Americans Pushing Into Reich

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 220, 16 September 1944, Page 5

Americans Pushing Into Reich

LONDON, Sept. 14. Strong American concentrations, battling on a wide front to-day, pushed between seven and eight miles into Germany, says Reuter’s correspondent at First Army Headquarters. The advance was made in the direction of Prum, which is an important road junction. The Americans are fighting 2000 to 3000 yards from the town. The enemy opposition has been strengthened along the entire front in Germany. His artillery fire particularly has increased. The Americans one mile southeast of Aachen are meeting fire from heavy artillery probably being fired from the city itself. Infantry south of Aachen pushed through the densest forests as they fought their way into the outer fringes of the Siegfried Line. Troops reached the vicinity of Fringhaus Malattshaute, which is six pr seven miles southeast of Aachen. Increasing resistance in this area slowed down the Americans, but they are still making satisfactory progress. The chief resistance is coming from pillboxes supported by heavy artillery firing from behind the Siegfried Line. The Associated Press’s correspondent inside Germany says that American troops and tanks smashed two miles into the Siegfried Line northwest of Trier (scene of the first penetration into the Reich). The Germans fought fanatically in defence of their home soil from thinly garrisoned and lightly armed fortifications. They were blasted out of pillbox after pillbox. The Americans attacked at noon and the tanks skidded through the mud made by a night of rain. Some of the pillboxes, by-passed by

the initial wave, are being blasted by tanks at point-blank range. Another Associated Press correspondent says that Germans to-night are fighting from hastily-improvised positions in front of the main defences of the Siegfried Line. The German civilians’ anger and fright have lessened and there is no evidence of civilian resistance. it is a day of successes, which a staff officer summed up as “very satisfactory.’’

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