ALLIES’ SLOW, SURE TACTICS ON WESTERN FRONT

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 3, 28 September 1939, Page 9

ALLIES’ SLOW, SURE TACTICS ON WESTERN FRONT

Pounding Forts Of Siegfried Line NAZIS STRIVING TO BREAK STEADY PROGRESSION French Gunners And Planes Most Active (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) Received Sept. 27, 9.20 p.m. NEW YORK > Sept ; 26 f The Paris correspondent of the "New York Times” says that gunners and aviators are most active on the Western Front. French heavy artillery in the Saarb^ en Zweibrucken sectors have continued to pound the first zone of the West Wail. lhe German artillery persisted in replying south-east of Zweibrucken, where they ave been concentrating their fire for several days. French reconnaissance planes are giving the correct range for t e guns an p ° L ° graph the damage after the shells fall. German fighters stove to drive them back, whereupon. French pursuit planes go into action. The pounding of the West Wall is likely to continue for a long time.

Most of the Maginot Line is sunken and the West Wall is mostly superstructure; the West Wall, therefore, is a better target for the French guns engaged in razing these superstructures, but it does not necessarily follow that when they are levelled there will be a mass advance. STORMING METHODS UNLIKELY. It was learned in the Great War that the intensity of artillery fire warned the enemy of an intention to advance, permitting them to bring up reserves behind the threatened sector. Both France and Britain have declared against rash offensives, and it is generally agreed that a storming of the West Wall would now come within that definition. Continuation of the present cautious tactics is therefore likely. So far the artillery action has. been to conquer the ground for an infantry advance to occupy. After a lull for digging-in the process is repeated. It is slow but sure, and, above all, economical of troops. PIGS AS SHOCK TROOPS. The Germans are striving to break that rhythm of progression by activity elsewhere, and today they are extending their heavy artillery fire to the region of the east bank of the River Lauter. _ The Swiss correspondent of the “New York Times reports that in the past four days the French have herded hundreds of pigs to a depth of two miles over mined sections of the German territory near the Luxemburg border, exploding the mines without endangering human lives, after which infantry occupied the ground.

Nazi Counter-Attacks Repulsed

On Northern Sector

(By Telegraph —Press Association—Copyright.)

LONDON, September 26.

It is officially announced in Paris that the French for the first time made contact with the principal field pill-boxes and trenches around Hornbach (on the northern sector),,where the frontier most closely approaches the Siegfried Line. Germans brought down two French planes in air combats, but the German losses are believed to be heayier. An earlier official French announcement stated that heavy artillery fire splintered portions of the German fortifications in the Rhineland The evacuation of civilians from the east of Saarbrucken had (been speeded up, and a new Nazi counter-attack was repulsed. It is unofficially stated in Paris that two German attacks in the Weissenburg and Pirmasens sectors were hurled back with the decimation of the retreating Germans.” The German High Command states that there has been only an artillery barrage and minor activity by advance patrols on the Western Front. -Five French planes are claimed to have been shot down. The French military correspondent “Excelsior says that a German barrage was aimed at preventing the French making any new action, and also to force them to retreat, but both objectives failed. _ The Basle correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that a squadron of 20 warplanes, believed to be French, flew over the Rhine, drawing fire from German anti-air-craft batteries.