Operation MARKET GARDEN (1944)

[NormanStewart]

Führer HQ (September 18, 1944)

Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht

Im holländischen Raum setzte der Feind gestern mittags nach vorausgegangenen starken Luftangriffen Fallschirmjäger und Luftlandetruppen hinter unserer Front mit Schwerpunkt im Raum von Arnheim, Nimwegen und Eindhoven ab. Am Nachmittag trat er dann zwischen Antwerpen und Maastricht zum Angriff an, um die Verbindung mit seinen abgesprungenen Verbänden herzustellen. Besonders im Raum von Neerpelt entwickelten sich dabei heftige Kämpfe, in deren Verlauf der Feind geringen Geländegewinn nach Norden erzielen konnte. Gegen die feindlichen Luftlandekräfte sind konzentrische Gegenangriffe angesetzt.

Zwischen Maastricht und Aachen sowie im Raum von Nancy stehen unsere Truppen weiterhin in schwerem Abwehrkampf mit starken feindlichen Kräften. In den übrigen Abschnitten der Westfront wurden zahlreiche schwächere Angriffe des Feindes zerschlagen.

In Lunéville eingedrungener Feind wurde geworfen. Südlich der Stadt ist unser Gegenangriff im guten Fortschreiten.

In den Trümmern von Brest behauptet sich die heldenhafte Besatzung, auf engem Raum zusammengedrängt, immer noch gegen schwerste feindliche Angriffe. Auch um die Festung Boulogne toben schwere Kämpfe. Hier konnte der Feind nach stundenlangen Luftangriffen von Westen her einen Einbruch erzielen, der abgeriegelt wurde. Gegen Dünkirchen geführte feindliche Angriffe scheiterten.

Das „V1“-Vergeltungsfeuer auf London wurde fortgesetzt.

An der italienischen Front blieben feindliche Angriffe im Abschnitt Lucca-Pistora erfolglos.

Unter starker Artillerie- und Luftwaffenunterstützung griff der Gegner den ganzen Tag über nördlich Florenz und an der adriatischen Küste in immer neuen Wellen an. In verlustreichen Kämpfen wurden alle seine Durchbruchsversuche vereitelt.

An der serbisch-bulgarischen Grenze kam es zu mehreren örtlichen Gefechten, in deren Verlauf zehn bulgarische Panzer abgeschossen wurden.

Im Südteil Siebenbürgens scheiterten auch gestern feindliche von Panzern unterstützte Angriffe. Ebenso wurden bei Sanok und Krosno erneute heftige Angriffe der Bolschewisten abgewiesen, Einbruchsstellen im Gegenangriff abgeriegelt.

In Lettland und Estland wird mit äußerster Härte gekämpft. Der Großangriff der Bolschewisten, der sich auch auf den Raum von Dorpat ausdehnte, wurde in schweren Kämpfen aufgefangen. Schlachtfliegerverbände unterstützten erfolgreich unsere Abwehrkämpfe im baltischen Raum. In der Nacht griffen Kampf- und Nachtschlachtflugzeuge sowjetische Truppenansammlungen mit guter Wirkung an. In Luftkämpfen und durch Flakartillerie wurden am gestrigen Tage 75 sowjetische Flugzeuge abgeschossen.

Auf dem Peipus-See versenkten Marineartillerieleichter ein sowjetisches Kanonenboot und beschädigten ein weiteres.

Nordamerikanische Bomber führten am gestrigen Tage einen Terrorangriff gegen Budapest.

In der Nacht warfen feindliche Flugzeuge Bomben auf Bremen, im Raum von Dortmund und auf Debrecen in Ungarn.

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Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (September 18, 1944)

Communiqué No. 163

Allied airborne troops were landed in HOLLAND yesterday after powerful air preparation in which the Allied air forces operated in great strength. First reports show that the operation is going well.

Our ground forces near the BELGIAN-DUTCH frontier are continuing to make progress.

Further south, we have mopped up pockets of resistance on the outskirts of AACHEN. Heavy fighting continues in the city. Elements pushing on east of the town are encountering determined resistance. Advances have also been made across the LUXEMOURG-GERMAN frontier.

In the MOSELLE Valley, our troops are clearing the area west of the river of isolated enemy troops. North of NANCY, progress has been made and enemy counterattacks near PONT-À-MOUSSON were repulsed.

The Germans are fighting hard in the BELFORT GAP. Our troops have occupied the town of SAINT-LOUP-SUR-SEMOUSE and cleared LURE of the enemy. North of LURE, the enemy used tanks in resisting the advance. Local engagements took place in the area of PONT-DE-ROIDE.

Striking in advance of our airborne forces yesterday, heavy, light and fighter-bombers in very great strength attacked anti-aircraft batteries, gun positions, communications, troops and transport through a wide area of HOLLAND while fighters swept a path for the aerial transports and gliders, and provided umbrella cover for the landing. As the enemy’s guns opened fire, our fighters and fighter-bombers dived to silence them in low-level strafing and bombing attacks.

Many motor vehicles, locomotives, railway cars and barges were destroyed or damaged, and bridges and supply dumps were hit. According to reports so far received, nine enemy aircraft were shot down in combat by our fighters.

Later in the day, gun positions and troops on the island of WALCHEREN were attacked by a strong force of heavy bombers. Coastal aircraft struck at shipping off the FRISIAN Islands.

Fortified positions and garrison troops at BOULOGNE were bombarded for four hours by other heavy bombers which dropped more than 3,500 tons of high explosives. Intense anti-aircraft fire was encountered at time, but there was no opposition in the air.

Strongpoints at BREST were attacked during the day by small forces of fighter-bombers. Other fighter-bombers hit locomotives and railway cars in western GERMANY.

NOTE: NO CONTRIBUTIONS TO COMMUNIQUE RECEIVED FROM 21 AND 12 ARMY GROUPS.

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White House Statement on the Entrance of Allied Troops into Holland
September 18, 1944

For four long years the Netherlands has suffered under the heel of German oppression. For four long years its liberties have been crushed, its homes destroyed, its people enslaved. But the spark of freedom could never be extinguished. It has always glowed in the hearts of the Netherlands people. It now emerges as an avenging flame.

The armies of liberation are flowing across the borders of Holland. A gallant Queen is returning to her gallant people. The Netherlands again stands on the threshold of her ancient liberties.

But the fight will not end with the restoration of freedom to Holland. It will not end with the inevitable defeat of Germany. The people of the Netherlands know, as the people of the United States know, that final victory cannot be achieved until Japan has likewise been vanquished.

Only then can peace and freedom return to the world.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 18, 1944)

SKY TRAINS RAIN MORE MEN BEHIND ENEMY IN HOLLAND
Nazis evacuate 13 Dutch villages

Germans hurl troops against Yank wedge beyond Siegfried Line
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer

Airborne invasion of the Netherlands by U.S. and British troops reached the rear of German forces defending the northern route into the Reich. The British 2nd and the 1st Canadian Armies drove north from Belgium. On the U.S. 1st Army front, troops absorbed several German counterattacks east of Aachen and drove toward Cologne. The U.S. 3rd Army neared the German border in Luxembourg and joined the 7th Army in an assault on the Belfort Gap.

Bulletin

London, England –
A dispatch from U.S. 1st Army headquarters said that counterattacks along the entire front inside Germany had virtually halted the American advance today, but said that all German attempts to push back the Yanks were repulsed.

SHAEF, London, England –
Allied sky trains totaling 285 miles in length today poured reinforcements and supplies down to Lt. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton’s airborne army, which achieved, in heavy fighting, its initial objectives in a bold attempt to turn the Siegfried Line and open the way to Berlin.

A front dispatch apparently written last night said the Germans were fleeing from the Allied invasion by air, and had evacuated at least 13 Dutch towns and villages.

The security blackout still concealed from the German High Command and the world the details of the descent on Holland – details of which the Nazis obviously had not been able to patch into a pattern for use in the defense of northwestern Germany.

Crack German troops shifted westward from the Russian front counterattacked the tip of the U.S. 1st Army wedge which Lt. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges had driven through the Siegfried Line east of Aachen, but the Yanks absorbed the impact handily without the loss of a single pillbox.

United Press writer Jack Frankish, in a 1st Army front dispatch reporting the German counterattack, said it was launched on a small scale than one yesterday.

Counterattacks pushed the Americans back two miles yesterday in the Luxembourg frontier area, but the ground was retaken during the night.

Resistance was stiffening along the entire front within Germany. Artillery and air activity had increased greatly.

U.S. patrols penetrated Germany as far as two miles east of Stolberg, which is five miles east of Aachen, but it was not clear at headquarters exactly how far east of Stolberg the main forces were operating.

Lt. Gen. Sir Miles C. Dempsey’s British 2nd Army smashed forward across the Dutch frontier in a full-scale advance after nearly two weeks of comparative lull. Armor moved from the De Groote bridgehead across the Escaut Canal in the direction of Eindhoven.

Radio Berlin said the 2nd Army and the airborne troops were within five miles of a juncture in the Eindhoven area of southern Holland.

While the geography of the airborne onslaught remained obscure, it was evident that the British were pressing northward for a junction with Gen. Brereton’s forces. A dispatch from the airborne front said the thunder of battle was audible to the south, obviously heralding the approach of the British.

Again at 1:00 p.m. CET today, the hour of action yesterday, the mighty array of planes rained men and material down to the forces in Holland which by Nazi account were in position to push past the north end of the Siegfried Line above the Rhine and into Germany.

All of central England was covered by the sky trains carrying out the reinforcement mission today, while bombers of the U.S. 8th Air Force dropped food, ammunition and fuel in small parachutes called “canopies.”

The airmen expected less danger from anti-aircraft fire today because of the Airborne Army’s gains against enemy positions.

More than 3,000 planes of all types were revealed to have taken part in the airborne attack yesterday. Their losses were described officially as “slight.”

That all was going well was indicated by revelation that one divisional commander radioed from the field today that the parachute missions were “absolutely superb.”

Canadian forces cleaning up the Channel coast were reported in a front dispatch to have fought their way into the main part of Boulogne and the port area. Both infantry and armor were in the southwestern part of the town and were also established on Mont Lambert, the key to the defenses of Boulogne.

Near neck of Channel

Other Canadian forces advanced closer to Cap Gris Nez, at the narrowest neck of the Channel, and only two German defense points, including the Lighthouse, still held out in that area.

Senior officers of the 1st Allied Airborne Army said the D-Day landings in Normandy were small in comparison with the attack on Holland. Originally scheduled for yesterday morning, the air attack was delayed a few hours.

The first reports were so encouraging that senior officers said the Allies can drop behind the Siegfried Line, across the Rhine, or anywhere else they like.

The U.S. 1st Army cut into the German border city of Aachen and drove beyond the breached Siegfried Line to within 20 miles of Cologne, while U.S. 3rd Army troops swung up north of Metz in a sudden strike across Luxembourg that carried up to the Nazi frontier.

Join 7th Army

Other 3rd Army forces thrust down to join with the 7th Army in a frontal assault on the Belfort Gap leading into southwestern Germany, and unconfirmed reports said the Americans reached Belfort itself.

Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, in a message to the British, Canadian and Allied troops under his command, said almost 400,000 Germans have been captured in Western Europe.

“It is becoming problematical how much longer the enemy can continue the struggle,” he said.

In a single giant stride, the airborne army had crossed the flood barrier the Nazis relied upon to protect Germany from invasion through the Netherlands.

Seek knockout

Allied spokesmen, jubilant at the initial success of the hazardous aerial invasion, made it clear that they were playing for the highest stakes – a quick knockout of the German Army.

Gen. Brereton declared flatly that upon the success of the airborne landing “rests the difference between a quick decision in the west and a long, drawn-out battle.”

Berlin admitted the gravity of the Allied threat and warned the people of Holland that the German Army intended to turn their homeland into a battleground and hold it at all costs.

The Nazis said the main Allied concentrations had landed around Eindhoven, Tilburg and Nijmegen, the latter north of the Rhine and only five miles from the German frontier.

At the same time, they hinted that further paratroop and glider landings are expected, as well as a possible seaborne attack on the Dutch coast.

Coast landing reported

One unconfirmed report broadcast by the Vichy radio said Allied sky troops made a new landing today on the seacoast nine miles north of The Hague.

United Press correspondents who flew over Holland with the invading Army reported that Gen. Brereton’s men, mostly American veterans of the Normandy landing but including strong British, Dutch and Polish contingents, were meeting relatively weak opposition from the disorganized Nazis.

Aided by a massive aerial bombardment that temporarily swept the Nazi Air Force from the skies and knocked out virtually every German battery in the landing areas, the sky attack yesterday liberated a number of Dutch villages within an hour and seized scores of vital bridges, canal crossings and rail and highway junctions.

Units of the 1st Canadian Army also moving in on the Netherlands from their positions on the Leopold Canal, on the British left flank.

4000 planes attack

The sudden air strike behind the Nazi lines came on the heels of a 15-hour aerial bombardment during which more than 4,000 U.S. and British warplanes ripped almost continuously at the invasion-marked sector with bombs and gunfire.

The RAF’s heavyweights set the attack In motion before midnight Saturday, and at daybreak Sunday the U.S. 8th Air Force sent its Flying Fortresses and fighter-bombers into action, Even as the first paratroops were tumbling down, U.S. fighter-bombers were swooping in beneath them, uncovering the Nazi gun positions and splattering them with fragmentation bombs.

In all, more than 7,500 tons of bombs were dropped across the Netherlands and nearby enemy airfields in Germany where the Nazi Air Force was known to have concentrated planes to meet Gen. Brereton’s 1,000-plane glider and transport fleet.

Nazis counterattack

The attack promised immediate and serious repercussions on the fighting front south of the Netherlands, where Gen. Hodges’ 1st Army troops were across the German frontier in force along an almost continuous line from Aachen to the Trier sector.

Gen. Hodges’ men were through the Siegfried Line beyond Aachen and striking across open country toward Cologne where the Nazis were reported digging anti-tank trenches and burying tanks in preparation for a full-scale stand on the Rhine. Headquarters had no comment on German reports of fighting at Duran, 20 miles west of Cologne.

Capture 1,000 a day

The Americans met strong opposition farther south in the Monschau area, and around Bollendorf and Echternach, where the Germans counterattacked savagely after falling back from their main Siegfried fortifications.

Despite the sudden stiffening of enemy opposition, German prisoners were still being taken by the 1st Army at the rate of 1,000 a day, including many who discarded their uniforms in a vain attempt to ship through the American lines.

Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s U.S. 3rd Army forces south of the 1st Army pushed up across Luxembourg at an undisclosed point, north of Metz and United Press writer Robert Richards said they were approaching the German frontier.

Drives on Metz

Gen. Patton’s troops also cut slowly through the ring of forts protecting Metz, where the Germans were reported digging in for last-ditch fight, and cleared both banks of the Moselle River virtually all the way south from Pont-a-Mousson to Charmes.

On Gen. Patton’s right flank, the U.S. 7th Army wheeled an against the Belfort Gap, capturing Montbéliard (10 miles southwest of Belfort), Lure (18 miles west of Belfort) and four other towns on the approaches to the gap.

Other 7th Army troops along the Italo-French border farther south fought their way 11 miles northwest of Modane through the Maurienne Valley to Lanslebourg, where they ran into stiff opposition from German mountain troops.

Radio France in Algiers said the German garrison at Brest had surrendered, but there was no confirmation of the report at headquarters.

[NormanStewart]

Frey: Flak whips against plane flying troops to Holland

Reporter on board sights burning craft on ground, large flooded areas
By Robert L. Frey, United Press staff writer

With 1st Allied Airborne Army over Holland – (Sept. 17, delayed)
This newest of Allied armies aimed a knockout blow at German armies in Holland today as the first of thousands of airborne troops landed behind enemy lines.

I am writing this aboard one of the Dakota transport planes carrying 13 paratroopers and equipment. Ten minutes ago, as we approached the drop zone, flak whipped against the ship, sounding like steel cords thrashed against the aluminum body.

We were going down for the drop. Paratroops stood ready to go with chute cords attached to the line overhead. Each man carried 150 pounds of equipment. They were relaxed and appeared almost casual.

Wished good luck

The two next to me, William Harvey of Rowlesburg, West Virginia, and Doyle Boothe of Winnsboro, South Carolina, medical-aid men, shook hands and wished us luck. The next moment all were gone, their red, yellow and green chutes floating down over the rectangular fields of green and brown.

We were the second group in and the going was not easy for the first, as evidenced by burning planes on the ground. Others, apparently brought down by flak, had crash-landed.

“This is the closest you’ll ever come to being shot down and still get by,” Maj. Robert Gates of Aberdeen, South Dakota, pilot and leader of the squadron, told me.

There was much kidding and good-natured griping among the paratroopers as they settled with their heavy packs aboard the plane. At the takeoff, one shouted: “Look out you foul Germans. Here we come.”

Circled by fighters

The course of the flight took us over enemy territory and great patches of sunlit water surrounded by green fields indicated large areas were flooded.

Allied fighters circled around our comparatively slow-moving caravan. At first sight of them, a Texas paratrooper let out a wild and wooly “yippee” which awoke most of the others who had been dozing.

The paratroops, virtually all of whom were D-Day veterans, included Nicholas Vignovich of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania.

Aliquippa paratrooper was wounded on D-Day

Aliquippa, Pennsylvania – (special)
Pvt. Nicholas Vignovich, 32, of 209 Baker St., Aliquippa, who was listed as one of the first parachutists to land in Holland yesterday, is a son of Mrs. Sarah Vignovich of the same address.

He enlisted April 15, 1942, and was wounded on D-Day in the assault on Normandy, spending three weeks in a hospital in England.

His brother, Sam, was killed Sept. 25, 1942, in the Solomon Islands.

[NormanStewart]

Komsomolskaya Pravda (September 19, 1944)

Военные действия в Западной Европе

Лондон, 18 сентября (ТАСС) –
В сообщении штаба верховного командования экспедиционных сил союзников говорится:

17 сентября после мощных операций крупных военно-воздушных сил в Голландии высадились союзные авиадесантные войска. Судя по первым сообщениям, эта операция развивается успешно.

Союзные войска, действующие вблизи бельгийско-голландской границы, продолжают продвигаться. Южнее уничтожены очаги сопротивления противника в предместьях Аахена. В городе продолжаются тяжелые бои. Союзные части, продвигающиеся к восточным окраинам города, встречают упорное сопротивление против вика.

Войска союзников продвинулись также в районе люксембургское-германской границы. В долине реки Мозель союзные войска очищают район западнее реки от изолированных групп противника. К северу от Нанси части Союзников продвинулись перед. Отбиты контратаки противника вблизи Понт-а-Муссона.

Немцы продолжают ожесточенно сражаться в районе коридора у Бельфора. Союзные войска заняли город Сен-Лу-сюр-Семуз и очистили от противника Люр Севернее Люра неприятель, сопротивляясь продвигающимся войскам, использовал танки. Столкновения местного значения произошли в районе Пон-де-Руада. В Верхних Альпах союзные войска после занятия Модана продвинулись на несколько миль в долине реки Морьенн и после ожесточенных боев достигли Ланслебура.

17 сентября весьма крупные соединения тяжелых и легких бомбардировщиков, а также истребителей-бомбардировщиков наносили удары по зенитным и артиллерии ским батареям, коммуникациям и транспорту противника на широком пространстве в Голландии, в зоне операций авиадесантных войск союзников. Истребительная авиация расчищала путь для транспортных самолетов и планеров и прикрывала опера ци по высадке авиадесантных частей. В воздушных боях сбито 9 вражеских самолетов.

К концу дня 17 сентября крупные соединения тяжелых бомбардировщиков совершили валет на батареи и войска противника на острове Вальхерен. Самолеты береговой авиации атаковали вражеские суда у Фризских островов. Тяжелые бомбардировщики в течение четырех часов подвергали бомбардировке укрепленные позиции и войска противника в Булони, сбросив свыше 3.500 тонн бомб. Время от времени противник вел интенсивный огонь из зенитных орудий, однако не оказывал сопротивления в воздухе. Вчера небольшие группы истребителей-бомбардировщиков совершали налеты на опорные пункты противника в Бресте.

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Высадка крупного авиадесанта союзников в Голландии

Лондон, 17 сентября (ТАСС) –
Штаб верховного командования экспедиционных сил союзников сообщает, что крупные силы 1-Й авиадесантной армии союзников сегодня после полудня высадились в Голландии.

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Лондон, 18 Сентября (ТАСС) –
Английское министерство информации передает, что в высадке союзных авиадесантов в Голландии принимало участие свыше 1 тысячи планеров и самолетов-буксировщиков. Авиация поддерживала действия авиадесантных войск, атакуя вражеские позиции, аэродромы, зенитные батареи как до, так и после высадки десантов. В налетах на вражеские позиции в Голландии участвовало около 750 «Летающих крепостей» в сопровождении истребителей. Они не встретили никакого сопротивления в воздухе.

[NormanStewart]

Völkischer Beobachter (September 19, 1944)

Die Aktionen im niederländischen Raum –
Konzentrische Angriffe gegen die Luftlandeverbände

Berlin, 18. September –
Für die Verteidigung des niederländischen Raumes und damit der niederrheinischen Tiefebene hatte die deutsche Führung drei Maßnahmen ergriffen.

Gegen feindliche Landeversuche von See her wurde ein breiter Küstenstreifen überschwemmt. Angriffen von Land aus sollten unsere Truppen in dem von zahlreichen Kanälen durchzogenen nordbelgischen Raum begegnen. Sie erfüllten diese Aufgabe in so eindeutiger Weise, daß der am Albertkanal und Maas-Schelde-Kanal angreifende Feind trotz Zusammenballung von mehr als zwölf Divisionen auf schmalem Raum die Sperrlinie bisher nicht zu durchbrechen vermochte. Gegen den Einfall aus der Luft wurden bestimmte Verteidigungszonen geschaffen.

Als nun die Anglo-Amerikaner am Sonntag versuchten, durch Absetzen von Luftlandetruppen und Fallschirmverbänden ihre in Nordbelgien seit Tagen stockenden Operationen wieder in Fluss zu bringen, nahmen unsere Truppen den Kampf mit ihnen schlagartig auf. Schon beim Überfliegen der Küste wurden zahlreiche Lastensegler abgeschossen oder zu Notlandungen im Überschwemmungsgebiet gezwungen. Marineartilleristen, die bereits von Küstenstützpunkten aus den anfliegenden Transportflugzeugen beschossen, machten die ersten Gefangenen, und zwar die Restbesatzung eines heruntergeholten Flugzeuges in Stärke von einem Offizier und 13 Mann.

Die weit verstreuten Landeplätze der unter starkem Jagdschutz anfliegenden Lastensegler wurden von unseren Jagdkommandos und Sicherungsverbänden umstellt, um die Bildung größerer geschlossener Kampfgruppen zu verhindern. Die abgesprungenen Kräfte versuchten ihrerseits zwei Flugplätze in die Hand zu bekommen und durch Sperrung von Brücken die angelaufenen Gegenmaßnahmen zu verzögern.

Daß das Luftlandeunternehmen, wie dies auch sonst in der Regel der Fall ist, in engem Zusammenhang mit den Vorgängen an der eigentlichen Front steht, beweisen die fast gleichzeitig begonnenen Infanterie- und Panzerangriffe der 2. britischen Armee am Maas-Schelde-Kanal. Die Landungen im Rücken unserer nordbelgischen Verteidigungslinien und die gleichzeitigen Frontalangriffe sollen demnach vor allem unseren Riegel am Maas-Schelde-Kanal aufbrechen. Auch gegen den bei Neerpelt in unsere Stellungen eingebrochenen Feind wurden sofort Gegenangriffe angesetzt.

Im Zusammenhang mit dem neuen Ansturm der Briten am Maas-Schelde-Kanal verstärkten die Nordamerikaner ihren Druck beiderseits Aachens ebenfalls. Im Maastrichter Zipfel suchten sie unsere Sperrriegel im Bereich des Gealflüsschens einzudrücken. Unter hohen Verlusten konnten sie im Feuerschutz schwerer Waffen zwei kleine Brückenköpfe bilden, deren Ausweiten unsere Truppen aber durch Gegenstöße verhinderten. Angriffe gegen unsere Stützpunktlinie am Südrand von Aachen scheiterten; im Raum von Stolberg gingen die hin und her wogenden Kämpfe weiter. In erfolgreichen Gegenangriffen entrissen unsere Panzer dem Feind zwischen Aachen und Stolberg Teile des in den letzten Tagen unter hohen Verlusten gewonnenen Geländes und brachten Gefangene ein. Südlich Stolberg dauern die Kämpfe mit dem örtlich vorgedrungenen Gegner noch an. Westlich der Eifel und im Dreieck zwischen Sauer und Prüm machten unsere Truppen in wechselvollen Kämpfen Fortschritte und hinderten den Aufmarsch des Feindes durch Wegnahme von Stützpunkten und Höhenstellungen.

Auch im lothringischen Grenzgebiet wurde hart gekämpft. Am Nordrand des Einbruchsraumes von Nancy versuchten die Nordamerikaner ihre an den Vortagen durch unsere Gegenangriffe aufgerissene Nordflanke wieder aufzubauen. Sie benutzten ihre bei Château-Salins abgezogenen Kräfte, um die Einbruchslücken zu stopfen und die Verbindung zu ihren nordwestlich Pont-à-Mousson stehenden Verbänden herzustellen. Gegenstöße verhinderten die Durchführung der feindlichen Absichten. Der zweite östlich Nancy aufgefangene Keil drehte mit Teilkräften gegen Lunéville ein. Der in die Stadt eingedrungene Feind wurde aber von unserem in breiter Front angelaufenen Gegenangriff gefasst, der ihn wieder aus Lunéville herauswarf und gleichzeitig auch der zweiten gaullistischen Panzerdivision das zäh verteidigte Städtchen Châtel an der Mosel entriss.

Unsere Gegenangriffe haben somit im Raum östlich Nancy das Vordringen des Feindes gegen Lothringen abgebremst. Die Schlacht zwischen Nancy und Épinal hat aber ihren Höhepunkt offenbar noch nicht erreicht. Beide Parteien versuchen weiter Ausgangsstellungen für neue Operationen zu gewinnen, wobei unsere Truppen dadurch einige Vorteile erzielt haben, daß sie feindliche Positionen an der Mosel Stück für Stück zusammenschlugen.

An dem der Burgundischen Pforte vorgelegten Sperrriegel zwischen Épinal und der Schweizer Grenze beschränkten sich die Kampfhandlungen auf Stoßtruppgefechte. Zahlreiche Unternehmen des Feindes nordöstlich und östlich Vesoul scheiterten.

[NormanStewart]

Die Kämpfe in den südlichen Niederlanden

Berlin, 18. September –
Seit Tagen sieht sich der Feind im nordbelgischen Raum durch den zähen Widerstand unserer Truppen im Brückenkopf an der Esterschelde und durch energische, am Sonntag fortgesetzte Gegenangriffe am Maas-Schelde-Kanal gefesselt. Auch seine starken Angriffe zwischen Maastricht und Aachen nach Norden brachten ihm nur unbedeutende örtliche Vorteile. Zwischen Aachen und Stolberg wurde der Gegner durch Gegenangriffe unserer Panzer weiter zurückgedrängt und südlich Stolberg blieben die Fortschritte der Nordamerikaner infolge unserer in die feindliche Angriffsfront getriebenen Keile auch am Sonntag minimal. Der starke Ansturm dreier feindlicher Armeen im belgisch-niederländischen Grenzgebiet ist somit seit Tagen ohne greifbare Erfolge geblieben.

Um diesen starken Riegel aufzubrechen und seine Bewegungsfreiheit zurückzugewinnen, begann der Feind in den frühen Nachmittagsstunden des Sonntags, im niederländischen Raum Luftlandetruppen abzusetzen. Das Unternehmen hatte sich durch heftige Luftangriffe auf Flugplätze und Verkehrsanlagen in den Absprunggebieten angekündigt. Ab 14,30 Uhr erschienen mehrere hundert Lastensegler und Transportflugzeuge.

Sie klinkten über den südlichen Niederlanden und dem Rheindelta aus. Noch während der Feind seine Landungen durchführte, gingen bereits eigene starke Kräfte zum Gegenangriff über. Zahlreiche Lastensegler wurden von der Flak abgeschossen, andere durch das Abwehrfeuer zu Notlandungen in den Überschwemmungsgebieten gezwungen. Zur Abwehr der feindlichen Fallschirmspringer und Luftlandetruppen riegelten unsere Truppen die verstreut auseinanderliegenden Landeplätze ab und verhinderten zunächst die Bildung großer geschlossener Kampfgruppen. Weitere Gegenmaßnahmen sind angelaufen.

Um die Verbindung mit seinen im Raum Eindhoven abgesetzten Kräften herzustellen, griff der Gegner gegen Abend am Maas­Schelde-Kanal aus Neerpelt heraus nach Norden an. Die auch an dieser Stelle sofort einsetzenden Gegenangriffe unserer Truppen führten zu harten, die ganze Nacht über anhaltenden Kämpfen, die auch in den heutigen Morgenstunden noch im Gange sind.

Im mittelbelgischen, luxemburgischen und lothringischen Grenzgebiet waren die Kämpfe vom Sonntag örtlich begrenzt, erfolgreiche Gegenangriffe drückten den Feind im Prümabschnitt und in seinem Brückenkopf am Sauer zurück. Im Raum Pont-à-Mousson–Nancy–Lunéville gingen die wechselvollen Kämpfe weiter. Hierbei drang der Gegner mit starken Kräften von Süden in Lunéville ein, doch wurde er wieder hinausgeworfen und musste südlich davon auch die Stadt Châtel-sur-Moselle vor deutschen Gegenangriffen wieder aufgeben. Am Sperrriegel vor der Burgundischen Pforte blieb die Lage unverändert. An einigen Stellen verbesserten unsere Truppen ihre Frontlinie, an anderen schlugen sie angreifende feindliche Kräfte blutig zurück.

[NormanStewart]

Führer HQ (September 19, 1944)

Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht

In Mittel-Holland verstärkte der Gegner seine im rückwärtigen Frontgebiet abgesetzten Kräfte durch neue Luftlandungen. Eigene Angriffe gegen die Absetzstellungen gewinnen gegen zähen Feindwiderstand langsam Boden. Aus dem Brückenkopf von Neerpelt griff der Feind mit starken Panzerkräften nach Norden an und drang in Eindhoven ein. In erbitterten Nahkämpfen wurden 43 Panzer vernichtet Nordwestlich Aachen konnte der Gegner trotz starken Einsatzes von Artillerie und Panzern nur geringen Bodengewinn erzielen. Westlich und südlich der Stadt wurden alle Angriffe abgewiesen. Im Raum von Lunéville verlaufen die eigenen Gegenangriffe weiterhin erfolgreich.

Von den übrigen Frontabschnitten werden nur örtliche Kampfhandlungen gemeldet.

Unter starkem Einsatz von Artillerie und Fliegern griff der Feind auch gestern Boulogne und Brest an. In Boulogne konnte er nach schweren Kämpfen in die Stadt eindringen, wurde aber aus mehreren Batteriestellungen wieder geworfen. Stadt und Hafen von Brest sind nur noch rauchende Trümmer. Die überlebende Besatzung hat sich auf die Halbinsel Le Crozon zurückgezogen und kämpft dort weiter. Feindliche Vorstöße gegen Lorient und Saint-Nazaire scheiterten. Aus einem Stützpunkt an der Gironde-Mündung führte ein Bataillon einen Ausfall auf die Stadt Sanjon und vernichtete dort große Kraftstoff- und Munitionslager des Feindes.

In Italien halten die schweren Abwehrschlachten im Raum nördlich Florenz und an der Adria in unverminderter Stärke an. Im Verlaufe der Kämpfe konnte der Gegner Einbrüche in unsere Stellungen erzielen, die abgeriegelt wurden. Der beabsichtigte Durchbruch wurde auch gestern verhindert. Die harten, beiderseits verlustreichen Kämpfe dauern weiter an.

An der Nordwestgrenze Rumäniens warfen Gegenangriffe ungarischer und deutscher Verbände den Feind bis in den Raum von Temeschburg, östlich Arad und südöstlich Großwardein, zurück.

Bei Torenburg und lm Nordteil des Szekler Zipfels scheiterten alle Angriffe mehrerer sowjetischer Schützendivisionen.

Auch bei Sanok und Krosno wurde der erneut angreifende Feind im Gegenangriff abgewiesen. An einer Stelle wurden 24 durchgebrochene sowjetische Panzer vernichtet.

Nordöstlich Warschau blieben sowjetische Angriffe erfolglos.

Südwestlich Mitau schossen unsere Truppen bei der Abwehr feindlicher Gegenangriffe 29 Panzer ab. In Lettland und Estland verhinderten unsere zäh kämpfenden Divisionen auch gestern feindliche Durchbrüche und vernichteten in den beiden letzten Tagen 149 Panzer.

Feindliche Bomber führten Terrorangriffe gegen Wesermünde und Budapest sowie andere Orte im ungarischen und serbischen Raum. Jäger und Flakartillerie der Luftwaffe schossen 19 feindliche Flugzeuge ab.

[NormanStewart]

Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (September 19, 1944)

Communiqué No. 164

The landing of Allied airborne troops in Holland continued yesterday. Supplies were also landed and positions were consolidated and strengthened. Operations are proceeding, and in one area our ground forces have already linked with the airborne troops.

In advance of the airborne operations, fighters and fighter-bombers attacked flak boats and positions, troops and transport. Other fighters maintained patrols and provided escort and cover for the transport aircraft and gliders. More than 70 flak boats and positions were put out of action. Many motor and horse-drawn vehicles were destroyed and an ammunition dump was blown up.

Opposition to the advance of our ground troops was stubborn. In the area west of ANTWERP, Allied troops, now fighting on Dutch soil, are advancing in spite of stiff opposition.

Fighting continues in BOULOGNE where we have made further progress into the town.

In Southern HOLLAND, our troops have advanced northeast of MAASTRICHT against stiff resistance from enemy infantry, artillery and dug-in tanks.

Elements further east have reached UBAGSBERG and SIMPELVELD against moderate resistance. In AACHEN, hard fighting continues. Southeast of the city, we have cleared the town of BÜSBACH and units to the northeast have met strong opposition.

Mopping-up of German elements is in progress east of ROETGEN, across the border from EUPEN, and we have captured HÖFEN. East of ST. VITH, our troops in Germany are meeting stiffening resistance and increasing artillery fire. BRANDSCHEID has been taken and we have advanced to HONTHEIM, six miles east of the border.

Armored units moving across the LUXEMBOURG-GERMAN frontier have taken the town of HÜTTINGEN.

In the MOSELLE Valley, we have further reinforced our troops to the east of the river.

West of BELFORT GAP, our troops, in an advance of more than five miles eastward from SAINT-LOUP-SUR-SEMOUSE, have entered the town of FOUGEROLLES. An enemy attack near PONT-DE-ROIDE was repulsed.

According to reports so far received, 32 enemy aircraft were destroyed in yesterday’s overall air operation. Thirty-three of our fighters are missing.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 19, 1944)

Air army over Rhine; Dutch city captured

Brereton’s men turn Siegfried Line; Brest reported in U.S. hands
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer

Bulletin

With U.S. 1st Army on German-Luxembourg frontier –
U.S. armored units knocked out 26 German tanks in repulsing two counterattacks northwest of Trier today, boosting their bag in one sector to 50 in 36 hours.

Gaining in Holland, the 1st Allied Airborne Army was reported in position across the Rhine River at Arnhem to turn the German Siegfried Line and drive to Berlin. Meanwhile, the U.S. 1st Army crossed the German border at new points above and below Aachen. The British 2nd Army drove into Holland to join the 1st Airborne Army, the U.S. 3rd Army advanced from Nancy, and the 7th Army closed on the Belfort Gap. Far to the northwest, the 1st Canadian Army battled to clean up the Channel and North Sea coasts.

SHAEF, London, England –
Lt. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton’s airborne army turned the northern end of the Siegfried Line today in the Arnhem area of eastern Holland beyond the Rhine while other Allied forces captured the Dutch transport hub of Eindhoven.

Elated spokesmen said the aerial invasion of Holland was going exactly as planned on its third day and the commanders were highly pleased with its progress.

Front dispatches said the paratroopers and the British 2nd Army were wheeling through Holland at a lively clip, and the entire Nazi defense system for the country appeared to be falling apart.

Again today, an armada of Allied planes flew a supply mission to Holland, reinforcing the army which landed in the areas of Arnhem, Nijmegen and Eindhoven as well as other unspecified localities.

**The concerted onrush of the British 2nd Army and the airborne forces which brought them together in the Eindhoven area toppled the defenses of that big industrial city, and Lt. Gen. Miles C. Dempsey’s armor raced on in a fanout through a number of towns to the north and east.

Besides Eindhoven, the Allied seized Veghel (15 miles to the north), Esp (four miles to the north), Geldrop (four miles to the east), Wilreit and Luyksgestel (four miles north of Lommel) and Broek (one miles north of the Escaut Canal) where the British forced a new crossing in the Lille–Saint-Hubert area.

Far to the west, the battered German garrison of Brest, big French port famous for its role in World War I, had withdrawn to the Le Crozon Peninsula, Berlin said. The Nazi command said the city had been reduced to “smoking ruins” before it fell to the Americans who raced across Brittany early in August.

U.S. tanks and armor of Lt. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges’ 1st Army resumed their advance east of Aachen, breaking a stalemate brought about by brisk German counterattacks, and reached the outskirts of Stolberg, industrial city which had been bypassed in the drive which breached the Siegfried Line.

United Press writer Henry T. Gorrell reported from the region of Stolberg that the Germans had not counterattacked for 24 hours. Allied bombers were plastering the Nazi positions along a wide arc curving deep into Germany east of Aachen.

Can open path into Reich

With the Siegfried Line turned, if the airborne forces dropped in the Arnhem and Nijmegen areas can link up with the armored spearheads advancing north from Eindhoven, they will open a path for a fast dash into Northwest Germany.

The northern end of the Siegfried Line is at Kleve, 18 miles southeast of Arnhem. Arnhem is on the north bank of the Rhine branch which flows to the North Sea through Rotterdam. The landing forces were operating north of Arnhem and thus established north of almost all the main water barriers standing between the British 2nd Army and Northwest Germany.

The force in the Nijmegen area 12 miles south of Arnhem comprised an intermediary link between the Eindhoven and Arnhem forces. A quick junction will erect a great barrier behind an unofficially estimated 70,000 Germans in western Holland.

Make excellent headway

All available reports indicated that the Allied forces were making excellent headway and firmly holding the key positions they had seized.

United Press writer Ronald Clark reported from the 2nd Army front:

It appears that the German hope of fighting successfully for Holland or evacuating all troops from the Rotterdam and Amsterdam coastal areas is fading fast. Already the possibility appears of another gigantic bag closing around a big section of the Wehrmacht.

Strong British forces were moving swiftly northward across the first series of water crossings where the Germans hoped to defend the approaches to the Lower Rhine, Mr. Clark reported.

Claim some captured

The DNB News Agency said attempts by the airborne forces who landed in the Nijmegen area to gain a foothold in the town itself or the bridges which lead across the Waal River into it were frustrated.

The agency said single paratroop units landed in German territory next to the frontier, but claimed they were encircled and forced to surrender after a short fight.

A Brussels broadcast said the British 2nd Army was two miles from Nijmegen and crossed the Wilhelmina Canal at 5:30 a.m. CET.

Headquarters revealed that the airborne forces had already captured several hundred prisoners, most of them second-rate troops.

Mr. Clark revealed that the third wing of the 1st Allied Airborne Army had joined forces with armored spearheads of the British 2nd Army around Veghel.

The British 2nd Army was across the Belgian frontier into the Netherlands in great strength at three points above the Escaut Canal – north of Gheel, Lommel and Hechtel.

Front dispatches said the hard-hitting paratroops were spreading panic and confusion through the enemy rear, raising the possibility of a British march into the Ruhr similar to Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s whirlwind drive across eastern France.

Battle for month

There was no immediate confirmation of the capture of Brest, where one of the bloodiest battles of the French campaign has been raging for more than a month.

About 20,000 Germans, including landlocked U-boat sailors and other naval personnel, dug into the city when the Americans broke into the Breton Peninsula and held out stubbornly under heavy attack from land, sea and air to prevent the Allies from obtaining the use of the first-rate port facilities.

Gen. Patton’s U.S. 3rd Army broke the stalemate on the Moselle River with a powerful eastward thrust toward the German frontier that carried at least 20 miles beyond Nancy and tightened the ring around Metz.

Close in Belfort

Simultaneously, the U.S. 7th Army squeezed in closer to the Belfort Gap against stiffening opposition, and 1st Canadian Army troops on the French Channel coast fought into the streets of Boulogne at bayonet point.

The U.S. 1st Army drove across the Dutch border into Germany east of Simpelveld, seven miles north of Aachen, a second spearhead striking beyond captured Maastricht neared the border in the area of Sittard, 17 miles northwest of Aachen.

Aachen itself was closely enveloped and official reports indicated some doughboys had fought into the streets of the city.

Beat off attacks

Southeast of Aachen, Gen. Hodges’ men beat off desperate counterblows by German tanks and shock troops, losing some ground under the enemy assault and then coming back to capture several towns well inside the border, including Höfen and Büsbach.

Farther south, the Americans also expanded their salient inside Germany above Prüm and made a new penetration of the Reich at Hüttingen, 20 miles below that town.

United Press writer Robert Richards reported from the 3rd Army front that Gen. Patton’s men were on the move toward Germany again after a long stalemate imposed by supply difficulties.

30 miles from border

One armored spearhead pushed beyond Nancy to within about 30 miles of the German border, apparently aiming at Strasbourg, while other units crossed the Moselle River in force below Metz, threatening to outflank that fortress.

Below Nancy, another U.S. infantry column, spearheaded by French armor, advanced 15 miles northeast of Charmes.

At one point, fanatical Nazi SS troops launched a wild bayonet charge against the American vanguards, only to be slaughtered by Yank machine-gunners and riflemen, Mr. Richards said.

[NormanStewart]

Nazis surrendering to Dutch civilians

By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer

With U.S. Airborne Army in Holland –
German soldiers, no longer supermen but just strangers in a foreign country who want to get home, are giving themselves up to unarmed Dutch civilians and waiting for American paratroopers to come to take them to prisoner of war pens.

The prisoners, for the most part poor specimens of soldiers, are dribbling in in crowds of 10 to 20. Their standard answer to the question of age is – 18 years.

Dutch men, women and children are holding them prisoner for the Americans and the biggest job now is getting around to all the houses where there are three or four Nazis under guard by irate Dutch housewives.

The Dutch, too, were greeting the Americans with a welcome which some veterans who saw the liberation of Paris said was even more hysterical than the celebration by the French.

[NormanStewart]

Air invasion greater than D-Day attack

Paratroop landing in Reich possible

1st Allied Army HQ (UP) –
Allied spokesmen today hailed the great airborne landing behind the German lines in Holland as a sweeping success that exposes the Nazi homeland itself to invasion from the sky.

“The Allies can drop behind the Siegfried Line, across the Rhine, or anywhere else they want,” senior staff officers of Lt. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton’s 1st Airborne Army declared.

Two invasion waves have dropped through the rood of Holland twice in the past 48 hours at a cost in men and equipment far lower than even the most optimistic generals anticipated. Already the scope of the operation has dwarfed that of the landing in Normandy on D-Day, and Gen. Brereton’s sky army has not finished.

Other landings possible

The timing and direction of the air army’s next blow were closely-guarded secrets, but official spokesmen made it clear that the size of the two-day landings in Holland has not ruled out the possibility of further operations.

Thousands of planes and gliders swarmed across Holland yesterday to supply and reinforce the first invasion wave of paratroops and airborne infantrymen who landed Sunday afternoon. Field dispatches indicated the second contingent was fully as large as the first.

The element of tactical surprise was gone and the Germans threw up flak and fighter planes in an effort to turn back the air fleets but they got through with surprisingly small losses.

Covered by 600 fighters

More than 600 U.S. 8th Air Force fighters covered the armada.

Twenty-three fighters were lost, but they knocked out 74 gun posts and damaged almost a score of others, and destroyed 36 planes.

The big glider trains that ferried in the troops and supplies formed up over England in two great columns that stretched out over 285 miles. One struck across the continent behind the British lines, crossing the Gheel bridgehead over the Escaut Canal and then heading for the jump area, while the second approached directly from the Channel, flying for 85 miles across a thick belt of German flak.

A force of 250 Liberator bombers, transformed into cargo planes for the occasion, joined the fleet to ferry supplies to the first wave.

11 big bombers lost

The big bombers flew through the flak with their bellies skimming the treetops, and 11 of them were knocked down by enemy fire.

Maj. William Cameron of Hanford, California, copilot of one Liberator, said he and his crew saw gliders and jeeps on the ground with Allied troops all around them.

Other crewmen said they passed over flooded areas where practically no movement could be observed except a few cattle on the high roads, and, in a churchyard, three priests kneeling in prayer.

One Dutch fireman jubilantly tossed his helmet into the air when the Allied planes flew over and in some towns the people waved red, white and blue flags.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: Eisenhower’s strategy

There is no longer any doubt that Allied strategy aims to force a decision in Germany before snow flies. For Gen. Eisenhower now has thrown in his major reserves, or at least a considerable part of them. He had saved his airborne army and the new 9th Army for this big push.

Landing of the airborne army behind the enemy lines in Holland is accepted by most of the armchair experts as proof that the main drive is to be in the north. It is the shortest route to Berlin, It is also the easiest terrain, once our forces get out of the partially-flooded Lowlands.

There are other advantages in a northern campaign. We still need ports, especially close to England. Success in the present Holland operation will give us the great ports of that country and also facilitate the use of Antwerp. Also, it will eliminate the remaining robot platforms, which still are hurling death into London and Southern England. Moreover, a drive across Northwest Germany, with the capture of Bremen and Hamburg, would make it difficult for Hitler to pull back reserves from Norway – his best, and probably, only, source of major reinforcements.

Though this is all very logical, it is not necessarily Gen. Eisenhower’s strategy. He has a way of fooling the enemy. In the invasion they expected him to strike at one or more ports – Calais, Le Havre, Cherbourg; instead, he landed on the open beaches. In the Battle of Normandy, they expected him to batter through left or center; instead, he sent Gen. Patton wide around right end. Again, he outguessed them by repeating the Patton play, running right around Paris.

So, it is possible that this surprise left end run through Holland is to secure that country and its ports and to make a feint into Germany, rather than attempt the main Berlin drive from that direction. That is something neither Hitler nor our homegrown kibitzers can be sure of until the play is completed.

But the significant aspect of the situation is not where Gen. Eisenhower will deliver his biggest blow. It is his ability to strike anywhere from the North Sea to Switzerland. With Gen. Montgomery’s British 2nd Army and the airborne army meeting, Gen. Eisenhower has strong forces along or well inside the entire German frontier. Whether the main breakthrough will come in the north, or around Cologne, or up the Mosel corridor to Koblenz, or in the south at the Belfort Gap, Gen. Eisenhower has succeeded in placing his forces so he can take advantage of any soft spot wherever it shows under pressure.

That is why there is a good chance of winning the Battle of Western Germany before winter. It does not depend on any one operation or any one sector. Gen. Eisenhower is covering the entire Western Front but the enemy, presumably, is not strong enough to do so – not with Gens. Alexander and Clark pressing on the Italian front, and with the Russians closing in from the southeast and the east.

[NormanStewart]

Völkischer Beobachter (September 20, 1944)

Deutscher Widerstand durchkreuzt Feindrechnung –
‚Mit unerhörter Tapferkeit‘

Anglo-amerikanische Militärkritiker über die deutschen Erfolgschancen

vb. Berlin, 19. September –
Wenn der General Eisenhower in den letzten Tagen die Front seiner Armeen auf der Karte betrachtete, so sah er zwei von seinen vier amerikanischen Armeen unmittelbar an und bereits über der Reichsgrenze. Weiter im Süden erblickte er noch immer die amerikanischen Divisionen vor den deutschen Sperrriegeln in Französisch-Lothringen, und ganz im Süden schob sich die vom Mittelmeer heranbefohlene Armee langsam an Belfort heran. Am weitesten zurück aber sah er die Engländer.

Die beiden Armeen des Feldmarschalls Montgomery hatten ziemlich schnell Belgien durcheilt, aber in der Gegend des Albertkanals waren sie hängen geblieben. Sie hatten sich redliche Mühe gegeben, die deutschen Linien zu durchbrechen und in die Niederlande einzudringen, sie hatten mehr als einen Gewaltstoß zu diesem Zweck unternommen, aber diese Versuche waren ihnen nicht gelungen. So war nördlich von Hasselt ein scharfer Knick in der Gesamtfront eingetreten. Während sie, von Belfort aus gerechnet, in leidlich gerader Linie von Süden nach Norden ging, sprang sie von da aus in scharfem Knick nach Westen ab. Das bedeutete also, daß der ganze linke Flügel des gegnerischen Westheeres, etwa ein Drittel der Gesamtstärke, weit zurückhing.

Es war deutlich, daß hierin ein Zustand lag, der, je länger er dauerte, um so unerwünschter für das gegnerische Oberkommando wurde. Das mußte umso mehr der Fall sein, als der Heeresgruppe Montgomery von dem General Eisenhower offenbar eine besondere Aufgabe bei dem Generalansturm auf Deutschland zugedacht war. Ohne Zweifel hatte sie, wie sie Belgien durcheilt hatte, auch die Niederlande durcheilen sollen, um hier an der deutschen Grenze den Stoß in die durch keinerlei Gebirge geschützte norddeutsche Tiefebene in Richtung auf das Ruhrgebiet zu tragen. Daß dieser Stoß ausblieb, während die Nordamerikaner an den Hängen der Eifel und der Ardennen in schwerem Kampf standen, mußte die Gesamtkonzeption Eisenhowers auf das empfindlichste stören. Ebenso mußte aber auch das britische Selbstgefühl diesen Zustand auf die Dauer als schwer erträglich empfinden. Es waren Nordamerikaner, die den Durchbruch bei Avranches vollbracht hatten, es waren Nordamerikaner, die als erste ins Reichsgebiet eingedrungen waren, es waren Nordamerikaner, die jetzt den größten Teil der Gesamtfront übernommen hatten – Mancher mochte sich im Stillen fragen, ob der britische Beitrag nicht etwas verdunkelt werde durch die Ereignisse, die sich an die Namen amerikanischer Generale knüpften. Montgomery war noch vor kurzem Oberkommandierender der Bodentruppen in Frankreich gewesen, jetzt war er auf eine von den drei Heeresgruppen beschränkt, in die Eisenhowers sechs Armeen aufgeteilt sind, und gerade seine Gruppe lag am weitesten zurück. Er hat in den letzten vierzehn Tagen Anstrengungen unternommen, diesen Zustand zu ändern, er hat immer wieder Polen, Kanadier, Engländer gegen die deutschen Linien gesandt, aber der Erfolg war ihm versagt geblieben.

Wir möchten nicht behaupten, daß die Erwägungen des britischen Selbstgefühls ausschlaggebend bei dem Entschluss gewesen seien, den bisherigen unbefriedigenden Zustand durch andere Maßnahmen als das frontale Anrennen zu verbessern. Doch mögen sie immerhin in den Kreisen der englischen Kommandostellen die Neigung bestärkt haben, den Entschluss zu gründlicher Wandlung zu fördern. Ausschlaggebend aber sind sicherlich bei Eisenhower rein militärische Beweggründe gewesen. Montgomery mußte mit seiner Front endlich geradeziehen, sie mußte ein Teil der Gesamtfront werden, die nun stracks von Süden nach Norden laufen sollte. Es durfte keinen so weit zurückhängenden Flügel mehr geben. Da dies durch alle Offensivstöße gegen die deutschen Linien auf der Erde nicht zu erreichen war, setzte Eisenhower am Sonntag endlich einen Teil der bisher noch in England stehenden gemeinsamen amerikanisch-britischen Luftlandearmee ein.

Wenn man die Orte, in deren Nähe feindliche Truppen aus der Luft gelandet sind, nämlich Arnheim, Nimwegen und Eindhoven, durch eine Linie miteinander verbindet, bekommt man ungefähr den Frontverlauf heraus, wie ihn sich der General Eisenhower als Ergebnis der Ereignisse vom Sonntag denkt. Diese Linie würde die bisher von den vier amerikanischen Armeen gehaltene Front ziemlich gerade nach Norden verlängern und der Reichsgrenze dicht parallel laufen. In dem Augenblick, in dem die Fallschirmjäger über den mittleren Provinzen der Niederlande niedergingen, hat dann auch die britische zweite Armee aus der Gegend nördlich von Hasselt zum Stoß nach Norden eingesetzt, um die Verbindung mit den Luftlandetruppen aufzunehmen. Sie hat am Montag Eindhoven erreicht, während die Luftlandetruppen dort noch nördlich der Stadt standen. Aber die Aktion in diese Gebiete beschränkte sich keineswegs auf Maßnahmen des Gegners allein. Deutsche Truppen haben sofort zu Gegenmaßnahmen angesetzt und es ist ihnen bereits gelungen, mehrere Verbände der Luftlandetruppen einzuschließen, bei anderen den besetzten Raum einzuengen.

Die Kämpfe in den Niederlanden gehen mit aller Wucht weiter. Währenddessen wird auch weiter im Süden, namentlich auf deutschem Boden, hart an der Reichsgrenze, mit äußerster Erbitterung gelochten. Was hier geschieht, ist eine bittere Enttäuschung für die Amerikaner. Sie sind mit hochgespannten Erwartungen in den Kampf um das deutsche Westverteidigungssystem gegangen. Ihre eigenen Befehlshaber haben durchblicken lassen, daß sie dieses System nicht sehr noch einschätzten. Nun liegen sie bereits im Vorfeld fest. (Es muß festgehalten werden, daß Aachen als eine vorgeschobene Stadt westlich von dem deutschen Hauptverteidigungssystem liegt.) Die Amerikaner können sich nicht nur nicht mehr vorwärtsbewegen, sondern sie haben sogar mehrere besetzte Hügelkuppen den Deutschen wieder überlassen müssen, und vorgeprellte Panzerspitzen sind abgeschnitten und vernichtet worden. Einige Tage lang haben zwar phantasievolle Berichterstatter von dem „Durchbruch“ gesprochen, aber die amtlichen Wehrmachtberichte aus dem Hauptquartier des Generals Eisenhower waren weise genug, das Wort nicht einmal zu erwähnen. Nicht anders ist es noch weiter im Süden in der Gegend von Metz und Nancy und westlich von Belfort, wo die beiden südlichen amerikanischen Armeen überhaupt noch sehr weit von den deutschen Westverteidigungslinien stehen. Selbst da, wo die Amerikaner noch voran konnten, bewegt sich der Geländegewinn in Größenordnungen von mehreren hundert Metern, nicht von Kilometern.

An der ganzen Front von Aachen bis Belfort sehen die amerikanischen Befehlshaber mit Besorgnis, daß der Feldzug manche Formen des Stellungskrieges anzunehmen beginnt. Man darf annehmen, daß auch diese unerwartete und peinliche Stagnation vor den amerikanischen Armeen den General Eisenhower bewogen hat, dem Westfeldzug durch die Luftlandungen im Norden einen neuen Auftrieb und eine neue Auflockerung zu geben.

[NormanStewart]

Führer HQ (September 20, 1944)

Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht

In Mittelholland wurde der aus der Luft gelandete Feind im Raum Arnheim durch konzentrische Angriffe weiter eingeengt. Gut unterstützt durch eigene Jagdverbände fügten unsere Truppen dem Gegner schwere Verluste an Menschen und Material zu. Bisher wurden über 1700 Gefangene eingebracht. Aus dem Raum Eindhoven stieß der Feind mit Panzern nach Nordosten vor. Eigene Truppen traten auch hier zum Gegenangriff an.

Nordwestlich Aachen konnte der Gegner unter starkem Panzereinsatz seinen Einbruch erweitern. Südwestlich der Stadt wurden alle feindlichen Angriffe zum Teil unter hohen Verlusten für den Gegner abgewiesen. Der eigene Gegenangriff gewinnt langsam Boden.

Im Raum Nancy–Lunéville halten die schweren und unübersichtlichen Kämpfe an. Nancy ging verloren. In Lunéville wird erbittert gekämpft. An den übrigen Frontabschnitten nur örtliche Kampfhandlungen.

Die fortgesetzten Angriffe des Feindes auf die Festung Calais, St. Nazaire und Boulogne wurden abgewiesen. Nach der Beendigung des Kampfes im völlig zerstörten Stadt- und Hafenbereich der Festung Brest hielten gestern noch einzelne Kampfgruppen in erbittertem Kampf die letzten Stützpunkte auf der Halbinsel Le Crozon.

Das „V1“-Störfeuer auf London dauert an.

In Italien erreichten im Raum an der Adria die schweren Abwehrschlachten ihren Höhepunkt. Es gelang hier auch gestern den heldenhaft kämpfenden eigenen Truppen, zum Teil in neuen Stellungen, den feindlichen Durchbruch zu verhindern. Nördlich und nordöstlich Florenz wurden feindliche Angriffe abgewiesen, örtliche Einbrüche im Gegenstoß bereinigt.

In Südsiebenbürgen und im Szekler Zipfel scheiterten Angriffe der Bolschewisten. Ebenso wiesen unsere Truppen im Abschnitt Sanok–Krosno heftige Angriffe der Sowjets zurück, riegelten einzelne Einbrüche ab und vernichteten 27 Panzer.

Bei Warschau versuchte der Feind im Schutz künstlichen Nebels die Weichsel an mehreren Stellen zu überschreiten. Die Übersetzversuche wurden vereitelt, einzelne auf das Westufer vorgedrungene Kampfgruppen abgeschnitten. Auch nordöstlich der Stadt blieben wiederholte Angriffe der Bolschewisten in unserem Feuer liegen.

Angriffe südwestlich Mitau brachten nach Abwehr feindlicher Gegenangriffe Stellungsverbesserungen.

In Lettland und Estland wurden die von zahlreichen Panzern und Schlachtfliegern unterstützten Angriffe der Bolschewisten abgewiesen oder aufgefangen und zahlreiche Panzer vernichtet.

In dreitägigen Waldkämpfen zerschlugen unsere Grenadiere im Kandalakscha-Abschnitt in schwungvollen Gegenangriffen zwei feindliche Brückenköpfe.

In den gestrigen Mittagsstunden führten nordamerikanische Bomber Angriffe gegen mehrere Orte in Nord- und Nordwestdeutschland. Im Stadtgebiet von Koblenz entstanden Gebäudeschäden und Personenverluste.

In der vergangenen Nacht richteten sich feindliche Terrorangriffe gegen München-Gladbach und Budapest. Luftverteidigungskräfte schossen 37 feindliche Flugzeuge ab.

Im Kanal und im Indischen Ozean versenkten Unterseeboote vier Schiffe mit 26.000 BRT und zwei Fregatten. Drei weitere Schiffe wurden durch Torpedotreffer schwer beschädigt.

---

In den Ostkarpaten zeichneten sich das schwäbisch-bayerische 1. Bataillon des Gebirgsjägerregiments 13 unter Führung von Hauptmann Ploder und das schwäbisch-bayerische Feldersatzbataillon 94 unter Führung von Hauptmann Kresse durch hervorragende Tapferkeit aus.

In den schweren Abwehrkämpfen in Lettland haben sich die schwäbische 205. Infanteriedivision unter Führung von Generalleutnant von Mellenthin, die bayerisch-pfälzische 132. Infanteriedivision unter Führung von Generalleutnant Wagner, und die sächsische 24. Infanteriedivision unter Führung von Oberst Schultz durch Angriffsschwung und Standfestigkeit hervorragend bewährt.

Leutnant Sauer in einer Sturmgeschützbrigade schoss mit seinem Sturmgeschütz in zwei Tagen 14 Panzer ab.

[NormanStewart]

Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (September 20, 1944)

Communiqué No. 165

The advance of the Allied forces in HOLLAND has continued rapidly. Ground troops made contact yesterday with more airborne formations. EINDHOVEN is in our hands and our armored units have advanced nearly 40 miles to the area of NIJMEGEN. Strong enemy counterattacks were beaten off near BEST and in our bridgehead north of GHEEL.

Fighters and fighter-bombers again supported and covered airborne operations and attacked road and rail transport over a wide area of HOLLAND. According to reports so far received, 26 enemy aircraft were shot down for the loss of nine of our fighters.

To the west, the enemy is still resisting stubbornly south of the SCHELDT, but our troops made progress in the area of the AXEL-HULST CANAL. On the coast we have captured the CITADEL and MONT LAMBERT in BOULOGNE.

In southern HOLLAND, our troops have liberated SITTARD and AMSTENRADE, northeast of MAASTRICHT, meeting moderate opposition.

East of AACHEN, fighting is in progress in the factory area of STOLBERG, and enemy pressure is being met near BÜSBACH. Operating in advance of our ground forces, medium and light bombers hit railway yards at ESCHWEILER, DÜREN and MERZENICH in the AACHEN–COLOGNE Line.

Mopping-up of enemy pillboxes and pockets of resistance continues east of ROETGEN and in the HÖFEN and ALZEN areas, south of MONSCHAU. Enemy counterattacks in this area were unsuccessful.

Heavy and determined resistance has been encountered east of the GERMAN-LUXEMBOURG border. East of BLEIALF, an enemy pocket was wiped out.

In the MOSELLE Valley, we have made gains south of METZ against stubborn resistance. Mopping-up is in progress six miles northeast of PONT-À-MOUSSON. Further south, our forces have liberated GERBÉVILLER, 14 miles northeast of CHARMES.

In BRITTANY, all organized resistance has ceased in BREST and RECOUVRANCE, and our troops have cleared the enemy from the CROZON Peninsula.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 20, 1944)

Hitler in command at front; British drive 40 miles to Rhine

Allied invasion thrust into Germany from Netherlands indicated
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer

Bulletin

SHAEF, London, England –
U.S. and German tanks were locked in battle on 1st Army and 3rd Army fronts in France and Germany today. At least 71 German tanks were knocked out in two sectors alone, first reports said.

A dispatch from the 3rd Army said tanks were slugging it out 16 miles northeast of Nancy and that Gen. Patton’s armor knocked out 40 German Tiger tanks near Athienville yesterday. Artillery bagged three more. A First Army dispatch said 28 of 41 attacking German tanks were knocked southwest of Bitburg, German town 16 miles north of Trier.

Violent fighting of the “Cassino” type was raging in Stolberg, industrial city five miles east of Aachen, with the Americans advancing from house-to-house. Some counterattacking Nazis were using flamethrowers.

Turning the Siegfried Line, British 2nd Army troops and Allied air-borne forces drove into Nijmegen, on the south bank of the Rhine three miles from the German border, while airborne troops to the north were at Arnhem. The U.S. 1st Army smashed beyond Aachen to the Duren area and strengthened its positions across the German border north and south of Aachen. The U.S. 3rd Army closed on Metz and advanced from the Nancy area to within 45 miles of Strasbourg. French troops of the Allied 6th Army Group closed on Belfort and captured Fougerolles, 25 miles to the north.

SHAEF, London, England –
Lt. Gen. Sir Miles C. Dempsey’s patrols. were believed to have scored the first British thrust into Germany east of the embattled Dutch stronghold of Nijmegen today, coincident with disclosure that Adolf Hitler had taken direct command of the defense of the Reich.

Gen. Dempsey’s British 2nd Army troops fought a violent battle through the streets of Nijmegen after a 40-mile dash across the Netherlands to that ancient Dutch city perched on the high south bank of the Rhine River. Meanwhile, his advanced elements and troops of the 1st Allied Airborne Army were swinging around the northern end of the Siegfried Line.

Airborne headquarters in Britain reported authorities well satisfied with the progress of the aerial invasion of Holland which had already opened the way for a drive into northwestern Germany and on to Berlin.

Lt. Gen. Frederick A. M. Browning’s sky troopers were supplied again, today for the fourth straight day by aerial trains which sped across the North Sea despite rain and mist.

While the street battle went on in Nijmegen, British forces were believed to have struck the three miles eastward to the German frontier. Any such limited operation was regarded at headquarters, however, as of little tactical significance for the moment.

Germans hurl suicidal attacks

Hitler’s generalship was already in evidence all along the blazing battlefront from northern Holland to the edge of the Saar Valley. Front dispatches said crack German troops and panzer units were being hurled into reckless counterattacks that slowed the Allied advance in some sectors at a frightful cost in Nazi lives. In others, they resulted only in a slaughter of Germans without stemming the Berlin-bound Allies.

The Führer’s hand was also seen in the appearance of Nazi robot bombs on the fighting front for the first time. Field dispatches said two flying bombs crashed into U.S. positions along the Meuse River, exploding with terrific force but apparently causing few casualties among the well-dispersed troops.

First official word of the Führer’s new role, similar to that which he assumed with disastrous results on the Russian front, came from Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery at his forward command in Belgium.

Marshal Montgomery told officers and men of a Scottish division:

** The Allies have a lot to be thankful for in that Hitler has taken charge of operations. It means the enemy is commanded by a lunatic. In that respect, I’m glad the German generals failed in their bomb attempt against the Führer.**

Hitler’s decision to lead the defense of the Reich, he added, strengthened his (Marshal Montgomery’s) belief that the war in Europe would end before the close of 1944.

One major triumph was confirmed by Allied headquarters today – the capture of the great Atlantic port of Brest and the elimination of the Germans from the neighboring Crozon Peninsula, ending a month-old siege that virtually wrecked the harbor.

Troops hold path across Rhine

A second and greater victory was in the making in northern Holland where the armored might of the British 2nd Army reached the Rhine Line and threatened to break across the barrier momentarily into the open country before Berlin.

U.S. and Allied airborne troops joined the British around Eindhoven, 32 miles southwest of Nijmegen, and formed up in their rear as infantrymen, while others held open a path ahead of the Tommies as far as Arnhem, on the north bank of the Rhine 11 miles beyond Nijmegen.

First reports indicated the vital bridge across the Rhine on the road to Arnhem still was standing when the Allies broke into Nijmegen. An unconfirmed Radio Paris broadcast said British armored forces drove five miles beyond Nijmegen and effected a juncture with airborne troops moving down from Arnhem.

United Press writer Walter Cronkite, with the sky troops in Holland, said the airborne army, now equipped with light tanks and big field guns, could beat off anything the Germans might try to throw against them.

He reported that the Germans were counterattacking desperately but ineffectually with shock troops and heavy artillery, and the fighting was within sound of the German border.

At Nijmegen, the Allies were about 12 miles north-northwest of Kleve, where the Nazi West Wall reputedly ends. At Arnhem, they were less than 10 miles from the Reich, and, if the British armor can be brought up in force, in position for a smash across excellent tank country all the way to Berlin, some 260 miles to the east.

The Germans appeared to have rallied somewhat from the initial shock of the Allied airborne invasion and were fighting fanatically even when bypassed by the British armor.

They hit back with particular ferocity around Best, on the Wilhelmina Canal, six miles northwest of Eindhoven, and won back the town, but were stopped before they could cut dangerously into the Allied flank. Other Nazi units counterattacked repeatedly against the base of the Allied spearhead along the Belgian-Dutch border, but without success. Troops, tanks and guns were still pouring across the frontier to join in the big push for the Reich.

Some 80 miles southeast of Nijmegen, the U.S. 1st Army completed the encirclement of Aachen and sent armored spearheads eastward toward Cologne in a bitterly-opposed drive that had already forced the evacuation of German civilians from the Rhineland.

American 155mm Long Toms shelled Duren, 16 miles east of Aachen and 19 miles from Cologne.

Southwest of Cologne, U.S. and German troops locked in savage street battles for Stolberg and the nearby village of Büsbach. Still farther south, 1st Army troops and tanks widened their salients inside Germany in the Monschau, Prüm, Echternach and Trier areas, knocking out pillboxes on each side of their spearheads but making only yard-by-yard progress forward.

Capture many Nazis

Despite the stubbornness of the German resistance on the 1st Army front, United Press writer Henry T. Gorrell reported that prisoners were still coming in at the rate of 2,000 a day and that the 1st Army bag now totaled 180,000 men.

On Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s U.S. 3rd Army front to the south, United Press writer Robert Richards said French Forces of the Interior had joined the Americans in a two-pronged drive for the Saar Valley that made good progress in the face of heavy opposition.

One column advanced 23 miles northeast of Épinal to the Baccarat area, while a second moved 20 miles northeast of Nancy, to the vicinity of Marsal and Dieuze.

Use tanks, minefields

German panzer grenadiers, many of them veterans of the Italian and North African campaigns, opposed the 3rd Army drive and Mr. Richards reported they were using tanks, minefields and roadblocks in a stubborn fighting retreat through the forests east of the Moselle River.

At least 14 enemy tanks were destroyed in the Dieuze sector yesterday, Mr. Richards said.

Battle hard for Metz

Fighting in the Metz area to the north was still “very stiff,” with the Americans gaining ground slowly and painfully, he added.

Far to the west, all organized resistance was ended in Brest and U.S. infantrymen probed through the wreckage of the port mopping up isolated Nazi snipers. The battle for the Channel port of Boulogne was also about ended, despite bitter resistance met by Canadian troops in some parts of the town. Almost 3,000 Germans, it was disclosed, have been captured in Boulogne.

[NormanStewart]

Führer HQ (September 21, 1944)

Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht

In Mittelholland wurde der aus der Luft gelandete Feind im Raum Arnheim durch konzentrische Angriffe weiter eingeengt. Gut unterstützt durch eigene Jagdverbände, fügten unsre Truppen dem Gegner schwere Verluste an Menschen und Material zu. Bisher wurden über 1700 Gefangene eingebracht.

Aus dem Raum Eindhoven stieß der Feind mit Panzern nach Nordosten vor. Eigene Truppen traten auch hier zum Gegenangriff an.

Nordwestlich Aachen konnte der Gegner unter starkem Panzereinsatz seinen Einbruch erweitern. Südwestlich der Stadt wurden alle feindlichen Angriffe zum Teil unter hohen Verlusten für den Gegner abgewiesen. Der eigene Gegenangriff gewinnt langsam Boden.

Im Raum Nancy–Lunéville halten die schweren und unübersichtlichen Kämpfe an. Nancy ging verloren. In Lunéville wird erbittert gekämpft.

An den übrigen Frontabschnitten nur örtliche Kampfhandlungen.

Die fortgesetzten Angriffe des Feindes auf die Festungen Calais, Saint-Nazaire und Boulogne wurden abgewiesen. Nach der Beendigung des Kampfes im völlig zerstörten Stadt- und Hafenbereich der Festung Brest hielten gestern noch einzelne Kampfgruppen in erbittertem Kampf die letzten Stützpunkte auf der Halbinsel Le Crozon.

Das „V1“-Störungsfeuer auf London dauert an.

In Italien erreichten im Raum an der Adria die schweren Abwehrschlachten ihren Höhepunkt. Es gelang hier auch gestern den heldenhaft kämpfenden eigenen Truppen, zum Teil in neuen Stellungen, den feindlichen Durchbruch zu verhindern. Nördlich und nordöstlich Florenz wurden feindliche Angriffe abgewiesen, örtliche Einbrüche im Gegenstoß bereinigt.

In Südsiebenbürgen und im Szekler Zipfel scheiterten Angriffe der Bolschewisten. Ebenso wiesen unsre Truppen im Abschnitt Sanok-Krosno heftige Angriffe der Sowjets zurück, riegelten einzelne Einbrüche ab und vernichteten 27 Panzer.

Bei Warschau versuchte der Feind, im Schutz künstlichen Nebels die Weichsel an mehreren Stellen zu überschreiten. Die Übersetzversuche wurden vereitelt, einzelne auf das Westufer vorgedrungene Kampfgruppen abgeschnitten. Auch nordöstlich der Stadt blieben wiederholte Angriffe der Bolschewisten in unserm Feuer liegen.

Angriffe südwestlich Mitau brachten nach Abwehr feindlicher Gegenangriffe Stellungsverbesserungen. In Lettland und Estland wurden die von zahlreichen Panzern und Schlachtfliegern unterstützten Angriffe der Bolschewisten abgewiesen oder aufgefangen und zahlreiche Panzer vernichtet.

In dreitägigen Waldkämpfen zerschlugen unsre Grenadiere im Kandalakscha-Abschnitt in schwungvollen Gegenangriffen zwei feindliche Brückenköpfe.

In den gestrigen Mittagsstunden führten nordamerikanische Bomber Angriffe gegen mehrere Orte in Nord- und Nordwestdeutschland. Im Stadtgebiet von Koblenz entstanden Gebäudeschäden und Personenverluste. In der vergangenen Nacht richteten sich feindliche Terrorangriffe gegen München-Gladbach und Budapest. Luftverteidigungskräfte schossen 37 feindliche Flugzeuge ab.

Im Kanal und im Indischen Ozean versenkten Unterseeboote vier Schiffe mit 26,000 BRT und zwei Fregatten. Drei weitere Schiffe wurden durch Torpedotreffer schwer beschädigt.

---

In den Ostkarpaten zeichnete sich das schwäbisch-bayerische 1. Bataillon des Gebirgsjägerregiments 13 unter Führung von Hauptmann Ploder und das schwäbisch-bayerische Feldersatzbataillon 94 unter Führung von Hauptmann Kresse durch hervorragende Tapferkeit aus. In den schweren Abwehrkämpfen in Lettland haben sich die schwäbische 105. Infanteriedivision unter Führung von Generalleutnant von Mellenthin, die bayerisch-pfälzische 132. Infanteriedivision unter Führung von Generalleutnant Wagner und die sächsische 24. Infanteriedivision unter Führung von Oberst Schultz durch Angriffsschwung und Standfestigkeit hervorragend bewährt. Leutnant Sauer in einer Sturmgeschützbrigade schoss mit seinem Sturmgeschütz in zwei Tagen 14 Panzer ab.

[NormanStewart]

Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (September 21, 1944)

Communiqué No. 166

There has been heavy fighting in the area of NIJMEGEN where Allied land and airborne forces have linked up. The base of the Allied salient has been widened and airborne landing have been further reinforced.

Fighters and fighter-bombers provided escort and support for these airborne operations and also provided support for the ground forces.

Allied troops in BELGIUM advanced to the line of the LEOPOLD CANAL and made substantial gains to the SCHELDT west of ANTWERP.

Mopping-up continues in the area of BOULOGNE south of the LAINE River.

The German garrison and fortified positions at CALAIS were subjected to a strong and concentrated attack yesterday afternoon and evening by heavy bombers, one of which is missing.

In southern HOLLAND, our ground forces have crossed the GERMAN border to SCHARPENSEEL, five miles northeast of HEERLEN, under heavy German artillery fire. Stubborn fighting is in progress at other points along the front, particularly at STOLBERG, east of AACHEN and on the outskirts of BIESDORF, east of the LUXEMBOURG town of SIEKIRCH, where, earlier, a strong enemy counterattack was repulsed and 17 German tanks knocked out.

In the MOSELLE Valley, heavy enemy resistance is being encountered south of METZ, with fighting centering around SILLEGNY. Our forces also are engaged in the vicinity of CHÂTEAU-SALINS, 18 miles northeast of NANCY. Our troops advancing northeast of CHARMES have reached the towns of MOYEN and MAGNIERES.

Gains have been made along the entire sector northwest of BELFORT. Opposition has been slight and the enemy is relying principally on lightly-defended road blocks to stay our advances. Several small towns have been occupied.

The enemy south of BELFORT has confined his activity to patrolling with moderate support from artillery and mortars.

A force of 19,312 enemy troops under Gen. Elster has been taken prisoner after a mass surrender south of the LOIRE River.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (September 21, 1944)

AIR ARMY RESCUE REPORTED
New offensive hits Siegfried Line

Allied mobile forces race over Rhine after taking bridge intact
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer

*Cracking the Rhine Line, British 2nd Army tanks and U.S. airborne troops raced northward from Nijmegen for a reported rescue of an Allied airborne force trapped in the Arnhem area of Holland. Meanwhile, the 1st Canadian Army and Polish troops cleared virtually the entire south bank of the Scheldt estuary to open the captured port of Antwerp to Allied shipping. The U.S. 1st Army launched a new offensive against the Siegfried Line below Aachen. The U.S. 3rd Army drove against Metz and advanced from Nancy, while the Allied 6th Army Group continued its drive toward Belfort.

Bulletin

SHAEF, London, England –
**Counterattacking German troops were thrown back with heavy casualties by the U.S. 1st Army in an hours-long battle northwest of Trier today, while to the southeast Nazi tank losses mounted past the 100-mark on the third day of a great armored battle on the 3rd Army front.

SHAEF, London, England –
The U.S. 1st Army opened a new offensive against the Siegfried defenses southeast of Aachen today while to the northwest Allied mobile forces raced beyond the Rhine toward an imminent junction with airborne troops encircled in the Arnhem area of Holland.

Berlin in effect reported that sky troopers at Arnhem had been relieved by U.S. and British forces pouring over the Rhine on a Nijmegen road bridge captured in a battle through the streets of the strategic Dutch town which is a gateway to Northwest Germany.

The Allied campaign in Western Europe is “well over a month” ahead of schedule, a broadcaster reported from Paris on his arrival from Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s new command post in eastern France, adding that “so now it is forward to Berlin.”

The U.S. 8th Air Force sent about 500 of its Flying Fortresses and Liberators to the Rhineland to hammer the strongholds of Mainz, Coblenz and Ludwigshafen, directly in front of the U.S. 1st and 3rd Armies.

Despite bad weather other Allied air formations continued pouring strength into Holland, Allied headquarters disclosed that 11,500 sorties had been flown in the airborne operation which began Sunday, not including the gliders involved.

Headquarters advices disclosed that Lt. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges’ 1st Army had struck out through the dank, mine-strewn Hürtgen Forest southeast of Aachen in a new drive on German soil.

Details were few regarding the scale and progress of the new attack in the sector where a few days ago Gen. Hodges drove a wedge through the Siegfried Line.

The battle was reported going on in the area south and east of Stolberg, 642 miles east of Aachen, with the doughboys making progress against stiffening resistance.

The imminent linkup of the armored column speeding up from the Nijmegen area and the airborne force at Arnhem 10 miles to the north will clear the way for a further swing around the Siegfried Line, which ends at Kleve, 18 miles southeast of Arnhem.

The German DNB News Agency reported that the Germans had captured the staff headquarters of the 1st Airborne Division north of Eindhoven, but there was no confirmation in responsible quarters.

Of three bridges across the Rhine which were attacked by massed Allied tank forces, DNB said, the Germans blew up two and held a third.

However, dispatches from the Allied front told of the capture of the Nijmegen road bridge by the British 2nd Army with the aid of U.S. airborne units who crossed the river northeast of Nijmegen and advanced along the northern bank.

At Arnhem, the Allied position was unchanged, with the heaviest fighting going on around the town, United Press writer Ronald Clark reported. He said the British had strengthened the flanks of their north-south axis in Holland and “there now appears no chance that the enemy will be able to cut across the axis.”

The Nazis were throwing their zealously hoarded tanks into battle at a number of points. Armored clashes of mounting intensity were reported from both the 1st and 3rd Army fronts.

A German military spokesman quoted by the Berlin radio reported a “narrow passage of communications” between the Nijmegen and Arnhem groups, indicating that advanced elements had made a junction. He said the passage was under heavy gunfire and virtually useless as a supply route.

Only a few narrow canals between Nijmegen and Arnhem barred the way to the broad German plains sweeping 260 miles beyond the Dutch border to Berlin, and it appeared that the Germans had little left in the immediate area to halt the American and British thrust.

First word of the dramatic crossing came in a front dispatch from BBC correspondent Stewart McPherson, who reported that the Americans made an assault crossing near the main highway bridge late last night and cut in behind the Germans who were defending the span against a British frontal attack.

Under the front and rear attack, the Germans broke and fled, leaving the key bridge intact for a flood of British armor to stream northward to the rescue of the airborne troopers at Arnhem.

At the same time, headquarters revealed that the U.S. 1st Army to the south drove another spearhead into Germany at Scherpenseel, 11 miles north of Aachen, after a swift advance across the narrow neck of Dutch soil separating Belgium from the Reich.

Other 1st Army troops were locked in a violent battle for the German factory town of Stolberg, while Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s 3rd Army closed to within six miles of Metz and ground slowly forward against fierce armored counterattacks northeast of Nancy.

The Germans, faced with the possible loss of 100,000 men pinned against the Dutch coast west of Nijmegen, as well as a direct invasion blow toward Berlin, were throwing every available man, gun and tank into the Netherlands battle.

Fight hard for bridge

Handpicked Nazi troops fought like wild men to hold the Nijmegen bridge and other German tank and infantry units, backed up by heavy artillery, struck repeatedly but vainly against the west wall of the thin Allied corridor stretching up from the Belgian frontier to Nijmegen.

Strong German forces still remained inside Nijmegen even after the breakthrough across the Rhine bridge. They were fighting from house to house and street to street with U.S. paratroopers who rode the turrets of British tanks rifles and machine-guns blazing.

The original U.S. airborne force landed in the Nijmegen area had been assigned to take the bridges and hold them open for the advancing British armor, but they were repulsed twice in the first 48 hours. Meanwhile, the Germans poured in heavy reinforcements from the west and simultaneously tried desperately to wipe out the airborne pocket around Arnhem – believed to be predominantly British paratroops.

Nazi planes attack

The Nazi Air Force sneaked into the battle under cover of a heavy ground mist that hampered but did not stop the flow of Allied airborne reinforcements to the front, but front reports said the enemy’s raids were on a hit-and-run scale and generally had little effect. In one savage raid on Eindhoven Tuesday night, about 20 German bombers inflicted heavy destruction on the Dutch city and killed 60 townspeople.

The main German ground attacks against the Allied corridor to the Rhine centered in the area east of Turnhout. near the base of the spearhead. particularly in the Groot Bosch area on the Belgian-Dutch border.

Expand base

Headquarters said. however, that, the base was being expanded steadily and that men and armor were moving up swiftly and in strength to join the assault across the Rhine.

The breakthrough at Nijmegen came at a critical point in the battle when the airborne troops at Arnhem had been under terrific pressure from all sides for more than 48 hours. Front correspondents with the surrounded paratroops said the sound of Allied guns in the south was drawing steadily closer and that hope for an early juncture with their main forces was rising.

Meanwhile, Gen. Hodges’ 1st Army troops battled across the neck of Holland above Aachen against heavy shellfire to the town of Scherpenseel, five miles inside the border.

Tighten noose on Aachen

Other 1st Army infantrymen to the south tightened their noose around Aachen, leaving only a narrow escape corridor open to the northeast. The noise of heavy demolitions from inside the city suggested the enemy garrison might be preparing io abandon it and withdraw toward the Rhine.

United Press writer Jack Frankish reported that the 1st Army was meeting its bitterest opposition since D-Day all along the front, encountering German flamethrowers for the first time on one sector. Ten Nazi tanks were knocked out at one point, while heavy casualties were inflicted on German troops fighting a house-to-house battle for Stolberg.

Drive toward Saar

Equally ferocious resistance faced Gen. Patton’s troops farther south as they slugged their way slowly eastward from the Moselle River toward the Saar Valley. One infantry force battered into the Sillegny area, about six miles south of Metz and about the same distance east of the Moselle. Two 3rd Army spearheads were also fighting their way northeast of Nancy against strong German armored forces.

A dispatch from United Press writer Robert C. Richards said at least 53 enemy tanks, including some 60-ton Tiger tanks, were smashed by the Americans in fighting that often raged almost “tread-to-tread.”

Battle with knives

The Germans were strongly dug in at Château-Salins, barring the eastward push to the Rhine, and Mr. Richards said the Americans at one point fought with knives and bare fists to beat off an infantry counterattack in that sector. Other U.S. forces were advancing in the Dreux and Moyenvic areas, east and southeast of Château-Sains.

[NormanStewart]

Nazi bombers rain death on Dutch fete; 65 killed

Raid stops Eindhoven liberation celebration; resident says freedom’s price not too high
By Walter Cronkite, United Press staff writer

Eindhoven, Holland – (Sept. 20, delayed)
This debris-littered town of 100,000, whose celebration of liberation by the Allies was cut short by a German air raid, dug out today after its worst beating of the war – but still believing the price of freedom was not too high.

Sixty-five of the inhabitants were killed, 150 wounded seriously and damage was estimated in millions of dollars.

Site of an important radio works, Eindhoven had known air raids before, both German and Allied. None matched the one last night for suddenness and savagery.

Thirty minutes before the raid, crowds were cheering American and British soldiers who entered the town Monday.

Flags, bunting shredded

Dutch flags, which had been brought out of hiding after four years to fly for 24 carefree hours with bunting in bedecked streets, hung in burned shreds today from charred poles.

Streets where children had danced to accordion music, where crowds jammed around American vehicles so thickly that traffic was halted, were strewn with glass, brick, stone and cherished possessions.

The anti-climax to the celebration came between 7:00 and 8:00 p.m. A rumor spread through the crowds that 117 German tanks were counterattacking the town.

Some tanks did get within shelling distance of the main British armored corridor and dropped a few rounds near a road north of here before they were eliminated.

As the rumors mounted, part of the troops were evacuated.

I was dining with Bill Downs of CBS at a hotel near the center of the city when I first noted panicky civilians outside running out and we started for headquarters.

Queen’s pictures hidden

From some of the windows the Dutch, fearful of German return, had removed flags and pictures of Queen Wilhelmina. Most of the American and British troops seemed to be gone. A few civilians stood wonderingly before houses.

Just before we reached headquarters, a lone German, twin-engined bomber swept over and dropped orange, yellow and green flares.

The town was without air-raid shelters so we sped toward the open country. We got only as far as the town park before the first bombers arrived.

Eindhoven pays fiddler

We lay on the ground while bombs ringed us and explosions within 100 feet showered us with twigs, branches and dirt. Shrapnel clipped through the leaves above. Ammunition exploded in deafening bursts.

Eindhoven was paying the fiddler.

Today cheerfulness was returning to the town. As the Allies pushed on toward the front, the inhabitants took time to look up from their rooms and shovels, smile and shout “hello.”