America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

7742

Japs claim Yanks landing on Saipan

No confirmation given by U.S. task force roving in area; islands shelled

London, England (AP) –
A powerful U.S. task force, which has been harassing Japanese strongholds in the Mariana Islands since last Saturday, is now attempting to land troops on Saipan Island, the Tokyo radio declared today – a daring operation which, if successful, would give the United States an ocean base within 1,500 miles of Tokyo.

The OWI said a Japanese Imperial Headquarters communiqué announced that a landing attempt was also being made at Tinian Island in the Marianas and that “heavy fighting is in progress between Japanese units and enemy forces.”

While there was no immediate confirmation of the reported landing operation, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz disclosed yesterday in his latest communiqué that the U.S. task force was still operating off the Marianas Tuesday.

It was conceivable that the force – already credited with inflicting grievous losses on Japanese shipping and airpower – might still be operating in that area.

Ambitious venture

The first reports of U.S. offensive operations in the past have come from the Japanese on more than one occasion.

An attempt to land in the Marianas would be the most ambitious venture yet undertaken by U.S. forces in their leapfrogging progress in the Pacific, during which they have moved steadily closer to the Japanese home islands in recent months with the capture of bases in the Gilberts and Marshalls.

The landing attempt followed a series of raids carried out against Saipan and other Japanese bases in the Mariana area by a powerful Allied task force, said the broadcast.

Today’s broadcast said that attempted landings were made from a force of 20 transports which appeared off Saipan about 6:30 a.m. (local time).

About 70 landing barges and 20 or more special craft were employed in the actual landing operations, Tokyo said.

Task force assault is most sustained

USPACFLT HQ, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (AP) –
The most sustained task force assault of the Pacific War by bombarding battleships, cruisers and destroyers and by repeated waves of carrier planes focused attention today on the Japanese-held Mariana Islands, including the former U.S. outpost of Guam.

The Marianas were the fiery core of action ranging along more than 3,000 miles from the Kurils, where another task force shelled the enemy within 500 miles of Japan, south of Palau, gateway to the Philippines.

The latest reports:

  • Extended through the fourth straight day the shelling and bombing attack on the Marianas, 1,500 miles southeast of Tokyo.

  • Disclosed a two-day task force raid on Kurils bases 1,060 miles northeast of Tokyo.

  • Made clear that Central and Southwest Pacific bombers are ganging up on Truk and Southwest Pacific planes are hammering steadily at Palau in order to prevent those two Carolines naval and air bases from interfering with the Marianas operation.

Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, in his third communiqué this week on the Marianas, said that warships, including big battlewagons, opened up their guns on Tinian and Saipan Monday and that carrier planes Tuesday prolonged the attacks they began Saturday. He gave no inkling that the operation has ended.

The warships, which had to sail more than 500 miles west of Truk and more than 1,000 miles beyond their nearest big base at Kwajalein lagoon in the Marshalls, started fires with their shells at Tanapag Harbor, the town of Garapan and the sugar mill center of Charan Kanoa on Saipan.

The communiqué said:

Our ships suffered no damage.

Also on Monday, planes from the flattops spread their attack 175 miles north of Saipan to Pagan Island where three enemy planes were downed, bringing the four-day toll to at least 144. The sinking of 13 Japanese ships, including four warships, and damaging 16 others was previously announced.

7743

YANKS NEARLY CUT PENINSULA
Push ahead despite strong Nazi defense

Germans reported to be using 600 tanks to spearhead violent counterattacks; British give ground as enemy gains new power

map.61544.ap
Allies drive at center: Arrows show Allied drives and German counterattacks on the Normandy beachhead (black line). While the Allies drove at the center, the Nazis concentrated their main attacks at the ends of the battle line, now about 100 miles in length.

SHAEF, London, England (AP) –
U.S. troops have surged powerfully ahead in their stab into the Cherbourg neck, Allied headquarters announced today, and Berlin reported that less than six miles separated the spearhead from the West Coast communications linking Cherbourg with France.

The gains were hammered out in spite of furious counterattacks all along the 100-mile invasion front in which the Germans had thrown about 20 divisions and 600 tanks.

Allied headquarters reported that U.S. infantry and parachute troops, supported by tanks had scored further gains west of Carentan, said Allied soldiers were holding firm everywhere else despite the massive nature of the German counterstroke and were inflicting heavy losses on the enemy.

British retire

This was after it was acknowledged that the British at the eastern end of the line had been forced to give up Troarn, their anchor nine miles east of Caen, and Villers-Bocage, one of their two advance points 15 miles southwest of Caen.

Further heavy counterattacks in the Villers-Bocage area were turned back yesterday evening, headquarters said, and the British were still secure in their hold on Caumont, their other most advanced point, 20 miles southwest of Caen.

Seventeen German tanks, including eight 60-ton Tigers, were knocked out in the fierce armored battling yesterday, headquarters said. The other eight tanks were Panthers armed with 75mm guns.

At the western end of the line, the Americans first moved forward on a nine-mile front to the Les Sablons-Baupte area, south of Sainte-Mère-Église and only about seven miles from high ground overlooking La Haye-du-Puits on the west coast road and rail line leading to Cherbourg.

The Berlin radio commentator, Ludwig Sertorius, then reported that they had gained another three and a half miles to the west, reaching Prétot which is less than six miles from La Haye-du-Puits itself.

Vise closing on Cherbourg

map.61544cp
The close-up of the Cherbourg Peninsula battleground shows how U.S. invasion armies were cutting halfway across the peninsula to Pont-l’Abbé, a point about eight miles northeast of the enemy communications center of La Haye-du-Puits. Despite new and stiff German resistance, particularly around Carentan, U.S. forces hoped to press ahead toward Valognes, a crucial communications center, and finally cut off the German garrison.

Heavy street battle

The Americans also fought their way back into Montebourg, 14 miles from Cherbourg and headquarters said street fighting was in progress. But the fighting here was fluid, and the Germans in midafternoon claimed they were again in possession of the town.

U.S. troops were also engaged in heavy fighting in the Pont-l’Abbé area, four miles north of Prétot, and along the road from Montebourg to Quinéville on the coast.

The Americans hammered out gains both in the Pont-l’Abbé area and around Quinéville, which represents the Allied right flank, headquarters said.

The heavy nature of the fighting was plainly indicated by the German High Command, which said the battle is “approaching a climax” and growing more violent every day with the Allies hitting hard in all directions to enlarge their bridgehead.

The German communiqué added:

Among salvos of heaviest naval guns, incessant air attacks and with freshly brought up infantry and tank forces being thrown into action on both sides, the battle is approaching a climax.

Push toward Cherbourg

The U.S. advance was on a nine-mile front westward from Carentan toward high ground controlling the last German roads leading to Cherbourg.

Violent German reaction to the threat to the lifeline was expected, and it was likely that further U.S. advances would be only after the costliest fighting.

The Yankees plunged to the Les Sablons-Baupte area, south of Sainte-Mère-Église and west of Carentan. Seven miles to the westward is high ground overlooking La Haye-du-Puits, through which runs the last remaining major north-south highway on the peninsula still in German hands.

The advance placed the Americans nearly halfway across the peninsula at its narrowest point.

Hand-to-hand fighting surged between Germans and troops of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division in the streets of Montebourg, 14 miles southeast of Cherbourg.

U.S. artillery was shelling the road from Montebourg to Valognes to the northwest, and the doughboys controlled the road from Quinéville, on the coast, to Montebourg, but the town itself changed hands from hour to hour.

U.S. airborne troops spearheaded the fighting around Carentan and besides pushing to the west shoved the Germans back more than a mile south of the town.

Heavy troop movement

Allied fliers reported more movement on the roads behind the German lines last night than at any time since D-Day.

While a great weight of Allied bombs was being thrown against this movement, an announcement came that several hundred RAF four-engined Lancasters and a fighter escort, in a quick switch to American bombing tactics, had blasted German E-boat pens at Le Havre before dusk last evening with six-ton “factory busters.” It was the RAF’s heaviest daylight attack of the war. A second assault was directed against the same targets during the night.

Enemy broadcasts reacted to the new Allied attention of Le Havre, lying just east of the beachhead, with surmises that it portended a forthcoming land move in that direction.

East of Villers-Bocage to Troarn, beyond battered and besieged Caen, great tank battles raged with undiminished intensity into their fourth day. The Germans were using elements of four armored divisions.

Send in reserves

With the German counterattacks mounting in fury, there were indications that Field Marshal Karl Gerd von Rundstedt had decided to draw off some of his reserves in other portions of France to meet the Allied thrusts.

Appearance of the second German panzer division – the best armored unit in the German Army – indicated the Germans were making a supreme effort to seal off the Allied beachhead.

The next two or three days are expected to show whether the German High Command has been forced to throw reserves into the battle piecemeal – as in the past nine days – or has been able to keep them intact for a final, all-out counterattack.

7744

Bombers attack French targets

Widespread sweeps by Fortresses and Liberators

SHAEF, London, England (AP) –
A force of between 1,000 and 2,000 U.S. Fortresses and Liberators and escorting fighters swept over France this morning, bombing airplane plants, airfields and railroad facilities in a dozen places.

Berlin radio reported an attack on the great industrial city of Hannover in Germany while lighter Allied warplanes from bases in Normandy and Britain continued their widespread support campaign in a smashing follow-up to an 1,100-bomber operation overnight.

As a part of the latter operation, several hundred Lancasters blasted E-boat pens at Le Havre with six-ton “factory busters” in daylight.

Twenty-eight hundred tons of explosives were dropped on the port in two separate attacks, the first, just before dusk, being the RAF’s heaviest daylight bombardment of the war and its first high altitude daylight precision effort.

Targets of the U.S. “heavies” today ranged from Nantes, La Possonnière and Angoulême to Beauvais, La Frillière and Bordeaux. The force comprised 1,090 bombers and several hundred more fighters, possible approximating yesterday a record 1,500-bomber force.

The multiple attack, the deepest penetration of France since the invasion, took the bombers over a 300-mile expanse from Beauvais, 40 miles north of Paris and 100 miles east of the battle line, to Bordeaux, 300 miles south of the battle zone.

Angoulême is 70 miles northeast of Bordeaux, La Possonnière 50 miles east of Nantes, which is 120 miles south of the battle zone. La Frillière is eight miles east of Tours.

A force of Mosquito bombers attacked the synthetic oil center of Gelsenkirchen in the Ruhr last night to keep the increasing assault on Hitler’s war machine going around the clock.

7745

Adm. Halsey given new command in Pacific War

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7746

What war bonds mean –
Prisoners of Japan look to civilians for freedom

By Russell Brines

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7747

De Gaulle visits beachhead area

French are instructed to resume civil organization

London, England (AP) –
The French Committee of National Liberation reported today that Gen. Charles de Gaulle during his trip to the Normandy beachhead had “left everywhere instructions regarding resumption of civil administration, organization of supplies, and public relief.

In a communiqué issued through the French Press Service, the committee said de Gaulle had been given a “most moving demonstration of courage and devotion by the population of Isigny and that elsewhere he was greeted in the same atmosphere of immense fervor.”

De Gaulle, back in Britain after a triumphant reception on French soil, today laid before British and American political and military councils a claim of enthusiastic support from newly-liberated Frenchmen to back his demand for recognition of the French Committee of National Liberation as the voice of France.

De Gaulle was said to be planning tentatively to return briefly to Algiers to report to the French Consultative Assembly on the result of his discussions with the British and with Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, before proceeding to America to see President Roosevelt.

The London press hailed the general’s swift trip to the Normandy front with the expressed hope it would help solve the ticklish situation.

De Gaulle warmly hailed during brief visit to France

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7748

Gable returns to civilian clothes

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7749

Allies advancing lines in Italy

Stiffening resistance from Nazis broken after third day

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U.S. bombs hit Kecskemét Field

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7750

Allied foothold is called firm

Stimson: Fighting to continue until Nazis defeated

Washington (AP) –
War Secretary Stimson said today the Allies have established a firm foothold on the European coast.

“I believe we are there to stay until all of France is liberated and Germany defeated,” he asserted, although cautioning that “we must expect counterattacks greater than any yet met” in the fighting in Normandy.

Stimson told a news conference that destruction or heavy damage to nine bridges over the Seine River by Allied Air Forces was one major factor in slowing down development of a major counterattack – “a delay longer than we could reasonably have counted upon.”

The Secretary said:

The fuller information which has come on the initial landings of our men on the French coast is a case in point to illustrate the desirability of not reaching hasty conclusions. The West Wall was no myth or pushover. At various places, the landings were relatively easy, thanks to an element of tactical surprise, a careful choice of the general region for the assault and the destruction of German communications by our preceding air attack.

But everywhere German offshore mines, beach obstacles, guns and pillboxes were a dangerous hazard.

Stimson noted that Allied forces suffered casualties in the operation “but not as many as our commanders were obliged to calculate upon beforehand.”

7751

27 die in blast at Pearl Harbor

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7752

Organization for peace is planned

Roosevelt outlines conception of international project

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7753

Divisions ashore in France listed

SHAEF, London, England (AP) –
Here is how Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery’s “first team” in Normandy lines up along the beachhead, so far as officially announced:

  • At Montebourg, 14 miles southeast of Cherbourg, the U.S. 4th Infantry Division.
  • At Sainte-Mère-Église and Carentan farther south, the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions.
  • At Isigny and to the south, the U.S. 29th Infantry Division.
  • At Trévières and to the south, the U.S. 1st and 2nd Infantry Divisions.
  • Bayeux sector, the British 50th Infantry Division.
  • Between Caen and Bayeux, the 3rd Canadian Division.
  • Orne River sector, the British 6th Airborne Division.
7754

Mosley: Paratroopers spring trap on 600 German grenadiers

By Leonard Mosley

With British 6th Airborne Division, France (AP) – (June 12, delayed)
Paratroop Capt. Charles Bliss had that grin on his face that always means something brewing.

Charles said:

This is going to be good. Do you remember the gap we left in our lines just around Bréville? Well, Jerry’s found it at last and he’s coming through. We have a report of at least 600 panzer grenadiers advancing through the woods and believe they’re going to try to drive through Ranville to break our line and gain the east bank of the river. well, what we are going to do to those Jerries should make a nice little story for you. Look.

He pointed along the walls and through the orchards and when you looked hard, you could see British troops everywhere.

They were well dug in among bushes and grass, and only the green camouflaged tops of their helmets poked around the skyline – that and the muzzles of their Brens, heavy machine guns and Stens.

See for approach

It was just before noon that we saw out first Germans. Over on the other side of the dropping zone, you could suddenly see figures moving among trees. We watched them forming up into batches of 10-15 men.

No one fired at them. Only the dull boom of artillery from somewhere away in the distance, and the busy hum of fighting planes disturbed the placid Saturday morning.

Shortly after noon, the German attack began. In those batches of 10 and 15, spread out over 200 or 300 yards, the German infantrymen came in at a run. They moved through the waving corn in the black ploughland until they reached a line of wrecked gliders. Then, they fell on their faces and lay there. After a few minutes they got up again, ran forward, then fell flat again. It went on like that for about 400 yards. Still, no one fired.

Mortar gun fires

From somewhere in the wood now a German mortar gun was going into action and its shells fell all around us and in the serried rows of gravestones in a churchyard. Splinters fell among us. There were casualties. But there was no retaliation.

Stretcher-bearers wriggled forward and dragged wounded men away, but never showed themselves against the skyline.

Now the enemy was gaining confidence from the stillness. Smelling no danger, his loping advances were longer, his periods flat on the ground of only a few seconds duration. He came on fast. He kept on coming until he was about 100 yards away. Then at a prearranged signal every automatic weapon, every rifle in the paratroops’ line opened up. It was a roar that set your teeth chattering with shock.

You suddenly saw the Germans grimacing wildly, clutching their bodies, throwing up their hands, then falling by the dozens into the corn. They all flung themselves down and the British paratroops continued their fire.

Rain of bullets

A rain of bullets surged across those 100 yards of French farmland and battered into the huddles on the grass. The earth was scuffed up in showers of corn and went down as if under a flail.

But the Germans weren’t beaten yet. One of their officers rose to his feet and called to his men, and those not wounded charged once more. This time, the paratroops held their fire even longer, and it was 23-30 yards when the small-arms barrage hit the enemy.

Fingers squeezed triggers almost simultaneously up and down the line. In writhing heaps, the Germans went down again. And now the remnants turned and began to flee.

Bullets chased them across the field as they raced for woods. But only a few made that shelter, for now our shells and mortars came into play and plastered a river of steel between the enemy and the sanctuary for which he was racing.

Hundreds killed

By 10 o’clock, it was all over, and the dropping zone was littered now not only with gliders and containers, but with hundreds of enemy dead and enemy wounded.

On Sunday morning, the Germans tried again to blast through to Ranville.

Once more they came in batches, and once more the British mowed them down with the same grim efficiency. That same morning, they had enough and went limping away to the safety of the marshes beyond the Orne.

With the men who had killed them – boys from Lancashire, Yorkshire, Somerset – I went into the woods to see the flotsam and jetsam this short but bloody war had left. Everywhere was death. But it was Nazi death. At least 400 had been killed and nearly 2,000 made prisoners. And in breaking the whole of a German regiment and capturing its commander, British losses did not number over 50 all told, including wounded.

7755

Editorial: Montgomery’s return

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7756

Editorial: Scrapping ships

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7757

German prisoners display treachery

With British forces in France (AP) – (June 12, delayed)
German prisoners on the Western Front have to be watched almost as carefully as Japanese in the Pacific.

Three British soldiers and a photographer were standing in a doorway watching a column of Nazi captives passing through a village late yesterday. Suddenly there was a violent explosion. All four were killed. One of the German prisoners had tossed a hand grenade which he had somehow managed to hide.

Facts about the behavior and control of anthracite mine fires, published recently by the government, will provide mining engineers with life- and property-saving information.

7758

Women join Navy as invasion begins

News of the Allied invasion of France prompted many Virginia women to join the WAVES, Navy Recruiter Alton Frix said here today.

He quoted LtCdr. Charles L. Kessler, the officer in charge of Navy recruiting in Virginia, as saying:

Since word of the invasion of Western Europe reached Virginia, young women have been responding magnificently. Most of them realize now is the time to help Uncle Sam and the U.S. Navy in their task.

Full information concerning enlistment in the Navy or WAVES may be secured from Frix at the Navy recruiting substation in the post office building here each Monday,

7759

The Pittsburgh Press (June 15, 1944)

Ernie Pyle V Norman

Roving Reporter

By Ernie Pyle

Normandy beachhead, France –
The ship on which I rode to the invasion of the continent brought certain components of the second wave of assault troops. We arrived in the congested waters of the beachhead shortly after dawn on D-Day.

We aboard this ship had secretly dreaded the trip, for we had expected attacks from U-boats, E-boats, and at nighttime from aircraft. Yet nothing whatever happened.

We were at sea for a much longer time than it would ordinarily take to make a beeline journey from England to France. The convoy we sailed in was one of several which comprised what is known as a “force.”

As we came down, the English Channel was crammed with forces going both ways, and as I write it, still is. Minesweepers had swept wide channels for us, all the way from England to France. These were marked with buoys. Each channel was miles wide.

We surely saw there before us more ships than any human had ever seen before at one glance. And going north were other vast convoys, some composed of fast liners speeding back to England for new loads of troops and equipment.

As far as you could see in every direction the ocean was infested with ships. There must have been every type of oceangoing vessel in the world. I even thought I saw a paddlewheel steamer in the distance, but that was probably an illusion.

There were battleships and all other kinds of warships clear down to patrol boats. There were great fleets of Liberty ships. There were fleets of luxury liners turned into troop transports, and fleets of big landing craft and tank carriers and tankers. And in and out through it all were nondescript ships – converted yachts, riverboats, tugs and barges.

The best way I can describe this vast armada and the frantic urgency of the traffic is to suggest that you visualize New York Harbor on its busiest day of the year and then just enlarge that scene until it takes in all the ocean the human eye can reach, clear around the horizon. And over the horizon, there are dozens of times that many.

We were not able to go ashore immediately after arriving off the invasion coast amidst the great pool of ships in what was known as the “transport area.”

Everything is highly organized in an invasion, and every ship, even the tiniest one, is always under exact orders timed to the minute. But at one time, our convoy was so pushed along by the wind and the currents that we were five hours ahead of schedule, despite the fact that our engines had been stopped half the time. We lost this by circling.

Although we arrived just on time, they weren’t ready for us on the beaches and we spent several hours weaving in and out among the multitude of ships just off the beachhead, and finally just settled down to await our turn.

That was when the most incongruous – to us – part of the invasion came. Here we were in a front-row seat at a great military epic. Shells from battleships were whamming over our heads, and occasionally a dead man floated face downward past us. Hundreds and hundreds of ships laden with death milled around us. We could stand at the rail and see both our shells and German shells exploding on the beaches, where struggling men were leaping ashore, desperately hauling guns and equipment in through the water.

We were in the very vortex of the war – and yet, as we sat there waiting, Lt. Chuck Conick and I played gin rummy in the wardroom and Bing Crosby sang “Sweet Leilani” over the ship’s phonograph.

Angry shells hitting near us would make heavy thuds as the concussion carried through the water and struck the hull of our ship. But in our wardroom men in gas-impregnated uniforms and wearing lifebelts sat reading Life and listening to the BBC telling us how the war before our eyes was going.

But it isn’t like that ashore. No, it isn’t like that shore.

7760

Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (June 15, 1944)

Communiqué No. 20

Further steady progress has been made west of CARENTAN and between the rivers VIRE and ELLÉ.

Allied troops have repulsed several violent armored attacks in the CAUMONT-TILLY sector with considerable loss to the enemy.

In the CHERBOURG PENINSULA, ground gained in the area of QUINÉVILLE has made available a valuable new outlet from the beaches.

During yesterday, mobile batteries on the flanks were engaged as necessary by Allied warships. On the eastern flank HMS BELFAST (Capt. A. H. MAXWELL-HYSLOP, AM RN) engaged the batteries of LE HAVRE.

During an unsuccessful enemy air attack in the western assault area, an enemy aircraft was shot down by the USS AUGUSTA (Capt. E. H. Jones, USN) wearing the flag of RAdm. ALAN GOODRICH KIRK, USN.

Convoys of Allied merchant ships are arriving satisfactorily and the armies continue to build up with men, stores and equipment.

Allied aircraft in great strength ranged from the CHERBOURG PENINSULA southwards to the LOIRE and eastwards to CHARTRES and PARIS, continuing their attacks on communications, airfields, and tactical targets. Coastal aircraft kept up their attacks on enemy shipping in the channel early today.

Heavy bombers in great strength attacked many targets in FRANCE this morning, including railyards at ANGOULÊME, airfields near BORDEAUX and PARIS, and railway bridges near TOURS. They were escorted by strong forces of fighters which also strafed ground targets. In these operations, twelve enemy planes were destroyed. Three of our bombers and three of our fighters are missing.

Medium and light bombers attacked bridges at CONDÉ-SUR-NOIREAU, SAINT-LÔ, LESSAY, CHARTRES and COLTAINVILLE, and a road junction at ARGENTAN. None of these bombers was lost.

Fighter bombers and fighters provided close support for the ground forces and swept over NORMANDY, attacking supply dumps, troop concentrations, tanks, convoys, and railway bridges. Other fighters attacked a ferry at QUILLEBEUF near the mouth of the SEINE. In the course of a patrol this morning, five enemy fighters were destroyed near ÉVREUX.

Photographic reconnaissance shows that the German naval forces in the port of LE HAVRE suffered very severely from the attack by heavy night bombers on the evening of June 14.

7761

Völkischer Beobachter (June 16, 1944)

Bewegungskrieg auf engem Raum

Verzweifelt ringen die Eindringlinge in der Normandie um Entfaltungsmöglichkeiten

vb. Wien, 15. Juni –
Der Kampf in der Normandie beginnt immer mehr die Züge zu tragen, die ihm die starken Panzerverbände von beiden Seiten geben. Das bedeutet, daß er immer mehr die Züge des Bewegungskrieges annimmt. Aber zugleich sind in der Normandie die Wesensmerkmale des Bewegungskrieges so verändert, daß zum Schluss doch – bisher wenigstens – die schnelle Veränderung des Frontverlaufs, die eigentlich zum Begriff des Bewegungskrieges gehört, aufgehoben erscheint.

Wir sehen starke Panzergeschwader vorbrechen, wir sehen sie mit ihrer beträchtlichen Geschwindigkeit gewisse Strecken Landes durchqueren, aber wir sehen auch, daß der Frontverlauf nach Westen und Süden immer noch, wenigstens im Großen gesehen, derselbe ist wie gegen Ende vergangener Woche. Der Gegner ist seit acht Tagen bestrebt, den Brückenkopf mit Hilfe seiner Panzerdivisionen zu erweitern. Er kann seine Angriffe wohl über eine gewisse Strecke vortragen, er stößt aber dann auf heftigen deutschen Gegendruck und auf Gegenangriffe und wird gezwungen, das eben noch gewonnene Gebiet wieder aufzugeben. Es ist also eine im taktischen Verlauf etwas seltsame Form des Panzerkrieges, die sich hier abspielt, gleichsam ein Bewegungskrieg auf engem Raum. Natürlich ist die Front hier nicht erstarrt, wie sie es 1917 war, sie ist flüssig und unaufhörlich in Veränderung begriffen. Aber im Ganzen ändert sich die Gesamtlinie nur sehr wenig.

Auch die Gegner berichten, daß sie am Mittwoch eine Reihe der Dörfer und Kleinstädte, die sie zunächst nach Süden und Nordwesten hingenommen hatten, wieder aufgeben mußten, daß sie da und dort wieder „hinausgeworfen“ worden sind. Auch sie können nicht bestreiten, daß sowohl ihre Versuche, nach der Tiefe Raum zu gewinnen, wie die anderen, sich Cherbourg vom Rücken her zu nähern, erfolglos geblieben sind. Ihre Angriffe in den letzten vierundzwanzig Stunden beweisen von neuem, wie stark Montgomery unter dem strategischen Zwang steht, anzugreifen. Die Angriffe der letzten Tage sind denn auch mit noch größerer Wucht und Kraft unternommen worden wie die der Vortage. Aber sie sind dafür auch wieder auf noch stärkeren deutschen Gegendruck gestoßen. Die Schlacht hat also noch an Umfang wie an Erbitterung zugenommen. Aber am Ende der hin und her wogenden Kämpfe stand dann fast die gleiche Frontlinie wie vorher.

Wir haben also das merkwürdige Bild, daß große Verbände einer starken und schnellen Waffe miteinander kämpfen, daß ihr Einsatz immer stärker wird und daß die Gesamtentwicklung doch etwas Ruhendes hat. Das bedeutet nicht, daß der Einsatz der Kräfte nicht noch gesteigert werden kann. Wir müssen versuchen, uns in die Gedanken des Gegners zu versetzen. Nach dem, was er vorher ausgeplaudert hat, aber auch nach dem objektiven Bild der Lage, hat er sich den Verlauf der Schlacht ganz anders vorgestellt.

Er hat geglaubt, leichter an Land zu kommen, er hat geglaubt, bessere Landeplätze zu linden, und er hat geglaubt, nach neun Tagen tiefer im Lande zu sein. Vor allen Dingen hat er geglaubt, mit weniger Verlusten davonzukommen, als es nun der Fall ist.

Die Darstellungen der englischen und amerikanischen Kriegsberichter sprechen da eine deutliche Sprache. Wenn der General Montgomery den Anschluss an den ursprünglichen „Fahrplan“ Eisenhowers wiedergewinnen will, muß er den Zwang zum Angriff sehr stark empfinden. Der gleiche Zwang geht von seiner gegenwärtigen Lage aus. Er hat keinen rechten Raum zur Entfaltung seiner Heeresgruppe. Er muß sehen, daß er ihn sich schafft.

Er wird kaum mit sehr leichten Gefühlen in den neuen Abschnitt der Invasion gehen. Er spürt den wachsenden deutschen Gegendruck, er liest die Zahlen der schweren Verluste. Dazu muß seine Sorge um den Nachschub sich von Tag zu Tag vergrößern. Je mehr sich die deutsche Luftwaffe und die leichten deutschen Seestreitkräfte auf den Kampf an der normannischen Küste haben einstellen können, umso häufiger und erfolgreicher sind sie am Feind. Die Versenkungszahlen der Wehrmachtberichte sprechen eine deutliche Sprache. Die Behinderung des Nachschubs ist umso empfindlicher für Montgomery, als er ja auch gezwungen ist, für die starken Ausfälle an Menschen und Material Ersatz herbeizuschaffen und damit die ohnehin beschränkten Möglichkeiten der Anlandungen noch zu überanstrengen.

Aber wir möchten annehmen, daß Montgomery trotz aller dieser Erschwernisse dem Zwang der Lage gehorchen wird, der ihm befiehlt anzugreifen. Vermutlich werden seine Vorstöße an Stärke wie an Heftigkeit noch zunehmen, er wird damit versuchen, sich den Weg aus der Enge des Raumes zu bahnen.

Auch der Wehrmachtbericht sagt, daß die Schlacht in der Normandie ihrem Höhepunkt zustrebt. Sie verläßt allmählich das Stadium der Einleitung und der Vorbereitung. Sie nähert sich dem entscheidenden Stadium. Es muß wiederholt werden, daß diese Entscheidungen kaum in einem einzigen Schlage lallen werden. Nach menschlichem Ermessen werden sie in einer Reihe von großen Kämpfen herbeigeführt werden.