VENICE ENTERED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 100, 30 April 1945, Page 6

VENICE ENTERED

N.Z. TROOPS ON PIAVE -

RIVER

EVENTS MOVE SWIFTLY

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyrfflht.)

» * if LONDON, April 29. Men of the 56th London Division ei»ered Venice this evening. ■ North of Venice troops of the 2nd New Zealand Division have reached the Piave River. They are some 70 miles from Yugoslavia and are rapidly tightening their grip on the German escape routes in north-east Italy. The German army's collapse in north Italy is almost complete, says correspondents at Allied headquarters after a day m which, according to one of them, events followed each other so rapidly that army observers were unable to give a clear picture of what was in progress. The sth and Bth Armies, in a sweeping advance after crossing the flooded Adige River, pursued without pause the Germans across the Brenta River, which was the last defence line before Venice. Then Bth Army troops*pushed on and captured Mestre, five miles north of Venice, thereby outflanking the city and cutting off all the land routes to the city.

The complete German 148 th Division, comprising 6000 men, 1000 vehicles of all types, and 4000 horses, surrendered to Brazilian troops. Negotiations are progressing for the surrender of Marshal Graziani's Ligurian army. Graziani himself has been handed over to the Allies by partisans. „ An American task force completed the occupation of Genoa, in which 60,000 prisoners were taken. They also cleared Portafina and a nearby pocket of resistance.

The Swiss radio reports that the Germans are withdrawing through the Tonale Pass, north of Lake Garda, towards Bolzano, on the way to Innsbruck.

Paris radio stated that French troops are now 20 miles insidf Italy. Fighter-bomber pilots saw a great cavalcade today of German vehicles of all types moving southward in the area 40 miles east of Pilsen, says Reuters correspondent at Allied headquarters in Italy. Allied planes attacked the convoy in relays, jamming the columns along 15 miles of road and destroying 260 horse-drawn vehicles, 135 motor vehicles, and ten tanks John Amery (son of Mr. L. C. Amery, Secretary for India), a former broadcaster over the Fascist radio, has been arrested, states Milan radio.