THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Tuesday, June 13, 1944. PROGRESS IN NORMANDY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25560, 13 June 1944, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Tuesday, June 13, 1944. PROGRESS IN NORMANDY

The news from the invasion front in Normandy continues to tell of slow but certain progress in the face of intensifying enemy resistance. German strategy, involving above all ability to move men and equipment speedily behind the already extensive beach-head area, is obviously being subjected to the severest test. The enemy’s immediate defence of France —indeed, of any part of the west wall where Allied landings might be attempted—must be to endeavour to confine such landings to the coastal strip, to enclose the beach-heads, themselves, and to use them—to borrow a phrase—as “ anvils on which to hammer the invaders.” There is as yet no evidence that Marshal von Rundstedt has been able to bring other than his tactical reserves against the spearheads which are pressing inland, notably in the bitterly contested area between Caen and Bayeux, and also between Isigny and St. Mere Eglise, where the Americans are reported to have defeated Rommel’s -plan to seal off the Allied drive across the neck of the Cherbourg Peninsula. The hard fighting of the past four days has produced a striking improvement in the Allied position. Whereas the first foothold established, in the middle sector, was twenty-five miles in length, that has now been extended to an over-all length of over fifty miles. There is Allied contact along the whole length of that front, although the line itself is as yet fluid rather than solidly welded. But the advantages of even a tentative solidarity are very great. Between the mouths of the Vire and the Orne the Allies are now in a position to pour men and supplies ashore in an ever-growing flood. They have achieved what General Montgomery has described, in a congratulatory message to all ranks, as a “ good firm lodgement,” and, by penetration at vital points, have placed themselves in a position from which to exploit this initial success. The Germans estimate that So far upwards of 350,000 Allied troops have landed. There has been silence on the part of Allied headquarters on this interesting aspect of the operation, but the presumption must be, from the vigour with which the beach-head is being defended and penetration essayed, that the invasion army has in fact reached formidable proportions. Moreover, it is hourly being reinforcdd and more adequately supplied. In the Caen-Bayeux sector, where British armoured units are savagely engaged with the enemy, the wedge is said to be eleven miles in depth—a factor of great significance for the effective deployment of the fresh forces which are continually coming ashore. The reluctance of the German Command to bring the Luftwaffe into the battle persists, except in so far as the evidence of this is qualified by reports of occasional fighter opposition to the Allied raiding planes which are steadily patrolling ahead of the invading spearheads to destroy transport and hinder the movement of troop columns.' One expert opinion is that the Germans, by failing at the outset to make an effort to counter Allied supremacy in the air,- have committed a disastrous error of judgment. History will pronounce on that question, and it may be shown that the Allies’ long-sustained preliminary bombing of the sources of German aircraft production was indeed fatal to German hopes of meeting the menace of invasion on anything like equal terms in the air. In the meantime, however, it were safer to assume that the enemy is conserving his strength against the need, which must swiftly arise, of making his maximum effort to fling the invaders back to the beaches and either contain them there or drive them intQ the sea. But the dangers that threaten him on several fronts are so real as drastically fo limit his chances, at this late stage, of neutralising the tremendtbus advantages already 'won by the Allies in Normandy. The Russian front is showing increasing signs of action by Marshal Stalin, and neither Hitler nor his military advisers can know where the full weight of the Red Army’s blows will fall. In Italy von Kesselring’s position is markedly deteriorating, as the pursuit presses his battered divisions farther north of Rome. The patriot risings in France will Nazis with another problem, none the easier of solution because of its internal nature, while the Allied pressure from the west grows. All in all there seems substantial justification for the note of subdued confidence which informs the latest pronouncements from General Eisenhower’s headquarters.