Gorrell: Hitler’s professional killers turn yellow as Yanks hit
One-time ‘tough boys’ cringe, surrender in flocks as Americans take fight out of them
By Henry T. Gorrell, United Press staff writer
With U.S. tanks north of Gavray, France – (July 30, delayed)
Hitler’s professional killers, the dread elite SS who bullied the occupied countries and directed the extermination of thousands of Jews, cracked up today.
They acted like they say all killers do by turning yellow when the odds turned against them. I saw the one-time “tough boys” cringing and surrendering by the hundreds.
In France, they were supposed to have kept the Poles, and the Georgians of the Caucasus, fighting for the Nazis by holding pistols at their backs. They may have been tough once, but U.S. bombers and fighters and tank took the fight out of them.
A dispatch from a correspondent with the U.S. 2nd Armored Division said a German general, commander of either the 17th SS Elite Guard Division or the 243rd Infantry Division, was reported killed by Allied bombing planes while attempting to rally his troops for a stand against the onrushing Americans in western Normandy. The news came from a doughboy of the 2nd Armored Division who made his way back to the American lines after having been captured near Saint-Denis-le-Gast.
There is no adequate term to describe the pathetic performance of the members of the Nazi murder clubs. “Whipped puppy dogs” is too mild.
It was true that they had lost most of their tanks and artillery, much of which I saw as miles long masses of burning, twisted steel along the narrow dirt roads north of Gavray.
But if they had any fight left in them, these Nazi strongarm boys could have kept the American infantry busy for days stalking them in and out of the Norman bridgehead.
‘Good story ahead’
It was at Notre-Dame-le-Cenilly that I first heard of the astounding turn of affairs – the surrender in large numbers of remnants of Germany’s most famous division, the 2nd SS Division Das Reich.
The commanding general of a U.S. armored division, racing toward the front in a jeep, waved to me and shouted:
Come on. There’s a good story ahead. The tough boys of the SS are tossing in the sponge.
We followed the general in a jeep toward Roncey where Americans were reported to have wiped out more than 500 wheeled German vehicles.
Tanks clog ahead
The road was clogged with American tanks, tank destroyers and halftracks rushing in every direction. There were bodies of many Germans in the ditches, most of them killed within the last 16 hours.
In Roncey, which was still burning from bombing and shelling, I witnessed a fantastic sight – Germans were coming into the town square in large unescorted groups French civilians jeered at their former masters and tossed flowers to passing doughboys.
The SS men did not ask questions. They simply walked into an enclosure in front of the town hall to await instructions from the overworked MPs.
Nazis raise hands
With Robert J. Casey of The Chicago Daily News, Jack Thompson of The Chicago Tribune and Harold Austin of The Sydney Morning Herald, I walked about a mile east to inspect the still-smoldering equipment.
Suddenly, we met 17 German soldiers walking in our direction carrying a white flag. Mr. Thompson called to them to “halt” and they meekly raised their hands. I searched them in self-defense. Meanwhile, six French women gathered and began hissing the Germans, who wore the shoulder flash of the Das Reich Division.
We told the Germans to follow the French into Roncey where they would find a prisoner of war cage, and walked on another quarter of a mile.
Hearse outlasts panzers
Along the line of burned-out German vehicles caught in the U.S. artillery and aerial barrage were small youngsters playing with German gas masks and grenades. We shooed them away.
Inside a stone shack alongside the column of wrecked tanks and guns, we saw an old-fashioned, wooden, horse-drawn hearse. It was a bit charred but could be repaired easily.
This old-fashioned relic, probably in use before World War I, had outlasted the best of Hitler’s steel “blitz” machines.
Doughboy sees Nazi general die
With U.S. 2nd Armored Division, France (UP) –
A German general commander of either the 17th SS Elite Guard Division or the 243rd Infantry Division was reported today to have been killed by Allied bombing plans while attempting to rally his troops for a stand against the onrushing Americans in western Normandy.
News of the Nazi commander’s death came from a doughboy of the 2nd Armored Division who made his way back into the American lines today after having been captured near Saint-Denis-le-Gast.
Held near tanks
The American said he was being held under guard beside a big column of German tanks, guns and caterpillar tractors – the wreckage of which a United Press staff writer saw along a side road near Roncey yesterday – when the unidentified general was killed.
The soldier said he saw a general with red collar tabs on his uniform standing outside a farmhouse near the armored column outlining a plan of attack to his officers.
He was a big shot because everyone heil-Hitlered him and clicked their heels, including the colonels, the doughboy said.
Shrapnel hits general
Then our planes dived down and there was a terrific series of explosions. They were strafing the Germans in nearly every direction and I saw a piece of shrapnel hit the general in the forehead. He staggered and then stumbled away alone.
A search party was sent out this morning to recover the general’s body for identification purposes.
The escaped Americans, whose name was withheld, got to his feet after the plane attack, rounded up 80 docile Germans and delivered them to a prisoner of war cage inside the American lines.
