Evening star., 1944-10-20

Last Resistance
Center ofCity
Begin Moppine Up
Germun Remnants
On Outskirts
Ey the Associated Press.


Aachen today was captured by
1t. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges
American lst Army. Tonight the
victorious YankS started mop
ping up the last remnants of
the Nazi garrison, trapped on
the outskirts.
The capture of the first major
German city, gateway to the Ruhr,
was completed at $3.50 pm. Q0:30
a m. Eastern war timeD. official an
nouncements from the field said.
The city is $40 miles from Berlin
and 40 miles from Cologne on the
Rhine. 1t had a peacetime popula-
ton of 10000.
The doughboys had been attack
ing since September Is, but the
siege did not start until after the
Germans rejected surrender ulti-
matum. More than a week the
Yanks had engaged in street-by-
street fighting with bazookas, bay
onets and self-propelled guns.
City a Mass of Wreckage.
Aachen was left mass of wreck
age by fanatical German resistance.
The last convulsive gasp of re-
sistance in the center of the city
was at a large stone building in
which 100 SIS men had barricaded
themselves in defiance of artillery
which had pressed the defenders
into an ever narrowing space.
Troops under the command of 1t.
Col Merrill Daniel of Geneva. N. Y,
knocked out this last major strong
hold at $50 pm. with direct fire
from a 155-mm. gun. The gun
literally knocked down the building.
Meanwhile, north of Antwerp.
Canadian infantry and armor struck
out in new offensive through mud
and marshland to bolster the Al
lied powerhouSe salient being built
up in Holland against Hitler's north
ern defenses.
At the same time, French infantry
fighting along the ridges of the
Vosges at the southern end of the
Allied line outfIanked the village
iof Ventron at the entrance to the
| 15-mile- long Bussang Pass which
opens out on the Rhine floor only
n miles from Mulhouse.
Bruyeres Captured.
The Americans of the 7th Army
on the latter front also captured
Bruyeres, 13 miles east of Epinal,
in further stab at two more passes
leading through the Vosges to the
Rhine flatlands around Colmar and
Strasbourg
The British I'd Army, fighting to
clear out the Germans west of the
Mas tMeuse) River along the Reich
border fronting the Holland salient,
made slow progress almost begged
down by mud and stiff German re-
sistance.
The Canadian attack, sprung at
7:30 am. was launched from an
area about miles north of Ant
werp along the railroad and high
way leading north to Rosendaal and
Rotterdam.
AS the assault opened against
pocketed Germans blocking Allied
use of Antwerps docks, Berlin spec
ulated that Gen. Eisenhower might
not wait for opening of this supply
port to begin a heavy new drive
into the Reich.
Canadians Penetrate Breskens.
A late dispatch said the Cana
dians had penetrated Breskens,
across the Schelde Estuary from
flooded Walcheren Island in Hol-
land. Another column was said to
have splashed miles through the
marshes to within a mile of COST
burg, squarely in the center of the
dwindling German pocket.
Some German radio commenta-
tors for days have been asserting the
Allied command could not begin an
attempt to break through into the
heart of Germany until clearing of
the Schelde sector opened up Ant
werp to funnel in supplies. but last
night they. began reversing their
field.
One even saw the possibility Of
another sea-borne landing in the
Rotterdam area of Holland north of
the Schelde Estuary.
Converge on Amerika,
In Eastern Holland, the British I'd
Army, ably abetted by American
armor on its right flank, was draw
ing up toward the German frontier,
Both British and Americans were
converging on the key town of
Amerika, astride one of the main
railroads leading eastward into Ger
many's industrial Northern Rhine
land.
A main objective was to eliminate
the salient the Germans hold west
of the Mas
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