BREST BATTLE OVER

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24368, 21 September 1944, Page 5

BREST BATTLE OVER

ORGANISED DEFENCE CEASES (Heo, 11 p.m.) LONDON. Sept. 20, To-day’a communique from Supreme Headquarters announces that all organised German resistance has ceased at Brest, and on the Crozon Peninsula, south of the port. • The Official German News Agency announced that General Ramcke, with the remnants of his followers, left the smouldering ruins of Brest under cover of night and made his way to the Peninsula of Crozon, south of Brest. It added that General Ramcke decided to leave Brest because he did not wish to turn the cellars, which were filled with Gorman wounded, into a battlefield. It added that the lines sealing the Crozon Peninsula had* been pierced, The Americans had penetrated the western and southern part of the peninsula, while the German forces had rallied on the northern tip. Violent fighting was in progress on the steep, rocky slopes and deep gorges along the coast, where thick undergrowth is affording the Germans good cover. VONRUNDSTEDT IN COMMAND AGAIN GERMAN WESTERN ARMIES LONDON. Sept. IQ, Field-Marshal von Rundstedt, the senior ranking officer in the German Army, is back .again in command of the German armies on the Western Front, He was earlier replaced in that command by Field-Marshal Rommel, who was wounded, Rommel was succeeded by Field-Marshal von Kluge, who disappeared from the scene shortly afterwards and was replaced by FieldMarshal Model, transferred from the Eastern Front. Model has now given place to von Rundstedt. GERMAN COAL MINERS MADE TO FIGHT PRISONER’S STATEMENT (Rec, 8 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 19. The altitude of German miners to the war situation was summed up in a statement by a German prisoner to a correspondent “within a few miles of the Siegfried Line.” The prisoner said: “1 am glad to be a prisoner because I know nothing about fighting and war, and because I am a miner. “A few weeks ago when the first of the broken German armies began trooping back into the Siegfried Line, we miners were told to .drop our picks and shovels and take up arms. We are all local residents on this border. and for us the coal face Is our job, not fighting. I know that if you could supply a guide to your lines we miners would gladly walk in with him to surrender,” •