ALLIED PROBLEMS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 95, 19 October 1944, Page 7

ALLIED PROBLEMS

Supply and the Weaihier Rec. noon. LONDON, October 18

Discussing; the stalemate on the Western Front, one of Field-Mar-shal Montgomery's staff officers is quoted by Renter's correspondent at Twenty-first Army Group headquarters as saying that future Allied^ progress depended first on administration, involving food and supply problems, and, in the second place, on the weather.

The Allies were overcoming the administration difficulties, he said, but the weather, which recently had seriously affected the Allied air forces' efforts to paralyse the German railways, would exert an ' important influence in the coming months. At present the Allies were merely jabbing at the enemy at Aachen and Nijmegen, but these operations were a necessary preliminary for a future breakthrough." :

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reported less than a mile and a half from Breskens, the main enemy base in the Scheldt pocket. The Germans are contesting every yard of ground, and it i s significant- that Allied aircraft have today reported demolitions in the Breskens area, where the enemy has begun to blow up installations and ammunition dumps. Allied planes, taking off every ten minutes during the day, have been blasting transport installations and strong points, and Spitfires blew up a reported German headquarters near Breskens.

The demolitions in the Breskens area and a considerable movement of enemy motor transport may be a sign of the beginning of the end for the Germans in the Scheldt pocket, says the correspondent of the Associated Press of Graat Britain with the Canadian Army in Holland. The Canadians, however, found the "going tough when they advanced 1000 yards in the direction of Oostburg.last night The position in the causeway leading to South Beyeland is unchanged, but there are indications that the Germans are massing north of the area. Reuters correspondent with the j American First Army says that the Gerj mans this morning threw in their first counter-attack in 30 hours when infantry, supported by a few tanks, assaulted our positions south of Wurselen. The fighting lasted for hours but the attack was contained. Troops of the American First Army have beaten off new counter-attacks near Aachen, and have pressed deepen into the north-eastern corner of the city. The Germans' have admitted that Aachen is cut off from the rest of the Reich.

Two important centres just beyond the Aachen front were hammered today by British and/American planes R.A.F. Lancaster made their first big attack on railway targets at Bonn while Fortresses and Liberators went for marshalling yards at Cologne 15 miles- to the north. Other American bombers attacked Cassel. More than 050 American heavy bombers took part. They were escorted by more than 600 fighters. * Reuters correspondent with the American Third Army says that the Americans have advanced nearly one mile along the west bank of the Moselle and are now within four miles of Metz, which is the nearest point to the city they have yet reached in xurcG*