THE DYING GIANT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 89, 11 July 1944, Page 4

THE DYING GIANT

THE full hurricane of the Anglo-American offensive in Normandy has been loosed upon the strpng-point which hitherto has withstood all attempts to carry it in the course of the advance down the Cherbourg peninsula— stone-bastioned Caen. For over a week the forces of liberation have been massing men and guns in front of this picturesque little old-world town, which, the Germans had transformed into a mighty fortress. To-day the Allied storming troops have swarmed into its suburbs, beaten down the hard fighting garrison and now are in the process of adding it to their conquests in the course of liberating La Belle France. With the loss of Caen, Rommel will be thrown back on his own resources for behind the town the long prepared Atlantic Wall defences cease. New lines will have to be hastily thrown up but these cannot hope to present the obstacles that have already been overcome by our troops in the past three weeks. No doubt the growing menace of the flying bombs hastened the latest Allied offensive, for it has now become imperative for the whole of the northern coast of France to be in our hands as quickly as possible if we are to relieve the peoples of southern England oj this new terror by air. Undoubtedly Montgomery's plan of invasion is to reach behind the German defences and take the garrisons in the rear, and to this end he is being assisted on a growing scale by the French Patriots, who emboldened by the success of the invasion are now braving the most daring sabotage and openly defying the Nazi authorities. As the storm heightens on the coastal belt in Europe, the German populace has been forced to turn apprehensive eyes towards the east where with the fall of Vilna, the Soviet forces sweep on to fresh conquests in the stride .of their whirlwind campaign. The threat to east Prussia, is daily growing more serious as Poland reawakens under the purging irn fluence 1 of the Red Armies. Back, back, to the very borders of Germany and Austria the desperate fighting men of Hitler are forced to yield; not yard by yard, but mile by mile as the irrestible flood of might streams westward. The farthest Nazi legions fight a lone but stubborn battle in Italy where the last vestages of the once arrogant empire of II Duce lie crumbling in the ruins of its own iniquity. On the three main fronts the armies of Hitler are retreating towards their Fatherland, from whence at the bidding of an ex-paperhanger, they sprung treacherously upon their peaceful and unsuspecting neighbours. The military giant is dying, but his death-struggles are as defiant and as bitter as his vanity and brutality in victory.