PEOPLE OF CAEN

Evening Star, Issue 25226, 13 July 1944, Page 5

PEOPLE OF CAEN

HEAVILY BOMBED BY FRIENDS YET ALLIES WELCOMED AS LIBERATORS (N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent.) (Rec. 10 a.m.) LONDON, July 12. The plight of the people of Caen, which, being the burial place of William the Conqueror, has special interest for Britain, is the subject of comment by many correspondents. Caen, it is considered, has suffered as few towns have suffered. It has been very heavily bombed, not by the enemy, but by friends. It has felt the rancour of the German army in its savage retreat, and a battle has been fought over it, yet the people welcomed the British and Canadian troops as liberators. ' The Times ' correspondent says: "It is to be feared that the loss of life among the inhabitants is far heavier than at first thought. The Prefect of the Calvados Department says the number may be 5,000. The Germans confiscated all wireless sets in Normandy last March, so few people were able to hear the warning broadcast from London of the heavy bombing of the city that was to follow the landings. In view of other attadks on such towns as Falaise, Fleurs, Virc, and Argentan, the prefect puts loss of life in the Calvados Department as high as 20,000. He said nothing could surpass the relief of the people of Caen at being freed from their oppressors. They welcomed the (British troops as liberators. If the demonstrations of welcome were not more massive it was because the city was still under enemy bombardment. Like other officials appointed under General de Gaulle in Normandy, the new Prefect of Cavados belongs to the Departmental Committee of Liberation, and in issuing the first proclamation in the name of the Provisional Government he named this committee as his consultative body. The shape of things to come in France thus emerges more clearly from the ruins of Caen than it has elsewhere."

Mr Alexander Clifford, in the ' Daily Mailj' says, while the people of Caen are unbelievably generous about the Allied bombing, they do a little question the necessity. They say: "There were almost no Germans in the town at the time. Did you really mean to bomb us so terribly? Is the price of liberation so high?" Mr Clifford learned from the general commanding the battle that the bombing was the reason why the # Germans failed to mount an organised counter-attack. It blocked bridges and approaches to bridges. The Germans, who were forced to improvise other lines of communications, could not mobilise sufficient material for a counter-attack and the British and Canadians won the battle. "The people of Caen should be told that. They could bear the tragic losses better if they understood the reason for them," he added. For the Germans the people of Caen have black hatred for their cruelty, outrages, and tyranny. It is reported that two abbeys founded by William the Conqueror survived the bombardment. William is buried at Saint Etienne, and on the tombstone let into the floor in front of the Great Altar is the inscription: "Here is buried the most unconquerable William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy and King of England, founder of this house, who died in the year 1087."