Editorial: On to Cherbourg!
By The Washington Post
The success of the American forces in cutting off the Cherbourg Peninsula has placed the enemy on the horns of an extremely difficult dilemma. Two courses, neither of them pleasant, are open to Rommel. On the one hand, he can throw into the Battle of Normandy troops and material he has been saving for use elsewhere. He cannot yet be sure that the landings in Normandy are the only ones planned by the Allies. His actions to date suggest that he is convinced there will be more landings elsewhere. To meet the problem such new landings would create he must keep an iron reserve of the bulk of the 50-60 German divisions in France and the Low Countries. Yet if her fails to reinforce the German troops now being pushed out of the Cherbourg Peninsula or facing annihilation in Cherbourg itself, the position of the Allies will be greatly strengthened.
Much hard fighting may still be necessary to take Cherbourg. But it will be taken, and even if the Germans demolish its port facilities, it will be a great boon to our troops. It will greatly simplify the problem of supply and make possible the deployment of a much larger Allied force in France than has been the case hitherto. Our operations in Normandy have necessarily been hampered to date by the lack of such a first-rate port.
We have much reason to be gratified at what the Allied forces have already accomplished. It is true that we have paid a tragic price for those gains. American casualties during the first 10 days of the Normandy operation amounted to more than 15,000, of which more than 3,200 were killed. Yet these losses represent only a fraction of the losses that were anticipated during the months and weeks while plans for D-Day were going forward. In those days, the idea was seriously advanced in responsible military circles that Allied casualties during the first phase of the liberation might be as high as a quarter of a million or even half a million men. Fortunately, these estimates proved wrong. Considering the enormous difficulty of the task we had to face, our casualties have been very moderate indeed.