More Towns Taken On Western Front

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 65, 17 March 1945, Page 5

More Towns Taken On Western Front

BRIDGEHEAD WIDENS

Fall Of Coblenz Is Believed Imminent

N.Z.P.A.—Copyright.—Rec. 11 a.m. LONDON, March 16. Good progress is being made on the American First, Third and Seventh Army fronts. Correspondents at Supreme Allied Headquarters say the attack in the Remagen bridgehead is going better than at any time since the Rhine crossing. The Americans are now in Strodt, a mile south of Hovel and a mile east of Steinshardt. These gains extended the bridgehead to twelve and a half miles long and six and a half miles deep, the greatest penetration being at Strodt. The Seventh Army's attack is continuing, with gains to-day up to two and a half miles. The Germans in the Forbach sector were forced back to the immediate approaches to the Siegfried Line. • On the Third Army front General Patton's infantry is attacking Coblenz from the south-west, and the city is expected to fall to-day. The Third Army troops attacking Coblenz are meeting little resistance. Since crossing the Moselle, General Patton's troops have advanced 15 miles. They to-day made two more crossings and captured 15 more places. The new crossings were made six miles south-west of Coblenz and 12 miles south of Mayen. The Fourth Armoured Division broke out of the older bridgehead and raced 12 miles south-eastwards.

;.\ General Hodges' First Army troops have gained up to two miles in the successive attacks which began during the night and dawn this morning, says the Associated Press correspondent at Supreme Headquarters, They burst northward up the Rhine bank and are now fighting in Konigswinter. They cleared the town of Rhindorf, half-way between Linz and Konigswinter, then drove to Hovel and bulged out in the centre of the bridgehead as far as the banks of the Wied River, running parallel to the Rhine. In the advance to the Wied River the Americans captured Steinshardt after a two-mile advance, and reached the river at the town of Reifert, five miles east of Linz. They drove another one mile and a half in bitter fighting through thickly-wooded hills arid are now prising the Germans from Breitscheid, seven miles east of Linz and half a mile from the Cologne-Frankfurt highway. The Americans at the southern end of the bridgehead captured high ground around Honningen and entered the town, where the civilians displayed white flags at windows.