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ROYAL VISITOR

King Tours Western Front DUTCH WELCOME (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Received October 17, 7.30 p.m.) LONDON, October 17. His Majesty the King, accompanied by his personal secretary, Sir Alan Lascelles, and his Equerry, Lt.-Col. Sir Piers Legh, returned to London last night after a five days’ tour of the French and Belgian battlefields. Reuter’s correspondent accompanying the tour says the King last Wednesday morning flew from an R.A.F. station in England to a Dutch airfield, and immediately started a tour of the battle areas. . .. Crowds of R.A.F. crews gave him his first ebecr on Dutch soil. Hundreds of Dutch children in clogs outside the airfield waved orange streamers, Dutch flags and Union Jacks. Groups of Dutch men and women stood in village streets wearing the orange band of the resistance movement, and shouting in Dutch, “Long Live the King.” The King, after lunching with FieldMarshal Montgomery, heard him explain the present battle situation, aided by the latest reports from the firing line, only a few miles away. His Majesty during the visit often drove so near the front line that the thunder of the guns and even machinegun fire was audible. The King every night slept within half a dozen miles of the front in a caravan which ,Field-Marsal Montgomery captured from the Italian Marshal Messe' in Africa. This was the King’s fifth visit to the battlelines since the outbreak of war. His Majesty went to the Nijmegen area, from where he looked south-east toward the hills of the Rejchwald Forest. This is the first time. he has gazed on the enemy’s homeland since he visited the Maginot Line in 1939. Watched Progress of Battle. The King with Field-Marshal Montgomery and General Dempsey went into the operations room at tactical headquarters, where he watched the commanding officers of a formation directing the actual battle for Overloon. The King listened to flash by flash reports coming in about the progress of the battle. His Majesty during his journeys mostly kept off the main routes so as not. to interfere with the endless convoys taking ammunition and supnlies to the front line. At several points Dutch nuns who had been tending refugees and black and white robed Dominican monks saw the King and left their prayers to bless him as he passed. The King held two investitures in the field, and at the Twelfth Army general headquarters he conferred the K.C.B. on General Bradley. Weather conditions made return by air impossible, and the King came home by sea. General Eisenhower told correspondents: “We were tremendously honoured by the King s visit.”

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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19441018.2.48.9

Bibliographic details

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 20, 18 October 1944, Page 7

Word Count
430

ROYAL VISITOR Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 20, 18 October 1944, Page 7

ROYAL VISITOR Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 20, 18 October 1944, Page 7