LIGHTLY MANNED

Evening Star, Issue 25400, 3 February 1945, Page 7

LIGHTLY MANNED

SIEGFRIED LIKE MYSTERY GUNS FOUND ABANDONED ■ # •' LONDON, February 2. ' The Times ' correspondent at Allied Headquarters says that there is little doubt that the urgency-of the eastern situation Has led to a general loosening of enemy resistance along the western front. The threat to Strasbourg, which only last week ..loomed large, has now virtually gone. "General Hodge's men are confronted with a great Siegfried Lino mystery," says the ' Daily Mail's ' correspondent on the western front. " After crossing the border they formed up in assault order, prepared for fierce fighting, but up to nightfall to-day nothing had happened. The West Wall has shown scarcely a sign of life, and American patrols .met only a few dozen rounds of small arms fire. They found six concrete pillboxes empty, and in one place found a 250-millimetre gun —one of the Germans' biggest—abandoned with the breech blown, evidently within the last 24 hours. Other patrols found 12 88-millimetre guns and quantities of ammunition. " ' It is so quiet that it is* eerie,' said one, officer-". It was announced from Allied Headquarters: " We have now recovered all the ground lost to Marshal von Rundstedt's Ardennes offensive."