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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