The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-02-02

LcIlhuL ocIlcIul JdCOD DCVcIb, SoINCIl Army group was rolling forward steadily to It's old positions.
 Field dispatches said the Germans were abandoning entire sections of their flrst-line Siegfried defenses and pulling back into the main for- tiiications three to four miles far ther east without a struggle. The withdrawal, apparently dictated by the need of reserves to meet the Red Army push in the east, was re- ported most pronounced northeast of Monschau, where the Germans were known to have built q double wall of defenses covering the Col ogne Plain.
 In those sectors, advancing dough- boys found many pillboxes abandon cd, along with the guns and equip ment of their garrisons, indicating the Nazi retreat had been nasty and perhaps panicky
 At other poitns, however, the enemy was reported fighting stub. bornly along the outer fringes of the Siegfried line with mortars, machine guns and rifle fire. Ger man mobile field guns behind the west wall were maintaining & spor- adic fire all along the front, while giant American -millimeter long Toms opened heavy barrage in support of the attacking doughboys.
 Far to the south. the French First Army cleared al German resistance from the west bank of the Rhine for distance of 30 miles south of Strasbourg and closed in from the north and south on the remnants Of the Nazi pocket around Colmar.
 Patton's Third Army veterans pacing the assault On the Nazi west wall expanded their bridgchead across the Our river to a width of seven miles, with their Vanguards some five miles inside Germany.
 Heckhu6cheld Falls
 The biggest gains were carved out at the northern end of the bridge head. where the AmcIicans advanc- cd on q fivemile front to take gross Langenfeld and Heckhuscheid, sev- cn to eight miles southeast of St. With.
 More than 100000 American troops were on the move across or Up to the German frontier on both sides of the Our bridgehead on a line extending from northeast of Monschau down almost to the Lux embourg border town of Vianden.
 The Americans pushed forward as much as 2 l-2 miles in the past 24 hours. hampered almost as much by sudden springlike thaw that turned roads and fields into morass as by enemy fire.
 Stiffest fighting was reported in the Monschau forest. where the American Ninth and 99th infantry divisions were closing in from the northwest and southwest on the German border town of Wahher- Mheid five miles soutbeast of Monschau
 Ninth division combat team fought It's way into Wahlerscheid last night and was reported firmly entrenched in the crossroads town early today after a deep penetration of the Slegfried line.
 At some points, south of the town. American patrols reported that German gunncrs were infiltrating back into pilboxes previously re- ported abandoned.
 A few miles to the southeast, however, the. U. s. First Infantry and 82nd Airborne divisions overrar scores of Siegfried line pillboXe6 .ati Na. lN. i.No iH1a at resistance. Many of the enemy poe sitions were found thinly-manned or abandoned entirely. and units of the 82nd advancing into LoSheim, just Inside the German border l6 miles southeast of Malmedy, caps tured l2 Nazi 88-millimeter guns complete with ammunition and fir- ing charts.
 Four miles north of Losheim, the Americans advanced almost four miles east of Kfinkelt to within few hundred yards of the German border without meeting important opposition.
 Seven miles south of Loshcim and six miles due east of St. With, It. Gen. George s. Patton's Third Army troops captured the Belgian town Of Schonberg and pushed on two miles across the Nazi border to take Laudesfeld
 Southeast of St. With, other Third Army elements seized in German villages of Winterscheid, Winters pelt, Ihren, Engelscheid and Heck halenfeld and were reported moving eastward with increasing momen- tllm.
 Reach BrandscheId
 One infantry column was reported 2h miles east of Winterscheid late yesterday, apparently reaching Brandscheid, only six miles west of the German communication cen- ter of Prum.
 That advance put Pattons troops as much as five miles inside Ger man soil and widened their bridge- head across the Our river to about seven miles. from the Wintcrscheid area down to Schlebach.
 On the Alsace front, French and American units of the French First Army continued their systematic reduction of the German panhandle