BRITISH DRIVES IN HOLLAND

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 251, 23 October 1944, Page 5

BRITISH DRIVES IN HOLLAND

Westward Advance

DIMPSEY'S SURPRISE BLOW FORCES GERMANS BACK

.... , . (N.Z.P.A. and B.O.W.—Rec. noon) LONDON, October 22. ' At dawn to-day two British forces in the Nijmegen salient opened an attack westwards towards the important Dutch town of Hertogenbosch. In the first hour and a half our forces drove the Germans back one mile.

General Dempsey's thrust in a southerly direction down the road progressed two miles by to-night, with advanced patrols more than a mile farther on, says Reuters correspondent with the British Second Army.

The thrust north-west along the road from Vechel has been slower but satisfactory. The German garrison at Middlerode, five miles south-east of Hertogenbosch, is now outflanked from both- sides and also faces a frontal attack. The Germans are sorrendering readily, and 260 have so far been taken prisoner in the northen drive and 100 in the southerly drive, but the terrain, which is intersected with waterlogged ditches, will probably slow down the British advance.

, The attackers went in through the mist just as daylight was breaking, said an earlier message. The Germans appeared to be taken by surprise. It was not until five minutes after the British troops had left their forward positions that the alarm signals were heard in the enemy lines, but they came too late. Our men had already overrun the enemy outposts.

At the tip of the salient our troops forced the Germans to leave two villages, one of which was less than a mile from the Rhine (Lek). Both villages were left heavily mined and boobytrapped.

British and Canadian troops with rapid advances on Saturday night in a northerly direction from Antwerp have now covered more than- nine miles in two days since the commencement of their drive from the St. Leonard region towards Rozendaal, writes a correspondent with the Second Army. Pushing along the Antwerp-Rozendaal-Wuestwezel roads, the Canadians north-east of Antwerp to-day captured Esschen, while British troops on their right flank beat off several German armoured counter-attacks. At Esschen .two roads join and form one highway to .Rozendaal. Speedy progress has also been made under cover of darkness along the railway leading to Rozendaal, and the troops engaged .in this action are within one mile of Esschen. The enemy defence is.patchy, and up to Sunday morning there was little sign of strong enemy resistance to the British and Ganadian northward flow. In the advance the village of Niewmoer was liberated. ■ The British United Press correspondent says that the Terheijden bridge, which was destroyed by fighter-bombers, carried the Breda-Dordrecht line over the Mark River. This was an important German escape route. The bridge was the principal railway connection with the area in which large German forces are now massed and are trying to hold up the Canadians' northward advance at Dordrecht. . . . ' The Canadians advancing along the line of the Rozendaal Canal have established two bridgeheads over the canal. A Czech -brigade is now operating with the Canadian First Army. . .