12-MILE GAP

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 31, 6 February 1945, Page 5

12-MILE GAP

Enemy Line South Of

Aachen

SMASH BY U.S. TROOPS

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.)

Ree. 11 a.m. LONDON, February 5. Approximately 40,000 American infantrymen, representing- the greater part of four divisions of the United States First Army, have smashed a gap 12 miles through the double Siegfried Line 25 miles south of Aachen, says the Exchange Telegraph Agency's correspondent at SHAEF. This morning they were fighting stiff battles in slush that has developed following the thaw. Some troops are pushing- deeper eastward through outpost fortifications.

Other strong forces of the First and Third Armies farther down the 30-mile Ardennes front are battering their way forward with only a single line of fortifications to crack.

fighting in the streets of Herhelscheid and Woffelsbach. These villages lie north of Ruhrberg, which was captured yesterday, and of Schmidt. American and French troops striking south of Colmar and north of Mulhouse have met near Roufach, nine miles south of Colmar, in the middle of what has since the autumn been a German salient across the upper Rhine and projecting into the southern Vosges. Reports that they have cut off German forces in the mountains to the west are not yet confirmed. This German salient has been shrinking rapidly in the last few days under steady pressure by Allied forces, which had at first made little progress. The process of clearing out the Germans who remain west of the Rhine in Alsace is continuing. Both sides continue active, patrolling on many sectors of the British and Canadian front on the Maas, says the Exchange Telegraph agency's correspondent at SHAEF. A correspondent at Field-Marshal Montgomery" headquarters says that the British and the Canadians made concentrated patrolling along the Maas from south of Venlo northward around the Nijmegen bend.

General Hodges's troops are now approaching the second line of the double belt of fortifications, raining heavy blows against the Germans in pillboxes, particularly at two places, one by the Roer River dam beside the chain of lakes north-west of Gemund, and the other just to the south in the vicinity of Schleiden. There is no confirmation at SHAEF of the German admission that they were thrown out of this bastion, but it is likely that our patrols entered the town yesterday. The German admission, if true, means a definite breach of the most serious obstacle between the First Army and the Rhone.

Hellenthal, south of Schleiden, which fell to the Second Infantry Division without a fight, was the scene of a stubborn battle today when the enemy counter-attacked in some strength. Fighting is continuing tonight in the streets of the town. There is also