UPDATED
THE WORKING CLASS AT WAR
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Anna Mae Krier, also known as a Rosie the Riveter, center, poses during a service at the Pegasus Bridge memorial in Benouville, Normandy, France, Wednesday, June 5, 2024. World War II veterans from across the United States as well as Britain and Canada are in Normandy this week to mark 80 years since the D-Day landings that helped lead to Hitler’s defeat. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)Read More
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U.S. World War II veteran Anna Mae Krier, center rear, listens as she sits with other veterans during a service at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, Tuesday, June 4, 2024. World War II veterans from across the United States as well as Britain and Canada are in Normandy this week to mark 80 years since the D-Day landings that helped lead to Hitler’s defeat. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
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U.S. World War II veteran Anna Mae Krier visits the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, Tuesday, June 4, 2024. World War II veterans from across the United States as well as Britain and Canada are in Normandy this week to mark 80 years since the D-Day landings that helped lead to Hitler’s defeat. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
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WWII veteran Connie Palacioz, left, collects sand on Omaha Beach, Tuesday, June 4, 2024 in Normandy. Veterans and world dignitaries gather in Normandy to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the landings. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)
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American WW II veteran Connie Palacioz is helped collecting sand during a wreath-laying ceremony at Utah Beach, Wednesday, June 5, 2024 at Utah Beach, Normandy,. World War II veterans from across the United States as well as Britain and Canada are in Normandy this week to mark 80 years since the D-Day landings that helped lead to Hitler’s defeat. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)
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American WW II veteran Connie Palacioz attends a wreath-laying ceremony at Utah Beach, Wednesday, June 5, 2024 at Utah Beach, Normandy,. World War II veterans from across the United States as well as Britain and Canada are in Normandy this week to mark 80 years since the D-Day landings that helped lead to Hitler’s defeat. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)
BY SYLVIE CORBET AND JOHN LEICESTER
June 5, 2024
PEGASUS BRIDGE, France (AP) — When the 5,000th B-17 bomber built after Pearl Harbor rolled out of its Boeing factory, teenage riveter Anna Mae Krier made sure it would carry a message from the women of World War II: She signed her name on it.
Now 98, and in Normandy, France, for this week’s 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, Krier is still proudly promoting the vital roles played by women in the June 6, 1944, invasion and throughout the war — including by making weaponry that enabled men to fight.
Krier was among millions of women who rolled up their sleeves in defense-industry factories, replacing men who volunteered and were called up for combat in the Pacific, Africa and Europe.
The women had their own icon in “Rosie the Riveter,” a woman in a polka-dotted bandanna flexing a muscular arm in a recruitment poster that declared: “We can do it!”
After Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that pitched the United States into war on Dec. 7, 1941, “every man, woman and child just went to work,” Krier recalled Wednesday as she visited the site of an iconic D-Day battle, Pegasus Bridge.
The North Dakota native was 17 when she went to work in 1943 as a riveter on B-17 and B-29 bombers. She helped build more than 6,000 aircraft, according to her biography provided by the Best Defense Foundation, which brought her to Normandy for the anniversary.
“Us women built all that equipment, the airplanes, the tanks, the ammunition” and ships used in the Allied invasion of Normandy that helped liberate Europe from Adolf Hitler’s tyranny, Krier said.
She added: “We weren’t doing it for honors and awards. We were doing it to save our country. And we ended up helping save the world.”
Women flew the planes that women built, too.
The pioneering Women Airforce Service Pilots, known as WASPs, fulfilled an array of noncombat flight missions, including flying planes from factories on their way to the front, that freed male pilots for battle.
Thirty-eight of the women were killed in wartime service. Long considered civilians, not members of the military, they weren’t entitled to the pay and benefits men received. Only in 1977, after a long fight, did they get veteran status, followed in 2010 with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor given by Congress.
Women defense workers also received little notice or appreciation at first. Krier was among ex-"Rosies” who pushed successfully for their contribution to be recognized with a Congressional Gold Medal.
“That made me so proud,” she said. “And I’m just so proud of our young women. We opened doors for the young women today. But look what you women are doing. We’re just so happy to see what you’re doing with your lives. I think that’s great.”
Connie Palacioz, another “Rosie” who punched rivets on the nose sections of B-29 bombers in Kansas, didn’t tell her future family about the details of her wartime work because “I never thought it was important to (say) that I was a riveter.”
The 99-year-old Palacioz is also in Normandy for the D-Day anniversary, part of a veterans group flown over by American Airlines.
“All the men were at the war. So us women had to do the job,” she said. “So there was a lot of Rosie the Riveters.”
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Leicester reported from Port-en-Bessin-Huppain, France. AP journalists Theodora Tongas in Omaha Beach, France, and Alex Turnbull in Pegasus Bridge, France, contributed.
A figure who worked in the shadows on D-Day awarded France's highest honor
It's been 80 years since Christian Lamb helped rescue France from Nazi tyranny
It's been 80 years since Christian Lamb helped rescue France from Nazi tyranny
By DANICA KIRKA
ASSOCIATED PRES
June 6, 2024
VER-SUR-MER, France -- Eighty years after Christian Lamb helped rescue France from Nazi tyranny, French President Emmanuel Macron kissed her on both cheeks and pinned the nation’s highest honor to her lapel.
Lamb spent the months before D-Day alone in a tiny room in central London drawing the detailed maps that guided landing craft to the beaches of Normandy as Allied forces began their invasion of occupied France on June 6, 1944. The work was so secret she didn’t even tell her husband.
Now 103 and seated in a wheelchair, Lamb took center stage Thursday when Macron awarded her the Legion of Honor during British ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
“You were, in your own way, among those figures in the shadow of D-Day,” Macron told her. “You were not there in person but you guided each step they took.”
“You have set us an example which we’ll not forget,” he added.
By the time of the Normandy landings, Lamb had been doing her part to defeat the Nazis for almost five years as member of the Women’s Royal Naval Service, known as the Wrens.
While the history of D-Day is often told through the stories of the men who fought and died on the beaches, hundreds of thousands of military women worked behind the scenes in crucial non-combat roles such as codebreakers, ship plotters, radar operators and cartographers.
The contributions of women like Lamb, radio operator Marie Scott and Pat Owtram, whose work helped crack previously unbreakable Nazi codes, have come into sharper focus as the number of living D-Day veterans dwindles. All three have been awarded the Legion of Honor as the French government offers its gratitude to those who helped liberate the country during World War II.
As D-Day approached, Lamb was assigned the task of creating charts for the landing craft crews who would deliver troops to the Normandy beaches.
Referring to huge maps of the French coast pinned to the wall of her tiny office, the young Women’s Royal Naval Service officer painstakingly created maps that highlighted every landmark to help crews get their bearings.
The maps “showed railways, roads, churches, castles, every possible feature that could be visible to an incoming invader and from every angle,” Lamb told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “It was intense and exciting work, and obviously detail was vital. It was crucial that the maps were 100% accurate.”
Lamb recalled the tension as everyone around her prepared for Operation Overlord, the long-awaited invasion of Europe that eventually ended the Nazis’ grip on the continent. Passing Prime Minister Winston Churchill on the stairs on her way to work, she worried about the pressure he was facing.
Recalling those days, her eyes glistened as she spoke about the way Churchill inspired the nation.
“He made these speeches which everybody listened to,” she said. “And I could hear him now saying, ‘We’ll fight on the beaches, fight in the hills. We’ll never surrender.’ We all felt just like that.″
Lamb’s career in the Wrens began shortly after war broke out in the summer of 1939.
One of her assignments was as a plotting officer at Portsmouth, the home of the Royal Navy. Lamb was part of a team of Wrens who used information from radar stations and coast guards to plot ship movements through the English Channel on a large flat table.
She later took on a similar role in Belfast, plotting the movements of convoys that carried supplies from North America. That included staffing her post as the news came in that a convoy escorted by her future husband’s ship, the destroyer HMS Oribi, had been attacked by a U-boat wolf pack.
Twelve of the convoy’s 43 ships were lost, but HMS Oribi made it safely to Newfoundland. The couple were married six months later in December 1943.
Lamb said she had a special resolve to help drive the Nazis out of France, particularly the centers of art and culture like Caen and Bayeux, where she had studied before the war.
“I really wanted (to do) anything that would help me to get … France back to the French,” she said. “We wanted them to belong to each other again.”
In a 2007 book about her wartime experiences, Lamb joked that she only joined the Wrens because of their tricorne hats, which she thought “splendid.”
She lost hers a long time ago.
But now she has a magnificent decoration with a bright red ribbon to replace it.
VER-SUR-MER, France -- Eighty years after Christian Lamb helped rescue France from Nazi tyranny, French President Emmanuel Macron kissed her on both cheeks and pinned the nation’s highest honor to her lapel.
Lamb spent the months before D-Day alone in a tiny room in central London drawing the detailed maps that guided landing craft to the beaches of Normandy as Allied forces began their invasion of occupied France on June 6, 1944. The work was so secret she didn’t even tell her husband.
Now 103 and seated in a wheelchair, Lamb took center stage Thursday when Macron awarded her the Legion of Honor during British ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
“You were, in your own way, among those figures in the shadow of D-Day,” Macron told her. “You were not there in person but you guided each step they took.”
“You have set us an example which we’ll not forget,” he added.
By the time of the Normandy landings, Lamb had been doing her part to defeat the Nazis for almost five years as member of the Women’s Royal Naval Service, known as the Wrens.
While the history of D-Day is often told through the stories of the men who fought and died on the beaches, hundreds of thousands of military women worked behind the scenes in crucial non-combat roles such as codebreakers, ship plotters, radar operators and cartographers.
The contributions of women like Lamb, radio operator Marie Scott and Pat Owtram, whose work helped crack previously unbreakable Nazi codes, have come into sharper focus as the number of living D-Day veterans dwindles. All three have been awarded the Legion of Honor as the French government offers its gratitude to those who helped liberate the country during World War II.
As D-Day approached, Lamb was assigned the task of creating charts for the landing craft crews who would deliver troops to the Normandy beaches.
Referring to huge maps of the French coast pinned to the wall of her tiny office, the young Women’s Royal Naval Service officer painstakingly created maps that highlighted every landmark to help crews get their bearings.
The maps “showed railways, roads, churches, castles, every possible feature that could be visible to an incoming invader and from every angle,” Lamb told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “It was intense and exciting work, and obviously detail was vital. It was crucial that the maps were 100% accurate.”
Lamb recalled the tension as everyone around her prepared for Operation Overlord, the long-awaited invasion of Europe that eventually ended the Nazis’ grip on the continent. Passing Prime Minister Winston Churchill on the stairs on her way to work, she worried about the pressure he was facing.
Recalling those days, her eyes glistened as she spoke about the way Churchill inspired the nation.
“He made these speeches which everybody listened to,” she said. “And I could hear him now saying, ‘We’ll fight on the beaches, fight in the hills. We’ll never surrender.’ We all felt just like that.″
Lamb’s career in the Wrens began shortly after war broke out in the summer of 1939.
One of her assignments was as a plotting officer at Portsmouth, the home of the Royal Navy. Lamb was part of a team of Wrens who used information from radar stations and coast guards to plot ship movements through the English Channel on a large flat table.
She later took on a similar role in Belfast, plotting the movements of convoys that carried supplies from North America. That included staffing her post as the news came in that a convoy escorted by her future husband’s ship, the destroyer HMS Oribi, had been attacked by a U-boat wolf pack.
Twelve of the convoy’s 43 ships were lost, but HMS Oribi made it safely to Newfoundland. The couple were married six months later in December 1943.
Lamb said she had a special resolve to help drive the Nazis out of France, particularly the centers of art and culture like Caen and Bayeux, where she had studied before the war.
“I really wanted (to do) anything that would help me to get … France back to the French,” she said. “We wanted them to belong to each other again.”
In a 2007 book about her wartime experiences, Lamb joked that she only joined the Wrens because of their tricorne hats, which she thought “splendid.”
She lost hers a long time ago.
But now she has a magnificent decoration with a bright red ribbon to replace it.
Spare a thought for weather watcher Maureen Sweeney who made the right call for D-Day
This image taken from family video in June 2015, shows Maureen Sweeney. Sweeney was a postal clerk at Blacksod Point on the northwest coast of Ireland, where one of her duties was to record data that fed into weather forecasts for the British Isles. In early June 1944, Sweeney sent a series of readings that helped persuade Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe, to delay D-Day and avoid potentially disastrous weather that could have wrecked the landings. She didn’t learn of her role in history for more than 10 years. (Fergus Sweeney/Family Handout via AP)Read More
This undated family handout photo shows Maureen Sweeney. Sweeney was a postal clerk at Blacksod Point on the northwest coast of Ireland, where one of her duties was to record data that fed into weather forecasts for the British Isles. In early June 1944, Sweeney sent a series of readings that helped persuade Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe, to delay D-Day and avoid potentially disastrous weather that could have wrecked the landings. She didn’t learn of her role in history for more than 10 years. (Family Handout via AP)
BY DANICA KIRKA
June 5, 2024
VER-SUR MER, France (AP) — Along with the generals and the paratroopers, the pilots and the infantrymen, spare a thought for the young Irish woman who may have played the most important role of all in making the D-Day landings a success.
Maureen Sweeney was a postal clerk at Blacksod Point on the northwest coast of Ireland, where one of her duties was to record data that fed into weather forecasts for the British Isles.
In early June 1944, Sweeney sent a series of readings that helped persuade Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe, to delay D-Day and avoid potentially disastrous weather that could have wrecked the landings. She didn’t learn of her role in history for more than 10 years.
“It’s something to remember for a lifetime,” Sweeney told her grandson in an interview filmed before she died last December. “It’s the only time they ever noticed our forecasts. The one that counted. And set the world alight.”
As D-Day loomed, Eisenhower faced a dilemma.
Almost 160,000 troops had gathered on the south coast of England in preparation for the long-awaited invasion that was scheduled for the early hours of June 5. The ships that would deliver them to the beaches were already warming up their engines. And 12,000 aircraft were ready to pound the Nazi defenses and provide air cover for the landings.
But the success of Operation Overlord depended as much on the elements as military might.
D-Day had been set for June 5 because it offered the right combination of low tides, full moon and, Eisenhower hoped, good weather to give Allied forces the best chance of smashing through the Nazi’s “Atlantic Wall” with a minimum of casualties.
As the appointed hour approached, however, Allied meteorologists were still arguing about the weather.
While U.S. Army Air Force experts forecast that good weather would continue, Britain’s Meteorological Office predicted high winds that could swamp landing craft and thick cloud cover that would hamper air operations.
Relying on readings Sweeney took at Blacksod Point, the Allies’ chief meteorologist, a Scot named James Martin Stagg, finally told Allied commanders that the weather would be unfavorable on June 5.
Eisenhower delayed the landings.
“It was the weather that worried the Supreme Commander most,” author John Ross wrote in his book “The Forecast for D-Day,” published in 2014.
“If he gave the word to ‘go,’ and the weather turned sour, the lives of thousands of men and massive amounts of equipment and supplies would be lost,” Ross added. “Worse yet, the Germans would have learned beyond any doubt where the Allies planned to invade,” eliminating the advantage of surprise.
Operating in an era before Doppler radar and high-speed super computers, Allied meteorologists had to rely on hand-drawn maps, historical data, and spotty weather observations to put together their forecasts.
That’s why Blacksod Point, about 500 miles (800 kilometers) from Normandy on the extreme northwestern edge of Ireland, was so important.
While Ireland had been an independent country since 1922 and remained neutral throughout the war, it continued to share weather readings with Britain’s Met Office, which used the data to produce forecasts needed by Irish farmers and fishermen. But after war broke out, British authorities asked for the readings to be taken every hour, instead of every six hours.
Sweeney was on the midnight to 4 a.m. shift on June 3, her 21st birthday, when she recorded a drop in the barometric pressure. She telegraphed the readings to Dublin, which sent them on to London, then didn’t think much more about it.
But a few hours later, the phone rang and a “squeaky voiced Englishwoman” asked whether the readings were correct. She read off the data and hung up, only to get two more calls seeking confirmation of her readings.
For Stagg, the data from Blacksod confirmed his forecast that a low pressure system would move in from the Atlantic, bringing high winds and thick clouds to the Normandy coast on the night of June 4 and into June 5.
But Sweeney still had another part to play in D-Day.
At 1 p.m. on June 4, she recorded a slight increase in barometric pressure.
That helped Stagg forecast another change in the weather, and later that day, he told Eisenhower that he expected the winds to die down and the clouds to abate in time for a landing on June 6.
The invasion was a go.
“Well, Stagg, we’re putting it back on again,” Eisenhower told his chief forecaster, according to Stagg’s book, “Forecast for Overlord,” Ross said. “For heaven’s sake, hold the weather to what you’ve told us and don’t bring us any more bad news.”
Sweeney didn’t learn about the part she played in history until 1956, when Ireland’s meteorological service gave her a copy of the data that informed the D-Day weather forecasts, her grandson, Fergus Sweeney, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
She died on Dec. 17 at a nursing home near Blacksod. She was 100.
“I think she she would be very proud that she did her job diligently that night because of what followed, and I think she would maybe try and remind us all that if we don’t stop the madness, we could be back at another Normandy,” Fergus Sweeney said.
This image taken from family video in June 2015, shows Maureen Sweeney. Sweeney was a postal clerk at Blacksod Point on the northwest coast of Ireland, where one of her duties was to record data that fed into weather forecasts for the British Isles. In early June 1944, Sweeney sent a series of readings that helped persuade Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe, to delay D-Day and avoid potentially disastrous weather that could have wrecked the landings. She didn’t learn of her role in history for more than 10 years. (Fergus Sweeney/Family Handout via AP)Read More
This undated family handout photo shows Maureen Sweeney. Sweeney was a postal clerk at Blacksod Point on the northwest coast of Ireland, where one of her duties was to record data that fed into weather forecasts for the British Isles. In early June 1944, Sweeney sent a series of readings that helped persuade Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe, to delay D-Day and avoid potentially disastrous weather that could have wrecked the landings. She didn’t learn of her role in history for more than 10 years. (Family Handout via AP)
BY DANICA KIRKA
June 5, 2024
VER-SUR MER, France (AP) — Along with the generals and the paratroopers, the pilots and the infantrymen, spare a thought for the young Irish woman who may have played the most important role of all in making the D-Day landings a success.
Maureen Sweeney was a postal clerk at Blacksod Point on the northwest coast of Ireland, where one of her duties was to record data that fed into weather forecasts for the British Isles.
In early June 1944, Sweeney sent a series of readings that helped persuade Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe, to delay D-Day and avoid potentially disastrous weather that could have wrecked the landings. She didn’t learn of her role in history for more than 10 years.
“It’s something to remember for a lifetime,” Sweeney told her grandson in an interview filmed before she died last December. “It’s the only time they ever noticed our forecasts. The one that counted. And set the world alight.”
As D-Day loomed, Eisenhower faced a dilemma.
Almost 160,000 troops had gathered on the south coast of England in preparation for the long-awaited invasion that was scheduled for the early hours of June 5. The ships that would deliver them to the beaches were already warming up their engines. And 12,000 aircraft were ready to pound the Nazi defenses and provide air cover for the landings.
But the success of Operation Overlord depended as much on the elements as military might.
D-Day had been set for June 5 because it offered the right combination of low tides, full moon and, Eisenhower hoped, good weather to give Allied forces the best chance of smashing through the Nazi’s “Atlantic Wall” with a minimum of casualties.
As the appointed hour approached, however, Allied meteorologists were still arguing about the weather.
While U.S. Army Air Force experts forecast that good weather would continue, Britain’s Meteorological Office predicted high winds that could swamp landing craft and thick cloud cover that would hamper air operations.
Relying on readings Sweeney took at Blacksod Point, the Allies’ chief meteorologist, a Scot named James Martin Stagg, finally told Allied commanders that the weather would be unfavorable on June 5.
Eisenhower delayed the landings.
“It was the weather that worried the Supreme Commander most,” author John Ross wrote in his book “The Forecast for D-Day,” published in 2014.
“If he gave the word to ‘go,’ and the weather turned sour, the lives of thousands of men and massive amounts of equipment and supplies would be lost,” Ross added. “Worse yet, the Germans would have learned beyond any doubt where the Allies planned to invade,” eliminating the advantage of surprise.
Operating in an era before Doppler radar and high-speed super computers, Allied meteorologists had to rely on hand-drawn maps, historical data, and spotty weather observations to put together their forecasts.
That’s why Blacksod Point, about 500 miles (800 kilometers) from Normandy on the extreme northwestern edge of Ireland, was so important.
While Ireland had been an independent country since 1922 and remained neutral throughout the war, it continued to share weather readings with Britain’s Met Office, which used the data to produce forecasts needed by Irish farmers and fishermen. But after war broke out, British authorities asked for the readings to be taken every hour, instead of every six hours.
Sweeney was on the midnight to 4 a.m. shift on June 3, her 21st birthday, when she recorded a drop in the barometric pressure. She telegraphed the readings to Dublin, which sent them on to London, then didn’t think much more about it.
But a few hours later, the phone rang and a “squeaky voiced Englishwoman” asked whether the readings were correct. She read off the data and hung up, only to get two more calls seeking confirmation of her readings.
For Stagg, the data from Blacksod confirmed his forecast that a low pressure system would move in from the Atlantic, bringing high winds and thick clouds to the Normandy coast on the night of June 4 and into June 5.
But Sweeney still had another part to play in D-Day.
At 1 p.m. on June 4, she recorded a slight increase in barometric pressure.
That helped Stagg forecast another change in the weather, and later that day, he told Eisenhower that he expected the winds to die down and the clouds to abate in time for a landing on June 6.
The invasion was a go.
“Well, Stagg, we’re putting it back on again,” Eisenhower told his chief forecaster, according to Stagg’s book, “Forecast for Overlord,” Ross said. “For heaven’s sake, hold the weather to what you’ve told us and don’t bring us any more bad news.”
Sweeney didn’t learn about the part she played in history until 1956, when Ireland’s meteorological service gave her a copy of the data that informed the D-Day weather forecasts, her grandson, Fergus Sweeney, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
She died on Dec. 17 at a nursing home near Blacksod. She was 100.
“I think she she would be very proud that she did her job diligently that night because of what followed, and I think she would maybe try and remind us all that if we don’t stop the madness, we could be back at another Normandy,” Fergus Sweeney said.
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