"Then the Planes Came"

A German patrol, on the prowl in Normandy, nabbed Private Anthony Blazus Jr., of Fredericksburg, Pa. and led him toward Roncey. There his captors joined a motorized column of the Nazi 17th SS Division, preparing to escape southward. Said Blazus:

"There was a German high officer standing in the road, giving directions to the column. He had red tabs and was a general of some kind but he was very drunk. All the other officers were running around giving him Hitler salutes.

"Then the planes came."

Fighters and fighter bombers of the U.S. Ninth Air Force swooped low, bombed the self-propelled guns, methodically blocked the road. Then they began working the column over. Said Blazus:

"Terrific blasts just ripped those big guns apart, tore bodies into a thousand pieces. Tanks on our flanks just took off across the fields."

Cowering in a ditch, Blazus saw the merciless planes race up & down the column, cannon blazing and bombs dropping, until the whole two miles was a red, blazing tangle of shattered bodies and wrecked vehicles. Then the planes hunted down the escaped tanks. Concluded Blazus:

"There was a great quiet and I got up from the ditch. It looked as though everyone was dead or torn to pieces, but then about 80 Germans picked themselves up from here and there, and came over and asked me to take them prisoner. They'd had enough."

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