FALSE INVASION STORY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 133, 7 June 1944, Page 5

FALSE INVASION STORY

LONDON, June 5.

Unwelcome fame has come to an English girl, Miss Joan Ellis, aged 22, who accidentally flashed a false invasion message to America on Saturday. She became known as "the pre-D-day girl." The message which she caused to be sent to New York from London read: "Eisenhower announced Allied landings in France." It was immediately relayed to all parts of the United States and Canada. Two minutes later came a message from London: "Bust that flash," and word went out immediately to withhold publication. However, the news had already spread throughout America, causing great excitement. • The girl, who is employed in the London office of the Associated Press of America, had been practising on a disconnected teleprinter. She used a machine on which a line is typed and is released when another key is i pressed. The message was left on the machine inadvertently and was transmitted later to New York with another message which had been passed by the censor. The error slipped through th<j most elaborate safeguards and cens,orship ever established. American correspondents in London were instructed to interview the girl and radio her photograph to America. One big radio network offered to broadcast her own story of how the false message came to slip through. However, she was being disciplined^