CAUGHT IN RETREAT

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 225, 20 June 1944, Page 5

CAUGHT IN RETREAT

Germans Slaughtered By Thunderbolts (Received June 19, 8.15 p.m.) LONDON, June 18. More than 800 retreating Germans on the Cherbourg Peninsula were killed or wounded yesterday when Ninth Air Force Thunderbolts dive-bombed and strafed a convoy. The pilots, who radioed to ground troops tp verify the identity of the convoy, said that at least 30 trucks and many horse-drawn field-gung were destroyed. In addition to attacking hundreds o£ moving targets on the west coast of the peninsula, fighter-bombers carried oijt sweeps over central France and in the regions of Paris, Arras and Amiens. Only two enemy planes were seen in the entire day’s operations over the Continent. The Ninth Air Force planes made more than 1000 individual flights during the day, from which 11 fighters are missing. Two Czech pilots of the Second Tactical Air Force shot down two F-W, 190’s which were about to attack ground forces near Caen.

A starlit sky helped night-lighter crews of the Air Defence of Great Britain to set up a new record for destruction over Normandy invasion beaches last night. They destroyed 10 enemy aircraft. Intruders, operating over airfields behind the enemy’s lines, destroyed 25 more. 1

"Earthquake” Bombs. It is now known that the Bomber Command’s daylight attack on Boulogne on Friday was as successful as the attack on the previous evening against Le Havre. Bombing for the most wrt through cloud, the Lancasters and Halifaxes shattered the enemy’s naval strength at Boulogne. Nine R-boats were there just before the attack, but none can now be seen. There were several direct hits on the concrete roof of the E-boats’ shelters with heavy high-explosive bombs, but probably not with 12,000-pounders, which were aimed at the water near the entrance of the E-boat pens in order to raise a destructive tidal wave inside. As at Le Havre, it is evident that very heavy damage would be done in this way by “earthquake bombs,” but. it would not ho visible in vertical air photographs. The Allied air supremacy in the battle zone in France and well beyond since June 6is still unchallenged, according. to S.H.A.E.F. Our air losses are maintaining an average of 1 per cent. The Germans’ loss is probably near 1® per cent, of the number of their sorties. AT COST OF ONE MAN Storming: Of Fortress (British Official Wireless.) (Received June 19, 7 p.m.) RUGBY, June 18. A correspondent gives further details of the surrender last night of the German fortress near the village of Douvres, only two miles inland in the Allied beach-head, which had heen by-passed on D-day. Yesterday's job was given to commandos assisted by a squadron of tanks. The commandos followed the tanks in close enough to use tommy-guns and lob grenades through the slits in the concrete walls. The German garrison could not stand up to this and came out with their hands in the air. lu their bomb and shell-proof quarters 26ft..underground was found a big stock of champagne, brandy, hams and eggs. The . garrison had been in telephone communication with their, headquarters throughout the siege and at night used flash lights to German bombers to guide them to the beaches, though the fortress had been bombarded from land, sea and air.

A frontal attack in the early stages would have proved very costly, and it was for this reason ‘that it was by-passed. After the first day the fort was never a threat to us, though it was always a nuisance. The German Air Force made several attempts to drop supplies to the garrison, but we had run anti-aircraft guns round the place and more containers fell in’ our lines than in the fortress. Today's Allied communique says that in the final assault on the fortress we lost one man killed.