A Cleveland journalist's eyewitness account of D-Day

We saw the curtain go up on the greatest drama in the history of the world, the invasion of Hitler's Europe.

We saw it from a balcony seat high up in God's heaven, in a combat-bound Marauder piloted by a Cleveland boy, First Lieut. Howard C. Quiggle, 17118 Lipton Avenue S.E.

Cleveland journalist Roelif Loveland published one of the first accounts of the Allied invasion of Normandy Beach that many Americans read.

Flashback: Loveland was the Plain Dealer's war correspondent and often included stories of local soldiers in his dispatches.

• On June 6, 1944, he joined a fellow Clevelander on a bombing mission in support of the D-Day invasion. His eyewitness account ran the following morning on the PD's front page.

What they're saying: "Flak began to come pretty soon and tracer bullets shot in front of us like red hot rivets, but the expression on the face of the kid from Cleveland who was piloting the plane did not change in the slightest degree," Loveland wrote.

• "He followed the course to the target and then the bombardier did his stuff and the plane fairly leaped up in the air and down below flames shot up."

State of play: Loveland was one of 11 charter members of the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame when it was established in 1981.