The Pittsburgh Press (September 5, 1944)
100,000 Nazis trapped; Yanks sweep on Rhine
Americans reported in Saarbrücken; Allies race through Holland
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
Sweep into Low Countries found the British forces (1) well beyond the border as the U.S. 1st Army to the southeast was reported at Liège, only 25 miles from Aachen, in Germany. The Canadians (2) were driving up the Channel coast, where a large German force was trapped, as the U.S. 3rd Army (3) was reported unofficially at Strasbourg, on the Rhine, and to be fighting on German soil at Saarbrücken.
Unfounded report broadcast that Germany has quit
London, England (UP) –
The Brussels radio broadcast a wholly unsupported rumor today that Germany had capitulated to the Allies, and retracted it less than two hours later, adding that “the fight goes on.”
Allied Supreme Headquarters said the broadcast rumor was untrue.
The capitulation report, heavily qualified even at the outset, apparently originated from the gambling of a description of the capture of 10,000 Germans near Mons.
The second broadcast on the subject said:
Dear listeners: We are obliged to tell you to our deep regret that a rumor, according to which Germany was alleged to have capitulated and which was this morning broadcast by a foreign station, has not been confirmed. The fight goes on.
SHAEF, London, England –
Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s 3rd Army has reached the Moselle River in force between Metz and Nancy, a front dispatch revealed today, and an unconfirmed report was published here that U.S. tanks had reached Strasbourg on the German border and fighting was in progress on German soil around Saarbrücken.
British armored forces plunged deeper into the Netherlands more than 30 miles beyond Antwerp, strengthening a trap closed on some 100,000 Germans pinned against the Channel coast.
The lower side of the Channel pocket was collapsing. Canadian troops speared within three miles of Boulogne on the Strait of Dover. The Evening News said the German garrisons of Boulogne, Calais, Gravelines and Dunkerque were trying to escape by sea in a reversal of the Allied Dunkerque evacuation in 1940.
Robert C. Richards, United Press writer with Gen. Patton’s army, said the U.S. vanguard came to grips with the Germans in the village of Pont-à-Mousson, astride the Moselle roughly midway between Metz and Nancy.
In the first word from the 3rd Army front in several days, Mr. Richards said the Yanks held the part of Pont-à-Mousson on the west bank of the river, beyond which the Germans had retreated after a brisk skirmish and the demolition of the bridges across the 80-foot stream.
A big force of U.S. Flying Fortresses and Liberators with a Mustang escort struck on ahead of the land armies at the Rhineland cities of Karlsruhe, Stuttgart and Ludwigshafen, keystones of the first defenses of Germany proper.
U.S. advances on the center of the front were indicated by the announcement of Premier Pierre Dupong of Luxembourg that Allied forces had marched into the Grand Duchy and its hour of liberation was at hand. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower made a like statement yesterday in a message broadcast to the Luxembourgers.
Skimpy information at Allied headquarters late today suggested the possibility of a slowdown to some extent from the sensational pace maintained by the Allied armies in carrying the war to Germany’s doorstep.
The only specific word at headquarters was that Canadian troops had pushed near Boulogne, indicating that the south side of the pocket enclosing tens of thousands of Germans was caving in. The barrier penning the Nazis to the coast was about 140 miles long, lying between the Boulogne area and Antwerp.
The Nazis, apparently doomed to death or capture, were reported surrendering by the thousands to the Canadians.
An official spokesman said the Antwerp port facilities, some of the best in Western Europe, were in “quite good condition,” since the Germans had little time to carry out their demolitions before yielding the great port to onrushing British forces.
Mr. Richards’ dispatch and meager word at headquarters opened a mere chink in the “security veil” hanging over the American operations for three days.
A spokesman said Gen. Patton’s troops were advancing eastward from the Verdun area against stiffening resistance, and the U.S. 1st Army was still mopping up nests of resistance ion the Compiègne–Saint-Quentin area.
Mr. Richards said:
Although patrols previously had stabbed across the vital waterway guarding the last Nazi defenses in northeastern France, this was the only point at which American troops were standing on the Moselle in substantial strength.
The London Evening News, however, published a dispatch credited to French frontier sources which said U.S. armor had plunged to the Rhine and the German border at the outskirts of Strasbourg, 75 miles east of Nancy.
To the northwest, the dispatch, which lacked confirmation in any other quarter, said U.S. and German troops were locked in battle on Nazi homeland soil around the border city of Saarbrücken.
U.S. 1st Army columns on the British right flank were reported, however, within 25 miles of the Nazi border beyond Liège, 60 miles southeast of Antwerp.
The Germans defense of the Low Countries appeared to have collapsed under the slashing thrusts of the British tanks and motorized infantrymen, advancing through feeble opposition and liberating town after town as fast as their supply trains could follow.
Most of Belgium was in the hands of the British and their U.S. 1st Army comrades driving eastward through the Meuse Valley, and the speed of the Allied offensive indicated that the battle of the Netherlands would be over as swiftly as in 1940, when the German hordes conquered the country in five days.
Official spokesmen admitted that the terrain between the north bank of the Somme and Antwerp was held only loosely at many points and some of the 100,000 hemmed-in Germans probably could break through. The pocketed Nazis were known to have lost most of their armor and transport, however, and it was believed that the great majority almost certainly faced death or capture.
British troops stormed into Antwerp yesterday after a 24-mile dash north from Brussels and by evening had cleared isolated Nazi rearguards from the dock area and were driving on across the Dutch frontier.
Antwerp was the first big, modern port taken by the western invasion armies since the capture of Cherbourg.
Unconfirmed reports said the British captured Waterloo, nine miles south of Brussels, where Napoleon’s armies were defeated in 1815.
Advanced columns pushed seven miles over the Netherlands border to occupy Breda and were reported rolling across flat, almost undefendable terrain toward Eindhoven, 32 miles to the east-southeast. The thrust outflanked Rotterdam, 27 miles north-northwest of Breda.
Louvain, 13 miles east of Brussels; Mechelen, 12 miles north of the capital, and Alost, 13 miles to the northwest, were also taken.
The French industrial city of Lille, bypassed in the first rush of the British drive into Belgium, was also occupied.
Nazi broadcasts made it clear that the greater Battle of Germany itself was approaching swiftly, if it had not already begun.
Appeals to people
An official Berlin spokesman broadcast an appeal to the German people last night to rise against the allied invader and to put the torch to everything in the path of Gen. Eisenhower’s armies.
The spokesman declared in a grim warning to possible fifth columnists inside the Reich:
Not one grain of German crops shall fall into the enemy’s hands, no German shall guide him, no German hand shall help him.
Nothing but death and destruction shell meet him. He shall bleed horribly for every meter of German soil which belongs to us and which he wants to rob us of.
Warn of stand
Other Berlin propagandists boasted that their armies, on the run everywhere from the Channel to Alsace-Lorraine, would stand and fight on their Siegfried Line.
The U.S. 1st Army in the valley of the Meuse, meanwhile, was reported at Liège, barely 25 miles from Aachen, and unconfirmed reports said U.S. artillery was shelling the German city.
West of Liège, U.S. 1st Army units were mopping up isolated pockets of German resistance near Mons and south of Tournai, and United Press writer Henry T. Gorrell reported that 10,000 thoroughly-beaten Germans surrendered in the Mons area yesterday.
The bag of captives was still mounting last night, and Mr. Gorrell said it might reach 30,000 when the final count is in – one of the biggest roundups since D-Day.
5,000 surrender
Five thousand of the Germans surrendered to one American battalion yesterday, including crack paratroops, Nazi elite guards and well-equipped panzer units, Mr. Gorrell said, indicating that the Nazis were demoralized completely and unable to offer a cohesive defense.
Canadian 1st Army troops continued their swift advance up the Channel coast north of the Somme.
Latest official reports said the Canadians had reached Étaples, about 13 miles south of Boulogne; Montreuil, 9½ miles southeast of Étaples, and Hesdin, 13 miles southeast of Montreuil.
German demolition squads were believed blowing up port installations at Boulogne and Calais, and London morning newspapers said great fires were raging in Dunkerque as the Nazis prepared to quit the robot coast. The bypassed German garrison in Le Havre, however, was still holding out determinedly after rejecting a Canadian ultimatum to surrender.
