BATTLE FOR DUTCH ISLANDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25660, 7 October 1944, Page 7

BATTLE FOR DUTCH ISLANDS

GERMANS’ CRITICAL POSITION LbNDON, Oct. 5. The battle for the Dutch islands appears to have begun, says Reuter’s correspondent with the British Second Army. Nine miles of both the southern and northern banks of the great Scheldt waterway is in Canadian hands, and the Germans are withdrawing in such haste northwards that General Crerar’s men in some sectors are advancing against extremely light opposition.

Isolated enemy strongpoints continue to fight on just outside the Antwerp perimeter, but are slowly and surely being eliminated.

With the British nearing Tilburg and the Poles sallying up the road to Breda from Baarlenassau, the enemy on the western flank of General Dempsey’s Nijmegen corridor is facing a very difficult problem. Reuter’s correspondent with the Second Tactical Air Force says that reconnaissance pilots to-day reported enemy movements eastward through the Zuidbeveland causeway between Walcheren and the Dutch mainland.

The-German High Command faces a critical decision whether to hold on to Rotterdam, The Hague, and-Haar-lem. or make a desperate effort to pulj out through country already made difficult for transport by the Tactical Air Force’s unceasing efforts.