ROT ON THE RHINE

Evening Star, Issue 25422, 1 March 1945, Page 5

ROT ON THE RHINE

Germans In Retreat EVACUATION BARGES ATTACKED Great Cities Menaced Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright (Beo. 11.20 a.m.), " LONDON, February 28. Advances all along the northern part of the western front are reported this evening from Field-Marshal Montgomery's head- ' quarters. The British and Canadian Army is meeting heavy opposition at some points, especially in Hochwald, but they are four miles from Xanten, on the Ehine. Continued progress towards Cologne and in the Erft Valley, and a break-through of the Siegfried Line south of Trier, are reported by a correspondent at * Allied Headquarters. As the Allied forces' threat to the great Ruhr industrial cities on both sides of the Rhine increases there is mounting evidence along the western front to-day that the Germans have begun a large-scale pull back, says Reuter's correspondent at Field-Marshal Montgomery's headquarters. Contact has been lost with crack German units in portions of General Crerar's northern sector. The Germans are fighting back determinedly in several localised sectors, but there are many signs of a German retreat between Goch and the Maas. Those Germans who are not retreating are raising white surrender flags over ruined villages and houses where they were left to make a last stand. General Crerar has fed more tanks, guns, and men into his great onslaught. The present fierce enemy resistance in the south- , western corner of Hochwald is not likely to continue to be a big obstacle to Allied progress. Latest reports indicate that General Crerar's troops are 30 miles from the most northerly elements of the Ninth Army, but this distance has probably since further decreased. Allied pilots have been attacking barges lining the Rhine for the purpose of evacuating German forces from the west to the east bank. A number of them have been sunk, ineluding some strung together in the form of pontoon bridges.