Nazis fear loss of port as we extend beachhead
By Virgil Pinkley
SHAEF, London, England (UP) –
U.S. armored forces driving westward against hard fighting into the base of the Normandy peninsula have cut and highway to Cherbourg, the two main Nazi lifelines to the great port, it was announced officially today.
A spokesman at Gen. Eisenhower’s headquarters revealed operations generally “continue satisfactorily, with the beachheads enlarging” on the fourth day of the Allied invasion of northwestern France.
The Germans reported a great naval armada of several hundred vessels sailed eastward past Cherbourg toward the assault area, early today, evidently to pour powerful reinforcements into the beachheads.
Nazi reports also said an armored spearhead was approaching Saint-Lô, 20 miles southwest of Bayeux and halfway across the peninsula, and the Germans might be forced to abandon Cherbourg in the face of the developing Allied drive to isolate it.
Front dispatches revealed Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley, commander of U.S. invasion forces, had gone ashore in France as his troops were battling their way into the vital transport network supplying the enemy garrison at Cherbourg.
At Supreme Headquarters here, it was revealed Bradley’s forces, battling hard and grimly, had struck across the 27-mile stretch of the Cherbourg-Carentan highway at several places.
Advance elements, pushing on beyond the highway, cut the broad-gauge railroad between Carentan and Saint-Mere-Église, seven miles to the north. An obscure German High Command reference to Allied troops striking out from the Saint-Mere-Église beachhead indicated the town might be in American hands.
British forces continued to edge forward in the Caen area against stiff German resistance and counterthrusts which had still not reached the proportions of a big-scale battle.
The main weight of Marshal Rommel’s counteraction was centered around Caen. It included considerable amounts of armor, which the Germans had moved up well forward.
German prisoners have been taken in sizable numbers, the spokesman said, the total now running into four figures.
The weather, one of the knottiest problems of the invasion, took a slight turn for the worse early today, the wind kicking in briskly from the southwest.
The word at Supreme Headquarters late in the day was that the invasion could be considered “making satisfactory progress.” But as Allied beachheads expanded, Nazi resistance stiffened. The weight of armor engaged by both sides was increasing, and the fighting was severe.
All enemy thrusts along the battle arc from the neighborhood of Caen to above Saint-Mere-Église were held and ground was gained afterward.
That statement from headquarters suggested the possibility, without clarification, that U.S. and British beachheads had been joined to form a continuous front.
A late report said the Americans were at Formigny, eight miles west-northwest of Bayeux, Wednesday evening, and presumably they had advanced since then. The capture of Bayeux by British forces was announced yesterday.
An advance unit of the U.S. 9th Air Force was revealed to have arrived in France, and front dispatches disclosed Royal Air Force squadrons were already established on the Normandy beaches to give the land armies short-range support.
A Berlin dispatch to the Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet said German military authorities admitted their forces were retreating under the pressure of Allied reinforcements and may be forced to abandon Cherbourg, one of the principal harbors on the French coast and railhead of a trunk line to Paris.
U.S. tanks and infantry on the west flank battling fiercely in an effort to capture Carentan, hinge of the German line, and key points along the Carentan-Cherbourg highway, while British Empire forces were reported nearing the conquest of Caen, beleaguered communications hub 40 miles to the east, front reports disclosed.
Canadian forces alone were credited with capturing a dozen Normandy towns in a southward drive across the Bayeux-Caen stretch of the main Cherbourg-Paris railway and highway. Landing continued on both the U.S. and British-Canadian beachheads and bypassed enemy strongpoints were being reduced steadily.
The Berlin dispatch to the Stockholm Aftonbladet said the Germans feared a linking of the two beachheads – the American between Carentan and Cherbourg and the British Empire between Bayeux and a point west of the Orne estuary – was imminent.
Such a junction, the dispatch quoted the Germans as saying, would make the Nazi situation “very difficult” and perhaps force the abandonment of Cherbourg.
The German-controlled Scandinavian Telegraph Bureau, also in a Berlin dispatch, reported tank spearheads from Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery’s forces were approaching Saint-Lô, 20 miles inland, after violent battles six miles southwest of Bayeux and at the Suelle River, southeast of Bayeux.
A total of 10 German divisions – 150,000 men – have been identified in action, and reconnaissance reports indicated these were steadily being reinforced by railway and highway despite day-and-night Allied aerial attacks on enemy communications.
Diminishing winds speeded further the landing from ships of fresh troops, tanks, trucks and other equipment on both the U.S. and British-Canadian beachheads along 60 or more miles of the coastline between Cherbourg and Le Havre, the latter only a little more than 100 miles from Paris.
However, clouds that descended from 1,000 to 1,500 feet seriously hampered air support of the ground forces this morning, reducing the early formations of daylight raiders to isolated task forces.
The outcome of the U.S. attack on Carentan. at the joint of the Normandy Peninsula, and the highway linking it with Cherbourg, 27 miles to the northwest, was expected to go a long way toward deciding the fate of Cherbourg itself, one of the best harbors on the French coast and with a direct trunk line to Paris.
Escape roads menaced
The loss of Carentan and the highway would leave the German garrison of Cherbourg only secondary roads over which to withdraw from the port and at the same time would pave the way for a U.S. thrust across the 20-mile neck of the peninsula to the west coast. Allied air and naval ascendancy were also expected to play a part in dooming Cherbourg, which would provide an ideal base for a full Allied offensive in France.
Though the Americans were hard-pressed for a time on their beachheads on the east coast of the Cherbourg Peninsula between Cherbourg and Carentan. a spokesman for Gen. Eisenhower said they were now receiving a regular stream of reinforcements.
It was learned some Americans pushed ashore in Cherbourg Bay, which stretches seven miles east and 10 miles west of the port, on D-Day, but the present location of these units was not disclosed. German broadcasts have reported U.S. troops near Saint-Pierre-Église, 11 miles east of Cherbourg.
Fight for Caen is tough
British Empire forces were finding Caen, midway between Cherbourg and Le Havre on the trunk railway and highway to Paris. tough nut to crack as street fighting raged on into its fourth day, but a correspondent at the front said the communications center should fall “within an hour, perhaps minutes.”
The British 6th Airborne Division was the first to drive into Caen, and it has since been joined by seaborne forces from the beachhead at the mouth of the Orne River, nine miles to the north.
Other British elements 15 miles to the west were reported well south of Bayeux, also on the Cherbourg-Paris railway and highway, in an apparent drive to cut the Normandy Peninsula in half.
Probe Canadian lines
Front dispatches said the Germans were probing the Canadian perimeter with 30-35 tanks at a time in preparation for a full-scale counterattack, but Canadian units and massed artillery firmly entrenched on slopes beyond Bayeux threw back each thrust. A three-hour tank battle was reported in one sector.
German reinforcements were revealed to be moving up steadily all around the Allied beachheads despite a rain of bombs, bullets and even rockets from thousands of Allied planes. Reconnaissance pilots said in some places the enemy was using horse-drawn vehicles, presumably because of a shortage of gasoline.
Though one of the original landings was known to have been made near Le Havre, there have been no further Allied reports from the area. A German broadcast claimed Allied forces in the Seine estuary area had been wiped out.