The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-01-04
|Yanks Driven
From Hold In
Saar Basin
Hodges Men Go Back On
Offensive After Ger
man Break

PARIS, Thursday, Jan. =.
UP)-The U. S. First Army
opened it's long-awaited coun-
ter-offensive on the northern
flank of the Ardennes bulge
Wednesday, teaming with the
Third Army on the south in
a great squeeze drive against
German defenders Of
the salient.
Intensified German attacks to
tine south, however, had forced the
Americans to relinquish their toe
holds in the Reich between Sar-
reguemines and the Rhine, front
of SIS miles. Withdrawal from these
positions in the first belt of the
Siegfried Line was dictated by
exigencies ELSEWHERE, front dis
patches said in an obvious refer
ence to the battle of the bulge.
The two American armies stood
less than Is miles apart when the
First Army went back over to the
offensive for the first time since
it was jolted loose from its Bel
gium-Luxembourg line by the Ger
man winter onrush starting De-
cember 16.
Allied headquarters announced
just before midnight that the First
Army attack had been launched
Wednesday, thus bringing its re-,
ports fairly up to date in con-
trast with the 48-hour news black
out, later modified to SO hours, i'm
posed on the first phases of the
battle.
Fighting through a tide OF
counter attacks, tanks of the Third
Army were lashing out in four
columns from Bastogne and had
driven up to five miles northeast
of that road junction, reaching
within fives miles of Houffalize,
hub of the German bulge.
The First Army presumably was
attacking from the Malmedy'
Stavelot- Grandmenil sector Where
it had managed to stabilize its
line after the first fury of the Ger
man drive-an offensive that, now
in its third week, had cost the
enemy an estimated $4,000 casual
ties.
The German losses included TO-
900 prisoners and the severe maui
ing of IL divisions, including the
destruction of the equivalent OF
five Panzer divisions by the Third
Army alone. Part of this armor
belonged to the German Sixth
Panzer Army commanded by the
notorious Gen. Sepp Dietrich, new
ly revealed as the third of the
three armies with which Field
Marshal Won Rundstedt mounted
his drive. About 400 German tanks
were estimated knocked out.
Dipping ever deeper into his re-
serves, Won Rundstedt had man
aged to cram into the gap about
20 full-strength divisions OF some
1000 men, including four arnnor-
ed and four infantry divisions INTO
the Bastogne sector alone.
One heavy counter-attack was
delivered against the 10lst Air
borne Division north of Bastogne
with the support of IA tanks and
large forces of artillery. It was
held.
A German DNB broadcast as
serted that an American tank d.
vision was "annihilated'' in the
area four miles north
east of Bastogne where the Yanks
were said to have launched ''heavy
armored attacks" The Germans
claimed recapture of several towns
Renaumont, IL miles
southwest of Bastogne and four
miles from Libramont hign-Water
mark of the original enemy break
through toward Sedan.
Allied reports said that the Ger
mans had been sending streams
Of troops and tanks around Bas-
togne in an effort to outflank the
vital city from the southwest, but
so far had been firmly held.
The greatest setback on the
southern sector came on the Sew.
anth Army's right flank Whers
Z 20-mile frontage in the Wissem-
oourg gap, extending to a depth
IF five miles, had to be abandon
ed
Before Withdrawing to a new
inc behind the Lauter river, just
,outh of the frontier of Rhenish
Bavaria, 1t Gen. Alexander M.
oatch's Engineers Systematically
destroyed Siegfried pillboxes
which had been captured late in