Wary Wedges

The Germans doubtless had borrowed strength from the south to mount their offensive in the north (see above). Last week U.S. Lieut. General Jacob Devers found weak spots in the Vosges mountains of northern Alsace, quickly seized the chance to invade Germany in his south-to-north assault aimed at the western Rhineland plain.

At least four divisions of Lieut. General Alexander M. Patch's Seventh Army wedged warily into the Bavarian Palatinate. The Seventh's week of advance was more a careful pursuit than a driving offensive. The enemy fought small-scale delaying actions (the Americans took only 2,707 prisoners during the week) as they withdrew from vulnerable points in France to their Siegfried Line of forts and forests.

By this week Patch's spearheads had probed the Siegfried approaches and had touched German sore spots. Industrial Karlsruhe, across the Rhine, only some ten miles from the fighting front, came under U.S. fire.

Sensitive Spots. The enemy's sensitivity to any threatening move was evident. Hurriedly the Germans pulled units from other sectors, rushed a full armored division into the Westwall approaches. There was no doubt of German anxiety over a full-scale offensive that might break through to outflank the Saar.

But there was also no doubt that when Devers' men reached the enemy's main defenses they would be up against the same sort of grim battling that Lieut. General George S. Patton's bigger Third Army had run into when it reached German soil along the Saar River. There, last week, the Americans were slowed to a painful crawl by a torrent of steel. At one point the Germans hit back at the rate of 250 shells an hour. Devers' and Patton's adversary, General Hermann Balck, was fighting smartly with what he had.

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