PIERCING DEFENCE SYSTEM

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 25055, 20 November 1944, Page 5

PIERCING DEFENCE SYSTEM

NAZIS ADMIT FALL OF GEILENKIRCHEN By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received November 19, 11.30 p.m.) LONDON, November 19 ; British Second Army forces, who recently have been fighting only in Holland, opened a new attack at 7 a.m. yesterday southeast of Geilenkirchen. This first major British penetration of Germany was carried out in conjunction with the American Ninth Army assault further south. Reuter's military correspondent thinks that the sudden appearance of the British in this area indicates that General Eisenhower, ,'n a masterly switch of his forces, has revealed the main point of an all-out offensive. The Germans have admitted the loss of Geilenkirchen, one of the enemy's bastions guarding the approaches to the Plain of Cologne. Geilenkirchen was the first objective of the new British attack. It is 12 miles north of Aachen. Here, on the approaches to the Cologne Plain, the Germans have built a defence system as elaborate as anything the Second Army has yet tackled—a network of pillboxes, mine belts, continuous trenches and thick wiring. Against this the Second Army commander, General Dempsey, concentrated the massive apparatus of modern warfare—flail tanks to beat a way through the mines, artillery to soften strongpoints and knock out the German 88mm. guns, and rocket Typhoons and fighter-bombers to strike at German froop concentrations. The two American armies, the First and the Ninth, on the light of the British Second Army, have been making steady but limited headway. The German defence has'been patchy. ; The American Third Army is attacking at Metz, and further north General Patton's forces are reported a mile or two into Germany near the Luxemburg frontier. Good news comes from the sector of the First French Army, tyhere, according to a correspondent at Supreme Headquarters, troops made exceptionally good progress on a 13-mile front (extending northward from the Swiss frontier.