Word: cherbourg
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Only near the sea was the French withdrawal from the Seine not an unrelieved debacle. There, from Cherbourg, Brest and St. Nazaire, fresh units of a new British Expeditionary Force, a "broomstick Army," began pouring in, true to British promise. Some were veterans of the ill-starred expedition to Norway. Some were survivors of the retreat to Dunkirk. As fast as their meagre equipment got ashore, these latecomers sped across Normandy and Poitou to meet the German tide. Those who had seen him before, even more than those who had not, longed for a crack at "Jerry...
...bombs exploded in France and Great Britain all the last furious week at assorted hours and places. Censorship veiled a lot of the places but it was apparent that civilian centres were for the time being secondary to military objectives. The French ports of Dieppe, Le Havre and Cherbourg were harshly treated, as part of the Battle of France (see p. 20). So were R. A. F. bases on the southern British coasts...
...British bases. Britain's coastal batteries have long range but are old. Heavy units of the Royal Navy, scarcely daring to contest invading forces in the narrow straits area, would probably withdraw to stations up the west British coast or down the French coast at Le Havre Cherbourg, Brest. To light units, though vulnerable to air bombs, would fall a large part of the defensive work...
...heavy bombers followed the path of the first. By noon some 150 English warplanes, carrying 400 men, were hovering over France; heavy bombers had passed the steel mills of Bordeaux, toward which other squadrons were speeding; medium bombers had circled Orleans, passed Le Mans on their way back to Cherbourg and home. At 2 p. m. the first squadrons of Blenheims and Wellingtons were at their airports; five minutes later the lighter bombers landed...
...built a stone shelter on one of the Minquiers, while law-abiding Frenchmen had none, raised 20,000 francs by public subscription to build one. Led by Yachtsman-Painter "Marin-Marie" (Durand le Couppel de Saint-Front, who in 1936 took a 40-foot motorboat from Manhattan to Cherbourg), 40 Breton fishermen landed on Maitresse, began building...