OFFENSIVE GROWING

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 21, 22 December 1944, Page 2

OFFENSIVE GROWING

3.45 P.M. EDITION

MAIN BLOW YET TO COME. SITUATION STILL SERIOUS. (N.Z. Press Association. —Copyright.) (Rec. 10.55 a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 21. Although they report several encouraging developments in our counter-measures to the German offensive in Belgium and Luxembourg front-line correspondents stress that the situation is still serious as the enemy’s main blow has apparently yet to come. Americans have recaptured Stavelot and are engaged in a fierce battle to retake Malmedy, which the Germans captured. A 48-hour time lag ou official news of all the operations on the First Army sector is being maintained for'security reasons.

German spcarhca/Js by noon on Tuesday bad penetrated 30 miles into Belgium and reached a point 14 miles west of Malmedy. The Germans have developed two deep wedges, one of which was driven 10 miles beyond Stavelot and the other three-fourths of the way across Luxembourg. In the latter drive the Germans penetrated to just east of Wilts!. They also reached Clcrf. Further unspecified gains have been made ■west of Consdort.

Reuter’s correspondent at 21st Army Group Headquarters says that the situation ou the First Army front is not deteriorating. The initial iorce of the enemy’s blow has been blunted and Allied guns and armour, hustling hourly to the most threatened zones, are already throwing the weight of their firepower against the advancing enemy hordes.

Reuter’s correspondent with the First Army reports that the Americans before dawn today destroyed an entire German tank and infantry force attacking their lines at the northern shoulder of the offensive front.

The Americans still held Malmedy this morning. (Apparently it was captured by the Germans later in the day.) An American patrol succeeded in recrossing a small river south of Stavclot, but lurthcr south 25 German tanks and half-tracks have broken through an American roadblock in Luxembourg. An American broadcaster in Belgium reported today that the Germans had launched 11 new attacks south-west of St. Y'ith in the past 12 hours. “Enemy tunks and infantry are showing up in areas not thought of last night,” lie "added. DURATION OF OFFENSIVE.

• It was officially stated at First Army Headquarters today that von Runtistedt's offensive is not likely to he halted this week “as our countermeasures take time”.

Prisoners say the German offensive is aimed at giving the German nation Aachen as a Christinas present. The British United Press correspondent with the First Army says. American tame destroyers and bazookas’are knocking out German Tiger and Partner tuiiKs one after another, but still they keep coming. Town alter town is being overrun. The enemy’s tank army followed by the finest infantry he has is keeping up its hammering attacks against the hirst Army. A spokesman at Field-Marshal Montgomery’s Headquarters deeiarod: “The uerman attacks have made considerable progress and we must expect them to make more, but the applied countermeasures are now beginning to take effect.”

A thick swirling mist still envelops much of the battie area and most of the front from Aachen to Arnhem.

Reuter’s military correspondent points out that today’s Shaof communique maintains strict silence about the most important sector of the German counter-offensive—the area between Malmedy and Liege. The Germans here claim to have penetrated to within 12 miles of Liege, an advance of 14 miles behind the last official placing. One encouraging feature is the Allies’ strengthened hold on the Monscliau area. this little town is the hinge on which the German attack is ■swinging northward. If the First Army can hold. Monschau and retain its grip on the situation here, such Allied counter-measures as are clearly proceeding in the area between Aachen and Liege will stand a much greater chance of succeeding. The Shaof communique is also silent about the Gorman thrust through Northern Luxembourg, which the Germans say has reached the French frontier east of llastogrie. The German News Agency today claimed that tho Germans had penetrated into the Ardennes, crossed Northern Luxembourg to the Belgian frontier and cut the Bastogne-Liege road on a wide front. The agency claimed that American prisoners now totalled 20,000. DIVISIO NS 11E-ESTABLI SHE 1).

“Many of the German divisions we are now lighting were previously beaten up in tho .Battle of Normandy,” says an American broadcaster with the First Army. “In recent months they have been training and getting new men and equipment and they have not only been re-established but some divisions which were the backbone of the enemy’s Normandy offensive have been re-established in full strength. It is a long time since a German division with a full complement of men, guns and vehicles has appeared on any battlefield.

“The Germans also realiso that this is the big attack and are fighting furiously. In pockets we are now beginning to clear out, for example, S.S. men are fighting literally to the death. We found at one strongpoint that they were defending 30 German corpses and not a single live German.”

A sudden lunge by Seventh Army forces into the first belt of pillboxes, and dragon teeth anti-tank traps of the Siegfried defences has caused the Germans to rush'concentrations of selfpropelled guns to the threatened area, says Renter's correspondent at Sixth Army Group Headquarters. The Americans today are engaged in very bitter fighting half a mile inside-the Palatinate section of the Siegfried Line in the Bundenthal area where they are using some German defences as a protection against the furious shelling. The Associated Press correspondent with the Third Army reports that the Americans have driven the last Germans from Dillingen. Activity .elsewhere on this front is on ' a minor scale.