June 11, 1940 – News Of The World – NBC Blue Network – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
June 11, 1940 – A fast moving day in the war. With German armies some 40 miles outside of Paris, and attacking French ports up and down the coast, visions of 1914 were everywhere, all over Europe this day.
Reports from Berlin indicated there was no “new information” to report at press-time. However, vague reports were filtering in of German air attacks on British Naval bases throughout the Mediterranean, and that the British in return bombed Italian airdromes in strategic positions, and that the British fleet had gone into action. Although the information being received had yet to be confirmed, what little information was available indicated these attacks and counterattacks had not been successful. The question of the day was; Is Italian involvement in the war really necessary? According to some, the German Army was doing fine all by itself and that Italy was lacking. Further word from the German High Command communiqué indicated the ‘battle’ between the Canal coast and the River Merse was still going “full blast”; that the British army was being persistently pursued along the two major points of the drive. Fighting in Reims and the Argonne was still at fevered pitch. It also seemed obvious, according to the communiqué, that the German Army were concentrating their efforts upon smashing the harbor facilities along the French channel ports up and down the coast. The German High Command went so far as to say the Army had crossed the Seine at several points and that Rouen was now in German hands, but the claim had not been confirmed. What was confirmed was the report that German forces were now 40 miles West and Northwest of Paris, while advance patrols were reportedly within 20 miles of the Capitol.
The new way of waging war bore very little, if any, resemblance to the war of 1914 – between mechanized divisions and air-support, fighting a trench war was a thing of the past.
And that’s just a small sample of what was going on, this June 11, 1941 as reported by The Blue Network’s News Of The World.
