The Free Lance-Star (June 23, 1944)
CHERBOURG BATTLE NEAR END
Germans resist strenuously but Yanks close in
City surrounded by fighting Yanks
SHAEF, England (AP) –
Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley’s finely tuned U.S. assault troops have stormed over one of the three fortified peaks dominating Cherbourg’s military harbor, Supreme Headquarters announced today, and speedy fall of the city is expected.
Describing Cherbourg defenses as “fairly formidable,” a headquarters announcement said a “prolonged siege is unlikely now.”
Attacking with a storm of artillery fire, and a huge array of instruments od destruction, the Americans captured a height at Tourlaville, four miles from the sea southeast of Cherbourg. The Germans had been reduced to machine guns, small arms and light artillery in defending their pillboxes and prepared defenses.
Americans and Germans were so closely interlocked in the grim battle that Allied air forces were unable to give the close battlefront the support that marked the opening of the all-out attack yesterday.
British and U.S. planes concentrated on “quarantining” the battle area, hitting rail, and road communications in a semi-circle 100 miles deep in France as the Americans clamped a visa on Cherbourg and smashed at the other two remaining hilltop bastions.
Many Germans trapped
Three German divisions, mixed with German naval units and a defense garrison, were believed caught in the American clamp.
The Germans apparently had withdrawn completely from the eastern tip of the peninsula in order to concentrate on defense of Cherbourg.
A Canadian press correspondent reported that the Germans may have evacuated Caen, at the eastern end of the Allied line in Normandy and dispersed their forces outside the city because of the terrific bombing to which the long-contested town had been subjected.
The Germans were making a desperate bid to hold the strategic port as long as possible. Everywhere fierce resistance was encountered and a particularly vicious battle was being fought for control of the big airfield at Maupertus, five miles east of the city.
Fighting is severe
Inside the besieged port, the German garrison stood up stubbornly under yesterday’s 1,000-plane assault on the forts and pillboxes comprising the city’s defense. U.S. ground troops had to fight for every inch of their advance.
Only slight German resistance was reported by U.S. troops which cut off the eastern tip of the peninsula by capturing the road junction of Saint-Pierre-Église and then driving two miles westward and taking Carneville within sight of the sea.
A report from the 21st Army Group headquarters said this advance provided “strong indications” the Germans had abandoned that tip of the peninsula despite strong fortifications in the Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue area on the eastern coast.
On the western tip of the peninsula, the Americans went forward in the area of Beaumont-Hague against scattered resistance, cutting off whatever Germans are in that area.
The Allied prisoner bag, meanwhile, was described at Supreme Headquarters as “well over” the 15,000 announced a few days ago for the period since the June 6 landings.
Underground busy
Bloody hand-to-hand fighting for Cherbourg was matched over two thirds of France where the French underground is striking at the Germans on a dozen “inner fronts,” tying up “several German divisions” in combat, a special communiqué from Gen. Eisenhower’s headquarters reported.
The French patriots, the Supreme Command announced, have blocked movement of German troops against the bridgehead, have fought several pitched battles; have even occupied several towns in various parts of France.
Despite the biggest Allied air effort in more than a week, embracing more than 6,000 sorties, Gen. Bradley’s attack on Cherbourg made only a little progress. A mixed German force of three divisions of garrison troops, marines and sailors fought with the stubbornness of Stalingrad in the French-built fortifications protecting the harbor.
In the British-Canadian sector to the east, the Germans struck with a tank attack two miles southwest of Tilly-sur-Seulles, but were beaten off. British reconnaissance parties three miles east of Caen encountered determined resistance.
Allied bombers struck and destroyed a steel works just outside Caen. The Germans had been converting it into a fortified point to block the Allied forces standing less than half a mile away.
The wind dropped and the weather improved off the Allied beachhead, permitting the Allied to resume, after four bad days, the unloading of supplies.