Evening star., 1940-07-14
BY LOUIS P. LOCHNER,

ASSOCIATED STeSS W dE SOllCSpUllOGht.
BERLIN.-The recent armistice-
signing ceremony in Compiegne
Forest graphically, demonstrated
Adolf Hitlers sense for the dra-
matte, the Fuehrers proverbial luck
where weather is concerned, the
German Army's famed efficiency
and the Teuton capacity for detail.
Everything went according to
schedule, with clocklike precision.
My airplane flight from Berlin to
lie Bourget with other foreign corr
respondent guests of Hitler forms
part of this story of careful plan
ming and execution.
Late in the afternoon of June 20
Karl Boomer, director of the for
eign press section Of the Propa-
ganda Ministry, telephoned me:
THE Fuehrer's headquarters has
just telephoned that you and the
chiefs of the other two American
news agencies are to fly to Paris
tonight for an important event.
Please be at the Propaganda Min
istry at 7:30 pm"
knew that meant Compiegne,
and said so to Boomer, but he re-
quested me not to reveal this fact
in any dispatch that night.
Bring along some sandwiches, j."
he advised, I'VE don't know how
far we'll get tonight and may have
to resume our journey early in the
morning. for my orders are to bring
you to the Hotel Crillon in Paris
by 9 am"
Assigned Junkers Plane. 8
We drove to Staaken Airport some
miles out of Berlin. Assigned to
us was one of those Junkers army
transport planes, type 81. which
had given such a good account OF
themselves in this war as vehicles
of troop and supply transport.
Three tanned, blue-eyed, taw11y-
haired young men stood at atten-
ton before the plane, ready to take
off at the command of Boemer, who
is a first lieutenant in the army as
well as foreign press chief.
These men told us their expert
ences in Norway. For it developed
that they had just returned from
duty at Trondheim, now that the
Narvik campaign was over. Day
after day, they said, they had
brought provisions to the small band
of German soldiers who held Mar
vik during the weeks before the
navy could come to their relief.
Sometimes we dropped medical
supplies" our pilot. who wore the
iron cross, related. Sometimes the
call was for heavier boots, then for
food or Alpine climbing equipment. I"
Tonight we can fly only to Cos
lar. in the Harz Mountains" Boe-
mer told us as we took off at pm.
IF we attempt to 60 farther we
shall find ourselves in the West Wall
operations zone, which means we
might be shot down."
, So at 1910 pm. we aighted in
charming, medieval Goslar, just as
the last rays of the sun gilded the
clouds in the west and a full moon
rose above the eastern horizon.
Hurriedly we ate dinner. At 3
am. we were awakened. BY 4:45
the "all clear" signal was given and
our plane, averaging 125 miles an
hour, flew us at low attitudes over
desolate. burned-out French cities,
over fields dotted with holes indi-
eating artillery or bomber hits, over
streets lined with abandoned can
non, caissons, tanks, over streams
spanned with wooden emergency
bridges or German Army pontoons,
while next to them the remnants of
graceful steel or concrete bridges
sagged into the water
LIE Bourget Partly Destroyed.
p LIE Bouraget, once one of the busi-
est commercial airports in Europe,
was dead. its spacious administra-
ton building and passenger depot
partly destroyed, when we landed
at 1885. Practically all windows in
the area had been shattered.
German soldiers stood guard and
German air force landing crew as
sisted us. Outside LIE Bourgeois
gates, however, crowds of French
men and women began to assemble.
It seems that for the first time
since the surrender of Paris the
veritable army of French workers
ordinarily employed at lie Bourget
had been invited by German au-