FOUR COLUMNS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 57, 5 September 1944, Page 5

FOUR COLUMNS

SPEED OVER BELGIUM

LAG IN NEWS OF PROGRESS Rec. 11 a.m. RUGBY, Sept. .4. At least four Allied columns sped across Belgium on Monday, two directly towards Antwerp and the mouth of the Schelde, another more in the direction of the Belgian coast, while the fourth, an American column, was last reported to be operatipg south-east, having passed through Hirson. there has been; no further official news of the United States Twelfth Army Group since this morning's re--ports. - A column from Tournai has cleared the eastern bank of the Escaut, or Schelde River, up to Audernarde,- and liberated Alost. The British are also reported in the outskirts of Lille. There is no official comment on the radio reports of the liberation of Calais, Boulogne, and Dunkirk. The capture of €fainbrai also is not yet confirmed, but United States troops advancing on Mons passed through it. NOW BEYOND ETAIN. The latest official reports of the American progress to the-east were that United States troops had advanced beyond Etain, were in the Nancy area, and had crossed the Meuse 10 miles south-west of Commercy. Etain thus is the nearest place to the German-frontier officially stated to have been reached. The distance to Germany is 35 miles. ■British troops are in areas which bring back memories of the retreat which preceded Dunkirk. There are Allied generals and commanders in the field who are very familiar with the ground over which their forces are'now pursuing the retreating Germans. Some of these are probably the same who drove the Allies to the sea in 1940. -*'" Today the Allied troops are advancing much faster than the Germans did four years ago, and they have come a much longer way through enemy positions. Those enemy troops who manage to escape Allied pursuit will, it is assumed, take refuge behind the Siegfried Line. This runs a short distance inside the German frontier from Basle to Aachen and perhaps beyond. SIEGFRIED LINE NO BARRIER. It was presumably regarded by the Germans as a safe protection against the forces and weapons which the Allies could bring to bear, up to 1940 at any rate. Since then the Todt organisation has had plenty of time to improve it. Nobody seriously believes, however, at this stage of the war that 250 miles of concrete and static artillery could be an impassable barrier to the Allied armies, even if all that length could be fully manned by first-class . troops. Lyons has been cleared of all German resistance-and Allied troops have advanced to the north on both sides of the Rhone River, reports a Rome correspondent.-r8.0.W.