House hears sharp debate on surpluses
Vote delay foreseen; bills on war properties bring on attempted grab bag moves
…
Bombers batter Ploești fields
…
MacArthur’s bombers batter Jap airdromes
…
Army Liberators blast Iwo Jima
…
November election to see fewer votes
Washington (AP) – (Aug. 18)
The total vote in this year’s presidential election is in for a big drop from the nearly 50,000,000 recorded in 1940 if the aggregate of ballots of both parties in recent statewide primaries is any indication of the November turnout.
An Associated Press survey of elections for Governor and Senator in 18 states showed today vote declines in 16 states ranging up to nearly 50 percent of 1942 or 1940 primary totals. Primary registrations were also off compared with recent years. Only Ohio and South Carolina polled larger votes.
Both parties recorded fewer votes in most instances. Some of the decreases were attributed to lack of contests in contrast with former years, but on the whole, the 16 states polled over 2,500,000 votes less than in the most recent comparative statewide primaries.
Important factors in the decline include the millions of servicemen scattered all over the world and the migration of workers to war plant centers. These were apparent two years ago when the off-year Congressional elections brought out only about 30,000,000 votes.
Illinois’ aggregate Republican and Democratic primary vote for Governor was off 36 percent compared to 1942.
Kansans rolled up only 188,000 votes in the senatorial primaries as against 371,899 in 1940, a drop of 183,899 or 49 percent.
Pennsylvania’s senatorial primaries drew 876,693 voters, with candidates unopposed in both parties. This compared with the previous statewide primary vote of 1,499,229 for governors in 1942, a decrease of 622,536 or 41 percent.
Ohio’s two-party gubernatorial and South Carolina’s Democratic senatorial primaries were the only elections pulling more voters to the polls than two years ago. But these races were unusually lively ones.
The Buckeye State primary vote totaled 794,924, or 125,993 more than that in 1942, but there were four Republican candidates for governor this year while Governor John W. Bricker, GOP vice-presidential candidate, had no opposition for a third nomination two years ago. The Republican vote accounted for almost all the increase although the Democratic vote was higher than 1942 by slightly more than 1,000.
Ohio may prove a November exception to the smaller vote indication this year. The Secretary of State’s office there estimates a presidential vote of 3,500,000 as against 3,376,239 in 1940.
The South Carolina Democratic senatorial primary, which saw the defeat of the Senate’s dean, E. D. “Cotton Ed” Smith, by Governor Olin D. Johnston, drew 251,792 voters as against 234,972 in 1942, an increase of 16,820. There was an enrollment, however, of 400,809 this year as against 375,672 two years ago.
Truman to deliver acceptance speech
Washington (AP) – (Aug. 18)
President Roosevelt today approved plans for his fourth term running mate, Senator Harry S. Truman, to accept the vice-presidential nomination August 31 in an open-air speech at the courthouse in Lamar, Missouri, Truman’s birthplace.
Truman disclosed this after a White House visit where he held his first conference with Mr. Roosevelt since he was nominated for Vice President.
The Senator said he would also make a campaign speech on Labor Day at Detroit, but beyond that, his political speechmaking was in the hands of the Democratic National Committee.
DSC awarded to Garrabrant
With the 4th Infantry Division in France – (Aug. 18)
Capt. John R. Garrabrant of Country Club Pines, Wilmington, who served with the 4th Infantry Division in France, has been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross posthumously, “for extraordinary heroism in action against the enemy,” the official citation said.
Capt. Garrabrant volunteered to lead a patrol to seek and destroy a hidden enemy strongpoint holding up the advance and inflicting heavy casualties.
The official citation says:
With complete disregard for his own safety, Capt. Garrabrant exposed himself to the direct fire of the enemy in an attack upon the position. Although subjected to intense enemy sniper fire, he continued to expose himself in order to locate the hidden enemy machine gun. Upon locating the enemy position, Capt. Garrabrant personally led his men in a successful assault up on this enemy position.
It was while leading this attack that Capt. Garrabrant lost his life. The citation adds:
The extraordinary heroism, complete devotion to duty and courageous leadership displayed by Capt. Garrabrant reflects great credit upon himself and was in keeping with the highest traditions of the Armed Forces.
Capt. Garrabrant, 28, was listed as killed in action June 10 in France. Among survivors are his widow, Mrs. Emily Reckling Garrabrant, and a son and daughter; his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Cornelius Garrabrant; a brother, William P. Garrabrant; and a sister, Mrs. Robert C. Cantwell, all of Wilmington.
Before entering service in October 1941, as a first lieutenant at Fort Benning, Georgia, he was connected with the Atlantic Coast Line railroad at Savannah and Tampa, Florida, from February 1939 to October.
The Pittsburgh Press (August 19, 1944)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
On the Western Front, France – (by wireless)
The ways of an invasion turned out to be all very new to Pfc. Tommy Clayton, the 29th Division infantryman we were writing about yesterday.
It was new to thousands of others also, for they hadn’t been trained in hedgerow fighting. So they had to learn it the way a dog learns to swim. They learned.
As we said yesterday, this Tommy Clayton, the mildest of men, has killed four of the enemy for sure, and probably dozens of unseen ones. He wears an Expert Rifleman’s badge and soon will have the proud badge of Combat Infantryman, worn only by those who have been through the mill.
Three of his four victims he got in one long blast of his Browning automatic rifle. He was stationed in the bushes at a bend in a gravel road, covering a crossroads about 80 yards ahead of him.
Suddenly three German soldiers came out a side road and foolishly stopped to talk right in the middle of the crossroads. The BAR has 20 bullets in a clip. Clayton held her down for the whole clip. The three Germans went down, never to get up.
His fourth one, he thought was a Jap when he killed him. In the early days of the invasion, lots of soldiers thought they were fighting Japs, scattered in with the German troops. They were actually Mongolian Russians, with strong Oriental features, who resembled Japs to the untraveled Americans.
On this fourth killing, Clayton was covering an infantry squad as it worked forward along a hedgerow. There were snipers in the trees in front. Clayton spotted one and sprayed the tree with his automatic rifle, and out tumbled this man he thought was a Jap.
To show how little anyone who hasn’t been through war can know about it – do you want to know how Clayton located his sniper? Here’s how…
When a bullet passes smack over your head, it doesn’t zing; it pops the same as a rifle when it goes off. That’s because the bullet’s rapid passage creates a vacuum behind it, and the air rushes back with such force to fill this vacuum that it collides with itself, and makes a resounding “pop.” Clayton didn’t know what caused this, and I tried to explain.
“You know what a vacuum is,” I said. “We learned that in high school.”
And Tommy said, “Ernie, I never went past the third grade.”
But Tommy is intelligent and his sensitivities are fine. You don’t have to know the reasons in war, you only have to know what things indicate when they happen.
Well, Clayton had learned that the pop of a bullet over his head preceded the actual rifle report by a fraction of a second, because the sound of the rifle explosion had to travel some distance before hitting his ear. So, the “pop” became his warning signal to listen for the crack of a sniper’s rifle a moment later.
Through much practice he had learned to gauge the direction of the sound almost exactly. And so out of this animal-like system of hunting, he had the knowledge to shoot into the right tree and out tumbled his “Jap” sniper.
Clayton’s weirdest experience would be funny if it weren’t so flooded with pathos. He was returning with a patrol one moonlit night when the enemy opened upon them. Tommy leaped right through a hedge and, spotting a foxhole, plunged into it.
To his amazement and fright, there was a German in the foxhole, sitting pretty, holding a machine pistol in his hands. Clayton shot him three times in the chest before you could say scat. The German hardly moved. And then Tommy realized the man had been killed earlier. He had been shooting a corpse.
All these experiences seem to have left no effect on this mild soldier from Indiana, unless to make him even quieter than before.
The worst experience of all is just the accumulated blur, and the hurting vagueness of too long in the lines, the everlasting alertness, the noise and fear, the cell-by-cell exhaustion, the thinning of the ranks around you as day follows nameless day. And the constant march into eternity of your own small quota of chances for survival.
Those are the things that hurt and destroy. And soldiers like Tommy Clayton go back to them, because they are good soldiers and they have a duty they cannot define.
When you’re wandering around our very far-flung frontlines – the lines that in our present rapid war are known as “fluid” – you can always tell how recently the battle has swept on ahead of you.
You can sense it from the little things even more than the big things–
From the scattered green leaves and the fresh branches of trees still lying in the middle of the road.
From the wisps and coils of telephone wire, hanging brokenly from high poles and entwining across the roads.
From the gray, buried powder rims of the shell craters in the gravel roads, their edges not yet smoothed by the pounding of military traffic.
From the little pools of blood on the roadside, blood that has only begun to congeal and turn black, and the punctured steel helmets lying nearby.
From the square blocks of building stone still scattered in the village streets, and from the sharp-edged rocks in the roads, still uncrushed by traffic.
From the burned-out tanks and broken carts still unremoved from the road. From the cows in the fields, lying grotesquely with their feet to the sky, so newly dead they have not begun to bloat or smell.
From the scattered heaps of personal debris around a gun. I don’t know why it is, but the Germans always seem to take off their coats before they flee or die.
From all these things you can tell that the battle has been recent – from these and from the men dead so recently that they seem to be merely asleep.
And also from the inhuman quiet. Usually, battles are noisy for miles around. But in this recent fast warfare a battle sometimes leaves a complete vacuum behind it.
The Germans will stand and fight it out until they see there is no hope. Then some give up, and the rest pull and run for miles. Shooting stops. Our fighters move on after the enemy, and those who do not fight, but move in the wake of the battles, will not catch up for hours.
There is nothing left behind but the remains – the lifeless debris, the sunshine and the flowers, and utter silence.
An amateur who wanders in this vacuum at the rear of a battle has a terrible sense of loneliness. Everything is dead – the men, the machines, the animals – and you alone are left alive.
One afternoon we drove in our jeep into a country like that. The little rural villages of gray stone were demolished – heartbreaking heaps of still smoking rubble.
We drove into the tiny town of La Detinais, a sweet old stone village at the “T” of two gravel roads a rural village in rolling country, a village of not more than 50 buildings. There was not a whole building left.
Rubble and broken wires still littered the streets. Blackish gray stone walls with no roofs still smoldered inside. Dead men still lay in the street, helmets and broken rifles askew around them. There was not a soul nor a sound in town; the village was lifeless.
We stopped and pondered our way, and with trepidation we drove on out of town. We drove for a quarter of a mile or so. The ditches were full of dead men. We drove around one without a head or arms or legs. We stared, and couldn’t say anything about it to each other. We asked the driver to go very slowly, for there was an uncertainty in all the silence. There was no live human, no sign of movement anywhere.
Seeing no one, hearing nothing, I became fearful of going on into the unknown. So, we stopped. Just a few feet ahead of us was a brick-red American tank, still smoking, and with its turret knocked off near it was a German horse-drawn ammunition cart, upside down. In the road beside them was a shell crater.
To our left lay two smashed airplanes in adjoining fields. Neither of them was more than 30 yards from the road. The hedge was low and we could see over. They were both British fighter planes. One lay right side up, the other lay on its back.
We were just ready to turn around and go back, when I spied a lone soldier at the far side of the field. He was standing there looking across the field at us like an Indian in a picture. I waved and he waved back. We walked toward each other.
He turned out to be a 2nd Lt. Ed Sasson of Los Angeles. He is a graves registration officer for his armored division, and he was out scouring the fields, locating the bodies of dead Americans.
He was glad to see somebody, for it is a lonely job catering to the dead.
As we stood there talking in the lonely field a soldier in coveralls, with a rifle slung over his shoulder, ran up breathlessly, and almost shouted: “Hey, there’s a man alive in one of those planes across the road! He’s been trapped there for days!”
We stopped right in the middle of a sentence and began to run. We hopped the hedgerow, and ducked under the wing of the upside-down plane. And there, in the next hour, came the climax to what certainly was one of the really great demonstrations of courage in this war.
Poll: Voters scorn chance to vote for a winner
Survey disproves ‘bandwagon theory’
By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion
…
Völkischer Beobachter (August 20, 1944)
Rätselraten um den Einsatzzeitpunkt für neue Waffen –
Nagende Unruhe bei Deutschlands Feinden
v. m. Lissabon, 19. August –
Die Anglo-Amerikaner begleiten ihren Großangriff in Frankreich mit einer Nervenoffensive ohnegleichen. Sie soll der Welt verfrüht glauben machen, Deutschland sei am Ende. Die Feinde Deutschlands haben, wie die Aufrufe Eisenhowers und Montgomerys zeigen, größte Eile und geben sich darum keine Rechenschaft über die Tatsache, daß die Landung in Südfrankreich ihre strategischen Absichten voll und ganz offenbarte, daß sie damit ihre unbekannten Karten auf den Tisch legten und dem deutschen Oberkommando nun die erwünschte Dispositionsfreiheit gaben.
Die feindliche Führung überschätzt ihre lokalen Erfolge in Frankreich so, als ob Frankreich Europa wäre und der ganze Kontinent bereits erobert sei. Die englische Agitation lebt aber vom Schein und erweckt falsche Hoffnungen auf ein schnelles Ende. Obwohl der diplomatische Korrespondent des News Chronicle in einem „Krieg ohne Ende“ betitelten Aufsatz zu erklären versucht, daß Deutschland nach dem 20. Juli niemals kapitulieren und höchstwahrscheinlich in absehbarer Zeit mit großen Überraschungen aufwarten werde.
So schreibt die amerikanische Zeitung Philadelphia Evening Bulletin:
Seit Stalingrad befindet sich Deutschland in der Defensive. Seit Menschengedenken bereitete sich jede kriegführende Macht in der Defensive auf die entscheidenden Schläge vor, wie es England nach der Katastrophe von 1940/41 getan hatte, erst recht aber die Deutschen, dieses Volk, das auf militärischem Gebiet immer am erfinderischsten und wissenschaftlichsten vorgegangen ist. Was die Deutschen in zwei Jahren Defensive bereitgestellt haben, wissen wir nicht, aber es muß schon einem Triumph entsprechen, denn sonst wären die deutsche Führung und das deutsche Volk nicht so ruhig, entschlossen und gefasst. Vielleicht waren die fliegenden Bomben ein Vorgeschmack des Furchtbaren und für uns ein Signal zur Eile.
Diese Stimme gibt die Stimmung im Feindlager treffend wieder.
Engländer und Amerikaner sind von nagender Unruhe erfüllt vor dem Kommenden. In ihren Blättern erscheinen immer mehr wissenschaftliche Aufsätze führender Physiker voller Mutmaßungen über die Mittel, womit Deutschland das Kriegsglück zu wenden beabsichtigt. Dabei ist es auffallend, wie sehr gerade die Amerikaner innerlich damit beschäftigt zu sein scheinen. Hier in Lissabon jagen sich die Informationen über den mutmaßlichen Einsatztermin der neuen deutschen Waffen und beschäftigen sich stärksten mit einem Vortrag, den Professor von Weizsäcker vor einigen Monaten über Atomphysik gehalten hat, weil sie hoffen, so Aufschluss über die deutschen Absichten zu bekommen.
Der tiefe Grund der amerikanischen Aufregung sollen private Äußerungen jüdischer Wissenschaftler sein, die, wie Einstein, von ihrer jahrelangen Arbeit in Deutschland her einen ungefähren Begriff vom Stande der deutschen Physik haben und daher der deutschen Wissenschaft auf dem Gebiet der modernen Kriegführung alles Zutrauen und vor einer Unterschätzung der deutschen Ankündigungen warnen. Einsteins Urteil wurde eingeholt, nachdem der Führer erklärt hatte: „Das Wort hat jetzt die deutsche Wissenschaft.“ Und der alte Jude soll gesagt haben, ein Bündnis zwischen deutschen Generalen und deutschen Wissenschaftlern unter nationalsozialistischer Führung sei mehr als gefährlich, weil die deutschen Professoren schon zurzeit, da er Deutschland verließ, im Begriff gestanden hätten, bestimmte, bis dahin unlösbare Aufgaben zu lösen, die alle bisherige Kriegführung auf den Kopf stellen und ihrem Urheber unheimliche Macht geben würden. Man müsse bedenken, was es bedeute, wenn Hitler die Macht habe, einen technischen Homunkulus gegen seine Feinde zu mobilisieren. Diese Information aus gewöhnlich gut unterrichteter Quelle ist eine wertvolle Ergänzung zu den feindlichen Mutmaßungen über die Nachfolgerinnen von „V1“ und erklärt zugleich, warum unsere Feinde im Westen unter allen Umständen vor Mitte Oktober die Entscheidung erzwingen wollen. Daraus ergibt sich aber zugleich eine, und zwar sehr einleuchtende Deutung der militärischen Lage von heute.
In London und Neuyork beginnt man in der Tat die technische Überrundung der alliierten Rüstung zu fürchten und möchte deshalb noch schnell mit den „orthodoxen“ Waffen, wie Panzern und Flugzeugen den Sieg erringen, bevor diese durch das Erscheinen neuer Waffen reif für die Verschrottung werden, nachdem Deutschland zum zweitenmal in diesem Weltringen die Kriegführung revolutioniert hat. Die Parole der Alliierten heißt augenblicklich deshalb: „Blitzkrieg um jeden Preis,“ da die deutschen Heere aber jeden Meter Boden so teuer wie möglich verkaufen, ja der Zeitplan von Teheran völlig durcheinandergeraten und der für kriegerische Operationen kostbare Teil des Sommers bereits verstrichen ist, ohne daß die Anglo-Amerikaner wirklich entscheidende Erfolge erringen und wesentliche Teile des Westheeres vernichten konnten, arbeitet der Faktor Zeit für die Verteidiger Europas. Was das bedeutet, wo die gegenwärtige Kriegslage ein großes Rechenexempel mit dem Faktor Zeit ist, braucht nicht besonders unterstrichen zu werden.
Begründete Angst vor US-Überflügelung –
Englands wirtschaftliche Beklemmungen
Lissabon, 19. August –
Die wachsende Sorge, die in weiten Kreisen Englands angesichts der sich ständig verstärkenden wirtschaftlichen Überflügelung Großbritanniens durch die USA herrscht, hat bisher in zahlreichen düsteren Betrachtungen der englischen Presse wie auch in den Reden bekannter englischer Wirtschaftsführer und Politiker ihren Niederschlag gefunden.
Nun hat auch der britische Minister für die Flugzeugproduktion, Sir Stafford Cripps, zum Thema drohende Verelendung England in einer Rede Stellung genommen, wobei er ohne auf den Konkurrenzkampf England-Amerika einzugehen, den Dreh fand, die wirtschaftliche Stabilität Englands für alle Nationen der Welt als von großem Interesse hinzustellen. Wenn England nicht „ziemlich schnell“ seinen Vorkriegsexportstandard wieder erreiche, so mußte er in diesem Zusammenhang kleinlaut erklären, werde man nicht in der Lage sein, die Vorkriegslebensweise aufrechtzuerhalten. Es werde selbstverständlich in den ersten Nachkriegsjahren notwendig sein, die Verbrauchsquote bewusst herabzuschrauben.
Wieder die Segel gestrichen!
Die zu den Besprechungen über die Nachkriegsorganisation entsandte britische Delegation traf, wie Exchange meldet, in Washington ein. Ihr Leiter ist Alexander Cadogan, während Unterstaatssekretär Stettinius die amerikanische Abordnung führt.
Cadogan erklärte am Sonntag, daß Großbritannien völlig dem amerikanischen Plan zustimme. England erkenne Roosevelts Programm vom 15. Juni an.
Bolschewistischer Großangriff nordöstlich Warschau –
Schwere Panzergefechte im Raum von Trun
dnb. Aus dem Führerhauptquartier, 19. August –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:
In der Normandie müssen die vorgesehenen Absetzbewegungen über Orne und Dives nach Osten gegen den Feind erkämpft werden, der von Norden bis in den Raum von Trun durchgestoßen ist. Dort fanden gestern schwere Panzergefechte statt.
Im Raum nordöstlich Chartres wurden feindliche Vorstöße zum Stehen gebracht. Nördlich davon kämpfen unsere Sicherungen an der Seine bei Mantes und Vernon mit den vordersten amerikanischen Aufklärungstruppen.
In Südfrankreich verstärkte sich der Feind im Landekopf. Mehrere durch Panzer unterstützte Angriffe gegen die Landfront von Toulon wurden zerschlagen.
Der Feind verlor gestern in Luftkämpfen über der Normandie und über den besetzten Westgebieten 22 Flugzeuge.
In den Gewässern vor dem südfranzösischen Landekopf wurde ein feindlicher Transporter von 6.000 BRT durch Kampfflugzeuge schwer beschädigt.
Das Vergeltungsfeuer auf London dauert an.
In Italien lebte die Gefechtstätigkeit gestern besonders im Abschnitt der adriatischen Küste auf. Mehrere von Panzern unterstützte Vorstöße des Feindes wurden dort abgewiesen.
Am unteren Dnjestr wurden erneute übersetzversuche der Sowjets zerschlagen.
Im Karpatenvorland nahmen ungarische Truppen südwestlich Delatyn ein beherrschendes Höhengelände. Im Weichselbrückenkopf westlich Baranow hat sich der feindliche Widerstand vor unseren Angriffsgruppen wesentlich versteift.
Nordöstlich Warschau trat der Feind, von Panzern und Schlachtfliegern unterstützt, auf breiter Front zum Angriff an, konnte aber infolge unserer zähen Verteidigung und der sofort einsetzenden Gegenangriffe nur geringe Erfolge erzielen. Auch beiderseits Wilkowischken setzten die Sowjets ihre Durchbruchsangriffe mit starken Infanterie- und Panzerkräften fort. Auch diese scheiterten unter hohen Verlusten für den Feind. Einige Einbrüche wurden abgeriegelt.
Im Abschnitt Modohn an der lettischen Front brachen heftige feindliche Angriffe zusammen. Gegen einige Einbrüche sind Gegenangriffe im Gang.
In Estland dauern die schweren, wechselvollen Kämpfe westlich des Pleskauer Sees an. Durchgebrochene sowjetische Kampfgruppen wurden im Gegenangriff vernichtet.
Sicherungsfahrzeuge eines deutschen Geleits versenkten in nordnorwegischen Gewässern zwei sowjetische Schnellboote und beschädigten ein drittes schwer.
Nordamerikanische Bomber griffen erneut Ploeşti an. Vier feindliche Flugzeuge wurden abgeschossen.
Ein schwächerer feindlicher Bomberverband griff gestern das Stadtgebiet von Metz an.
In der Nacht war Bremen das Ziel eines britischen Terrorangriffs. Es entstanden Gebäudeschäden und Personenverluste. Schwächere feindliche Verbände warfen Bomben auf rheinisch-westfälisches Gebiet und auf die Reichshauptstadt.
Zum heutigen OKW.-Bericht wird ergänzend mitgeteilt:
In den schweren Abwehrkämpfen im großen Weichselbogen haben sich die unter dem Befehl des Generals der Infanterie Recknagel stehenden fränkisch-sudetendeutsche 88. Infanteriedivision unter Führung von Generalmajor Graf von Rittberg und die hessisch-moselländische 72. Infanteriedivision unter Führung des Generalmajors Hohn durch unerschütterlichen Kampfesmut und kühnes Draufgängertum ausgezeichnet.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (August 20, 1944)
Communiqué No. 134
Allied forces have advanced to the vicinity of the SEINE and have closed the enemy escape corridor south of FALAISE.
Leading elements moving north and northeast from DREUX have reached a point 18 miles beyond the city to the vicinity of MANTES-GASSICOURT.
Allied forces from north and south have met in CHAMBOIS, sealing the exit south of FALAISE. The area of the enemy pocket has again been reduced substantially by advances from all directions, particularly southwards towards MONTABARD and north to ÉCOUCHÉ, where heavy fighting has taken place. West of ARGENTAN, in the area southeast of PUTANGES, we have completed the mopping-up of enemy groups behind the southern edge of the pocket.
Further north, in the area east of the SAINT-PIERRE-SUR-DIVES, our troops have continued to thrust eastwards and have established three bridgeheads over the river VIE at LIVAROT, COUPESARTE and GRANDCHAMP.
No changes are reported in the areas of CHARTRES and ORLÉANS, or in the BRITTANY Peninsula.
Our NORMANDY-based planes continued their heavy attacks on tanks and motor vehicles of all types retreating eastward, and against river barges on the SEINE. They also provided close support for our advancing columns.
Roads in the escape corridor in the vicinity of ORBEC are strewn with knocked-out vehicles, often making it difficult for our pilots to select active targets.
More than 800 motortrucks were destroyed and 600 damaged yesterday from the line FALAISE–ARGENTAN northeastward to the SEINE, in addition to 40 tanks destroyed and many others damaged.
Twenty-six large river barges on the SEINE were sunk by fighter-bombers during the day. Fifty-nine were destroyed the previous day.
Direct hits were registered during an attack by coastal aircraft on small groups of enemy E-boats in the eastern Channel early yesterday. A small force of heavy bombers attacked the LA PALLICE oil storage depot yesterday morning.
Other operations by aircraft based in ENGLAND were curtailed by weather.
A force of enemy E- and R-boats was intercepted off CAP DE LA HÈVE by light coastal forces early Saturday. After a short engagement, during which damage was inflicted in the enemy, our force withdrew leaving the enemy aircraft firing upon each other in some confusion.
An armed trawler and an M-class minesweeper were also attacked by light coastal forces off the entrance to the harbor of LE HAVRE despite the fire of the shore batteries, which prevented observation of results.