November 3. 1944; Leyte Battle Nears Climax:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1944:

THE STARS AND STRIPES Friday, Nov. 3, 1944

Two Towns

Past Aachen

Are Seized

First Army troops, resuming the offensive at the point of deepest penetration into Germany, slashed through the dense Huertgen Forest for a two-mile push yesterday and captured the towns of Vossenack and Germeter, southeast of Aachen.

Dispatches said the doughboys, fighting like men blindfolded in the gloom and shadows of the thick woods, had opened two heavy assaults about 12 miles

southeast of Aachen, which they subdued two weeks ago. One force, driving to the northeast, overran the village of Germeter and reached Huertgen, gaining more than a mile.

9 ½  Miles Into Reich

A second farce, heading, almost due easi, blasted through Vossenack, 14 miles southeast of Aachen. At Vossenack the Americans were 9 ½ | miles beyond Roetgen, the point where the Reich border was first crossed in the initial thrust into the Siegfried defenses.

Again Span Causeway

Canadian troops, fighting at times waist deep in water, regained their toehold on Walcheren after the Germans, with a clear field of fire, beat off their first

attempt to cross on the causeway from South Beveland Wednesday night.

In the Scheldt pocket, where only three small enemy groups still held out, Canadians captured the towns of Knocke and Sluis, taking 2,600 prisoners, including Maj. Gen. Eberding, commander of the 64th Division, which had already lost 8,000 men as captives to Allied troops clearing out this Dutch-Belgian corner since Oct. 6.

On the Third Army front, Yank artillerymen, firing German guns taken in the Maginot Line and guided by two Ninth Air Force Mustang spotters, knocked out one of the Nazis' 280-mm. railway guns, pouring 140 shells into the rail yard where it was being refitted.

Leyte Battle Nears. a Climax;

Jap Escape Port Is Bombed

The battle for Leyte Island, in the Philippines, last night narrowed to a six-mile-long corridor from the village of Carigara to the last Jap escape port of Ormoc, on the west coast, and late dispatches from Gen. Douglas MacArthur's headquarters indicated Carigara soon would be in American hands.

The L'.S. 24th Division, linked –with dismounted cavalry units from the north side of the island, advanced two miles during the day against resistance which

appeared to be stiffening. American planes bombed Jap installations at Ormoc, while the enemy continued to ferry in reinforcements from Cebu, due west.

Meanwhile, as U.S. planes raided more than a dozen Japanese island strongholds throughout the Pacific, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz announced from his

Pearl Harbor headquarters that "several "American warships were damaged in a scond battle of the Philippines last week.

For security reasons he withheld identity of the damaged vessels. Previously, six U:S. ships were reported sunk or damaged.

Bridge KO a USA AF Job,

British Air Ministry Reveals

The destruction of the Mulheim suspension bridge at Cologne was accomplished by the Eighth Air Force, and not the RAF, the Air Ministry announced yesterday.

Four hundred Fortresses had attacked Cologne Oct. 14 and cloud-obscured photographs taken during the raid showed bombs falling close around the bridge.

The next day 900 B 17s and B24s pounded the city. An 'Air Ministry official photograph issued Oct. 30 (shown above), following a big assault by RAF heavies, showed the span destroyed. It has now been established that the Mulheim bridge was destroyed either Oct. 14 or 15.

The Eighth Air Force carried out nine separate attacks on Cologne, beginning Sept. '28, when 400 Fortresses hit the city-

The heaviest attack was made Oct. 17, when 1,250 Eighth heavies blasted Cologne.

Last month, the Eighth dropped 9,000 tons of bombs on the city, of which 8,000 tons were loosed in four days. Cologne ranks close to Berlin and Bremen as the city most heavily bombed by the Eighth Air Force. To date, 10,964 tons have been .dropped on the Rhine city.