Victory in 1944 ‘quite likely,’ Monty asserts
Things are going well, general declares
London, England (UP) –
Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery said in a broadcast from France last night that it is “quite likely” the Allies will knock Germany out of the war this year.
Recalling that when he spoke to his officers on the eve of D-Day, he told them “if we do our stuff properly this year in this business, we shall have Germany out of the war this year.” Gen. Montgomery added: “I still hold to that.”
The commander of the Allied invasion armies in France said:
Things are going very well, generally speaking. The great victories on the Russian front, with immense numbers of Germans being written off, are very excellent.
Everything is going well, yet you know as well as I do that the German who is fighting us is a very great fighter defensively.
Gen. Montgomery said that he visited a hospital recently where a badly wounded German prisoner was told that only a blood transfusion could save him.
“He saw the bottle of blood and asked: ‘Is that British blood?’” Gen. Montgomery said.
Told that it was and that he would die if he did not submit to the transfusion, the Nazi said, “All right I will die.” Gen. Montgomery said:
And he did. That will show you the sort of man we are fighting – fanatical Nazis who feel like that.