SUCCESS OF AIR TROOPS

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24280, 10 June 1944, Page 5

SUCCESS OF AIR TROOPS

CASUALTIES LIGHT

“GERMANS TAKEN BY SURPRISE ” (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11.30 p.m.) LONDON, June 8. The first paratroop expert to return to England from France, after being dropped from a troop-carrying aeroplane four hours before the invasion barges touched the beaches on D Day, told official interrogators that the paratroops of his group successfully carried out their mission, reports the Press Association representative with the United States Army Air Force. The returned paratrooper, who is Colonel Bagby, of Evanston, Illinois, was bearded, red-eyed, and exhausted after being practically without sleep since Monday. Colonel Bagby said: "We landed in the designated areas with uncanny precision, assembled in combat teams, and moved out to .take our objectives, which we did with very little opposition. We just raised hell in general, and caught the Germans completely by surprise. Casualties among us were unbelievably light.” Another report says air-borne casualties were below the most optimistic estimate, both in men and aircraft. A British air-borne division captured and is holding bridges north of Caen. It is regarded as having done sterling work. ■ “ CAEN* A MASS OF FLAMES” DIVE-BOMBERS ATTACK ENEMY TANKS (Rec. 1 a.m.) ’ LONDON, June 0. A Berlin radio commentator says Caen is now a mass of flames. Whenever German dive-bombers attack English and American positions near the town they meet a veritable hell of hot lead. Columns of enemy tanks are being attacked by dive-bombers piloted by specialists who participated in bombing raids on Malta and in North Africa. Pilots who try to dive-bomb convoys and shore guns now meet walls of fire. The Swiss radio quotes a Berlin report that the Allied bridgehead is at present 38 miles long and reaches -its greatest depth of four to six miles near Bayeux.