McGlincy: Nazi captives shellshocked after record aerial assault
Officers abandon troops, leaving orders to shoot in back any who try to surrender
By James McGlincy, United Press staff writer
With Allied forces in Normandy, France –
German prisoners captured west of Saint-Lô by U.S. infantrymen today were suffering from shellshock as a result of yesterday’s aerial assault when some 3,000 planes dropped 6,000 tons of bombs in the war’s greatest air bombardment in support of ground troops.
Two of the first prisoners captured following the 2½-hour bombardment said German officers in some sectors abandoned their troops, leaving orders to “shoot any man in the back who attempts to surrender.” The all-out aerial bombardment was the most hellish thing they had ever experienced, the two prisoners said.
One was an 18-year-old Bavarian, conscripted into the paratroops, the other was a 26-year-old, hard-bitten sergeant with three Russian winters behind him. Neither showed signs of shellshock as did many prisoners taken as the Allied forces advanced after the air attack.
17 planes lost
A fleet of 1,500 heavy bombers paced some 3,000 planes in reducing to pulp everything and everybody throughout the wide attack strip where they were estimated to have dropped a bomb every 15 yards. Seventeen aircraft were lost, but it was officially announced that 30 German planes were also shot down.
It was the most concentrated aerial assault in history, and as in the attack the day before, some bombs fell on our own boys – not many but enough to shake some of the troops. Onlookers held their breath and prayed and hoped it would go well – and as it came, it seemed it would never end.
There were many moments indeed when one thought “truly this must be the end of the world.”
Come in 12s
The Flying Fortresses came in flights of 12, four abreast, 48 at a time, and they came in flight after flight. Every time one looked back there was another half-hundred thundering across the gray horizon.
With puffs of black smoke bursting around them, they headed unswervingly for the targets, then wheeled away majestically to the west. There was never a letup in the death symphony, for when the bombs were not falling our artillery was firing.
After the first batch of bombers came over and the bombs fell directly on the targets, infantrymen began swearing for the fliers instead of swearing at them. They waved the bombers on, or talked and laughed, or were silent, nodding their heads solemnly as the target area rocked and the air was filled with a crazy cacophony of whistling bombs, tremendous explosions and roaring guns.
Bombs visible
The falling bombs were visible from the ground and when they fell, they sent up columns of greyish smoke which blended into one huge pillar climbing into the sky.
There was no sign of enemy air opposition, but flak bursts around the incoming swarms occasionally would come too near a plane and a burst of flame would shoot from it, and it would begin a downward dive.
Then the infantrymen on the ground would share anxiously upward.
“See any parachute?” one would ask.
“No. Yes, there’s one.”
And then everybody would take up the count, “two, three, four,” and soon somebody would say with relief, “They’re all right.”
We saw only three shot down by flak out of all those planes.
For a solid hour, the great bombers ripped through the flak, and after them came the mediums. In between and after, Thunderbolt and Lightning fighter-bombers added to the massacre.
Prisoners collected at a point within rifle fire of the advancing front told of the deterioration of morale among the Nazis under the bombardment, but some said the experience was too awful to talk about.