HEAVY FIGHTING ROUND AACHEN

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24370, 23 September 1944, Page 7

HEAVY FIGHTING ROUND AACHEN

CITY SAID TO BE IN FLAMES

BATTLE IN STOLBERG

DESOLATION IN BREST

NO BUILDINGS WHOLE

(Rcc. 11 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 22. American Ist Army forces are engaged in heavy fighting round Aachen, which is said to be in flames.

"A large-scale German counter-at-tack was thrown back in the Wallendorf area," said a dispatch from a correspondent with the American Ist Army yesterday. “As the Germans retired they left a covering detachment, which was wiped out. German activity in other parts of this sector is mainly restricted to patrolling. , “Fierce house-to-house fighting is raging in the eastern and northern sections of Stolbcrg. The Germans loosed a heavy bobmardment against the American-held part of the town this afternoon. Not a single building is undamaged. The Gormans have cut passages four feet square between the cellars of the houses and shops, through which snipers can move at will to all parts of the town,” A press liaison officer at Hitler’s headquarters, Major Valzer, in a broadcast, admitted that Allied columns on the Maastricht salient had forced their way forward a number of miles. He said that they were west of Geilenkirchcn, 12i miles north of Aachen. "Allied aeroplanes and artillery were called on yesterday to blast German transport taking components of a German factory eastwards,” says the Associated Press. “Forward observers in the Aachen area saw machinery being dismantled and loaded on a train of lorries and they sent out a call for action."

35,000 PRISONERS IN MONTH OF FIGHTING LONDON, Sept. 21. “The battle for Brest, which occupied a month, resulted in the capture of thousands of prisoners,” says the correspondent of the Exchange Telegraph Agency with the United States forces in Brest. “The total for the campaign is more than 35,000, while the military cemeteries round the fortress are filled with crosses over those who died fighting. Appropriately enough, the surrender ceremony occurred in the Place President Wilson. “There is not a whole building in the city. It is possible to walk for miles among blackened, gutted shells through desolation and the reeking smell of death, and see nothing but a stray animal prowling or a forlorn human searching for some fragment which may remain of his smashed, pulverised belongings, “The capitulation of Brest came in three distinct phases. First, fighting ceased east of the river, where the Americans scaled the old city wall and swung south to take the submarine pons and dockyards. Then it ceased on the west of the river, where the Americans, fighting from house to house, surrounded the German command post within the city; and finally on the peninsula across the bay, where strong forces of the enemy were steadily forced back. At 3.30 p.m. the German colonel commanding the forces within the old city handed over his revolver in token of surrender.

“General Ramcke. the German commander in Brest, was wounded several days ago by a shell which exploded under the car in which he was riding. His chauffeur was captured, but General Ramcke was taken back to his own lines. , . “The submarine pens, which were the most hotly defended of all the strongpoints, were captured on Sunday night after Americans, suppoited by Churchill flame-throwing tanks, had gained an entrance to the od walled city and fought their way to the sea. , , _ “More than 1000 wounded Germans are believed to have been housed in hastily prepared hospitals in tunnels round the city walls. Conditions were appalling in one underground hospital, where 300 German wounded were found. Two German doctors were working without an adeQuats water supply or dressings.”

First Ship Unloads at Marseilles.— “The arrival and direct unloading at Marseilles of the first cargo ship to dock since the liberation of the city is announced.” says a correspondent in Rome. “The vessel was an Ameri-can-built Liberty ship flying the British flag and she berthed 16 a £fJ salvage and reconstruction units had arrived to begin the rehabilitation of the great pprt.”—London. September 31.