Operation OVERLORD (1944)

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MacGowan: Few Norman girls found married to Nazi soldiers

Majority of French women await return of countrymen; others ostracized
By Gault MacGowan, North American Newspaper Alliance

Colombières, Normandy, France – (July 8)
The name of this place means dovecots in English, and the little church of the village has a popular matrimonial altar. But you will search in vain for records of weddings between Nazi soldiers and French girls.

An aged parish priest told me today:

We have had no weddings of that kind here or in any of our parishes. Civil weddings may have taken place, but I haven’t heard of any. There were some clandestine liaisons, of course, but none solemnized by the church. No self-respecting girl would have anything to do with the Germans.

I have been checking up on reports of French girls’ retreating with the Germans and on the invasion-day stories of French girls as snipers and roof-spotters, and have learned that those who became such collaborationists were few indeed. The priest’s story of Colombières is true, I feel sure, for most communities in Normandy. Tradition is strong in this region, and family life is even stronger. There is no sympathy for the scarlet woman.

Spoke to ‘pink sister’

I spoke to one pink sister today, discovering her hue only after I asked her opinion of why the Germans did not invade England in 1940 and she flashed back so aptly with her reply.

“Why should they?” she said. “They had everything they wanted here – wine, women and the best of cooking.”

In justice to French women in general, I should make clear that I have asked the same question of many others, and they have given me quite different answers.

It must be admitted that there has been a definite psychological problem involved with the occupation army. Young Frenchwomen, with their own young men far from them and only old men or comparative weaklings to choose from, could not keep from glancing occasionally at healthy, young German soldiers, looking very difference from the caricatures of them circulated before the fall of France. Not all were the strictly Nazi types. Large numbers of Saxons, Bavarians and Austrians. Some had been educated at the Sorbonne or in England or America. They spoke French well and their manners were cosmopolitan.

Germans frowned on unions

These more attractive ones were pushed forward in the early campaign to implant Hitler’s ideology in France. Parties, tennis and other games were organized for collaboration families; and it was difficult to refuse all German invitations without causing reprisals.

If any weddings resulted – genuine weddings – they took place in Paris or somewhere else far from local cognizance. Any weddings learned of here would have caused social ostracism. The girls involved would have been compelled by the pressure of public opinion to leave their families and go to Germany. Another side of the truth is that the Germans themselves frowned on such unions in their customary insistence on “racial purity.”

The comparatively few women of Normandy who lived openly with the Germans are targets of the scorn of their countrymen or are described bluntly as members of the world’s oldest profession. Norman instincts are too courteous to sanction dealing with them as the Corsicans did when I was there ands saw such women returned to their homes after camp life with the Nazis. Guerrilla patriots had cut off their hair and stripped them naked. Then they marched them to the top of the village street and turned them loose.

For four years, the great majority of Frenchwomen have drawn themselves into shells. they don’t come out easily even to greet the young men of the Allies. The German occupation of their country has made them more nationalistic than ever. They are reserving their welcomes for their imprisoned sweethearts and for those who come back with the Fighting French.

Shapiro: David Niven plays real war role as a British officer in France

Normandy version like Hollywood’s; Yanks see him, turn autograph hounds
By L. S. B. Shapiro, North American Newspaper Alliance

With U.S. forces in Normandy, France – (July 8)
Every movie fan knows how David Niven looks in the role of a British officer fighting in France.

As a Hollywood actor, he played the part od a British officer in the 1914-18 war at least a dozen times. His realistic performance as Errol Flynn’s fighting pal in the picture Dawn Patrol sent him to stardom.

Niven looks no different as the real thing. He is a British officer on this Normandy bridgehead and is temporarily attached to a U.S. formation headquarters as British liaison officer.

I met him yesterday, and except for the fact that he is wearing battledress instead of the service dress uniforms officers wore in World War I. He is a same David Niven you’ve seen in so many Flanders pictures.

He was natty, his eyes had the same old twinkle and his grin had that quality of mischievous charm which made him so great a film favorite.

“I was honestly laughing with tears in my eyes when I landed in France the other day,” he said, chuckling.

We had a rough passage. You know how the Channel can be – and I was pretty shaky on my pins when I came ashore and dreadfully ill.

There were a lot of American troops working on the beach and the first thing I know they were rushing at me with bits of paper and pencils. I was awfully sick but I had to laugh. It was all too funny – and it is when you come to think of it. Here we are in the biggest, most dramatic operation of the war, and what happens? Autograph hounds!

As though to emphasize the truth of Niven’s dilemma, some British troops moving up to the front paused as they passed our roadside rendezvous and gave the movie star what is known in Hollywood as “the double take.” They looked curiously at first, as though searching their memories, then gave him a wide stare and a wave of the hand.

He looked up and down the muddy road filled with transport trucks and troops against the background of a shattered French village.

“It doesn’t look too different from a Hollywood set, what?” He remarked. Then Officer Niven climbed into a jeep and moved toward the battlefront.

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402

On Normandy front –
Hard-pressed Nazis use salvaged guns

On the U.S. 1st Army front, Normandy, France – (July 8)
The war on this complicated front started inching its way southward again this morning after a night of reorganization and another artillery earthquake. Movement was slowest in the west, more where new gun mobilizations have failed to compensate Heinie for having been caught out at the Aire crossing.

Troops that went in on the extreme left yesterday morning had reached a point 500 yards south of Saint-Jean-de-Daye during the night and were still advancing. The second spearhead in this attack, which cut across the Vire et Taute Canal during the afternoon, had cleared the marshes and was beating back the Germans successfully on dry ground beyond.

Queer artillery

Thanks to the murderous terrain, Heinie has been able to put up a good defensive fight, but in the eastern sector his luck at the moment seems to have run out. His artillery continued to plaster roads and battery positions with plenty of force, but to the disinterested observer, it looked like queer artillery.

It doesn’t make much difference to you, as you try to make yourself flatten in a mud puddle, whether the incoming shells are of orthodox caliber or not, but you begin to take notice when whizbangs and slow-moving crumps arrive in the same spot almost simultaneously. That just isn’t the way to fire artillery if you can help yourself.

It has been known for some time that the Germans all along the front, have been throwing in guns only recently salvaged from the junkpiles of 1939 and 1940 – Polish and Czech field pieces, Russian howitzers and French 75s and railway guns, not to mention exotic varieties of off-size British cannon abandoned before Dunkerque – and here’s proof of it, as a U.S. artillery major sharing my frontline mud puddle pointed out.

“If he [the enemy] gets away with this, he’s a Chinese magician,” the major said. He pulled his head down while two more Heinie shells came blasting into a hedge, one with a boom, the other with a flat crack.

Real supply problem

He said:

That’s it. This is a fine place to find out what every kind of shell in the world sounds like. He’s using them all. Think what is going on up there in his artillery positions. He has everybody’s guns up there but you can see for yourself that he hadn’t got very many of any one kind in any one place.

Tentatively, I guess it will be some 75s and a couple of 25-pounders and about half a dozen 12-inchers. And that’s no kidding. He must be getting down pretty close to the bottom of the barrel.

403

Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (July 9, 1944)

Communiqué No. 68

The town of CAEN has been liberated. Many pockets of enemy resistance remain but these are being systematically dealt with.

Local gains have been made in the ODON bridgehead and in the CAUMONT-TILLY sector.

In the base of the CHERBOURG Peninsula, German resistance in LA HAYE-DU-PUITS was crushed after the town had been bypassed on both sides.

Some ground has also been gained towards SAINTENY although enemy resistance is intense in both this area and beyond SAINT-JEAN-DE-DAYE.

Heavy bombers attacked the airfield at CHÂTEAUDUN and bridges in the TOURS area this morning. Escorting fighters shot down one enemy aircraft, and bombed and strafed ground targets including locomotives, rolling stock and motor transport.

Medium bombers, one of which is missing, attacked a fuel dump at RENNES and a road bridge south of ORLÉANS. They were escorted by fighters which also bombed gun positions south of RENNES and near SAINT-MALO.

Naval patrols made contact with groups of enemy E-boats off the mouth of the SEINE early on Saturday morning. During the actions which followed, two enemy E-boats were severely damaged and one was set on fire before the enemy escaped into LE HAVRE.

Early this morning, destroyers on patrol sighted and chased a force of five armed trawlers off CAP FRÉHEL. The enemy force escaped inshore under shelter of shore batteries, but not before they had received serious punishment.

404

Völkischer Beobachter (July 10, 1944)

Zerstörte Träume

Über die Wege in der Normandie ziehen die Flüchtlinge. Was sie mit Mühe und Not haben retten können aus den Trümmern ihrer Häuser, bergen sie in ihrem wenigen Gepäck. Ganz außer Fassung, viele die maßlose Angst vor den niedersausenden Bomben noch in den Augen, gehen sie gejagt ihren Weg.

Ihre Dörfer und Städte lagen weit hinter der Front. Aber plötzlich, an einem sonnenklaren Sommernachmittag, dröhnten die Verbände mit den Kreisen auf den Flügeln dunkel und drohend über die engen Straßen und pittoresken Plätze. Innerhalb einer Viertelstunde war das Städtchen eine Hölle von Rauch und Feuer. Wer noch den Keller hatte erreichen können, erstickte unter den niederstürzenden Trümmern. Nur die konnten sich retten, die ins freie Feld geflohen waren.

Jetzt ziehen sie auf den normannischen Wegen. Aber noch nimmt ihr Elend kein Ende. Bei einer Kurve, als das Gebüsch aufhört und man über die wogenden Roggenfelder eine freie Sicht hat, kommen britische Jäger in geringer Höhe über die traurige Kolonne. Wütend funken die Bordwaffen. Kinden beginnen zu weinen, Frauen schreien und rennen nach dem schützenden Gebüsch zurück.

Zitternd vor Angst und Entsetzen suchen sie, nachdem die Flieger verschwunden sind, nochmals die Reste des Hausgeräts. Sie haben nicht die Kraft, weiterzugehen, ein paar hundert Meter weiter kann ihnen dasselbe passieren. Vollkommen zerschlagen bleiben sie am Rande des Weges sitzen. Ihr Blick sucht nervös den Himmel ab. Kommen sie da schon wieder?

Es ist eine Welle von unsagbarem Leid über die Normandie gekommen. Sie hat alle schönen Träume von einer „schnellen, schmerzlosen Befreiung“ auf grausamste Weise zerstört.

NSK.

405

Innsbrucker Nachrichten (July 10, 1944)

Erbitterte Straßen- und Häuserkämpfe in Caen

Missglückte feindliche Durchbruchsversuche in Italien – Wilna gegen zahlreiche Angriffe behauptet – Zwei britische Schnellboote versenkt

dnb. Aus dem Führerhauptquartier, 10. Juli –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:

Die große Abwehrschlacht im Raum von Caen griff im Laufe des gestrigen Tages auf die Stadt selbst über. Nach erbitterten Straßen- und Häuserkämpfen, in denen unsere Truppen dem Feind schwerste Verluste zufügten, drückte der Gegner unsere Linien auf den Südrand von Caen zurück. Bei Crainville scheiterten feindliche Panzerangriffe. In einer Einbruchstelle beiderseits der Straße von Caumont–Caen sind die Kämpfe noch nicht abgeschlossen. Zwischen Airei und Sainteny konnte der Feind nur geringen Geländegewinn erzielen. Südlich La Haye-du-Puits wurden mehrere feindliche Angriffe abgewiesen, westlich des Ortes feindliche Bereitstellungen durch zusammengefasstes Artilleriefeuer zerschlagen.

Bei den Kämpfen der vergangenen Woche im Südwestteil der Halbinsel Cherbourg haben sich die Kampfgruppe der 77. Infanteriedivision unter Oberst der Reserve Bacherer und die Kampfgruppe der 243. Infanteriedivision unter Oberst Klosterkemper besonders ausgezeichnet.

Im französischen Raum wurden wiederum 239 Terroristen und Saboteure im Kampf niedergemacht.

Vor der niederländischen und nordfranzösischen Küste versenkten Sicherungsfahrzeuge der Kriegsmarine in der Nacht zum 9. Juli zwei britische Schnellboote, beschädigten vier weitere schwer und erzielten zahlreiche Treffer auf mehreren anderen Booten. Ein eigenes Fahrzeug ging verloren.

Im Golf von Saint-Malo zwangen Vorposten feindliche Zerstörer zum Abdrehen und beschädigten einen von ihnen.

Das „V1“- Vergeltungsfeuer auf London dauert mit nur geringen Unterbrechungen an.

In Italien zeichneten sich unsere an der westlichen Küstenstraße bei Volterra, Poggibonsi, Arezzo und an der adriatischen Küste eingesetzten Truppen gestern erneut durch besondere Standhaftigkeit aus. Trotz Einsatzes überlegener Infanterie- und Panzerkräfte, die durch starke Artillerie- und laufende Luftangriffe unterstützt wurden, gelang dem Feind nirgends der erhoffte Durchbruch durch unsere Front, In einigen örtlichen Einbruchsstellen hielten die Kämpfe am gestrigen Abend noch an.

Im Osten ließen die Angriffe der Sowjets bei Kowel nach dem hervorragenden Abwehrerfolg unserer Truppen an Heftigkeit nach. Erneute Durchbruchsversuche wurden zerschlagen.

Westlich Baranowicze fingen unsere Divisionen die mit starken Infanterie- und Panzerkräften vordringenden Bolschewisten in erbitterten Kämpfen an der Szczara, beiderseits Slonin, auf. Die Verteidiger von Wilna behaupteten die Stadt gegen zahlreiche, von Panzern unterstützte Angriffe des Feindes und fügten ihm hohe blutige Verluste zu. Nordwestlich Wilna wurden die Sowjets im Gegenangriff zurückgeworfen. An der Straße Kauen–Dünaburg sind bei Otena heftige Kämpfe im Gange. Gegenangriffe unserer Truppen hatten Erfolg. Nordwestlich Polozk scheiterten die Durchbruchsversuche mehrerer sowjetischer Schützendivisionen am zähen Widerstand unserer Truppen.

Bei den schweren Abwehrkämpfen im Raum von Orscha hat sich Major Lampfrecht, Kommandeur einer hamburgischen leichten Flakabteilung, durch beispielhafte Tapferkeit ausgezeichnet.

Starke Schlachtfliegergeschwader griffen in rollenden Einsätzen in die Erdkämpfe ein, setzten zahlreiche sowjetische Panzer und Geschütze außer Gefecht und vernichteten mehrere hundert Fahrzeuge.

In der Nacht führten Kampf- und Nachtschiachtflugzeuge wirksame Angriffe gegen den sowjetischen Nachschubverkehr. Besonders in den stark belegten Bahnhöfen Korosten, Olewsk und Rowno entstanden große Brände in Betriebsstofflagern und heftige Explosionen.

Ein nordamerikanischer Bomberverband warf gestern verstreut Bomben im Raum von Ploesti.

Einzelne, feindliche Flugzeuge warfen in der letzten Nacht Bomben im rheinisch-westfälischen Raum.

Seestreitkräfte, Bordflak von Handelsschiffen und Marineflakartillerie schossen in der Zeit vom 1. bis 10. Juli 86 feindliche Flugzeuge ab.

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Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (July 10, 1944)

Communiqué No. 69

Following the devastating bombing yesterday morning, armor and infantry thrusting down all roads leading into CAEN from the north and west have forced the enemy out of the town back to the line of the river ORNE. This advance was supported by naval gunfire and rocket-firing aircraft based in NORMANDY. Fighters from Britain ranged to the south and east of the town, effectively checking enemy attempts to bring up reinforcements. Reports received indicate that the enemy has suffered heavy casualties in this operation.

Patrols have crossed the river ODON a short distance above its junction with the ORNE.

In the west, an advance on both sides of the CARENTAN–PERIERS road brought Allied troops close to the village of SAINTENY.

The bridgehead over the river VIRE was further widened and strengthened in spite of stiff enemy resistance.

Small formations of fighters and fighter-bombers on patrol in the area PARIS to SAINT-LÔ and to the south attacked bridges and transport at MANTES, GASSICOURT, MONTFORT-SUR-RISLE and LESSAY. Rail embankments at BOURTH and bridges behind the enemy line were also attacked during the period from noon to midnight. Five enemy aircraft were destroyed for the loss of five of ours.

During the late evening, light bombers attacked a bridge and a rail junction north of POITIERS, ferries between QUILLEBEUF and DUCLAIR and bridges, trains and road transport east of the battle area.

In yesterday morning’s operation by escorted heavy bombers, six enemy aircraft were destroyed by our fighters. Three of our bombers and three fighters are missing.

Communiqué No. 70

In the CAEN sector, the fighting has extended to the area south of the ODON river. From the ODON bridgehead our troops have advanced through the villages of ÉTERVILLE and MALTOT. Enemy strongpoints, which were bypassed in our advance yesterday, are being systematically eliminated.

Southwest of CARENTAN, our troops advancing along the road toward PÉRIERS have liberated the village of SAINTENY. South of TILLY and south of LA HAYE-DU-PUITS, strong German armored counterattacks have been repulsed and a number of their tanks destroyed.

Widespread attacks on the enemy transportation system were carried out last night by our light bombers. Seventeen trains and associated targets on rail lines leading to the battlefront were damaged or set on fire.

Our fighter-bombers operated in the LESSAY and SAINT-LÔ sectors this morning, attacking gun positions and strongpoints.

407

The Pittsburgh Press (July 10, 1944)

British capture three towns, key height south of Caen

Yanks advance mile, extend bridgehead in central Normandy

map.071044.up
Two initial objectives captured, Caen and La Haye-du-Puits, British and U.S. forces today continued to advance along the road to Paris. The Yanks pushed 2,000 yards south of La Haye (1), captured the towns of Le Désert and Cavigny and drove to within five miles of Périers (2). The British and Canadians extended their beachheads across the Odon River, captured three villages and a key height, and pressed toward the Nazis’ Orne River line (3).

SHAEF, London, England –
British and Canadian forces slashed into the exposed German flank below captured Caen today and drove forward through three fortified villages to within less than half a mile of the Orne River defense line due south of Caen.

Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery’s 2nd Army, striking again while the mop-up of the Caen area was underway, stormed through Éterville, Maltot (near Esquay) and Bretteville-sur-Odon in advances up to about a mile and overran the hotly-contested height called Hill 112 commanding the Orne–Odon salient below Caen.

U.S. forces advancing down the mid-Normandy highway toward Périers captured Sainteny, five miles southwest of Carentan, and other U.S. units expanded the bridgehead across the Vire for an average gain of a mile, reaching a point only 7,000 yards from Saint-Lô.

The expansion of the Vire bridgehead almost brought the front in line with the general battle zone through the Caumont–Saint-Lô area, and a headquarters spokesman said Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley’s drive there “shows considerable long-term promise.”

Threaten encirclement

The British-Canadian armored force cutting in below Caen like a giant scythe began developing a possible encirclement maneuver against the German troops holding out in the Faubourg-de-Vaucelles, southern suburb of Caen.

The high ground captured by the Imperials between the Odon and Orne Rivers was the key to the entire Caen sector, and the victory put the final seal of the conquest of the great inland port.

A spokesman, however, emphasized that the Germans were still fighting fiercely all along the Normandy front, but had been obliged to throw in reserves they had been trying to build up for a showdown.

Orderly withdrawals

It was emphasized that wherever the Nazis were giving ground, they were doing so by orderly withdrawals, and nowhere was there a sign of disorganization in the enemy ranks or large-scale disengagement.

With the seizure of Hill 112 between the Orne and Odon, the British were able to command the highway running south and slightly west from Caen, leaving only the Caen–Falaise highway in German hands and relatively free of interference.

In the immediate area of Caen, which fell yesterday, German strongpoints which had been bypassed in the final assault on the city were being cleaned out.

Counterattacks held

West of Caen, the Germans counterattacked, but were held everywhere by the British.

The Americans who captured Sainteny pressed on down the road from Carentan toward Périers, the road hub controlling the territory between Saint-Lô and the west coast.

To the northwest, the Germans counterattacked strongly in the area of La Haye-du-Puits, captured yesterday, but the Americans beat off the blows and destroyed a number of enemy tanks.

Front dispatches disclosed that Gen. Montgomery’s tanks and infantry, supported by warships and rocket-firing planes, had cleared a six-mile stretch of the north bank of the Orne in Caen and on either side of the city.

Couldn’t wreck bridges

A headquarters spokesman said the final stages of the British advance into Caen were so rapid that the Germans were not believed to have had time to destroy all the bridges across the Orne.

The British first pushed across the Odon River some five miles southwest of Caen nearly two weeks ago and so developed their threat to the Orne River that the Germans committed a major portion of their armor there.

The line swayed back and forth during five German counterattacks, but the British held firmly to their bridgehead.

Americans also advance

One column of the U.S. 1st Army at the western end of the 111-mile front pushed 2,000 yards south of La Haye-du-Puits, another seized Le Désert and Cavigny, three miles southwest and three southeast respectively of Saint-Jean-de-Daye, and a third drove down the Carentan-Périers road.

Headquarters acknowledged that the Germans had made a minor gain in violent counterattacks on the Mount Castre plateau southeast of La Haye, though the Americans still held high ground there.

The liberation of Caen cleared away one of the strongest obstacles on the highway and railway from Cherbourg to Paris 120 miles to the east, and gave the Allies a first-class port which had a peacetime capacity of two million tons of cargo a year. Caen, the largest city yet captured by the Allies in France, had a peacetime population of 50,000, some 20,000 more than Cherbourg.

Once well across the Orne, however, Allied armor can fan out across rolling country without a natural defense obstacle for 20 miles. Any German attempt to make a stand short of a ridge running northwest from Falaise, 20 miles southeast of Caen, to the Caumont area was expected to touch off an armored battle that may determine the length of enemy resistance in western France.

Caen was little more than a crumbling mass of ruins when it fell into British hands yesterday, but its port installation and the Orne Canal leading seven miles northward to the sea were believed largely intact.

408

Bombers sweep northern France

Robot plane bases hammered by RAF
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer

London, England –
Hundreds of British Lancaster bombers, with a fighter escort, swept over northern France early today in what was believed new attacks on the German robot bomb launching installations, while tactical forces again hit enemy communications behind the Normandy battlefront.

An Air Ministry communiqué identified the RAF targets only as “military objectives,” but coastal observers reported the great fleets of planes took only an hour and a half to shuttle over the straits, indicating the targets were somewhere nearby.

The communiqué said RAF Mosquito bombers attacked a synthetic oil plant at Buer, in Prussia, last night. Both operations were carried out without loss.

Other Mosquito forces, together with Bostons, carried out pre-dawn raids on at least 18 trains, railways and bridges over the Seine, directly behind the enemy lines, and harassed road convoys, at one point surprising a 10-mile-long convoy of trucks near Chartres.

Fighter-bombers strafed and bombed German reinforcements moving across pontoon bridges several miles from the mouth of the Seine.

Despite bad weather, which sometimes forced fighters down to less than 300 feet, Allied planes yesterday made 3,500 sorties, including attacked by rocket-firing RAF Typhoons on German strongpoints just ahead of the troops in Caen.

Down three fighters

Only one formation of German planes was encountered over Normandy yesterday. Australian Spitfires engaged 40 enemy fighters between Lisieux and Cabourg and shot down three of them without loss.

Adverse weather hampered aerial operations from Italy, although Flying Fortresses and Liberators, with escorting fighters, hit the Ploești oil fields in Romania.

Romania’s second largest refinery at Concordia Vega, on the north side of the fields, was covered by a smokescreen, but Liberators sighted several explosions and reported columns of oil smoke 18,000 feet high. The other target was the Xenia refinery, to the northwest, which was set afire by Flying Fortresses.

Mustangs made a separate offensive sweep over the area and downed most of the 14 German planes knocked out in the raid.

409

Nazis face more secret weapons

SHAEF, London, England (UP) –
The Americans have several new secret weapons to use in their march to Berlin, Maj. Gen. Harry Benton Sayler, chief ordnance officer for the European Theater, disclosed today.

Among them, he said, is a gun with a range so great that the usual low-speed observations planes are useless as “eyes” for it and regular fighters will be used instead.

Gen. Sayler said:

We recently opened fire for the first time with the longer-range weapon against German headquarters. A pursuit plane was used fro observation. The fliers saw the German personnel trying to get away in cars and went down and shot them up.

Some of the new weapons have been used successfully in Normandy, Gen. Sayler said, but others are being held in reserve and details of them have not been released.

Gen. Sayler said that while Cherbourg was not ready yet to receive supplies in great quantities, “we hope soon to get supplies going directly to France from the United States.”

410

Nazis in France packing bags

Troops told to send belonging home
By Paul Ghali

Bern, Switzerland –
German officers garrisoned in the south zone of France on June 27 received orders to pack up their belongings and send them to Germany immediately. Each man was allowed to keep only 11 pounds of personal baggage. Shipments began on July 1.

This is private information just received by your correspondent from a most reliable source in France.

French military experts here believe that this news confirms recent reports that the Nazis are preparing for the eventual evacuation of France. But they also feel that the decree may well mean that several, if not all, German divisions in the south of France are making final preparations for forthcoming battles.

The total number of Wehrmacht divisions in the south zone is estimated by these experts at 18.

One thing appears certain. This German luggage, which presumably contains the booty of four years of pillage in France, will gave a long and hectic journey before it reached its destination. Communications from central and western France have become so disrupted that it recently took Dr. Braillard, Vichy delegate to the International Radio Broadcasting Committee, 50 hours to reach Lausanne from Paris, a trip which, before the war, required only seven or eight hours.

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Casey: A dead Nazi’s pictures bare war tragedy

Captured La Haye an awesome sight
By Robert J. Casey

On the U.S. front in Normandy, France –
South of La Haye-du-Puits, U.S. troops today were slowly blasting through more hedges, stone walls and ranks of unconvinced Germans on their way to the promised land of flat country where a man has a chance to see what he is fighting.

The weather, as usual, was rotten and mud thick and plentiful in fields and roadways, and the going was still tough and dangerous from one end of the line to the other, but when various corps spokesmen announced that “progress was satisfactory” you felt inclined to believe them.

Town a terrible sight

We got into La Haye in force yesterday morning and crashed through the principal defenses at the railroad station. To one who had looked at it across the lovely valley in the British sun of five years ago, the town was an awesome and terrible sight.

There was no charm about it now. Snipers were still sending out venomous fire from skeletons of rooftops. Rocket guns – “screaming meemies” – were dropping their howling slugs promiscuously from some concealed spot in orchards south of the town. The infantry moved about close to the battered walls, with heads well down and necks pulled in.

The ditches leading into the town were cluttered with German dead. Along hedgerows, turned over clear of the road, was a procession of the skeletons of burned and tortured trucks.

At the end of a side street under a tree, a dead German lieutenant, whose name had been Franz Ritter, lay grazing sightlessly into the rainy sky. Around him were scattered belongings that probably had been loose in his pockets when he fell – his paybook, military identity card, certificate of good standing in the Nazi Party, and a collection of snapshots, mostly of himself.

An American doughboy cradled his carbine under his arm and picked up some of the photographs. Looking through them, he said:

You can tell a lot about this guy from these. Look, here he is as one of those mugs in the Youth Movement.

He held out a picture of Franz in socks, shorts and military shirt, a sour-faced boy of about 17.

That’s about the time he started listening to this Hitler. And here he us as a member of the labor battalion.

Arrogant expression

That picture showed him in front of a barracks, leaning on a shovel and looking on the world with the same arrogant expression that now was frozen into his face by death.

And here he is as an officer, a bright new shavetail with a swastika on his arm. I suppose the whole world was his that day. All his folks were sending him congratulations and maybe presents.

The doughboys turned the picture over. There was a date on it: Feb. 17, 1944. That, as the doughboy said, probably had been the greatest day in the life of Franz Ritter, the Hitler Youth, the eager young laborer, the stiff-necked soldier of the Reich, the arrogant lieutenant. And on that day, he was less than five months from July 9 and only a few hundred miles from the muddy slopes of La Haye-du-Puits – a town of which he probably had never heard.

The doughboy bleakly said:

He’s had some hard luck, but you can’t say he didn’t ask for it. He was a Nazi and he was a sniper.

He laid the pictures back in a neat pile where he had found them and turned away. Franz Ritter continues to stare up into the rain.

412

American jeep lifts curtain on Cherbourg’s bleak years

Arrival of Yanks recalls Prussian-like entry of Rommel four years before
By W. C. Heinz, North American Newspaper Alliance

Cherbourg, France – (July 7, delayed)
On June 18, 1940, the mayor of Cherbourg, a thin, white-haired, white-mustached old man in a black suit, black tie and black shoes, stood with his staff on the steps of the little city hall here in the Place de la Republique and watch silently while a German tank roared up and gnashed to a halt. Four years and nine days later that same thin, old man in the same black suit, tie and shows and with his staff again around him, stood on the same step and watched while an American jeep swirled to a halt on the same spot.

Today in that same little city hall, you heard from that same chin, little man and one of the members of that same staff the story of those two days. The story that 73-year-old Dr. Paul Reynaud and 71-year-old Eugene Simon, his deputy mayor, told you, however, is also the story of the four years between, the story of two armies, and the story of the little people caught in the tide of this war.

‘Walked past us’

M. Simon said:

When the German tank halted, the top flew open and out climbed three German officers, all cleanshaven and in clean uniforms. While we stood and watched, not knowing what to do, they just walked past us and into our offices.

They said nothing to us but we could hear them talking in the mayor’s office, and then in a moment everyone outdoors snapped to attention as Gen. Rommel walked past without looking at us. We could hear Rommel shouting in the office, and then he came out, followed by the others, and again they walked past us without saying anything and drove away.

“Here we call Rommel the little man,” M. Simon said, and you could tell from the way he smiled when he said it that what the French here mean by that is only that little field marshal’s short stature.

People ignore band

Next day, however, the officers were back. They came back with orders that life was to go on as usual. Mayor Reynaud’s only comment on that was that it was a thing which was easily said.

As you sat, then, in the little office with the big desk and with chairs covered with red plush and listened to these two pale, old men with their black suits and their soft, slow way of thinking, you heard how on the next morning a Nazi military band marched into the Place de la Republique and gave its first concert in a bandstand which you could see through the window still standing there, dusty and in need of paint.

“Nobody went to hear the concert,” M. Simon said, “and after a month, the concerts stopped.”

Barges flop

You heard, too, how in a few days the Germans began building barges for the invasion of Great Britain, and how, when they put the barges into the water and loaded them with tanks in rehearsal, many barges were overturned and many tanks and German soldiers were lost.

You heard how the Germans, like children in their ignorance, actually though that the English Channel, for which their word is “canal,” was only 20 miles wide and how they went into the schoolrooms and tore down the maps, and when they saw that the Channel was 70 miles wide, they shouted in fury that the maps had been faked, and tore them up.

You heard, too, about the Nazi naval captain of the port. He was the former captain of the luxury liner Bremen who, before the war, received a gold medal from the Cherbourg Chamber of Commerce.

Commits suicide

M. Simon said:

If you want his name, you may find it in the cemetery. The Germans say that he committed suicide.

Then the two pale, old men, one wearing the Cross of Lorraine and the other the red ribbon of the Legion of Honor, told you about German planes. They told you how, in the hard fall and winter of 1940 and 1941, they watched German planes wing overhead on their way to Britain.

The mayor said:

We watched them leave by the dozens and come back in twos and threes. Then we knew that there was something over there.

After that, the two men told you, there were long years of waiting. They told of five ounces of bread a day, of no tea, no coffee, no cheese and only eight ounces of meat a month – this in the most fruitful part of France.

Nazis grow nervous

They told of the growing nervousness of the Germans at the news of the U.S. landings in France, and how they wanted to laugh and sing but couldn’t, and of the orders of evacuation, of the fight for the city, and then of how they stood in their old, black suits on the steps of the old city hall and watched the American jeep as it swirled to a stop.

You heard that when the jeep drove up the men in it were not cleanshaven and were not in bright, smart uniforms. They were grimy and dirty and there was dust on their clothes, but when they got out of the jeep, they didn’t walk stiffly past the pale, old men, but strode up to them and shook their hands.

The man who shook hands with the mayor was Lt. Col. Frank Howley of Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, head of the Allied civil affairs unit in Cherbourg, but no one has to tell you of the civil affairs unit or what it has to do here. You can see that everywhere on the face of this city and in the faces of the two old men and the other people.

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413

Editorial: Caen cost 33 days

The British capture of Caen has broken a dangerous stalemate in the Battle of Normandy. Caen was scheduled for capture a month ago. The British took part of it on D-Day, but had to retreat quickly. The enemy then succeeded in holding up the British advance for 33 days.

It is no secret that Allied victory depends on slashing, rapid advances, and that Nazi strategy is to contain the Allies within a fixed line where attrition is heavy. In this case, the Nazis achieved a temporary stalemate without calling out their major strategic reserves. That makes the Allies’ task ahead all the more difficult.

When went wrong with Gen. Montgomery’s plans will probably remain a mystery until after the war. Some of the experts are suggesting that his famous super-caution may have tricked him into a slower and, in the end, more costly operation than necessary. This criticism strikes us as premature.

Bad weather may have accounted for most of the Caen stalemate. Many of those 33 days were such that Gen. Montgomery could not land supplies on the beaches to build up his forces, and could not use his great air superiority to turn the balance. Apparently during the past two weeks, he has had infantry and artillery superiority amounting to a 4-to-1 advantage in firepower. Whether he was or was not slow to use it, he had taken advantage of it fully in this successful two-day offensive.

Another reason why criticism seems to us premature is that much depends on the next big move by the Allies. The German General Staff still does not know whether Gen. Eisenhower will put all his eggs in the Normandy basket, or whether he soon will make other landings in the region of Le Havre or Brest, or even in Belgium or Holland.

Events may prove that the Caen delay was due more to Gen. Montgomery’s overcaution than to the Germans’ refusal to be caught off balance by drawing their main reserves toward Normandy, which in turn delayed an Eisenhower invasion elsewhere.

Whatever the explanation, it must be admitted that little was achieved by the Allies in the period between the fall of Cherbourg and that of Caen, compared with the miraculous first period of the invasion. Three or four more Caen clinches would carry us close to the fall stalemate for which the Germans are fighting. Every week counts now.

414

Simms: State control of press, radio, films alarms friends of France

By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor

Cherbourg, France –
Among the things which have alarmed friends of France the most was the decree of the Provisional Government in Algiers placing press, radio and films under state control.

The Algiers ordinance would seem to destroy freedom of the press and other means of public expression. The state would have the say as to who could run newspapers. The French Information Agency alone would have the right to circulate government communiqués, domestic and foreign news and to acquire the services of foreign news agencies.

Movies could not operate until authorized by the Commissioner of Information.

Tempered ruling hoped for

Events here, however, lead to the hope that the Algiers degree may be somewhat tempered in practice. Supposedly, all newspapers and periodicals which carried out Nazi or Vichy policy were to be confiscated. Yet none of that seems to have happened here.

One of the oldest newspapers in this part of France is Éclair of Cherbourg. After the German occupation, it turned collaborationist. But when the Americans marched on the port, the editor fled to Paris, leaving the paper in the hands of his brother-in-law, M. Hamel.

New name for paper

After the fall of Cherbourg, Algiers Regional Commissioner François Coulet began to apply the law. He ousted Hamel and appointed Roger Pillet, a newspaperman and member of the resistance group, as editor. Printers and other employees of Éclair struck. They contended Hamel had never written any collaborationist stuff. He had only managed the property as he had done before 1940, and throughout the occupation he had carried on “in a spirit of friendly cooperation with the workers,” they maintained.

Subprefect Leviandier, a Coulet appointee, who was called in to arbitrate, decided to give the newspaper a new name, La Presse cherbourgeoise, and to go on publishing with the old staff, including Hamel as managing director and Pillet as editor.

Commendable discretion

Throughout all this the U.S. Army’s Civil Affairs officers remained aloof.

Whether this incident means a more democratic formula will be followed remains to be seen. Certainly, Commissioner Coulet, who has wide powers, appears to have used commendable discretion.

In England, many liberal Frenchmen had looked askance at the Algiers press-radio regulation. They observed that the road to liberty is hardly through dictatorship. They said that if democracy is to be restored in France, the way to do it is not by abandoning the principles which are the foundation of democracy.

415

Völkischer Beobachter (July 11, 1944)

Unverblümte Kritik an den Invasionsstrategen –
‚Eine durchaus nicht zufriedenstellende Lage‘

dr. th. b. Stockholm, 10. Juli –
Als die Armeegruppe Montgomery in der Nacht zum vergangenen Samstag zum Großangriff antrat, da handelte sie nicht aus freiem Entschluss, sondern unter dem Zwang ihrer eingeengten Lage. Es galt und es geht ihr heute noch darum, eine „durchaus nicht zufriedenstellende Lage“ zu wenden. Der Ausdruck stammt von dem bekannten Militärkommentator der USA, Hanson Baldwin, der in der New York Times den bisherigen Verlauf der Invasion einer kritischen Prüfung unterzieht.

Von einem Besuche des Brückenkopfes nach London zurückgekehrt, schreibt er:

Das Vorrücken der Briten und Amerikaner in der Normandie war langsam und mühsam. Es kann nicht bestritten werden, daß der Verlauf der Kampfhandlungen eine Fehlrechnung für uns wurde. Die amerikanische Offensive, die am Montag begann und von der man sehr viel erwartet hatte, entwickelte sich mit einer niederschmetternden Langsamkeit. Es kann wenig Zweifel darüber herrschen, daß unsere Erwartungen nicht verwirklicht wurden und daß wir unseren Fahrplan nicht einhalten konnten. Und dabei liegt die für uns erfolgreiche Sommersaison bereits zur Hälfte hinter uns.

Es verdient festgestellt zu werden, daß Baldwin als ersten Grund für die unerfreuliche Entwicklung des Kampfverlaufs die erbitterte und geschickte Verteidigung der Deutschen bezeichnet. Erst an zweiter und dritter Stelle, so schreibt er, kämen das ungünstige Gelände und das Wetter. Als weiteren Grund nennt Baldwin die Unerfahrenheit der Offiziere bei den neu in den Kampf geworfenen amerikanischen und britischen Divisionen. Die Geschicklichkeit der Deutschen beim überraschenden Eindringen in die gegnerischen Linien und der Einsatz ihrer Scharfschützen haben diese Unerfahrenheit noch problematischer gemacht. Die Überlegenheit an Menschen und Material bilde eben keinen Ausgleich. Sie kann sich vor allem auch dann nicht geltend machen, wenn es, wie auch Baldwin erkannt hat, an der Weite des operativen Raumes fehlt.

Ist aber diese Weite durch die bisherige Taktik zu gewinnen? Baldwin antwortet mit Nein und fügt daran eine ziemlich unverblümte Kritik an Montgomery:

Bisher haben wir eine vorsichtige Taktik angewandt. Wir waren nicht Zeugen von Panzerkeilen und des Ausnutzens schwacher Punkte beim Gegner, die eine hervorragende Rolle bei den Kämpfen in Rußland spielten. Während der ersten Invasionswoche gab es mehrere Gelegenheiten, wo wir bereit sein mußten, unsere Panzerdivisionen ebenso zu riskieren, wie das die Deutschen und auch die Sowjets taten. Damit allein hätten wir militärische Ziele erreichen können. Bisher aber war der Krieg in der Normandie ein Krieg des Infanteristen und unser Vormarsch geschah in dem gleichen Tempo, wie ein Soldat zu Fuß marschiert.

Baldwin fordert, daß jetzt an die Stelle der Vorsicht Kühnheit treten müsse. „Die Zeit der Kühnheit ist gekommen und die. der Vorsicht vorbei,“ so schließt er seinen Artikel.

Die ersten 48 Stunden des feindlichen Großangriffs, die erbitterten Kämpfe um Caen und La Haye du Puits haben indessen gezeigt, daß – um mit Baldwin zu sprechen – der Krieg in der Normandie, jedenfalls was sein Tempo anbetrifft, dank der auch vom Gegner restlos anerkannten Tapferkeit des deutschen Grenadiers ein „Krieg des Infanteristen,“ des verbissen ringenden Einzelkämpfers geblieben ist. Auch wo dem Gegner ein Einbruch gelang, kann von einem raschen Vordringen nicht die Rede sein. Jedes Städtchen und jedes Dorf wurde, so lautet eine Meldung der Associated Press, „zu einem zweiten Cassino. Jede Hausruine wurde von den Deutschen zu einer Festung gemacht, gespickt mit Pak und Maschinengewehren, gesichert durch Minen und Scharfschützen.“ Der harte deutsche Widerstand wird den General Montgomery zwingen, noch mehr Truppen und Material in den Kampf zu werfen. Er wird alles daransetzen müssen, um aus seiner bisherigen Zwangslage herauszukommen.

416

Standgerichte in Cherbourg –
Die demokratischen Freiheiten regieren schon!

vb. Berlin, 10. Juli –
Die unglückliche Normandie, deren schönes Land von dem Krieg verheert wird, den die Engländer und Amerikaner wieder nach Frankreich hineingetragen haben, erfährt neue Leiden durch ein brutales System rücksichtsloser Ausnutzung ihrer Bevölkerung.

In der von den Schiffsgeschützen und Bomben stark zerstörten Stadt Cherbourg war die erste Tätigkeit der feindlichen Eroberer, die gesamte männliche Bevölkerung zwischen 18 und 45 Jahren für wehrpflichtig zu erklären und sie rigoros zu den Söldnerscharen des Generals de Gaulle einzuziehen. Außerdem etablierte sich sofort ein Standgericht der sogenannten „freien französischen Regierung,“ das mit ungezählten Verhaftungen und bedenkenlosen Todesurteilen fieberhaft an der Arbeit ist.

Es wiederholt sich auf französischem Böden das gleiche Schauspiel, das der Welt überall geboten wurde, wo die sogenannten Verfechter der demokratischen Freiheiten ihren Fuß hinsetzten. Erinnern wir an Nordafrika, wo das von Moskau dirigierte Algier-Komitee ein Schreckensregiment errichtete, dem schon Tausende zum Opfer fielen, oder an Italien, wo unter den Augen und mit Förderung der anglo-amerikanischen Militärbehörden in Moskau ausgebildete italienische Kommunisten die innerpolitische Herrschaft an sich rissen und tatsächlich trotz hoher Kommissare aus London oder Washington, trotz der AMGOT und selbstverständlich ohne jede Rücksicht auf die Bonomi-Regierung das Heft in der Hand halten. Erinnern wir daran, daß die Engländer und Amerikaner entgegen allen großspurigen Versprechungen in jedes der angeblich „befreiten“ Länder nur Hunger, Elend und Krankheiten einschleppten, und daß von den versprochenen Weizenladungen und den Kühlschiffen mit Fleisch an den „befreiten“ Küsten Europas noch keines gesichtet wurde, während viele Transporter vollgeladen mit gestohlenen Gütern in umgekehrter Richtung über den Atlantik zurückfuhren.

Die Meldungen aus Cherbourg wirken deshalb besonders unerfreulich, weil dort die emigrierten Landsleute der ohnehin schon schwer genug leidenden französischen Bevölkerung sich schamlos dafür hergeben, die männliche französische Bevölkerung in den Dienst der Armeen zu pressen, die Frankreich zu einer Wüste zu machen beabsichtigen, und die Heimattreue der Einwohner mit der Gewalt ihrer unrechtmäßigen Terrorjustiz zu bestrafen.

In diesen Maßnahmen kommt einmal die ganze Wut der Invasoren über die Stellungnahme der französischen Bevölkerung zum Ausdruck, die keineswegs ihren Befreiern mit Jubel um den Hals fiel, sondern ihre Ablehnung an den englischen und amerikanischen Kriegsgefangenen deutlich bewies, während sie sich durch spontane Hilfeleistung für die deutschen Soldaten unmissverständlich auf die Seite der Verteidiger ihres Heimatlandes stellten. Zum anderen verraten die Aushebungen aber auch den dringenden Bedarf der Invasionstruppen an der Auffrischung ihrer oft ausgebluteten und schwer zusammengeschlagenen Verbände.

Die Franzosen aber, die von den Urteilen des Standgerichts in Cherbourg betroffen oder zum Waffendienst gegen ihre eigenen Landsleute, oft gegen ihre eigenen Verwandten gepresst wurden, mögen von der so oft angekündigten Befreiung ihres Vaterlandes durch die Soldaten des General Eisenhower eine andere Vorstellung gehegt haben. Viele hundert Personen sind in Cherbourg bereits in den kurzen Tagen seit der Einnahme durch die Anglo-Amerikaner eingekerkert worden und harren ihrer Aburteilung, die in vielen Fällen nach den Ankündigungen der rachsüchtigen Emigrantenfranzosen das Todesurteil bringen wird.

Wenn eine amtliche Verlautbarung der Invasoren die Verhaftungen als notwendig kennzeichnet, „weil die betreffenden Personen für die allgemeine Sicherheit und die alliierten Operationen gefährlich sind,“ so wird damit die Einstellung weiter französischer Kreise in der Normandie deutlich genug erklärt und zugegeben, daß die Franzosen von allen vielleicht gehegten Hoffnungen auf ihre „Befreiung“ gründlich geheilt sind, sobald sie mit den englischen und amerikanischen Truppen und den in ihrem Gefolge daherkommenden feindlichen Verwaltungsbehörden erst einmal in Berührung geraten sind.

Ganz gegenteilig verhalten sich weite Landstrecken im Operations- und Aufmarschgebiet der deutschen Armeen zu unseren Truppen. Die Bevölkerung unterstützt unsere Soldaten durch großzügige Bereitstellung ihrer vorhandenen Mittel. Sie liefert ihnen Lebensmittel, steht bei der Betreuung unserer Verwundeten hilfreich zur Seite und benimmt sich überhaupt so kameradschaftlich, daß mehrfach der ausdrückliche Dank der deutschen Militärbehörden ausgesprochen werden konnte.

417

Die ‚Befreiung‘ in der Normandie –
Antijüdische Gesetze aufgehoben

Paris, 10. Juli –
Mit Billigung der anglo-amerikanischen Militärbehörden hat ein Vertreter de Gaulles bekanntgegeben, daß alle von der legalen französischen Regierung seit dem Waffenstillstand erlassenen Gesetze in dem besetzten Teil der Normandie aufgehoben sind. Dabei wurde unterstrichen, daß sich diese Maßnahme vor allem gegen die antijüdische und antifreimaurerische Gesetzgebung Vichys richte. Etwas anderes war nicht zu erwarten. Dieser Krieg ist der Krieg des Judentums und deshalb werden die ersten Maßnahmen der Feinde immer zugunsten der Juden verhängt.

Außerdem wurde in London eine neue französische Zeitung gegründet, mit welcher der besetzte Küstenstreifen der Normandie beliefert werden soll. Ihr Hauptschriftleiter heißt Louis Lewy. Die meisten seiner Mitarbeiter sind auch Juden.

US-Imperialisten gieren nach französischem Besitz

Berlin, 10. Juli –
Der Londoner Korrespondent der Tat berichtet über einen Misston, den in den Tagen vor de Gaulles Ankunft In Washington einige amerikanische Kongressmitglieder in die amerikanisch-französischen Diskussionen gebracht haben, indem sie die delikate Frage amerikanischer Marine- und Luftstützpunkte auf französischem Territorium anschnitten. Senator Reynolds verlangte seit Tagen Stützpunkte im Karibischen Meer, zum Beispiel auf Martinique, und fand auch, die beiden Inseln St. Pierre und Midriken im Nordatlantik würden ausgezeichnete Stützpunkte für die US-Flotte abgeben. Er regte an, daß Frankreich diese Besitzungen an die USA als Zahlung für die Kriegsschulden von 1914/18 (!) abtreten solle. Ein demokratischer Abgeordneter im Repräsentantenhaus meldete zudem amerikanische Ansprüche auf Neu-Caledonien im Pazifik und auf Dakar an, dessen Beherrschung den Amerikanern seit langem „für ihre Sicherheit“ lebenswichtig scheint.

Franzosen als britisches Kanonenfutter

Paris, 10. Juli –
Über das Schicksal ehemaliger französischer Soldaten, die von den Westmächten gezwungen wurden, an den Invasionskämpfen teilzunehmen, berichtete der Franzose Robert Haquin nach seiner Flucht aus der Normandie. Haquin war in einer Metzgerei des normannischen Dorfes Salenelles beschäftigt. Er wurde von den Engländern aufgegriffen. Diese „Befreiung“ geschah in der Weise, daß man ihn sofort in eine Uniform steckte. Er mußte dann beim Ausladen der Schiffe helfen. Später gelang ihm die Flucht zu den Deutschen.

Haquin berichtete, daß an dem ersten Angriff auf die Ornemündung auch etwa 500 französische Soldaten teilnahmen, die vor vier Jahren von den Engländern bei ihrer Flucht aus Dünkirchen mit nach England genommen worden waren. Diese Soldaten standen unter dem Befehl eines englischen Offiziers. Sie gerieten in ein Minenfeld, wobei 300 getötet wurden. Die übrigen weigerten sich, weiter am Kampfe teilzunehmen, und die französische Bevölkerung verhalft manchem von ihnen zur Flucht.

418

Innsbrucker Nachrichter (July 11, 1944)

Abwehrschlacht in der Normandie

Beispielhafte Tapferkeit unserer Truppen – Bei Kowel starke Sowjetangriffe abgeschlagen

map.071144.dnb

dnb. Aus dem Führerhauptquartier, 11. Juli –
Das Oberkommando der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt:

In der Normandie ist nunmehr auf großen Teilen der Front des feindlichen Brückenkopfes die Abwehrschlacht im Gange. Unter stärkstem Einsatz von Artillerie, Panzern und Luftstreitkräften versuchen die Anglo-Amerikaner immer von neuem, unsere Front aufzureißen, um dann in die Tiefe des französischen Raumes stoßen zu können. In beispielhafter Tapferkeit halten unsere Truppen dem feindlichen Ansturm stand. Die Verluste des Feindes sind sehr groß. Am 8. und 9. Juli wurden im Raum von Caen 102 feindliche Panzer abgeschossen.

Am gestrigen Tage trat der Feind östlich der Orne zum Angriff nach Osten an und wurde abgewiesen. Südwestlich Caen konnte der Gegner dicht hinter unserer vorderen Linie den Ort Maltot nehmen. Ein Gegenangriff unserer Panzergrenadiere warf daraufhin die feindlichen Angriffsgruppen wieder zurück. Westlich davon wurde um eine beherrschende Höhe erbittert gekämpft, die im Laufe des Tages mehrmals den Besitzer wechselte, bis sie am Abend endgültig in unserer Hand blieb. Bei Tessel-Bretteville wurden mehrfach wiederholte feindliche Panzerangriffe zerschlagen. Beiderseits der Straße Carentan–Périers griff der Feind in breiter Front an. Nach schweren Kämpfen wurde er dicht südwestlich unserer alten Stellungen abgefangen. Auch im Raum von La Haye-du-Puits wurde erbittert gekämpft. Unsere Truppen behaupteten dort überall ihre Stellungen.

Im französischen Raum wurden gestern über 50 Terroristen im Kampf niedergemacht.

Die „V1“ belegt den Raum von London weiterhin mit schwerem Vergeltungsfeuer.

In Italien setzte der Feind in den alten Schwerpunkten seine Durchbruchsversuche fort. Trotz Einsatzes starker Panzerkräfte blieb ihm jedoch jeder größere Erfolg versagt.

Im Raum von Kowel haben Truppen des Heeres und der Waffen-SS in viertägigen harten Abwehrkämpfen den Ansturm von zehn sowjetischen Schützendivisionen, einem Panzerkorps und zwei Panzerbrigaden abgeschlagen und dem Gegner dabei erhebliche Verluste an Menschen und Material beigebracht. Bei diesen Kämpfen wurden im Zusammenwirken aller Waffen vor der Front und im Hintergelände 295 feindliche Panzer vernichtet. Die rheinisch-moselländische 342. Infanteriedivision unter Führung von Generalmajor Nickel, die rheinisch-westfälische 26. Infanteriedivision unter Führung von Oberst Fromberger und eine Kampfgruppe der 5. SS-Panzerdivision „Wiking“ unter Führung von Obersturmbannführer Mühlenkamp haben sich durch beispielhafte Standfestigkeit ausgezeichnet.

Im Mittelabschnitt der Ostfront stehen unsere Truppen bei drückender Hitze in auch für uns verlustreichen Kämpfen mit starken feindlichen Kräften.

Die heldenmütige Besatzung von Wilna schlug gestern in verbissenem Kampf den von allen Seiten angreifenden Feind blutig zurück. An der Stadt vorbei dringt der Gegner weiter nach Westen und Südwesten vor. Westlich der Eisenbahn Wilna–Dünaburg wurden zahlreiche An­ griffe der Bolschewisten abgeschlagen.

Südlich Dünaburg sind heftige Kämpfe mit schweren bolschewistischen Schützendivisionen und Panzerverbänden im Gange. Nördlich Polozk wiederholte der Feind nach den hohen blutigen Verlusten der Vortage seine Durchbruchsversuche gestern nicht mehr. Dagegen gelang dem Gegner südöstlich Nowoschew ein örtlicher Einbruch. Kämpfe sind dort noch im Gange.

Schlachtfliegergeschwader unterstützten in zahlreichen Einsätzen unsere schwer ringenden Truppen, besonders im Raum von Wilna. Sie vernichteten zahlreiche Panzer und Geschütze sowie über 200 Fahrzeuge der Sowjets.

Einzelne britische Flugzeuge warfen in der vergangenen Nacht Bomben auf Berlin.

419

Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (July 11, 1944)

Communiqué No. 71

Fighting has been particularly severe in the front of the ODON bridgehead where our advance to the high ground overlooking the river ORNE was hotly contested.

South of the VIRE bridgehead, Allied troops pushed forward towards PONT-HÉBERT, in the direction of SAINT-LÔ.

Further west, on the road to PÉRIERS an advance of more than a mile was made in the face of determined resistance.

South of LA HAYE-DU-PUITS, local gains were made. The enemy has not repeated his counterattacks in this area.

Yesterday fighter-bombers and rocket-firing fighters attacked targets south of CAEN, including tank and troop concentrations and motor transport. One aircraft is missing from these operations.

Last night, light bombers attacked enemy transport facilities in northeastern FRANCE.

Communiqué No. 72

The enemy south of LA HAYE-DU-PUITS is being pushed steadily southward. He is taking advantage of the close country to delay our advance toward LESSAY.

Allied thrusts southwest of CARENTAN and west from SAINT-JEAN-DE-DAYE are converging on SAINT-ANDRÉ-DE-BOHON.

In the ODON bridgehead area, fierce fighting has been going on. North of ESQUAY, Hill 112 has changed hands several times.

An enemy counterattack from MALTOT towards ÉTERVILLE was repulsed. A number of enemy tanks were destroyed.

East of the ORNE, Allied troops from the SAINTE-HONORINE area have advanced toward COLOMBELLES in the face of intense opposition.

In the area south of TILLY, heavy fighting near HOTTO has resulted in local Allied gains.

During the forenoon today, fighters and fighter-bombers operating from bases in NORMANDY attacked targets in close support of the ground forces.

Allied troops, including French, of the Special Air Service Regiments, have been operating well behind the enemy lines against communications and other military targets. Considerable success has attended their operations and a number of prisoners have been taken. These are being held pending transmission to this country.

420

The Pittsburgh Press (July 11, 1944)

NAZIS FALL BACK IN FRANCE
Yanks driving on transport hub of Saint-Lô

Canadians reach Orne below Caen
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer

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Yanks opened a new offensive in Normandy today as the Canadians drove to the Orne River below Caen. The British fell back from Maltot but continued to advance toward the Orne in other areas as a big tank battle raged (1). The new U.S. offensive toward Saint-Lô (2) gained several hundred yards. South of La Haye-du-Puits, the Americans cleared out a forest on the road to Lessay and to the east advance from captured Sainteny (3).

SHAEF, London, England –
U.S. troops hit the center of the Normandy line today and plunged to within two miles of the big transport hub to Saint-Lô, field dispatches reported, and to the east, the Canadians drove an armored spearhead to the Orne River below Caen.

Pressure by U.S., British and Canadian forces on Marshal Erwin Rommel’s do-or-die line was beginning to bear fruit, and the Germans were slowly giving ground at both ends and in the middle.

Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley sent his U.S. assault forces over the top north of Saint-Lô in a new attack aimed at the core of the transport network below the Cherbourg Peninsula, and was reported in dispatches to have scored initial gains of several hundred yards.

Beginning to sag

At numerous points between La Haye-du-Puits and Caen, the Nazi line was beginning to sag, but the fighting everywhere was extremely fierce and the enemy was yielding ground only when he had no alternative.

U.S. forces captured six towns and villages scattered along the western part of the Normandy front, and at the eastern end of the line, the British and Canadians seized two more to bring the prongs of the arc thrown around the area of captured Caen to within four miles of junction below the big inland port.

Early this morning, British forces east of Caen hammered out a “most satisfactory” advance of about one mile, capturing the industrial suburbs of Colombelles and coming within four miles of the Canadian spearhead driven through Louvigny to the west bank of the Orne.

Desperate Nazi thrusts

“Extremely fierce and bitter fighting” was still going on below Caen. The Germans counterattacked repeatedly in the Orne–Odon corridor, throwing everything they had into futile attempts to recapture vital Hill 112 and the road junction a mile to the northeast.

After capturing Louvigny, two miles southwest of Caen, the Canadians consolidated their positions along the west bank of the Orne to a point northeast of Maltot.

To the west, the Americans made “substantial advances” in expanding their bridgehead across the Vire above Saint-Lô, headquarters reported. No word was forthcoming here on the new attack by the Americans, aimed at Saint-Lô from two directions, according to reports from the front.

In the Vire bridgehead sector, the Americans captured the villages of Hauts du Verney and Le Mesnil-Angot, as well as the hamlet of La Raoulerie, about three miles north of Saint-Lô. They had been unable to advance beyond Le Désert and Pont-Hébert, northwest of Saint-Lô, according to the latest advices here.

Dougald Werner, United Press staff writer at a Thunderbolt base in Normandy, reported that 9th Air Force fighter-bombers broke up two concentrations of German tanks moving northward toward the battlefront in the Saint-Lô area.

One squadron assigned to attack a strongpoint northwest of Saint-Lô spotted a number of tanks and destroyed 13 and damaged three.

Southwest of Carentan, U.S. forces widened their positions to the west and south, reaching a point a mile beyond Sainteny. East of the Carentan–Périers road, the Americans were held up south of a woods known as the Bois de Grinot and the village of La Corbinière.

On the western flank, the Americans completed the conquest of high ground in the Mt. Castre Forest below La Haye-du-Puits, reaching the southern slopes.

They pushed some 800 yards down the road from La Haye to Lessay and captured the village of Mobecq, two and a half miles southeast of La Haye.

German Marshal Erwin Rommel threw nearly 100 German tanks, including some 60-ton Tigers, into futile attempts to smash the British threat to his flank below Caen yesterday and all signs indicated that he was using his reserves at a rate that may cost him the Battle of France.

The Nazi-controlled Vichy radio said British patrols reached the Orne River, but later withdrew. The fighting south of Caen has developed into a “great battle which is now raging with fury,” the broadcast said.

15 towns captured

Though stiff German resistance slowed the British advance, the U.S. 1st Army captured 15 towns and villages in advances of up to a mile and a half yesterday on the central and western sectors of the 111-miles Normandy front.

The Americans seized Pont-Hébert and La Meauffe, four miles northwest and five miles north of Saint-Lô, advanced down the Carentan–Périers highway to within 4¾ miles northwest of Périers, and gained a mile and a half on a half-mile-wide front south of La Haye-du-Puits.

A dispatch from 1st Army headquarters in Normandy said the Americans were meeting little or no resistance in their advance west of the La Haye–Lessay road, the first report of a voluntary enemy retreat since the start of the American phase of the offensive a week ago yesterday.

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s communiqué said the fighting was “particularly severe” between the Odon and Orne rivers south and southwest of Caen with the enemy “hotly contesting” the British advance to high ground overlooking the Orne.

Determined Nazi attack

Samuel D. Hales, United Press staff writer with the 2nd Army, said the British pulled out of Maltot, captured only yesterday, and took up a new line along the Esquay–Caen road during the night in the face of determined enemy counterattacks.

The British held firmly to Hill 112 overlooking the Orne, however, and Ronald Clark, another United Press staff writer with the 2nd Army, reported that Lt. Gen. Sir Miles C. Dempsey’s forces were working their way down the slopes of the hill toward the river despite a hail of enemy artillery and mortar shells from the opposite bank.

Another front dispatch said waves of German infantry attacked Hill 112 last night and, in some sections, reached Allied gun positions, but were finally driven off after an hour and a half of close-quarters fighting. Many German dead remained on the slopes of the hill.

Murky weather continued to ground the Allied air forces, preventing air support that might turn the tide of battle if unleashed in full fury.