The Pittsburgh Press (September 8, 1944)
Yanks storm two strongholds; four armies nearing Reich
Patton hurls attack from across Moselle in Metz-Nancy sector
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
All-out offensive by U.S. forces was cracking German resistance in front of the German border, as the U.S. 3rd Army (1) smashed ahead across the Moselle River. The U.S. 1st Army (2) advanced beyond the Meuse and reached the gates of Liège. British forces (3) smashed across the Albert Canal at Beringen, while along the coast (4) British troops drove to within 10 miles of Ostend and Canadian troops battled for the Channel ports.
SHAEF, London, England –
Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s 3rd Army closed against Metz and Nancy today in a Moselle Valley drive carrying within 20 miles of Germany, and a spokesman predicted the fortress cities guarding the approaches to the Reich would fall or be neutralized within two days.
Four Allied armies – the U.S. 1st, 3rd and 7th Armies and the British 2nd Army – were driving the final miles up to the German border preparatory to a final offensive into the Reich, soon to be opened somewhere along the 500-mile border stretch between Switzerland and northern Holland.
The British Mediterranean radio reported that the U.S. 3rd and 7th Armies had joined in the area of Belfort, establishing an unbroken Allied front from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, but there was no immediate confirmation.
A security blackout obscured most of the current operations. Front dispatches from the Moselle Valley, revealed that the 3rd Army was waging a general offensive from its bridgehead across the river. the predicted capture of Metz and Nancy would collapse the Nazi defense line and open the way to Germany.
Blast Le Havre
A powerful force of Royal Air Force Lancasters again attacked Le Havre by daylight while aground the Canadians advanced steadily in the cleanup of the Channel ports. They were in the outskirts of Boulogne and Calais. A front dispatch said troops drawing an arc around Dunkerque reached Dixmude, 15 miles from Ostend, and Thielt to the east.
British troops driving northeastward through Belgium broke across the Albert Canal, primary German defense line before the Netherlands border in that sector, and a late front dispatch said the Nazis had begun to blow up the sluice gates of the canal “with the obvious intention of flooding part of the country.”
The canal breakthrough was made at Beringen, 25 miles northeast of Louvain, and the British drove on another five miles to the northeast of Bourg-Léopold.
Enlarge bridgehead
The dispatch filed today from the British front by Edward Gilling of the Exchange Telegraph said:
After withstanding fierce counterattacks, the bridgehead across the Albert Canal at Beringen has been further enlarged, and fresh troops are now pouring across. Enemy tanks and infantry attacked the bridgehead without pause for 24 hours, but our troops have thrown back all these attacks and inflicted heavy losses. This morning, our forces were fanning out from the bridgehead along the roads.
The firm British footing five miles across the canal was about 26 miles from the nearest point in Germany, with the appendix of Holland lying directly within reach.
Close on Liège
Simultaneously, U.S. 1st Army tanks and motorized infantry swept 16 miles down the valley of the Meuse from Huy to the outskirts of Liège, 25 miles from the Reich.
The right wing of the 1st Army overran Sedan, where the Germans broke through for their sweep to the Channel coast in 1940, and pushed on into the Ardennes Forest.
Opposition was reported relatively light on the Belgian fronts, but United Press writer Robert Richards reported that Gen. Patton’s army was locked in a thundering battle of tanks and infantrymen along more than 30 miles of the Moselle from above Metz to Nancy.
Guns blast Nazis
Giant U.S. field guns hurled salvo after salvo into the makeshift German defenses in the hills overlooking the river, and Mr. Richards reported that foot soldiers were slugging their way forward under cover of the barrage and slowly pushing back the enemy lines.
For the past 48 hours, Mr. Richards reported, U.S. armor and heavy artillery have been pouring up to the Moselle from the west in an endless parade to add their weight to the attack.
Some U.S. armor was already across the four or more bridgeheads in the Nancy–Metz sector, and Mr. Richards said the Germans would probably be forced to abandoned both fortress cities and fall back on their Siegfried Line within the next 48 hours.
Raid Siegfried Line
Allied warplanes worked over the German lines with bombs and gunfire in support of the ground troops, despite low-hanging clouds and intermittent rain in the Moselle sector. Late yesterday, a force of fighter-bombers raked enemy columns in the path of Gen. Patton’s troops and swooped down on the Siegfried Line itself to shoot up undisclosed targets there.
Mr. Richards reported that the 3rd Army’s bag of prisoners, now up to 77,000 men since Aug. 1, included many members of famous Nazi fighting divisions recently shifted from the Russian front to man Germany’s West Wall.
One U.S. bridgehead was identified as being six miles west of Nancy and another several miles below Metz, but other units were understood to be operating north of Metz within 20 miles of the German border.
Rely on roadblocks
On the 3rd Army’s left flank, Lt. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges sent his 1st Army tanks racing eastward through the Ardennes Forest to capture Bièvre, 15 miles beyond the Meuse, and Louette and Pierre, 11 miles east of the river.
Front dispatches said the Germans were on the run in the Ardennes sector, relying on small rearguards and roadblocks to slow the American pursuit. Some U.S. flying columns were reported probing into the German rear 20 miles or more beyond their main forces in a thrust that threatened to cut across Luxembourg and roll up the flank of the Nazi divisions on the Moselle.
Farther to the north, 1st Army units captured Huy, 17 miles east of Namur, and sent armored spearheads south across the Meuse and eastward to the gates of Liège.
United Press writer Richard D. McMillan reported that the Germans in that area were badly demoralized and offering only spasmodic opposition. Thousands of Nazis are wandering through the woods near Namur, he reported trying to escape through the Allied lines. Many of them surrendered eagerly to the Americans to escape vengeful Belgian Partisans.
Blast trucks
So swift was the 1st Army advance on Liège that one U.S. armored column overran a convoy of troop-packed German trucks racing eastward on the Huy–Liège road. U.S. tanks zigzagged through the enemy convoy with their guns blazing in all directions and cut it to shreds in a matter of minutes.
The battle of annihilation against bypassed German forces pinned against the Channel coast in northern France and Belgium continued at top speed. British troops captured Ypres, the famous battle site of the last war, and Roulers, 12 miles to the northeast, and pushed on 10 miles northwest of the latter town to within about 10 miles of Ostend.
