VAST ENEMY MOVEMENTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 56, 4 September 1944, Page 2

VAST ENEMY MOVEMENTS

ALL ROADS LEADING EAST (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) Eec. 11 a.m. LONDON, September 3. . The American troops crossed the Belgian frontier without bloodshed, unopposed, says Reuters correspondent with the Americans. They are following the road of the German inyaderg in 1940. They left one cheering French town after another. Tanks, half-track a .'Vehicles,. jeeps, and motorised infantry were led across the frontier by two officers whose command posts since the beginning of the drive have been jeeps. , The Germans are quitting the Pas de Calais today in the path 9* the advancing Canadians and with the onrushing British troops threatening to ■sey'er ■• their., lines of retreat. Masses of German transport are pouring out of Boulogne, says Reuters correspondent with the First Canadian Army. There is vast movement on all roads : leading eastward and south-eastward from the Pas de Calais. The.Canadians, who are now all : along the lower reaches* of- the -Somme, were held up momentarily as the Germans had blown up all the bridges. Canadian elements skirmished against German, elements still in Abbeville. ■ A number of flying bomb sites which .have been overrun in the advance along the coast from Dieppe were all dismantled, and only the concrete foundations remain. It is disclosed that forces of the First Canadian Army between August 8 and 31. took 25,776 prisoners. The correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain with the First Canadian Army reports that the Canadians and Poles have established firm bridgeheads across^ the Somme between Abbeville and Pont Remy, six miles to the south-east. The Canadians have reached Ailly. Poles are in the area of Grand Laviers, two miles north-east of Abbeville. The roll of gunfire coming from the direction of the Abbeville area was heard in the Folkestone district this evening. It was continuous for a time, suggesting that a battle was in progress. Explosions at Boulogne indicate that the Germans are withdrawing, says Reuters correspondent with the Tactical Air Force. The Allied air forces are heavily attacking transport from Boulogne. A senior R.A.F. officer said that if the Germans pull out of Boulogne, Calais will fall also. This would mean that the whole flyingbomb coast of France, in which there are about 200 flying-bomb sites in- & belt ten to 15 miles from the coast, will be lost to the Germans. "The Germans at present are making no effort to throw up a definite battle line,"' says the "Daily Express" correspondent in France, Alan Moorehead. "It seems clear that the Germans have decided to abandon general resistance until they reach their own side of the Rhine, although fierce fighting is expected around the flying-! bomb sites.. With twenty or more Allied columns weaving across eastern Francfe, the whole country will soon be cleared of organised enemy. It is -, possible now to driye_ from Paris to Switzerland. The Maquis are rounding up thousands of lost Germans and taking a dozen or more towns daily. The French are walking in and taking control behind the fleeing Germans."