GERMAN ATTACK

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 146, 18 December 1944, Page 6

GERMAN ATTACK

FIERCE AIR BATTLE

LUFTWAFFE'S BIG EFFORT LONDON, December 17. The Germans are driving hard in their major attack against a 60-mile stretch of the American First Army front north of Luxemburg. Some ot the German thrusts have cut several miles into the American lines, but others have been held. The enemy is using paratroops on a considerable scale. At least two of the transports carrying these men have been shot down, and other paratroops have been pinned down by fire in the surrounding woods. The skies over the battle area have been the scene of some of the fiercest air combats of the war in' western Europe. The Luftwaffe came up in great strength, and latest figures show that 97 aircraft, a fifth of the total sent up, were destroyed, while 31 planes of the American Ninth Air Force were shot down. Some of the deadly British rocket-firing Typhoons were sent in, and their rockets, and the American bombs, spread havoc among the Germans moving up to the front. While they do not minimise the German attack, there is sober confidence among'the Allied- commanders that the enemy's blows will be held. MAY BE SPREADING NORTH. The Germans are counter-attacking with more infantry.'tanks, and particularly aircraft than they have been able to muster for some considerable time The main weight of the attack is being felt by the American First Army in the region where Germany meets southern Belgium and Luxemburg, and there are indications that the attack is spreading to the American Ninth Army further north. The German attacks began yesterday with a series of jabs, backed up by a great many infantry and at least one panzer division. An indication that the attack was better planned than usual was that scores of enemy parachute troops were div.jped behind our lines with instructions to destroy communications. They had been told that the advancing German army would release them tonight, but many of them have fallen into Allied hands. It is too

early to get tlie new German attack in proper perspective, but one correspondent says, that it began in strength which-the Germans would find difficult to maintain.

General Patch's men, who crossed the border only -two days ago. today began a new attack on the Siegfried Line. • Hundreds of American guns are pouring thousands of shells into the German pill-boxes, while from above dive-bombers are screaming to the attack. •