EARLIER REPORTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 113, 14 May 1940, Page 7

EARLIER REPORTS

DUTCH WITHDRAWAL

ONTHEYSSELANDTHE MAAS

FIGHTING IN SOUTH LUXEMBURG

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.)

LONDON, May 13.

Despite anti-aircraft and fighter opposition, the communications of the German mechanised forces advancing in Belgium and Luxemburg have been dislocated by the destruction of the two road bridges at Maastricht. The railway communications are also interrupted at Maastricht and the roads were destroyed by R.A.F. bombers. Important road and railway damage was done in Germany between the Rhine and the Dutch frontier, including damage to several trains and a railway station.

The Rotterdam correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that Dutch troops have regained possession of a bridge over the Maas

River.

The French night communique states that fighting has again started on the southern Luxemburg frontier.

Later,

A Dutch army communique states: —"German. troops crossed the Rivers Yssel and Maas at several points and our frontier troops withdrew to new positions without important losses. Dutch planes bombed German troops.

"French troops have been in touch with the enemy east of North Brabant. Our frontier troops in this area withdrew according to plan. The Northern Province, which has no defences, has been entered by the Germans.

"The Germans yesterday made only a few attempts to drop parachutists, and those who landed were destroyed immediately. Our artillery successfully attacked Waalhaven, and the mopping-up is nearly ended in Rotterdam. In the interior the Dutch have the position fully under control." Belgian and Dutch forces apparently have the parachute troop problem well in hand. Fighting has continued in Rotterdam all day between the Dutch and parachute troops, supported by members of the Nazi "fifth column," but tonight the resistance was considered broken. The destructive fires which occurred in large sections of the city have mostly been extinguished. The majority of the parachute troops round Brussels have now been killed or captured.

The Berne (Switzerland) correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says neutral military observers state that a new method by which the Germans captured a powerful fort close to the Albert Canal is believed to have been the use of a "nerve gas," the inhaling of which induces lassitude and inability to coordinate the muscles. A German radio announcer boasted that the invincibility of the Maginot Line had been put under a different light.