Völkischer Beobachter (June 27, 1944)
Angst vor der Sozialkatastrophe in der USA
Juden unter Sonderschutz – Meinungsfreiheit aufgehoben
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Wallace soll Tschungking beschwichtigen
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Der letzte Funkspruch des Seekommandanten –
Die große Stunde der Marinebatterie ‚Hamburg‘
pk. Bei der Kriegsmarine, im Juni 1944 –
In der Geschichte der Kriegsmarine gehört das Datum des 25. Juni 1944 den Batterien von Cherbourg, so wie der Name der Marinebatterie „Marcouf“ mit dem ersten Tag der Invasion verbunden bleiben wird. Was sich im Einzelnen an Taten soldatischer Größe und aufopfernder Tapferkeit in Batterien und Funkstellen, in Widerstandsnestern und Stützpunkten der Kriegsmarine abgespielt hat, liegt heute noch jenseits unseres Wissens. Die knappen Funksprüche, die der Seekommandant von Cherbourg gab, sagen nichts, was über die kargen operativen Tatsachen hinausginge, klar und mit einer fast grausamen Nüchternheit. Und doch liegt in den schicksalsschweren Meldungen, die in den letzten Stunden des Kampfes in den Äther gingen, eines Ahnen um die opfervolle Größe der Verteidiger. „An alle – Heil Hitler – hier Cherbourg – Sk.“ Das war der letzte Spruch, den der Seekommandant Konteradmiral Hennecke im offenen Text absetzen ließ. Das war am 25. Juni 1944, 19,05 Uhr.
Aber bis zu dieser Stunde waren aus seinem Gefechtsstand kurz und knapp die Meldungen gekommen, die mit Blitzlichtern den Kampf der tapferen Batterien der Seefestung beleuchteten und ihre stolzen Erfolge. Sie haben in dem Endkampf um Cherbourg der feindlichen Flotte noch schwere Wunden geschlagen, als endlich einmal die schweren Schiffe in die Greifweite ihrer Rohre kamen. Schon in den Morgenstunden des 24. Juni hatten die Batterien „Hamburg“ und „Brommy“ einen Verband feindlicher Kreuzer und Zerstörer unter Feuer genommen, der – um Batterien und Leitstände treffsicherer beschießen zu können – näher an die Küste herangestaffelt hatte. In diesem Artillerieduell zwischen Küste und Seestreitkräften wurden ein Kreuzer und ein Zerstörer mehrfach getroffen, so daß beide Schiffe abdrehen mußten und sich hinter einer Nebelwand in Sicherheit brachten.
An diesem Tage lag bereits seit Hellwerden stärkstes Feuer auf den Stellungen, dass sich im Laufe des Tages, vor allem in den Nachmittagsstunden zu einem ununterbrochenen Inferno von Bombenserien, Einschlägen der schweren Schiffartillerie und der von Land herüberreichenden Feldartillerie der Amerikaner steigerte. Dennoch hielten die tapferen Kanoniere der Batterien, die auch nach Land hinschießen konnten, die Anmarschstraßen des Gegners, seine Transport- und Bereitstellungsräume unter Feuer und brachten so der schwerkämpfenden deutschen Infanterie fühlbare Entlastung. Am späten Nachmittag gegen 18 Uhr hatte das Trommelfeuer eine Intensität erreicht, die keinen Zweifel mehr über den äußersten Ernst der Lage zuließ.
Als nach einer Nacht voll Störungsfeuer der Morgen des 25. Juni dämmerte, setzten die Angriffe in fast noch gesteigerter Stärke wieder ein. Zu den schweren Kalibern der Schiffsartillerie kamen die Einschläge von Granatwerfern, die der Feind im Vorgelände der Batterien in Stellung brachte. Dabei bekamen die Verteidiger in ihren Löchern und Bunkern kaum jemals einen Feind zu Gesicht, nur immer wieder das Brüllen und Bersten des Materials, das Schüttern und Beben der Erde unter dem Trommeln der Einschläge aller Kaliber, die vor dem Sturm der feindlichen Infanterie bereits jeden Widerstand ersticken sollten.
Eine halbe Stunde nach Mittag kam etwa 13 Kilometer vor der Küste wieder ein feindlicher Kreuzerverband in Sicht. Aus den schweren Rohren der Batterie „York“ rauschte Salve auf Salve herüber, während um die Batterie selbst nahezu ununterbrochen die Erdfontänen der Einschläge standen. 13,05 Uhr: Salven von „York“ liegen deckend! Treffer auf einem der schweren Kreuzer, bei dem auch leichte Kreuzer standen.
Etwa eine Stunde später steht die Silhouette eines Schlachtschiffes in den Okularen der Entfernungsmesser: zwei Drillingstürme vorn und achtern, zwei Gittermasten – California-Klasse. Vorn und achtern blitzen die Mündungsfeuer, sechs Einschläge wirbeln im Vorgelände in die Höhe. Salventakt. Sie schießen sich heran. Und dann: Jetzt schießen alle vier Türme Vollsalve.
Die Küstenbatterien antworten. „York“ hat einen der Kreuzer erneut eingedeckt, auf dem deutlich starke Rauchentwicklung beobachtet wurde. Und wieder pfeifen und bersten Bomben um die Batterien, greifen die Tiefflieger mit ihren Geschoßgarben nach den Scharten der Geschütze.
Dann wächst wieder ein Schlachtschiff über die Kimm, es muß Prince of Wales-Klasse sein. Viererturm vorn und Achtern. Aber es bleibt unser Feuerbereich. 15,15 Uhr meldete „York“: Erneut Treffer in den Aufbauten eines Kreuzers, der hart abdreht. Indessen mannen ungeachtet des schweren Beschusses die Kanoniere Munition an die Geschütze. Schließlich läßt der Feind Nebelbomben in das Blickfeld der Batterien werfen, um die Feuerleitung zu erschweren.
Während „York“ im Westteil der Seefront kämpft, erlebt am äußersten Ostrand der Batteriefront die schwere Marinebatterie „Hamburg“ ihre große Stunde. 14,32 Uhr sinkt draußen auf der grauen See ein britischer Kreuzer im Feuer ihrer schweren Granaten. Vom Leitstand aus sehen sie deutlich, wie sich das schwere Schiff überlegt, kentert, sich langsam noch einmal aufrichtet und dann schnell auf Tiefe geht. Aber es gibt keine Pause: jetzt liegen die Salven in einem neuen Ziel. Ebenfalls ein Kreuzer, der bald nach den Treffern auf qualmt. In einer Feuerpause geht unter den Kanonieren der Batterie ein Wort um, das der Seekommandant ihnen durchgegeben hatte. „Vorbildlich!“ Indessen beobachten die Männer am Entfernungsmesser, wie der schwere beschädigte Kreuzer achtern mehr und mehr wegsackt und schließlich mit schwerer Schlagseite sinkend außer Sicht kommt. Auch der kam nicht mehr bis Portsmouth!
Und wieder brüllen die Geschütze, donnert in das Krachen der Einschläge das polternde Bersten von Flächenwürfen feindlicher Bombergeschwader, ein paar Rohre gegen die hundertfache Feuerkraft des Gegners. Sie wissen, daß sie hier ihren letzten Kampf kämpfen. Vielleicht wissen sie auch, daß sie, die vielen unbekannten Soldaten der Marineartillerie, an diesen Tagen in die Geschichte des letzten schweren Kampfes der Seefestung Cherbourg unauslöschlich den Namen ihrer Batterien geschrieben haben.
Seitdem der Seekommandant seinen letzten Funkspruch abgesetzt hatte, wenige Sekunden bevor die eingebaute Wasserbombe die ganze Funkanlage zerriss, haben die Batterien der Kriegsmarine keine Verbindung mehr. Und in der schweren Nacht zum 26. Juni, in der diese Zeilen geschrieben werden, wissen wir nicht, an welchen Stellen des Festungsbereichs noch im letzten Opfergang Marineartilleristen kämpfen und wo sich schon das große Schweigen über die Batteriestellungen gesenkt hat.
Kriegsberichter HANNS H. REINHARDT
Dewey kandidiert für die Republikaner –
Vor der Präsidentenwahl in USA
Stockholm, 26. Juni –
Wie Reuters aus Chicago meldet, wurde die Ernennung des Neuyorker Gouverneurs Thomas Dewey zum republikanischen Präsidentschaftskandidaten nunmehr zur Sicherheit. Vertretungen der größten Staaten im republikanischen Konvent haben am Sonntag nach Ablauf von Wahlversammlungen, die den ganzen Tag überdauerten, die Entschließung gefasst, Dewey zu unterstützen.
Die unabhängige republikanische Zeitung New York Herald Tribune erklärt, was die Organisation und Verwaltung anbelange, so würde sich Dewey als einer der fähigsten Präsidenten erweisen. Die Zeitung meint abschließend, es gebe allerdings auch noch andere fähige Republikaner. Wenn man aber an Washington denke und an die erforderliche Säuberungsaktion im Weißen Haus, sowie an das Durcheinander in außenpolitischen Angelegenheiten, so denke man an Dewey, für den die Amerikaner auch Sympathie empfänden.
Protest gegen britische Einmischung
Lissabon, 26. Juni –
Die britische Regierung versucht unter den in England befindlichen US-Soldaten Stimmung für eine Wiederwahl Roosevelts zu machen. So wurden kürzlich amerikanischen Truppen, die in England eintrafen, Willkommensflugblätter übergeben, die vom britischen Informationsministerium herausgegeben worden waren, und in denen behauptet wurde, daß die Gegner Roosevelts 70 Millionen Dollar eingesetzt hätten, um seine Wiederwahl für die Präsidentenschaft zu verhindern.
Diese Einmischung der britischen Regierung in die amerikanische Innenpolitik hat in den USA stürmische Empörung hervorgerufen. Die Neuyorker Zeitung Journal American erklärt: Die Briten sollten endlich einmal den Verstand aufbringen, zu begreifen, daß sich die amerikanische Bevölkerung eine Einmischung in ihre Politik nicht gefallen lasse.
Auch Senator Bridges, der Vertreter des Staates New Hampshire, der als englandfreundlich bekannt ist, verurteilt in schärfster Form den britischen Eingriff in die amerikanische Wahlpolitik. Senator Bird, der Vertreter Virginias, wies die Londoner Regierung darauf hin, daß ähnliche Anmaßungen britischer Behörden und weitere Versuche, die Meinung Amerikas zu beeinflussen, zu „unberechenbaren“ Störungen der Beziehungen zwischen den beiden Ländern führen müssen.
Innsbrucker Nachrichten (June 27, 1944)
Beispielhafte Tapferkeit der Verteidiger von Cherbourg
Heftiger Abwehrkampf unserer Truppen gegen massierte Sowjetkräfte – 54 Feindflugzeuge beim Terrorangriff auf Wien abgeschossen
dnb. Aus dem Führerhauptquartier, 27. Juni –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
In Cherbourg wurde den ganzen Tag über in einzelnen Stützpunkten mit größter Erbitterung gekämpft. Erst gegen Abend gelang es dem Gegner, der in den blutigen Straßenkämpfen schwere Verluste erlitt, sich in den Besitz eines großen Teiles der Stadt zu setzen. Einige unserer Widerstandsnester kämpfen dort immer noch mit beispielhafter Tapferkeit. Im Arsenal und in einer Anzahl von Marine- und Luftwaffenstützpunkten halten die tapferen Besatzungen allen feindlichen Sturmangriffen stand. Auch hier hatte der Gegner schwere Verluste. Land- und Küstenbatterien der auf der Halbinsel nordwestlich Cherbourg befindlichen eigenen Kampfgruppe unterstützen die Verteidiger der Stadt mit gutliegendem Artilleriefeuer.
Marinetruppen der Küstenbatterien, der Nachrichten- und Landdienststellen sowie an Land eingesetzte Schiffsbesatzungen haben sich bei den Kämpfen um Cherbourg unter dem Oberbefehl des Seekommandanten der Normandie, Konteradmiral Hennecke und unter Führung des Hafenkommandanten von Cherbourg, Fregattenkapitän Witt, besonders ausgezeichnet.
Die Marineküstenbatterie „Yorck“ versenkte vor Cherbourg einen leichten Kreuzer.
Im Raum von Tilly dehnte der Feind seine Angriffe auf weitere Abschnitte aus. Den ganzen Tag über hielten schwerste Infanterie- und Panzerkämpfe an. Der Feind, der durch Gegenangriffe zum Stehen gebracht wurde, konnte nur wenig Boden gewinnen.
Vor der Ornemündung zwangen unsere Küstenbatterien mehrere Transporter zum Abdrehen. In der letzten Zeit wurden zahlreiche mit Fallschirm abgesetzte feindliche Sabotagetrupps im französischen Raum im Kampf niedergemacht.
Schweres „V. 1“-Störungsfeuer lag weiterhin auf dem Stadtgebiet von London.
In Italien setzte der Gegner seine starken Durchbruchsangriffe fort. Trotz starker Artillerie- und Panzerunterstützung konnte er nur an einigen Stellen am äußersten Westflügel wenige Kilometer nach Norden Vordringen. An der gesamten übrigen Front bis zum Trasimenischen See erzielten unsere Truppen bei tropischer Hitze einen vollen Abwehrerfolg.
Bei den Kämpfen nördlich Grosseto hat sich eine Kampfgruppe unter Oberstleutnant Ziegler besonders bewährt. Der tapfere Kommandeur fand hierbei den Heldentod.
Im Mittelabschnitt der Ostfront stehen unsere tapferen Divisionen in den Abschnitten Bobruisk, Mogilew und Orscha in heftigem Abwehrkampf gegen die mit massierten Kräften angreifenden Sowjets. Westlich und südwestlich Witebsk kämpfen sie sich auf neue Stellungen zurück, östlich Polozk brachen zahlreiche von Panzern unterstützte Angriffe der Bolschewisten zusammen. Südöstlich Pleskau beseitigten unsere Grenadiere einen Einbruch vom Vortag und wiesen wiederholte Gegenangriffe der Bolschewisten ab.
An der finnischen Front vernichteten deutsche Schlachtflugzeuge 23 feindliche Panzer.
Schwere deutsche Kampfflugzeuge führten in der vergangenen Nacht zusammengefasste Angriffe gegen die Bahnhöfe Brjansk und Klinzy, die ausgedehnte Brände und Explosionen verursachten.
Ein nordamerikanischer Bomberverband griff in den gestrigen Vormittagsstunden Außenbezirke der Stadt Wien an. Es entstanden Gebäudeschäden und Verluste unter der Bevölkerung. Deutsche und ungarische Luftverteidigungskräfte vernichteten 54 feindliche Flugzeuge, darunter 46 viermotorige Bomber.
In der vergangenen Nacht warfen einzelne britische Flugzeuge Bomben auf Landgemeinden im Raum von Göttingen.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (June 27, 1944)
Communiqué No. 43
The fall of CHERBOURG ends the second phase in the campaign on liberation. Twenty days after the initial assault, Allied Forces have established a firm beachhead which includes almost the whole of the COTENTIN PENINSULA and a major port.
CHERBOURG’S liberation came after a final day of fierce fighting in the northwestern part of the city.
In the battle, the enemy has lost the greater part of four Infantry Divisions, numerous naval and marine units and line of communication troops.
Lt. Gen. KARL-WILHELM VON SCHLIEBEN, commander of the CHERBOURG Garrison, and KONTERADMIRAL HENNECKE, sea defense commander of NORMANDY, have been captured.
A strong attack toward the VILLERS-BOCAGE-CAEN main road has secured CHEUX and FONTENAY and has advanced several miles in the face of heavy German armor and infantry. Progress continues.
Storms and defense clouds minimized air activity yesterday and throughout the night.
Special Communiqué No. 3
CHERBOURG WAS LIBERATED BY ALLIED TROOPS LAST NIGHT.
ENDS SPECIAL COMMUNIQUE NUMBER 3
27 June 44
Communiqué No. 44
Allied forces in the TILLY-CAEN area have crossed the CAEN-VILLERS-BOCAGE railway near MOUEN. Our advance has been made in torrential rain and against determined resistance by enemy infantry and armor.
In the CHERBOURG PENINSULA, we are continuing our attacks against the last remnants of organized opposition. Elements of the enemy’s forces are holding out in the MAUPERTUS airfield east of the CHERBOURG, and in the northwest tip of the peninsula.
Prisoners taken in the peninsula total at least 20,000 and more are being brought in.
Bad weather during this morning severely curtailed air activity but fighter-bombers attacked a train at PARENNES (east of LAVAL) and road transport in the LAVAL and ALENÇON areas.
Early this morning light coastal forces intercepted and engaged a force of enemy trawlers and minesweepers off JERSEY.
Considerable damage was inflicted on the enemy in a gun action in which coastal batteries from the island joined, and one minesweeper was hit by a torpedo. It is considered that this enemy ship may have sunk.
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.
REPUBLICANS MAKE QUICK END TO WAR THEIR BATTLE CRY
Keynoter Warren says party will bring victorious boys home with all speed
Disputes over platform; Dewey avalanche piles up, with Californian unchallenged as his running mate
By Turner Catledge
Chicago, Illinois –
A triple pledge to bring the boys back home quickly and “victorious,” to reopen the doors of opportunity to “all Americans,” and to guard the peace in the future, was sounded yesterday as the Republican battle cry at the opening of the party’s 23rd national convention.
While it was being uttered by Governor Earl Warren of California, temporary chairman, in his keynote address to a cheering throng in the Chicago Stadium, The New York Times gained access to a plank which policy writers had evolved Saturday, pledging the party to a post-war cooperative organization “among sovereign nations,” to prevent military aggression and attain permanent peace in the future.
Meanwhile, word had come from Wendell L. Willkie, the nominee of 1940, that he considered the foreign policy plank, as he understood it, ambiguous, and therefore was disappointed in it.
Willkie’s backer upset
This note of controversy came as a distinct shock to a group of former backers of Mr. Willkie who have been attempting these last few days to bring him in line with the platform, and with a ticker of Thomas E. Dewey of New York for President and Governor Warren for Vice President, which is considered certain of nomination by tomorrow night.
Meanwhile, another complication appeared in the hitherto placid convention picture when the 17 governors who are delegates demanded opportunity to examine and possibly suggest changes in the platform before it is submitted to the convention, probably tonight, for ratification.
The governors did not protest any particular item in the platform as it was agreed to in principle last night. They did protest the fact, however, that one of them put it, an “oligarchy” of Senators, members of the House and other party leaders, had assumed the prerogative of speaking for the party.
The governors feel, as Governor Warren reflected in his keynote address, that they have been the spearhead, more than members of Congress, for the resurgence of Republicanism during the last three years. What happened here when the governors demanded and obtained permission to appear before the Resolutions Committee was another chapter in a protest which first came to light at the Mackinac Island conference in September.
Led by New Englanders
The action was led, as was the move at Mackinac, largely by a New England group, in which Connecticut Governor Raymond E. Baldwin and Maine Governor Sumner Sewall were active.
These new possibilities of trouble ahead did not divert the main line of appeal upon which the party was centering – an appeal to the soldier vote, to those Americans who are weary of the New Deal, and, above all, to those wanting to avoid the tragedy of war in the future.
It was the note on which Governor Dwight Green of Illinois opened the meeting with a welcoming address yesterday morning. It was also the basic tone which members of the Resolutions Committee were attempting to write into the platform. Their troubles were inherent in the task of trying to retain the tone, while using phraseology to appeal to the greatest number, and offend the fewest voters.
The prospect of a Dewey-Warren ticket reached the virtually-certain stage during the day. These are the men who the assembled Republicans are determined will carry to the country a demand for a change of administration, even in the midst of war.
Says New Deal song changes
Governor Warren told his eager audience:
The New Deal came to power with a song on its lips: “Happy Days Are Here Again.” That song is ended. Even the melody does not linger on. Now we are being conditioned for a new song: “Don’t Change Horses in the Middle of a Stream.”
For eleven long years we have been in the middle of the stream. We are not amphibious. We want to get across. We want to feel dry and solid ground under our feet again.
Governor Warren’s address gave a decided stimulus to a convention which opened to the rather listless first session and was not otherwise lifted up during the day because of the cut-and-dried nature of the proceedings.
Standing before the vast stadium audience and the merciless glare of klieg lights and speaking into microphones which transmitted his words throughout the country, Governor Warren first of all summoned his own party to its task. He pledged it to success by the substitution of “indispensable principles” or “indispensable men.” And while he delivered one epigrammatic thrust after another at the New Deal, he admonished the members of the party that their task lay in the future.
Says party looks to future
Governor Warren said:
We do not propose to deny the progress that has been made during the last decade. Neither do we aim to repeal it. Neither do we aim to turn the clock back and make an issue of every administration mistake in the past eleven years. We are less concerned about these past errors than about the direction in which, for the future, we are going.
The Republicans simply believe, he said, that the New Deal is leading the country “away from representative government.” They believe, he continued, that it is destroying the two-party system, that the New Deal is no longer the Democratic Party.
Mr. Warren said:
It [the New Deal] Is an incongruous critique within that party.It talks of idealism and seeks its votes from the most corrupt political machines in this country.
The leaders of its inner circle are not representatives of the people. They are the personal agents of one man. Their appointments to office are on the basis of loyalty to the clique. Under their rule, the Constitution has been short-circuited. Both Congress and the judiciary have been intimidated and bludgeoned to make them servile.
His outline of party’s job
Mr. Warren emphasized through his speech that the Republican Party had the responsibility not primarily to criticize, but to recognize and get to work on its own job, set forth thus:
To get our boys back home again – victorious and with all speed.
To open the door for all Americans – to open it, not just to jobs, but to opportunity!
To make and guard the peace so wisely and so well that this time will be the last time that American homes are called to give their sons and daughters to the agony and tragedy of war.
Thus, in guarding the peace, Governor Warren said, the Republicans were prepared to take a definite stand against aggression, “not merely to denounce it, but to resist and restrain it.” That, he said, calls for “effective cooperation with all the peace-loving nations of the world, for the establishment of a tribunal for the settlement of international disputes which otherwise might lead to war.”
The Republicans agreed, he added, that if international cooperation were to be effective, “the friendly cooperation of the war’s principal allied combatants – the United States, Great Britain, Russia and China – is as essential as the keystone of an arch.” But the party stood ready, he said, to welcome every nation that is prepared “in honesty and goodwill” to join in the accomplishment of the purposes of peace and world rehabilitation.
Republicans should also insist, he added, that America must be kept strong if this country is to keep its own commitments.
The job the party had to do, he went on, was too great for “petty politics,” name-calling or hate-making.
He said:
There is no place among us for malcontents. We are in no mood for torchlight jubilation. Whether we win as a party is of less importance to us than whether we win as a people.
The Governor excited his audience, sitting in intense heat, with his attacks on the New Deal and the “indispensable man,” by whom he obviously meant President Roosevelt.
Enthusiasm also greeted his assertions of the party’s aspirations for the soldiers and sailors when they come home. The reception otherwise was comparatively mild, except now and then when some particular epigram caught the fancy of the crowd. There were numerous vacant seats in the galleries, but it was a huge crowd nevertheless. The Californian delivered his speech rapidly, and so passed up applause he otherwise might have received.
Rep. Joseph W. Martin, House Minority Leader, will be chosen permanent chairman today to guide the convention through the business of nominating candidates. Mr. Martin will address the meeting upon his election.
Former President Herbert Hoover is to speak to the convention tonight, as is Rep. Clare Boothe Luce (R-CT).
Dewey leaders proceeded with detailed plans for the nomination and notification of the Governor as additional state caucuses added to the avalanche of delegate support for him.
Governor Dwight Griswold of Nebraska was chosen as the man to put the New York Governor’s name formally before the convention, probably tomorrow. Under a plan worked out yesterday, Alabama, the first on the list, will yield to Nebraska when the roll call of states is ordered.
ACCORD OF NATIONS FAVORED IN PLANK ON FOREIGN POLICY
‘Participation in cooperative organization’ provided ‘to attain permanent peace’
Taft predicts adoption; declaration calls for seeking ‘economic stability,’ pledges constitutional procedure
By James B. Reston
Foreign policy plank
Chicago, Illinois –
The text of the draft of the Republican plank on foreign policy as approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee follows:The Republican Party pledges:
Prosecution of the war to total victory against all our enemies in full cooperation with the United Nations, and the speedy return of our Armed Forces.
Support of our Armies and the maintenance of our Navy under the competent and trained direction of our General Staff and Office of Naval Operations without civilian interference, with every civilian resource.
Organization of the home front to the maximum of our civilian resources.
We declare our relentless aim to win the war against all our enemies: (1) for our own American security and welfare; (2) to make and keep the Axis powers impotent to renew tyranny and attack; (3) for the attainment of peace and freedom based on justice and security.
We shall seek to achieve such aims through organized international cooperation and not by joining a world state.
We favor responsible participation by the United States in post-war cooperative organization among sovereign nations to prevent military aggression and to attain permanent peace with organized justice in a free world.
Such organization should develop effective cooperative means to direct peace forces to prevent or repel military aggression. Pending this, we pledge continuing collaboration with the United Nations to assure these ultimate objectives.
We believe, however, that peace and security do not depend upon the sanction of force alone, but should prevail by virtue of reciprocal interests and spiritual values recognized in these security agreements. The treaties of peace should be just; the nations which are the victims of Axis aggression should be restored to sovereignty and self-government; and the organized cooperation of the nations should concern itself with basic causes of world disorder. It should promote a world opinion to influence the nations to right conduct, develop international law and maintain an international tribunal to deal with justiciable disputes.
We shall seek, in our relations with other nations, conditions calculated to promote worldwide economic stability, not only for the sake of the world, but also to the end that our own people may enjoy a high level of employment in an increasingly prosperous world.
We shall keep the American people informed concerning all agreements with foreign nations. In all of these undertakings we favor the widest consultation of the gallant men and women in our Armed Forces who have a special right to speak with authority on behalf of the security and liberty for which they fight. We shall sustain the Constitution of the United States in the attainment of our international aims; and pursuant to the Constitution of the United States any treaty or agreement to attain such aims made on behalf of the United States with any other nation or any association of nations, shall be made only by and with the advice and consent of the Senate of the United States, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.
We shall at all times protect the essential interests and resources of the United States.
Chicago, Illinois –
The Republican Party platform will favor “participation by the United States in post-war cooperative organization among sovereign nations to prevent military aggression and to attain permanent peace.”
The party’s Foreign Affairs Committee, headed by Senator Warren Austin (R-VT), has unanimously approved a plank which calls on the future world peace organization to “develop effective cooperative means to direct peace forces to prevent or repel military aggression.”
Pending the formation of this world peace organization, the plank recommends that the United States should “pledge continuing collaboration with the United Nations.”
Senator Robert A. Taft, chairman of the party’s Resolutions Committee, to which the platform will be submitted later this morning, said he was certain that the foreign affairs plank as recommended by Senator Austin’s committee would be adopted.
Objectives of peace treaties
After stating that the party favored “prosecution of the war to total victory against all our enemies in full cooperation with the United Nations and the speedy return of our Armed Forces,” the plank emphasized that justice in the writing of the peace was the essence of realism.
The Foreign Affairs Committee said:
We believe that peace and security do not depend upon the sanction of force alone, but should prevail by virtue of reciprocal interests and spiritual values recognized in these security agreements.
The treaties of peace should be just; the nations which are the victims of Axis aggression should be restored to sovereignty and self-government, and the organized cooperation of the nations should concern itself with basic causes of world disorder.
Elaborating on “cooperation,” the committee continued:
We shall seek, in our relations with other nations, conditions calculated to promote worldwide economic stability, not only for the sake of the world, but also the end that our own people may enjoy a high level of employment in an increasingly prosperous world. We shall develop Pan-American solidarity.
Open negotiations promised
The Wilsonian doctrine of “open covenants openly arrived at” was also supported in the plank which, pledging the party to keep the American people informed concerning all agreements with other nations, said.
In all these consultations, we favor the widest consultation of the gallant men and women in our Armed Forces, who have a special right to speak with authority on behalf of the security and liberty for which they fight.
Taking cognizance of reports that attempts might be made to submit peace agreements to Congress in the form of a joint resolution instead of to the Senate for ratification requiring a two-thirds vote, the committee put into the plank this declaration:
We shall sustain the Constitution of the United States in the attainment of our international aims and, pursuant to the Constitution, any treaty made on behalf of the United States with any other nation or association of nations, shall be made only by and with the advice and consent of the Senate of the United States, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.
Roosevelt plan compared
At first glance, there seems to be little difference between the organization which the Republican platform suggests and the world security body outlined by President Roosevelt and Secretary Hull.
The plank makes it clear that the Republicans, like the Democrats, do not favor the creation of any superstate, but are willing to see the United States cooperate in an association of sovereign nations.
No attempt is made to define the word “sovereignty” and the general impression here is that the party is not prepared to define, ahead of time, the specific conditions under which it would favor war or state specifically how far it would be prepared to go in applying sanctions.
Willkie condemns peace-policy plan
Republican draft on foreign relations could be used to balk cooperation, he says
A few hours after Wendell Willkie had received the text of the proposed Republican foreign policy plank, the 1940 presidential candidate issued a statement denouncing the plan as ambiguous, subject to opposing interpretations and capable of being used to throttle effective collaboration by the United States with other countries to maintain peace.
Mr. Willkie’s views on the Platform Committee’s suggestions were presented to reporters who had been invited to visit his officers at 15 Broad Street. He explained that he chose this form of making them public because he was not a delegate to the convention.
Likening the language proposed for this year’s platform to that employed in 1920, Mr. Willkie recalled that 31 leading Republicans had assured the country that the 1920 formula “was the surest road to an effective international organization,” but that President Harding, immediately after the election, “announced that the League of Nations was dead.”
He continued:
A Republican President elected under the proposed platform of 1944 could, with equal integrity, announce that the United States would not enter any world organization in which the nations agreed jointly to use their “sovereign” power for the suppression of aggression.
The net result would be no international organization. No effective international force for the suppression of aggression. No peaceful world. Another world war fought in vain. And the youth of America once more betrayed.
As a Republican, I am desperately anxious for my party to pursue a course that will entitle it to win the November elections. As I am not a delegate to the convention, I take this method of presenting my views on the proposed foreign relations plank of the platform, which I understand will be presented to the convention tomorrow [Tuesday]. I have not, as yet, had the privilege of seeing the other proposed planks.
He also made it clear that his criticism was not directed against Senator Warren R. Austin (R-VT), chairman of the subcommittee which drafted the foreign policy recommendation. Describing the Senator as an “able, forthright statesman,” Mr. Willkie said that he hoped his own statement would assist the senator in obtaining “a better resolution.”
Mr. Willkie’s statement on the proposed foreign relations plank was as follows:
The Platform Committee presently proposes to submit to the convention on Tuesday a foreign relations plank, which pledges in part as follows:
We shall seek to achieve such aims [aims to keep America secure, to keep the Axis powers impotent to renew tyranny and attack, and to attain peace and freedom based on justice and security] through organized international cooperation and not by joining a world state.
We favor responsible participation by the United States in post-war cooperative organization among sovereign nations to prevent military aggression and to attain permanent peace with organized justice in a free world.
Such organization should develop effective cooperative means to direct peace forces to prevent or repel military aggression. Pending this, we pledge continuing collaboration with the principal United Nations to assure these ultimate objectives.
It [such organized cooperation] should promote a world opinion to influence the nations to right conduct, develop international law and maintain an international tribunal to deal with justiciable disputes.
Pursuant to the Constitution of the United States, any treaty made on behalf of the United States with any other nation or any association of nations, shall be made only by and with the advice and consent of the Senate of the United States, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.
In 1920, the Republican Convention adopted a foreign relations plank which provided as follows:
The Republican Party stands for agreement among the nations to preserve the peace of the world. We believe that such an international association must be based upon international justice, and must provide methods which shall maintain the rule of public right by the development of law and the decision of impartial courts, and which shall secure instant and general international conference whenever peace shall be threatened by political action, so that the nations pledged to do and insist upon what is just and fair may exercise their influence and power for the prevention of war.
Thirty-one leading Republicans, interpreting this language, assured the American electorate that a Republican victory was the surest road to an effective world organization.
The Republicans won the election of 1920. A Republican President, claiming that he in no way repudiated the party’s platform, immediately after the election announced that the League of Nations was dead.
A Republican President elected under the proposed platform of 1944 could, with equal integrity, announce that the United States would not enter any world organization in which the nations agreed jointly to use their “sovereign” power for the suppression of aggression.
And every effective world organization proposed could be rejected as a “world state.” And all proposed joint forces for the suppression of aggression could be called armed forces and not “peace forces.” And each proposed step taken by any world organization in which we might participate could be called a treaty and, as such, would be subject to ratification by two-thirds of the United States Senators.
The net result would be no international organization. No effective international force for the suppression of aggression. No peaceful world. Another world war fought in vain. And the youth of America once more betrayed.
It may well be maintained that the language of the resolution means otherwise. And so it might. And so might the language of the plank of 1920 have meant something different from the interpretation given it by the victorious candidate.
But we cannot afford in 1944 to be ambiguous. Sequences, as we may have seen, can be too grave. There must be no playing with phony phrases such as “world state,” or use of gentle language such as “peace forces,” or repeated emphasis on “sovereign” nations with nationalistic implications. There must be no self-defeating requirements about submitting each and every individual step in international cooperation to the advice and consent of two-thirds of the United States Senators.
We know from bitter experience that the United States cannot survive militarily, politically or economically in the modern world without close and continuing cooperation with other peace-loving nations. On the necessity for such cooperation, we should speak in words forthright, clear and strong.
We should demand the immediate creation of a Council of the United Nations as a first step toward the formation of a general international organization in order that all the peoples of the United Nations should have a voice in the decision which will shape the world in which they live. These decisions should not and must not be made by three or four great powers alone.
We should advocate the use of American sovereignty in cooperation with other powers to create a continuing international organization for the good of all, with the power to uphold its decisions by force if necessary. For our sovereignty is something to be used, not hoarded. Each nation should maintain land, sea and air forces to be used collaboratively, in agreed situations and within agreed limits, to prevent aggression.
International disputes, which are clearly covered by international law, should be submitted to courts and judges, and those which are not should be settled by conciliation and compromise.
For such a procedure to work successfully, the members of the international organization must say plainly, in advance, that if peaceful methods fail, the aggressor state will encounter sufficient armed forces to ensure his defeat.
In an international organization which was backed by the machinery needed to enforce its decisions, the United States, for the first time in history, would be in a position to deal boldly and effectively with the problems which will confront it. In cooperation with our allies, we shall still be leaders by virtue of the strength and ingenuity of our people. To use this leadership, for our own enrichment and that of mankind, will not be to weaken the sovereign power of the American people; it will be to widen it and make it more real.
Willkie’s friends ‘surprised’
Chicago, Illinois – (June 26)
Wendell Willkie’s statement, calling the foreign affairs plank “ambiguous” and ineffectual, caught supporters of the 1940 candidate off guard tonight. They said they were “completely astonished” by the statement of their principal.
The group, which is here, includes John Haynes (former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury), John Cowles and Gardner Cowles Jr. (publishers who have been warm supporters of Mr. Willkie), Ralph Oake (Mr. Willkie’s campaign manager before he withdrew from the race), Fred Baker of Seattle, and former Senator Sinclair Weeks of Massachusetts. They said they would issue a statement of their own, endorsing the party’s plank. Their reaction was taken to indicate a definite break with Mr. Willkie.
Word of Mr. Willkie’s statement came while the group was discussing ways and means for effecting a reconciliation between Mr. Willkie and Governor Dewey which would make it possible for Mr. Willkie to take the stump for the party.
Austin defends the plank
Senator Warren R. Austin (R-VT), chairman of the Platform Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs, said of the plank:
It is not ambiguous.
It definitely stands for the employment or direction of military or economic reactions to prevent or repel military aggression. It offers hope that military force may not be necessary ultimately to prevent war and that through the processes of a general international organization, we may attain security and peace on the basis of self-discipline of nations.
Our policy, stated in the plank, is against a superstate. It is for a new principle of international cooperation implemented by an organization to put it into effect for the security and peace of the world. It is for development of international law and establishment of a world court.
There is no ambiguity about the use of the words “sovereign nations.”
It intends that sovereignty shall be used internationally to keep the peace.
Mr. Willkie is mistaken in saying that if the policy were carried out, it would result in no international organization. It expressly supports such an organization. It does not support an international integrated army. Its military resources are vested in a council with power to direct them in the right regions to the right places on the right occasions.
Senator Joseph Ball (R-MN) said of the statement on foreign policy:
On the whole, it is a strong commitment by the party to a strong and effective international organization to stop future wars.
Disagreement with Mr. Willkie was voiced by Senators White of Maine and Burton of Ohio. The latter said:
I think we can stand on this platform and the candidate can elaborate it to the satisfaction of the nation in the campaign.
Edge upholds the draft
Governor Edge of New Jersey, commenting upon the Willkie statement, said he approved the plank and had confidence in Governor Dewey’s interpretation of the statement.
He said he was not concerned with any interpretation that Governor Dewey would repudiate any obligation to use force if necessary to maintain peace.
Governor Edge added:
I am especially confident in view of Governor Dewey’s speech last April before the newspaper publishers of the nation when he gave this pledge, “To carry on the war to total and crushing victory, and in so doing, to drive home to the aggressor nations a lesson that will never be forgotten.”
Chicago, Illinois (AP) – (June 26)
Senator Taft (R-OH), chairman of the Republican Resolutions Committee, challenged tonight “any adherents” of Wendell Willkie to press before the committee his protest against the foreign policy plank.
He added:
I’d be very much surprised if the plank adopted by the Democratic Platform Committee suits Mr. Willkie any better than that of the Republicans.
Chicago, Illinois (AP) – (June 26)
Senator Vandenberg (R-MI), defending the proposed foreign policy plank against criticism by Wendell Willkie, said tonight that he hoped it was “too late” for anyone to break down efforts made to unite Republicans “upon a program to preserve America and exert our national power for organized peace with justice in a free world.”
14 warships shell Cherbourg at once
British newsman describes destruction of batteries defending harbor
By Desmond Tighe, Reuters correspondent
Aboard HMS GLASGOW, off Cherbourg Harbor, France – (June 25, delayed)
U.S. battleships and heavy cruisers, supported by two British cruisers and seven destroyers, are firing broadside after broadside into German shore batteries at vital key points on the fringes of Cherbourg Harbor in support of the Army.
The bombardment started at exactly 11 minutes past 12:00 this morning and has lasted for more than three hours with German long-range 450mm shore batteries returning the fire vigorously.
As I watched this bombardment from the bridge of HMS Glasgow, victor of the recent Bay of Biscay battle, we are steaming steadily some 15,000 yards off the breakwater of Cherbourg Harbor.
Air resounds with crashes
Our six-inch guns are blazing away as shells scream into a German fort. The air resounds with the crash of broadsides from the battleships, cruisers and destroyers. The Channel sea is whipped with wicked-looking grey-black splashes as we are straddled time and time by German shore batteries.
The German gunnery is good and although we are plastering their concrete gun emplacements with tons of high explosives some of them keep on firing.
The U.S. bombardment task force is commanded by U.S. Navy RAdm. Morton L. Deyo. Adm. Deyo is flying his flag in the heavy cruiser USS Tuscaloosa. Among the warships in his battle squadron are the battleship USS Texas, USS Nevada, USS Arkansas; the cruiser USS Quincy, and the two British cruisers, HMS Glasgow and HMS Enterprise. We are escorted by a strong force of U.S. destroyers. Minesweepers clear the way for us and overhead Lightnings give us constant cover.
The German shore batteries open first. Great spurts of water ruse up near the foremost minesweeper. She continues to move inshore. Again, the sharp crack of bursting shells as the batteries fire. They are sending over anti-personnel shells which burst in the air in a cloud of white smoke with flaming streamers streaking into the sea.
The Enterprise lying on out starboard beam starts bombarding.
The Nevada passes close to us and lets fly a 14-inch broadside. The air seems to shake as these shells roar away toward the German batteries with the sound of an express train.
Now all ships are firing. Our forward turrets open up with a roar. The sky is now filled with smoke. Visibility is practically nil.
We continue to blaze away with our guns at the shore battery. I watch the gunnery officer calmly giving his orders. There are three ugly cracks and we are straddled close to our stern. The German gunnery is good.
The Nevada, looking magnificent standing out of the smokescreen, her Stars and Stripes battle ensign flying high at her topmast, turns away to starboard to take up another bombardment position. She fires her after 14-inch guns with a roar. We are now being straddled by the shore batteries with alarming regularity.
It is now nearly 1 o’clock. The Nevada reappears out of the smokescreen, and as she passes close on our port beam fires point-blank a broadside of 14-inch shells. The range is so short for her that her guns are depressed to their lowest level. Again and again, she pours high explosives into the shore batteries. Some have now stopped but others still carry on.
We continue to fire away with our six-inch guns.
The Quincy appears out of the smoke. Her guns belch broadsides. The German batteries continue to pepper us. Shrapnel tinkles on the bridge structure and on the side of the ship.
The Enterprise is firing away with all she’s got. She passes close to us and the captain waves cheerfully from the bridge.
Then things get really hot. We have been scheduled to bombard for 90 minutes and the time limit is up. Three shells roar right over the ship to explode in the sea some 50 yards away. They are followed by more.
The batteries seem to have got our range. Adm. Deyo makes us a signal to retire to the swept channel. The Nevada leads us out, her guns blazing away at the shore batteries. For a time, all is quiet.
Twenty minutes later, we are again some 15,000 yards from the shore firing at one stubborn battery to the southeast of Cherbourg. The others seem to be out of action.
Aircraft are spotting for us, wheeling over the target area. We close in on the shore and then let fly with a six-gun broadside. Another and another until the gun position is covered with brown smoke curling into the air. But the German gunners continue to fire.
The captain says rather apologetically: “We are being fired at again. Lie low.” We can see the pinpoints of light from this four-gun battery as it opens fire. Then the shells scream over. The Quincy, Tuscaloosa, Nevada and Enterprise are all firing.
It is now a quarter to 4. We have been in action for three and a half hours.
We steam away from Cherbourg, our bombardment mission completed.
U.S. destroyers are laying a white smokescreen as we head north. The Tuscaloosa, Quincy and Nevada, steaming line ahead, pass us on our starboard beam. As a farewell gesture, they fire broadside after broadside of 14-inch shells into the German positions until we are out of range. The shells scream overhead.
As we steam toward our home port in the light of the setting sun, the commander speaks, “The man brace will be spliced as soon as we are in harbor.”
Byrd’s son is wounded
Is paratrooper serving with invasion forces in France
Washington – (June 26)
Senator Harry F. Byrd (D-VA) received word today that his son, Pvt. W. Beverley Byrd, a paratrooper, had been wounded while serving with the invasion troops in France.
Pvt. Byrd, now in his early 20s, is a member of the 82nd Airborne Division. His injuries were not specified.
All three of Senator Byrd’s sons are in the armed services. Harry F. Byrd Jr., the eldest, is a naval lieutenant in the Pacific area; Beverley is the next oldest; Richard Evelyn, the youngest, is a sergeant in the Armored Infantry.
Vienna war plants get heavy bombing
Italy-based planes pound oil, aircraft works – weather cuts invasion support
…
U.S. troops scale lofty Saipan peak
Tapochau, dominating island, is reported won – carrier planes batter Guam and Rota
By George F. Horne
Campaign in Marianas pressed forward
On Saipan Island, U.S. troops occupied part of the town of Garapan (1). They reached the top of Mount Tapochau (2) and to the east captured the Kagman Peninsula (3). Meanwhile, U.S. carrier planes smashed at Guam and Rota. On Guam, they attacked an airfield on the Orote Peninsula (A), nearby Port Apra and an airfield near Agana (B). Inset shows position of the islands.
USPACFLT HQ, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii – (June 26)
Mount Tapochau on Saipan Island has been scaled by U.S. Marines who are now established in positions near the summit. Marines and Army troops have made substantial gains on both the eastern and western shores of the island.
A front dispatch said that Tapochau which dominated the island and has been the goal of our men ever since they landed on Saipan, had been captured by troops who held it against a before-dawn Japanese counterattack Sunday.
Adm. Chester W. Nimitz stated that the Kagman Peninsula, forming the upper arm of Magicienne Bay, was now entirely in our hands and that troops had penetrated farther northward in the lower part of Garapan Town, capital of the Marianas. It is the first fighting between U.S. and Japanese troops in a Japanese town of its size.
Enemy forces were still holding tenaciously to positions on Nafutan Point to the extreme southeast, but we have made small gains there nevertheless.
Thirty-six tanks destroyed
Our forces, to date, have destroyed 36 tanks and captured 40 more from the enemy.
A fast carrier task force attached to the Fifth Fleet under Adm. Raymond A. Spruance raided both Guam and Rota on Saturday, destroying six enemy planes on the Orote Peninsula airfield on Guam and probably destroying two more. Runways and revetments were bombed and a large cargo vessel in Port Apra at Guam, which had been damaged in a previous strike, was again attacked.
Tons of bombs were dropped on the airstrip near Agana Town on Guam and one enemy plane was destroyed on the ground, eight to ten others receiving damage.
At Rota Island, revetments and buildings were bombed and air crews reported starting fires. Two more planes were destroyed on the ground, bringing the plane losses of the enemy in the Marianas campaign to 756 craft by the scoreboard posted at Fleet headquarters.
The Japanese have been fighting bitterly on Saipan. In the center of the line, they slowed our progress by firing from caves in cliffs overlooking U.S. positions, but our forces bypassed these pockets, went beyond them and then closed in, leaving the caves surrounded.
Our artillery then moved to close range and started pounding the cave areas into submission.
Adm. Nimitz said that the troops pushing into the Kagman Peninsula had captured three coastal defense guns.
Half of Saipan now held
From the western end of the front at Garapan Town, our line now runs a jagged course across the island to a point above Kagman, roughly bisecting the island. We now hold about half of Saipan’s 75 square miles, with the two surrounded resistance pockets in the cliffs of Tapochau and to the south on Nafutan Point. They are being squeezed relentlessly from all sides.
Activities on Aslito Airfield have not been mentioned for several days, but it can be presumed that it is now being used by U.S. planes and our forces can henceforth expect even closer air support in pushing northward into the upper half of the island.
The lower end has been principally sugarcane terrain relatively flat. The north half is higher with plateaus, more cliffs and generally more rugged territory on which to fight. There is another cane plantation in the north and another airfield. It was last reported under construction at the very northern edge of the island and may not have been finished.
Elsewhere in the Pacific, we continue to pound away at enemy bases. Paramushiru and Shumushu in the Kurils were bombed by Liberators of the 11th Army Air Force and Ventura search planes of Fleet Air Wing Four before dawn Saturday starting large fires. All of our planes returned although anti-aircraft fire was intense.
Marine and Navy planes continued to keep enemy bases in the Marshalls neutralized.
Denny: Pockets of Nazis kept on sniping as Americans overran Cherbourg
By Harold Denny
With U.S. forces at Cherbourg, France – (June 26)
The Germans fought a last-ditch defense in Cherbourg this evening, though the outcome was inescapable. Substantial elements of the U.S. forces got into the city from the south only after a piece-by-piece conquest of succeeding strongpoints and the Germans were still firing on them in the city and from two pillboxes remaining on Fort du Roule with 88mm field pieces and machine guns. The city has been considerably damaged but less than one would have thought. As a whole, it is intact, though many individual buildings have been smashed.
Dominating all was the arsenal, where the last important holdout group was still firing rifles while large portions of the structure were burning with a red glow and towering black smoke.
Holding out about equally with the arsenal was one last desperate little group of cannoneers at Fort du Roule.
It stands like Gibraltar and should have been impregnable. Its fortifications of reinforced concrete, several stories deep and tunneled into solid rock, behind one of the Maginot Line fortresses, which I visited the first winter of this war. They include an electric light plant, underground barracks, an underground hospital and abundant stores of everything conceivable, including the best wine and brandy. It has been conquered repeatedly in this battle, yet parts of it still continued to fight tonight.
Sunday one of our units overran it and apparently had it all under control. But these fortifications are connected by rock tunnels and in the night, the soldiers crawled back up and manned one formidable system of big guns protected by two lesser pillboxes armed with .30-caliber machine guns and 20mm cannon at the end of the mountain nearest the town. They opened fire both on our soldiers feeling their way through the city below and against our men farther back.
The American commander sent a strong force against it at 6 o’clock this morning and at the same time had heavy artillery and mortar fire laid down. While this barrage kept the enemy’s heads down our infantry crept up and exploded pole charges, threw in grenades and finally leaped into the positions and captured the survivors. They got about 150 there. The same troops then went over the side of “Gibraltar” and fought straight through the city, gathering up machine-gunners and snipers hiding on building tops and drove block by block straight to the waterfront.
They gathered up some hundreds of prisoners on the way and herded them clear to the water’s edge.
General leaves, guns fire
So, Fort du Roule seemed conquered once more. Yet it was believed still more Germans lurked in a gallery still deeper underground and protected by thick steel doors.
They were there when a general visited the fort and inspected the fortifications a few feet above them late this afternoon. Fifteen minutes after the general left, that hidden garrison opened fire again on the city and there ensued a remarkable artillery duel.
Our forces in the town below had brought in tank destroyers and howitzers. They fired back at the fort. Retreating to a safe distance at one side and crouching at the edge of a trench full of dead Germans, I could see the flash of our guns in the town and then a burst of fire and smoke as the shells hit around the fort’s embrasures. The fort would reply with its hard bark and an almost instant burst of a shell down below. Our guns were firing with remarkable accuracy and from my vantage point it seemed certain that some of our missiles must be getting through. After an hour, Fort du Roule was silent again and that was the end for it.
Tanks back up infantry
By Don Whitehead, Associated Press correspondent
With U.S. troops in Cherbourg, France – (June 26, 9:12 p.m.)
Fanatic defenders of Cherbourg made a last desperate effort today to hold out against doughboys closing in to wipe out the last pockets of resistance.
As we walked through the streets of Cherbourg, doughboys moved up to close in on the pillboxes that were still firing from the beach.
The Amiot aircraft plant, or what was once a plant, was a burning, charred ruins, sabotaged by the Germans in their last hours in Cherbourg.
Down the road less than 100 yards, our tanks were sitting on the beach near knocked-out enemy strongpoints, blasting at machine-gun nests still holding out. The rattle of machine-gun fire broke out intermittently.
The tanks helped the doughboys fight their way through tough, scattered knots of resistance to enter the city late yesterday. When the Germans began firing from houses along the route of advance, the tanks rolled up and blasted the positions.
In one house, a German officer and three enlisted men lay dead with bullet holes through their foreheads, neat round holes put there by an expert doughboy rifleman. The officer lay with a champagne bottle in one hand and his rifle in the other. He had decided to fight to the last.
Resistance was disorganized. Defenders, still manning guns, were German fanatics trapped like rats. There was no escape for them.
A United Press report from Cherbourg said some Germans broke most of their rifles and machine guns and had blown off the muzzles of their artillery before surrendering.
The first unit into this section of the city was led by Lt. George Myers of Cincinnati, Ohio. This was the spearhead that sliced off the eastern part of the city.
Few booby traps found
There were surprisingly few mines and booby traps left by the Germans to hamper the U.S. entrance into the city. Most opposition was from machine-gun nests and guns in the forts.
The unit here has found only two booby traps so far and the only mines were those in front of the smashed beach defenses.
Coming into the city, the doughboys hit one tough knot of resistance with a German colonel and 300 troops holed up in a building and armed with machine guns and rifles.
Lt. Benjamin Westervelt of 418 Stockholm Street, Brooklyn, New York:
We just brought up tanks and boys with automatic Browning rifles and poured fire through the windows and doors. That got ‘em. The colonel came out to surrender his men. They poured out of there through the windows and doors in streams.
The unit kept one of the prisoners and when a pillbox strongpoint was encountered, he was sent forward to tell the defenders that unless they surrendered tanks would be brought up and all of them wiped out.
Lt. Westervelt said:
We got 56 out of that bag. We did the same thing at other places, too, and this man convinced more than 100 Germans to surrender.
There were few civilians in the section of the city we visited. But those on the streets were giving a warm welcome to the Americans.
German luxury noted
In a wine shop, Sgt. Harold Shortsleeve of Rutland, Vermont, had his heavy machine-gun squad cleaning their weapons before moving up to take part in the action against the pillboxes still blasting away at our troops.
Sgt. Shortsleeve said with a grin:
We’re waiting for artillery and mortars to get to work and then we’ll go in to clear up the pillboxes.
In the Hôtel Atlantique were cases of wine, cognac and champagne left behind by the Germans when they fled the city.
There the shelves were filled with fine sauternes, burgundies and liqueurs. The Germans has requisitioned the hotel for labor troops of the Todt Organization. They had lived in comfort in the 500-room hostelry.
Nazi billet found filthy, insanitary
Dirt, grease and insects in German quarters in France arouse U.S. medical officer
By Frederick Graham
Advanced 9th Air Force fighter base, on Cherbourg front, France – (June 25, delayed)
This is just to report another chipped place in that fabulous mosaic that portrays the German as a super soldier.
What we have seen of how German soldiers and officers lived here has led U.S. Army medical officers to conclude he is not like his 1914-15 prototype so far as health and sanitary conditions are concerned. Either he does not know anything about fundamental army sanitation or he us amazingly indifferent.
Headquarters of this outfit are in a lovely old building that has been used by Allied or German troops since 1940. British soldiers occupied it until Dunkerque and then German troops took over. We moved in on Jerry’s heels a few days ago – so fast in fact that he did not have time to cart off a tub of fine French butter he had requisitioned from French farmers.
According to Lt. Col. Stanley Ungar of 2 E 4th Street, New York, medical officer for this fighter wing, the Germans violated just about every rule of army sanitation, and even to a layman it is evident to more than just the eye that they were not very clean or tidy.
The building itself and latrines cannot be excused on the ground the Germans had only temporary quarters there, Col. Ungar believes. Nor can the haste in which they left be given as an excuse. Col. Ungar pointed to the thick crust of dust and grease on the floors and walls and the bed lice.
A 200-year-old stone building was used as an officers’ latrine – and col. Ungar doubts if it was ever cleaned out or even sprinkled with lime.
In the immediate rear of the house was a large decorative pond filled with slimy green water from which swarms of mosquitos flew all day and night.
Most of the Germans, including officers, slept on mattresses made of burlap and filled with straw. Bed lice crawled all over them.
The first thing Col. Ungar and his medicos did when this outfit moved in was to cover the pond with oil, pour lime into the old latrine and then seal it off. All floors were “G.I.’d” which means scrubbed with hot water and soap. New latrines were built some distance away. the straw mattresses were burned and walls and ceilings scrubbed – and as soon as paint is available the rooms are going to get a new coat of paint.
Airborne commanders named
SHAEF, England (AP) – (June 26)
It was disclosed today for the first time that Brig. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, who was sent secretly to Rome for a pre-surrender discussion with Marshal Pietro Badoglio, now commands the 101st Airborne Division, which landed on D-Day, and that Maj. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway, who commanded the 82nd Airborne Division in Sicily and Italy, led it into Normandy.
Germans’ strength in Normandy believed far less than Allies’
Uneven complements of divisions, use of foreign troops and variations in armaments are factors
SHAEF, England – (June 26)
The uneven strength of divisions, the wide use of non-German troops and the lack of uniformity in armament contribute to the belief that the German Army facing the Allies in Normandy is a lesser vehicle than the military machine that awed Europe in 1940 and 1941.
The Germans have fought with valor and skill, but a comparison of enemy divisions with U.S. and British divisions leads inevitably to the conclusion that the Allies are stronger. Four years ago, a German division was the measure for military strength the world over. That is no longer true.
The task forces of some regular armored divisions are composed of one battalion of German Mark IV tanks and one battalion of French SOMUA tanks. The latter is a durable machine, but it was evolved in 1937.
Elite Guard armored divisions usually have more troops – up to 20,000 men – and better tanks than the regular armored divisions. The same is true to some extent, of infantry divisions. These are now divided into two categories: field service and limited employment; that is, static service divisions. The former are better equipped and include younger and tougher soldiers than the latter, whose age group is from 35 to 40. Three types of non-German troops are serving in the German Army.
There are Ost battalions of Russians. Frequently one of these makes up the third battalion of an infantry regiment, or three of them form the third regiment of a division. Sometimes they are officered by Russians, sometimes by Germans. When there is a Russian commander, he is accompanied by a watchful German assistant. Many Russians, when captured, are considered normal prisoners of war. The Russian troops have been forced into service.
The second type of “foreign” troops is the Volksdeutsche, who are regarded as Germans though born abroad. They serve in German units and theoretically there is no difference between them and German soldiers. Then there are the Hilfsfreiwilligen – “volunteers” – who serve a ammunition carriers, drivers and cooks with combat units or on lines of supply.
Here is how the divisions appear to the Americans and Britons fighting them in France. Four armored divisions have been identified in Normandy. They consist of a reconnaissance unit, a regiment of tanks, two regiments of armored grenadiers – that is, infantry – three battalions of field artillery and permanently attached battalions of anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery.
A reconnaissance unit is composed of five companies; two companies of armored cars, two companies of infantry in armored trucks and a heavy company of supporting arms. A tank regiment is composed of two battalions: one of three companies of Mark IVs, 18 tanks to a company, and one battalion of SOMUAs.
An ordinary regiment of armored grenadiers has two battalions. In an armored division, there are two regiments of these. One is carried in armored vehicles close behind the tanks. The other follows the trucks a little to the rear. Generally, the armored grenadiers are the best infantry in the German Army.
The field guns of an armored division are the 105mm gun-howitzers, while an anti-aircraft battalion is armored with the 88mm gun, which can also be used against tanks. An anti-tank battalion has both 88mm and 47mm weapons.
Elite Guard armored divisions, instead of a battalion of French tanks, have a battalion of French tanks, have a battalion of Mark Vs. The Mark V is armed with a long-barreled 75mm gun of great hitting power, while the Mark IV has a short-barreled weapon of the same caliber.
Germans tricked by D-Day diversion
‘Bluff’ fleet sent against Calais drew off enemy’s planes, British officer says
The German Air Force, absent from the Normandy invasion, went into the air to attack a “diversion” fleet that the Allies sent on D-Day into the Calais-Boulogne area, Cdr. Anthony Kimmins, British naval intelligence officer, said yesterday.
The Germans expected the Allied blow to land in that area, he said in an interview at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. He predicted that:
When the Germans’ final defense plans are found, I think we will discover that they thought we were coming in there.
Cdr. Kimmins came to the United States direct from the Normandy beaches, where he went ashore from one of the leading assault ships on D-Day. That night, he returned to England in a motor torpedo boat to report to the Admiralty and the next day he was back on the beachhead, where he stayed a week. He has been present at almost every landing of the war, including Norway, North Africa, Pantelleria, Sicily and Salerno with British troops. He was with U.S. forces in the Kwajalein landing.
The ships that went on the “bluff” invasion did not suffer much damage, he said. He added, “I think the men had a very good time. They just made a lot of noise.”
The Germans’ behavior was described by the Norman population as “very correct,” he said. Invasion, to the villagers, meant bombardment for the first time, as their agricultural land had not previously suffered from the Allied air blows and they had lived a comparatively comfortable existence during the past four years, the commander said.
The Germans were forced to use the robot planes prematurely, he said. He believed that they had all been aimed for the invasion ports, but the incessant Allied pounding of their bases had forced the Germans to shoot them at any target they could find. The planes could have been “a very serious menace” if used all at once from every site, he said.
Describing the ships in the Channel during the invasion, he said that it had been “just like walking down Broadway with traffic in all directions.” Ships “poured across” the Channel in a steady stream, in long orderly lines, massed from the British coast to the French coast, he said.
Sniping by French denied by Allies
Headquarters praises their aid to invasion forces – mine strike begun in north
SHAEF, England (AP) – (June 26)
Investigation has shown that there have been no authenticated instances of French civilian snipers’ firing on Allied troops, a special Supreme Headquarters announced said today.
On the contrary, French resistance to the Germans has been of great assistance to the Allies, it added. The statement said:
It is announced by Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, today that investigations have been made of allegations of French civilian snipers firing on Allied troops. No authenticated use of French snipers has been found.
On the other hand, Supreme Headquarters emphasized that French resistance to the Germans has been a great contribution in support of Allied operations.
Miners strike in north
London, England – (June 26)
France’s army without uniforms was reported today to have been joined in resistance by miners of northern France, who are staging a sit-down strike. This is the first instance of its kind reported from France since the invasion began.
Authoritative French sources here, which announced the strike, also disclosed that 3,000 German troops had been employed in a vain attempt to surround maquisards who have regrouped in the Ardennes. A German attack at Saint-Gervais has been repulsed with heavy losses and a German offensive has been foiled in the Chartreuse district.
French forces have taken control of some districts in Provence, where the Germans are attacking and carrying out reprisals. Twenty Frenchmen have been shot in four days at Annecy. One hundred and forty have been killed at Lambesc. The arrests of hostages are increasing in Lorraine, but railway sabotage continues.
Recent sabotage efforts have included the blowing up of transformers serving German factories in the Lower Seine region and the wrecking of a petroleum refinery in the southwest that was supplying oil fir transformers and railway engines. The Germans have been unable to restore the long-distance telephone lines from Paris that were cut on June 6.
De Gaulle strikes note of optimism
Hails accord on patriot forces – indicates hope of early, profitable trip to U.S.
By Harold Callender
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