News for this September 29, 1944 had much to do with the Allied armies push east, inching across France.
American 1st army troops smashed forward Echterbosch forest in a new attack above Aachen today as battles of increasing intensity flared all along the front between Holland and France. Other allied forces stormed into the Belfort gap leading to southwest Germany and Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s U.S. 3rd army captured Chateau Salins and knocked out 82 German tanks in a Moselle valley armored battle. United Press War Correspondent Jack Frankish in a dispatch from Lt. Gen. Courtney •Hodges’ 1st army headquarters reported the new attack in the Echterbosch forest, the westernmost bulge of Germany across the border from the Dutch appendix.
In the 1st phase of the attack aimed eastward toward Lovenich the Americans scored gains. Aachen still was defended by SS elite guardsmen vowing to fight to the death. U.S. artillery pinned down 42 vehicles carrying about 1.000 Germans near the village of Linden, six miles northeast of Aachen. Veteran Doughboys and French Poilus of Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch’s 7th army exploded the new offensive into the Belfort gap yesterday, striking from the west and north against a chain of heavily defended fortifications drawn in a rough arc 10 miles from Belfort. American units pounding in from the west breached the outer German defenses inside the western end of the gap and captured Clairegoute, 10 miles from Belfort while French and American troops drove past Le Thillot, 14 miles north of the fortress city.
Thick mud that made the narrow valley roads almost impassable to tanks, and mountain snows, hampered the 7th army drive, but Patch’s seasoned troops Pere reported biting steadily deeper through the bristling Nazi defenses. Particularly fierce fighting raged just below Le Thillot around Chateau Lambert, a stone fort built by the French in 1870 and modernized by the Nazis for the battle of Germany. Enemy tanks and shock troops counterattacked furiously yesterday in the Lambert area and along the Lure-Belfort highway running into the mouth of the Belfort gap, but they were thrown back with heavy losses in men and armor. First word of the crushing American tank victory on the 3rd army front, the biggest one-day triumph for Patton’s men since D-day, came in a field dispatch from United Press War Correspondent Robert C. Richards.
In other news; While Americans were making a twin push against the southern and central sectors of the German battle line, the British 2nd army widened its salient in the corridor between the two Rhine estuaries north of Nijmegen to about 10 miles. German shock troops counterattacked almost continuously against the tip and flanks of the British salient, but official dispatches said 2nd army lines were being strengthened and expanded steadily in preparation for the big push across the Rhine and Meuse barriers into the Reich. On the British 2nd army front, Lt. Gen. Sir Miles C. Dempsey’s armored spearheads thrust out northwest of Nijmegen toward the main fork of the Rhine about eight miles away.
And from the Pacific – In a domestic broadcast, intercepted yesterday by the Department of Information’s listening post. Tokyo Radio spoke of new Allied landings and great Allied activity on Peleliu Island. ** A section of enemy war ships has entered the harbor of Sanbulel atoll. a coral reef cast of Peleliu. and the new enemy landings have begun since early on Monday.
At the same time, reinforcement units of the enemy have landed near the aerodrome.’ Reviewing the state of the fighting in the various sectors on Peleliu, the announcer concluded by saying that” Japanese forces are reported to be still engaged in bitter fighting. To judge from previous instances of Tokyo’s propaganda technique, this seems to be a preparation of the Japanese people for the fall of the island.
And that’s just a small slice of news of the War, this September 29, 1944 as presented by NBC’s News Of The World and World News Roundup.
