Evening star., 1944-09-03

Valley toward Belfort and Mulhouse.
With Toulon and Marseilles in AL
lied hands the Allies broadened their
base along the coast toward Spain
and while units raced up either side
of the Rhone River after the fleeing
enemy, one armored column struck
across into Montelimar behind part
of the 18th Army and another COL
umn moved in the direction of Lyon
toward which the enemy was speed
ing.
BY Friday the enemy was already
North of Lyon and moving fast
attempting to outSpeed one of the
columns of the American 7th Army
which was moving westward from a
point near Geneva in an effort to
make contact with one of Gen.
Patton's Bird Army forces moving
from Troyes to entrap the enemy
While Gen. Patch was thus en-
gagged, he still found time and men
Ito move beyond Nice toward the
Italian border and threaten to get
into Italy above the Nazis who are
resisting stubbornly along the Gothic
Line.
So far as France is concerned
there no longer is a battle line.
The battle of France is won.
In Italy, signs that the Gothic
Line is crumbling came when the
British 9th Army penetrated the
outer defenses and opened a move
ment which Capt. Sertorious, the
German radio commentator, de-
scribed as plan to force access
to the Pc River plain with the en-
tire might of the 9Th Army's right
wing putting on the pressure.
Allied air craft, throughout the
week kept up an incessant pound
ing of German industries, transpor-
tation centers and fleeing columns
of troops. Little or no resistance
was met.
Balkan Position Collapsing.
Hitler's entire Balkan position is
falling apart with Russian troops
in possession of the Ploesti oil fields;
Bucharest. the capital, and Con-
stanta, the important Black Sea
port.
Advance columns of the Red Army
are now only $50 miles from con-
tact with Marshal Tito's Partisans
in Yugoslavia and in Cairo and in
Moscow, representatives of Bulgaria
and Hungary are attempting to work
out peace terms.
The loss of PloeSti deprives Hitler
Of at least one-third of his fuel sup
ply which is so low that exhaustion
is believed near.
When Russian forces penetrated
so miles into Transylvania which
was cut from Romania and given to
Hungary they met no resistance
from other than German troops, en-
phasizlng Hungary's desire to with
draw from the conflict. Monday
found the Reds at the Hungarian
border at one of the Carpathian
passes and at five other points were
close by those sections taken by
Hungary from Czechoslovakia.
In the capture of the Ploesti oil
fields which came on Wednesday,
the Reds were greatly aided by the
Romanians who are fighting fiercely
against the Nazis in revenge for
the 100000 Romanian casualties
which occurred when the Nazis
forced Romania into war against
Russia. AS a demonstration of Rus
sian confidence in the Romanians,
prisoners taken on the Russian front
were brought back to their own
country and freed for participation
in the war to smash Hitler.
Bucharest was taken on Thursday
and Friday came the announcement
that LIPS American flyers who had
been taken prisoner when their
planes fell in Romania had been
freed and were back at American
bases in Italy.
Along the Baltic and Western
Polish front, there was relatively