LUFTWAFFE FAILURE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 69, 19 September 1944, Page 5

LUFTWAFFE FAILURE

~ . LONDON, September IS. ♦ tr,,? aeriai train of Allied SMers> nearly 300 miles long-, flew to Holland today with reinforcements and supplies for the airborne iorces there This time, unlike yesterday, the Luftwaffe tried to intervene. As the great convoy of heavy aircraft swept over Dutch territory with fighters swirling- around, a formation of about 60 Messerschnutts and Pocke-Wulfs tried to attack. Allied Mustanas pounced on them and quickly took a heavy toll. At least 27 were snot down and the rest never even got near the transport aircraft

_ Allied losses were two planes, and it is doubtful if the Luftwaffe got even those; they were probably hit by flak.

*nA»vWTr°sde?tS at Su? ref e Headq™rters tonight say that «££ yiK" COnVOy Ved than went

The latest news of the airborne .forces in Holland comes from a war correspondent who heads his dispatch, "From behind the German lines in Holland." He says that just about the time the gliders were landing reinforcements the British Second Army pushing into Holland from the south made its first link-up with Allied airborne troops.

Patrols of the Second Army have by-passed the town of Eindhoven. Correspondents at Supreme Headquarters tonight speak of heavy ngnting at points where troops were dropped yesterday, but they say that first reports show that our men have taken their initial objectives and capture:d prisoners. .'lt is announced that all the Allied airborne forces in Holland are under the * personal command of LieutGeneral F. Browning, who landed by glider yesterday. General Browning

■General E. A. B. Browning-

is second in. command of the First Allied Airborne Army under LieutGeneral Brereton.

- In Germany today there has been what correspondents describe as •some of the toughest fighting since D Day." The German are said to have switched reinforcements from the Russian front. With these, and with more aircraft and guns than the .Americans haye met for some time, the enemy is throwing in desperate counter-attacks. But the Americans are holding firm. At one point beyond Aachen there has been extremely bitter close fighting, with no-man's-land only 50 yards wide. So' far the Germans have failed to capture any of the Siegfried Line pill-boxes which the Americans took a day or two ago. .There has been more hard fighting around Metz. .

One of General Patton's spearheads is reported to have pushed 18 miles beyond Nancy. . Canadian troops at Boulogne have reached the harbour and are fighting in the streets. German prisoners are rolling in.