WESTERN FRONT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 107, 2 November 1939, Page 14

WESTERN FRONT

PRELUDE TO BIG SCALE OFFENSIVE?

AIR ACTIVITY

SUCCESSFUL FLIGHTS OVER

GERMANY

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) (Received November 2, 1.10 p.m.)

LONDON, November 1.

As the armies enter the third month of the war they are still asking the same question: "When and where will the guns really go off on the Western Front?"

Paris'reports that the heavy guns of the -Siegfried Line roared into the itto:st v consistent action of the war, andthis, it is believed, might herald tKe: start of an offensive on a big scale. " The French repelled a thousand Germans who were trying id surround a village on the northern sector of the front.

As Germany's big guns boomed all day squadrons of Allied observation . planes penetrated deeply into German territory. Dispatches from the front say that seven squadrons of French machines completed their mission and returned safely, despite intensive fire.

German planes also flew over the Allied lines and anti-aircraft guns are reported to have brought down three.

The Air Ministry announced that Royal Air Force planes in the last twenty-four hours made successful reconnaissance flights over northwestern Germany, taking photographs. All returned.

A French communique issued this morning states: "There was reduced activity during the night."

The night communique reports the usual activity of light infantry elements, on both sides.

A German communique asserts that six enemy planes, of which four were British, were shot down on the West Front and in the North Sea on October 30.

The "Petit Parisien" says: "The British troops are becoming more and more numerous in France and their material more abundant. The British effort in transporting the troops can only be described as fantastic."

/ Driving his own car, the Duke of Gloucester visited the front lines in drenching rain and inspected heavy guns.