S.H.A.E.F. [Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force]: The retreat of the beaten German army through the ever-narrowing Falaise-Argentan gap has become very near a rout. In his desperation to pull out before the pincers close, Von Kluge has been forced to send his columns streaming east along roads in daylight and it is a military fact that a daylight withdrawal is a stage before rout.

The whole German army in the west is now facing complete encirclement. Last reports put the escape gap at just over 18 miles wide — and it is steadily narrowing.

Springing the greatest trap of the Battle for France, British, American and Canadian armies are today seriously threatening to cut off and destroy two embattled and broken German armies as they squeeze the Falaise Allied gap, says Reuter’s Special Correspondent with American forces in France.

A total of more than 100,000 men, approximately 12,000 tanks and nearly 400 huge German assault guns were fleeing in an effort to … get through to the exit which massive Allied jaws are threatening to close very soon. — Dawn Delhi

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2019