Word: cherbourg
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...estimated numbers (some now prisoners) whom the Nazis left behind: Cherbourg 35,000; Saint-Malu 4,000; Brest 35,000; Lorient 10,000; Saint-Nazaire 10,000; Le Havre 9,000; Boulogne 7,000; Calais 10,000; Dunkirk 10,000; Mouth of the Scheldt...
...Cherbourg, where the Germans, in their thorough way, had wrecked the breakwater, the 25,000 engineering troops had sunk a string of concrete barges. One of the worst storms the French coast has seen in years washed them ashore. With swift improvisation dozens of emptied Liberty ships were anchored bow to stern, and their sea cocks opened; the scuttled ships formed a new sea wall. A few days after the first ship docked at Cherbourg, the first train pulled out with supplies. By last week, 20 trains were leaving daily. Quays, warehouses and cranes had been installed, oil storage tanks...
...rolling stock from ferries. Giant cranes lifted locomotives from other ships. Ducks loaded with supplies slid through the water and rolled up to the concrete storage squares. At night powerful searchlights lit the harbor for all-night shifts. (Capture of Le Havre ought soon to ease the strain on Cherbourg and the beaches; now ships will be able to proceed up the Seine itself to Rouen, 75 miles from Paris...
...even with Cherbourg and the beaches, pipelines and planes, Lieut. General Omar N. Bradley 's armies would never have reached the Reich as swiftly had it not been for the Red Ball Express Highway. The R.B.E. is a one-way road which begins at Cherbourg and swings in a great loop, roughly south and east, to a point several hundred miles east of Paris...
...returns to Cherbourg again by a parallel route. On this express belt some 9,000 trucks roll day & night at 40 miles an hour - at night with headlights ablaze, for speed is necessary and the German air force negligible. Every 30 or 40 miles, maintenance companies are stationed to make quick repairs...