THIRD ARMY PRESSING ATTACKS TOWARDS METZ

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 217, 13 September 1944, Page 5

THIRD ARMY PRESSING ATTACKS TOWARDS METZ

The Associated Press correspondent with the American Third Army reports that General Patton's troops which smashed through the Maginot Line are battling to-day for Thionville. General Patton's troops are making good progress with their new crossings of the Moselle River south of Nancy, states Reuters correspondent with the United States Third Army. They are pressipg the attacks towards Metz. The Third Army spokesman this evening declared that the situation on the Moselle is more promising them for several days. The Associated Press correspondent says that, after week of bloody to-and-fro fighting, American armour and infantry to-night are flowing across the Moselle at two firmly-established Bridgeheads, while footholds have been secured at two other places. The Third Army spokesman said the attack launched in the Toul area yesterday is progressing satisfactorily. The American general who broke through the Moselle defences juggled his troops back and forth along 50 miles of river in order to spread the German defences and then struck hard against weak spots. _An American broadcasting from the First Army front to-night says Americans this afternoon passed through an unnamed town in the vicinity of Trier, near the point of the Americans' first penetration of the German frontier, and that German civilians, instead of offering resistance, greeted the Americans uproariously, threw flowers, embraced them and even presented gifts of German money.

The town of Eupen, near where the second Allied breach of the German frontier has been made, will be remembered by thousands of New Zealand veterans of the last war as the large railway centre where 'hey entrained for the Rhine following the armistice at the end of 1918. Jt was there the long road trek through Northern Belgium, along the banks of the Meuse River, ended, and the train journey to Cologne commenced.