HOPES EXCEEDED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25562, 15 June 1944, Page 5

HOPES EXCEEDED

FIRST WEEK OF INVASION TRULY GREAT ALLIED TEAM LONDON, June 13. “My brightest hopes have been exceeded ” is the crux of the message General Eisenhower addressed to General Montgomery, Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, General Carl Spaatz, and “ soldiers, sailors, airmen, merchant seamen, and all others of the Allied Expeditionary Forces.” The message, issued from an Allied advance command post, reads: “ One week ago this morning there was established through your co-ordinated efforts our first foothold on Northwestern Europe. High as was my preinvasion confidence in your courage, skill, and effectiveness in working

together as a unit, your accomplishments in the first seven days 91 this campaign have exceeded my brightest hopes. ’ You are a truly great Allied team —a team in which each part gains the greatest satisfaction in rendering the maximum assistance to the entire body, and in which each individual member is justifiably confident in all the others. “No matter how prolonged or bitter the struggle ahead, you will do your fullest part towards the restoration of Free France, the liberation of all the European nations under Axis domination, and the destruction of the Nazi machine. “ I truly congratulate you upon this brilliantly, successful beginning to this great undertaking. Liberty - loving people everywhere would to-day like to join me in saying to you, ‘ I am proud of you.’ ”