typhoid, diphtheria, dysentery, pneumonia and childbirth fever are rife. 25,600,  three quarters of them women, are either ill from lack of food or are actually dying of starvation. Richard Dimbleby, reporting from Bergen Belsen.

As with the First World War, pigeons were used to pass communications. In 1939, a trio formed the National Pigeon Service. To improve a pigeon’s chances of returning home, Britain rolled out a coastal programme to cull birds of prey. Just after 13:00 hours on 6 June, a grizzle cock pigeon, named Gustav arrived on the south coast of England at RAF Thorney Island. Attached to Gustav’s leg was a message penned by Reuters correspondent Montague Taylor, it read;

We are just twenty miles or so off the beaches. First assault troops landed 0750. Signal says no interference from enemy gunfire on beach. Passage uneventful. Steaming steadily on. Formations Lightnings, Typhoons, Fortresses crossing since 0545. No enemy aircraft seen.

It must have been both exciting and confusing for the various organisations and headquarters to receive reports from the front lines. What’s amazing about Gustav’s story is that not only did he cover the 150 miles in just over five hours, he arrived at a live airfield. Considering all the air activity over the English Channel, Gustav avoided the dreaded ‘bird strike’. According to History Net, Gustav received the Dickens Medal for gallantry. Introduced in 1943, the award for animals is regarded as the equivalent of the Victoria Cross.

Delivering the first message from the Normandy beaches from a ship off the beachhead while serving with the RAF on 6 June 1944. - Gustav’s citation.

Across the channel, the German’s were persistent broadcasters, lead by the infamous Joseph Goebbels, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party. ‘Heil Hitler and farewell.’ They were the final words of treacherous William Joyce’s broadcasts. Born in Brooklyn, NY, Joyce moved to Ireland with his Irish parents. In his early adult life, Joyce served as a courier for British Army Intelligence during the Irish War for Independence. Later in his 20s, and leaning towards fascism, Joyce joined the British Union of Fascists. Before the outbreak of war in 1939, Joyce fled to Germany with his wife, Margaret.

Having earned German citizenship in 1940, Joyce wrote scripts for German radio’s English broadcasting services. According to Historic UK, Goebbels recruited Joyce to host a show called Germany Calling. Joyce’s infamous broadcasts always started Germany Calling. During his broadcasts Lord Haw Haw, as he would become known, would talk for over an hour in an attempt to discredit the British, including the Jewish population. In 1945, Joyce was arrested near the German/Danish border. Subsequently, a court convicted Joyce of high treason, sentencing him to death on September 19th, 1945.

The Allied victory in the Second World War was heavily reliant on the indispensable contributions of civilian men and women, and in many cases animals, such as Gustav. War reporting played a crucial role in shaping public perception, with renowned journalists like Ernie Pyle, Ernest Hemingway, and Richard Dimbleby providing insights into the diverse wartime experiences.

Than you for reading V for Victory, a sub-publication for The Woz Report.