Evening star., 1944-09-04

WHICH WILL De TeaQy 10 Dack up It's
independent decisions. But there
appears general agreement that it
should go far beyond any interna-
tional court of the past.
| Western Front
Continued From First Page.)
Aachen, Germany. Just beyond the
Belgian border 10 miles east of
Brussels.
Supreme headquarters had the
exact forward positions of both the
swift American 1st and Sd Armies
under wraps for security reasons
again. 1t did say officially, how
ever, that the Belgian towns of
Mons and Charleroi had been
reached and that American units
were driving somewhere beyond
Etain, II miles east of Verdun and
within IS miles of Perl.
(Axis reports said American
troops had reached the Mas
(Juliana Canal, which actually
is inside Holland in the Mas
tricht appendix jutting down be-
tween Germany and Belgium.
(Aneta, official Netherlands
news agency, cast doubt on these
German reports. 1t quoted
Dutch informants in London as
interpreting the German ac-
counts as referring to the Mas
Canal near Liege, Belgium, in
stead of to it's main part in
Occupied Holland. These in
formants added, however, that
"it seems likely that Allied for
ward units are approaching the
frontier of Holland.")
Race Along Moselle River.
On the right flank of the Allies
300-mile line column from 1t. Gen.
George S. Patton's American Sd
Army apparently was racing along
the Moselle River invasion gateway
between Metz and Luxembourg.
A second Sd Army column drove
to the vicinity-perhaps to the out
skirts-of Nancy, the old capital Of
Lorraine. Metz and Nancy were key
strongpoints in the apparently
abandoned Maginot Line. Metz has
population of $4,000. Nancy, with
l21 900, is the l4th city of France.
1t is 40 miles from the German bor-
der near Saarbrucken and 70 miles
from Strasbourg on the Rhine.
Ten miles southeast of Commercy
the Americans drove a new crossing
over the Meuse River to reach Cha
laine.
In the middle of the Allied front.
left behind in the backwash of one
OF the fastest drives in the history
OF modern war, was an isolated
German force of undisclosed size in
"a by-passed triangle south from
Cambria to the vicinity of Com
peigne and scissors.
Mop Up Problem.
This presented only a mop-up
problem as did the by-passed re-
sistance near Mons, where the Ger
mans already were cut of to the
north by the British at Brussels
and to the east by the Americans
at Charleroi
These were other forward posi-
tlons of the great Allied bulge which
carried the battle out of France and
onto the Rhine road to Berlin:
1t. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges
army sent columns through Mons
and on to the edge of Charleroi,
IS miles north of Hirson where it
crossed the Belgian border.
There were unconfirmed reports
that the Americans, either from
there or in a drive north from Sc
dan, reached Namur, II miles north
east of Charleroi and IS miles from
Aachen. Such an advance would
be along the route Adolf Hitler's
troops took four years ago in the
conquest of France and the Low
Countries.
Namur is 80 miles southwest of
Llege, great fortress anchor in Bel
gums Albert Canal. 1t was at
Mons, 30 miles southwest of Brus-
sells, that the British fought their
first and last battles in the World
War.
Closing in on the last of the cut
of Pas de Calais coast, the British
drove through Armentieres toward
Ypres and through Bethune to cap
ture Aire, IS to 30 miles inland from
Boulogne, Calais and Dunkeruue.
! French Forces of the Interior
have freed the industrial city of
Lille in the northwest corner of
France near the Belgian frontier,
the French radio at Toulouse de-
clared today)
At Abbeville the Germans made
one of their few real defensive
stands against Canadian and Po-
lish troops who drove on to the
Authie, the next river line north of
the Somme.
The tightly trapped enemy garri-
son at LIE Havre was beginning its
fight for life. Canadian troops
closed its contact with the main de-
tense line around the port. There
was no indication whether the gar
rison was in strength.
Far behind the Allied line at
Brest on the tip of the Breton
Peninsula another German garri-
lson was under a mounting attack
combined with a relentless air
bombing which Eisenhower ordered
continued without respite until the
Germans there surrendered.
Flying Fortresses gave Brest q
heavy battering yesterday. Then
two waves of medium Marauders
and Havocs struck in the afternoon
and another wave Of Marauders in
the evening.
British bombers over the Neither