STEVE CARROLL looks at how the Evening Press covered the D-Day landings.

"INVASION going according to plan," was how the Yorkshire Evening Press broke the news of D-Day to an expectant public on Tuesday, June 6, 1944.

The Press was among the first sources of information about the massive Allied infantry and airborne landings in Normandy.

"D-Day has arrived and the first stage of the liberation of Europe has begun," it said.

The news, issued at 9am from the supreme headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force, met evening paper deadlines perfectly. And it was they who informed the world of D-Day.

"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," the Press told its waiting public.

As the armada of ships and aircraft crossed the Channel, the events which "set the world agog" were read over in tens of thousands of homes that evening across York and North and East Yorkshire.

In an era without 24-hour news channels, the newspaper and the radio had a vital role to play in informing the nation of the efforts of assault troops hundreds of miles away in Normandy.

Our leader writer, recording the views of the city on one of history's most important days, described the attack as "the first blow in the West".

He said: "All Britain watches breathlessly today, for the latest news of the Anglo-American attack in the West. Our men are overseas, and engaged in a stern battle, and it is right that all our thoughts and prayers should go out to those who are in peril for our sake, for the safety of humanity and the future of freedom.

"The grim struggle has begun. Our duty at this critical hour is plain. It is to stand solidly behind our Government, the military, naval and air force leaders who carry out the strategy predetermined in concert by Mr Churchill, Mr Roosevelt and Marshal Stalin, and, most of all because they need it most, to give our confidence and our sympathy, our co-operation and self-sacrifice to the men who are writing history with their own blood."

On the next day, June 7, as our national contemporaries were first reporting the stories of the landings, the Yorkshire Evening Press was reporting Nazi admissions that Allied bridgeheads had been established as well as a new landing attempt off the coast of Cherbourg.

The Press kept up its coverage of the exciting events in the days following the invasion.

"Normandy Battle is the fiercest of the war," said the June 8 edition, with Evening Press reporters describing the action as "some of the bloodiest and fiercest land fighting", while on June 9 - with the Allies "progressing in all sectors" - the allied bridgehead was described as 39 miles wide.

It was the mightiest assault in history, and Press readers were among the first to know about it.

Updated: 12:30 Saturday, June 05, 2004