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Show J B&aji Defenses Powerful I The successful establishment ! of an adequate beachhead on i the Cherbourg peninsula has led I many Americans to conclude that I the German defenses were not : as strong as expected. This conclusion seems to be I erroneous and, in a measure, detracts de-tracts from the magnificent accomplishments ac-complishments of our ships, planes and men. Henry T. Gorrell, United Press Correspondent, who inspected the Cherbourg area a week after the landing operations, says that the German foritfications "theoretically "theoretic-ally would have been capable of I repelling any invasion force with tremendous casualties." He tells of hidden sites tor rocket batteries, concrete and steel emplacements six feet thick for guns and mortars, machine-gun machine-gun pill boxes and anti-tank positions. , Mr. Gorrell says that the Germans Ger-mans were so confident that then-defences, then-defences, based upon waves of massed fire power, would kill or maim our infantry by thousands thou-sands as they lay pinned on the beaches that they installed conscript con-script soldiers back of the defenses. de-fenses. The newspaper correspondent says that the German plan collapsed col-lapsed under the pulverizing barrage bar-rage of our warships, the bombing bomb-ing of our aricraft and the splendid splen-did work of our airborne soldiers. |