The Stars and stripes
Daily Newspaper of U.S. Armed Forces in the European Theater of Operations
London, England Monday, March 15, 1943
U.S. Bombers Hit Rail Yards
Near Coast Twice in 24 Hours;
French Patriots Battle in Hills
Blast Eight Targets
In Seven Days;
Down 40
American heavy bombers blasted their way into a larger share of the
Allied air offensive against German held Europe over the weekend with
their second daylight blow in two days against key targets in France.
Striking rail junctions at Amiens- Longeau, Abbeville and Poix—all in
northern France, just across the Channel—Flying Fortresses fought
their way through to their eighth enemy target in seven days. Friday, Fortresses
hit Rouen, another communications center.
Both missions were accomplished without bomber loss. Meanwhile, the RAF's heavy bombers delivered one of the heaviest blows of the war—possibly the heaviest—on Essen.
Friday night. More than 1,000 tons of incendiaries and high explosive were
aimed at the Krupps munitions works in the Ruhr city which was battered just
a week before. Twenty-four hours after the second Essen raid, fires were still
burning in the wreckage, reconnaissance showed.
Luftwaffe Retaliates
500 Men Entrenched
WithMachineGuns,
Rifles, 75's
Five hundred armed, disciplined Frenchmen, led by officers and noncoms
of the French Army and under the command of Gen. Armand
Carder, were entrenched in the mountains of the Haute Savoie district, near
the Swiss border, last night. Equipped with modern rifles and
machine-guns, their position defended by 75-mm. field guns, Gen. Cartier's
force was France's largest single guerrilla band in the nation-wide wave of revolt
against the Germans.
Elsewhere through the country an estimated 99,500 men weic m the field against
the Germans.
Refused Labor Draft
Gen. Cartier's stand was described in dispatches from Switzerland, which said
it snowballed from isolated incidents when tough mountain youths refused the
German labor-conscription order and took to the hills.
The revolt inside Europe, which flared up anew in Paris more than a week ago,
has spread to every corner of the occupied countries. In Norway, patriots who have
convinced the Germans they are " reliable " are credited with blowing up
German submarines as they lie in their 'bomb-proof stone pens, blasted from the
sides of the fjords.
Far to the southeast, Greek mountain bands harried German communications,
blowing up bridges and then lying* in wait to snipe off German engineer troops
as they attempted to repair the structures. The Norwegian submarine bombing
was described in Sweden yesterday by a Norwegian engineer who said he had
helped. The Greek partisan fighting was the subject of a speech by the Greek
Ambassador in Washington.
Army of 400,000
French Leader
Says 300,000
Men In Field
Giraud Broadcasts Vow
To Restore Free
Government
A French Army of 300,000 men, disarmed by the German Armistice Commission,
is now in the field in North Africa, Gen. Henri Giraud said in a
broadcast from Algiers last night. " Many still wait for arms," Gen.
Giraud said. " These arms are coming—the deliveries have already begun. " All of France will share with her Allies the victory of the cause for which
she has suffered so greatly. " n that day of victory, Gen. Giraud
said, making what he called—" the solemn pledge that I am giving," Frenchmen
which again, enjoy " their sacred right to choose their provisional government
themselves."
People's ' Servant'
" I am the servant of the French People," he declared. " I am not their
leader. All Frenchmen who are with me, all of them from myself to the last soldier
of the army of victory, are servants of the people of France. Tomorrow we shall
be servants o£ the provisional government which they will have freely chosen, and
we undertake to deliver to it our powers
Italy Reported
Preparing for
Africa Dunkirk
Massing Boats in South
As Allied Bombers
Hit Mareth Line
While Allied bombers smashed again at the Mareth Line in southern Tunisia
and Axis sources predicted an assault upon their positions by the British Eighth
Army at any moment, reports reached London last night that Italy was massing a fleet of small boats to evacuate Axis forces in Dunkirk fashion from North Africa.
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