Invasion on: D-Day, the Press, and the Making of an American Narrative

In Invasion On Stephen M. Rusiecki describes the process of how and why Americans developed a standing narrative of the World War II operation known as D-Day based upon a common, press-enabled, thematically framed narrative. This story of June 6, 1944 is the one which has endured for more than seven decades. How did this early, single narrative of the D-Day landings, hastily though deliberately constructed in real time by America's radio networks and newspapers, come together on 6 June 1944 to become the story of that event in the years and decades after World War II? This version is what has dominated the imaginations and consciousness of Americans ever since.

Ultimately, Invasion On explains how America's collective understanding of D-Day--essentially the American D-Day story--was born. The book explores in detail the mechanics of precisely how radio broadcasts and newspapers in the 24-hour period surrounding 6 June 1944 gathered and then communicated facts, images, impressions, attitudes, and meaning that formed for all Americans nearly simultaneously a common narrative organized around four thematic themes. These four themes--the significance and grand scale of the operation, the sacralization of the event, the gifted and talented nature of the Allied senior leaders, and the purity and valor of the average American soldier--would remain fixed in the American consciousness for decades to come in any discussion of June 6, 1944.

By addressing the news-making process during D-Day, Invasion On further explores what information was available to the press; how the press assigned meaning to, or perceived, that information; and what information remained unavailable to the press on 6 June 1944 due to censorship or procedural breakdowns caused by the friction of war. In the end, this book is about the process by which the print and broadcast media constructed a very specific storyline of D-Day in the moment, a narrative that granted D-Day a unique and war-defining status in the minds of the American public or the sort enjoyed by few events in American military history.