NAZI COUNTER-ATTACK REPELLED DECISIVELY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 September 1939, Page 5

NAZI COUNTER-ATTACK REPELLED DECISIVELY

French Maintain Defences on German Hills ENEMY PLANES CHASED FROM SKY OPERATIONS AGAINST SIEGFRIED LINE STILL AT EARLY STAGE (By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyright.) PARIS, September IG. French military dispatches confirm that the war’s biggest Western front battle resulted in a crushing German defeat, after three waves of infantry and massed tanks failed to break through the new French defences on the German hills. The battle raged in a loop formed by the narrow Nied River in the exact centre of the sector between the Moselle River and Saarbrucken. The Germans were hurled back in spite of the support of terrific shelling from the Siegfried lane ami furious strafing by planes. It is-officially stated that Germany is heavily reinforcing her Western front ami abandoning considerable territory, destroying villages before retreat. There is intensive artillery activity. • ' French troops at several points are now fighting Ihe defenders of Ilie Siegfried Line itself. The battle of Saar River may be approaching a decisive phase, but much more must be achieved before the Siegfried Line is seriously imperilled. Newspapers assert that French planes are masters of the air on the Western front. It is stated that each day finds the Germans more nervous. Evidence of this is the enemy’s incessant artillery barrage and fruitless infantry counter-attacks. German warplanes, flying low, tried to bomb and machine-gun the French front lines, but were- “chased from the sky.”