WEISWEILER NOW OCCUPIED

Southland Times, Issue 25532, 28 November 1944, Page 5

WEISWEILER NOW OCCUPIED

TANK AND INFANTRY ASSAULT (Rec. 10.5 p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 27. A correspondent of the British United Press at American 9th Army headquarters states that the German 15th Panzer Grenadier Division and remnants of the 246th and 340th People’s Grenadier Divisions have been identified on the 9th Army front. It is officially stated that the 246th Division, which fought in Russia in 1942, is composed of mixed personnel including naval men and members of the air force, besides defence workers. The German News Agency claims that the Germans reoccupied the town of Pattern, near the Luxembourg border, which the Americans captured on Saturday. Reuter’s correspondent with the American 9th Army says that house-to-house fighting is going on today in Koslar, two miles west of Julich. German artillery and mortar fire has increased at many points. American infantry pushed near the Roer River south of Julich. Forces of the 9th Army are engaged in heavy fighting north-west of Geilenkirchen in the Beeck-Wurm area with good air support. While the battle for the Aachen Gap rages as fiercely as ever, both the northern and southern flanks of the Allied armies are steadily closing on the frontiers of Germany, says the correspondent of The Times at SHAEF. Weisweiler, lying between the Aachen-Cologne railway and the arterial road, has fallen to Allied troops, reports a correspondent with the American Ist Army. The Americans are now advancing towards Frenz, about one mile north-east. Further slight advances have been made in the Hurtgen area. ALLIES NEAR DUREN Weisweiler is seven miles west of Duren. It lies on the small river Inde which flows from the Hurtgen forest | area to join the Roer, at Julich, seven miles downstream. The Allies had I previously worked round to the south i and cut in behind the town, five to I six miles from Duren, but it does not seem that the Americans are yet quite past the combined obstacle formed by I the Hurtgen forest and the Inde, since I the enemy still holds the north-eastern fringes of the forest, south-west of Duren.

I Seven hundred prisoners were taken i round Weisweiler and Hurtgen in the 124 hours up to midnight. Weisweiler was taken only by infantry fighting from house to house after tanks had worked round to the east of the town. The British 2nd Army front generally is quiet. The British continue to close in on the Maas north-west of Venlo. They are now in contact with the western defences of Venlo. With the destruction of the road and rail bridges over the Maas at Venlo, the Germans defending the western suburbs are cut off from the main defences on the other side of the river except for ferries. LAUNDRY VAN GOES TO FRANCE Amusing Episode On D Day ( R ec- 10-30 p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 27. . '•The most ridiculous and romantic journey of the war” has just been published. It was on D Day morning that the young driver of a van belonging to a coast town laundry turned into a oneway street and found his van sandwiched between a huge convoy of tanks and armoured cars which went on remorsely in spite of all his signals. He tried to turn off to a side road but could not get out of the double file. Then he tried to turn back at the end of a street but, as the tanks continued to advance, he had to give it up and continue to be the only civilian blot in an impressive picture of Britain’s armoured might. The tanks went on and the laundry van went with them until, at last, the driver found himself on the docks. There was no time for explanation or inquiry. Nosed by tanks fore and aft he trundled on board and crossed the Channel until the armoured queue drove off on the other side. 111-equipped for this type of work the laundry van finally sank in the sand and stopped. At last a bulldozer got it out and the driver and his van returned to England, but not before somebody had said: “I suppose he just wanted to hang out his washing.”