PUSH PAST BREMEN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 100, 30 April 1945, Page 5

PUSH PAST BREMEN

DRIVE BY THE BRITISH

RUGBY, April 29. Following the fall of Bremen, British infantry on Saturday night were driving towards the North Sea along both sides of the Weser River, reports a correspondent. On the north-west side of the port the British 3rd Division has already occupied the dockside town of Seehausen. The 52nd Lowland Infantry on the other side of the river cleared north and north-west Bremen. Our infantry on both sides of the river met Avith only scattered opposition, and the chief obstacles to more rapid progress are the streams, canals, and bridges blown up by the retreating Germans.

Infantry east of Bremen on Saturday made a big double thrust of eight miles south of the railway line running between Rotenburg and Hamburg. The commander-in-chief of Bremen, Lieutenant-General Fritz Becker, was cultured in a bunker, where he was trying to direct the last defence of the city. He said that fifth column activity by the richer burghers was one of the factors in the rapid collapse of Bremen. The burghers promised post-war jobs to the German soldiers if they ceased resistance and disrupted communications. Another factor was that the garrison had to rely on the German radio for operational news. General Becker had to use one civilian telephone line to .direct the defence. When the line was damaged all military communications collapsed. Vice-Admiral Kurt Utze, who was captured in Bremen, was inspector of torpedoes for the German navy, and second in command of the North Sea fleet.—B.O.W.