AMERICANS OVER SAAR

Southland Times, Issue 25538, 5 December 1944, Page 5

AMERICANS OVER SAAR

SURPRISE CROSSING OF RIVER (Rec. 9.30 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 4. Moving quietly and without a preliminary barrage, men of the American 3rd Army crossed ■ the Saar river at dawn. Assault boats were used in this advance which took the enemy by surprise. A vital bridge at Saarlouis was captured before the Germans could detonate demolition charges. The British United Press correspondent with the 3rd Army says that the river crossing took the Germans completely by surprise and not a single shot was fired as the Americans poured across the swollen stream. The Germans still left on the wesetrn bank of the river are fighting stubbornly, and Saarlouis is now a mass of roaring flames and smoke. 16-MILE FRONT ON SAAR

The Americans have extended their Saar river front to 16 miles, said a correspondent of the American Associated Press with the 3rd Army in an earlier dispatch.

The Germans, supported by antiaircraft guns and mobile artillery units, are fighting from building to building inside Saarlouis, where the Americans are pressing on to clear the main part of the town on the west bank of the Saar.

The Germans abandoned a village one and a-half miles north-west of Saarlouis after setting fire to it. This is the first time the Germans have employed the “scorched earth” policy in their own country. Saarunion was cleared after bitter street fighting. The Americans have reached the German border at two new points 12 miles west of Saarbrucken. THREE VILLAGES CLEARED A correspondent of the American Associated Press with the 7th Army says: The Americans, overcoming stiff resistance from tanks and self-propelled guns, cleared Mackweiwer and entered Waldhamback, five and a-half miles east of Saarunion. They also cleared Ingwiller. French forces driving south down the Rhine corridor to close the Germans’ escape gap over the Rhine are only seven miles north of Colmar. Reuter’s points out that the exact position of General de Lattre de Tassigny’s forces driving northward to link up with General Jacques Le Clerc’s armour is uncertain, but unofficial reports put them in an area just south of Colmar, thus making the escape gap little more than 10 miles wide.