Paris Is Free!

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The news that made the whole free world catch its breath last week was the news that Paris was free. It was one of the great days of all time. For Paris is the city of all free mankind, and its liberation last week was one of the great events of all time.

This event was reported by the first U.S. newsman to enter Paris, TIME'S Chief War Correspondent Charles Christian Wertenbaker. With LIFE'S Photographer Robert Capa, and Private Hubert Stickland of Norfolk, Va. as driver, Werten-baker's jeep drove directly behind General Leclerc's armored car, as French forces entered the city through the Porte d'Orleans at 9:40 a.m., Friday, Aug. 25.

Wertenbaker's eyewitness report:

I have seen the faces of young people in love and the faces of old people at peace with their God. I have never seen in any face such joy as radiated from the faces of the people of Paris this morning. This is no day for restraint, and I could not write with restraint if I wanted to. Your correspondent and your photographer Bob Capa drove into Paris with eyes that would not stay dry, and we were no more ashamed of it than were the people who wept as they embraced us.

We had spent the night at General Leclerc's command post, six miles from Paris on the Orleans-Paris road. Here the last German resistance outside Paris was being slowly reduced, while inside the city the Germans and the F.F.I, fought a bitter battle that had already lasted six days. Late in the afternoon a French cub plane flew in 50 yards above the Cathedral of Notre Dame, on the He de la Cite where the F.F.I, had its headquarters, and dropped a message which said simply: "Tomorrow we come."

The Sun Came Out. It was a fitting evening to precede the day of Paris' liberation. It had rained all day while the French tanks maneuvered in the mud and fought their way through the strong points and Tiger tanks which still kept them out of the capital. Late in the afternoon the clouds blew away and the sun shone through a pale blue sky. The tall lovely bending trees that lined the roads and fields stood dark against the sunset. Then the sun went down and a quarter moon hung low above the plain.

We stood in the twilight and discussed the news of the battle inside the city. It had started on the 19th and, in spite of a reported armistice which has never been verified, much less kept, had never slackened in fury. By Thursday night the Resistance forces held not only the islands of Saint-Louis and La Cite, but the Hotel de Ville, the Palais de Justice, the mairies of all arrondissements and the suburbs of Boulogne, Issy and Chatillon. The Germans held a large circular area bounded by the Eiffel Tower, the Invalides, the Gare du Quai-d'Orsay, the Place de la Concorde, the Madeleine and the Grand Palais. They also had strong points at the Gare d'Austerlitz, the Gare du Nord and the Porte d'Orleans. What was holding up the column of General Leclerc was a road block outside Sceaux.

Flashes of Light, Sound of Guns. We looked at copies of L'Humanite, the old-time Communist newspaper, now published again in its old building, and of Ce Soir. We lent a blanket to a woman of the Resistance who was spending her last night in four years away from Paris on the back seat of a small car. Then as darkness fell we spread our bedrolls beside the road to Paris and lay there under the starry sky and the low moon. From beneath the Big Dipper came occasional flashes of light. Artillery sounded in the distance.

At 6 o'clock in the morning the tanks began to move, and we followed as far as Antony, where a squad of Spanish Republicans, now of the French 2nd Armored Division, stopped us. There was still enemy resistance ahead. Presently the tanks cleaned it up, and General Leclerc, who" stood in the road with one hand in his pocket and the other gripping a cane, decided to go into Paris. It was 9 o'clock.

We maneuvered our jeep just behind the General's armored car and drove fast toward the Porte d'Orleans. The people, who up to now had made small groups beside the road, suddenly became a dense crowd packed from the buildings to the middle of the street, where they separated to make a narrow line for the General's car to pass through. No longer did they simply throw flowers and kisses. They waved arms and flags and flowers; they climbed aboard the cars and jeeps embracing the French and us alike; they uttered a great mass cry of delight that swelled and died down and swelled to a greater height. They cried: "Vive De Gaulle!" and "Vive Leclerc!" But one word repeated over and over rose above all the other words. It was: "Merci! Merci! Merci!" (Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!).

The Day of Saint Louis. This was the day of Saint Louis, on whose island six days ago the first Resistance center had been set up. Louis IX was one of the good French kiitigs and the people who remembered were glad it was his day on which Paris was delivered. As General Leclerc's procession slowed down the cry swelled again: "Merci! Merci! Merci!"

It was 9:35 when we entered the Avenue Aristide Briand, 9:40 when we passed through the Porte d'Orleans. This was Paris proper and, if such a thing were possible, the crowd grew thicker in the street. When the General's car stopped, they climbed up on it with their flowers and flags--Tricolors, Stars & Stripes, Union Jacks, Red flags with the hammer & sickle. Leclerc stood stiffly clutching his cane, never smiling, while the men in the armored car and in the jeeps behind took the crowd's embraces. Women held their children up to be kissed by the liberators, saying: "Merci, merci."

"Now We Are Happy." Down the Avenue d'Orleans into the Boulevard Raspail we drove, stopping every few minutes. A little girl had given us a Tricolor, which we put on the windshield of the jeep, but, seeing our uniforms and hearing our accents, the people said: "You are the Americans?" "You have come at last!" "For four years we have waited." "Now we are happy." At the Carrefour Raspail-Montparnasse, where throughout the careless '205 Americans packed the cafes, the Dome, the Coupole and the Select were locked, and so were the other restaurants that line the Boulevard Montparnasse. The people said there had been little food in Paris, and in the last weeks almost none. "Are you bringing food to us?" they asked. We said the French had 300 trucks that would soon come to Paris with food. "Merci! Merci! Merci!"

At the Gare Montparnasse, General Leclerc set up his headquarters and we drove on down the Boulevard over a street block the Germans had abandoned and into the Boulevard des Invalides. It was 10:20. Close to the golden dome of the Invalides we stopped. There was fighting in the streets ahead. A tank stopped before a house and for ten minutes pumped bullets into it. We left the jeep and walked down the Boulevard des Invalides to the corner of the Rue de Crenelle. To the left, in the Ecole Militaire, there were a few German snipers. Down toward the Quai d'Orsay many Germans were giving battle.

They were in the Chamber of Deputies, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Gare d'Orsay. The first two of these buildings were already on fire and the smoke thickened as the French tanks fired more shells into them. The tearing rattle of machine guns and the crackle of snipers' bullets sounded small against the echoing blast of the tanks' guns. French marines were trying to get into the Chamber of Deputies, and some were being killed. I saw a bearded priest in a steel helmet hurrying down the street to give the last sacrament to one.

The streets were full of people--Resistance groups armed with any old rifles, white-clad doctors and nurses carrying stretchers, and citizens old and young who, in spite of the danger, could not stay at home on this day. They gathered in crowds wherever something was happening, and everywhere something was happening. One crowd gathered around a German officer kneeling in the street praying for his life. A Resistance group was determined to shoot him on the spot, but three marines of the French Division got him free and took him prisoner. Said Capa: "What the Army is doing is saving the Germans from the F.F.L"

Tank v. Pillbox. I went back to the jeep and set up my typewriter on the hood and began trying to write. Here on the

Boulevard des Invalides near the Rue de Crenelle, opposite the Metro Station, there was still much to see. Down the Boulevard a tank was shooting into the top story of a building where a sniper was making himself a nuisance. From beyond, the battle for the Chamber of Deputies grew noisier. Up the Rue de Varenne to the right I could see a tank fighting a duel with a pillbox down a side street. Stone and plaster spattered from the buildings.

When there was not something to watch, there were people to talk to. All the people who saw the jeep came up with that look of utter joy on their faces, all wanting to do something. One woman brought me a sandwich, another a bottle of champagne. The one who had brought the sandwich came back to ask if I wanted a bath. I did. Afterward I met Capa again and we found the apartment of Olivia Chambers, who had worked for LIFE before the Germans came and had spent the last four years in German-occupied Paris. She had kept notes for the last ten days. This is a brief extract, from her notes, of what happened in those days:

On August 15, the police went on strike.

On the 1 6th, the people began hearing explosions as the Germans blew up industrial and military installations. On the 17th, German front-line troops appeared in the city, retreating in trucks, ambulances and any vehicles they could find. Next day fighting broke out, and by the igth, it was war between the Germans and the F.F.I. On that day there was heavy fighting at the Concorde and in the Rue Royale and the Tricolor appeared over Notre Dame.

To the Barricades! On the 20th, both Germans and French announced an armistice, but the fighting never stopped. Next day both French and Germans began arresting people and for the first time the men of the Resistance wore their arm bands. In the afternoon the explosions from German demolitions grew louder and the fighting increased. Both Germans and the F.F.I, now had barricades in the streets.

On the 22nd, the first real French newspapers appeared: La Liberation, Defense de la France, Ce Soir, L'Humanite. Fighting in the Boulevard Saint-Michel was furious. On the 23rd, German tanks started cruising through the streets firing at the French barricades.-By then the French had their centers of resistance and the Germans theirs. Rumors which had persisted for a week that the Americans were about to enter Paris now had them already here. On the 24th there were more rumors than fighting, and on the 25th the Army came.

We who had been with the armies knew that the decision to enter Paris had been made suddenly, when the fighting in the city made it necessary. We also knew that celebrations of the fall of Paris were premature. Now, at 6 o'clock Friday evening, Paris is free -- it surrendered officially at 5 -- but the batter of machine guns from the Chamber of Deputies still echoes in the streets. One after another, German strong points had fallen : the Navy Min istry, the Majestic Hotel, the Komman-datur on the Place de l'Opera. At the Kommandatur the Germans raised the white flag. Then, as French Resistance forces went to take their surrender, they opened fire again. French tanks came up and forced a second surrender. The two German commanders were taken out and shot in the street.

De Gaulle is at the War Ministry, still nursing his sore throat. German prisoners are paraded through the streets, frightened but mostly well treated. Snipers are still shooting. The Chamber of Deputies on the Quai d'Orsay is still burning. But Paris is not badly damaged. When the last German is killed or captured, Paris will still be Europe's most beautiful city and Paris will again be French.

I wish we could have seen the Tricolor and the Stars & Stripes raised side by side over the Eiffel Tower last night. I wish we could have heard the people singing the Marseillaise from their windows through the night. But we have seen the faces of a proud, dignified and once more free people, and we have heard their cry of "Merci! Merci! Merci!" and that is perhaps enough for one day.

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