THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1944:
(Reprint see below)
IN NORMANDY, August, 1944
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER "4,
I944
Prepare
Winter
Attack
Hodges' Forces
Threaten Big
City
BY J. EDWARD
MURRAY
(United Press War
Correspondent)
PARIS, Nov. 4—(U.P.)_
The American 1st Army
methodically widened and deepened its new wedge in Germany's west wall 87 miles
or less southwest of Cologne today .preparing another springboard for a winter
offensive aimed at the Rhineland. Lt. Gen. Courtney Hodges' doughboys fanned
out on a three mile front beyond Schmidt and Germeter some 12 to 15 miles southeast
of Aachen toward the Roer river barrier to the Cologne plain.
Moderate to heavy resistance was
being encountered in ;the Schmidt area, Supreme Headquarters reported in a communique.
American forces cleaning out Siegfried line pillboxes in the woods just
northwest of Schmidt also said the enemy was resisting stubbornly.
In Southwest Holland, other
American troops linked up with the British to form a solid three mile bridgehead
across the Mark river within three and a half
miles' of the Holland Deep.
The American captured De Kreek,
six and a half miles south of the 14-span Moerdijk escape bridge across the
Holland Deep.
Polish units carved out a second bridgehead
across the Mark farther east, capturing Den Bout, four miles north of Breda.
Reds
In
Suburbs
Report Revolt
Inside Capital
BY HENRY SHAPIRO
United Press War
Correspondent)
MOSCOW, Nov. 4.—(U.P)—
Soviet armored spearheads smashed
through disintegrating enemy lines into the southeastern outskirts of Budapest
today and the fate of Germany's last satellite capital well may be decided in
the next 72 hours.
A British exchange telegraph dispatch
from Moscow said street fighting was expected to start momentarily in
Budapest.)
All signs indicated that
Hungarian resistance had collapsed completely below the capital despite frantic
enemy efforts to reinforce the lines with all available reserves, security
units and rear area units.
Front dispatches said the entire
German-Hungarian army group b e t w e e
n the Danube and the Tisza rivers
southeast of Budapest had been shattered and broken up into isolated units, with
only a few escaping toward the capital.
ERNIE
PYLE
Editor's Note:
This is the47th
of the Ernie Pyle war
dispatches that
are being reprinted
during Ernie's
vacation.
BY ERNIE PYLE
IN NORMANDY, August, 1944
It is possible to become so enthralled
by some of the spectacles of war that you are momentarily captivated away from
your own danger.
That's what happened to our
little group of soldiers as we stood in a French farmyard watching the mighty
bombing of the German lines just before our
break-through.
But that benign state didn't last
long. As we watched, there crept into our consciousness are realization that
windrows of exploding bombs were easing back toward us, flight by flight,
instead of gradually forward, as the plan called for.
Then we were horrified by the
suspicion that those machines, high in the sky and completely detached from us,
were aiming their bombs at the smokeline on,
the ground—and a gentle breeze
was drifting the smokeline back over us!
An indescribable kind of panic comes
over you at such times. We stood tensed in muscle and frozen in intellect,
watching each flight approach and pass over us, feeling trapped and completely helpless.
Pyle's Column
(Continued From Page One)
And then all an instant the
universe became filled with a gigantic rattling as of huge, dry seeds in a
mammoth dry gourd. I doubt that any of us had ever heard
that sound before, but instinct told
us what it was. It was bombs by the hundred, hurtling down through the air
above us.
Many times I've heard bombs whistle
or swish or rustle, but never before had 1 heard bombs rattle. I still don't
know the explanation of it. But it is an awful
sound. We dived. Some got in a
dugout. Others made foxholes and ditches and some got behind a garden
wall—although which side would be "behind" was anybody's guess.
It was too late for the dugout. The
nearest place was a wagonshed which formed one end of the stone house. The
rattle was right down upon us. I remember
hitting the ground flat, all
spread out like the cartoons of people flattened by steam rollers, and then
squirming like an eel to get under one
of the heavy wagons in the shed.
An officer whom I didn't know was
wriggling beside me. We stopped at the same time, simultaneously feeling it was
hopeless to go more farther. The bombs
were already crashing around us.
We lay with our heads slightly up—like two snakes—staring at each other. I know
it was in both our minds and in our eyes asking each other what to do Neither
of us knew. We said nothing. We just lay sprawled gaping at each other in a
futile appeal, our faces about a foot apart, until it was over.
There is no description of the
sound and fury of those bomb,' except to say it was chaos, and a waiting for
darkness. The feeling of the blast was sensational. The air struck you in
hundreds of continuing flutters. Your ears drummed and rang. You could feel
quick little waves of confusions on your chest and in your
eyes.
At last the sound died down and
we looked at each other in disbelief. Gradually we left the foxholes and
sprawling places, and came out to see what the sky
had in store for us. As far as we
could see other waves were approaching from behind. When a wave would pass a
little to the side of us we were garrulously
grateful, for most of them flew
directly overhead.
Time and again the rattle came
down over us. Bombs struck in the orchard to our left. They struck in orchards
ahead of us. They struck as far as half a mile
behind us. Everything
about us was shaken, but our group came thorough unhurt
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