Evening star., 1944-10-01
Yonks Wheel Up
To Two Vosges
Mountain Passes
MAP on Page Al.
BY the Associated Press.

BY the Associated PRESS.
SUPREME ALLIED HEAD
QUARTERS, Sept. 30.-American
7th Army troops, fighting
through snow, today wheeled up
to two Vosges Mountain passes
in advances of as much as 3
miles and were only 9 miles
northwest of the gateway city of
Belfort to challenge the Ger
mans along the chain of peaks
blocking the southern route to
the Rhineland.
Along the French channel coast,
German resistance at Calais COL
lapsed after bitter two-hour ar
tillery bombardment on enemy
positions together with a brief air
attack. Canadian artillery had
resumed the bombardment following
a 24-hour armistice during which
10000 civilians were cleared from
the city.
During the pause in hostilities, a
Col. Schroeder. the German COM
mander of a garrison believed to
number 1000 to 5000, told his op-
ponents he had been ordered by
Hitler to fight to the death and he
proposed to do so.
AS the sun went down, five great
columns of smoke rose above the
battered town and the Germans
were marching out as prisoners in
long files.
Rain and Sleet Blanket Front.
Rain and sleet which blanketed
the entire front from Holland to
the Swiss border turned to snow in
the Vosges Mountains, where the
7th Army was fighting.
In the north, the American 1st
Army opened up with an attack on
a 60-mile front, carved out limited
gains, and smashed through eight
Notifications of the Siegfried Line
near its western fortress of Prum.
Between these sectors the Amer
lean Sd Army wiped out the equiva-
lent of German armored division
in two days-113 tanks, 81 of which
fell to gunners and fighter bombers
in the last "a hours in a battle
eddying around the American
salient east of Metz and Nancy.
The British on the Dutch end
OF the long front beat back Ger
man sounterblows from east and
west at their Nijmegen bridge posi-
tions. The enemy tossed 300 fight
ers and fighter bombers into the
strl,,ggla~ and lost 80 without getting
within strafing distance.
One Nazi Bridgehead Remains.
In the Nijmegen sector only one
small German bridgehead remains
to be knocked out before the Allies
control the area between the Waal
Rhine and the Mas (Meuse) Riv-
ers west of Arnhem and north of
8 Hertogenbosch where British
troops are attempting to seal off
more than 100000 Nazi soldiers
pinned between the narrow Arnhem
corridor and the sea.
British troops captured MerXplas
on the Belgian front as they ad-
vanced slowly and widened their
two bridgeheads across the Antwerp
Turnhout Canal. Polish patrols are
operating l mile farther north of
Merxplas. The bridgehead at st.
Leonard, Is miles west of Merxplas.
was expanded.
There was no confirmation at
headquarters of a German broad
cast claim that either Nazi or Dutch
saboteurs had destroyed the vital
IL mile long railroad bridge at
Nijmegen. The enemy report said
the wreckage had been spotted hy
a German pilot.
The 7th Army gains northwest of
Belfort were made in the face of
concentrations of artillery and
rocket fire.
(The Berlin radio said the CEN
ter of fighting still was on this
front and acknowledged that
breaches in the German lines
northwest of Belfort had been
widenedD
The enemy was giving every in
dication of making fierce stand
in the Vosges.
While the Americans held frontal
positions IL miles west of Belfort
at the village of Clairegoutte, French
units in 3-mile gain to the north
fought up to the entrance of the
foothill pass at Chevestray, 9 miles
northwest of Belfort. They also took
Belfahy, 2 miles north.
Other 7th Army units struck up
to another secondary pass at Brou-
(see WESTERN FRONT, Page Al.