South Yorkshire Times June 17, 1944

Well Begun

At long last conjecture has given place to reality. The contact between Germany and the Allies broken off at Dunkirk just four years ago has been restored with a vengeance. There is still room for the theorists to speculate on further developments of the Allied come-back, but the first critical step has been taken, and well taken. British, Canadian, and American troops are fighting on the soil of France.

Official news is still scanty and may well remain so for several days. There is too much at stake to risk divulging the smallest detail of disposition to the German commanders. All the same the statements of the Prime Minister have so far been encouraging and soberly optimistic in tone. From what he has said it seems fair to assume that the storming of the beaches, that initial suicidal task, has been carried out without the full toll of loss which had had to be reckoned among the military probabilities.

That in itself is something for which we may feel thankful. It will be readily recognised that our armies have not gained this precious footing without bitter sacrifices, but the full price has not been exacted and for this mercy the whole Empire as well as the American nation will be conscious of a great wave of relief. The first delicate and vulnerable processes indispensable to an operation of this sort have, in fact, been wonderfully accomplished. Weather conditions were inimical, but this stupendous assault fleet won its way safely across the Channel with negligible interference from enemy naval units. Goering’s Luftwaffe apparently failed to spot the move, and this defection was followed by a significant delay in the aerial reaction to the landing.

A few dive bombers put in .a belated appearance some twenty-four hours after the Allies had begun to put men and supplies ashore, but these were promptly brushed aside by fighters from the really magnificent cover the Allied air forces provided. Navy, Army, Air Force and the new airborne arm marvellously justified the long process of integration which has drawn so deeply on the patience of the British people eager for the day of our riposte.

Ahead lies a vista of still critical days. We remember the first flush of success at Anzio, the strange hiatus between the Fifth Army troops overrunning the beachhead and the German counter. And then the savage ferocity of that counter. The landings at Anzio and Nettuno were a much smaller affair, but it will be as well to bear in mind the lessons of that operation. A desperate race is even now in progress; on our part to build up our forces where we have clawed a foothold on the shores of Normandy, on the Germans’ to gather themselves for a counter attack that will throw us back into the sea or seal us in the cramping confines of our beachheads.

It is comforting to realise that the Germans are much hampered in their task. They dare not throw all in, for the initiative is still ours and we may breach their West Wall at other points. Their communications have been flayed by the Allied air forces, and there is no relaxation of this fiercely mobile scourge which scarce misses any moving object in the landscape. French partisans constitute an insidious threat which the Nazis did not ignore. And further afield the red Army kept soaring’s beaten forces reeling back in Italy are grave distracted.

Certainly the Allies made a promising start, and is not well begun is half done?