FRENCH REACH NECKAR RIVER

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24535, 7 April 1945, Page 7

FRENCH REACH NECKAR RIVER

REPORTED 18 MILES . FROM STUTTGART (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, April 5. A French - communique says that General de Tassigny’s French Ist Army forces on. Wednesday captured more than 1000 prisoners and considable quantities of war material. They continued to advance and reached the Neckar’ river. Lively resistances was encountered, especially south of Stuttgart. The Paris radio says that the French Ist Array has reached a point less than 18 miles from Stuttgart, y ' LAST STAND IN BAVARIA REPORTS OF NAZI PLANS IMPORTANT PRISONERS TRANSFERRED ‘ LONDON, April 5. Hitler’s stronghold in the Berchtesgaden region of the Bavarian Alps has been sealed off from, all travellers. The Berne correspondent of the “Daily Express” says that high-ranking Nazi officers and important prisoners are being transferred to this area; The entire Vichy ■ organisation has been ordered to leave its German seat at Sigmaringen., Already a .motor convoy has brought Marshal Retain; Laval and his wife, and other Vichy Ministers to ’Garmisch. 90 miles’.west of Berchtesgaden. King Leopold-of Belgium, M. Herriot, the former French Minister, and Jacob Stalin,* the prisoner son of' Marshal Stalin, have been transferred to Bavaria. “The eight quisling governments at present exiled on German soil have moved into the Austrian redoubt in the last four days.” reports the Berne correspondent of the “New York Times.” “Marshal Petain and the Laval Government were followed by the governments of Mussolini. Pavehch (Jugoslavia). Dr. Tiso (Slovakia). Count Szalassy (Hungary) General Vlasov (White Russia). Rumania, and Bulgaria. , . “Austrian deserters, whose numbers have become legion ■ in the last fortnight. reporting preparations for a last ditch Nazi stand, said that S.S. squads have combed southern -Germany and Austria for the last . three, .months, looted all the foodstuffs, and. stored them underground within a 65-nules radius of Salzburg.” ; • /~ « ' WOUNDED PILOT’S FLIGHT IMMEDIATE AWARD OF D.F.C. (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, April 5. An immediate award of the Distinguished Flying Cross has been made to Flying Officer William Trott, of Dunedin, who recently flew his Tempest back to base with a piece of shrapnel in his stomach and made a perfect Flying Officer Trott, a - member of the New Zealand Tempest Squadron, was flying with Squadron Leader Keith Taylor-Cannon, D.F.C. and Bar, of Alexandra, who gave the following account: ‘‘We had just shot up a tram near Dunmer Lake in Western Germany and were climbing after the attack when Flying Officer Trott ca led me on the radio telephone and asked me to lead him back t 0 base as quickly as possible as he had been hit by flak in the stomach. Ack-ack guns had been firing at us trorn woods and fields around the train.- !. “I headed for home straight away, but it took us 35 minues’ flying time to make our base, Flying Officer Trott must have been in intense pain the whole time, but he remained cool, made a perfectly normal wheels down landing and taxied off the runway before he collapsed from exhaustion. It was one of the finest- exhibitions of grit and determination that I have ever come across.” , , , , Flying Officer Trott wss rushed to hospital as soon as he could be released from the cockpit.