GERMAN DEFENCES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 September 1939, Page 7

GERMAN DEFENCES

SHATTERED IN PLACES BY FRENCH FIRE WHOLE FRONT ABLAZE WITH GUNFIRE. CONSOLIDATION OF ALLIED POSITIONS. (Received This Day, 8.45 a.m.) NEW YORK, September 27. The Associated Press of America’s Paris correspondent says the French artillery is reported to have blasted a hole in the Siegfried Line, between Merzig and Saarbrucken. Dispatches from the front say there is heavy German counterfire against French advanced positions in the Saar and Palatinate regions, designed to protect feverish attempts to rebuild shattered blockhouses behind the German lines.

Morning dispatches report that the French annihilated important positions between Merzig and Saarbrucken, in an area where there are between 30 and 40 pillboxes to the square mile. This confirms the report that the French are subjecting the Siegfried Line to a terrific onslaught. With the whole front, from Luxembourg to the

Swiss frontier, ablaze with gunfire, it is stated that the Germans concentrated their latest attack on the extreme eastern wing, under cover of guns near Wissembourg. This apparently is designed to reach the flank of the French forces in the Vosges forest, west of Wissembourg, where an old German forest is reported to have been cut off from the main fortifications protecting the Pirmasens-Landau road. The French are steadily consolidating their positions elsewhere. An official French communique merely states: “The night was quiet. There was enemy artillery fire on the rear of our lines in the region south of Wissembourg.”