Evening star., 1944-08-13
Normandy Pays the Price of Cherished Towns

OIL 1NldnCrys TWO a1r-DOrne ana TWO
armored divisions Of 1t. Gen. Omar K.
Bradley's lst U. 8. Army. Among these
divisions were four, the lst 9th, 82d Air
borne and I'd Armored. which had seen
service N Africa and Sicily and all OF
whose regiments had at least nuclei OF
battle-trained veterans. The others still
had to face their first screams Of shells
overhead. the first pings OF rife bullets,
the frst wierd screeches Of minnen-
werfers.
They were hesitant and fearful in
their first fire tights. They had been
through the most intensive training
both in the United States and England.
They had been subjected to live fire
over their heads. For the first time
men were shooting at them to kill them.
Naturally, some days were required
to acclimatize them to the heat of battle.
The intensive troop concentration made
very difdcult any close air support of
ground forces. The 9th Air Force in
England had made excellent plans for
tactical airport support, the employ
ment OF which had been an Indifferent
success In Africa, Sicily and Italy.
Many invaluable lessons had been
learned but circumstances for a time
made application of these plans very
dificult. The opposing forces were too
close together In too small an area. 1t
was virtually impossible to bomb one
without causing casualties in the other.
For most of the invaders Normandy was
a strange land .peopled with folks
speaking an incomprehensible language,
1t was their first experience with an
other tongue and at first the few natives
they met seemed none too friendly.
They were undemonstrative.
The attitude of the people requires a
few words of explanation First, they
were Normans, little given to overt DEM
onstrations Of their feelings. Secondly,
they had suffered great deal. They
were innocent victims. All winter,
American Marauders from England oc-
casionally had bombed rail and COM
munication centers in Normandy.
Towns Pulverized
Just before invasion day these bomb
ings reached a hellish crescendo which
continued while the Allied forces were
Tightening their claw grip on the slender
perch of coast. Artillery in such con-
centration as had not been known be-
fore in warfare was used before each
operation. AS a consequence some OF
Of
literally were pulverized.
Perhaps the lovely old market town
OF st. Lo on the Wire River, capital of
the Department of Manche, was the
most frightful example of the total an
Inhalation OF city possible to imagine.
Much OF the city was little more than
a shapeless pile of dust and stone. Here
and there tottering, crumbling walls
remained standing but hardly build
ing was not completely Quilted. Nearly
as complete destruction had been visited
on Pont Liable and the historic llth
century town Of st. Saveur lie Vicomte.
Destructiveness of War
At first sight such cities as Monte
burg and Valogne seemed to have
shared the fate OF st. Lo, but the total
wreckage was confined to their business
sections. Towns such as Coutances,
Normandy's cathedral city, and Av-
ranches were somewhat less damaged.
Their wreckage was little worse, in fact,
than that of Bizerte or the dock Sec
tions Of Palermo and Messina, hitherto
held up as extreme examples of the
destructiveness of modern war.
Other Normandy cities Caen, Caren-
tan, Isigny-were only moderately DAM
aged. In each case just a few city
blocks had been made rubble heaps.
Some cities, like the important port of
Cherbourg, had almost entirely escaped.
Century.Old Dwellings Shattered
There are a lot OF windows broken
and the roofs knocked off some of the
houses but comparatively, this was
nothing. The demolished dwellings had
been family homes for centuries. Great
piles OF stone alone remained of the
fine old churches where the present
generation had been christened and
married, to the tolling of whose bells
parents and grandparents had been
carried to their graves in whose crypts
was the dust of crusader ancestors,