DRIVE FROM BELGIUM

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24366, 19 September 1944, Page 5

DRIVE FROM BELGIUM

Advance by 2nd Army “TWO MILES INTO HOLLAND” (Hoc. 7 p.m.) LONDON. Sept. 17. “While the Allied’ air-borne forces were dropping into Holland the British 2nd Army to-day launched an attack into Holland from its bridgehead over the Escaut Canal,” says the Exchange Telegraph Agency correspondent with the 2nd Army. Reuter’s correspondent, in a later dispatch, reports that the British smashed out from the Beeringen bridgehead and advanced two miles into Holland. • “The operation is going entirely according to plan in perfect weather,” says the correspondent. “It has been impossible for the last few days to hide the fact that ■ some major attack was pending. Reinforcements of men and tanks have been pouring through Brussels in a continuous str63ni ** The Exchange Telegraph Agency correspondent adds: “Rocket-firing Typhoons and fighter-bombers smashed down on the German defences as British tanks went speeding into Holland with carrier-borne Infantry following up ready to deal with German strongpoints. , “A heavy Allied artillery barrage preceded the attack. The rate of fire was slow at the beginning but quickened up in the last 15 minutes, blotting out the countryside with a curtain of smoke and dust as the tanks moved in. “A strong force of Bomber Command Lancasters in daylight, on Sunday evening dropped nearly 1700 tons of bombs in a concentrated attack on important gun positions of the German garrison in Walcheren Island, at the mouth of the Schelde. The weather was clear and the target was visually identified!.”