On June 6, 1944, Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy in one of the largest military operations in history. Alongside the soldiers were a different kind of fighter — reporters and photographers who traded weapons for cameras and notebooks. They had one job: get the truth out.
The Associated Press built a dedicated NewsPhoto invasion team to cover D-Day. Members included Peter Carroll, E.K. Butler, George Bede Irvin, and Jack Rice. They positioned themselves in one of the most dangerous environments on earth to capture images that would define the war for people back home.
Cover of The AP Inter-Office, a News Bulletin for AP Bureaus Around the World. This issue highlighted AP’s coverage of D-Day. 1944
War correspondents were not soldiers, but that distinction barely mattered on the battlefield. Before deployment, they trained at the War Department’s public relations bureau. They wore military-style uniforms and moved with troops, but their role was to observe and report. Gunfire and bombs made no such distinction, and many correspondents paid for their work with their lives.
Associated Press photographer, George Bede Irvin was killed on July 25 near Pont Hebert in Normandy while working with the Ninth Air Force. 1944
George Bede Irvin was one of those killed in action. He died on July 25, 1944, near Pont Hébert in Normandy while working with the Ninth Air Force — a stark reminder of the cost of front-line reporting. On the beaches themselves, correspondents navigated smoke, enemy fire, and total chaos, using small, lightweight cameras to snap images between taking cover.
AP reporter Roger Greene was photographed just days after the D-Day landings, a snapshot of a man who had just lived through one of the war’s most brutal moments.
Associated Press reporter Roger Greene a few days after the D-Day landing in France. 1944
The dangers were not limited to Normandy. AP correspondent Vern Haugland vanished on August 12, 1942, when his plane disappeared in a storm between Australia and New Guinea. He survived 43 days lost in the jungle before making it out.
General Douglas MacArthur leans sympathetically over the hospital bed of Vern Haugland, war correspondent of the Associated Press who fought his way out of the New Guinea jungle after being lost for 43 days. General MacArthur awarded Haugland the Silver Star. 1942
General Douglas MacArthur personally awarded Haugland the Silver Star for his ordeal. Haugland’s survival story became one of the war’s most remarkable, but he was far from alone in facing extreme danger.
Associated Press war correspondent Vern Haugland was listed as missing on August 12, 1942 after a plane in which he was passenger disappeared in a storm between Australia and New Guinea. 1942
Some correspondents trained actively with military units to better understand the combat they were covering. J. Wes Gallagher took Tommy-gun lessons with the Canadian Army’s Commando School in London.
J. Wes Gallagher, Associated Press war correspondent in London, takes lessons in the Tommy-gun with the Canadian Army’s Commando School. 1942
Gallagher later suffered a compression spine fracture in a jeep accident near Bizerte in North Africa. He returned to New York on June 6, 1943 — exactly one year before D-Day — wearing a full body cast and carrying a collection of captured Axis weapons.
William F. Boni of New York, Associated Press War Correspondent, heads for treatment of mine shell splinter wounds. 1943
Alma De Luce recalls how she and her husband escaped from Greece to Turkey in a small fishing boat. Her husband, Daniel De Luce, had been covering the war for The Associated Press and Wide World. 1942
AP correspondent Larry Allen nearly drowned when the British cruiser HMS Galatea was torpedoed and sunk in the Mediterranean in mid-December 1941. He was pulled from the water and later recovered in a hospital in Alexandria, Egypt.
Larry Allen, Associated Press war correspondent who almost lost his life before being rescued in the Mediterranean after the British cruiser Galatea was sunk in mid-December, is shown abed in an Alexandria, Egypt, hospital. 1942Larry Allen, Associated Press war correspondent who nearly drowned when the British Cruiser Galatea was torpedoed and sunk, takes his first swimming lesson in Miami, Florida. 1942
Back in London, AP staff photographer and correspondent Harold Harris was among those stationed at the bureau, preparing to document the war across Europe.
Harold Harris, Associated Press staff photographer and war correspondent assigned to the London bureau, is seen. 1944
Don Whitehead filed his dispatch on the Anzio Beach landing in Italy from inside a foxhole. Writing copy while under potential fire was standard for these journalists — there was no safe press room within reach.
Don Whitehead, Associated Press correspondent, writes his story of the landing at Anzio Beach in Italy, from a fox hole. 1944Three war correspondents work in the press hut on Guadalcanal. 1943Grant MacDonald, Associated Press war photographer, stands on the deck of a troop transport bound for Kiska. 1943Kirk Simpson, Associated Press war analyst and Pulitzer Prize winner, retires to his typewriter and his maps to study the day’s war dispatches and report for Associated Press member newspapers. 1943George Tucker, Associated Press war correspondent thanking Capt. James J. Ryan, of Philadelphia and chief of the Neurological Div. of the U.S.A. base hospital at Cairo on a two week leave. 1943
Hal Boyle wrote dispatches from the North African front while photographer Harrison Roberts developed film in improvised bombproof field quarters. The conditions were crude, but the work continued regardless.
Associated Press war correspondent J. Wes Gallagher arrived in New York by plane on June 6, 1943, from the North African front with two reminders of the war, a cast around his body and a souvenir collection of axis guns. Gallagher suffered a compression-type spine fracture in a jeep accident near Bizerte. 1943Hal Boyle, Associated Press war correspondent, writes a dispatch on North African fighting. Harrison Roberts, Associated Press photographer, removes film from his camera in an improvised bomb proof field headquarters. 1943War correspondents covering the allied occupation of Kiriwina Island line up in front of a native hut. 1943
Charles McMurtry sustained burns to his face and hands when a Japanese bomber crashed onto the signal bridge of an aircraft carrier he was covering in 1942. He later turned up on Guadalcanal, filing copy while his pet parrot, nicknamed “Flags,” perched on his typewriter.
Charles H. McMurtry, Associated Press war correspondent is recovering from burns received about the face and hands when a Japanese bomber crashed on the signal bridge of an aircraft carrier. 1942
Charlie McMurtry, Associated Press war correspondent, writes some copy on Guadalcanal as his pet, ‘”Flags,'” the psychopathic parrot, sits perched on his typewriter. 1945
By 1945, AP photographer Henry Griffin was taking cover in a foxhole on the banks of the Rhine, and Joe Rosenthal — who had already photographed the iconic flag-raising on Iwo Jima — was still in the field with his camera.
Henry Griffin, Associated Press war photographer takes cover in a fox hole on the banks of the Rhine. 1945Joe Rosenthal, Associated Press photographer, is shown with his camera equipment looking over Iwo Jima. 1945
Press correspondents often traveled together on military vessels en route to operations, sharing information and preparing to report on whatever came next.
A group of press correspondents chat on board a USS Landing Craft Infantry enroute to amphibious maneuvers somewhere off the coast of England. 1944
The AP’s organizational support stretched across the Atlantic. In 1943, AP assistant general manager Lloyd Stratton hosted a luncheon at London’s Savoy Hotel for AP staffers — a rare moment of normalcy for journalists living and working inside a world at war.
Mr. Lloyd Stratton, assistant general manager of the Associated Press and president of the Associated Press of Great Britain, Ltd., hosted a luncheon in the Savoy Hotel for AP staffers. 1943
Andrew Thompson is an archaeologist and historian who specializes in the study of war and conflict. He writes about the brutal history of warfare, including the World Wars and other significant conflicts. Through his work, he aims to deepen our understanding of the human cost of conflict and inspire us to work towards a more peaceful future.
