The Score in Ports

Two battles for ports bitter-ended last week. Brest fell, yielding almost 40,000 prisoners. Boulogne fell, yielding more than 10,000. But the profit for General Eisenhower was small.

Brest was an extreme example of the Germans' destructive efficiency. Having tied up three U.S. divisions in the 46-day siege, the Germans left it unusable as a major port for many weeks to come. Censorship permitted no appraisal of the time that repairs might require, but the censors passed descriptions: of a swing bridge standing on its head in the river; of crumbled docks and buildings toppled on ships whose stacks stuck out of the water at crazy angles; of cranes and derricks scrambled in acres of rubble nearly 20 ft. high; of U.S. engineers gloomily remarking that maybe the best idea would be to raze everything and start afresh.

Growing distances, growing battles and still-growing Allied armies now called not for a miracle but for a supermiracle of supply unless more ports could be opened. From the few known and uncensored facts, the score on ports was a lot worse than it looked superficially:

P: Of relatively little use, because of their smallness and their dependence on tidal locks (almost certainly destroyed by the Germans), are the captured ports of Saint-Malo, Caen, Ostend, Zeebrugge, Boulogne, the still-besieged ports of Calais and Dunkirk.

P: More or less completely wrecked are the captured ports of Brest and Le Havre (where the liner Paris lies sunk on her side), the besieged ports of Lorient and Saint-Nazaire, and probably the still-to-be-besieged ports of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Hook of Holland.

P: Besides laboriously rebuilt Cherbourg, the best bets for General Eisenhower appeared to be 1) Rouen, nearly 80 miles up the Seine, which was swiftly taken, apparently without major damage, and became usable when Le Havre, at the mouth of the river, was captured. (At Rouen were more than 150 berths for ocean-going ships, Europe's largest oil-storage dock, facilities for transfer to river barges.) 2) Antwerp, also taken swiftly, with little damage, but not usable until the Germans have been driven from the mouth of the Scheldt. When Antwerp is opened, the supply lines to General Eisenhower's northern armies can be shortened some 300 miles.

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