Gorrell: A tale of two French cities
By Henry Gorrell, United Press staff writer
CARENTAN: My jeep rolled past a field of wooden crosses, the civilian dead of Carentan.
The Germans plug shells into Carentan regularly. The story from Berlin probably would be that they were after the bridges across the Douve. But the shells I saw fall today exploded nowhere near the bridges. They blasted a bakery shop and killed or severely wounded more than 20 women and children.
I swerved and heard the boom of the German guns. Then the shells exploded in nearby houses and shops. A medical officer borrowed my jeep to round up U.S. Army ambulances to care for the wounded.
I tried to help by getting civilians off the street. I saw a Frenchman dash up with a wheelbarrow, gather up a child who lay with her head half torn off and run for the first-aid post.
Nuns, oblivious of the shelling, led small children to cover. Two little girls, covered with blood, walked hand in hand toward the aid post. One had a fragment in her hip and walked with a limp. The other’s head bled. Their faces were pale, but they did not cry.
The shelling ended abruptly as fighter-bombers roared over to paste the German artillery. Shopkeepers began to clean up the wreckage so they could resume business.
There will be more crosses in the field outside of Carentan in the morning.
CARTERET: The 23 dancing girls of “La Revue de Paris” went on strike against the U.S. Army today. They were black and blue from riding trucks without cushions – and the Germans had paid more to see their show.
There were no bombs falling on Carteret.
“We cannot live on the dollar a day the Americans allowed us,” Jinnette Rolland, fiery star of the show, shouted, gesturing toward the shack where the dancing girls have been forced to live since the German soldiers moved out of the town’s hotel.
“Beezness is bad – the Germans paid 30 francs to see the show,” Jean Bellanger, manager of the troupe, said.
The dancing girls did not think they should be forced to eat the C and K rations allotted them by U.S. troops, and they resented the fact that they were forced to use Army trucks as transportation.
Jinnette complained:
We are all black and blue here [she showed where] because the trucks have not the cushions.
They have refused to give any performances for the troops unless their salaries are increased another dollar a show. Their show was broken up on D-Day, the girls shrieked, “The Germans left then.”
Two cities in a day’s work.