The Free Lance-Star (June 12, 1944)
U.S. TROOPS 18 MILES DEEP IN FRANCE
Deep penetration made in center of beachhead; Cerisy Forest and Carentan taken
Germans still hold Caen; Cherbourg near isolation
SHAEF, England (AP) –
U.S. troops have driven 18 miles inland in the middle of the Normandy beachhead, capturing the whole forest of Cerisy, and the German High Command said today the strategic stronghold of Carentan had fallen to U.S. forces.
The smashing advance through the Cerisy Forest punched the deepest dent yet in the Nazi line.
Doughboys were converging on Saint-Lô, communications hub in the center of Normandy, less than nine miles away, from the north and east.
Headquarters did not confirm the fall of Carentan, guarding the narrowest neck of Cherbourg Peninsula, but said Americans were within 14 miles of Cherbourg itself from the southeast, and had punched halfway across the cape, threatening to seal off the tip.
German broadcasts said Caen, eastern bastion of the 60-mile-long front, was menaced by encirclement – with British troops slashing nine miles east of the city.
A front dispatch today said Caen had not yet been captured, although “a considerable German force has been brought to battle and hit hard.” Another story dated Sunday declared Allied troops pressed within a few miles of Caen “after blasting the Germans out of the town” late Friday. This suggested the Nazis had pulled back at least the main part of their armored force from the city.
Supreme Headquarters said further gains were made around Montebourg on the southeast avenue to Cherbourg, and reported “considerable progress” around Carentan, a vital junction.
The doughboys were cracking in the Cherbourg Peninsula Line in the center, and a Berlin broadcast reported seaborne forces had landed at Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, 16 miles east of Cherbourg.
In the widening hole in the center of the beachhead to the southeast, Berlin said British formations were concentrating in the Balleroy area, 12 miles inland, flanking Cerisy Forest to the east, thus in position to aid the U.S. drive on Saint-Lô.
Headquarters said the beachhead front now had been lengthened to 60 miles, and said the German command had been forced to throw in reserves piecemeal, sapping potential strength from his anticipated major counterattack.
Naval guns cause evacuation
The Germans said Carentan, whose floodgates control the main peninsula water defense system, was evacuated in order to continue a stand on ground less exposed to allied naval guns.
As for Caen, German broadcasts said that the British drive has reached nearly to Troarn, nine miles east of that bastion, and that Allied parachutists had landed south of Caen. British troops were driving down west of Caen threatening the other flank. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel has mounted his fiercest armored counterattacks in this Caen sector, and Berlin said major British forces were concentrating for a full-fledged assault on the town.
As the U.S. frontal attack across the Merderet River on Cherbourg Peninsula reached within 12 miles of the West Coast roads – whose capture would seal off Cherbourg – Vichy radio said doughboys had pushed into Quinéville on the East Coast.
This would put Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley’s flank within 14 miles of Cherbourg on a four-mile front between Quinéville and Montebourg, where street fighting was reported.
The Germans, apparently reeling under the force of the first invasion week, said 300,000 to 400,000 Allied troops had already been poured into a mighty bridgehead flood and that these represented only a third of the amphibious assault forces poised in Britain to hammer home attacks against the continent.
The German radio declared:
The bulk of the huge forces of the 21st Amphibious Army Group is still standing by to pounce on some important harbor.
Report new landings
Continuing a stream of reports of new Allied landings, Berlin’s Transocean News Agency said seaborne forces had been put ashore at Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue near the top of the peninsula and due east of Cherbourg yesterday.
The Germans said the Allies had crossed the Orne estuary, ferrying over tanks and threatening Caen, which Marshal Erwin Rommel by his counterattacks had made a testing point.
The crossing of the estuary forced the Germans to evacuate two towns before the Allied onslaught was checked near Troarn, by German account.
A breakthrough here would link up infantry with parachute troops which the Nazis said had landed in the Troarn area earlier.
Heightening of the prospect of encirclement of Caen was the German report of other parachute troop landings south of the town.
To the west, British troops were also flanking the town by a thrust through Tilly-sur-Seulles where armored columns were engaged in fierce combat.
Officials reports said only that British and Canadians were holding their own satisfactorily along the explosive Caen line, but field dispatches declared Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery had mounted a powerful encircling sweep, with the Allies driving ahead on both flanks around the town.
Nazis use reserves
Headquarters Communiqué No. 13, issued at 11:00 a.m., reported that intense fighting against German armored columns raged without respite in the Tilly-sur-Seulles area on the British sector of the front.
Field Marshal Karl Gerd von Rundstedt was rushing reserves up from as far back as Paris to meet this mounting menace, but his new men and guns, and the roads over which they moved, were under bomb cannon, rocket and machine-gun fire of an Allied air armada which before noon had flown more sorties than all day yesterday.
Allied warships – among them the battleships USS Texas and Nevada and the cruisers USS Tuscaloosa and Quincy, and the British battleship HMS Warspite – hurled tons of explosives miles inland upon German guns which still were able to subject the invasion beachhead to sporadic fire.
The targets of the warships were principally the Nazis’ mobile guns, for by now virtually all fixed-position defense batteries were knocked out.
The invasion beachhead was regarded as secure and progress inland along the whole front, now roughly 55 miles wide, was viewed officially today with “sober satisfaction.”
The fight had reached the phase of exploiting the beachhead success and now, favored by the best weather since D-Day, the team of Gens. Montgomery and Bradley was expected to accelerate operations.
Strong attacking force
The German radio said Allied pressure northward along the canal from Caen to the Bay of the Seine had increased this morning.
It declared the Allies had thrown 20 regular divisions and four to five airborne divisions into their 55-mile front.
Ferry terminals at the mouth of the Seine were shot up by RAF rocket typhoons yesterday.
The Germans asserted their bouncers sank a 7,000-ton Allied troop transport in the Bay of the Seine and damaged another.
The German Air Force was little in evidence yesterday, but Allied planes had to cope with intense flak in many places.
An improvement in the weather, which permitted the RAF heavies to pound rail bottlenecks behind the German Western Front last night, gave the Allied air arm a field day over France.
Medium and fighter-bombers spread havoc among von Rundstedt’s concentrations and fighters were working so closely in contact with ground troops today that they were able to spray destruction into Nazi frontline strongpoints holding up sector advances.
Despite German claims of E-boat attacks on a powerful Allied convoy guarded by cruisers as it was crossing the western part of the Bay of the Seine, SHAEF regarded the enemy’s overnight E-boat action as on a diminished scale.
It was pointed out, however, the fight against the torpedo sting of German small boats must be […] the Germans have hundreds of them and, so far, have not dared to bring into the invasion zone anything large than E-boats and destroyers.
Headquarters followed up midnight Communiqué No. 12 with an official tribute to American progress yesterday on the beachhead’s right wing. It called the situation “excellent – could not be better.”