COLOGNE IN SIGHT

Evening Star, Issue 25419, 26 February 1945, Page 5

COLOGNE IN SIGHT

Americans Under 15 Miles Away FIRST ARMY CAPTURES DUREN Surprising Lack of Resistance Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright (Rec. noon.) LONDON, February 25. The American First Army has captured Duren, and units are now thrusting along the highway from Duren to Cologne. It is announced at Twenty«first Army Group Headquarters that the First and Ninth Armies are through the Roer. defence system, which comprises the last defence bastions before Cologne. The First Army is under 15 miles from Cologne, and both the First and Ninth Armies are streaming through on to the Cologne Plains. Duren is the second largest German city to fall into Allied hands in the west. 3?he Ninth Army has taken 1,634 prisoners, bringing the total for the first two days of the new attack to 2,693. The house tops and spires, of Cologne are already visible to American artillery observers following the capture of Steinstrass, on the main.road less than 16 miles from the city’s western outskirts, say agency correspondents. General Simpson’s forces on the eastern bank of the Roer River now hold a 28-mile long bridgehead, which is seven miles deep at the point of the furthest penetration. They gained two to three miles, and captured nearly a dozen more towns and villages to-day. . Bringing in more armour and consistently making progress on all sectors, both the First and Ninth Armies are . driving forward over the broad level plateau before the Erft River, which is probably the Germans’ next main defence line. The towns and villages ahead lie in hollows protected by earthworks of varying strength. The sun and wind have considerably dried up the surface and greatly improved the roads.

The British United Press correspondent says the new offensive so far has been more an advance than a battle. There is still no sigirof a German coun-ter-attack, although the ■ enemy is known to be trying to move up some armour.

Opposition is coming from machine guns, mortars, and small ' arms, but there is still none of the bitter house-to-house fighting- which the Americans " expected. Numerous bridges across the Roer ate now operating without interruption.

Reuter’s correspondent at Shaef attributes the surprising lack of resistance to, first, that the Americans gained some degree of surprise in crossing the Roer while the river was still swift and flooded; secondly, the British and Canadian and American Third Army attacks north and south of the battle area prevented the Germans moving

troops to meet the new threat; thirdly, the 'Allied air forces’ success in their efforts to isolate the battlefield; fourthly, the Germans simply have not enough high-grade troops to hold all positions in

strength. General Hodges’s, troops, who are operating south of General Simpson’s, are within 15 miles of Cologne, says the Associated Press correspondent with the First Army. Their bridgehead averages three miles in depth. First Army troops in their third successive .night attack last night again caught the Germans, by surprise. Many Germans taken prisouer two and a-half miles north-east of Duren were in their night clothes, others were wearing only underwear.

Berlin radio claimed to-night that the Germans again flooded the 'Roer valley by blowing up the Erft Dam, releasing several million cubic feet of water into the Roer.