PAGE EIGHT
THE BEND BULLETIN, BEND, OREGON, TUESDAY, MAY 8. 1945
Hitler's Blitzkreig on Poles
In September. 1939, Started
War; First Battles Recounted
(By United Pi-e
Shortly before dawn on Friday, Sept. 1. 1939, the armies
of Adolf Hitler, fired with their fuehrer's ambition to rule
the world, smashed into helpless Poland.
Two days later, at 11 a.m. the same fateful hour another
war had ended the tired voice of Neville Chamberlain an
nounced to the world Great Britain would abide by her pledge
to the Polish government, a few hours later France, some
what reluctantly, followed suit.
The war that was to engulf 46 nations and sweep across
three continents and countless there was to be no action. .
. llnr ncr one of Euroue's coldmtt
islands and waters n a a wiMcm the opposing armies hud
started, idled and looked at each other
To most Americans the i from behind their Maginot and
news came with fritrMeninglSiegfried fortifications. In Fland
.ii,lrl..nn..s. R it t Enrrmenns ers, the British rehearsed maneu-
The Victory Torch!
Let's hold if high
To light the way to Tokyo
Our battle-weary men are preparing now
to finish the fight. We can't let up in our
purchase of War Bonds rather, let's
redouble our efforts to hasten the final
Victory! More bonds will keep the Victory
Torch aflame!
Bank of Bend
A HOME OWNED INSTITUTION
had been listening for many
months to the rising beat of the
German war tom-toms. They had
seen the nazi machine operate in
Spain and watched it gobble up
Austria, Czechoslovakia and Me
mel in ominous succession. They
had awaited the impending blow
up with much of the subdued awe
of people awaiting an eclipse of
the sun.
Only the British and French
governments had refused to be
lieve Hitler would quit playing
poker and draw his gun. Chamber
lain had banked on appeasement,
Munich; the French counted on
their "impregnable" Maginot
Line ' and the "world's finest
army."
; As a result, the Allies were
tragically unprepared when the
blow finally fell that September
morning. Once again, as in 1914,
;they had failed to gauge the
might of the German army.
I For the Nazis' new Blitzkrieg
' lightning war technique had
destroyed all concepts of war as
the Allies knew it. With a speed
that astonished the world, Ger
man armored columns sliced into
Poland from five directions, iso
lating the bewildered defending
armies.
I Plunes, Tanks Co-Ordlnate
I Overhead, Hermann Goerihg's
bomber fleets paced the advance
with clockwork timing pulveriz
jing Polish troops, guns and sup
. ply lines, and bombing the defend
ers' air force out of existence
before it left the ground. In key
areas, the invaders were guided
by fifth columnists planted many
i months in advance,
j The Poles were geographically
i unable to receive aid from their
: Allies, and before the first week
was out, Nazi mechanized columns
had clamped a ring of steel about
i Warsaw. Hard-driving tank-plane
teams were overrunning Upper
Silesia, Danzig, Cracow and Lw
:OW. The Polish government fled
to England.
I Even the Germans were sur
; prised at their quick success. The
i Russians rolled across the Polish
j border from the east just In time
I to protect Soviet interests in Po
lland. On Sept. 27, Warsaw al
most obliterated by bombs fell,
ending Polish resistance and com
pleting one of the most remark
able military campaigns in his
tory. Hitler now shifted his weight of
arms to the west, where the Allied
Generalissimo Maurice Gamelin
was boasting that the Nazis were
"fools" to have given him so much
time to "complete our moblllza-tlon."
But for long months to come
Vi i r LJr nSjfl
in the same armistice car at Com
plenge in which the first world
war had ended, the nazis announc
ed they were taking half of
France and d e m o b i 1 i z 1 n g all
French military, naval' and air
forces. The Italians obtained dis-
vers calculated to take them crash
ing through the German lines
when weather permitted.
Allied commentators, incredu
lous, dubbed the interlude a "pho
ney war" or "sitzkrieg." The Ger
man high command used the lull
to plug the last chinks in the
W'ehrmacht's armor, and to map
final plans for conquest.
Meanwhile, Kussia, fearing war
wilh Germany, invited Finnish
diplomats to Moscow to discuss a
non-aggression pact. In return for
a guarantee of Soviet assistance in
the event of war, Russia asked the
use of certain bases in Finnish
border territory. Finland flatly
refused to co-operate. Premier
Stalin, realizing little time was
left, sent Red army divisions up
the Karelian isthmus, Nov. 28,
1939.
Finns Cease Struggle
The Finns proved to be no push
over. Entrenched in tneir Man
nerheim defenses, they demon
strated their toughness in a series
of pitched. battles fought at sub
zero temperatures. For more
than two months of bitter fight
ing they held the upper hand, ex
acting a heavy toll of the Red
armies.
Early In February the Russians
changed their tactics, shifting the
entire force "of their attack
against relatively small key sec
tors, softened first by a murder
ous weight of explosives. Wave
upon wave of determined Russian
troops hurled themselves against
the Finns' concrete emplacements
which gradually began to crum
ble. Toward the end the attack
was continuous day and night.
On March 13, the Finns gave up
the hopeless struggle. The Rus
sians got their protective bases:
the ports of Viipuri and Hangoe
and the entire Karelian isthmus.
To the west, first rumblings of
reawakening war were heard ear
ly In April. The British, seeking
to halt German ore smpmcnts
from Sweden, started laying
mines in Norwegian waters. The
nazis, fearing allied landings in
the area, acted quickly. Proclaim
ing a desire to "protect" Denmark
and Norway from allied designs,
German troops descended on the
two neutral countries oy tana ana
by sea on the morning of April
9, 1940.
The invading lorces mei witn
little resistance in Denmark and
overran the country in a matter
of hours. In Norway, success was
nearlv as raoid. Espionage, sabo
tage and treacnery naa cnppiea
the little Norwegian army. Land
ing parties occupied Oslo, Tvond
heim, Bergen, Stavenger and the
sub-Arctic ore ,port or warvm al
most simultaneously.
B.E.F. Smashed In Norway
Back In England there was mis
guided iubilance that Hitler naa
dared at last to "bring the wal
nut Into the onen." Expeditionary
forces were dispatched to the
ports of Andalsnes and Namsos
north and souin oi iTonaneim uu
the central Norway coast and to
Narvik to the north. In Commons
Chamberlain chortled that the na
zis had "missed "the bus this
limp."
It was the allies' first dismal
blunder. The British forces were
hnlf.tralned and tragically inaae
ouate. With little air support and
virtually no anti-aircraft protec
tion, tliev never did succeed in
getting their heavy artillery or
mechanized equipment ashore.
Clouds of land-based nazi aircraft
and columns of armored troops
smashed every effort to expand
the little British beachheads, ine
only successes were limited ones
scored by Canadian ana onusn
troops in the Narvik area. The
battered relief forces finally made
their escape by sea from scattered
Norweeian fishing villages.
In England, the Norway de
bacle scaled the downfall of the
Chamberlain regime. On May iu,
Winston Churchill became prime
minister. His first task was
siern one: that morning German
panzer divisions rolled Into Hol
land and Belgium
armament of France's
African colonies.
North '
Soviet Russia j
Continued From Page Six) i
ceeded in breaching the defenses
of battered, shattered Sevastopol. -That
victory coming after- 245.
days of almost continuous siege, !
seemed a signal for renewed Ger-1
man efforts everywheret
Both arms of the pincers move
ment reached out rapidly and
with frightening success. Thej
northern arm contacted Voronezh j
on the upper Don July 7, by
passed the city and swung south
eastward through the rich farm
ing country across the river. The
noose was flung about Stalingrad
on Aug. 20. '
The southern prong overran
Rostov within a week and spilled
southward over the Caucasian
steppes. Maikop fell Aug. 7, and
the nazis vanguards streamed
into the foothills of the moun
tains beyond.
For Russia it seemed the most
critical period in more than 14
months of war. But as the sum
mer wore on. it assumed a
strange resemblance to the sum-1
mer before. The red armies hung .
on just as stubbornly as they had
farther west, and once again Hit
ler seemed unable to put his fin
ger on final success.
Fight for Streets -As
October came to smoke-hung
Stalingrad, a grim citizens' army j
was uauiiug wun us uuun iu uic
Volga. It had fought the enemy
first in the outlying country, then
in the suburbs and finally in the
rubble-choked streets of the city
itself. Successful attacks were
measured in terms of twisted ma
sonry won. Now retreat was out
of the question. Bridges were
blasted and all ships withdrawn.
The Russians still were resist
ing when the winds whistled
down the steppes in mid-Novem
ber. Then, lust as Hitler was
loudly promising the fall of Stal
ingrad, tne red army strucK oacK
again. From north of the city,
OKEY, HIR0HIT0
HERE WE COME!
Our servicemen and women went into the fight
with all they had . . . and they deserve a lot of
credit. Our boys taught the Italians their self
styled Caesar was stuffed with straw. Then the
Boot of Europe turned on its Heel. As history
writes the last chapter of Fascism and Nazism we
now turn to some unfinished business with Hiro
hito. This will call for the same COOPERATION
that knocked Hitler into surrender.
BUY MORE WAR BONDS!
The Miller Lumber Company
821 Wall Street Phone 166
ft n
V
-DAY! - IN EUROPE
But it's WAR DAY in the Pacific!
Yes, Hirohito, this is the day when we can turn pur full attention to the yellow
scourge of the South Seas turn our every effort to the extermination of your
"Sons of Heaven!" ,
Our fighting men are coming millions of them. And we're backing them to
the final blow!
BUY BONDS
HOLD THEM!
Space courtesy
Shellhart's Grocery
America
is
Victory in Grasp
(fiintimird From Pace Five)
hurriedly shipped to England
1,000.1X10 old Springfield rifles and
mnnv French 7.7s of World War
I vintage. These. Churchill later
revealed in an address to the V. S.
congress, were virtually all the
arms Britain had with which to
defend herself.
Nazis Strike South
- The world may never know
what quirk in the German mind
halted their gray-green armies at
the channel and turned them
south upon France.
The French, now under Mar
shal Maxtme Wcygand, threw up
a temporary line along the Som
me, but German mechanized
thrusts, pushed under cover of
blasting swarms of dive bombers,
soon found and pierced its weak
points. By June 10 fast rolling
nazi columns had crossed the
Seine and were closing on Paris.
On that day. when the war
seemed as good ns won for the
axis. Benito Mussolini announced
Italy's entry into the conflict.
The triumphant nazis rolled
into Paris on June 14. Three days j
later the aged Marshal Henri IV-!
tain, once toasted as the hero of
Verdun, asked for honorable:
terms of surrender. j
Petain got his terms. They were j
harsh, not honorable; On June 22, i
CASHMAN'S
Bend's Clothier I
hem tf Htrt Sct4r & Mm CUttts