The Pittsburgh Press (July 22, 1944)
Two Nazi counterattacks smashed on French front
Allies wreck 14 German tanks as mud, rain bogs down British offensive near Caen
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
Gestapo kills general in France
London, England –
A report reached certain Allied intelligence quarters today that a serious conflict between Nazi SS troops and the German Army over the recent Oradour-sur-Glane massacre resulted in the assassination of a German general. The unidentified general was reported assassinated by the Gestapo. He had gone to investigate the massacre when intercepted by Gestapo agents, the report said.
SHAEF, London, England –
Allied armies knocked out 14 German tanks yesterday in repulsing two futile counterthrusts mounted despite heavy rain which stalled the British push across the Caen plains toward Paris, it was officially announced today.
The limited counterattacks were repulsed south of Saint-André-sur-Orne below Caen and along the Périers–Saint-Lô highway south of Remilly-sur-Lozon.
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s shortest communiqué of the French campaign said today that “there is nothing to report,” and late in the day the word at Supreme Headquarters was the same.
A spokesman revealed that Gen. Paul Hausser, old-line Prussian officer, was commanding the German 7th Army facing the Americans in Normandy.
The German Transocean News Agency reported that the British had massed more than 10 divisions east of the Orne River, were moving up still more troops, and a “new major assault seems imminent.” The enemy report, lacking any immediate support in responsible quarters, said artillery fire was already increasing east of Caen but “the expected new attack has not yet started.”
British and Canadian forces waited in foxholes, trenches and ditches half-filled with water on an arc extending nearly five miles beyond Caen for clearing skies to resume their march toward Paris, 112 miles to the east.
Ground fog and low-flying clouds further immobilized operations and front reports told only of occasional artillery and mortar fire and routine limited patrols. Virtually all planes were grounded.
Desultory clashes were reported at Troarn, seven miles east of Caen, with the British vanguards in the outskirts and about 1,000 yards north of the town. South of Caen, the British were established firmly in Saint-André-sur-Orne, four miles down the Orne River, but headquarters retracted a previous announcement that they had taken Saint-Martin-de-Fontenay, a few hundred yards farther south.
A London broadcast said that “half of Troarn” was still in German hands, but the “fighting is going well for us.”
On the western half of the front, the U.S. 1st Army inched to within 4,000 yards north of Périers, made slight gains at several points south of the Périers–Saint-Lô highway and won positions 1,500 yards west of the Vire River four miles northwest of Saint-Lô.