Gorrell: Stream of Nazi transport runs hellish gantlet of U.S. shellfire
By Henry T. Gorrell
With U.S. assault forces, Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, France (UP) – (June 17)
For hours now a steady stream of German transport has been running a hellish gantlet of American artillery fire on the last coastal escape road out of Cherbourg and there is every indication that the Germans are abandoning a suicide defense force in the port city while they try to save the bulk of their forces for a fight farther to the east.
We can see the German transport vehicles careening down the highway between here and the ocean shimmering in the sunlight only nine miles away.
The road runs through an impenetrable marshland, so the Germans have scant room in which to dodge the barrage of shellfire which is raining down upon their escape corridor. The road is lined with shattered and upended vehicles – many of them staff cars which probably carried officers.
Yank advance is speedy
The occupants of these cars have been pinned under the wreckage. I passed many vehicles riddled with holes and burned out at the roadside as I followed the fast-moving American spearheads in their advance.
We are advancing steadily along hedgerows through dense woods and underbrush, fighting hand-to-hand and supported by the greatest artillery concentration yet seen in France.
Since sunset yesterday, we have covered seven kilometers (4.3 miles) north and westward from Saint-Sauveur by bypassing the enemy at Néhou and ejecting him from Saint-Jacques-de-Néhou.
The U.S. advance westward across the peninsula has been so swift that the air force has had to exercise utmost caution to avoid shooting up our own ammunition trucks and tanks.
The Germans sallied out of Néhou in a half-hearted counterattack at dusk yesterday but ran into concentrated artillery fire that shattered their ranks and flattened the village.
During yesterday’s advance, we overtook an entire German field hospital and at least one artillery battery complete with horses, wagons and a commissary filled with choice wines. Many U.S. paratroopers captured in the early phase of the invasion were liberated yesterday and today as the Germans abandoned them in their precipitate flight.
I’ve passed hundreds of German corpses during the past few days and I have been struck with the fact that most of them were shot through the head. This is a tribute to the hours of practice our doughboys put in on the rifle ranges in England waiting for D-Day.