ENEMY FORTRESS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25566, 20 June 1944, Page 5

ENEMY FORTRESS

HELD OUT FOR TWELVE DAYS REDUCED BY FRONTAL ASSAULT (Rec. 8 p.m.) RUGBY, June 18. A correspondent describes how a German fortress only two miles inland in the Allied beach-head, near the village of d’Ouvres, surrendered on Saturday night after holding out for 12 days. The garrison of 150 officers and men came out with their hands in the air.

Our forces had by-passed this fortress on D-Day when they were intent on pushing inland as quickly as possible, and the enemy remained within the fortress until the Allies decided that they had held out long enough and that determined efforts should be made to burn them out. The job was given to commandos, assisted by a squadron of tanks. The commandos followed the tanks in close enough to storm the fortress with tommy guns and grenades, which they lobbed through slits in the concrete walls. . The German garrison could not stand up to this, and came out from their underground quarters. They were quickly marched off to a prison camp. In their bomb and shell proof S' =rs 20 feet underground was a big stock of champagne, brandy, hams and eggs. The garrison had been in telephone communication with their headquarters throughout the seige, and at night used flashlights to German bombers to guide them to the beaches. The fortress had been bombarded from land, sea and air. but withstood it all. A frontal attack in the early stages would have proved very costly, and it was for this reason that it was by-passed. After the first day the fort was never a threat to us although always a nuisance, The German Air Force made several attempts to drop supplies to the garrison, but we had run anti-aircraft guns around the place, and more containers fell in our lines than in the fortress German officers taken prisoner at Douvres declared that they were convinced that Germany will win the war with the pilotless planes, which will soon wipe out London, says the Associated Press correspondent in Normandy. ,