ALMOST WRITTEN OFF

Evening Star, Issue 25426, 6 March 1945, Page 5

ALMOST WRITTEN OFF

WEST RHINEUNO BATTLE- , FIELD , .ARTILLERY BATTERING LAST ESCAPE BRIDGES (Bee. 12.5 p.m.) LONDON, March 5. The Rhine, Battle has turned into a transriver gun duel, with the American artillery battering the last escape bridges and reaching well into the factory belt, says front . line correspondents. The Ninth Armoured Division last night captured Euskirchen, where it found 3,000 to 4,000 civilians and 300 to 400 troops waiting to surrender. Simultaneously with the attack on Cologne, two columns'of the Third Armoured Division made parallel thrusts from the north-west to Longreich, three miles from Cologne's north-western outskirts. Patrols • pushed beyond Longreich. The Germans trapped north-west of Cologne tried twice yesterday to break through the Third! Armoured Division's lines to Cologne, but were repulsed. United States Third Army movements have been covered by a security blackout, but correspodents are allowed to report gains of 3£ miles at points along a 30-mile front and the capture of eight towns. The biggest gain was made southeast of Prum. The infantry captured Malberg, 5£ miles north-east of Bitburg, and the cavalry took Neustrussburg, nine miles north of Bitburg. United States Seventh Army troops pushed a way to within two miles of Saarbrucken, says Reuter's correspondent at Shaef. They fought through the western edge of Forbach. and now hold most of the town. The West Rhinetand battlefield can almost be written off. The German bridgehead is compressed to a maximum width of six miles. The Hochwald gap has been wiped out. These . gains are reported by agency front ' line correspondents. The Canadians captured more villages in their southward advance, but correspondents noint out_ that German resistance is still organised, and the rate at which the northern half of the Germans' shrinking bridgehead is compressed is dictated by the German rearguards. The rearguards are fighting a skilful action to protect the Wesel bridge crossings'and the ferries at Xanten and Orsoy, which are further north-west. Canadian patrols are one and a-half miles from Xanten, against a converging drive is being made. The Canadians, who cleared Hochwald and Balbergerwald, are pressing . beyond the forests. The British are continuing to clear tup the east bank of the iJlaas without apposition. Other British forces are driving in the Sonsbeck direction. Welsh troops striking east from Gel-, dern captured Issam, and pushed beyond the town to Wyenherst, on the road to Wesel. Canadian forward troops have entered the fringes of Bonningliardt Forest, nine miles west of Wesel. Ninth Army troops entering Walbedk, four miles south-east of Geldern, found every German male armed, but

no shots were fired, the enemy surrendering without, opposition. Other forces captured intact chemical warfare supplies, an ammunition dump, and military stores near Homburg.

General Simpson's men gained another two and a-half miles north oif Mors and are now in Orsoy, on the Rhine, north of Homburg. Renter's correspondent with the Ninth Army, however, says a task force of the Fifth Armoured Division drove to Orsoy and inflicted considerable damage and casualties on a German unit caught using the ferry, but in face of fierce resistance the Americans were obliged to fall back despite hard fighting. An American offcer to-night estimated that the Germans in the area of the Rheineberg-Wesel bridgehead would not be able to hold their positions for another 48 hours. He added that_they were increasing their efforts to withdraw men and material. " Our artillery fire is knocking hell out olf their tightly-packed columns." Bad weather prevented Allied fighter-bombers answering appeals from the armies to join in the operations l . The Associated Press correspondent reports that Ninth Armv troops captured 17 car loads of German rocket weapons when nearing Rheineberg today. The Germans in recent weeks have used many of these weapons instead of artillery shells.