Evening star., 1944-11-07
MAP on Page A-2.J
BY the Associated Press.

LONDON, Nov. 7.-American
troops, at times fighting hand
to hand against German REIN
forcements flung into counter
today won back the last
half of the focal town Of Vos-
senack and edged closer to two
f1anking villages in the bloody
battle to break the German Roer
River barrier to Cologne.
To the south, American and French
forces advanced 2 to 3 miles in bitter
progress toward Vosges passes to
Germany In Holland, a front dis
patch reported the capture of the
ferry terminus of Willemstad, leav-
ing only scattered enemy troops be-
low the Mas (Meuse) River. The
German high command indicated a
new defense line was being estab-
llshed on the north bank of the
Mas.
Heavy, see-saw tank and infantry
swirled in the f1ame-charred
forest lands southeast of Aachen.
Doughboys rewon the portions of
Vossenack, 13 miles from Aachen,
which were temporarily lost yester-
day. Other Americans pushed closer
to the town of Schmidt, once in
hands. and toward Hurt
gen. The towns are strongpoints
along the Roer River line before the
Cologne Plain.
Nazl Rush Up Reserves.
supreme headquarters dispatchers
said the Germans had rushed re-
serves from Arnhem in attempts to
ward of the 1st Army bIows-at-
tacks which might simply be feints,
or preparation for a major drive.
Berlin's broadcast communioue
said Allied forces hitting toward the
Vosges Mountain gaps had reached
the west bank Of the Meurtre River
between Baccarat and st. Die.
French troops seized three villages
in an arc east of Raecarats closing
on the Schirmeck and Saales Passes.
supreme headquarters said, and
Americans won st. Remy, Nompa-
telize and La Sale at the approaches
to the Saales and Ste. Marie Passes.
First Army troops near the Roer
River were meeting the most bitter
kind of resistance.
Advance Slowly.
West of Schmidt the Americans
advanced slowly in the face of stub
born opposition. But despite the
ferocity of Allied air attacks, which
blanketed the German positions with
bombs, strafing fire and fire bombs,
Schmidt itself, seized last week by
the Americans but retaken by the
enemy, was still in German hands.
Schmidt is Is miles southeast of
Aachen.
In the entire area the Americans
are striving to fight clear of ths
Hurtgen Forest and onto the Co
logne plain.
In Southwestern Holland the
last enemy units south of the
Mas River were being mopped
up. There still were small groups of
enemy troops around the southern
approaches to the Moerdijk Bridge,
which the Germans have demol-
ished.
British troops last night cleared
out a small enemy pocket below the
river in the vicinity of Empel, just
north of s Hertogenbosch.
Walcheren Towns Captured.
Virtually all of Walcheren Island
in the Schelde Estuary now is in
Allied hands. Middleburg in the CEN
ter of the island and Veere on, the
north coast have been captured, the
Allied communique reported. Field
dispatches indicated Middelburg was
entered by British and Canadian
forces without surrender from its
German garrison.
Enemy units still were hiding out
elsewhere in the flooded interior,
but Allied mine sweepers and dredges
already have begun clearing the So
mile Schelde Estuary approach to
Antwerp.
In Southeastern Holland, where
British and American troops have
been retaking slowly the positions
they lost to a sudden and powerful
German counterthrust west of the
border city of Venlo, the action had
subsidized, temporarily at least, into
desultory artillery dueling.
Enemy resistance was more stub.
born in the Vosges Mountains west
of Gerardmer, but advances also
were made there. The communique
reported that I'm the Maritime Alps
We have made gains at several
points and now hold high ground
along the Italian frontier"
Close Air Support.
All of these ground operations had
close air support. While heavy
bombers continued the tremendous
blows against Germany's heart
which have shattered all records for
sustained aerial bombarSment in the
last four days, medium bombers and
fighters went after close-in targets
of enemy troop, formations and
communications.
The clearing of the Schelde Estu.
ary must be completed before Allied
men and supplies can be poured
across Antwerp's docks for the big
offensive, which German broadcasts
said was about to break somewhere
along the 500-mile western front.
One German commentator de.
clared the present Allied attacks, in
the Netherlands, in Germany and in
Northern France involved no more
than Is per cent OF the Allied in.
vasion force.