SCENES OF ENEMY DISORDER

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 226, 21 June 1944, Page 5

SCENES OF ENEMY DISORDER

Peninsula Defeat MEN AND TRANSPORT CAPTURED (Received June 20, 7 p.m.) LONDON, June 19. “The Allies’ stranglehold on the Cherbourg Peninsula has been strengthened by a series of local advances," said tonight’s Allied communique. “An enemy attack was repulsed near Tilly-pur-Seulles, wherd heavy fighting continues. In the Caen area enemy shelling has increased considerably. Allied warships continued to give support on the eastern flank yesterday by engaging enemy mobile batteries. North of Caen successful shoots were carried out by H.M.S. Diadem against a concentration of enemy armour.” The Germans making a general retreat toward Cherbourg are reported to lack transport and supplies. , . The British United Press correspondent states that 700 prisoners were taken after the occupation of Barneville and hundreds more are being rounded up. A Renter’s correspondent who flew in an observation plane, writing just before the capture of Bricquebec, said: ‘ I watch* ed infantry skirmishing in. a wooded valley before Bricquebec, andi saw a milelong convoy of' captured German vehicles moving to the rear. Dead Germans littered the fields outside Barneville. A stockade near the Barneville village tower was jammed with prisoners. Roads behind the battle area were filled with American lorries, with support infantry marching up in twin . lines. German • vehicles were ditched in roads and in fields. Some were burnt out and others were still in flames.” German Tree Snipers. Intelligence officers say that hundreds of Germans are being caught within otfr lines. "These Germans climb trees like the Japs and fight tooth and nail for every hedge-row,” they say. Some of the Americans, puzzled by shots, could not discover where the bullets were coming from. They combed fields with sappers’ instruments and found a small dug-out covered with turf, inside of which were five snipers—two women and three men. Reports from British correspondents show that the German forces which were sent earlier to block the Allied drive to the west coast of the Cherbourg Peninsula were completely routed. “German disorganization is evident everywhere,” says one correspondent. “Vehicles were abandoned on the largest scale seen so far on the invasion front. In some cases the engines of vehicles were left running while the drivers and passengers fled to the fields to escape air strafing. This strafing was so effective that they never returned to the vehicles. “American troops, speeding through the broken lines, found a German military policeman on point duty at one crossroads. With two other military policemen he had been sent to the intersection to direct a German convoy, which did not turn up.” Though the weather is cold and overcast and showery, the spirits of the troops along the front line are high, and there is a general feeling that the enemy has ■ been confused and disrupted by the speed of the attack. The retreating Germans are already very close to the crescent of high ground which protects Cherbourg, the most likely place for a defensive stand. The enemy are being battered continuously by the advancing infantry, and a correspondent says that they possess scarcely any ground of tactical importance which is free from artillery fire. , The “Evening Standard" says that Cherbourg has a complete all-round network of fortifications. On the land side the port is rir-’ed by a chain of defences several miles deep, and the entire port is honeycombed with forts and strongpoints. It is one of the most heavily . fortified places in Europe. The garrison is entrenched in deep underground strongholds behind formidable tank-traps and acres of barbed wire. Their guns are in massive reinforced concrete emplacements sunk into the ground and covered by many feet of earth. They have vast stocks of ammunition and food enough to withstand a long siege. Fifty Thousand Marooned? It is understood that the possible number of marooned Germans_north of the .corridor may be as high as 50,000. Officially there are “elements” of three German divisions. One division is known to be in bits and pieces, but if the other divisions are up to strength then this new figure will hold good. Certainly the bag will be no lower than 30,000. The enemy appears to intefid holding out as long as he can in the north. It was learned at headquarters late tonight that there has been no evidence of any enemy attack against the corridor from the south. Rommel seems to have committed his panzer divisions to the Caen sector. These obviously cannot be switched over to relieve the hard-pressed troops on the peninsula. The troops cut off in the north seem to have been left to their own resources. The country north of the corridor is difficult. Our forces on other sectors appear to be preparing for the next attack. Some units are being replaced by fresh troops. There have been some minor ding-dong battles here and there, but nothing much alters the front as a,whole. The correspondent of the Associated

Press of Great Britain with the British troops says that Tommies, fighting in rain-drenched woods in the area of the River Orne, drove the Germans from a section of country and captured numerous prisoners in fantastically confused fighting A staff officer described the fight as “a jungle party,” with snipers in the trees and Allied troops forcing their way through thick undergrowth. Fighting went on without pause yesterday and last night in Tilly, through the streets of the town strewn with rubble and in and out of ruihed houses. Enemy Gun Shortage. A few miles away fierce fighting went on round a church in a little village. The Germans had converted the church into a strongpoint, With infantry dug in in the graveyards. Our troops have found it a tough job to eject the enemy, who has machineguns mounted in the church Bt That the enemy is. seriously short of guns on the Tilly sector is suggested, says a correspondent, by the fact that he is combating our armour with armour. It is foreign to the best military tactics to meet armour with armoury.'and certainly uneconomical. The answer so as to free armour for attack. By throwing his armour- against ours on this sector the enpmy is bottling, up forces which could be employed otherwise. , w , , ■ It‘is revealed that the British 7th Ar ; moured Division, the famous ‘ Desert Rats,” have been in action in Normandy. This means that, with only short intervals, this spearhead force has been at grips with the Axis armies, for over four years, mostly in the Mediterranean theatre. ,

TILLY CAPTURED (Received June 20, 11.55 p.m.)

LONDON, June 20. British troops have captured Tilly, says the British United Press correspondent in Normandy. The town fell after violent hand-to-hand fighting lasting four days, and ended in the Germans being driven from the ruins. The “Daily Mail’s" military correspondent, Captain Liddell Hart, stressing the significance of the Allied progress on the western sector, says that the comparatively limited advance on the eastern sector, vitally contriuted to the American gains on the Cherbourg Peninsula. Out-» wardly, he says, the very tough fighting near Caen may appear to be a great effort for small results, but our efforts there have shielded the whole of our positions farther west, and also absorbed powerful elements of the enemy’s available forces at a critical time when they would otherwise have endangered our wider prospects. GALE AND DELUGE (British Official Wireless.) (Received June 20, 7 p.m.) RUGBY, June 19. The weather is at its absolute worst today, says . a correspondent with the British forces in France. “From early morning driving rain fell and the troops most of whom are living in the open, got a drenching in spite of their waterproof capes. Dark grey clouds nnng low over the front the whole day and the rain fell continuously for 12 hours. It was not enough to bog down vehicles, but the road surfaces in some parts became very treacherous, and lorries and jeeps skidded about.” A gale, with gusts up to 60 miles an hour was blowing in the Straits of Dover at midday today, whipping up the sea into a mass of broken surf. Conditions were very bad, specially in mid-Unannei. The gale was still blowing hard this evening, but the sky was clearer. E-boats have been inactive for the last two days as a result of the Allied bombing of their ports.

DESPITE WEATHER Extensive Air Support

LONDON, Junel9. Today’s communique from S.H.A.E.F. states that fighters and fighter-bombers, in spite of unfavourable weather, ranged from Cherbourg Peninsula to Lisieux in the east and Alencon in the south, striking against communications and transport. Fighters attacked bridges, railway cars, locomotives, and' troops between Valognes, Briquebec, and Carteret. Roc-ket-firing planes and dive-bombers attacked enemy ammunition dumps hidden in a forest, and also canal bridges, ferries, motor lorries and a heavy concentration of troops between Caen, Falaise and Montigny, Long-range fighters, sweeping from Arras and Amiens to the outskirts of Paris, searched out targets of opportunity all day. They were not molested by enemy planes. Light bombers after dark attacked road and rail targets. Night fighters destroyed two enemy bombers over the beach-head. New Zealand and Australian squadrons joined in large-scale attacks by Mosquitoes of the Second Tactical Air Force last night behind the battle fronts ' in France.

Escorted heavy bombers this morning attacked airfields in south-west France, including Bordeaux, Merignac, Cazaux, Landes de Bussac, and Corme Ecluse.

ANTI-TANK ROCKET

LONDON, June 19.

The Germans have begun to use another weapon in France, says the Exchange Telegraph agency's correspondent with the advanced British Forces. It ! > a rocket-propelled anti-tank shell. The weapon consists of a four-foot tube with an 88-millimetre shell at its nose. It is intended for short-range work and is operated bxJatagfij-