Evening star., 1944-09-30
9th Army Fights Way Into Passes
In Vosges Barrier Before Rhine;
Sd Army Beats off Nazi Attacks
1l3 Enemy Tanks
Destroyed; Calais
Bottle Resumed
BY the Associated Press.

LONDON, Sept. 3U.-SeVenCT
Army troops pushed through
rocket and mortar fire today into
the first two passes of the Vosge!
barrier to the Rhine and the
armor-wrecking Sd Army, beat
ing back German counterblow.
in a hard slugging fight, knocked
out at least 113 enemy tanks ir
two days.
In co-ordinated attack farther
north, the 1st Army cut through
eight Siegfried Line Notifications
southwest of Prum, below Aachen.
The battle for Holland swept to-
ward a climax with the British
holding their Nijmegen bridge and
fighting for the Arnhem crossing
nine miles to the north in a series
of toe-to-toe battles.
The whole front from the mist
shrouded Belfort Gap menaced by
the 7th Army to the Lowlands OF
Holland was slippery with mud.
Calais Battle Resumes.
On the coast, the battle for Calais
resumed shortly after noon. front
line reports said. after a 24-hour
truce for evacuation of 10000 civ
ilians from the besieged port.
The German colonel commanding
at Calais was said to have declared ::
Il have received orders from my
Fuehrer to fight to the last man.
and that is what intend to do
Also on the coast. Cape Girls Nez
had fallen to Canadian assault and
its cross Channel batteries that had
made life touch-and-go in Dover
and Folkestone for four hard years
were silenced at last.
The residents of the shattered
English southeast coast towns cele-
brated spontaneously, but warier
ones waited to learn if there were
other long range guns still in Calais
which might take up the pounding
after the end of the Calais truce.
Bridge Approaches Destroyed.
German troops who pushed to the
south bank of the Dutch Rhine op-
posite Arnhem were showed back
across the river last highland
destroyed the northern approaches
to the bridge in their desperation to
prevent British crossing
From both sides, east and west.
they hurled SIS troops into attacks
against the thin British corridor
through Nijmegen In that battle
they risked at least 300 of their
fighters and fighter -bombers in one
of the Luftwaffe's biggest days of
concentrated close support since the
invasion.
British planes met them headon,
destroyed 33, damaged 16, and kept
them from getting into strafing
range Of British ground forces at
any time in the fight. A single
British plane was lost.
American paratroops helped the
Tommies beat of the attacks with
out yielding more than a couple of
orchards The Germans, failing to
gain, were reported digging in for
an attempt to bog the battle down
into positional warfare
Hodges Troops Advance.
Southwest of Nijmegen the Brit
ish widened their corridor within
four miles of the Dutch communi-
cations center of S-Hertogenbosch
which the Germans fortified to hold
an escape corridor to the north
around the broad Mas estuary for
troops hemmed tightly in Western
Holland.
1t. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges
doughboys were punching into Ger
man defenses again all the way
from north of Aachen to the South
ern tip of Luxembourg.
They gained a mile northeast of
Sittard on the Dutch German from
tier. 20 miles north of Aachen and
drove anew against Hurtgen. IA
miles southeast of the besieged fort
ress town
They made only what the COM
munique called limited progress"
in the Siegfried- -denting attack
southwest of Prum, miles inside
the German border midway between
Aachen and Trier, but knocked out
eight strongpoints in single attack
and were forging ahead.
The doughboys liberated Monpach
and Wasserbillig on the Luxembourg
border, just miles west of Trier
and captured Haute-ContZ. miles
south of the border town of Remich
which was won the day before.
The 7th Army was running into
heavy fire of German artillery con-
centrations-a whole laundering
arsenal from field guns to six-bar-
relied rocket mortars.
But 1t kept up its gains, mile by
mile.
The Germans for the first time
were taking the initiative in patrol
tSee WESTERN FRONT, Page A-3l