ON THE ROER

Evening Star, Issue 25394, 27 January 1945, Page 7

ON THE ROER

SUCCESSFUL ALLIED THRUST AACHEN SALIENT WIPED GUT COLOGNE NOW 21 MILES AHEAD (Rec. 11.5 a.m.) RUGBY, Jan. 26. The Americans who attacked on the British right fiank this morning advanced to the River Roer and cleared Brachelen, two miles _. north of Linnich. The British have closed up fairly well to the line of the rivers Roer and Wurm, and south-east of Heinsberg, are , only one mile from the, Roer. In the Ardennes the biggest gains were in the centre of the vanishing salient v where the" Third Army advanced within three miles of tho German border north of Clervaux. No only have f>he German, advances in the Hagenau sector been stemmed, but Allied pressure is forcing them back and compressing the bridgehead over the Moder River steadily, and the •wooded areas west of r Hagenau are being cleared. Some of the opposing forces have been cleared from Sch.illersdorf. Mopping up is* continuing in the two forests east of Hagenau and Schweighausen, just west of Hagenau, and is reported cleared except for a few strips. The British Second Army, by its 10-mile advance through the German frontier fortifications from Sittard to Heinsberg, has abolished what used to be a salient around Aachen. There is now almost a straight British-American front of 35 miles from near Ro,er-',.' mond to Dureh, facing north-east towards the Ruhr industrial zone. Cologne is now 21 miles ahead of the Allies' right wing, and Dusseldorf and Krefeld are 26 miles from . the centre, while-Krefeld is only 17 miles east of the British on the • Maas at Venlo. British patrols probing the" Roer River bridgehead met only sporadic artillery fire from the German Siegfried Lino positions, says Router's correspondent. The [British in 11 days took prisoner 2,500 Germans and occupied more than 100 square miles, mostly inside Germany. This sector is normally thickly populated, but fewer than 500 civilians have been sent back to the Tefugee camps. ' f The American Ninth Army forces who moved forward at first light, capturing Brachelen, have not met any organised resistance. ~ r ~' Renter's ' correspondent • with the, Third Army says it is officially considered that the,, "bulge "campaign is finished so far as the Third Army. is concerned.