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Vengeance-Mad Nazis Destroy Greek and French
Villages
Over 2,000
Massacred
Both Towns Are
Reported Burned
By the Associated Press
Cold-blooded massacres of virtual-
ly the entire populations of the
Greek village of Distomo and the
French village of Orado-sur-Glane
and burning of both towns by ven-
geance-mad German soldiers 'were
reported in accounts reaching New
York Saturday.
The Greek puppet government an-
nounced the Distomo slaughter, in
which 1,000 persons died, saying it
occurred on June 10, the second anni-
versary of the massacre and destruc-
tion of Lidice in Czechoslovakia.
BBC Reports Story
The' story of the French village 12
miles northwest of Limoges in central
France, came from the British
Broadcasting Corporation, which said
1,100 out of a population of 1,200
were slain.
The Greek puppet communique, a
copy of which was received Friday in
Izmir (Smyrna) Turkey, said the
populace was shot and the town
burned in reprisal for the deaths of
30 German soldiers in a fight with
guerrillas the previous day.
At Lidice, which the Germans
themselves announced was destroyed
in reprisal for the assassination of
Reinhard Heydrich, "protector" of
Bohemia-Moravia, the men were
killed and the women and children
carried away.
Men, Women, Babies Slaughtered
But at Distomo, according to infor-
mation received among Greeks in
Izmir, men, women and wailing ba-
bies were slaughtered impersonally.
This account said that after the
guerrilla battle on June 9, German
SS (Elite Guard) troops on the after-
noon of June 10 surrounded Distomo,
herded all inhabitants into the pub-
lic square, and there chopped them
down with machine-guns.
Then, the account said, German
troopers walked among the massed
-corpses, firing pistol bullets into the
head of every body that twitched,
and trampling the life out of any
infants who had been shielded by
their mothers' bodies. Then they
burned the village down over its dead.
Red Cross Barred
Representatives of the Red Cross
were not allowed near the spot until
June 14, the report said, and then
they found only a few half-mad
children who had hidden in the.
woods.
The village, known to many Ameri-
can tourists, was 65 miles northwest
of Athens and ten miles southeast of
Delphi in a region famous in ancient
Greek history and mythology.
The British radio account of the
French village was in many respects
tragically similar to that from
Greece. The broadcast; recorded in
New York by CBS, said:
"The Germans demanded the sur-
render of patriots who'had killed four
German soldiers, and when there was
no response, prepared to kill 50 hos-
tages.
"The patriots replied with another
attack on the Germans, who de-
stroyed the entire village.
INTERPRETING THE WAR NEWS:
Germans Must Form New Plans
By KIRKE L. SIMPSON
Associated Press WarLnayst
Imperative necessity of shortening
Nazi battle fronts drastically some-
where to meet the triple Allied at-f
tack from East, South and North
was forcing the German High Com-
mand at the week end toward deci-
sions that must go far to shape the
nature of the war in the critical
months before winter closes down
again in Europe.
The cumulative effect of three-
front warfare attrition was sap-
ping enemy reserves in both man-
power and materiel in Italy and
France, but most of all in Russia
and Poland. It left him small
choice but wholesale retreat cer-
tainly in the East, probably in the
South and possibly in the West
to stand seige within the inner
ramparts of his tottering conti-
nental fortress.
There can be no doubt that if the
sweeping Russian break- through
from White Russia to converge on
every key communication junction
in Poland and the lower Baltic states
from Brest Litovsk to Dvinsk was
not aided by a German attempt to
fall back slowly to the Bug-Baltic
inner defense line from which the
attack on Russia was launched, it
represents the major Nazi defeat of
the war.
The Baltic sioases and Finland
are all but lost now to Germany.
In the West her effort to contain
the Allied invasion bridgehead in
Normandy is rising to its crisis.
Only commitment of major Nazi
strategic reserves to decisive bat-
tle in that most remote theater on
the western front conceivably
could wall off General Eisenhow-
er's ever growing invasion army.
That German connanders in Italy
and in the east are desperately
pleading for reinforcements also
goes without saying.
Russian forces were less than 100
miles from Germany's own frontiers
in East Prussia at the week end. On
the war maps, at least, and by Mos-
cow front line reports, the enemy
plight on whole Baltic flank of the
line seemed so grave that it must
dominate German Nigh Command
deliberations. That front necessar-
ily must have first call on available
reserves.
A decisive test oi that conclusion
nay be close at hand in Italy. The
Allied advance up the Italian Penin-
sula boot is drawing close to the
first short and naturally strong de-
fense position to be reached in the
German retreat from Rome, the so-
called Gothic Line. It spans the pe-
ninsula from the Ligurian seacoast
in the west above Leghorn (Livorno)
to the vicinity of Rimini on the Adri-
atic.
It remains to be seen whether
events in the East and in the West
exerting compelling pressure on
the German High Command to
move heavy reserves in both di-
rections may not result in enemy
abandonment of the whole Italian
peninsula with no more than de-
laying actions.
SAIPAN'S CAPITAL SHATTERED BY YANK ATTACK--Wreckage of what once was a part of Gara-
pan, capital of Saipan in the Marianas, 'shows the effect of Yank air, land and sea bombardment. This
scene was on June 28 when Garapan still was in Japanese hands. Americans since have seized the
city.
Heavy Aerial Blows Struck at
German Robot Bomb Ramps
Overwhelming Allied Air Power Supports
Montgomery's Troops in Normandy
By the Associated Press
LONDON, July 8.-Every type of
aircraft at the command of the
Allies was hurled at the Nazi war
machine in the west today in an
awesome display of supremacy in
the skies, striking heavy twin blows
at the robot bomb ramps and stor-
age places and hitting savagely in
support of Gen. Montgomery's troops
fighting to take Caen in Normandy.
The great blows at the robot
bombs coincided with the longest
respite in southern England from
the eerie weapons since those at-
tacks began, but after nightfall they
came winging over again. But there
was no doubt the raids had been ef-
fective.
Cavern Collapsed
They were opened by an earth-
quake attack by Lancasters which
dropped six-ton bombs on great
limestone caves at St. Leu-D'Esser-
ent, 30 miles north of Paris, collaps-
ing one of the caverns which served
as a robot bomb supply depot. This
was followed later by assaults on
launching ramps by American heavy
bombers.
Meanwhile British and American
bombers and fighter-bombers rained
loads of explosives on German-held
Caen in a display whose deafening
din awed even the front line troops
crouched before the city
At least one of the 12,000-pound
bombs hurled at the robot storage
caverns on the Oise River ripped
through the earth and inside a cave.
Robots Believed Buried
"This produced a great subsidence
of earth, 540 by 300 feet in area,
and masses of rock and soil must
have callapsed into the cave below,"
said the air ministry, raising a pos-
sibility that hundreds of the death-
dealing robots, along with Nazi per-
sonnel, were buried.
Aerial reconnaissance showed the
earth had collapsed around both en-
trances, and there were fresh cave-
ins on top of the bomb storehouse.
The Air Ministry said tonight that
"the approaches to the cave now are
covered by a dense concentration of
craters."
The heavy Lancasters strewed
their six-ton bombs over the roads
and railways leading to the cave
and the landing stage at the river's
edge, 60 feet below.
Pas de Calais Area Hit
Up to 500 American Flying Fort-
resses and Liberators, escorted by
perhaps 750 Thunderbolts, Mustangs
and Lightnings, dlumped thousands
of tons of bombs on the robot ramps
in the Pas de Calais area of northern
France.
Peace Terms
Spur Nazis On
MADRID, July 8.-(/P)-Nazi Pro-
paganda' Minister Paul Josef Goeb-
bels, writing in "Das Reich" today,
said that "the greatest political er-
ror our adversaries committed in
this war was imposing a war of life
and death on the Reich."
In Madrid, where the frequency of
peace editorials led correspondents
to watch for feelers in a peace cam-
paign, the statement was interpreted
as a complaint that Germany has
no way out of the war, and as a clear
suggestion that Germany would be
pleased if the Allies would give them-
something better than uncondition-
al surrender terms.
Japanese Fail
In Defending
1omeland Area
By the Associated Press
WASHINGTON, July 8.-Japanese
inability to put up effective defense
over some of their most vital home-
land areas was emphasized today by
airmen studying the latest attack of
the United States Fleet of super-
fortresses on the enemy in Asia.
The mission of China-based B-29s
which hit five targets, three of them
on the home island of Kyushu in a
Friday night raid, returned without
loss of aircraft after encountering
only "very weak fighter opposition
and meager anti-aircraft fire," a
communique by the 20th Air Force
Headquarters said today.
Supply System Hit
A spawning bed for the Japanese
Navy and the supply system. of the
enemy's land armies in China were
hit in the latest operation. The com-
munique reported that Sasebo, Ja-
pan's third largest naval base, "re-
ceived the heaviest bomb load" of
the mission which also rained de-
struction upon Yawata and Omura,
all three targets being located on
Kyushu Island at the southern end
of the Japanese chain. Almost as
vital as Sasebo to the fleet-building
and repair efforts of the enemy are
the steel-producing factories at Yaw-
ata and Omura.
China Targets Pounded
The mission also pounded two tar-
gets in occupied China, Laoyao, a
coal and shipping port on the north
China coast and Hankow on the
Yangtze River, 450 miles inland,
which has been bombed often by
Maj.-Gen. Claire Chennault's 14th
Air Force. Through both of these
ports funnel supplies and. reinforce-
ments for the enemy's columns now
attempting to split Free China and
seize American air fields.
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AT THE ITALIAN FRONTIER,
July 8.-(I)-Sabotage, street fight-
ing and violent strikes in German-
held northern Italian cities are bring-
ing murderous but ineffectual reac-
tion from the Nazis, according to
reports reaching here today.
From Chiasso the Swiss telegraph
agency reported that Italian Parti-
sans had begun a general attack on
German army communications
throughout Tuscany and that street
battles were in progress in the impor-
tant port of Livorno (Leghorn),
which is being threatened by the
Allied advance northward.
A dispatch from Turin said the
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homes of striking dockworkers in
Genoa after seven German soldiers
had been killed. The Nazis then
roped off the, streets, made mass
arrests, and summarily shot many
persons without trial, this account
said. Others were shipped to Ger-
many for slave labor.
In Turin strikes began in protest
against German orders to dismantle
the Fiat and other factories and ship
them to Germany, other dispatches
said.
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