RIVER WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 136, 6 December 1944, Page 6

RIVER WAR

THE WESTERN FRONT

EFFECT OF FLOODING

LONDON, December 5.! , Along a line of hundreds of miles j Allied armies on the Western Front are closely locked in a river war that must be won before operations can revert to a war of movement in the mterior of Germany, says the London Times" correspondent at SHAEF. . The enemy's flooding of the dikes m northern Holland has caused some readjustment of the British forward positions in the Arnhem salient, but General Dempsey's right flank is as secure as ever on the west bank of the Maas. The enemy must be giving attention to the defences of Venlo, though it must be remembered that the Maas, like the Rhine, is a wide river flowing swiftly in spite of this season and that most of its crossings have been demolished. Indeed with |he arrival of the armoured forces trom other parts of the front the immediate defence of this direct route of invasion is probably stronger than at any. time but the decimation of six Cxerman divisions, four of which have disappeared from the line completely, is a rate of attrition that the enemy canont maintain indefinitely. It used to be a maxim of war that attack was §X a morl .coi£ ly A n casualties than defence, but the Allied losses in the present offensive along the whole front are stated to be much lighter than the enemy s. This is thanks mainly to our superiority in air power and artillery BRITISH SHELLING VENLO. The British are now shelling Venlo across.the Maas, says Reuters correspondent at 21st Army Group Headquarters. There is still a small amount of enemy activity in part of Julich, Which is west of the Roer River, but the remaining pockets of resistance are being cleared up. Otherwise all is quiet on the Ninth Army sector.