Briton who escaped Nazis leads tanks below Caen
O’Connor, captured in 1940, escaped last fall
By L. S. B. Shapiro
With British and Canadian forces below Caen, France – (July 22)
Lt. Gen. Sir Richard Nugent O’Connor, commander of the tank forces that broke through into the area below Caen, paid high tribute to the assault formations that gained the original bridgehead and made it possible for him to gather his tanks for the battle that is now raging.
Gen. O’Connor told this correspondent shortly after he arrived:
Whatever the future may hold, there will be nothing to touch the beach landings and the seizure of the lodgment area.
The commander, looking fit and obviously happy to be in action again after confinement in an Italian prison camp for three years, spoke almost exclusively about the feat of the assault troops on D-Day when he was interviewed for the first time in France today.
Praises assault troops
He said:
I honestly do not believe there has been a greater military feat than that done by the assault formations. The Americans particularly had bad luck when they found a whole German division sitting on the beach where they landed and they fought their way through to take Cherbourg.
It was a magnificent show, the whole assault feat. Don’t let that be sidetracked by whatever the future may hold. There will be nothing to touch it.
Gen. O’Connor returned to action after a few months’ rest in England. He was a tank commander under Gen. Sir Archibald P. Wavell in the North African desert warfare of 1940 when he was captured. He escaped in Italy during the advance up the peninsula last October.
Not so good for tanks
I asked the general what his most vivid impression of fighting is now, as compared with four years ago.
He said:
Most striking to me is that I never have been the British Army so well trained and so fit as the forces in Normandy. As for the Germans, they still are very brave men, but they are stretched. I think it is significant that they didn’t attack our forces heavily during the first stormy days after the D-Day landings. Now they have brought their crack divisions into line instead of holding them as strategic reserves. Yes, I think they are badly stretched.
Looking over the country on which his tanks are fighting, he said:
Of course, this is altogether different from desert warfare. Wide outflanking movements by tanks such as we had in the desert is not easy here. The desert was the tank commander’s country.