Patriot raids replace Allied plane attacks
French disrupt Nazi communications
SHAEF, England (UP) –
Lt. Gen. Joseph-Pierre Kœnig ’s French Forces of the Interior, estimated at 500,000 armed men, have sabotaged German communications in France so completely that the Allied air force is now concentrating on fewer targets and the Nazis are forced to channelize their movements into the battle zone, an Allied headquarters spokesman disclosed today.
Paying tribute to the FFI, a Supreme Headquarters special communiqué said that the Vercors, and part of the department of Gers, in the southwest, Doubs and Ain, near the Swiss frontier, and Ardèche, in the southeastern Rhône Valley, had been liberated.
A spokesman interpreted this to mean that the sectors were under Maquis control and that no enemy movements through these areas were possible unless heavily escorted.
A French spokesman added that traffic was stalled entirely in Brittany in northern France, in the Pyrenees–Lyon areas, and on nine main routes, including the Calais–Reich and Paris–Belfort lines which are being cut an average of two to five times daily.