Evening star., 1944-12-16
Germans Move Up
Fresh roops
To Meet Threat
MAP on Page A-4.)

By the Associa ted Press.
PARIS, Dec. 16.-The American
7th Army today poured more
troops into its four-pronged in
vasion of Germany, seized the
French border town of Lauter-
bourg, only 2 miles from the
Rhine, and beat against the first
pillboxes of the Siegfried Line in
Bavaria.
German west wall artillery reacted
violently and fresh Nazi armored
division was flung in as reinforce
ment in attempts to stem the 7th
Army's thrust into the Bavarian
Palatinate.
Two hundred miles to the north,
American 1st Army infantry and
armor cleaned out more German
pockets west of the Roer River and
added to their holdings along a 27-
mile stretch of the rivers west bank.
The Germans demolished the re-
naming bridges over the Roer-a
sign they have abandoned hopes of
holding anywhere on the west shore.
Heavy German artillery fire
harassed the 1st Army front.
Sd Army Continues Advance.
Southwark, the American Sd
Army scored fresh but slow gains.
The goth Division advanced another
300 yards inside Dillingen, with
fierce fighting in the southern part
OF the city. The 95th Division ad-
Vanced $50 yards inside Ensdorf east
of Saarlautern. Nine miles east of
Sarreguemines, doughboys moved
half mile beyond Erching and
reached the German border.
The 45th, 10Th and 103d Divisions
Of the 7th Army were battling into
Germany at points along a 17-mile
front, meeting heavy resistance.
American artillery thundered in a
duel with Siegfried Line cannon,
Four crossings of the Nazi border
we're forged by 1t. Gen. Alexander
M. Patchs veterans, with the 10th
Division entering the Reich at two
points near Lauterbourg.
But the 18th Immediately ran into
a stiff fight.
Germans Shift Division.
The Germand command pulled a
panzer division from another sector
and sent it into battle to stop the
threat to the chemical and indus
trial centers of Mannheim and Lud-
wigshafen, IS miles to the north.
Units of the 45th and 103d Divi-
sions crossed at point west of Wis
sembourg, II miles west of Lauter-
bourg, and were closing on that
gateway city to Germany from
Northeastern Alsace.
Both these divisions apparently
made deeper penetrations of Ger
many. The 45th advanced 6 miles
Friday after opening its attack In
the morning A miles below the
border.
Third Army troops farther west
again began boring through the
Siegfried defenses in the Dillingen
and Saarlautern .zones and gained
up to 300 yards today. But German
artillery drumfire increased. The
Germans slammed 5000 rounds into
the Saarlautern area alone yester-
day.
Some NaZi Pockets Remain.
On the Duren front before Cologne
the 1st and 9th armies occupied or
controlled q miles along the west
bank of the Roer from Linich down
to Bergstein.
South of Mariaweiler a mile and
half west of Duren, there still were
some German pockets, but these,
dominated by American guns, were
being mopped up. Fighter bombers
battered al German fortified towns
and supply centers across the Roer.
(The Berlin radio said today
the United States 1st Army had
thrown its latest attacks against
German bridgeheads along the
Roer west of Duren, and added
without explanation that smaller
gaps made by the Americans were
sealed up in counterthrusts.'
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