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Show HEAVY FIGHTING ON VERDUN FRONT, PERSHING REPORTS WASHINGTON, Oct. 2G. Heavy fighting fight-ing on the Verdun front Is described in General Pershing's communique for Friday. Fri-day. Strong German counter-attacks east of the Meuse everywhere were repulsed except in Belleu woods, where four successive suc-cessive assaults lorced a partial wi th-drawal th-drawal by the Americans. West of the Meuse the American lines were further advanced in face of determined resistance. The statement reads: "On the Verdun front the battle has continued with violence east of the Meuse. Late yesterday our troops enlarged en-larged their important gains south of the Consenvoye-Bamville railroad and occupied occu-pied completely the Bois d'Ormont. Today To-day the enemy counter-attacked repeatedly repeated-ly "with strong forces on the front from the Bois d'Ormont to the Bois d'Etrayes. "Although supported by violent artillery, artil-lery, his attacks were repulsed with extremely ex-tremely heavy losses. Only in the Bois Belleue did he succeeding in slightly pushing push-ing back our line. At this point, after three assaults had failed before the stub-oorn stub-oorn resistance of our troops, the fourth attack forced us to withdraw from the eastern part of the wood. Hostile forces which attempted to penetrate our positions posi-tions northwest of the Bois Belieue were driven back after a severe struggle lasting last-ing throughout the day. "West of the Meuse our troops have advanced ad-vanced in the face of determined resis-.ance resis-.ance on the slopes northwest of Grand Pre and have entered the southern portion por-tion of Bois d'Bourgogne. |