ENEMY INFILTRATION METHODS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 227, 22 June 1944, Page 5

ENEMY INFILTRATION METHODS

Lessons To Be Learnt LONDON, June 20. “It is a suitable moment in the fighting in Normandy for a stocktaking in view of the relatively static nature of the front line in the past week,” says a “Daily Telegraph” correspondent with the Allied armies in France, Christopher Buckley. “This is not country which favours 'an offensive; it is country which lends itself to three forms of operations in which the Germans are probably more skilled and experienced than ourselves —smallscale ambushes, sniping, and infiltration. “It is not certain that we possess sufficient adequately-trained reconnaissance troops. This deficiency goes back a long way. The forces in the field cannot be blamed, but the position remains that the enemy crust opposite us has had time to harden and we can no longer take such risks with our light and heavy armour as could justifiably have been taken last week “Ths Germans have shown courage and resource in sniping, sometimes in little groups of half a dozen, and sometimes singly in hedges and tree tops. It is a form of warfare of which we have had almost no experience in Europe, and our men frankly are not always best adapted to deal with it. Delay in Supplies. “The weather has been depressingly consistent —practically an unbroken succession of grey skigs and gusty winds and choppy seas in the Channel have contrived since the invasion to make this the most cheerless and the chilliest June in memory. As a result, the putting in and unloading of our ships has been delayed beyond anticipation. L '. “Furthermore, not once has Air Chief Marshal Tedder been able to strike in the immediate' area of the battlefield with the full force at his disposal. There have been several occasions in the past fortnight when air support, either from bombers or fighters, could have been given to forward troops in sticky positions, but for the unfavourable weather.” Mr. Buckley continues: “I am not competent to speak about the British training methods, but it is true that our troops lack sufficient battle training in the current German tactics. Africa and Italy did not provide sueh experience, because the terrain was so completely different as to the control and tactical methods employed. That is why we are finding it tough going now."

DEMOLISHED TOWNS

(British Official Wireless and Press Assn.) RUGBY, June 20. The Germans are instructing their troops to scorch the earth as they retire from the Allied armies, according to documents found on captured Germans, says a correspondent in Normandy. One of these documents, referring to the destruction of villages, states that all civilians and cattle should be evacuated to the south, adding: “All preparations for mining, booby traps, and the placing of demolitions must be made with great cunning, according to the principles used in Russia.” The Germans are carrying out these instructions to the letter, judging from the condition of Tilly. Reports from the British forces at Tilly and from the Americans in Montebourg state that each town has been completely wrecked. COASTAL FORTRESS The port of Cherbourg provides one of the 'best harbours on the French Atlantic coast. In pre-war djiys it was used by transatlantic liners. Cherbourg is made up of two harbours, the naval and the commercial, about half a mile apart. The bay of Cherbourg is naturally sheltered on all sides save the north, where a breakwater 2| miles long and 30 feet wide was constructed and placed under fortification. The city boasts 'a large maritime station. Cherbourg has few historical landmarks; tbe large naval hospital and the 450-year-old Church de la Trinite are the most worthy of note. Cherbourg ranks among the best of' ''fortified coastal towns, and it was the centre of one of the five French nazal administrative departments. Legend has it that it is built on the Roman town Coriallum. For hundreds of years the city has known the ravages of war. In 1295 an English fleet from Yarmouth pillaged the town, and in the wars of the fourteenth century it was often attacked. For a period it was under English rule, but from 1450 on it remained a part of France till the armistice of 1940.

Replying to questions in the House of Commons, the Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office. Mr. G. 11. Hall, said that the Government had no information in support of allegations that ■women were being used on a widespread scale as francs-tireurs in, France.