ABILENE, TEXAS, THURSDAY EVENING,
NOVEMBER 9, 1944—TWENTY PAGES
Patton Hurls More
GIs Into Metz Fight
By the
Associated Press
Six U. S. Third
army infantry divisions attacked today on the central sector of the 500-mile
western front and the Germans, calling this a prelude to "the big
offensive," also declared Americans in the Aachen sector were feverishly preparing
for a new assault toward Cologne and the Rhineland.
Lt. Gen. George
S. Patton, Jr., threw in two divisions north of the fortress city of Metz, and
added another division to the three which attacked yesterday on a front north,
south, and southeast of the city.
U. S. First army doughboys in the
Hurtgen forest area of western Germany gained slowly in the area south of
captured Vossenack. Southwest of Hurtgen they scored small advances and west of
Schmidt, lost to a counterattack early, this week, the infantry mopped up enemy
pockets.
More than 1,300 American heavy
bombers pounded German front line positions in the Metz area to clear a path
for the Third army. The bombers swept over the battlelines at levels lower than
usual. Hundreds of divebombers struck the area both before and after the Flying
Fortresses and Liberators attacked. Perhaps 500 fighters e s c o r t e d the heavies.
Berlin said Lt. Gen. George S. Patton
had opened this attack in order to break through to the Saar river inside the
German border, 30 miles to the northeast, but the direction of the drive
suggested an attempt to cut behind Metz.
South of Metz
the attackspread all the way from Cheminot, 10 miles south of Metz and four
miles east of the Moselle, to the Chateau-Salins area where the Doughboys hammered
a mile-deep wedge north of the Rhine-Marne canal at a point 2Q miles cast of
Nancy and an equal distance west of Sarrebourg.
In Holland where the first snow of
the season fell last night. Field Marshal Sir-Bernard L. Montgomery's 21st army
group had seized all of Walcheren island-at the mouth of the Schelde except a
tiny pocket around the villages of Buttinge and St. Laurens, two miles
northwest of Mkldelburg. This pocket was isolated from the coast. South of the
Maas (Meuse)
Poles had blown their way through
the concrete defenses around the southern end of the Moerdijk bridge and were
attacking an enemy
bridgehead 1 1-2 miles long and three-fourths
of a mile deep.
Typhoon
Slows
Yanks
on Leyte
By The
Associated Press
Weary, water - soaked American
infantrymen, fought in a raging 100-mile an hour typhoon on –the slippery-
ridges—of northern—Leyte island today against fresh Japanese " soldiers
whose arrogant new commander boasted he would demand "unconditional
surrender" of Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
Mud-soaked Yanks were temporally
stopped in their Philippines more by the
blinding storm than by the reinforced enemy.
Tokyo radio admitted the
Japanese, too, were halted in their southeast China drive through cold rain
against "bitterly resisting" Chinese in hilly Kweilin. Chungking claimed
the Nipponese, attacking from three demand "unconditional surrender"
of Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Mud-soaked
Yanks were temporarily stopped in their Philippines invasion more by the
blinding storm than by the
reinforced enemy.
Tokyo radio admitted the
Japanese, too, were halted in their southeast China drive through cold rain
against "bitterly resisting" Chinese in hilly Kweilin. Chungking claimed
the Nipponese, attacking from three directions, .were using poison gas.
Only important land progress was reported
from Burma where Indian and British troops captured P o r t White in two days
of heavy fighting.
The Allies, who had advanced 15
miles from Tiddim, pushed on from Ft. White toward Kalemyo. 15 miles beyond.
COCKY
JAP TO 'DEMAND'
MacARTHUR
'SURRENDER'
By the
Associated Press
Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, new
Japanese army commander In the
Philippines, is going to demand
"unconditional surrender" from Gen. Douglas MacArthur the Tokyo radio
announced today. Yamashita, who conquered the
Malay peninsula and captured
Singapore early in the war, told Jose P. Laurel, puppet Philippine president,
according to the broadcast, that the "only words" he spoke to the British
commander during the negotiations for the surrender of Singapore were "All
I want to hear from you is 'yes or no.' "I expect to put the same question
to MacArthur." The broadcast was recorded by the Federal Communications
commission.
In another broadcast Tokyo radio
said a "mass rally" was held yesterday in Taihoku in northern Formosa
as part of a Japanese campaign "to stir to action the 100,000.000 people
for the .destruction of the United States and Britain."
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