Fifth Phase of the Operation

The end in France.--The end, when it came, was rapid. On 19 August fighter pilots reported fires and explosions in Paris, and above and below the city Third Army advance elements were striking out in a bold encircling move. South of Paris, the Germans tried to hold out in positions on high ground, but they were unable to check the relentless advance of the Patton eastward-bound columns.

The next day pilots on armed reconnaissance saw the highways, the railway lines, and the marshalling yards behind Paris clogged with trucks, trains, and animal-drawn vehicles, all hurrying toward the Reich. West of Paris, disorganized units were trying to get across the Seine any way they could. Aircraft of XIX TAC dropped delay-fuzed bombs, set for detonation during the night, on south bank ferry slips. They exploded at the peak of the Seine crossings, in the night's darkest hours. Within Paris, the Germans announced that rioting had broken out and in desperate order of the day they threatened to shoot any person participating in the disturbances.

The situation was extremely fluid. North of the capital, Thunderbolts gave armor and infantry the usual close cooperation against the few targets remaining. They demolished tanks, barges carrying tanks across the Seine, and isolated German machine-gun nests which sought to cover the river crossings. On 23 August, with Army spearheads more than 60 miles east of Paris, the French Second Armored Division and the First Army's Fourth Infantry Division rode into the capital to complete the official occupation.

In the east, new hunting grounds developed for the fighter-bombers nearer and nearer the Siegfried Line. Firing rockets, dropping bombs, shooting machine guns, XIX TAC aircraft smashed cars in ammunition convoys, 105-millimeter big guns guarding the German retreat, still more motor vehicles, and every day, as enemy fuel and vehicle shortages decreased motor transport, more and more animal-drawn carts and weapons. Combat operations planned a short-range project in the Melun-Provins area, designed to cut off the still-open escape routes of Germans trapped south of the Loire. Everywhere they cut rails and blew up trains--and in the south, as in the north, the enemy retreated with heavy losses and in great confusion.

Far to the west, General Weyland's aircraft helped the determined VIII Corps to smoke out the obstinate defenders of Brest. In 2 slashing days the fighter-bombers destroyed or damaged 14 enemy naval and merchant vessels in the Brest harbor, knocked out eight gun positions, and saturated a defended area that had been marked by the white smoke of fire bombs. Brest doggedly continued to hold out, but the fortress was to fall in September.

Toward the end of the month General Patton's army had crossed the Marne on a 90-mile front and was rolling toward the Aisne. Chateau-Thierry and other battlefield in the Marne-Aisne region, which had taken months to conquer in World War I, fell to the Third Army in a few hours. As august ended, 70,--- Germans had passed through Third Army prison cages, and the Patton forces had crossed the Meuse and were fighting at the approaches to the Siegfried Line. Aircraft of XIX TAC frequently attacked targets over the German border. Except for some miscellaneous cleaning up and some extremely hard frontier fighting, the Battle of France was over and the Battle of Germany had begun.

In mid-August General Patton commended XIX TAC's cooperation with the Third Army, for which General Weyland was awarded the Bronze Star. The commendation read:

The superior efficiency and cooperation afforded this army by the forces under your command is the best example of the combined use of air and ground troops I have ever witnessed.

Due to the tireless efforts of your flyers, large numbers of hostile vehicles and troop concentrations ahead of our advancing columns have been harassed or obliterated. The information passed directly to the head of the columns from the air has saved time and lives.

I am voicing the opinion of all the officers and men in this army when I express to you our admiration and appreciation of your magnificent efforts.