Evening star., 1944-12-01
Solid American Assault Lines
Drawn Up Along Roer and Saar;
Well is Seized by Ninth Army
Patton S Tanks
Clear 7 Towns
In New Advance
MAP on Page A-4.)
By the Associated Pres,

BY the Associated Press.
PARIS, Dec. 1.-Three Ameri-
can armies today drew up solid
assault lines along both the Roer
and Saar Rivers, two of the most
important barriers to the Rhine
1t. Gen. William H. Simpson s
9th Army captured Welz, l mile
south of Linnich, and drew a close
arc around that town on the road
to the Rhineland city of Munchen
Gladbach as virtually the entire
Army closed up to the Roer and its
tributary, the Inde. on front of
Is to 20 miles. Patrols stabbed
across the narrow, but flood swollen
Inde.
1t. Gen. George S. Patton's Sd
Army pressed against the west bank
of the Saar and the Siegfried Line
almost along a front of IL to Is
miles.
Patton's Tanks Advance.
Gen. Patton's tanks plunged for
ward half mile today in their lat
est gains and reached the Saar bend
opposite Merzig, after clearing Hill
bringen and Battern.
The Sd Army was drawn up close
to Merzig on the northwest, west and
southwest. The Siegfried Line, with
its forts, hundreds of pillboxes and
miles of wire and traps, comes down
to the river here, and beyond is the
Hunsruck range running northeast
between the Moselle and Nahe VAL
leys toward the Rhine and main
cities of Wiesbaden, Mainz and
Frankfurt.
AS December came over the grim
gray battlefelds. the Germans were
pouring their final strength into the
desperate struggle for winter line
west of the Rhine and were losing
5000 men a day in prisoners alone.
In dead and disabled Hitler was
sacrificing more than that.
Allied Losses Not Disclosed.
Security and other regulations
lock the Allied casualties for indef-
mite periods after operations, and
the cost in American, British,
French, and Allied lives in the great
winter offensive, now in its Oath day,
had not yet been disclosed.
But a general rule of war Is that
assault costs more in blood than de-
tense.
The Allied campaign, yet to reach
Its climax of fury, was shaping bit
by bit into three great wedges. each
forcing the Germans to throw in
thinning reserves to block the roads
to Berlin
Two American armies. the 9Th
and 1t. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges
1st Army, were hammering at three
key towns along the Roer line in
the Rhineland-Linnich, Julich and
Duren.
Linnich is IA miles southwest of
Munchen Gladbach. Julich, just
across the Roer, is the junction of
the roads to Dusseldorf, n miles to
the northeast, and to Cologne, %
miles to the east. Duren is on the
Adolf Hitler highway to Cologne,
20 miles to the east.
Curving Line Along Saar.
The Sd Army had drawn a curv-
ing line along the Saar in Germany
and near the southern frontier of
the Saarland, threatening not only
that rich industrial and mining
basin, but also the historic guardians
of the roads to Coblenz and the
cluster of cities at the junction of
the Rhine and the Main.
The third wedge was shaping up
northwest of Strasbourg, where both
the Sd and 7th Armies were pushing
past the lower end of the Eifel
range toward karlsruhe on the
Rhine.
The whole operation was being
carried out amid ceaseless shellfre.
Armored forces and infantry were
handicapped by quagmires and the
H. Il