CAPTURE OF COLOGNE

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 138, 8 March 1945, Page 7

CAPTURE OF COLOGNE

First Army Pushes

South

NEARING NEXT RHINE TOWN

(Received March 7, 11.30 p.m.)

LONDON, March 7.

It. was officially announced yesterday that the American First Army had captured Cologne. The Americans had reached the Rhine by nightfall. Today the only resistance in the city was from parties of snipers and suicide squads on the waterfront.

Below Cologne, First Army troops are now within three miles of the next Rhine fortress of Bonn.

German tanks are challenging the American advance to the Rhine south of Cologne and are obviously attempting to hold their line west of Bonn as firmly as possible, says Reuter’s correspondent at Allied supreme headquarters. Inside Cologne isolated resistance is still being met from houses and buildings. The main German force has pulled out and is retreating southward. The Exchange Telegraph agency’s correspondent with the First Army reports that an American division was last night four miles from the Rhine, nine miles below Cologne. Four miles farther south other First Army forces were within eight miles of the Rhine. Worse Than Stalingrad.

It is officially estimated that 85 per cent, of Cologne was flattened by 40,000 tons of bombs dropped by the R.A.F. and the Americans since the first raid in May, 1940. Observers who have seen Stalingrad say the devastation of Cologne was even worse. The damage to the cathedral, though considerable, can be repaired. The British United Press correspondent says air photographs show the Ilohenzollern Bridge sinking into the river after the recent bombing and explosions. Cologne once had a population, of SOO.OOO, but a correspondent says it is believed that fewer than 100,000 civilians remain in the city. These people had been ordered by the German authorities to cross the Rhine to the east bank, but they ignored the order. They had had enough of the war and wanted to be out of it. There has been no water supply in Cologne for more than three months, and for long spells the city has been without electricity. It is also reported that there has been typhus.

COLOGNE “CIVILIANS”

Many Of Military Age LONDON, March 6. Giving a picture of Cologne tonight, Reuter's correspondent inside the city says that about 150,000 civilians remain in the city. Many seem to be men of military age and the fact that General Hodge’s troops have found a number of abandoned uniforms suggests that they are actually Wehrmacht or Volkssturm soldiers. All civilians are confined to their houses except for the purposes of getting food and water. The usual Allied proclamations are being posted throughout the city. Civilians must hand in cameras, radio sets, and arms. Anybody found on the streets after dark is liable to be shot. Most of the civilians seem to be friendly, even glad the Allied troops have entered. Some are frightened and mutter: “Not Nazi.”

Many of the railway bridges over the main roads have been left intact, which, if blown up would have blocked the roads with rubble and hampered the Americans’ progress. The Germans were expected to make some sort of stand where the green belt bordering the Ringstrasse separates the outer from the inner city, but there w.ere no prepared positions, and no resistance. American tanks went on to cross the huge marshalling yards north-west of the city. The air forces had hammered these yards and the surrounding houses are nothing but burnt-out, blackened shells amid areas of desolation. The correspondent was amazed to see the difference between the outer parts of the city, which are residential, and the utter shamble of the industrial area.