Good morning,
Whitewater’s forecast calls for a sunny day with a high temperature of seventy-five degrees.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skGQ0fVx75o
On this day in 1944, Allied forces liberated Paris from four years of Nazi occupation. The New York Times reported on the allied triumph at the time —
….On all sides the liberating French and Americans were greeted by hungry Parisians, made with joy, who had fought alone against the German oppressors since they were called to arms last Saturday.
General Leclerc, hero of the Fighting French in the North African campaign, was in the forefront of the battle, leading the tanks to the rescue of patriots who had been fanatically calling for help as the Germans fought back throughout the night.
Those on the outside had heard the electric cry over the radio, “To the barricades!”- historic call to arms of the French Revolution- which testified to the plight of the patriots.
Soon fighting raged throughout the city, along the Place de la Concorde, before the Chamber of Deputies, toward the Hotel des Invalides, as Americans and French drove the Germans from their barricades and buildings converted into fortresses.
An Associated Press correspondent, who was with the first American troops to enter Paris, said the Germans were holding out on both sides of the Seine along the Champs-Elysee, the Place de la Concorde, the Quai d’Orsay, the Tuileries, the gardens of the Louvre, the Madelaine, the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate and the Hotel Crillon-Coislin.
Another Associated Press correspondent reported earlier that an Allied column, driving due east toward the capital, had stormed into Versailles, ten miles from the center of the city.
The Germans were driven from many strategic parts of the city by the combined onslaught of the French military and the fury of citizens fighting for their liberties, and themselves fell back behind barricades for a last ditch stand.
Lieut. Gen. Joseph-Pierre Koenig, Commander in Chief of the French Forces of the Interior, announced in a communique that all the main official buildings and most of the highways were now under the protection of General Leclerc’s Second Armored Division….