Hold & Hit

The Americans had taken Cherbourg.

After three weeks of backbreaking work and soul-testing battle, the first major objective of the Allied invasion had been won. An open wound had been gashed in the body of the German military system. At least 20 enemy divisions were involved in the Normandy fighting. That in itself was proof positive that Normandy was no longer a beachhead: it was a front.

In Cherbourg the Allies were taking over one of the best commercial seaports in Europe. Here they could bring heavy military supplies in ocean-going ships. Convoys could steam direct from the U.S. to the broad, sheltered Cherbourg roadstead without transshipping their cargoes in Britain.

The Nazis had done their worst with the port, but they had also wrecked with might & main at Naples, and Allied engineers had had that harbor running full blast within a few days. The same brand of engineering, and more of it, was all ready for Cherbourg.

New Honors. The third week's plaudits logically fell to Lieut. General Omar Bradley's U.S. troops for their stunning sweep along the Cotentin Peninsula, their crushing of stout Nazi defenses around Cherbourg. In London Lord Beaverbrook's Express, praising the U.S. achievements, said: "Americans have proved themselves to be a race of great fighters in the very front rank of men at arms."

But the Americans themselves had professional praise for the men at the other end of the Allied line, the stubborn British and Canadian outfits in the Orne River area on the left flank, who had locked up four Nazi armored divisions, kept them off balance with probing attacks, kept them from launching a single coordinated thrust that might have interfered with the U.S. drive. Even as the Yanks fought their way into Cherbourg, British infantry and tanks were punching into German positions and driving the enemy back two miles near Tilly-sur-Seulles, at the base of the peninsula.

Supreme Headquarters, supremely happy over the drive into Cherbourg, was equally pleased with the whip-smart way that British and Canadian armor had been conserved while keeping the German armor from breaking loose.

Old Enemies. The Nazis had been led into using their armor not as a hammer to crack holes, but as putty to plug them. German tank losses so far may give Marshal Rommel a tough replacement problem, especially with his old opponent Montgomery hoarding his armor and piling in more across the beaches for a drive of his own.

What "Monty" and Bradley would be up to next was the big problem for Nazi leaders Rundstedt and Rommel. Would the Allies funnel a vast weight of men and material through their new port and drive straight into France? Or would the 50-odd Allied divisions still in Britain mount an entirely new thrust at the demonstrably pregnable Atlantic Wall? Ace German military commentator General Kurt Diettmar summed up sadly:

"Let us not forget that there is more than one invasion army assembled in the British Isles. Our strategy has to take its bearing from this fact. At present our strategy is essentially a defensive one."

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