Saturday, August 26, 1944. De Gaulle in the streets of Paris. Bulgaria calls it quits.

Charles de Gaulle marched in the streets of paris, German sniper fire notwithstanding.

T-Sgt. Kenneth Averill, 563 Marshall St., Hazel Park, Mich., of the 4th Signal Co., 4th Div., gets his welcome personally from a Parisian girl when his unit, with other French and American forces, enters the main section of the French capitol. 26 August, 1944.

Not every Parisian enjoyed the festivities.  Parisian women with recent German boyfriends were brutalized, although the number was undoubtedly far below the numbers that had fraternized during the German occupation.  They were made to bear the guilt of a nation who had resisted heroically, in part, but which had not been free of collaboration.

American and French armor rolls through the Rue De Rivoli, Paris, passing cheering crowds and a knocked-out Nazi tank which fell victim to the gunnery of the tank crews which aided in the liberation of the French capital. 26 August, 1944.

Indeed, France has never reconciled with its complicated history during the war. Thousands of Frenchmen heroically resisted the Germans, including groups as widely divergent as monarchist and communists, but it's also the case that "French" liberation armies included massive numbers of North Africans who saw joining the Free French as a means of bringing their regions into metropolitan France, which they were soon to learn was not the case.

Crowds of Parisians celebrating the entry of Allied troops into Paris scatter for cover as a sniper fires into them from a building on the Place De La Concorde. Although the Germans surrendered the city, small bands of snipers still remained. 26 August, 1944.

Meanwhile, while dwarfed by the Free French formation that had formed during the war, and the regular French units that were now part of the Allied armies, some French volunteers continued to fight on the Eastern front.

The Germans lose more of their supplies. Captured when American and French forces occupied the main parts of the French capital, this stock of German gasoline quickly disappeared as Parisians help themselves outside the former Paris Wehrmacht headquarters on Avenue Kleber, former French tanks taken into German service, now abandoned on location. 26 August, 1944.

The Allies won the Battle of Toulon.

And they were taking back channel islands this late as well.

British paratroopers backed by Belgian infantry and armor, cleared the arears around Caen still in German hands.

Six American airmen were lynched by the townspeople of Rüsselsheim am Main.  Some of the townspeople would find themselves defendants in a war crimes trial after the war.

While this incident resulted in trials, killings of airmen, both in Germany and Japan, were hardly limited to this.

Bugarai announced that it was pulling out of the war and disarming all German troops on its territory.

The Red Army reached the Danube.

The 8th Army crossed the Metauro in Italy.

Adam von Trott zu Solz, 35 years of age, a German lawyer, diplomat and central figure in the 20 July plot, was hung by the Nazis.

Banika "U", Headquarters for Morale Services on the Russell Islands. L-R: Lt. William H. Ireland, Orientation Officer, of Ohio; Pvt. Paul E. Swofford, Assistant in Moral Services, of Ill.; Cpl. Fred D. Scullcy, Assistant in Moral Services, of Indiana; native of the Island; and Lt. John W. M. Rothney, [illegible] officer, of Wisconsin. 26 August, 1944.

Last edition:

Friday, August 25, 1944. Paris, Versailles and Avignon liberated.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Army, Battle for Paris, British Army, Charles de Gaulle, French Army, German Army, Italy, Logistics, New Guinea, Operation Olive, Personalities, Romania, Transportation, Trucks, World War Two

Sunday, August 20, 1944. Advancing everywhere in France.

Philippe Pétain was arrested by the Germans for his refusal to a German demand that he leave France.

Dead German soldier in Toulon.

The Battle of Toulon began.

While the Falaise Gap was closed, Germana units continued to escape through gaps in the line.

The 3d Army captured Seine River crossings at Mantes Grassicourt and entered Fontainbleau.

Pvt. Herbert Knowles, Toledo, Wash., and Pvt. Charles Brown, Richmond, Ind., peer over the top of a knoll to view the burning German convoy in the distance, blasted by air and artillery near Chambois.

 Another projectile from an 8 inch howitzer is on its way to stop the German retreat across the Seine River, France, opposite the town of Mantes-Gassicourt, 15 miles below Paris. 20 August, 1944.

Pvt. Dan Lipshutz, of Philadelphia, Pa., a guard in a prisoner-of-war camp somewhere in France, points out the contrast between the two very old, and the one very young soldier captured in the Allied pincer movement in France. The two old soldiers are white Russian Mongols who were fighting for the Nazis. August 20, 1944.

Knocked out Tiger [sic] tank, the last vehicle abandoned by the Germans in their flight from Argentan, France, in the face of terrific American assault which liberated the town. 20 August, 1944.

Self propelled artillery battery, August 20, 1944.

The Allies bombed Buna Werke POW camp in Poland in error, killing 39 British POWs.

The Soviets began the Jassy-Kishinev Offensive in Romania.

The U-188 was scuttled in Bordeaux, the U-9 was sunk at Constanța in a Soviet air raid, U-413 was lost to a  mine in the Cornish corridor, U-984 was sunk by Canadian warships in the Bay of Biscay  and the U-1229 was sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by Allied aircraft.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 19, 1944. Uprising in Paris.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Australia, Battle for Mont Ormel, Battle for Paris, French Resistance Movements, July 20 Plot, Operation Bagration, Paris France, World War Two