The New York Times (June 27, 1944)
CHERBOURG FALLS TO U.S. TROOPS
Victory in France; capture of port seals first phase of Allied liberation of Europe
Fight sharp to end; British reported near main enemy highway at base of peninsula
By Drew Middleton
Cherbourg’s capture accompanied by new drive in the east
Before Cherbourg fell, pockets of Nazi resistance were being rooted out by U.S. troops who controlled the waterfront west of Querqueville and east to Bretteville (1). Our units reached Beaumont-Hague (2) as they pushed toward Cap de la Hague (3), whence the enemy was lobbing shells into Cherbourg. Germans had held out at Hardinvast (4), at Carneville (5) and, just to the southwest, at the Maupertus Airfield. To the east, Gen. Montgomery, with forces apparently built up while the Americans were active in the west, thrust southeast of Tilly-sur-Seulles to occupy the towns of Tessel-Bretteville and Brettevillette (6).
SHAEF, England –
Cherbourg, France’s third greatest port, has fallen to U.S. troops in the first outstanding victory of the Allied campaign to liberate France.
The fall of Cherbourg, after a siege that lasted a week from the moment the first shells from U.S. field guns began to pound its defenses, was officially announced here this morning just after 7:00 a.m. BDST (1:00 a.m. ET).
With the taking of the city, the first phase of the campaign in which the Allies were forced to build up their armies without the use of a large port came to an end. It was estimated here recently that supplies for two divisions could be moved through Cherbourg within 48 hours after its fall.
Captives may total 30,000
Last night, U.S. patrols mopped up the remaining German resistance in the vicinity of the naval base and arsenal and cleaned out snipers from buildings along the waterfront, where individual Germans held out until the last.
Although there has been no official estimate of the number of prisoners yet, it is probable the city’s fall will bring more than 30,000 German soldiers and sailors into the Allied cages.
Cherbourg was the second French port and naval base to fall to Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley. Bizerte in Tunisia was taken by the U.S. Army II Corps under his command on May 7, 1943.
The struggle for Cherbourg drew to its victorious close yesterday when in the rain and chill wind doughboys mopped up the port. By nightfall, more than one-third of the port had been occupied and, by midnight, two-thirds of the city was in Allied hands.
At dawn Monday, 3,400 German prisoners had been taken and it is probable that twice that number was captured in the mopping-up operations yesterday.
The Germans were driven from five remaining strongholds during the early evening by grenade, bayonet and flamethrower and tank units that had driven to the waterfront.
By nightfall, the remaining German resistance centered around the naval base and arsenal, planned and constructed by Vauban and improved by Napoleon. Snipers along the waterfront and little knots of German troops at roadblocks fought to their last cartridge.
The battle had been sharp and costly. Pillboxes around the shattered bastion of Fort du Roule had to be taken with bazookas, Bangalore torpedoes and a final scientific rush by doughboys, dashing through rain in the face of sharp rifle and machine-gun fire.
Other bastions barring entrances to the port were bypassed by U.S. infantry, who rushed into Cherbourg all day yesterday despite flanking fire.
The Germans reported “terrific” U.S. losses. This report was unfounded, but our casualties in the fierce fighting of the last four and a half days cannot have been light for assaults on strongly held prepared positions are one of the costliest forms of warfare. But if the price was high, the prize was great.
British push on in east
As the Cherbourg battle drew to its close, the new operation to the east was pressed. British tanks and infantry smashed forward from Tilly-sur-Seulles, penetrating to a depth of two and a half to four miles and driving the enemy from the villages of Tessel-Bretteville and Brettevillette, southeast of the starting point of this limited offensive.
An Associated Press report said British troops in the Fontenay area had driven to a point one mile from the main highway across the base of the peninsula.
Yesterday, for the first time in nearly two weeks, there was violent action at both ends of the Allied front. To the east, where the Germans are strongest, the British Army was advancing against the best German troops in France.
The occupation of Cherbourg was accomplished almost exactly three weeks after the first landings. During that time, the Allies had established a beachhead of more than 1,000 square miles, had taken more than 20,000 prisoners up to last night and had completed the destruction of four German garrisons.
These successes should not obscure the fact that the Germans are still numerically strong. Their Cherbourg defense is proof that even the discounted second-line infantry divisions of the German Army fight with a resolution and ability not often met in first-class troops of any nation.
With the opening of Cherbourg to Allied transports, the stage will be set for the growth of the great Anglo-American army in France. But events of the last three weeks have shown the path to victory will be hard going.
Strongpoint bypassed
Some time yesterday morning, Gen. Bradley evidently decided to leave the remaining German strongpoints to be mopped up later, and threw the majority of his battalions into the town. Under the rush of the new troops, the Germans fighting in the streets gave way. Those who could dashed for the shelter of the old stone fortifications around the naval port where they resisted to the end.
The main position at Fort du Roule was taken Sunday afternoon, according to dispatches from the front. Since then, our infantry has had to knock out a succession of smaller forts, each of them girt with mines and protected by enfilading fire from another position.
Four German positions on the Cherbourg Peninsula front survived yesterday’s attacks, according to reports from the 21st Army Group that reached here at 9:00 p.m. last night. Three of these are to the east of Cherbourg at the Maupertus Airfield and at Bretteville and Carneville. The fourth is at Hardinvast, four miles southwest of the port.
The penetration to the sea was accomplished without much fighting. To the east, a position near Bretteville had been established, while to the west, the sea had been reached around Querqueville, which had been taken.
U.S. infantrymen fought a brisk battle with four enemy pillboxes established on a road running parallel with the harbor yesterday. The pillboxes gave each other supporting fire and had to be knocked out one by one in savage and costly fighting. Here, as at Fort du Roule, the doughboys rushed up to the pillboxes and dropped grenades down the ventilators after the reinforced concrete had withstood direct hits from field guns.
Large stores of food and liquor were found in some of the underground fortifications.
U.S. units pushing toward the western tip of the peninsula encountered some opposition at Beaumont-Hague in the Cape de la Hague area. To the east, there was none to speak of in the Barfleur–Saint-Pierre-Église area.
Warships aid British
Allied naval forces were supporting the British advances on the eastern end of the beachhead. The Luftwaffe continued to assault these warships, but RAdm. Sir Philip Vian, commander of the invasion naval forces, said 10% of all attacking aircraft had been shot down by anti-aircraft fire from his ships.
There has been some E-boat action in this area, but British destroyers and light coastal forces have brushed off two recent attacks on the anchorage without loss.
Last week’s gale probably did more damage to Allied convoys than all enemy action thus far, an Associated Press report from Allied headquarters suggested.
There has also been some shelling from mobile batteries to the east of the British beaches.
By 9:15 p.m. yesterday, the British infantry was still smashing ahead southeast of Tilly-sur-Seulles toward the Odon River in the face of small groups of German tanks, heavy machine-gun fire and surprisingly extensive minefields, according to reports from the front. At that time, one staff major believed the British had penetrated the crust of enemy defenses, according to these reports.
The battle has been fought in the Juvigny-Cheux la Gaule-Brettevillette triangle on a considerable scale. The British appear to be striking south for the high ground around Fontenay to forestall a German offensive through Caen.
As four panzer and three infantry divisions hold this sector of the enemy line, it would be unwise to expect any extensive exploitation of yesterday’s advance, which came only after three hours of extremely hard fighting.
Nazis claim they gained time
Comments in Monday night and Tuesday morning editions of German domestic papers “state that the German Command has gained time through the sacrifice of troops at Cherbourg,” the Nazi Transocean News Agency said in a broadcast to the German-controlled press of Europe, as reported by U.S. government monitors.
The German press comment, apparently designed to justify to the public a statement in yesterday’s Nazi High Command communiqué that the Nazi garrison at Cherbourg had rejected two ultimatums to surrender, went on, according to Transocean:
Thus the German Command was able to take effective military countermeasures which will become obvious at the right time.
