WPB’s boss lifts ban upon goods
Production allowed; many civilian articles may be manufactured under new order
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Editorial: Situation in France
As this is written, Germany’s once-proud-and-powerful 7th Army is on the verge of destruction in a brilliantly planned and executed Allied trap in France.
Yesterday an Allied staff officer declared, “It will be a military miracle if the Germans should get out anywhere near whole. This is the end of a German army.” To this was added the prediction by Gen. Eisenhower that the coming week will be one of the most momentous in the history of the war – a fruitful week for us and a fateful week for the enemy.
But don’t let this swift successful turn of events boost our thoughts of the tall of Germany within the immediate future. Remember, there are still three Nazi armies remaining in France which are not engaged. Some divisions from these have been shifted into the present battle and are lost in the Allied pocket,
According to Merrill Mueller, representing the combined American Networks in France, some of the enemy divisions east of the Seine are lower units of poorer quality, but the fact remains that these three armies have plenty of power and drive.
Of the situation, Mr. Mueller also has this to say:
Only a political collapse within Germany – another attempt on Hitler to succeed – could possibly deliver this war to an armistice within the next week. There is a slight chance that a political collapse may show its first manifestations on either the Russian or the Allied battle fronts with the German Army’s effort to rid itself by revolt of its new Nazi commanders. But even so, our terms still are unconditional surrender and clear roads to Berlin.
Gen. Eisenhower has been in almost constant conference with all his battle commanders for the past three days. He is working at a pressure reminiscent of the closing days of the Tunisian and Sicilian campaigns.
These are the closing days of the campaign in northwestern France and the next phases are the campaigns in northeastern and southern France.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 15, 1944)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
On the Western Front, France – (by wireless)
One afternoon I went with our battalion medics to pick up wounded men who had been carried back to some shattered houses just behind our lines, and to gather some others right off the battlefield.
The battalion surgeon was Capt. Lucien Strawn, from Morgantown, West Virginia. He drives his jeep himself and goes right into the lines with his aid men.
We drove forward about a mile in out two jeeps, so loaded with litter bearers they were even riding on the hood. Finally, we had to stop and wait until a bulldozer filled a new shell crater in the middle of the road. We had gone about a hundred yards beyond the crater when we ran into some infantry. They stopped us and said: “Be careful where you’re going. The Germans are only 200 yards up the road.”
Capt. Strawn said he couldn’t get to the wounded men that way, so he turned around to try another way. A side road led off at an angle from a shattered village we had just passed through. He decided to try to get up that road.
But when we got there the road had a house blown across it, and it was blocked. We went forward a little on foot and found two deep bomb craters, also impassable.
So, Capt. Strawn walked back to the bulldozer, and asked the driver if he would go ahead of us and clear the road. The first thing the driver asked was, “How close to the front is it?”
The doctor said, “Well, at least it isn’t any closer than you are right now.” So the dozer driver agreed to clear the road ahead of us.
While we were waiting a soldier came over and showed us two eggs he had just found in the backyard of a jumbled house. There wasn’t an untouched house left standing in the town, and some of the houses were still smoking inside.
Also, while we were waiting, two shock cases came staggering down the road toward us. They were not wounded but were completely broken the kind that stabs into your heart.
They were shaking all over, and had to hold onto each other like little girls when they walked. The doctor stopped them. They could barely talk, barely understand. He told them to wait down at the next corner until we came back, and then they could ride.
When they turned away from the jeep, they turned slowly and unsteadily, a step at a time, like men who were awfully drunk. Their mouths hung open and their eyes stared, and they still held onto each other. They were just like idiots. They had found more war than the human spirit can endure.
At the far edge of the town, we came to a partly wrecked farmhouse that had two Germans in it – one was wounded and the other was just staying with him: We ran our jeeps into the yard and the litter bearers went on across the field to where the aid men had been told some of our wounded were lying behind a hedge.
The doctor sent the able German soldier along with our litter bearers to help carry. He was very willing to help. I stayed at the house with the doctor while he looked at the wounded German, lying in the midst of the scattered debris of what had been a kitchen floor.
The German didn’t seem to be badly wounded, but he was sure full of misery. He looked middle-aged, and he was pale, partly bald, had a big nose and his face was yellow. He kept moaning and twisting. The doctor said he thought morphine was making him sick.
The doctor took his scissors and began cutting his clothes open to see if he was wounded anywhere except in the arm. He wasn’t. But he had been sick at his stomach and then rolled over. He was sure a superman sad sack.
Pretty soon the litter bearers came back. They had two wounded Germans and one American on their litters. Also they had two walking cases – one hearty fellow with a slight leg wound, and one youngster whose hands were trembling from nervous tension.
The doctor asked him what was the matter and he said nothing was, except that he couldn’t stop shaking. He said he felt that his nerves were all right, but he just couldn’t keep his hands from trembling.
Just a shade of disappointment passed over the boy’s face, but he was game.
“That’s what I told the lieutenant,” he said. “I think I’m all right to go back.”
I could tell the doctor liked his attitude. There was nothing yellow about the kid.
The doctor said:
I’ll tell you. You get on this jeep and go back to the aid station. We will give you some sleeping stuff, and you can just lie around there on the ground for a day or two and you’ll be all right.
And with that compromise, the kid – relieved at even a two-day respite – got into the jeep with the wounded men and went back down the road.
Pegler: Fellow traveler Frankfurter
By Westbrook Pegler
New York –
From time to time, earnest and sincerely puzzled American patriots, who have heard the words “Communist” and “fellow traveler” applied to many individuals in the Roosevelt government, write to inquire what these terms mean. They are loath to believe any President of the United States would knowingly encourage enemies or opponents of the American system of government and the inner security of the nation, or anyone in sympathy with them.
A Communist, of course, is a believer in Communism who proclaims his membership in the movement. The fellow traveler is one who associates with Communists and gives them aid and comfort, but does not join the party in its guise of the moment and declare himself openly. The reasons usually are lack of courage and a selfish unwillingness to donate a private fortune or a large income to the movement. Some, however, remain fellow travelers because they can command more attention and public respect outside the party. In that status, they can pose as “liberals” and “progressives.”
Felix Frankfurter, born in Austria, has been, throughout the New Deal, one of its most influential personalities. As a teacher at Harvard, he impressed his beliefs and ethics on many young American lawyers and many of his more precocious, witty and cunning students soon found their way into influential positions in the New Deal. Largely because of his political beliefs, Franklin D. Roosevelt put him on the Supreme Court.
Complicated details
Back in 1917, Frankfurter was sent to Bisbee, Arizona, with a commission appointed by President Wilson to investigate the forcible mass deportation of more than a thousand men by citizens deputized as sheriffs who loaded them into freight cans and sent them over into New Mexico. The details of the situation are too complicated for a full statement in this space.
Frankfurter denounced the deportation and sympathized with the deportees. Bisbee was producing a large part of the copper which this country and her allies needed for the First World War. The IWW, a Communist organization of terrorists, had been obstructing the war effort in Bisbee and many other places just as their successors did again during our so-called conversion, or tooling-up period in 1940 and 1941, right up to the hour when Hitler attacked Russia. The menacing element included Mexicans, who were believed to be veterans of Pancho Villa’s guerrilla army which earlier had attacked Columbus, New Jersey, and aliens from Europe. All Communists, or “Wobblies” as the Communists then were called, were opposed to this country’s war effort; Russia had quit the war and their mission was to extend the Bolshevik Revolution all over the world.
In December 1917, Theodore Roosevelt, the ex-President, in a letter to Frankfurter, wrote:
You are taking, on behalf of the administration, an attitude which seems to me to be fundamentally that of Trotsky and other Bolshevik leaders in Russia.
Roosevelt was referring to Frankfurter’s concealment of the peril of the community which stirred to action the local American citizens, many of whom soon went to the war in person.
Roosevelt wrote Frankfurter:
Your report is as thoroughly misleading a document as could be written on the subject. No official… is to be excused for failure to set forth that the IWW is a criminal organization. To ignore the fact that a movement, such as its members made into Bisbee, is made with criminal intent, is precisely as foolish as for a New York policeman to ignore the fact that when the Whyo gang assembles with guns and knives it is with criminal intent. The President is not to be excused if he ignores the fact, for, of course, he knows all about it. No human being in his senses doubts that the men deported from Bisbee were bent on destruction and murder. [Roosevelt erred here, in that a few of the deportees were not Wobblies but law-abiding local men who resented being rounded up and refused to dissociate themselves from the rest.]
And when the President, personally, or by representative [meaning Frankfurter] rebukes the men who defend themselves from criminal assault, it is necessary sharply to point out that far greater blame attaches to the authorities who fail to give needed protection, and to the investigators [again meaning Frankfurter], who fail to point out the criminal character of the anarchistic organization against which the decent citizens have taken action.
Here again you are engaged in excusing men precisely like the Bolsheviki in Russia who are murderers and encouragers of murder, who are traitors to their allies, to democracy and to civilization as well as to the United States, and whose acts are nevertheless apologized for on grounds substantially like those which you allege.
In times of danger, there is nothing more dangerous than for ordinarily well-meaning men to avoid condemning the criminals by making their entire assault on the shortcomings of the good citizens who have been the victims or opponents of these criminals.
Völkischer Beobachter (August 16, 1944)
Die Feindlandung in Südfrankreich –
Neu entbrannte Schlachten
Der Erfolg deutscher Gegenangriffe südlich Vire
vb. Berlin, 15. August –
Bereits seit einiger Zeit konnte man annehmen, daß die Gegner versuchen würden, den Druck, den sie bisher in Nordwestfrankreich gegen das deutsche Westheer ausübten, an anderer Stelle zu verstärken. Außer den noch immer in Südostengland stehenden und an der eigentlichen Invasionsfront noch nicht eingesetzten Divisionen waren Truppenansammlungen, darunter auch Luftlandeverbände, auf Korsika zu beobachten. Am Dienstagmorgen hat nunmehr der Feind zum Sprung auf die südfranzösische Küste angesetzt.
Das Kennzeichen für die nahe bevorstehende Landung waren in den letzten Tagen bereits stärkere Angriffe auf die deutschen Verbindungslinien im Süden gewesen. Im Morgengrauen des 15. August gingen dann an der Küste von See aus, hinter den Küstenlinien von der Luft aus feindliche Verbände an Land. Der Kampf ist hier im Augenblick noch in vollem Gange, über die operativen Absichten des Gegners wie über seine voraussichtliche Stärke kann naturgemäß im Augenblick noch nichts gesagt werden. Über die äußerste Zähigkeit des deutschen Widerstandes ist kein Zweifel. Wahrscheinlich wird sich am Mittwoch bereits ein genaueres Bild ergeben.
Inzwischen ist in Nordwestfrankreich das Bestreben des Gegners von neuem aufgenommen worden, die deutschen Truppen, die südlich von Vire stehen, von zwei Seiten her zu erdrücken. Die Nordamerikaner haben bis zur Stunde ihren Versuch nicht weiter vortreiben können, von Süden her das Gebäude der deutschen Verteidigung zum Einsturz zu bringen. Ganz entgegen ihrem Vorsatz und ihren Erwartungen sind am Montag hier aus den Angreifern Verteidiger geworden. Die deutschen Gegenangriffe haben den feindlichen Vormarsch nicht nur aufgehalten, sondern die von Süden herandringenden Panzerkolonnen sogar in die Abwehr gedrängt.
Der General Montgomery hält aber an seinem Plan der Zangenbewegung fest. Er tut dies wegen des Erfolges, den er an dieser Stelle heranreifen sehen möchte. Er muß dies aber auch tun, weil er die ewige Bedrohung für das Durchfahrtstor östlich Avranches beseitigen muß. Getreu seinem bisherigen Grundsatz, immer wenn an einer Stelle der Angriff festgefahren ist, ihn an einer anderen Stelle wieder beginnen zu lassen, ist auch diesmal nach dem Anhalten der Amerikaner der Befehl an die Kanadier südlich von Caen gegeben worden, ihrerseits von neuem zum Angriff anzutreten und nun von Norden her zu erreichen, was dem General Bradley vom Süden her vorenthalten blieb. Aber auch diesmal wieder haben sich den anrennenden Panzer- und Infanterieverbänden des Gegners deutsche Truppen entgegengeworfen und in hartnäckigem Ringen den Feind schließlich doch zum Halten gebracht. Auch hier dauern die Kämpfe noch an.
Der unerwartet hartnäckige Widerstand der deutschen Truppen nördlich von Alençon hat mehr Kräfte des Generals Bradley in Anspruch genommen, als er vorgesehen hatte. Das hat seine Pläne in der Bretagne beeinträchtigt. Bradley kann dort nicht so viele schwere Geschütze und so viele Sturmkolonnen ansetzen, wie er es gewünscht hätte. Aus dem Hauptquartier des Generals Eisenhower war in der vergangenen Woche laut geworden, man hoffe die bretonischen Häfen in wenigen Tagen besetzt zu haben. Tatsächlich wird zur Stunde noch immer um die beiden kleinsten Häfen Saint-Malo und Dinard erbittert gekämpft.
Vor Brest und St. Nazaire stehen die Nordamerikaner im Vorfeld. Hier sind sie in der letzten Woche nur wenige Meter weitergekommen. Auf absehbare Zeit kann Bradley nicht hoffen, seinen Nachschub über größere und ausgebaute bretonische Häfen zu beziehen. Er ist auf die kleineren Küstenorte und vor allem auf die normannischen Auslademöglichkeiten angewiesen. Das bedeutet, daß die Durchfahrtschleuse von Avranches für ihn von hoher Bedeutung bleibt – was aber auch die Anstrengungen des gegnerischen Oberkommandos, hier die Deutschen zu vertreiben, weiter verstärken muß.
Im Osten hat sich in den letzten Tagen der Kampf weiter abgeschwächt. Das bedeutet nicht, daß nicht hinter den Fronten beträchtliche Vorbereitungen für neue Kämpfe im Gange sind. Beide Teile haben neu gruppiert und aufgefrischt, haben Verstärkungen an Truppen und Kriegsgerät herangeführt. Auch im Osten wird über kurz oder lang die große Schlacht wieder entbrennen. Jedermann in Front und Heimat weiß, daß es auch hier um schicksalsvolle Entscheidungen über die Zukunft von uns und unseren Kindern gehen wird.
Innsbrucker Nachrichten (August 16, 1944)
Erbitterte Kämpfe mit Schwerpunkt Falaise
Feindvorstoß in Richtung Chartres–Dreux – Heftige Kämpfe an der südfranzösischen Küste – Frontverbesserung im Osten
Aus dem Führerhauptquartier, 16. August –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
In der Normandie toben mit Schwerpunkt im Raum nördlich und nordöstlich Falaise erbitterte Kämpfe. Der Feind versucht immer wieder, unter stärkstem Materialeinsatz auf breiter Front in Richtung Falaise durchzubrechen, um sich mit den aus dem Raum Carouges nach Norden angreifenden amerikanischen Kräften zu vereinigen. Erst nach stundenlangem Ringen gelang es dem Gegner, unter hohen Verlusten in unsere stützpunktartig besetzte Front einzudringen und nach Süden und Osten Gelände zu gewinnen. Aus dem Raum von Alençon nach Osten vorstoßende feindliche Kräfte stehen im Abschnitt Chartres–Dreux in hartem Kampf mit unseren Sicherungen.
In der Bretagne ging die Stadt Dinard nach heldenhaftem Kampf verloren. Die restliche Besatzung von Saint-Malo, die sich nach Abwehr starker feindlicher Angriffe in die Zitadelle zurückgezogen hat, trotzt dort immer noch sämtlichen Anstürmen des Feindes. Die dreimal wiederholte Aufforderung des Feindes zur Übergabe blieb unbeantwortet.
An der südfranzösischen Küste wurden mehrere feindliche Landungsversuche zwischen Toulon und Cannes abgeschlagen. Es gelang dem Gegner jedoch, an einigen Stellen der Küste Fuß zu fassen. Heftige Kämpfe sind hier im Gange. Die im Rücken unserer Verteidigungszone abgesetzten feindlichen Luftlandetruppen wurden von unseren Reserven angegriffen.
In Luftkämpfen, durch Flakartillerie der Luftwaffe und der Kriegsmarine sowie durch Seestreitkräfte verlor der Feind über der west- und südfranzösischen Küste 23 Flugzeuge.
Im französischen Raum wurden 164 Terroristen im Kampf niedergemacht.
Schweres Feuer der „V1“ liegt weiter auf dem Großraum von London.
Aus Italien werden keine Kampfhandlungen von Bedeutung gemeldet.
Im Karpatenvorland erzielten Verbände des Heeres und der Waffen-SS westlich Sanok in dreitägigen hartnäckigen Kämpfen gegen sieben feindliche Schützendivisionen einige Frontverbesserungen. Die Sowjets hatten hohe blutige Verluste und verloren 51 Panzer und Selbstfahrlafetten, 98 Geschütze, zahlreiches Kriegsgerät und eine große Anzahl Gefangener.
Im großen Weichselbogen westlich Baranow nahmen Panzer- und Panzergrenadierverbände gegen zähen feindlichen Widerstand mehrere Ortschaften und schlossen eine Frontlücke. Südöstlich Warka sowie zwischen der Weichsel und dem oberen Narew wurden zahlreiche Angriffe der Bolschewisten zerschlagen. Beiderseits der Memel griffen die Sowjets im Raum von Wilkowischken und Raseinen mit massierten Kräften und starker Fliegerunterstützung an. Es gelang ihnen nur bei Wilkowischken, geringfügig Boden zu gewinnen. Alle übrigen Angriffe wurden verlustreich abgewiesen.
An der lettischen Front scheiterten nördlich Birsen erneute mit starken Kräften geführte feindliche Angriffe. Die Bolschewisten verloren hierbei 40 Panzer. Im Einbruchsraum südwestlich des Pleskauer Sees dauern die wechselvollen Kämpfe mit unverminderter Härte an. Starke Schlachtfliegerverbände griffen hier besonders wirksam in die Erdkämpfe ein.
Die Sowjets verloren gestern an der Ostfront 52 Flugzeuge.
Nordamerikanische Bomber griffen Orte in West- und Nordwestdeutschland an. Durch Luftverteidigungskräfte wurden 29 feindliche Flugzeuge, darunter 27 viermotorige Bomber, zum Absturz gebracht.
In der Nacht warfen einzelne feindliche Flugzeuge Bomben auf Berlin und im rheinischwestfälischen Gebiet. Drei feindliche Flugzeuge wurden abgeschossen.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (August 16, 1944)
Communiqué No. 130
Allied troops are in the outskirts of FALAISE and dominate the communications in this area.
All along the northern flank of the enemy pocket our forces are driving steadily forward in spite of attempts to delay us with mines and booby traps.
The villages of COSSESSEVILLE and TREPREL between the rivers ORNE and LAIZE were taken.
CONDÉ was bypassed by a thrust across the river NOIREAU a few miles east of the town. TINCHEBRAY has been captured.
Our troops along the western and southern flanks of the pocket have also advanced generally.
DOMFRONT, GER and LA FERTE MACE have been freed. Our forces have entered YVRANDES, three miles south of TINCHEBRAY.
Further east, other units are pushing northward beyond RANES, where strong enemy opposition is being met. Southeast of RANES and in the vicinity of ALENÇON, mopping-up operations are proceeding against enemy groups cut off by the advance northward.
In ARGENTAN, we hold a portion of the city and enemy resistance is stubborn.
In BRITTANY, the citadel at SAINT-MALO continues to hold out. Organized resistance has ceased at FINARD. There are no changes to report from BREST or LORIENT.
A massive force of Allied heavy bombers was thrown against key German Air Force stations in western GERMANY and the LOW COUNTRIES yesterday. Twenty-one main LUFTWAFFE headquarters, control stations and airfields were attacked by 1,900 four-engined bombers, with fighter escort in great strength.
Key installations bombed were at COLOGNE/OSTHEIM, WIESBADEN and FRANKFURT, all in the RHINE valley; air force stations at WITTMUND, BAD ZWISCHENAHN, VECHTA, HANDORF, HOPSTEN and PLANTLÜNNE in northwest GERMANY; FLORENNES in BELGIUM and TWENTE/ENSCHEDE and VENLO, in HOLLAND.
Other targets attacked were at LE CULOT, SAINT-TROND, TIRLEMONT, and BRUSSELS/MELSBROEK in BELGIUM and GILZE-RIJEN, DEELEN, SOESTERBERG, VOLKEL, and EINDHOVEN in HOLLAND.
Communications targets and an ammunition dump in northern FRANCE, and defenses in the SAINT-MALO area were attacked by medium bombers. Heavy damage resulted from a medium bomber mission against a fuel dump in the FORÊT DE CHANTILLY, twenty miles north of PARIS.
Fighter-bombers and rocket-firing aircraft continued to seek out targets in the NORMANDY pocket. Eighteen tanks and more than 175 vehicles, including halftracks, were destroyed, and an equal number damaged in the area.
Thirty locomotives were put out of commission in a fighter-bomber sweep against the railyard at BRAINE-LE-COMTE, in BELGIUM.
Thirty-seven enemy planes were destroyed in the air.
From all of these operations, 20 bombers and 16 fighters are missing.
Periodical Communiqué No. 5
161700B August
In BRITTANY, the French Forces of the Interior have operated in close cooperation with other Allied forces.
Resistance forces have entered the towns of SIZUN, BRASPARTS, PLEYBEN, CHÂTEAUNEUF, CORAY and MILIZAC, and taken by storm the towns of QUIMPERLE, BANNALEC, CHÂTEAULIN, and DOUARNENEZ. Several hundred prisoners have been taken in the neighborhood of PAIMPOL, where 1,500 Germans are encircled by resistance forces. Numerous prisoners and a considerable amount of war material have been captured at QUIMPER.
Further east the German garrison at MOUTIERS, southeast of RENNES, has been annihilated in fierce fighting.
Throughout central and southern FRANCE, resistance action has quickened. Many minor harassing actions have been fought with the enemy, who is suffering increasingly severe casualties. Cuts have been maintained on the railways, completely disorganizing lines of communications.
In the SAVOIE, the German garrison occupying the TARANTAISE has been driven back by resistance forces towards ITALY. The retreating enemy is now coming into contact with Italian and French Marquis groups and surrendering.
At BOURG-SAINT-MAURICE, the enemy garrison has been wiped out.
FFI in the neighborhood of GEX have brought down their sixth German aircraft.
In the north of FRANCE, the FFI have burnt 400,000 gallons of petrol.
U.S. Navy Department (August 16, 1944)
CINCPAC Press Release No. 510
For Immediate Release
August 16, 1944
Fifty‑seven tons of bombs were dropped on defense installations at Eten and Moen Islands in Truk Atoll by 7th AAF Liberators on August 13 (West Longitude Date). Seven to nine enemy fighters intercepted and one of these was destroyed and three damaged. All of our planes returned although several suffered damage. There were no casualties.
Ventura search planes of Fleet Air Wing Two bombed the airstrips at Nauru on August 13 and 14, and on August 13, a Catalina harassed bivouac areas at Wotje and Maloelap. On August 14, Mitchell bombers of the 7th AAF attacked the airfield and gun positions at Ponape, and on the same day Dauntless dive bombers and Corsair fighters hit coastal defense positions at Mille Atoll. All of our planes returned from these operations.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 16, 1944)
NAZIS REPORT BIG DRIVE ON PARIS
Allies mop up Army trapped in Normandy
Yanks 39 miles from capital, Nazis say
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
SHAEF, London, England –
The German High Command said a powerful U.S. army was sweeping eastward within 39 miles of Paris tonight in a new offensive that also menaced Orléans and Tours, as other Allied forces to the north joined in a death battle against remnants of the Nazi 7th Army in the Normandy pocket.
While Allied headquarters maintained silence on the reported offensive, Berlin said three powerful mechanized columns were racing eastward and southeastward on a broad front under cover of powerful bombing formations.
‘Annihilated,’ Nazis say
One U.S. tank spearhead plunged 60 miles beyond Alençon to Dreux, on the main Argentan-Paris highway only 39 miles from the capital, Berlin said, asserting that the U.S. formation was “annihilated” after a fierce battle.
Chartres, 20 miles south of Dreux, was also menaced by U.S. tank forces, while other columns were pounding down the Loire Valley toward Tours, 47 miles southeast of captured Le Mans, and Orléans, 68 miles beyond Tours and 65 miles south of Paris.
The fall of Orléans would cut the main railway and highway lines between Paris and southwestern France and cripple the flow of supplies and reinforcements to Nazi armies holding out in the Seine-Loire quadrangle.
The German accounts gave no immediate indication of the progress of U.S. units advancing on Tours and Orléans.
Threat to fleeing Nazis
The sudden emergence of the new U.S. column in the rolling wheatfields west of Paris poised a new threat to the riddled German divisions that had emerged to squeeze out of the Falaise–Argentan gap at the eastern end of the Allied trap.
Hounded from the air by swarms of low-flying Allied attack planes that bombed and machine-gunned every highway as far east as the Seine, the German column
Meanwhile, the entire western half of the 7th Army perimeter was collapsing under the hammer blows of converging Allied armies swarming in for the kill from the north, south and west.
All German traffic through the Falaise–Argentan corridor was reported at a standstill tonight because of the savage allied crossfire, but Nazi tanks and riflemen struck frenziedly at the closing wall of U.S. and British forces in a last-minute effort to escape.
Thousands killed, captured
Thousands of the enemy were killed or captured in the attempt and the German Transocean News Agency admitted that the next few days or even hours might decide the fate of their surviving comrades.
Shaken by the incessant pounding of Allied planes and shellfire, the broken remnants of Field Marshal Günther von Kluge’s 12 divisions were splitting up into small bands in a frantic attempt to escape through the ring of guns and armor tightening around them.
The Canadian 1st Army fought its way into the outskirts of Falaise, narrowing the main eastern escape corridor to six miles or less, and front reports indicated that the Germans were trying to break out over secondary roads and sneak through hedgerows to safety.
Roving Allied armored patrols raced along the perimeter of the pocket plugging the loopholes in their trap and slaughtering hundreds of the fleeing enemy. More than 4,400 others were rounded up and shunted back to prisoner-of-war stockades during the past 30 hours, some 3,000 falling prisoner to the Canadians and 1,400 to the Americans.
Slaughter in full swing
United Press writer Robert C. Miller, with the U.S. 3rd Army near Argentan, reported in a delayed dispatch today that the slaughter of von Kluge’s army was in full swing last night.
Many of the Germans, he said, were tricked by their own commanders into believing that the way to the east was open.
“It is when they try to find this gap that we either kill or capture them,” Mr. Miller reported.
His dispatches said the Germans were surrendering in small groups of five to 50 men.
Much booty seized
Several thousand prisoners have already been bagged by the 3rd Army, Mr. Miller said, along with “great quantities” of booty.
Meanwhile, the German DNB News Agency reported that reinforced U.S. tanks and mechanized infantry units had resumed the eastward drive on Paris which was halted more than a week ago when Gen. Patton shifted the main weight of his attack northward to encircle the Nazi 7th Army.
Fierce fighting is in progress north of Chartres, only 46 miles west-southwest of Paris, DNB said, indicating that the Americans might be bypassing Chartres in a direct thrust on the capital.
Paris hears guns
The London Evening News quoted reports from the continent as saying that the distant roar of heavy artillery could be heard by the people of Paris today.
There was no confirmation of the enemy report, which said U.S. tanks were also in the Nogent-le-Rorrou and La Loupe areas just west of Chartres where they were being engaged by German “covering” forces.
If true, the DNC report would mean that the Allied High Command was striking out for Paris and the Seine River line without waiting for the completion of the Normandy battle, now in its “annihilation” stages.
Few able to escape
Headquarters sources believe that only a relatively small portion of the 100,000-odd Germans originally caught in the Allied net had been able to escape, despite front reports that about half of von Kluge’s 12 divisions had broke out in a wild crash through the Falaise–Argentan corridor early yesterday.
These sources indicated that at least 50,000 to 60,000 of the pocketed Nazis were doomed to surrender or death, although it was acknowledged that small bands of enemy infantrymen might manage to escape overland through the closing Allied lines.
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, now in the field to direct the final stages of the battle of annihilation, poured more men, guns and armor into the fight, throwing the bulk of his forces against the western side of the pocket while the Canadian 1st Army and Gen. Patton’s U.S. 3rd Army hammered their armored wedges deeper into the eastern end.
Capture heights
The Canadians swung down more than a mile through a blazing screen of German 88mm guns and anti-tank weapons, capturing dominating heights from which their artillery could sweep virtually every road in the Falaise area.
Simultaneously, Gen. Patton’s tanks and riflemen pushed slowly north and west of Argentan to within less than six miles of Falaise, meeting savage resistance from German panzer units battling to hold open that side of the corridor.
Invaders advance 8 miles
New air army strikes far inland to block German reserves
By Eleanor Packard, United Press staff writer
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