BATTLE OF TANKS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25661, 9 October 1944, Page 5

BATTLE OF TANKS

FATE OF ENEMY AT STAKE HEAVY ARTILLERY FIRE LONDON, Oct. 6. The Evening Standard’s correspondent on the Beggendorf sector of the front says the outcome of the largest battle so far between American and German tanks, which began last night, will determine the fate of the Germans in this area. The great volume of German artillery fire has slowed down General Hodges’s offensive to a walk. The Germans all last night threw large numbers of new guns into the battle. There is little prospect of any advance which will make any appreciable tactical change on this front until the artillery and tanks have been dealt with. The enemy is using the hills and great slagheaps dotting the countryside as defensive positions. His artillery is firing over a prepared field on which the ranges are corrected to the last inch. The British United Press correspondent quotes one American tank commander as saying: “The fighting here is tougher than at Anzio. The Germans’ artillery fire is the heaviest we have experienced.” Übach has been reduced to rubble. The Germans, prodding the Allied salient, counter-attacked three times, says the British United Press correspondent with the British Second Army in Holland. The strongest counterattack was launched at the north-west corner of the spearhead in the neighbourhood of Heusden, 13 miles west of Arnhem, on the Neder Rhine. The Germans used the greater part of a battalion against a narrow section of our line and our troops were pushed back 1000 yards before the line was tightened. Second Army troops reformed in the afternoon and launched their own counter-attack, regaining all the lost ground, They killed at least 200 Germans and took 75 prisoners. Heavy German counter-attacks are being made against the Americans in and around Fort Briant, says Reuter’s correspondent with the American Third : Army. The Germans attempting to re-, lieve the defenders of the fort attacked with tanks and ’ infantry after a neighbouring fort had heavily shelled the Americans. Resistance is stiffening all along the Moselle front. The artillery duels, are the heaviest so far. It is increasingly clear that the Germans in this area are hoping to establish something resembling last war’s trench warfare. Germans can be seen with picks and shovels digging trenches and dug-outs. The Americans of the Seventh Army are pushing ahead in steadily-worsen-ing weather. They are now within eight miles of Belfort. A Czechoslovak unit is now operating with the British Army on the western front.