TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century

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<text> <title> (1940s) Germans Encircled </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1940s Highlights </history> <link 08108> <link 00091><link 00093><link 00094><link 00095><article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> Germans Encircled </hdr> <body> (July 3, 1944) The Americans had taken Cherbourg. After three weeks of backbreaking work and soul-testing battle, the first major objective of the Allied invasion had been won. An open wound had been gashed in the body of the German military system. At least 20 enemy divisions were involved in the Normandy fighting. That in itself was proof positive that Normandy was no longer a beachhead: it was a front. In Cherbourg the Allies were taking over one of the best commercial seaports in Europe. Here they could bring heavy military supplies in ocean-going ships. Convoys could steam direct from the U.S. to the broad, sheltered Cherbourg roadstead without transshipping their cargoes in Britain. The third week's plaudits logically fell to Lieut. General Omar Bradley's U.S. troops for their stunning sweep along the Cotentin Peninsula, their crushing of stout Nazi defenses around Cherbourg. But the Americans themselves had professional praise for the men at the other end of the Allied line, the stubborn British and Canadian outfits in the Orne River area on the left flank, who had locked up four Nazi armored divisions, kept them off balance with probing attacks, kept them from launching a single coordinated thrust that might interfere with the U.S. drive. [As the blows fell on the Nazis' Fortress Europe, so also did they fall on Japan. From airfields in western China, U.S. planes began regular bombing runs against the home islands. U.S. soldiers and Marines attacked Saipan, only 1,500 miles from Japan. And in an air and naval battle that would become known as the "Marianas turkey shoot," U.S. carrier forces demonstrated their overwhelming air superiority by shooting down 227 of the 326 attacking Japanese planes in just a few hours, the biggest bag ever for one day.] (June 26, 1944) The U.S. assault on the key Jap base in the Marianas had begun nine days before. For four days a U.S. naval force had pounded Saipan. Bombers from U.S. carriers had carried in their loads of destruction. For two days U.S. battleships, cruisers, destroyers had unloaded their long, hot guns on the island. On the fifth day, transports made their rendezvous outside the coral reefs of the island, and the landing craft darted in towards the beaches. U.S. soldiers and U.S. marines swarmed ashore at Agingan Point, while Japs who had survived the bombardment bit into them with enfilading fire from automatic weapons, pounded them with mortar shells. One high-ranking officer had said anxiously: "If we can land on Saipan we can land anywhere there are Japanese." Early reports indicated that the fight was going slowly against fanatical resistance. After making the beachhead, U.S. amphibious troops had given some ground before fierce Jap counterattacks, but they hung on. By the third day they were ready to press forward. Early this week they had fought their way clear across the lower end of the island, had seized Aslito Airfield. U.S. air forces held control of the sky, bombed installations, showered Jap civilians and soldiers with invitations to surrender. But no one doubted that the soldiers of Nippon would fight to the end. Japan could not afford to let Saipan go. The shots of the U.S., getting closer & closer, were on the target now. When the Navy got Saipan, the next shots could be on the bull's eye--Japan's homeland. (July 10, 1944) It was a foot-by-foot battle even after the island's peak, Mt. Tapotchau, had been captured. Japs hung on in the ravines until they were killed. Tanks had to be used against pockets no bigger than 100 yards in diameter. Many Jap caves had steel doors which were opened periodically for machine guns to fire. Snipers were everywhere. An Army colonel was shot through the heart by a sniper who had hidden more than a week. [In Germany, one of the few signs of overt resistance to Hitler's continued rule took the form of a bomb blast that, unfortunately, failed to do the job.] (July 31, 1944) Bomb-weary Berliners sat down to another dreary dinner. From radio loudspeakers came pleasant music, scheduled to be followed by a useful lecture on the extermination of rats. The lecture never came. Instead a tense voice clipped in: "Today an attempt was made on the life of the Fuhrer with explosives..." Around the world as in Berlin the tense voice sounded like the crack of doom. The one question that flashed through every mind was: is this the end, the crackup? Had the long-awaited struggle between Hitler and his generals begun? The voice went on: "...The Fuhrer suffered no injuries except light burns and bruises...He resumed work and, as scheduled, received the Duce..." Wounded with Hitler were 12 of his military advisors, some of them seriously. That was all. Telephone and wire services to neutral countries were cut off. Airplane fights to neutral Sweden and Switzerland were interrupted. For hours the fate of Hitler and of Germany, which was in some degree the fate of every man, woman & child in the world, was shrouded behind an invisible, hermetic barrier. Seven hours later Hitler himself spoke on the air. He said: "German men and women:...An extremely small clique of ambitious, unscrupulous and at the same time foolish, criminally stupid officers hatched a plot to remove me and...the staff of the German High Command. The bomb that was placed by Colonel Graf von Stauffenberg exploded two meters (about two yards) away from me on my right side. It wounded very seriously a number of my dear collaborators. One of them has died..." </body> </article> </text>