GERMANS PURSUED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21548, 30 October 1944, Page 3

GERMANS PURSUED

RETREAT TO. MAAS BATTLE FOR BERGEN ENEMY BLASTED OUT (10.30 a.m.) LONDON, Oct. 29. The Allied pursuit of the Germans falling back on the Maas continued on Saturday night with the Canadians pushing 1000 yards north of Bergen Op Zoom, says the Associated Press' correspondent. Bitter fighting is still going on in the Scheldt pocket, but the Canadians, pushing the Germans back to the coast, captured positions only two miles east of Kadzand. They captured Nieuw Borgvliet, near Bergen Op Zoom. The lighting for Bergen Op Zoom was at such close range that the British tanks ran right up to the German slit trenches while the crews dropped grenades into them, reports the British United Press’ correspondent. The Germans in the village of Wouwsche, which lies astride the road from Bergen Op Zoom, built pillboxes and covered with with hay so that even from a few yards they looked like haystacks. A colonel told a correspondent: “There was only one way to clean them up—that was to go alter them and drag them out. Our men broke down doors and either, killed or captured the Huns in them.” The correspondent added that one platoon on the southern edge of Bergen Op Zoom was told to capture a group of houses at all costs. Twentythree men who were told to reach their objective charged across a 50yard wide field under the Germans withering fire. Seven men fell dead and 12 were left wounded, but four went on. The sergeant went berserk when a bullet pierced his nose. He killed six Germans single-handed. A German High Command report states that the British are making an all-out drive for the river crossings south of Dordtrecht, particularly the Moardijk bridge.