Last Big Ports Now Isolated

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 101, 1 May 1945, Page 5

Last Big Ports Now Isolated

BRITISH SUCCESS

Drives Beyond Elbe Cut Across Germany

N.Z.P.A. and B.O.W.—Copyright—Rec. 2 p.m. LONDON, April 30. British troops punched a bridgehead across the Elbe to a depth of ten miles to-day, says a correspondent. At some points there was brisk fighting,' but generally our.troops found the enemy showing little heart to put up serious opposition. A Luftwaffe attack on ; the two bridges we now have across the Elbe, over which our armour is swarming, vwas "abortive. Germany's last great North Sea ports, Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Wilhelmshaven and Emden, are now hopelessly cut off from the rest of the Reich as Field-Marshal Montgomery's armies are moving in for the kill. Twin Canadian columns are closing in on Oldenburg. Canadian vanguards are in the outskirts of the port of Delfzijl, where the Germans are blowing up the guns and endeavouring to get away. The Canadians captured an entire battalion in their new advance. A new Allied crossing of the lower Elbe by American troops under Field-Marshal Montgomery's command, near Bleckede, ten miles south-east of Lauenburg, took the Germans by surprise, says the British United Press correspondent with the British Second Army. It was three hours before the Germans realised that a crossing had been made. They then began shelling the crossing. This is the first news that American troops, including the 82nd Airborne Division, are again under the command of the British Second Army. The correspondent adds that the Guards Armoured Division freed a prison camp where there were 22,000 prisoners, including some British. Four Spitfires early this morning discovered a newly built airstrip south of Schwerin, from which the Luftwaffe has been attacking the Lauenburg bridgehead. The Spitfires intercepted all the attempts by Focke-Wulfs to resume flights over the bridgehead, and up to 6 p.m. had shot down 21, probably destroyed one, and damaged five, without loss.