GERMANS DRIVEN FROM LOUVAIN

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 143, 17 May 1940, Page 5

GERMANS DRIVEN FROM LOUVAIN

—— (United Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) Received May 17, 9.15 a.m. PARIS, May 16. A Ministry of Information spokesman said to-day that a “very marked improvement” had occurred regarding the penetration of a German armoured column. He added that the Royal Air Force bombers during the past twenty-four hours had surpassed everything thought possible. The British United Press correspondent with the British Expeditionary Force in Belgium reports that three British counter-attacks have driven out the Germans from Louvain, into which advance troops had penetrated. The Paris radio states that part of the German mechanised forces which penetrated the French lines on the Meuse have been annihilated. An official communique earlier reported tliat the B.E.F. had been heavily engaged at Louvain, and after hard fighting had repulsed the German onslaught. A'French morning communique states that in the region from Namur to Sedan the battle has now taken the shape of 1 characteristic, open warfare, with the participation on both sides of motorised units and aviation. “The higher interests of the conduct of the operations • compel us not to give at present precise information of the action now taking place. THRUST OF ALLIED LINE. According to the correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain, the approximate Allied line from Antwerp bends southward to Tirlemont (25 miles east of Brussels), soutli-south-west to Gembloux, after which it abruptly curves eastward to the western outskirts of Liege, from which it turns back south-westward along the western bank of the Meuse to Namur and due south to Dinant, passing behind Sedan eastwards through Montmedy, where the Maginot Line proper begins. y/