BASTILLE DAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25589, 17 July 1944, Page 6

BASTILLE DAY

CELEBRATION IN FRANCE RUGBY, July 14. Liberated Normandy celebrated Bastille Day to-day, states an Allied correspondent in France. The scene was one of pathetic contrasts. Bayeux marked the occasion with ceremonial parades and music from military bands. Other towns and villages held quiet ceremonies at local last war memorials, preceded by • church services. Caen was tragically quiet. Over narrow, cobbled streets in Bayeux French flags were already flying last evening. Few such banners flew in. Caen this morning. Knots of poorlyclad, homeless folk are quitting the city to seek asylum in other towns. American, British, and French troops at Cherbourg marched together in the parade in celebration of French In-' dependence Day. The French population spontaneously broke out into cheers as the parade marched into the square. During the ceremony the name of the square was changed from Place Marshal Petain to Place General de Gaulle. „ „ Algiers gave General de Gaulle a great ovation when he attended a military review to celebrate July 14, writes an Algiers correspondent. A salute of 21 guns greeted the general as he took a place on the rostrum. British and American troops headed a parade which composed French metropolitan and colonial troops. The first ceremony in the Bastille Day celebrations in the little town of Valognes, behind the Normandy war front, .was the cutting off of the hair of nine wailing Frenchwomen, who had lived openly with Germans, says the British United Press correspondent.