One Down, Three to Go

At Brest, Lorient and Saint-Nazaire, Germans still held out, but elsewhere in Brittany German resistance was battered down. This week the besieged ports were more than ever prizes worth the price in casualties and time; their deep harbors were sorely needed for the vast stream of supplies to the swiftly expanding Allied front in northern France.

Allied communiques were silent on progress before the bastions, mentioned only repeated air attacks upon the U-boat pens.

Last week the Americans broke down one stubborn fortress, secured a minor port. Stiff-backed Colonel Andreas von Auloch, the "madman of Saint-Malo," finally surrendered. Begrimed (but with boots shining), proud of their stand (but reeling after a farewell bout with the bottle), the Germans gave up after eleven days of pounding. Before they marched out of their tunneled redoubt the Germans freed seven U.S. prisoners. The Americans had been treated well, had scarcely noticed the air bombardments in the four-story-deep granite fortress.

Auloch was the only hero the Nazis had to extol in all the Normandy-Brittany campaign and they made the most of him. Berlin recited his final message to Adolf Hitler: "Further resistance had to cease as a result of lack of food." It trumpeted the Fuehrer's reply: "Your name will go down in history forever."

Berlin insisted that Auloch himself had not surrendered, no matter what the Allies said, but the U.S. press had evidence convincing enough even for the Herrenvolk (see cut).

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