British breach Nazi lines at ‘extremely light’ cost
The following dispatch was transmitted by United Press staff writer Richard D. McMillan by radio telephone from the Caen area to his London bureau and is the first telephonic news transmission from France to England since the three days before the fall of Paris in 1940. Mr. McMillan spoke on a one-war circuit.
British 2nd Army HQ, France –
Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, wiry, black-bereted Allied assault commander, announced today that “strong armored and mobile forces” have been thrust into the breach in the German defense lines south and southeast of Caen and the first gains were made at “extremely light” cost in personnel and equipment.
Monty of El Alamein was in high spirits as he rattled off a staccato appraisal of the past 24 hours’ fighting.
‘Very good day’
He snapped:
We had a very good day yesterday. An excellent day! We gained tactical surprise. The present situation down there is that we are in strong force south and southeast of Caen. We also have a strong force due east of Caen.
We made a bound forward a few days ago which we wanted badly to make. The Germans didn’t want us to make it.
Gen. Montgomery evidently referred to the capture of Caen, where the Germans had held out from D-Day, June 6, until July 9.
It is quite obvious that our position was improved. Well, yesterday we did it. We went forward again. It was a very good day.
We now have a nice little area on the other side of the Orne with Caen as a center.
Praises Yanks
He praised the “magnificent American soldiers” under Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley, who took Saint-Lô yesterday in peace with the advancing British on the left. He also spoke warmly of the valor of U.S. forces who had made great territorial gains in their dash up the Cotentin Peninsula to seize the port of Cherbourg.
The British airborne division which captured and held for six rugged weeks valuable positions on the east bank of the Orne through which the latest armored blow was launched received a “Monty accolade.”
He said:
Without doing this, it would have been impossible to do with such little casualties what we did yesterday. The men of the airborne division who thus far have died did not die in vain.
Three great teams
The general asserted that “Europe is now one great and vast battlefield with Germany in the middle, ringed by the Allies.” The Allies, he said, are three great teams.
Monty said:
The Allied team in Normandy was welded together under Gen. Eisenhower. Our motto here is “One for all and all for one.”
He spoke with admiration of the gigantic air force which Air Chf. Mshl. Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory threw at the Germans as a prelude to yesterday’s thrust.
Called flexibility
Gen. Montgomery said:
That is flexibility – when you’re able to bomb Berlin one day and hit the Germans on the ground in the battle zone the next. The air bombardment was a most inspiring sight.
Monty said magnificent Allied equipment, including tanks mounting 17-pound guns “in every way superior to the anti-tank guns the Germans have,” had helped inflict many casualties on the enemy while Allied casualties on the first day of the push into central France were “almost negligible.”
“We will have no trouble beating the Germans in battle,” he concluded confidently.