Bill Downs, War Correspondent

Discussion in 'US Units' started by Ramiles, May 1, 2021.

  1. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    Re. Bill Downs

    (Although there do appear to be references to the alternative spelling of "Bill Downes" too)

    Some links / further research / notes etc.

    Bill Downs, War Correspondent

    murrowboys.jpg

    Edward R. Murrow's D-Day team in London on June 1, 1944. Clockwise from top left: Larry LeSueur, Edward R. Murrow, Richard C. Hottelet, Bill Shadel, Charles Shaw, Gene Ryder, Charles Collingwood, Bill Downs

    Bill Downs - Wikipedia

    With...

    "William Randall Downs, Jr. (August 17, 1914 – May 3, 1978) was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He worked for CBS News from 1942 to 1962 and for ABC News beginning in 1963. He was one of the original members of the team of war correspondents known as the Murrow Boys." etc.

    "In the days following the initial landings, war correspondents had trouble setting up mobile transmitters and were unable to broadcast live for over a week. In the meantime, Collingwood recorded a broadcast on June 6 that aired two days later, while LeSueur's account did not air until June 18. On June 14 Downs managed to find a working transmitter and unwittingly delivered the first live broadcast from the Normandy beachhead to the United States. It was pooled across all networks at 6:30 p.m. Eastern War Time."

    More to add in edit...

    1944. Bill Downs' First Broadcast From Normandy After D-Day

    The Medical Officer with the 24th Lancers...

    Photocopy of typed transcript of the diary of Dr. Aitken, Regimental Medical Officer, 24th Lancers, June-July 1944, during the invasion of Normandy

    FB_IMG_1619863876795.jpg

    "None Had Lances" p131 - however - has this name as "Downes" -

    FB_IMG_1619863983239.jpg




    Transcript...

    There's a lot of detail here... including mention of Tilly etc.

    Bill Downs
    June 14, 1944
    I'm speaking to you from a tent somewhere in Normandy, that bit of a truly free France liberated eight days ago by the invasion of British, Canadian, and American troops. It is 6:30 AM over here––the ninth day of the invasion is only a few hours old.
    I could take you right now in a thirty-minute jeep ride to where the Allied troops are fighting. You can get to some part of the front in thirty minutes no matter where you happen to be.
    So much has happened in the past eight days that they seem like eight months to every one of us over here. Americans have died, and British and Canadians have died––and a great number of Germans have died. But the Allied forces have achieved what Hitler's henchmen said was impossible. We are in Europe to stay––and you have only to look at the face of an American doughboy, or in the eyes of a man from Calgary or from London, to know that we are not going to stop until we have completed the job.
    All this comes under the category of making history.
    The news from the front this morning is good––as a matter of fact we have had no bad news to report since the Allied forces crossed the beaches.
    On the American sector's front, the troops continue to widen the bulge threatening the entire peninsula of Cherbourg. The British-Canadian sector likewise is slowly expanding. There are hold-ups at a village here or there which the Germans have strongly fortified. There has not been much forward movement around the city of Caen on the left flank of the beachhead.
    But you might compare this bit of liberated France to a giant muscle which daily is becoming stronger as the sinews of war pour into it. As more tanks and guns and men pour in, the muscle expands.
    Thus far the Germans have been unable to do much about it. However, last night and today, there are signs that the Nazi high command has finally been able to get some fresh troops into the line. The fact that it took a week for his first reinforcements to arrive speaks for itself as to the effectiveness of the Allied night and day bombing over the past months.
    But as the Germans reinforce––and as we reinforce––there can be little doubt that a big battle is developing. In this sense, the Battle of France is a race between the supply systems of the opposing armies. The force that gains the superiority first will strike. You'll be interested to know that our supply position is all right.
    I have heard so many stories of gallantry and pure guts since I have been here that it is difficult for me to begin. Heroes are not uncommon on this beachhead. I was lucky in my own personal invasion of France. I came in on a comparatively quiet sector.

    As General Montgomery has announced, the battle for the beaches has been won. Sometime when we are not so busy, history will record the battle of the Commandos who landed behind the German defenses and disrupted the Nazis as they were firing at each other. Or of the Canadians who walked point blank into the German shore fire to silence the batteries.
    And the most glorious single action of the whole invasion was performed by the American assault force. They clung to their position literally by their fingernails. They fought as no Americans have ever fought before. They were outnumbered, out-gunned with odds twenty to one against them.
    They took their position coming through a wall of shrapnel and mortar fire and machine gun bullets that was terrifying. The casualties were high, higher than on any other salient.
    The fighting men over here feel very strongly about that beachhead. I stood on the beach a day after the battle. There were American boys lying neatly covered under brown army blankets awaiting burial. I was talking to a young sergeant, from Michigan, I believe. He had been through the toughest of the fighting. He said with great bitterness: "You know," he said, "We used to have a great respect for the German as a soldier and possibly a sportsman. But on that beach while we were lying there waiting for a lull in the barrage, we saw medical corpsmen trying to help the wounded. They had their red cross arm bands high on their arms. There could be no mistaking them. But when they tried to help the boys, they were shot."
    This sergeant spit on the ground and walked away. He turned and said over his shoulder: "We're going to fix them for that."
    The men on this beachhead make me awfully proud that I am an American.
    But the fighting is now many miles from the beaches. Here's what your men are doing tonight. The patrols will be out. A half-dozen men sneaking into enemy country looking for his strong points––taking a prisoner here or there––getting themselves fired at to locate a machine gun nest––scouting a Tiger tank or a Panther tank and marking it on a map. Sometimes two enemy patrols meet and there is a "little war," as we call them. Bitter hand-to-hand fighting with bayonet and knife.
    Or if you're not on patrol tonight, you've cleaned your rifle and laid it nearby. Your slit trench is right at the edge of your blankets so that you only have to roll into it in case of shellfire or mortar fire. If you have a tank or a truck, you sleep under it––usually you don't have time to put up your pup tent, and any kind of roof seems good.
    There is no definite front line in this Battle of France. I found that out the other day when I made a trip to within a mile and a half of the town of Tilly, directly south of Bayeux. The countryside is very close, with high, thick hedges along the roads. Patches of wood-land dot the countryside. The wheat and oats and rye are high, about ready for a good harvest. It is sort of a concentrated Iowa.
    It is perfect country for snipers. We were driving down one road when we came to a clear patch. We heard the crack of a Spandau machine gun––and before we realized what it was, there was another burst of fire. The dust alongside our jeep spurted as if it had come alive. A sniper had taken a crack at us. Luckily his aim was bad. We got out of there in a hurry.
    Further down the road, we came upon some very fresh Germans. They were lying in the road, killed only a few hours before. But we saw tank tracks and decided to follow up. Then we came to a group of Tommies crouching behind a group of farm buildings next to an orchard. We joined them and discovered to our surprise that they were men of the Reconnaissance Corps. They were looking for a German tank infiltration...needless to say, we were not. It was no place to be armed only with a pencil.
    About that time, some German eighty-eights started shelling around the orchard. They drove us to the ground. During a lull, we turned our jeep around and headed for safety. You want a tank to ride that far forward.
    When the votes of thanks are passed around after this war, the Allied air forces are going to get more than their share. Since this invasion began, I have seen exactly six Nazi fighters over the bridgehead. German bombers dare only appear at night, and they are not striking in any large force. You never look up at the sky any longer to see what's coming your way. You always know it's American, or British or Allied. The sky over our heads is Allied, just as sure as is the ground under our feet.
    Not only have the Allied air forces kept the enemy grounded, they have also bombed and strafed military targets directly in line of our advances. It was dive-bombing Thunderbolts that helped save the position on the American beachhead. Rocket-carrying British planes are as good as artillery in attacking a German strong point. You hear nothing but praise for the air forces.
    Naval bombardment, too, has played a big part in the success of the invasion. Point-blank fire from American and British destroyers knocked out pillboxes––heavy fire from fifteen and sixteen inch guns of the cruisers and battleships fly far inland to German occupied villages and heights. The burst of the sixteen inch shell is a terrifying thing––the Nazis know it.
    And full credit must be given to the men on the merchant ships and part-time sailors who transported us over here. They have undergone bombing and strafing, collision and confusion among thousands of boats––but the supplies hit the beaches. Without them, we might as well go home.
    But we are not going home until a lot of us see the ruins of Berlin. The men fighting on this beachhead are keeping something in trust––keeping this trust for the men whose bodies they walked on the beaches; they are keeping this trust for the honor of you people back home; and they are keeping it for the people of this section of liberated Normandy who showered them with flowers when they arrived.
    This trust is victory and freedom from all things Nazi. It is pretty well summed up in the national motto of the French––Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood.
    This is Bill Downs in Normandy returning you now to America."
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2023
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  2. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    Last edited: May 8, 2021
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  3. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

  4. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    Bill Downs came over to Normandy on the same LST as the 24th Lancers' Medical Officer - Douglas Aitken.

    Reporting on the British Normandy front, Bill Downs ranged about delivering reports back to the US...

    i.e. this from 18th June 1944... can be heard here...

    Bill Downs, War Correspondent: November 2011

    And has... (nb unfortunately in this one he fails to name the British officer that accompanied him - a "Richard McMillan" from the United Press is also mentioned however. The 24th Lancers' MO had previously referenced that an officer was with Downes (sic) in his LST, but also didn't name him, or his unit etc.)

    Bill Downs
    CBS News
    June 18, 1944
    I have just returned from another one of those "little wars"—an isolated battle which is becoming more and more common in this ever-growing struggle for Europe.
    This little war in no way ranks in importance with the American drive across the Cherbourg Peninsula. Everyone on the British-Canadian sector of the front regards the cutting of the peninsula the most important single achievement since the Allied troops crossed the beaches of Normandy. But the Battle of the Hindenburg and Bleecker bastions in which I participated is the perfect example of the type of fighting that is going to occur more and more as our armies advance. I was with the Royal Marine Commandos which took these two strong points. I didn't intend to go with the commandos—it just happened that way.
    We haven't been able to tell you before, but just west of the city of Caen, a group of Germans has been holding out for the past ten days in two very strong defense points. These strong points, about one hundred yards apart, were built along the lines of a miniature Maginot Line. They were dug twelve feet into the ground, filled with reinforced concrete with walls three feet thick, and several medium artillery guns. The whole position was set on a rise of ground surrounded by mine fields and an intricate trench system. The Germans were so proud of these defenses that they printed the names "Hindenburg" on one of the super pillboxes and "Bleecker" on the other. The Hindenburg and Bleecker bastions were so strong that it was decided to bypass them on D-Day, and let this group of Nazis stew in their own juice. There was no hurry—the Germans couldn't do much damage there. They were completely isolated and could be cleaned out at will.
    Yesterday, the order came to blast them out.
    The strange thing about this battle was that to get there, you merely turned off a busy Allied supply route jammed with trucks. You drove a block up another road, parked your Jeep up behind the hedge, and on the other side of the hedge was the war. For half an hour, artillery whistled over our heads, bursting all over the Nazi island of resistance. Direct hits sent bits of masonry high into the air—dust from the bursting shells mixed with the black smoke of exploding mines and a burning gasoline dump to darken the sun. We were only some two hundred yards from where the shells were landing, and you had an uncontrollable tendency to duck your head just a little every time a shell came over. The artillery punctuated the barrage with shrapnel shells that burst in the air downward into the trenches. Then the barrage stopped and the tanks moved in. There were a dozen of them approaching from two directions. They crawled forward, their machine guns and heavy guns ripping into the super pillbox. Behind them moved the commandos.
    I was watching the battle with Richard McMillan of the United Press. When the tanks moved in, we couldn't see very much so we decided to walk up behind the nearest one and have a look. Out of the embrasures of the two bastions, heavy German machine guns fired in our direction. We clamped down in the tall wheat, but no matter how low you got you still felt as if you were sticking up as high as the Empire State Building.
    The funny thing about it was that we weren't particularly frightened. We were too excited to be afraid. McMillan, the British conducting officer, and myself were tremendously surprised to find ourselves in with the commandos. We had followed their attacks so closely that we had actually got caught up in the middle of it.
    Up ahead, an assault engineer climbed on top of the Hindenburg bastion and placed a charge of explosives on it. As soon as he lit the fuse he ran like the very devil. We all ducked. The heavy explosion must have blown a hole in the top of the pillbox. Other commandos crept up to this hole and tossed in hand grenades. One explosion set the whole works off. Out of the hole came a German "potato masher" grenade. It was on fire. We ducked again, but it didn't go off.
    By this time we had reached the trench system. On both sides of us men were going along the trenches with their Tommy guns. A tank assaulted one of the trenches and behind it was a young radio operator calmly chewing a stalk of wheat, waiting to flash the words that the bastion had been taken. Shouts of "come on out of there you Nazi so-and-so's" and "keep your hands up you such-and-such" announced the arrival of the 1st Troop. Then they began to pop up like prairie dogs. All told, there were between a hundred and fifty and two hundred of them.
    For the number of them, the Nazis resisted surprisingly weakly. It took only two squadrons of commandos to dig them out. The tanks merely stood by and watched after they had escorted these troops into position. We lined them up; they were as shaken a group of men as I've ever seen.
    There were all shapes and sizes of Nazis. Big ones, little ones, old, and young. But the most surprising discovery made was a large number of ordinary chicken's eggs in the bastion. The surprise was that these eggs were fresh. We could not confirm earlier reports that the Germans had women in the strong point with them. There also was plenty of food, and we shared a bottle of brandy with the victorious commandos. It was a glorious feeling being in on a success like that. But even so, I believe it's the last time that I want to be that close to a practicing commando in action.
    This is Bill Downs in Normandy, returning you to the United States.
     
  5. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    Re. Richard McMillan

    Richard D. McMillan (Author of The British Occupation of Indonesia)

    Has...

    Richard D. McMillan
    Born in The United Kingdom - January 01, 1924
    Died: December 31, 2008
    Genre: Journalism, History, Military History
    Richard D. McMillan was a British (later Canadian) journalist and war correspondent. He covered Europe throughout the 1930s for United Press, and was the first correspondent accredited to the B.E.F. after the outbreak of hostilities in late 1939. He continued as a war correspondent through the end of World War II, and continued covering Europe during the hard economic times after the war. He and his wife emigrated to Canada in 1947, a decision he wrote about in an article for Maclean's magazine which ran in the issue of 15 August 1947. He was awarded the O.B.E. for services to journalism, but reportedly returned his medal as a protest in 1990.

    US papers playing up grim stories of invasion

    Has some further details on Richard McMillan... with...

    "Another top-line eyewitness piece today came from Richard McMillan of the United Press. He was in Bayeux. first important town to be captured. McMillan's dispatch indicated that bitter and intense fighting was still going on while he was writing.
    "On the roadside bodies of German and Allied dead lay unburied," he wrote. "For a moment every man was needed for fighting."
    These word pictures are not new to soldiers in the Mediterranean Theater, but the home front has never been treated to such realism.
    The first pictures of the actual beach landings were brought back yesterday by Bert Brandt, Acme photographer, well known at Anzio and Cassino. Brandt told how resistance had been spotty but severe in places. Casualties among the first wave of attackers were heavy, he said."

    So another of the attached war correspondents with them etc.

    Rendezvous With Rommel: The story of the Eighth Army
    by Richard D. McMillan
    Rendezvous With Rommel: The story of the Eighth Army by Richard D. McMillan


    Also writer of "Miracle Before Berlin"

    "Jarrolds, 1946. One man's fascinating account of his experiences of the war from D-Day to VE day, from Normandy to Berlin"

     
  6. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    1944. "The Battle of Nijmegen Bridge" by Bill Downs

    Has...

    "This report by Bill Downs on September 24, 1944 was published in the BBC's The Listener magazine on September 28, 1944. As an eyewitness, Downs described the Nijmegen bridge assault as "a single, isolated battle that ranks in magnificence and courage with Guam, Tarawa, Omaha Beach."

    From The Listener, September 28, 1944:

    The Battle of Nijmegen Bridge

    By BILL DOWNS
    The story of the battle of Nijmegen bridge should be told to the blowing of bugles and the beating of drums for the men whose bravery made the capture of this crossing over the Waal River possible. You know about the Nijmegen bridge. It's been called the gateway into northern Germany. It stretches half-a-mile over the wide tidal river and its flood land. And without the bridge intact the Allied airborne and ground operation northward through Holland could only be fifty per cent successful.

    The Nijmegen bridge was built so it could be blown, and blown quickly. Its huge arching span is constructed in one piece. Only two strong charges of explosives would drop the whole thing into the river. Special cavities for these dynamite charges were built into the brick by the engineers that designed it. The bridge was the biggest single objective of the airborne invasion and its capture intact is a credit to all the American and British fighting men.

    American airborne patrols reached the area at the southern end of the bridge on Sunday night, September 17th, shortly after they landed, but at that time they were not in enough strength to do anything about it. On Monday the paratroops and glider forces were too busy beating off the German counter-attacks to co-ordinate an assault on the bridge. By this time the armour of the British Second Army was on its way northwards from the Escaut Canal. Then on Tuesday the British tanks arrived on the outskirts of Nijmegen and an attack was commenced, but still the Germans held on strongly in the fortification and houses on the south end of the bridge. American airborne infantry and British tanks were only 300 yards from the bridge in the streets of Nijmegen, but they couldn't get to it.

    Tuesday night was the strangest. The American troops took machine guns to the top of the houses and sprayed the approaches and the entrance to the bridges with bullets. All night they shot at anything that moved. Perhaps it was this constant fire that kept the Germans from blowing the bridge then. But still the shuddering blast that would signal the end of the bridge did not come. And when morning arrived a new plan was devised. It was dangerous and daring and risky. The commanders who laid it out knew this; and the men who were to carry it out knew it too. Thinking a frontal assault on the bridge from the south was impossible, American infantry were to fight their way westwards down the west bank of the Waal River and cross in broad daylight to fight their way back up the river bank, and attack the bridge from the north.

    On Wednesday morning the infantry made their way westward through the town and got to the industrial outskirts along the river bank near the mouth of a big canal. Some British tanks went with them to give them protection in the street fighting and to act as artillery when the crossings were to be made. Accompanying this task force were trucks carrying twenty-six assault boats brought along by the British armoured units in case of such an emergency. Most of the men who were there to make the crossing had never handled an assault boat before. There was a lot of argument as to who would handle the paddles and preference was given to the men who had at least rowed a boat. Everything was going well. The Germans were supposed to be completely surprised by the audacity of the move.

    But late in the morning the impossible happened. Two men showed themselves on a river bank and were fired at by the enemy. No Americans were supposed to be in that part of the town. The 88 mm. shells began plastering the area. The gaff was blown. Reconnaissance spotted batches of German troops being transferred to the opposite bank. A few hours later, machine guns were dug into the marshes on the far side—the plan had been discovered. The task force was under shell-fire, and several hundred Germans with machine guns were sitting on the opposite bank waiting for the crossing. This was about noon.

    There was a quick conference. It was decided that the original plan would proceed, but this time the men crossing the river would have the help of heavy bombers: Lancasters and Stirlings flying in daylight a few miles from the German border to drop their bombs on the opposite bank in tactical support of the men from the assault boats.

    Working under enemy shell-fire, the assault boats were assembled. When they were put into the water, another difficulty arose. The tide was moving out with a downstream current of eight miles an hour. Some of the boats drifted 300 yards down river before they were retrieved and brought back. Meanwhile machine guns spluttered on the opposite bank and German artillery kept smashing the embarkation area regularly.

    At last everything was ready. The bombers went in but didn't drop their bombs close enough to knock out the machine guns. Twenty-six assault boats were in the water. They would carry ten men each: 260 men would make the first assault. Waiting for them on the other bank were some 400 to 600 Germans. The shelling continued. Every man took a deep breath and climbed in. Someone made a wisecrack about the airborne navy and someone else said they preferred airborne submarines to this job. And off across the river they started. At the same time behind them, the British tanks fired their heavy guns, and our own heavy machine guns fired into the opposite bank giving the little fleet as much cover as possible.

    And over on the other side of the river the enemy tracers shrieked at the boats. The fire at first was erratic, but as the boats approached the northern bank the tracers began to spread on to the boats. Men slumped in their seats—other men could be seen shifting a body to take over the paddling. One man rose up in his seat and fell overboard. There was no thought of turning back. The paddling continued clumsily and erratically, but it continued. One of the boats had so many holes in it that the men were baling out with their tin helmets—it was almost splintered when it reached the other side.

    The fighting, though, had only just begun. The hundred or so men who had arrived on the opposite side fought their way forward with bayonet and grenade, going from one machine gun nest to the other until they had established a bridgehead only a few yards deep and several hundred feet wide. The thirteen boats had hardly left for the return trip for the reinforcements, when the men on the north bank saw specks in the water. The men on the opposite bank, seeing the casualties suffered in the landing under fire, were not waiting for the boats. Some of them had stripped off their equipment, and taking a bandolier of ammunition, were swimming the river with their rifles on their backs. And thus it went—the thirteen little boats going time after time across the river under fire; the men on the bridgehead digging in and firing as rapidly as possible, routing out the German machine gun nests by hand while British tanks fired for all they were worth. After an hour and a half of concentrated hell, the infantry were over. They held a bridgehead several hundred yards wide and one hundred yards deep. At that time, one officer counted 138 Germans dead in a space of sixty yards of that bloody beachhead.

    There was a welcome pause as the men consolidated and rested in their foxholes. Some had thrown the German bodies out of the Nazi machine gun nests and were using these to stiffen their defences. The plan was to turn eastwards and assault the northern end of the bridge. But on the left flank of that minute bridgehead was another menace—for there on the high ground overlooking the bridge and firing at us with some 88 mm. guns, was an ancient fort. It is called Hatz van Holland and was supposed to have been used centuries ago by Charlemagne as a fortress. The Germans had been using the fort as an anti-aircraft gun position to defend Nijmegen, and now they turned the ack-ack guns downward to bear on the bridge and the airborne bridgehead across the Waal. While these guns were firing at the back, the troops could not fight their way to the northern end of the bridge. A detail was formed to attack the Hatz van Holland and put its guns out of action.

    That, as warriors centuries ago found out, was extremely difficult because the Hatz van Holland was surrounded by a moat. This moat had a few feet of water in it—black dirty water, covered with a layer of bright green slime. Also, the attacking party would have to advance under point blank 88 mm. fire. But anyhow the party set out. They crawled towards the high ground and the 88s banged away at them. And then they came to a zone where there were no 88 shells. It was found out that the other 88 guns were so installed that the guns could not reach downward that far. The German gun-crews discovered this too late and rushed to put up a rifle and machine gun defence along the moat.

    But the Americans by this time had faced so much that a few machine guns were nothing. They made a stand-up attack, shouting like Indians, and, with tommy-guns blazing, knocked out the historic Hatz van Holland. A few Americans with blood in their eyes left seventy-five Germans dead in that moat. The remaining troops fought their way up the river all right. They captured the northern end of the railroad bridge and worked their way to the junction of the railroad highway from the main bridge. The entire German position on the northern side of the river was cut off. There was bitter bayonet fighting and Americans died, but more Germans died. And finally, British tanks made their way across the bridge and it was ours.

    British tanks and airborne American infantry had begun their frontal assault on the southern end of the bridge at the same time as the river crossing was started. They had to make their way down streets alive with Germans. And this is how it was done. The tanks went down the streets firing at targets of opportunity, which means any German or German tank or vehicles that appeared. And the Americans went through the houses on either side of the street. Yes, literally through the houses—for instead of going along the outside of the houses and risking cross-fire from the Germans within, the American troops blew holes through the sides of the houses with bazookas. That was how they made their way through the strong defence area built to protect the bridge—blowing a hole with a bazooka into a house, clearing it of Germans and going on.

    Meanwhile, the tanks had discovered that sitting on one street corner was a German Tiger tank waiting for them to make their appearance. It was out of sight and protected by the houses, but one of the Sherman tanks mounting a big 17-pounder gun decided to have a shot anyway. It aimed its armour-piercing shell in the general direction of the tank. There was a great boom: the shell plunged through twelve houses and came out with a great crash, taking a large section of the last house with it. The Tiger, seeing this destruction, decided he did not like the neighbourhood so well and retreated.

    At the southern end of the bridge were stationed four self-propelled German guns guarding the streets leading to the bridge area. There was nothing to do but rush them. So the tanks lined up four abreast around the corner of the wide main street leading to the bridge and, at a signal, all roared into the street firing their mortars, their heavy guns and even machine guns. The assault was so sudden and heavy that three of the self-propelled guns were knocked out before they could bring fire to bear. The fourth gun ran to safety. Between the two—the American airborne troops and the British tankmen—the south end of the bridge was seized. At first only tanks could get across the bridge because a half-dozen fanatical Germans remained high in the girders of the bridge sniping. These were soon cleaned up. Today the Nijmegen bridge is in our hands intact—a monument to the gallantry of the Americans who crossed the river and the British and airborne troops who stormed it from the south."
     
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  7. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    Douglas Aitken - the 24L's MO's account of a few trips to Bayeux.
    Notes_220619_095205_823.jpg

    He mentions re-meeting Bills Downs (CBC/CBS)... whom they had travelled to Normandy with on the same LST...

    See also... Bill Downs, War Correspondent

    Nb. Monday was the 19th June 1944, so when the MO says - about a third from the top of the page - "today is Tuesday" this references Tuesday 20th June 1944... 20d6m1944...
     
  8. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    Bill Downs - CBS - September 25, 1944 (censored)

    "We have good news this morning that reinforcements and supplies are beginning to reach the British airborne forces west of Arnhem. Complete relief of this brave garrison that has held out for eight days now is definitely in sight.
    The Dutch corridor is gradually being extended to include the ground that the British parachute and glider troops have been holding against tremendous odds. The corridor now is firm across the marshy ground north of Nijmegen between the Waal river and the Lower Rhine. Polish paratroopers dropped south of the Rhine several days ago are fighting alongside the tanks and infantry of the British Second Army, and together they secured a firm foothold on the south bank of the Lower Rhine near the town of Oosterbeek. There once was a ferry crossing, but the Germans destroyed it last week.
    It is unclear whether the British airborne forces on the northern side of the river hold any section of the far bank. But men and supplies are getting across through the no-man's-land on the other side of the river, and the news is better from this sector than at any time during the past five days.
    American-made ducks—the amphibious supply carriers—have been rushed to the Lower Rhine, but up until the day before yesterday, they could not be used successfully to ferry supplies due to the difficult and steep banks of the river. Rafts and barges and assault boats, however, are being used successfully.
    When I left Holland yesterday, the whole front was loud with praise and admiration for the British soldiers who had been holding out around Arnhem. American airborne forces, who sweated out three days of isolation before contact was established with them, say that the Arnhem troops are putting up "one hell of a good show."
    Yesterday rocket-carrying Typhoons went to the aid of the garrison despite bad weather hitting at the scores of machine gun and mortar positions that have been plastering the square mile area of Holland that the British have held the past week. There is no indication yet how successful these attacks have been.
    Down along the corridor south of Nijmegen, the German force that cut the Allied supply line the day before yesterday has definitely been seen off. This battle group of Nazi tanks and infantry attacked from the east. Yesterday, however, another group of Germans started an attack on the corridor from the west, but an Allied counterblow pushed them back.
    Reconnaissance planes report that there is considerable movement in western Holland, the area outflanked by the Allied drive northward into the Netherlands. Yesterday Allied planes destroyed thirteen locomotives pulling trains northeastward, and another fourteen locomotives were damaged.
    The Germans are not expected to evacuate western Holland without fighting a bitter delaying action. But as the Dutch corridor grows in strength, they are in more and more of an impossible position west of the corridor.
    After spending the past week at the front, it is amazing to come back to Brussels, to hot water and clean sheets and food served on linen. And it's hard to eat a meal in comfort here and know that, four hours away by car, there are men fighting and living almost in primitive conditions.
    The reality of war is a transitory thing that is quickly banished by normality and peace. The men fighting their way into Germany are going to need a lot of good, normal living after this war, and they are depending on you back home to see that it is there waiting for them."
     
  9. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    1945. Allied Airborne Assault During the Crossing of the Rhine

    Bill Downs delivered a broadcast on March 24, 1945 during Operation Plunder.

    March 24, 1945


    BILL DOWNS (with the British 2nd):
    The first wave or so of the paratroopers who stepped out on the Rhine this morning had a tough time. I was riding in a piggy-back Thunderbolt with Captain Tommy DeGraffenreid of Memphis, Tennessee. We went in as cover for the first wave of carrier-type planes that arrived, and honest to God those paratroopers stepped out on a carpet of flak that you could walk on.
    But the hundreds and hundreds of planes came on and not a single one deviated from its course. There were tragic accidents. I saw two parachutists who somehow had gotten tangled in each other's parachutes, and Tommy muttered to himself over the intercom, "Come on, come on, break it up. Break away, for God's sake!"
    But these two men didn't have a chance to break away, and their bodies seemed to hit the earth with the gentleness of raindrops. But from a thousand feet, you could tell they were dead.
    But always during that first half hour of the airborne operation there was flak; the heavy flak that left black ugly scars of smoke in the air. And the more deadly light flak left only whitish puffs of smoke, the same color you'll find in any smoking room in America.
    And out of the middle of this world of planes and parachutes and gliders there stormed a big silver Fortress, and it was smoking and we knew that it had had it.
    But the flak wasn't so heavy when the gliders began coming in. There was a lull in the flak for about 15 minutes. It was as if the Germans had said, "Hell, there's simply too many planes here." And as far as the eye could see there was smoke. Smoke laid down by our artillery, smoke from burning German houses, and smoke from the enemy ack-ack. And through this haze you could always see the ominous black columns that came from the tow-planes and the transport planes that were shot down.
    The men of the Troop Carrier Command today deserve a place with the marines of Iwo Jima and the soldiers of Corregidor.
    But the gliders got in okay. A few were damaged in landing and a few were shot down, but I would say most of the gliders did all right. And all the while there were the fighters and the rocket planes and the fighter bombers. Guys like Tommy DeGraffenreid, who were blasting out flak positions as they found them and acting as an aerial spearhead to the expanding bridgehead.
    And the Luftwaffe was only heard from theoretically when two Messerschmitt jet planes were reported over Duisburg. We spent an hour over that battlefield today, sometimes even flying beneath the carrier planes.
    The operation was not without cost. But it has been an Allied victory, a victory for the British and the Americans and the Canadians, a victory for the Allied Air Forces and the Allied ground forces and for the Allied navies, because even the Navy was there. We saw them doing the same job for the army they did on D-Day.
    This has been R-Day, the crossing of the Rhine by assault. Hitler has been unable to stop us.
     
  10. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    1944. German Forces Retreat Across Normandy as Allied Victories Continue (billdownscbs.com)


    FOLLOWED BY BULLDOZERS
    ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
    POCKETS OF ENCIRCLED GERMANS
    ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
    Bill Downs, C.B.S. correspondent in Normandy, in a special dispatch to Reuters last night, said: "In the Caen area Allied troops driving from the north have now contacted the troops that drove into Caen from the west.
    "Right now the Normandy twilight is falling over the city. British troops are moving cautiously from street to street mopping up dug-in Nazis in the center of the city.
    "It was about two o'clock this afternoon that British infantry reached the River Orne running through the centre of Caen. They were followed not by tanks, but by bulldozers, which had to plough the roads because the damage is so great.
    "When I was in Caen a few hours ago this road building was underway, but the Germans are still just across the river and in strength.
    "The city proper has been cleared, but there are still the important railroad suburbs just south-east of the river to be taken from the Germans. To-day there is still a substantial victory which will be completed when the entire metropolitan area of Caen is in our hands.
    Two Alternatives
    "Up to the north-west of the city there are still pockets of encircled Germans resisting. They now have only two alternatives—surrender or death. It is not believed that there are a lot of Nazis trapped, and it is getting increasingly obvious that the Germans have pulled out a lot of men and equipment from the Caen area during the past few days.
    "Entering the city there is the most complete devastation I have ever witnessed outside the Carentan. There is a strip of land around the northern suburbs of Caen about a quarter of a mile wide which is nothing but a mass of rubble."
     

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