The sky was black with German dive bombers which hurled thousands of bombs and swooped down low in fan effort to strafe French machinegun nests while the infantry plodded forward against terrific counter-fire.
Thousands of troops on foot pressed forward along the entire length of the Somme past Abbeville, Amiens, Peronne and the Aisne River te the Oise Canal. The Germans were striving to gain footholds on the south bank of the Somme River and were, plunging toward bridgeheads despite withering fire.
The German operations evidently were the second phase of the Schlief fen plan providing for a swinging gate penetration pivoted "at Sedan. Nazi forces concentrated drives toward the middle of the Somme front and especially east of the Oise Canal.
'The German attack was assuming huge proportions, for the general line of advance stretched from the sea to as far north-east of France as Laou and Sissonne, But asthe German infantry crawled under the protective curtain' of shell-fre in the' Oise, Aisne and. Argonne sectors in a gigantic turning movement aimed at" sweeping the! defenders from the Artois sector for 8 quick smash through to the north, the French held a continuous front.
As the masses of Germans on foot advanced, the Allies laid down one tremendous barrage after another and the shrapnel from the shells raked the Germans, canding enormous cas ualties, Allied artillery batteries poured a deadly stream of fre into the masses of German troops, while long!
juns attempted to silence the german guns covering the Nazi The French High Command at 11 am, in a communique on the huge British Troops Fighting On Somme Front London, June 5. "south of the Somme, our troops are now operating in conjunction with the French Army. Yesterday was quiet day on the British front," a British War Office communique states.—Reuter. battle, said that it was too early to give any accurate indication of the progress of the terrific struggle. The operations involved, it announced, the entire sector east of the Oise River which has been the natural corridor for invasion which the Germans have followed for centuries. It the same pathway which General Bucher followed in attacking Paris in. 1870.
The Germans were estimated to be using 40 divisions in the Somme battle plus the remnants of the five motor-zed divisions which began the Battle of Flanders.—United Press,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.