November 20, 1944; METZ CONQUEST COMPLETE:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1944:

German Resistance

: In Fortress Ends

As Area Encircled

PARIS, Nov. 20 (UP)—

American troops virtually completed the conquest of Metz today when German resistance collapsed suddenly, and French mobile units raced down the west bank of the Rhine after a 28-mile lightning thrust through the Belfort Gap to the frontier of Germany.

Gen. Jean DeLattre DeTassigny's sweep to the Rhine, outflanking Belfort and leaving some elements behind to drive into its outskirts, was the most sensational single spurt of the allied winter offensive.

Six allied armies waging Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's greatest offensive of the war slugged forward along a 400-mile front against opposition ranging from a

desperate nazi stand on the Cologne plain to a headlong retreat in some sectors.

Lieut. Gen. Courney H. Hodges' First army advanced up to almost two miles on a broad front east of Aachen, driving a spearhead through neighboring villages' of Wenau and Heistern, 26 miles from Cologne.

Northwest of Aachen the British Second army drove an the Germans, except a sacrificial rear guard, from the Dutch salient west of the Maas above Roermond, and the American broadcasting station, in Europe said Lt. Gen. Sir Miles C. Dempsey's forces had burst across the Maas near Venlo.

Nazis Counterattack

The Germans threw a stiff counterattack against Second army forces fighting alongside the American Ninth and First armies above Aachen, and some nazi units . reached- 

captured Suggerath, two miles 

northeast of Geilenkirchen, but 

a front dispatch said the enemy 

was beaten back.

STRATEGIC BORDER AREA +

. . . Map shows detail of Franco:

German boundary area in Important

sector embracing1 cities

of Metz, Nancy, Strasbourg and

Saarbrucken. Today Third army

forces, crushing: Metz (see.map) in a grip that seized a third of that blocked-off old Roman fortress city, drew up to the Saar boarder 21 miles from Saarbrucken (see map), chief industrial city of the river basin, famous as an industrial beehive and a rich mining area. Linked to Germany by important railroads and - the- Rhiner river-,- the Saars "barely 738 square miles in area •with population of about 850,000 people. Map "at side is closeup and gives Saar's relation to rest of the 'area

Budapest Trap Tightened

By Russ in U. S. Tanks

LONDON, Nov. 20 (AP)—

Russian and American-made tanks, deepening the soviet sweep around besieged Budapest along invasion routes into Austria and Czechosplvakia, were reported advancing today toward Lucenec, key nazi communications hub on .the Slovak-Hungarian frontier.

The tanks sprang forward along-famodern, hard-surfaced highway from captured Gyongyos, a sevenway road junction 23 miles from the border and northeast of Budapest. Gyongyos was seized by Russian shock troops yesterday in a thrust across the vital Budapest-Miskolc railway.

Simultaneously, other soviet tank and artillery forces brought the 25-mile sector of the trunk line between Budapest and Hatyan under heavy fire after capturing the village of Galgaheviz, 19 miles northeast of Budapest, a Moscow bulletin announced.

Hatvan, also a terminal of a main line running north to central Slovakia, was outflanked by tanks fanning out from Gyangyos following the hard-won soviet advance. Gyongyos fell after a violent street fight in which the Russians wiped out two enemy battalions of 1,600 men, Moscow said.

On the upper end of the 85-mile front moving on southern Slovakia,. Marshal Rodio Y. Malinovsky's Second Ukraine army drove to within two miles of Miskolc, Hungary's fifth city.

Yankees Invade

Asia Islands

Off New Guinea

53,000 Nips Slain, On Leyte; U. S.

Planes Bomb Manila

By Associated Press

American assault forces invaded a new island group off the New Guinea coast, recaptured one of the Palau islands and counted more than 53,000 Jap casualties in the Philippines campaign today.

Chinese nearly matched these gains by capturing Mangshih . and penetrating Bhamo at either end of their narrowing Burma road campaign, while Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek reshuffled his cabinet in answer to growing criticism of China's war effort.

Japanese-controlled radios reported 300 American carrier planes twice raided Manila Sunday. One report said big land-based Liberators joined in the attack on the area for the first time. Tokyo broadcasts claimed Nipponese fliers sank two allied cruisers, four submarines and three transports, and damaged a carrier, battleship and four transports.

Two Jap Warships Hit

Allied communiques reported a Jap battleship and cruiser were left exploding and in flames by bomb hits at Burnei, North Borneo; 13 small Jap craft were sunk trying to run reinforcements and supplys.