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.
