CANADIANS TAKE DUTCH TOWN

Southland Times, Issue 25484, 3 October 1944, Page 5

CANADIANS TAKE DUTCH TOWN

German Attack Near Huisen

(Rec. 8.40 p.m.) LONDON, October 2. The Canadians have captured Brecht and have also liberated Baer le Due, six miles north-west of Turnhout. The Allied forces in the area have advanced two miles westward. A heavy enemy attack in the Huisen area is being held and the enemy has made no ground. Reuter’s correspondent says forward units of the United States 3rd Army have advanced several miles and occupied high ground, six miles north-west of Chateau Salins. Activity elsewhere on the Moselle front is confined to artillery duels and patrol activity. ( The Canadians today reached the Belgian-Dutch frontier south-west of Tilburg, says Reuter’s correspondent with the Ist Canadian Army. The Canadians are now poised for the entry into Holland, apparently against diminishing German resistance.

ALLIED CONTROL IN GERMANY

CHAOS IN BELGIUM COMPARED

(Rec. 8.10 p.m.) NEW YORK, Oct. 2. “There is an odd contrast between the strict and just military government imposed on captured German towns by the American Ist Army and the somewhat chaotic conditions prevailing across the border where the liberated Belgians are carrying political, and personal revenge to ominous lengths,” reports the correspondent of The New York Times at Roetgen in Germany. “There has not been a single serious infraction of the Ist Army’s ordinances since it entered Germany a fortnight ago. A curfew has been imposed and all cameras, binoculars, and firearms have been collected. The inhabitants have been forbidden to travel from one village to another. "Colonel A. K. Billings heads the temporary military Government which will eventually be replaced by a permanent Allied military Government. Colonel Billings has installed Ludvig Barth as temporary burgomaster. Barth was one of the two Nazi officials who stayed behind when the German Army withdrew and he is believed to be still pro-Nazi. However, Colonel Billings said that Barth, who had done everything the Americans had asked, will be replaced, any Nazi or suspected Nazi officials, being utilized solely to speed up local organization. “Smoothly functioning, the military Government here contrasts with the situation in Belgian toyvns like Nverviers, Spa and Liege where those in authority are imprisoning suspected collaborationists without explanation and conducting searches without warrants. It is clear that there is a good deal of personal revenge mixed in with , honest feeling against the collaborators and there is no Government in this part of Belgium strong enough to deal with the situation.” FOOD POSITION IN BELGIUM (P.A.) WELLINGTON, October 2. The Consulate General of Belgium in New Zealand makes the following official declaration: — “The New Zealand Press published recently certain, statements emanating from certain journalists, conspicuously among whom figures the American H. R. Knickerbocker, who was at the time correspondent in Brussels of The Chicago Sun, to the effect that ‘the French and Belgians as a whole were eating more and better food than the British when the Allies invaded Europe.’ Mr Knickerbocker added to this false report the cruel and insulting query: ‘Where are the shabby and downtrodden victims of the Germans?’ ”

“The Belgian Government’s reply is as follows: ‘The food situation is still difficult in liberated Belgium (September 29, 1944). There has been no distribution of meat for four weeks. The population obeyed the 8.8. C. injunction to accumulate food stocks before the . Allies arrived, but in the excitement of liberation pressed these on the liberating troops, giving a deceptive impression of plenty. The position is critical an the cities and industrial areas, but less serious in the country districts.’ “The Brussels newspaper Soir writes: ‘Our Allied friends should not judge the food situation by the meals served to some of their officers in choice restaurants, which doubtless have some provisions left from the defunct black market. The population generally are having to tighten their belts as they have had to do throughout the war. Today for most people the food supply is obviously deficient and all the doctors are warning us of the danger. 5 ”