The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945

by The New York Times

  AMERICAN BAG NOW 230,000

  The American First Army’s advance on the Siegfried Line has been speeded by the establishment of the three good bridgeheads across the Meuse at Namur, Dinant and Givet. Late last night armored formations had thrust some miles east, according to reports from the front. The left flank of this advance obviously was aiming at Liege and the open country of the Maastrict appendix. Liege is only twenty-four miles from Aachen in Germany.

  The First Army infantry’s capture of 25,000 men in the Mons pocket between Sunday and Tuesday brought that Army’s total to date to 154,000. Counting the 76,000 Germans captured by the Third Army the American Twelfth Army group has now taken 230,000 German prisoners.

  Two divisional commanders, Maj. Gens. Ruediger von Heyking and Carl Wahle, were captured in the Mons pocket.

  In addition to the heavy blow dealt the waning reserves of German manpower, the final cleaning up of the pocket has another significance. American troops employed there can now be moved eastward to join other units of the First Army in their advance on the Siegfried line. Compeigne and St. Quentin, two of the towns on the borders of the pocket have been liberated, it is believed.

  In addition to the great bag of prisoners, fifty tanks and 1,500 other vehicles were captured or destroyed in the final clean-up.

  BRITISH DRIVE ON ROTTERDAM

  A British armored column that left Brussels at 1 o’clock Tuesday afternoon raced through Louvain, twenty miles to the east, only two hours later. Since then little is known of the column’s movements save that it is encountering increased resistance.

  Other British troops, probably those that took Antwerp and according to the Dutch-occupied Breda Monday, are now officially revealed as fighting in the Netherlands. Dutch sources report they have crossed the estuary of the Maas and are approaching Rotterdam.

  The Canadian First Army is meeting stiff resistance in three areas. It is being checked at Le Havre and Boulogne and the forces moving on Calais evidently have split up and by-passed the port. Polish armored forces of this Army have struck northward to Yprés, ten miles inside the Belgian border.

  The Canadians are now on three sides of Boulogne on a perimeter roughly two miles from the center of the city. Another force reached Marquise, six miles from Cap Gris Nez.

  At Calais Canadian patrols are clearing the coast east and west of the port but have not entered the town itself.

  CANADIANS TRAP 50,000

  There are 50,000 Germans pinned against the Channel coast and the North Sea. Most of these are in ports where they are resisting stubbornly, but many units are striking northward in the hope they will be able to cross the mouth of the Scheldt to safety. Some German troops escaped by this route but the number is not large.

  Le Havre is garrisoned by 5,000 Germans. Tuesday night they were subjected to a 1,000-ton assault by heavy bombers of the Royal Air Force.

  The fighting in front of Le Havre is fierce. British infantry of the Canadian First Army is moving through a strong defensive system of pillboxes, barbed wire and mines.

  Pamphlets calling for surrender are being fired into Le Havre by artillery and dropped by aircraft. These point out the hopelessness the local situation to the enemy and stress that as the war is drawing to a close it is useless to be killed in ineffectual action.

  Meanwhile German engineers are destroying port installations in both Boulogne and Calais. The glow of fires can be seen and the thump of explosions heard by watchers on the English coast. German batteries in that area are still firing off their ammunition. Shortly after 8:30 o’clock last evening they opened fire across the Strait of Dover again.

  SEPTEMBER 8, 1944

  War Against Robots Is Won; London Halts Evacuations

  By E. C. DANIEL

  By Wireless to The New York Times.

  LONDON, Sept. 7—The second Battle of London has ended in victory—a victory that was in the making even before Allied armies overran the flying-bomb bases in France and Belgium, reducing to impotent pinpricks the effects of Hitler’s vaunted Vengeance Weapon Number One.

  “Except possibly for a few parting shots, the Battle of London is over,” Duncan Sandys, chairman of the British Flying Bomb Counter-Measures Committee and son-in-law of the Prime Minister, told the press Monday.

  It was a battle that lasted eighty uneasy days, employed 2,000 barrage balloons, 2,800 guns and vast fleets of Allied planes. The battle also required a wholesale rearrangement of London’s entire antiaircraft defense system.

  The British Government has signalized London’s victory over the flying bombs by suspending tonight the evacuation schemes that are estimated to have taken more than 1,000,000 persons out of the danger zone since June 15.

  Within less than one week after the last salvo of flying bombs was fired in London, the capital was already resuming its bustling aspect. Streets once more are crowded at dusk. Queues have reformed in front of movie theatres. Opera, drama, ballet and musical shows that were driven to the provinces by flying bombs have returned in strength, with twenty theatres open, compared with thirty-four before the flying bombs and ten at the peak of the attack.

  The Government, however, still wants thousands to stay away. There are 870,000 houses still awaiting the ministrations of a crew of 60,000 workmen engaged in flying-bomb repairs in London.

  Many schools and hospitals have been extensively damaged. Users of these buildings are advised to stay away, and expectant mothers in the last month of pregnancy, as well as the aged, infirm, blind and homeless are still being sent away.

  It was a battle in which American airmen and gunners fought side by side with the British to defend the homes in which they had been guests. Americans fought, Mr. Sandys said, “with just as much determination and enthusiasm as if New York or Washington had been the victim.”

  The result of their combined exertions was that in the last week of the flying bomb attacks only 9 per cent of the robots discharged actually hit London, whose sprawling reaches were their only feasible target. Of the total of 8,000 bombs launched—an average of 100 oneton bombs a day—2,300 actually reached London, obviously far fewer than the German High Command had expected.

  A queue composed mainly of American servicemen, waiting to go into the Windmill Theatre in London for a performance of the “Revudeville”, September 1944.

  INVASION PLANS UNDISTURBED

  This expenditure represented a tremendous wastage of German manpower and materials, which were diverted from the production of orthodox weapons and fortifications. For the Allies, the victory was accomplished without a single sign of faltering in the invasion of western Europe.

  Asked whether the V-2—the rocket shell—would introduce a new phase in London’s long struggle for survival, Mr. Sandys said:

  “I am a little chary of talking about V-2. We do know quite a lot about it.” But in any case, he added, the correspondents walking over the rocket sites in France will know a great deal more within a few days.

  The youthful chief of the anti-flying bomb command told his fascinating story of the espionage work, secret bombing attacks, scientific research and battle dispositions in a setting that had all the pomp of a victory demonstration. He gave his press conference at the Ministry of Information, with an eighteen-inch model of a flying bomb, black and evil, on a table before him. Brendan Bracken, Minister of Information, presided, and chiefs of the services that won the battle were present.

  SECRET SERVICE GOT THE FACTS

  Mr. Sandys’ story was told less than twenty-four hours after Great Britain had already received the cheering news of the relaxing of the blackout. The story began eighteen months ago, in April of 1943, when the Chiefs of Staff sent to Mr. Sandys four vague reports, received from secret agents, of a German long-range bombardment weapon.

  The tales of Britain’s renowned Intelligence Services are rarely told, but the accumulation of information that followed these reports indicated that they were as resourceful as ever.

  Puzzling phot
ographs were taken in May, 1943, over the experiment station at Peenemuende.

  But expert interpreters detected in a tiny blurred speck the shape of a miniture airplane sitting on an inclined ramp. In the vicinity of the ramp the ground was blackened as if by a hot blast. The secret of the flying bomb was all but divined.

  Doubts were resolved last November, Mr. Sandys said, when 100 concrete structures like those at Peenemuende were erected along the French coast.

  Beginning in December, American and British air forces destroyed every one of those sites. Unable to repair them, the Germans last March started constructing a new, simplified series.

  SPEEDIEST PLANES USED

  The new ramps were so well camouflaged that it was practically impossible to detect them until after they had been used. An intelligence officer sent to the Cherbourg Peninsula pitched his tent on one site before he found the launching rail.

  The Allies already had invaded Europe when the attacks began in earnest on June 15.

  The robots flew at from 350 to 400 miles an hour, and only the British Typhoon and the newest Spitfire fighters and American-made Mustangs could overhaul them in level flight.

  They were fired in salvos, and on cloudy days as many as 200 were launched in twenty-four hours. But during the first month 40 per cent of the bombs were downed.

  The barrage balloon belt that dots the sky thickly south and east of London was increased to 2,000, and most balloons were fitted with extra cables. They stopped nearly 15 per cent of the bombs that reached their area.

  In mid-July London’s whole antiaircraft belt was moved down to the coast, requiring the resiting of 1,100 guns, which nevertheless were out of action for only two days.

  20 CENT RANGE FINDER HELPED

  With a clear view over the sea, gunners raised their scores until they were shooting down 74 per cent of the bombs entering the gun belt. Twenty American batteries, constituting one-eighth of the total of 2,800 guns, joined in the shooting. Special American equipment, for which President Roosevelt gave priority at Prime Minister Churchill’s request, was imported for the battle.

  Fighter pilots, aided by radio telephone spotters on land and sea during the daytime and by a simple 20-cent range finder at night, shot down more than 1,900 bombs.

  Even from ground bases, however, only 29 per cent of the bombs got through to London. Twenty-five per cent were inaccurate. The remaining 46 per cent were brought down. Toward the end of the attacks, which with one exception were finished last Friday, the defenses were stopping 70 percent and only 9 per cent were reaching London.

  SEPTEMBER 15, 1944

  Halsey Fliers Hit 84 Ships, Wreck Philippine Defenses

  By ROBERT TRUMBULL

  By Telephone to The New York Times.

  PEARL HARBOR, Sept. 14—Carrier aircraft under Admiral William F. Halsey’s command have “crippled” Japanese air forces, shipping and ground defenses in the Central Philippines in a three-day attack lasting from dawn Monday to sundown yesterday, a Pacific Fleet communiqué said today. Enemy air power in the area was apparently completely destroyed.

  Sweeping over the four fortified islands of Panay, Cebu, Negros and Leyte, the American airmen shot down 156 Japanese planes in combat and destroyed 277 on the ground and sank or damaged eighty-four ships and “many” sampans. Enemy air opposition was described as “formidable” the first two days and “entirely non-existent” the third day.

  Since Admiral Halsey’s Third Fleet opened the naval campaign against the Philippines with an attack on Mindanao Island on Sept. 8, the enemy has lost 501 planes, at least 173 vessels sunk or damaged plus a great number of small craft not counted. These totals cover all the carrier raids on the Philippines bases. The communiqué said that these operations “inflicted crippling damage” on the enemy in the Central Philippines. Pacific Fleet communiqués are so carefully worded that such a statement may be accepted at its full value. It is inferred here that Admiral Halsey’s bold raids have deprived the Japanese at least for the time being of their former defensive strength in the Philippines south of Luzon Island.

  The attack on the central Philippines covered another heavy carrier attack Tuesday on the Palau Islands, 610 statute miles east of Mindanao. Carrier planes from another portion of the giant Third Fleet hurled ninety tons of bombs and 165 rockets at Angaur, Peleliu and Ngesebus Islands in the Palau group, damaging coastal gun emplacements, warehouses and a lighthouse at Angaur. This was the sixth attack on Palau in the past eight days and the fourth in the past four. There has been no air opposition at Palau since the Third Fleet opened its assault on Sept. 5.

  Last Friday’s attack on Mindanao Island in the southern Philippines cost the Japanese sixty-eight planes destroyed and forty-nine cargo ships definitely sunk in addition to many sampans sunk and a number of vessels probably sunk or damaged.

  AIRFIELDS BOMBED AND STRAFED

  The three-day air assault on the four central islands resulted in the sinking of two large cargo vessels, one medium size transport, two destroyer escorts and thirty-five small ships. Damaged were five cargo vessels, one medium tanker, thirty-six small ships, two motor torpedo boats and “many” sampans.

  The communiqué said “several” airfields were bombed and strafed. There are ten known air bases on the four islands. Fires were started among oil storage facilities, ammunition dumps, warehouses, barracks and other buildings.

  “Enemy air opposition the first day was considerable and was reinforced during the first night so that its strength on the second day was also formidable,” the communiqué declared. “Enemy planes rose to intercept our aircraft but no attempts were made to attack our surface ships.

  “On the third day enemy air power was entirely non-existent and antiaircraft fire was meager. Our losses in planes and flight personnel were relatively light.”

  SEPTEMBER 16, 1944

  AMERICAN TROOPS ON GERMAN SOIL

  FALL OF METZ DUE

  By DREW MIDDLET0N

  By Cable to The New York Times.

  SUPREME HEADQUARTERS Allied Expeditionary Force, Sept. 16—Tanks and doughboys of the American First Army reached Stolberg, six miles east of Aachen and less than thirty miles from the outskirts of Cologne on the Rhine yesterday and, according to a late report from the front last night, American infantry broke through the main Siegfried Line. [Press services said the line had been breached at its strongest point east of Aachen.]

  Reports from the front said the line was breached by infantrymen and combat engineers using flame throwers, dynamite charges on poles, grenades and secret weapons.

  American soldiers of the First Army Division moving toward the city of Aachen, Germany.

  Armored reconnaissance units probed the northern outskirts of Aachen and the town itself and German strong points around it were being pounded into submission by American field batteries firing from high ground north, west and south of the town. Aachen’s fall was said to be imminent

  AMERICANS SEIZE MAASTRICHT

  The German line was slowly disintegrating to the north and south as Aachen’s defenses were crumbling. An armored column that crossed the German frontier east of Eupen fought its way through a chain of enemy pillboxes and took Lammersdorf, two miles southeast of Roetgen. Another American First Army force captured Maastricht, the first Netherland town to be liberated, and, according to reports from the front, it advanced across the Maastricht appendix and crossed the German frontier.

  The penetration of the Siegfried Line, which has not yet been confirmed here but which on the basis of field reports during the past forty-eight hours appears most likely, is the most portentous military news of the campaign since the break-through at St. Lô. The great enemy barrier has been forced in an area close to the Ruhr and its industry, still one of the principal citadels of Germany’s armed might.

  The momentous news from this sector of the American First Army front overshadowed all other operational reports yesterday. But the offensive also was progressing well to the sout
h. An armored column of the American First Army that crossed the German frontier from St. Vith and advanced north of Pruem was pushing forward yesterday on a six-mile front through strongly fortified positions, including scores of anti-tank traps.

  FALL OF METZ EXPECTED

  Nancy, Charmes and Epinal, all on the right flank of Lieut. Gen. George S. Patton’s American Third Army, fell in the past twenty-four hours and the German line on the Moselle River was blasted loose from its roots.

  There was heavy fighting on the northern sector of the Third Army’s front as well yesterday. Thionville is now largely held by General Patton’s troops and the German situation at Metz is becoming more precarious hourly.

  SEPTEMBER 17, 1944

  Feud Among Poles Growing Bitterer

  Soviet-Sponsored Lublin Body Accuses London Regime Of Murder, ‘Gangsterism’

  By W. H. LAWRENCE

  By Wireless to The New York Times.

  MOSCOW, Sept. 16—With the Red Army at Warsaw’s gates, apparently preparing to cross the Vistula River, the state of quasi-civil war that has broken out in sections of Poland threatens to further impair relations between the Soviet-sponsored Polish National Committee and the Polish regime in London.

  Polpress, the news agency of the Polish Committee whose headquarters are in Lublin, charged Friday that at least four assassinations had been traced to adherents of the London group.

  Behind the assassinations, according to Polpress, lies a planned campaign to frustrate the drafting of Poles under the mobilization order recently issued by the Lublin committee. The cleavage of the two groups was made further apparent by the Moscow radio.