French Patriots Sweep Germans From Paris

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 281, 24 August 1944, Page 5

French Patriots Sweep Germans From Paris

RISING SUCCEEDS IN FOUR DAYS

Unarmed Throng Fought Beside Maquis

(Received August 23,11 p.m.) . LONDON, August 23. French patriots have liberated Paris. This great news has been given this morning by General Koenig, commander-in-chief of the French Forces of the Interior. rvf In a special communique just issued he tells the story of how the Germans were swept out the French capital. He states that on Saturday morning the National Council of Resistance and the Paris Committee of Liberation in agreement with the national delegates and representatives of the Provisional Government of France, decreed a general rising m Paris and the Fans Region. At once 50,000 armed members of the French Forces of the Interior supported by several hundreds of thousands of unarmed patriots, went into action. The police of Pans, who had previously gone on strike, captured the police headquar ters and also turned the He de Cite, the beine island near the centre of Paris, into a fortress against which all German attacks were frustrated. Yesterday, after four days’ fighting, the Ger mans'had to leave the city, and the patriots were in possession of all public buildings, the communique continues. The Vichy representatives had fled or “The people of Paris have thus played a vital part in the liberation of the capital,’’ General Koenig adds. , i Paris had been in German hands since the mo rning of June 14, I 940, when German motorized units entered the city.

ALLIED ARMIES CONVERGING

Great New Moves In Battle

(By Telegraph— Press Assn.—Copyright.) LONDON, August 23. The Allied armies of north-western and southern France have advanced to within 240 miles of each other. Fast American columns pushing northward from the south of France have liberated Grenoble, which is 140 miles from the coast in a direct line. A communique announcing this says that the F.F.I. co-operated effectively in the last stages of this drive. Other Americans from the north-west have captured Sens, 70 miles south-east of Paris.

“The Normandy pocket has ceased to exist, and our forces are moving in to close against the enemy troops which may still be present south and west of the Seine,” it was stated at the Allied Supreme Headquarters last night. The. whole .strategy of the British Canadian and American forces now lighting the battle of the Seine is directed toward the total destruction of the shattered German armies, with the Alliesdriving toward the broad, bridgeless river to complete the victory. It appears that the Germans are committing the great military blunder of “reinforcing failure,” for new divisions have been flung across the Seine, where our forces are closing hi on those who escaped from the pocket. The Americans from Dreux and Mantes are thrusting strongly along the left bank of the Seine toward the sea. Yesterday they were 50 miles from the mouth of the river and advancing steadily against sharp panzer resistance. . While British forces fought their way into Lisieux, Belgian troops of the Canadian First Army, in a sudden eastward dash along the coast, reached Deauville, four miles from the Seine estuary. They are meeting with stiff resistance from German rearguards. When the converging armies meet on the Seine a trap many times greater than that at Falaise will have been sprung on the Germans. Rout In One Area.

The German retreat to the Seine in a certain area has become a rout, states Reuter's correspondent. Our forward troops are chasing them s'o quickly that planes are unable to operate owing to the danger of hitting our own troops. When flying was resumed yesterday after the previous day’s rain, the pilots destroyed or damaged six tanks and 113 vehicles.

The Luftwaffe is throwing the cream of its pilots into the battle over France, stated a British United Press correspondent. Our pilots agree that the Germans they have met in the last few days were the best so far encountered in the French campaign.

It would seem that the Germans have been forced to draw pilots and planes from Germany itself which has always had priority. However, the proportion of German planes shot down is still big compared to our losses. Americans operating in the area of the River Avre, which is a westerly tributary of the Eure, were yesterday in contact with the enemy west and north of Dreux. Part of this enemy force came from the south to escape the net cast by the great fanning-out movement, and other elements were brought across the Seine in small numbers during the past two or three weeks to reinforce the Germans east of Falaise, for which they were too late.

The Germans have now brought these troops together in some sort of cohesive force. This enemy development is considered to be a protection for the southern flank of the forces now being pursued from the west in the attempt to salvage some of the forces which have been driven from the Falaise battle area. Vast War of Movement. While this battle is going on the Americans who have crossed the river are steadily expanding their bridgehead on the eastern bank in the face of increasing resistance from German mortars and machineguns. The “Daily Express” correspondent reports from the Mantes-Gassicourt area that a long pontoon bridge has been built across the Seine over which our guns, trucks, and jeeps are today pushing northward. He adds: “Everything about Mantes, the Seine, and the crossings is typical of the war round Paris. It is a vast war of movement—an Indian war, as the commanders and troops call it.

“We assume there are Germans defending Paris. We run into groups occasionally, but there is still nothing resembling an organized force opposing us. , “Germans from the Argcnlan gap, in civilian clothes, and posing as refugees, are streaming across country afoot or on bicycles. They give us the V sign as they pedal past. Some are caught. “Our patrols continue to operate up to the vicinity of the gates of Paris almost unhampered.” The significance of Paris lies in (he fact that the Germans have been using it as a gigantic military warehouse, and it has been for them the most important communications centre in France, a correspondent comments.

The Americans captured Etampes at noon yesterday, and pushed on with tanks past Rambouillet.

United Kingdom troops rode into the battered town of Lisieux yesterday afternoon on tanks and went through the streets dealing with snipers. All but a handful of the Germans had pulled out. There is now only one more serious

obstacle between the Allies and the lower Seine —the River Risle, which, though not wide, has very steep and thickly wooded banks. Private Earl McAllister, Ontario, Canada, is credited with the capture of 160 fully-armed Germans. This is quoted as breaking the first war record of Sergeant Alvin York, the famed .Tennessee mountaineer, who captured 132. McAllister began by driving into the woods in a captured German armoured car in search of a tank which was reported to be in hiding. This expedition yielded 25 Germans. Then on foot Me. Allister bluffed 60 more into surrender, sending all back uiider escort. The last batch of 75 from a small armoured convoy which surrendered to his Sten gunfire he escorted back personally. It can now be disclosed, says Reuter’s correspondent at the headquarters of the United States First Army, that the American conquest of Brittany was successful because it was intended initially not to eliminate all the German resistance am' to capture every city, but to bottle up the enemy forces while the drive to trap the Germans in -Normandy was iu progress.

British troops cleaning up the Falaise pocket found dummy German tanks, fullsize replicas of tlie Tigers, mounted on farm carts and fitted with mock guns fashioned from stove-pipes and camouflaged lengths of saplings, states the Normandy correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain. Other dummies were covered with strips of sheet irou and painted canvas. The dummies obviously took a long while to'make, and were used to thicken the core of the real tanks or as decoys.

FLYING-BOMB SITE CAPTURED

LONDON, August 22.

The British advancing on Lisieux captured a flying-bomb site hidden in the grounds of a chateau, states a correspondent. It had a concrete runway 75 yards long and was constructed between an avenue of trees. Nearby was a storage depot, cleverly disguised as a farmhouse. Though it had never been used, it appeared to be complete in every way. Au officer said the runway was directed toward London on an almost due northerly bearing. When flying bombs landecj in southern England today rescue workers shifted rubble brick by brick with their bare hands in an effort to rescue a woman and child believed to be sleeping under the stairs of a house which was destroyed. Civil defence workers saved a family of 10 by tunnelling with crowbars under 20 tons of smashed masonry.