German Incendiaries Showered on Paris

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 204, 29 August 1944, Page 5

German Incendiaries Showered on Paris

PLANES SPRAY STREETS OF CITY LONDON, Aug. 27. The Germans this morning raided Paris for the first time since June, 1040, says the British United Press. Incendiaries were showered down on the Latin Quarter and the districts around the Gare de List, the Arc de Triomphe, the Gois de Boulogne, the Porte d’Orleans, the Mont Rouge, north of the Gare St. Lazare, and Montmatre. Industrial districts outside the city were also bombed. There were casualties and much damage to property. German fighters later in the morning sprayed the streets of Paris with j bullets. Apart from these raids there 1 was amazingly little damage. The only real signs of fighting were found around the Tuileries, where the Germans had their headquarters. The Paris radio gave the casualty figures in the Luftwaffe raid on the : city to-day as 108 killed and 719 | injured, with 290 houses destroyed and 1 250 damaged. | Reuter’s Paris correspondent says that the Mayor of Paris and the entire staff are stated to have been arrested by patriots. Representatives of the trade unions and the National Committee of Resistance have decided that work will resume to-morrow in Paris and the Paris region. The strike will continue in the regions under German control. HUNGRY PEOPLE Reuter adds: For all the wild gaiety reminiscent of pre-war days and the great warmth of the welcome for the liberators, hunger and sorrow are in the streets of Paris. “I have not had food for my baby £or two days,’’ one ragged woman tola an American soldier. Paris is hungry. On£ group of soldiers shared canned nations with two old Parisians, one of | whom wept as he ate. Still Paris gives all that it has to the liberators. It was stated at Shaef that the Allied Expeditionary Force to-day started rushing emergency food supplies by air to Paris. Hundreds of ,planes took 500 tons from British bases to a point near Paris from which sup- | plies were moved forward in army trucks.

Emphasising the importance of the protection which General Leclerc undertook to give the Germans who surrendered in Paris, the Daily Express’s correspondent says that Parisians had the idea “that you kill Germans on the spot whenever you get a chance.’’ The idea of sending off envoys under a white flag to the 16 remaining strongpoints worked in 15 cases. The Germans at the sixteenth strongpoint lost their heads as the envoys approached and shot a German officer and one Frenchman. All this took time. Meanwhile everyone who had a weapon was after the Germans.

There was a sudden burst of firing from the roof and windows of the Ministry of Public Relief facing the Hotel de Ville while General de Gaulle was there on his way to Notre Dame. Maquis appeared on all sides and opened tire with machineguns, rifles and revolvers. Guns from a line of tanks opened up with a deafening roar.

Observers said that De Gaulle did not pause in giving his greetings. The effect on the crowd was instantaneous and astounding. They were at one moment standing and cheering and the next lying flat under cars, against kerbstones and in the road. Almost as suddenly as it started the tumult died down. The crowd got up, laughed, cheered and sang anew. The Paris radio says that German guns north and east of the city shelled Paris early on Sunday morning.