PATTON ASSAULTS GERMAN BORDER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 284, 30 November 1944, Page 5

PATTON ASSAULTS GERMAN BORDER

OH FRONT OF 36 MILES "Irresistible Weight Of Men And Guns" Rec. 1 p.m. LONDON, Nov. 29. General Patton's forces are now across or along the German border on a 36-mile front, says the Daily Express correspondent with the United States Third Army. Advancing at an average rate of two to four miles a day, the Third Army moves on Germany with irresistible weight of men and guns and endless supply columns, threatening the great cities of Merzig, Saarlouis, baarbrucken and Saareguemines. Reuters correspondent says that several large coal mines, which are outcrops of the main Saar seam, are already in American hands. General Patton's front stretches roughly from Luxemburg to a point ten miles south of Saarbrucken. Infantry units pushed within half a s m . the Saar River to-day and edged within three miles of Saarlouis. Other units gained almost two miles, capturing heights two miles south of Merzig and overlooking the city. The Americans captured Fort Privat, one of the last major Metz forts. They took prisoner 480 German garrison troops. Field-Marshal von Rundstedt's front in the Vosges area is breaking up before two powerful Allied punches north and south of the Alsace Mountains, says Reuters correspondent at Supreme Headquarters. The Germans between the Allied pincers in the narrow VosgesKnine corridor are evacuating across •?i I " lver to Baden in an orderly withdrawal, mostly at night time under cover of bad weather. General i atch s left wing to-day is driving north on a broad front through the Vosges foothills north-west of Strasbourg and roughly parallel to the Knine.

The British United Press correspondent with the Seventh Army sa ys that American forces driving north from both sides of the Saverne oap made a general advance along e whole front to within 12 miles of the; German border. Paris radio reports that a large quantity of booty and many prisT. n ?J" s i l , ave been taken in the Belfort-Mulhouse sector, where the Germans are trapped in a pocket. l< rench troops closed a second pocket near the Rhine-Rhone Canal, lo miles south-east of Belfort.