AACHEN FALLS TO AMERICANS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 250, 21 October 1944, Page 5

AACHEN FALLS TO AMERICANS

(N.Z.P.A.—Copyright.—Rec. 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, October 20. Aachen has fallen to the Americans. The occupation of the entire city was completed late this afternoon. The city was reduced to a shambles.

The casualties were the lightest ever sustained for an action of this nature, says the National Broadcasting Corporation correspondent with the American First Army. Official time for the fall of the city was given as 3.30 p.m.

The last major German stronghold in Aachen collapsed under direct fire from an American 155 mm gun from close range, says the Associated Press correspondent at Aachen. The gun literally knocked down the building in which S.S. troops were making a last desperate stand. The capture of Aachen cost the Americans amazingly few casualties because they never attempted a frontal assault, but approached the job obliquely, working around south-east and north-east and then slowly squeezing into the heart of the city.

The British United Press correspondent reports that Aachen Cathedral (containing relics of Charlemagne) is almost undamaged compared with the rest of the city, which, for practical purposes, has been destroyed. A small pocket of Germans is still holding out outside the city limits.