“FORT” IN PARIS

Timaru Herald, Volume CLV, Issue 22791, 15 January 1944, Page 3

“FORT” IN PARIS

Anti-tank Defences

Neutral correspondents report that, with the object of coping with any local uprising in support of a second front, the Germans are constructing an anti-tank defence ring round the centre of Paris for the protection of buildings occupied by naval, military, and civil administrations. This is stated in a dispatch to the “Sydney Morning Herald” by a London correspondent. A former Garde Mobile barracks is being converted into a blockhouse capable of withstanding a small siege, and there are slots in the road round the Place de la Republique and the Place de I'Etoile, where are concentrated the headquarters and officers’ living quarters. The slots are 4ft. 6in. deep and 18in. square. The Germans have also linked many buildings by tunnels to the Metro rail system for reinforcing beleaguered positions. Other preparations for invasion include the issue of what are apparently final evacuation orders to Frenchmen still remaining in the 18-mile coastal strip between the Belgian frontier and Le Havre. Dunkirk, Calais, Bologne, Montreuil, Abbeville, and Dieppe are described as cities in which scarcely a Frenchman can be seen. Tire whole area had long since been stripped of all save Frenchmen whom the Germans once considered essential, but the new orders concern thousands even of these. German Army specialists have already taken over the Flanders, Pas de Calais, Somme, and Lower Seine departments, and additional reinforcements are pouring into the coastal areas.