Saturday, September 29, 2012

September 29, 1944; FIRST CLASS FIGHTING MEN

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY SEPTEMBER 29, 1944:

THE STARS AND STRIPES Friday, Sept. 29, 1944
                                 An Editorial
First Class Fighting Men

NINE days they fought the Hun to a standstill. Crouching, cold, drenched to the skin in muddy foxholes, these tough paratroopers were mortared, blasted by flame-throwers, shelled by 88-mm. guns and machine-gunned for days and nights without letup. They ran out of food and water, almost out of ammunition, and they fought on.
* * *
A battalion of their wounded with bandaged heads, legs and arms in splints charged, and routed a counter-attack by picked SS men, driving them back. The Germans say they "fought like lions."
* * *
Out of 8,000 airborne troops who landed at Arnhem, 2,000 walked back through the German lines and were ferried across the Lek river to Allied lines.
* * *
These heroic men of the British First Airborne Army made it possible for their comrades, including Americans, to grab the strategic Grave bridge and both the Nijmegen bridges over the Rhine intact. They held back the German reserves sent to defend these vital crossings. They failed to hold the
Arnhem bridgehead only because bad flying weather prevented supplies and reinforcements from
reaching them. And they came staggering back demanding a chance to return and lick hell out of the Huns.
That's why GIs everywhere today are proud of these fighting Britishers—proud to call them Allies. That's why we call them:
FIRST CLASS FIGHTING MEN


BENTON HARBOR, MICH., FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1944

NAZIS YEILD
GROUND ALONG
ENTIRE FRONT
Calais Garrison Asks
Surrender Terms; 82
Tanks Knocked Out
BY JAMES M. LONG
LONDON, Sept. 29-(AP)-
The American Third and Seventh armies have surged forward three to five miles through fierce German resistance in Alsace-Lorraine, it was announced today. The Third Army alone knocked out 82 German tanks in the powerful onslaught. The two American armies, prying at the Beifort Gap only 11 mile* away and knocking at the four, main passes through the Vosges to the Rhine, scored the deepest and widest gains of any on an Allied. front seething with the mounting power of new offensives.
On these southern sectors of the 500-mile front, they shredded half a dozen enemy counterattacks which cost the Germans heavily, captured eight to 10 villages and their bag of enemy tanks was one of the biggest since D-Day.
Calais' Fall Imminent
But to the north the German commander at Calais asked for surrender terms, while Lt. Gen. Sir Miles C. Dempsey's combined British Second Army and parachute forces closed up to the Maas (Meuse) river on a 20-mile front from their Nijmegen corridor in Holland.

HITLER'S LAST
ALLY PREPARES
TO DESERT WAR
***
300,000 Russians And
Romanians Swarming
Over Country
BY DANIEL De LUCE
MOSCOW, Sept. 29-(AP)-
The Red Army's three-way offensive against Hungary from Romania and Yugoslavia developed swiftly today while rumors of peace feelers by the
Budapest government indicated Hitler's last important satellite may be on the verge of deserting him.
Hungary's defensive position was dark as strong Russian forces, pressing forward in a 100-mile arc on the Romanian-Hungarian frontier, increased their mountain salient and utilized Marshal Tito's permission to cross Yugoslav territory and strike the Hungarians and Germans from the South.
The  Russian war bulletin disclosed that Soviet troops had fought their way into Lupkow Pass leading from Poland into Czechoslovakia, taking Vydran, a Czechslovak rail station nearly three miles inside the frontier.

YANK RAIDERS
HIT JAPS HARD
IN PHILIPPINES
Sink 22 Ships, Damage
70 Others, Destroy
36 Planes
BY LEONARD MILLIMAN
(Associated Press War Editor)
Tokyo radio reported the capture of one of the three remaining advanced American airfields in China today as U. S. fleet carrier forces added up the most remarkable record of ship and plane destruction of the Pacific war.
In an almost unopposed raid on the central Philippines, sea-borne fighters and bombers sank 22 Japanese ships, damaged about 70 other surface craft, and destroyed 36 planes. The raid, Sept. 23, (U. S. time) cost the attackers 10.planes and eight airmen, Adm. Chester W. Mimita announced last night.
This was the seventh day of sweeping raids over the invasion threatened islands since Sept.8 by the air arm of Adm. -William Halsey's Third fleet. Altogether they have wiped out 1,014 Nipponese planes and sunk or damaged 360 surface craft. This mark surpasses most monthly totals for the entire Pacific.
Jap Planes Shot Down
Only seven interceptors dared oppose the raiders as they wrecked shipping, defensive installations and "thoroughly bombed and strafed" airfields on Cebu, Leyte, Negros, Mactan and southern Luzon islands.
All seven were shot down. The meager opposition illustrated Nimitz' statement that the enemy's aid defense had been broken. Tokyo radio said replacements have since been flown in.



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