VISIT TO NORMANDY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25563, 16 June 1944, Page 3

VISIT TO NORMANDY

GENERAL DE GAULLE p ENTHUSIASTIC RECEPTION (Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, June 14. General de Gaulle landed in Normandy from the French destroyer La Combattante. He was accompanied by high-ranking French officers. The British United Press correspondent says General de Gaulle returned to French soil exactly four years and one day from the moment when he sat in thi old Loire Chateau and heard General Weygand say: There is nothing to do. We must give up. Mr Churchill was also there that day, and as the bowed French leaders filed out to their doom General de Gaulle approached him and asked the Prime Minister if he would support a resistance movement. . General de Gaulle toured part of the liberated area, including Bayeux, in a jeeD driven by a British liaison officer, the inhabitants quickly recognised him. and cheered enthusiastically. The people of Bayeux were told by a loud-speaker an hour _ before his arrival that he was coming. Shops were quickly closed, and the tricolour was hung from practically every window. Nearly the entire town turned out to welcome him. To their shouts of “Vive de Gaulle!” he answered “Vive La France!” In a speech he urged them to join in the battle to free their country. Flowers were thrown to him ss he traversed the streets, and there • was more cheering as he left to re-embark for England. The visit lasted only a few hours.