Twenty Minutes from Broadway

The first U.S. commercial invasion of Occupied France was a rousing success last week.

On Dplus6 a heavy truck rolled onto the beachhead. Next day its diesel engine kicked over, a generator hummed, and the first direct press message from France was on its way to the U.S. By last week Press Wireless, Inc. was delivering copy in New York about 20 minutes after invasion correspondents had filed it. It was the first time on any front that U.S. war correspondents could communicate directly with their home offices from immediately behind a battle line. There was also a receiving set: newsmen could be paged on the beachhead.

Press Wireless officials were astonished by their brilliant coup. When sandy, slender Albert McGeagh landed in France with seven men and a mobile transmitter, he had no idea of bridging the Atlantic. His power was only 400 watts--little stronger than many a radio ham's shortwave outfit. He hoped merely to be first to get in touch with London, for relay to New York. But after a few tentative calls, Prewi's SWIF (Somewhere in France) got astounding news on its receiver: its signals were clearly pounding into the Prewi receiving station at Baldwin, L.I. Soon SWIF had its first customer: the United Press's Henry T. Gorrell. He said communications from the battlefront were now the best in his nine years' experience as a war correspondent.

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