The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-09-21

span against Q British frontal At- tack,
 Under the front and rear attack, the Germans broke and fled, leav- ing the key bridge Intact for Q flood of British arinor to stream north. ward to the rescue of the alrborne troopers ct Arnhem.
 At the same time, headquarters revealed that the American First Army to the south drove another Spearhead Into Germany ct Schar- penseel, Il miles north of Aachen, after Q swift advance across the narrow neck of Dutch soil Separat. ing Belgium from the Reich.
 Violent Battle
 Other First Army troops were locked in Q violent battle for tho German factory town of Stolherg, 6 Ia miles east of Aachen, while Lieutenant General George s. Pat tons Third Army closed to within six miles of Metz and ground slow. ly forward against fierce armored counter-a attacks northwest of Nancy
 But, for the moment, the key to the battle for Germany lay in the flaming Nijmegen- -Arnhem sector where the Anglo American armored force was moving in giant strides around the northern corner of the siegfried line Into exposed German hNtlandS.
 The Germans, faced with the pos. sible loss of 100000 men pinned against the Dutch coast west of Nij- megen aS well as direct invasion blow toward Berlin, were throwing every available man, gun and tank Into the battle.
 Hand-pieked Nazl troops fought like wild men to hold the Nijmegen bridges and other German tank and infantry units, backed up by heavy artillery, struck repeately but vAinly against the West Wall of the thin Allied corridor stretching up from the Belgian frontier to NiJmegen.
 NaEls Remain
 Strong German forces still rc- mained inside Nijnegen even after the breakthrough across the Rhine bridge, They were fighting from house to house and street to street with American paratrooperS who rode the turretS of British tanks, rifles and machine guns blazing.
 United Press War Correspondent Richard D. McMillar reported in 0 delayed dispatch filed from "the Rhine" late yesterday that the Ger. mans, ordered to hold the two Nij- megen bridges at oil costs-ilrSt re. ports did not make clear whether the highway or railway bridge was taken-were putting up one of the fiercest fights of the war.
 German ee millimeter batteries and picked storm troopers are hon. eycombed around the bridges with the specific mission to hold this last bastion leading into Germany" Me- Milan said.
 "The fighting has gone on with unrelenting fury for 24 hours. We have thrown in waves of tanks with parachutists carried into action on the backs of the arlnor."
 The original American Airborne force landed in the Nijmegen area had been assigned to take the advancing British armor, but they bridges and hold them open for the were repulsed twice in the first 4e hours. Meanwhile, the Germans poured in heavy reinforcement from the west and simultaneously tried desperately to wipe out the airborne pocket around Arnhem-- believed to be predominantly Brit ish paratroops.
 Germans Everywhere
 McMillan reported that Germans were everywhere" in Nimegen, with enemy and Allied troops hopelessly tangled inside each others lines in a savage melee.
 "The town of Nijmegen itself has been smoking like @ furnace as the battle roared through its streets" he said. "Our tanks are crashing through the debris, hammering their way toward the bridges, and the --------------------