GERMANS BOMB PARIS AREA

Southland Times, Issue 24152, 14 June 1940, Page 5

GERMANS BOMB PARIS AREA

Reply By Allied

Forces (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright) LONDON, June 12. The battle for Paris is now in full swing following the withdrawal of the French troops in accordance with orders. The Germans are bombing the Paris area. The Allied air forces are attacking German convoys, troop concentrations and communications.

Total darkness all night grips Paris, whose centre is deathly silent, but from whose north-western fringes gunfire is growing louder. Gun flashes burn across the sky as the German legions thrust desperately forward to the very gates of the city, which is covered in a vast blanket of heavy smoke, drifting from the battlefields and burning towns and forests, set on fire by a tornado of bombs and shells. Great fires are raging in countless towns, villages and hamlets, which have become a funeral pyre for many thousands of Germans and Frenchmen who died amid the ruins.

From the tops of buildings in the Champs Elysee a circle of fires is visible. It is impossible to sleep. Anti-aircraft guns keep up a continuous hammering. The houses are shuttered and deserted. Restaurants are closed. Paris life is dead. German bombers dropped deadly cargoes far behind Paris. There is a roar and flash of explosions throughout the night. Through this curtain of terror long columns of refugees struggle on. The Germans day and night are attacking roads and railways.

The Royal Air Force has been considerably reinforced and in co-operation with the French is roaring ceaselessly to the attack and taking a terrific toll, but still the bombers come below them. The French army is making a glorious stand.