COLMAR POCKET

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 31, 6 February 1945, Page 6

COLMAR POCKET

NEARLY WIPED OUT

ALLIED POSITION EASED

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) Rec. 1.40 p.m. LONDON, Feb. 5. With the cutting in two of the German pocket at Colmar, its final collapse is only a matter of days, states Renter's correspondent with the Sixth Army Group.

The correspondent adds that roughly 10,000 Germans are trying to escape by bridges and ferries along a 20----mile stretch of the west bank of the Rhine, and they are being attacked by Allied guns and dive-bombers, which are also trying to smash the pontoon bridges over which the Germans are retreating. The Germans fought hard to keep the pocket open. The closing of the eight-mile gap between the two Allied armies has put the Allies in position for a threepronged drive against the Rhine and eliminates the constant threat to the east flank of any Allied advance over the German border into the Palatinate, Thus ends .what had been a thorn in the Allies' side, stated Reuters SHAEF correspondent. The Colmar pocket seriously hampered the Allies' freedom of movement everywhere in Alsace. It is now nearly wiped out, and the situation north of Strasbourg has also been stabilised. The Germans there have drawn off forces and dug in, hoping to hold what they have. All hope of the Germans securing Strasbourg as a military political prize has vanished. Rec. 1.50 p.m. RUGBY, Feb. 5. The capture intact of the big Urftalsperre Dam on the upper reaches of the Roer River, three and a half miles north-west of Gemund, by First Army troops has removed one of the principal causes which early in December prevented both the First and Ninth American Armies—then lined up on the west banks of the Roer—from crossing the Roer River and continuing the advance to the Rhine across the Cologne Plain, writes a correspondent at Supreme Headquarters. ENEMY LOSSES IN FRUITLESS OFFENSIVE. An official statement on the German Ardennes offensive, released by Supreme Headquarters, discloses that the enemy losses in December and January totalled 220,000, of whom 110,000 were taken prisoner. Eight hundred tanks and assault guns were lost by the Germans in December, and 650 in January, says a correspondent. The vaunted Ardennes offensive resulted in a complete defeat for the enemy. For the offensive Germany committed her only strategic command —some 24 divisions, 10 of them panzer. Hitler planned to carry the line of the Meuse in two days and Antwerp in three weeks. He thought he would cut off 38 Allied divisions. Instead, the German 6th SS panzer army, the sth SS panzer army, and the 7th army escaped another "Falaise" only because of bad weather.

Since June 6 (D Day), 860,000 prisoners have been taken on the Western Front. Enemy killed and long-term wounded amount to well over 400,000. This represents almost 110 divisions. Enough tanks and assault guns have been lost to refit 15 panzer divisions twice over. The Allied ground losses have been "but a fraction of this."

It is officially announced from Supreme Headquarters that General Bradley has resumed the command of the First American Army.—B.O.W.