Evening star., 1944-08-30
Yunks Are Less
Than 40 Miles
From Belgium
BULLETIN.


declared today that American
troops had driven almost to
St. Dizier, little more than 80
miles from the German bor-
der. This would mean an ad-
vance of nearly 20 miles
southeast of Vitry-le- Francois
on the upper Marine, the last
officially reported position of
the United States Sd Army's
right wing.
AMERICAN BOMBERS attack robot
bases, Kiel and Bremen. Page Az
BY the Associated Press.
LONDON, Aug. 30.-Two Amer
ican armored columns were less
than 40 miles from Belgium
today.
One clattered into Reims, siege
fortress of the World War and
pushed 10 miles beyond.
A second unit to the northwest
battled on the approaches to Laon,
within 38 miles of the frontier, car
rying doughboys we'll across the
escape path for German armies
above the Seine and on the Pas de
Calais rocket-bomb coast.
The United States Sd Army struck
ahead all along 70-mile front, and
the Allies on the western wing
knitted as deep as 25 miles north of
the Seine between Paris and the sea
The German high command said
the Seine city of Rouen had been
evacuated.
Reims 50 Miles From Belgium.
Reims, noted for its cathedral and
its champagne. is so miles from Bel
GUM and 107 miles from the Ger
man border Tank units crossing
the Vesle River already had COW
cred 10 of the remaining miles to
Belgium. Americans besieging Laon
were only SO miles from Brussels,
Belgian capital.
1t. Gen. George S. Patton's Sd
Army was lunging on an almost
straight line from Laon southeast to
Vitry-le-Francois on the Upper
Marine and was mopping up that
town, 96 miles from the Reich and
As from Verdun. Chalons-sur-
Marne, to the northwest, and Les
Grandes Loges. miles northwest
OF Chalons, fell
Loss of Rouen, whose converging
highways lead to Dieppe, LIE Havre
and the Somme Valley, was an
nounced by Berlin as Canadians
closed in. Berlin said harbor in
stallations were destroyed and that
Nazi remnants from the Normandy
traps had all pulled back across the
river Allied dispatches reported
two last pockets in loops of the Seine
we're being methodically wiped out.
lie Havre Outflanked.
The great Atlantic port of LIE
Havre was outfanked.
British troops plunging above the
Seine toward the Pas de Calais
rocket coast reached Neufmarche,
25 miles from the river Longchamps
and Mainneville were taken in their
advance.
The Allied grip on the north bank
OF the Seine had been consolidated
from Louviers to Paris, As miles by
airline and much longer by the
rivers winding course. All German
hopes of stand on the Seine were
dashed.
Two great Allied wings were
swiftly slicing up Northern France.
Gen. Patton's forces, rolling for
ward northeast of Paris from two
bridgeheads over the Aisne at Sois-
sons and Pont- -Arcy, IA miles far
ther east, struck within 2 miles of
Laon, l9 miles beyond scissors.
These columns were picking up more
than mile an hour.
Other Patton units penetrated to
Montaigu, 10 miles southeast of
Laon and Is miles from Sedan
gate of the Nazi breakthrough into
France in 1910.
Nazis Being Killed or Seized.
Germans bypassed and cut up by
lightning armored strokes were be-
ing killed or seized by mopup COL
umns in a great area northeast and
east of Paris.
Although the Americans were
meeting little resistance in their
rapid advances northeast of Paris
the progress was harder at the
western end of the Allies S-shaped
front.
The Seine bend south of Caudebec
was entirely in Allied hands, but
the Germans were cleared out of
the Brotonne Forest in that area
only after hard fighting.
What Germans were left on the
south side of the Seine were in two
remaining horseshoe loops. They
were resisting flercely, but Gen. Sir
Bernard L. Montgomerys troops
We're smashing into both loops to
clean them out.
The battle for Brest at the tip of
the Brittany Peninsula continued
against stubborn resistance.