ENEMY SAID TO BE LEAVING PARIS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 280, 23 August 1944, Page 5

ENEMY SAID TO BE LEAVING PARIS

Operations Along Seine

FINAL FIERCE STRUGGLE FOR TOULON

(By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Received August 22, 11.40 p.m.) j o LONDON, August 22 Algiers radio this morning says that French troops of the Seventh Army have liberated Toulon, the great French naval base. This news is not yet confirmed, but it was known that the French were attacking hard inside the town against stubborn resistance after entering the suburbs from two directions, and that they also had cut the German garrison s last escape r ° Ut Marseilles, also, is being more closely enveloped by the Americans and French while other forces are pushing toward the Rhone Valley. A Swiss report says that other troops are only 10 miles from the Italian frontier. i j £ lji • The Allied leaders are not concealing the fact that they are far ahead of schedule m southern France, says the Columbia Broadcasting System’s correspondent at the Mediterranean headquarters. The Allied troops are moving so fast that the forward field commanders are improvising their strategy as they proceed. The pocket in Normandy is still dwindling fast, while many of the escaped Germans are threatened by swift British and Canadian thrusts in the area south of Lisieux and American advances on both sides of the Seine.

Today's communique gives no report of the American front, but it is known that forces yesterday crossed the Seme to the southeast of Paris as well as to the north-east. It was officially indicated in Berlin yesterday that the Germans intend to declare Paris an open city and, presumably to withdraw from the French capital before the Allies enter it. Berm ra io quoted a Foreign Office spokesman as saying: ' Paris will be spared military operations, just as we spared it in 1940. Reconnaissance pilots reported yesterday that for the second day German transport was moving east along the roads from Pans “bumper to bumper

The German resistance on the east bank of the Seine is stiffening, says Reuter’s correspondent with the United States Third Army. The Germans, using machineguns and small arms, are trying to halt the Americans, who had crossed the Seine without opposition. The Germans at other points along the river are still fleeing across the river under cover of darkness, abandoning a great deal of equipment. The Americans have solidified the bridgehead across the Seine 25 miles north-west of Paris. The first Americans who crossed the river on Saturday night soon captured German 88 millimetre guns by surprising the gun crews. A few of the enemy gunners escaped by bicycles and civilian cars. American patrols at 3 a.m. crossed the Seine at Mantes, in the early morning, says the “New York Times’’ correspondent, and they were followed all day long by long lines of. armour and infantry, which established a bridgehead. The blasted bridges are rapidly being replaced by pontoon bridges, and ferries are in operation at several points along the river. There was little resistance to the American advance. On the roads leading from the south there is ample evidence that many of the Germans had not fled fast enough: the highways are strewn with overturned and burnt-out vehicles, whose occupants were either suicide squads or could not be made to believe our army could travel so fast. But the army was and is moving so fast that some sections have moved off their own maps and have to rely on captured maps. The Seine is alive with troops pushing ou in what seems to be a futile attempt to contact the enemy. While the engineers are building bridges as fast as is humanly possible, nontoons lashed together and propelled by outboard motors are ferrying men and material. Some of the troops are rowing, and others are lining transferred to barges pulled by ropes, cables and pulleys. Close to Lisieux. “Good progress has been made between Lisieux and the sea, where Allied troops captured Dozule and Dive-sur-Mere, and advanced to Annebault and Bonnesbosq,” says today’s Allied communique. “West of Lisieux we have taken Cambremer, while an advance north of St. Martin de Lalieue brought our troops within half a mile of Lisieux’ itself. Fighting is going on in the vicinity of Vimoutiers. “Further' south an advance has been made east of Chambois. Gace is in our hands. Determined enemy efforts to break out of their encirclement were again checked effectively, and mopping up continues. There is nothing further to report from the remainder of the front. “The weather severely restricted air operations yesterday, but during the evening coastal aircraft attacked enemy shipping near the mouth of the Gironde River.” Bay of Biscay Move. Three light Allied . cruisers before dawn today began shelling the German defences in the Bayonne area, perhaps as a prelude to a new landing on the Atlantic coast, says Reuter's Irun correspondent. An American motorized column is reported to liavc passed southward through Angouleme 130 miles south of Nantes, without meeting resistance. The Irun correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that the Germans pulled out yesterday from the area south of Bayonne after destroying the defences.