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Show r WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS . Allied Forces Push. Forward After Success in Landings Along 100-Mile Coastal Area Released by Western Newspaper Union. m i EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinions are expressed In these column, thuy ore those of Western Newspaper Union's news analysis and not necessarily of this newspaper.) V J ...wJL v - '4 v 4 1 -9J?ss C2KiS3gs. is MllE iliJ J On Way Allied sailors stand at alert in early morning hour as invasion fleet moves on French coast. SECOND FRONT: Allies Drive Inland June 6, 1944, marked historic "D" day and, in the hours that followed, the battle against Germany's desperate des-perate defenders developed into a grim fight to the finish. Borne across the English channel to French soil by a mighty armada, ar-mada, thousands of U. S. and British Brit-ish soldiers first poured onto the beaches between Cherbourg and Le Havre, 80 miles from Britain, while thousands of other paratroopers and specialists landed behind German lines to accomplish particular missions. mis-sions. As the Allies established footholds along a -' 100-mile shoreline and mechanized equipment and other supplies were hurriedly unloaded on the beaches. Doughboys and Tommies Tom-mies pressed inland to encounter Germany's emergency reserves rushing up to prevent sizable penetrations pene-trations of their front and combat the spreading paratroopers. Heaviest of the early fighting developed de-veloped near the mouth of the Seine river below the big French port of Le Havre, with Allied mechanized units fighting for control of the coastal stretch immediately to the south, and swarms of paratroopers battling German detachments near the large industrial city of Rouen, farther to the east. In Air No less than 10,000 tons of explosives, explo-sives, were dumped on Nazi defense positions by swarms of Allied bombers bomb-ers preparatory to the landings, and more than 1,000 air transports dropped paratroopers and glider-borne glider-borne specialists over the French countryside on specific missions. Extending across 200 miles of sky, the massed Allied aerial fleets flew above a thick overcast, which hindered hin-dered the German Luftwaffe's counter-measures. Among the first Allied troops to land at strategic points were the paratroopers and specialists, special-ists, and the enemy's early counteraction counter-action was against these units. Besides bombing German defenses and transporting troops to vital areas, the U. S. and British air-force, air-force, 11,000 planes strong, also busied bus-ied itself guarding the convoys and the beachheads, and striking back at the Luftwaffe, showing its first signs of life in the blazing battle zones. On Sea While the huge Allied aerial fleet took command of the air, an equally huge naval armada of 4.000 vessels took over dominion of the sea, pouring pour-ing deadly fire from belching guns into, the enemy's boasted coastal defenses. Taking part in the thunderous naval na-val bombardment of the French littoral, lit-toral, under the over-all command of British Adm. Bertram Ramsay, were many U. S. units, including the battleships .Texas and Arkansas and the cruisers Augusta and Tuscaloosa. Tuscaloo-sa. In the early fighting, U. S. losses were reported at only two destroyers and a landing ship. Among the vessels that bore troops and supplies ashore were 36-foot LCVPs carrying vehicles and men; 200-foot LCIs bearing infantry; 200-foot 200-foot LCTs stacked with tanks, and SOO-foot LSTs transporting everything every-thing from jeeps to bulky road-builders. Tumbling from craft were naval personnel to direct landings, tend wounded, repair or , blow up disabled dis-abled craft clogging the coastal approaches ap-proaches and establish communications communica-tions with ships at sea. RUSSIA: Attack Awaited While Moscow received word of the opening of the "second front" with jubilation, the world kept one eye cocked to the east for the opening open-ing of a large scale Russian attack to synchronize with operations in France. Indeed, the Germans sought to unbalance un-balance the big Russian offensive by attacking in northeastern Rumania, Ruma-nia, where Berlin expected the weight of the Reds' drive to fall. In attacking in that region, the Germans Ger-mans claimed to overrun high ground, giving them command of the lower land where the Russians Rus-sians reportedly massed large forces for their smash. Although the Germans expected the Russian drive to center to the north of the Carpathians where they have thrown a deep spearhead into Nazi positions in old Poland, action also was anticipated farther to the north, where the enemy held a long front which bulged far behind the Reds' rear. Battle also loomed in the Baltic region, where the Russian airforce attacked laden German transports bringing in supplies to that front. Shove Off mMM "It's the Thing!" Doughboys exclaim as they take positions in landing craft in British port before sailing into invasion area. ITALY: Nazis Retreat With Germany unable to furnish any more troops for the fighting in Italy and the Allies swinging the full weight of their mailed fist in western Europe, Nazi Field Marshal Mar-shal Kesselring continued to withdraw with-draw his forces to the waist of the peninsula, where they could hole up behind the last of the Apennine peaks without being threatened by landings to their rear. As the enemy fled northward, Allied Al-lied medium bombers ranged far ahead, blasting bridges and rail facilities, fa-cilities, while fighter-bombers poured a withering fire into the retreating columns themselves, leaving behind a trail of burning vehicles and abandoned aban-doned equipment. Despite the fact that Kesselring managed to extricate his troops from the Allied trap set by the British 8th army attacking from the south and the U. S. 5th attacking the enemy rear from the west, the Nazis suffered heavy losses in absorbing ab-sorbing the full shock of the first charge and in covering their general gen-eral retreat. UNDERGROUND: Put to Test With France once more Europe's bloody battleground, her distressed people found themselves tossed between be-tween the appeal of Gen. Charles de Gaulle to rise against the Germans in the wake of Allied operations and the plea of Marshall Petain to remain re-main in the service of the Nazis. With the strength of France's vaunted and storied underground movement facing a crucial test. General de Gaulle told Frenchmen ". . . whoever and wherever they may be, the simple, sacred duty is to fight with all means at their disposal dis-posal However, he urged caution to avoid detection and imprisonment, declaring "anything is better than to be put out of action without fighting." fight-ing." Imploring Frenchmen to refrain from action which would bring bloody reprisals, Marshal Petain declared: "The circumstances of battle may compel the German army to take special measures in the battle area'. Accept this necessity." neces-sity." Further, he called upon all officials, railroad men and workers to stay at their posts "... in order to keep the life of the nation. . . ." Allied Chief f .... , v s I iMCJKStMyy. &t&&aAW4M&t&&zir -omit i GEN. D WIGHT D. EISENHOWER Soldier-diplomat, the U. S.'s four-star general, Dtvight D. Eisenhower, as supreme su-preme commander of the Allied invasion, inva-sion, pitted himself against Germany's icy, 69-ycar-old Junker, Field Marshal Karl Rudolph Gerd von Rundstcdt, for the biggest battle in world history. Texas-born, Kansas-educated, 53-year-old General Eisenhower, long known as an armored-force specialist in the V. S. army, gained his first renown through the successful conquest of ITorth Africa, when his diplomatic dealings deal-ings with former Vichy collaboration ists led to the agreement on occupation of the French colonies. Typically Prussian, Von Rundstedt is considered one of Germany's military geniuses, the man who successfully directed di-rected the Nazis' early drive into the Russian Ukraine and then took over command of Hitler's ivestern invasion defenses. From the start. Von Rundstedt Rund-stedt was a supporter of the Nazi cause. PRE-INVASION: Battle Plans Loud though their boasting might have been, Germany's generals are not putting all of their hopes into the celebrated "Atlantic Wall." Recognizing Rec-ognizing the impossibility of adequately ade-quately defending a long coast line, the Nazis have concentrated large reserves behind it, to be shifted to endangered areas. Although Germany's military spokesmen stressed that the high command intended to go onto the offensive to combat Allied operations, opera-tions, every preparation reportedly has been made in the event their counterattacks are blunted by the invading forces and they are pushed back. To meet this contingency, the Germans Ger-mans reputedly erected concreie and steel artillery and machine-gun machine-gun fortifications running many miles inland from the invasion coast, with the object of making any Allied advance slow and costly. Behind these field fortifications, stands France's once-mighty Magi-not Magi-not line, which the Nazis have converted con-verted into a German defense system, sys-tem, and Germany's own famed Siegfried line, or west wall. Road Cleared Preliminary to the Allied invasion of the continent, U. S. and British bombers conducted an unrelenting aerial bombardment of German defenses de-fenses and communication lines along the channel coast and of Nazi industries supplying the wehrmacht. The attack upon German industry , was two-fold: first, it was designed I to draw up as many Nazi aircraft as possible into the 6ky for battle, and, second, to knock out the enemy's en-emy's airplane production and thus reduce the number of replacements of losses. Besides pounding the Germans' channel defenses against invasion, U. S. and British bombers also worked on the railroad system, over which the Nazi command could shuttle shut-tle troops to areas most endangered by Allied landings. MARKET RISES: On the first news of the Invasion prices of grains declined as much as IV4 cents a bushel, but soon rallied, and the day closed with net gains of one or two cents. Traders believe the future price trends will depend on the speed with which European countries coun-tries are freed from Nazi domination. domina-tion. It is expected that North America will supply most of the wheat, meat and other foods needed by people of the liberated nations, at least in Ue early stages of the invasion. |