The Wilmington morning star., 1940-06-06
NAZI DRIVE CHECKED
Tanks Are Unable To Get
Through Network Set
Up By Gen. Weygand
AIR FORCES ARE ACTIVE

PARKS June o
armored columns which broke into
the main French front on the SOM
me as the spear-points of a great
offensive were declared tonight to
have been e%ntrapped in a new sys-
TEN of defense created by General
issimo Maxine Weygand for the SUI
preme stand to ave Paris.
Not one of the tanks, military
dispatches said, got all the way
through the network of defenses.
At the same time, authorized
sources asserted that the savage
new nazi offensive had been check
ed generally all along the battle
line.
Holding Firm
Frenchmen, they added, were
holding firm against machines.
The nazi tanks advanced through
open spaces in the French defenses
onIv to meet successive French
support points like field fortifica-
lions of a new design.
The first points, armed with ma
chine guns, were erected on the
banks If numerous canals and
streams lining the battle area. Back
Of them were gun nests at cross
roads in the fortified villages and
on the hills.
Then, military informants said,
the line ended in deep woods where
any German units which succeeded
in breaking through to those points
we're slowed down and finally halt
ed by guns hidden in the shadows.
Offensive Spreads
The German offensive spread in
the three main sectors of Amlens,
Peronne and Laon, and the nazis
strove to drive converging spear
heads toward Paris.
1t was there that the new system
of Generalissimo Maxine Weygand
was put into action for the first
TIM. The Maginot theory of fixed
fortified positions was dropped n
defenses designed to absorb and
break up tank attacks gradually
were employed.
In contrast to the first days Of
earlier German armored column as
saults on the Meuse and in Elan
ders. the French said, the opening
of the Somme battle yielded them
no great gains.
French military closed in behind
the entrapped mechanical units to
counter-attack from the rear.
These new defenses were COM
pared by military authorities to
those Of the middle ages When arch
ers protected themselves behind
staggered lines of posts against
charles of armor-clad cavalry and
oyercame the enemy with their ar
rows.
Nazis Make Claims
These declarations that the Pam
yer (motorized advance units) had
pushed through only to face de.
struction came almost simultane-
cuslv with broadcast German claims
that countless new divisions had
smashed the main Weygand de-
Tense lines in two thrusts.
Along with their reply to the Ger
man tanks the Allies threw their
own air forces full-out into the bat
tie. French bombers, attacking in
the Peronne, St. Quentin and Cam
brai sectors, destroyed a railroad
station and several German conveys
and dropped more than six tons
of explosive on German troops in
the st. Quentin area alone.
Light French bombers, some re-
Gently brought from America, drop
ped IS tons in the Peronne sector
after fighting off German pursuit
planes. Many German planes were
reported brought down in aerial
battle but no figures were given.
Fires Raging
Immense fires were said by aerial
observers to be blazing tonight both
behind the German front and in
Germany itself-where military OBJ
jectvies at Mannheim, Ulm Lud-
wigshafen and Munich were attack.
ed. The DMW airplane motor fac
tory near Munich was bombed for
the second time.
While with massed tanks and
planes the Germans hammered at
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