Evening star., 1944-11-23
MAP on Page A-3.)
By the Associated Press.


LONDON, Nov. 23.-~American
9th Army troops today drove
through deep mud and German
steel into the Roer Valley viii
lagos of Koslar and Barmen in
a slow advance toward Cologne,
26 miles away on the Rhine.
Both towns are north of the Hitler
superhighway from Aachen to Ber-
lin and it was along this wide con-
crete road that the Germans had
massed the best and most of their
troops in the west. Below the road,
9th Army troops entered Bourheim,
Pattern and Lohn to form a batter
ing ram miles wide and pointed
directly at Cologne, the bomb-rav-
age Rhineland arsenal city of 768,-
600.
A cold, pelting rain driven by gales
added to the miseries of ferocious
German resistance; it denied air
support for the columns of infantry,
tanks and cannon moving through
the thickly fortified zone before
the Rhine. The Roer and its affiu-
ents were flooded.
Drive Toward Strasbourg.
On the Allied southern flank. Amer
ican infantry and French tanks fam
ned out on the fat Rhine plain
less than Is miles from Strasbourg,
capital of Alsace-Lorraine, in a COM
plete break-through resistance so
spotty that the crack Allied assault
teams were opposed by some Nazis
who have been in the army less
than a month. One company was
composed entirely of deaf Germans.
The implication was obvious.
Marshal Gerd Won Rundstedt was
giving up Lorraine and doubtless
Alsace, too, to save what he could
from the debacle of the Vosges
mountain front.
1t was on this front that it was
estimated few days ago that 10000
troops of the enemy's 18th Army
we're nailed against the Rhine and
caught between Allied forces less
than so miles apart through the
Saverne and Belfort Gaps. French
in the south advanced 4 miles from
Mulhouse to Battenheim.
Battle for Julich.
The Aachen front was a series Of
deep pools of mud and water in
which American tanks and artillery
slugged it out with new King Tiger
tanks at point-blank range for the
Roer River city of Julich, a mile
and a half east of Kostar. The
Tigers, bearing 6-inch armor, lurked
in ruined towns on the Allied side
Of the Roer. Infantrymen and tank
specialists said the battle before
Julich was the fiercest struggle they
mad fought in this war.
British forces in Holland moved
to within miles of Venlo in the
great bend of the Mas (Meuse)
River, captured the highway town
of Amerika and pushed through the
worst mine fields and mud encoun-
tered since the early days of the
invasion in Normandy. Berlin said
Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Mont
gomery had opened a major attack
toward the Ruhr arsenal.
The American 1st Army, which
captured the battered industrial
city of Eschweiler yesterday, mopped
up remaining opposition in nearby
Durwiss and inched slowly for
ward in the dense and gloomy
Hurtgen Forest against intense rifle,
machine gun, mortar and artillery
fire.
Reach Weisweiler Outskirts.
Infantry of the 1st Army thrust 2
miles forward to the outskirts of
Weisweiler, due east of Eschweiler,
in the predawn darkness of this
gloomy Thanksgiving morning.
Above Geilenkirchen, the British
I'd Army took Hovemx and won
high ground beyond Gereonsweiler
in battling toward the Roer-frst
major terrain obstacle in the forth
fed Cologne Plain.
Victors of Metz, where five iso-
lated outlying forts held out, Amer
lean Sd Army troops pushed an
other mile into Germany to within
Is miles of the sprawlips coal and
steel city of Saarbrucisen, a major
rail hub. The 10th Armored Divi-
sion moved forward to Kesselingen,
extending tank force control to 80
square miles of the Reich. Infantry
of the Sd Army was IA miles due
east of Metz, plunging toward the