Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that armor of the British Second Army and paratroops of the American First Allied Airborne Army had captured the Nijmegen bridge across the main branch of the Rhine in Holland, moving toward Arnhem, eight miles north of Nijmejen. Paratroops inside Arnhem were surrounded by Germans as they sought to clear the bridges into Germany. German reports indicated that the surrounded troops had already been relieved by the Second Army.

Secretary of War Henry Stimson, in his weekly briefing, provided a special commendation to the First Allied Airborne troops, stating their role as being instrumental in opening up the northern part of the line across the Rhine.

To the south along the Moselle, where the Third Army continued to punch through its bridgehead near Bures, eighteen miles northeast of Nancy, the Germans had thrown much of their remaining armored strength into the breach, committing the largest number of tanks since the battle for Caen, resulting in the largest tank battle yet faced in France by General Patton, destroying nevertheless 105 German tanks in the three-day battle, but also suffering his greatest losses in a single day of fighting since arriving in France.

The French of the Third Army had advanced to a position near Flin, five miles northeast of Bacarrat and twenty miles southeast of Nancy.

American bombers hit rail yards at Mainz and Coblenz along the Siegfried Line in support of the Allied offensive, as well as an oil plant at Ludwigshafen

The Germans were said to be dismantling factories west of the Rhine as fast they could and moving the machinery into Eastern Germany via rail cars and trucks, promptly spotted, however, and bombed by the Allies.

After a 46-day siege, Brest had finally fallen to the Allies the previous afternoon at 3:00. There was little left of the port, however, as the Allied artillery and deliberate German destruction of the town had left it decimated. Thousands of Nazi soldiers and sailors had emerged from the submarine pens, suitcases in hand, ready to report to the camps. Meanwhile, displaced citizens of Brest trickled back into the port with their worldly possessions crammed on top of wheel barrows, finding little but ruins of their homes.

In Italy, Greek troops of the Eighth Army moved to within 2,000 yards of Rimini on the Adriatic coast. Canadian troops broke through German lines to reach San Lorenzo, two miles southwest of Rimini, placing them in position to outflank the port.

Rain slowed progress of the Fifth Army, following the American capture of the heights dominating Firenzuola, Monte Montale, Monte Acuto, Monte Frena, and Balvo. Firenzuola was an important junction along the road to Bologna and the mountains were the last of the natural barriers to Northern Italy and the Po Valley. The forces had also battled toward Santa Lucia, part of the Gothic Line, and to the outskirts of Pietrasanta, 19 miles northwest of Pisa, reaching the foothills of the western extremity of the Northern Apennines. The Germans meanwhile were transferring whole infantry divisions from the West Coast to the central sector of the Gothic Line.

Russian troops under General Leonid Govorov had swept across Estonia from Lake Peipus to the Finnish Gulf, advancing 37 to 44 miles toward the enemy escape port of Tallinn. One part of the forces had captured Rahlka, 65 miles east of Tallinn; another part was moving north from captured Tartu and was estimated to be about 50 miles southeast of Tallinn.

The forces of General Ivan Bagramian had captured 100 settlements along the way to Riga in Latvia.

Between these two forces, troops under the commands of General Andrei Yeremenko and General Ivan Maslennikov moved forward in an attempt to cut the German front in half near the border between Estonia and Latvia.

In the Baltic States, the Germans were reported to have lost 4,750 populated places within just the previous two days.

In the Pacific, in one week of fighting, the Marines had gained full control of Angaur and most of Peleliu in the Palaus. Loss of the two islands had cost the Japnese 7,645 men dead, 7,045 of whom had been killed on Peleliu.

London reported new attacks from German flying bombs over the city and Southern England, having begun Sunday night and continuing for each of the previous four nights. Casualties had included children who had just returned to London from the sanctuary of the country, on the belief of parents and caretakers, as announced by Brendan Bracken, Minister of Information, that the Second Blitz had ended with the destruction of the Pas de Calais rocket coast launching facilities of the V-1. The new attacks were said to more sporadic and without the intensity of the earlier attacks of mid-June through early September.

The attacks had resumed immediately following the lifting of the blackout restrictions imposed since September, 1939, ending September 16. The Government, despite these renewed attacks, continued its assertion that the Battle of London was won, but stated that it was not entirely over.

The new dimout regulations in effect required Londoners to extinguish their lights only when an alert was sounded rather than maintaining the blackout throughout the entirety of every night.

It was not clear from the report whether these new attacks were V-1's or V-2's. The Allies by this point were quite aware of the distinction and had been since before the V-2 had first been launched on September 8 against targets on the Continent. Still, there was no Allied report of the V-2 in use by the Nazis, perhaps to tamp down any sense of public frustration and fear at the continued attacks despite elimination of the rocket coast. The V-2, the first true rocket, could be launched from mobile launchers hidden in forests. Presumably, this latest round of attacks therefore was comprised exclusively of V-2's.

Bob Hope reports in one of his last three communiques that he had been home from the Pacific for a week, had yet, however, to take off his parachute from the seat of his pants.

He had gone dancing the night before and the presence of the parachute had been confusing to the people who had heard that Crosby was in London.

But we have always heard that Foggy Bottom was in Washington.

Jerry Colonna cried and cried at the tremendous welcome they had received upon coming home. But his tears had not convinced customs officials to allow him to bring in the native girl he brought back with him.

She would have to get back to where she belonged—maybe Boston.

Mr. Hope's dog growled at him when he jumped into his bed.

He had received a letter from Henry McLemore stating that the soldiers had missed him very badly after they had left Biak off New Guinea. So badly, says Mr. Hope, that their commander took from them their marksmanship medals.

He probably also gave to Mr. Hope a Bad-Punsmanship Medal.

Mr. Hope indicates that just two weeks earlier, he and his troupe had performed before the First Marine Division of Major General Rupertus on the island of Pavuvu. Now, these same Marines were busy fighting the Japanese on Peleliu. The entertainers had known at the time that these Marines were preparing for action, making it tough for the performers to face them, not knowing how many would come out of the action alive. But he was certain that if they fought as hard as they had laughed during the show, they would win Peleliu instanter.

Apparently, they had laughed pretty hard.

On the editorial page, "TED (AFL)" comments on Thomas E. Dewey's recent speech in which he had lambasted the Administration for humliating the unions, especially AFL unions. The AFL, he contended, had been forced by the President to kowtow to the Administration's whimsies, instructed, even dictated, by the CIO and its PAC.

"Last Breath" comments on the eleventh hour "cussin' bee" which Senator Cotton Ed Smith of South Carolina was now holding in Washington during the twilight days of his Senate career, already having been beaten in the primary by Governor Olin Johnston. He had invited "all the real honest-to-God people in the country".

"Our Guns" favors the point of view being advanced by Republican Senators Burton of Ohio and Ball of Minnesota anent the question of the method for authorization of use of force to thwart foreign aggression. The two Senators advocated a rule to be employed by the United Nations organization whereby force would be used when the Security Council determined the need to act, without the necessity of debate by individual legislative bodies of the member nations.

"Challenged" reports of the caustic and rebellious stance adopted by the UMW of John L. Lewis vis à vis the Government. They had sent a contemptuous letter to Secretary of Interior Harold Ickes as UMW miners struck two mines seized by the Government, in defiance of the Smith-Connally Act providing criminal penalties for such conduct. Though defiant before, their behavior had never reached the level of obstinacy evident in this current strike.

"A Calm" finds that the House committee report on the Montgomery Ward takeover of the prior spring had been released with a resounding thud. There were heard in it some dissenting voices by Republicans to the action of Attorney General Frances Biddle in taking over the company for not following the orders of the War Labor Board with respect to its contract with the union, despite the company not having directly any war contract business.

Drew Pearson discusses the two major pollsters of the day, George Gallup and Elmo Roper. If things held true to form for another seven weeks, the President would be re-elected, but, reminds Mr. Pearson, people had to go to the polls if the result of the polls was to equate to the result of the election.

Dorothy Thompson observes the erratically varying responses of the Germans to the Allied invaders. In Eupen, they had been greeted with "sullen silence". In the area below Aachen, flowers had been strewn in their path. In Hamburg, Allied airmen paraded through the city as exchange prisoners for Germans had been greeted with a friendly demonstration, that despite the heavy devastation of Hamburg from Allied bombs, dropped by the very men before them.

The last five letters to the editor to be published regarding the choice for the November election were set to print this date, all five voicing their solid support for President Roosevelt, continuing the trend of the letters published. The ones of this day found that election of the GOP would mean only a return to the past failures of the Twenties and an underwriting of unrestrained Big Business practices at the expense of the individual citizen, one of their number setting forth sapiently the fatal reasoning inherent in the attempt to run the government as a giant corporation.

Hal Boyle, continuing to report from Romorantin in Southern France, a day earlier than his previous day's report dated September 16, tells of Colonel Jules K. French, a surrender specialist from Manhattan. He had first negotiated the surrender of 381 Germans on Cezembre Island in St. Malo Harbor after the small island garrison had held out for two weeks even after the surrender of Mad Colonel Von Aulock of the fortress at St. Malo.