BEHIND SCHEDULE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 24, 28 July 1944, Page 5

BEHIND SCHEDULE

THE ALLIED OFFENSIVE

NEW YORK, July 27.

After a fortnight's tour, the London correspondent of the' "New s York Times," Hanson Baldwin, described the Normandy front as a magnified Anzio. He says that in spite of early Allied optimism resulting from the relativelylight casualties, the Germans are now fighting with great ferocity and effectiveness, as a result of which the Allies are behind their planned schedule. "Both armies, and particularly the Germans, have become armies of moles burrowing into hedgerows and digging deep into the earth," he says. "This is a country where one man can hold back five. "The weather has been consistently against the Allies, whose tremendous air power can have operated on only a few .days since D Day. The German Mark V and Mark VI tanks are superior to the Allies' Shermans and Cromwells. The Allies' drive to Cherbourg gave the Germans time to consolidate positions across the Contentin Peninsula, and as a result the German crust is stronger than was expected and the enemy air and ground'strength has steadily increased. "The Allies are engaged in a slugging, bloody struggle, advancing perhaps three or four hedgerows daily, compared with the Russians' average of 10 to 15 miles daily. ■> "The current grim jest on the Normandy front is: 'We must soon adjust our artillery barrage to avoid laying a barrage against the Russians advancing from the east.' The Allies have tremendous fire-power, but have proved sluggish in manoeuvre. A war of hedgerows has become a war ot attrition."