Evening star., 1944-12-07
Possible German
Withdrawal on
Roer Indicated
MAP on Page A-4.)
6y the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
PARIS, Dec. TANKS of 1t
Gen. George S. Patton's Sd Arm,
today drove within 312 miles O.
Saarbrucken in a plunge to tht
outskirts of Forbach, French raj
town and outpost of the Sieg.
fried Line.
Artillery of the Sd Army lombard
ed the capital of the rich Saar coal
and iron region for the eighth con-
secutive day, while infantry was
cleaning the Germans from the last
streets of Sarreguemines, French
border town southeast of Saar-
brucken.
Street fighting continued in Saar-
lautern, second city of the Saar.
The Americans extended their
grip on the west bank of the Saar
River to % miles.
Nazis Prepare Defenses.
On the static Roer River front,
the Cologne plain for the second
successive night was bright with
strings of German groundlights,
suggesting the enemy was working
intensively to prepare defenSes on
the Erft River in anticipation of
forced withdrawal from the swift
and swollen Roer.
The Erft flows within miles Of
Cologne 1t is 100 feet wide and
paralleled by a canal. Along the
Roer. the 1st Army of 1t. Gen.
Courtney H. Hodges and the 9th
Army of 1t. Gen. William H Simp-
son were no closer than % miles
from the metropolis on the Rhine.
Nowhere had the Roer been crossed,
but the Yanks were up to its banks
on wide front.
In some places east of the Roer,
9th Army troops observed the Ger
mans strengthening their positions
under cover of smoke. All of Linnich
west of the river was in American
hands, although a few snipers re-
manned.
Strike Toward Pier.
Action 1ared up again on the
northern part of the 1st Army front.
Gen. Hodges troops, who cleared
linden several days ago. struck a
mile and half toward Pier, about
midway between the Roer River cit
adels of Julich and Duren. Patrols
reached Piers outskirts and in one
brief skirmish, 100 Germans were
captured. Farther south, the lst
Army consolidated and expanded
holdings around the captured Hurt
gen Forest village of Bergstein.
North in Holland, German patrols
crossed the Mas River north of
Venlo, but the British beat them
back in every effort to probe their
lines.
The last bits of Lorraine and Al
SAGE were slipping from German
hands. Already Gen. Patton's Sd
Army controls more of the rich Saar
Basin than the Germans retain in
the Karlsruhe corner Of France at
the edge of the Saarland and Pala-
innate.
Ostheim Captured.
Troops of 1t. Gen. Alexander M
Patch's 7th Army captured Os-
theim, 5 miles north of Colmar, last
city in German hands in Alsace. The
Germans seemed to be evacuating
the district. Enemy troops and trucks
choked the Rhine bridge at nearby
Breisbach. The Colmar Gap be-
tween the 7th Army and the French
1st Army narrowed to maximum
IF % ,,,iloc b,1t Looipd al1ioI li,,or
many pockets of Germans were hid
ing in the snowy gorges and heights
of the Vosges Mountains.
Saarbrucken, with a population of
$4,000, is the key to the whole de-
fense of the Saar and crucial
arsenal for the German Army.
The Sd Army was expanding it's
three bridgeheads over the Saar,
which flows just west of the Sieg-
fried Line defenses. Texans of the
Goth Division, which won the latest
bridgehead miles north of Saar-
lautern, fought in the streets of
Dillengen in the hills that rise
steeply from the banks of the river.
The Saar is navigable all the IS
miles from the Moselle to Sarre-
guemines, where it has a connection
with the Rhine -Marne Canal.
Nazis Flee Northward.
With virtually all Sarreguemines
cleared, the Germans fed north
ward toward the Saarland in a
gantlet of artillery fire. They blew
up five bridges behind them.
In the open country gap between
the Eifel Mountains and the Hague
nau Forest opposite the Palatinate,
the Germans stiffened. They held
out doggedly in Haguenau to protect
ammunition and fuel dumps. They
tried to retain Mertzwiller, s miles
northwest of Haguenau. with strong
artillery defense-600 rounds in an
hour.
All along a 30-mile Sd Army front
from above Saarlautern to well be-