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W. Earl Hall World War II stories, 1944
Letter #23
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Slug-Impressions of -4 By W. EARL HALL Globe-Gazette Managing Editor Letter No. 23 London--(Air Mail Special)--Some things indelibly recorded in my memory following a 10day visit to newly liberated France" Normandy's orchards weighted down with half-ripe apples ... hawthorne hedgerows dividing tiny, irregularly shaped fields ... thousands of German prisoners, working on roads or marching back to their camp ... St. Lo, an eternal monument to the barbarism of the institution known as war. Ancient but magnificent chateaus, in woodland settings, taken over as military bases by our army ... great fields of squad and pup tents ... fox holes, some of them still being used by our boys ... lovely French children holding up 2 little fingers in victory salute. Roadsides littered with hundreds, even thousands, of Nazi trucks, autos and tanks ... a countryside littered with burned planes and gliders ... a beach littered with storm-wrecked small craft ... crater-pocked meadows inland from where American boys established their initial beachheads. Temporary bridge sections installed by our engineers, in jig time, over streams between Rennes and Paris ... bomb-pocked airfields ... Nazi demolition at its worst, or best, in the Cherbourg arsenal ... the uncompleted massive walls of a V 2 rocket bomb launching structure in same area. Eiffel tower coming into view 25 miles to the westward ... the touching welcome from Parisians lining the street on their first Sunday following liberation ... the contrast between London and Paris as to war's scars--London got it, Paris didn't. That incomparable and indescribable beauty which is Paris, even after more than 4 years under the Nazi yoke ... broad, tree-lined avenues ... flower-filled parks ... stone buildings of uniform height ... the broad Seine flowing in banks of massive masonry for countless miles. Grand hotel ... L'Opera ... Champs Elysees ... Arc de Triomphe ... Napoleon's catafalque .. the new Trocadore replacing the ancient building in which the American Legion held its convention 17 years ago ... the church of the Madeleine and Notre Dame cathedral. Paris shops with attractive show windows but skimpy stocks within ... Paris girls in badly worn clothes achieving a "chic" effect by the tilt of their hats or by a bizarre hair-do--severely "up" ... the Kentucky army nurse who planned to buy a Parisien hat "just so I can look at it in my tent." Flag-decked homes and business blocks--France's tri-colors, Britain's Union Jack and America's Stars and Stripes ... Free French manifestos posted in windows and on posts ... giant pictures of DeGaulle, everywhere ... Scribe hotel, where Herman Goering once maintained headquarters, across the street from Joe Goebbels in the Grand. Women of the street plying their trade in blacked out narrow thoroughfares ... moonlight on the myriad tile roofs ... half-starved dogs picking their breakfast out of curbing garbage cans ... long breadlines in the Paris slums ... cyclists of all ages threading their way through the Place de la Concorde. Vari-colored grain fields and orchards of rural France from high above in an airplane ... vast forest preserves ... no evidence of war's heavy hand in these scenes ... Eiffel tower fading in the distance ... over and through clouds ... English channel sighted ... tiny amphibious craft known as "ducks"--unsung heroes of this war--cutting paths to and from large cargo ships off beaches ... occasional glimpses of channel blue, dappled with cloud shadows, through rifts in a cloud layer. England again! -- 30 --
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Slug-Impressions of -4 By W. EARL HALL Globe-Gazette Managing Editor Letter No. 23 London--(Air Mail Special)--Some things indelibly recorded in my memory following a 10day visit to newly liberated France" Normandy's orchards weighted down with half-ripe apples ... hawthorne hedgerows dividing tiny, irregularly shaped fields ... thousands of German prisoners, working on roads or marching back to their camp ... St. Lo, an eternal monument to the barbarism of the institution known as war. Ancient but magnificent chateaus, in woodland settings, taken over as military bases by our army ... great fields of squad and pup tents ... fox holes, some of them still being used by our boys ... lovely French children holding up 2 little fingers in victory salute. Roadsides littered with hundreds, even thousands, of Nazi trucks, autos and tanks ... a countryside littered with burned planes and gliders ... a beach littered with storm-wrecked small craft ... crater-pocked meadows inland from where American boys established their initial beachheads. Temporary bridge sections installed by our engineers, in jig time, over streams between Rennes and Paris ... bomb-pocked airfields ... Nazi demolition at its worst, or best, in the Cherbourg arsenal ... the uncompleted massive walls of a V 2 rocket bomb launching structure in same area. Eiffel tower coming into view 25 miles to the westward ... the touching welcome from Parisians lining the street on their first Sunday following liberation ... the contrast between London and Paris as to war's scars--London got it, Paris didn't. That incomparable and indescribable beauty which is Paris, even after more than 4 years under the Nazi yoke ... broad, tree-lined avenues ... flower-filled parks ... stone buildings of uniform height ... the broad Seine flowing in banks of massive masonry for countless miles. Grand hotel ... L'Opera ... Champs Elysees ... Arc de Triomphe ... Napoleon's catafalque .. the new Trocadore replacing the ancient building in which the American Legion held its convention 17 years ago ... the church of the Madeleine and Notre Dame cathedral. Paris shops with attractive show windows but skimpy stocks within ... Paris girls in badly worn clothes achieving a "chic" effect by the tilt of their hats or by a bizarre hair-do--severely "up" ... the Kentucky army nurse who planned to buy a Parisien hat "just so I can look at it in my tent." Flag-decked homes and business blocks--France's tri-colors, Britain's Union Jack and America's Stars and Stripes ... Free French manifestos posted in windows and on posts ... giant pictures of DeGaulle, everywhere ... Scribe hotel, where Herman Goering once maintained headquarters, across the street from Joe Goebbels in the Grand. Women of the street plying their trade in blacked out narrow thoroughfares ... moonlight on the myriad tile roofs ... half-starved dogs picking their breakfast out of curbing garbage cans ... long breadlines in the Paris slums ... cyclists of all ages threading their way through the Place de la Concorde. Vari-colored grain fields and orchards of rural France from high above in an airplane ... vast forest preserves ... no evidence of war's heavy hand in these scenes ... Eiffel tower fading in the distance ... over and through clouds ... English channel sighted ... tiny amphibious craft known as "ducks"--unsung heroes of this war--cutting paths to and from large cargo ships off beaches ... occasional glimpses of channel blue, dappled with cloud shadows, through rifts in a cloud layer. England again! -- 30 --
World War II Diaries and Letters
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