CRUSHING THE ENEMY

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 March 1945, Page 5

CRUSHING THE ENEMY

MONTGOMERY’S COMING BLOW

AMERICAN CAPTURES INCREASED

VON rundstedt dismissed

LONDON, March 22. To-day’s communique from * Allied Supreme Headquarters said: Allied forces have reduced the .Germanheld area south of the River Moselle and west of the Rhine to a little over a bridgehead. The enemy units re- ' maining in the area are completely disorganised. We have captured Gonsenheim, one and a-half miles west of Mainz; and Dexheim, eleven miles south of Mainz. Our armoured units have entered Ludwigshafen and reached the Rhine one mile north ot the town. ~ Our forces, farther to the southwest, are fighting in Neustadt. i We have cleared Kaiserlautern. Allied armies advancing from the northwest have made another link-up south of Ottweiler, and Homberg, east of Ottweiler. Enemy forces between Pirmasens and the Rhine are fighting stubbornly to maintain their escape route. , ~ We have in the Remagen bridgehead cleared B-eual, opposite Bonn, i and have reached the Sieg River • over a seven-mile front, as far north J as» Niederpleis, five and a-h’alf miles. east of the Rhine. We have repulsed > Several counter-attacks at an airfield near Eudenback. The enemy has con- I tinned to direct heavy artillery and ■ mortar fire at the centre of the bridgehead. The Remagen bridgehead | now is approximately 25 miles long, and eight miles deep. Allied forces in the West on Tuesday took 8683 prisoners. AMERICAN GAINS. LONDON, March 22. Between Ludwigshaven, on the Rhine opposite Mannheim, and Pirmasens, 45 miles to the south-west, the German remnants in the Palatinate are fighting desperately to hold open their narrowing escape gap .to the Rhine. _ The British United Press correspondent with the American 3rd Army reports that tanks from the 4th Armoured Division advancing north from Worms have cleared seven towns, including Dalheim, 11 miles south of Mainz, where the division made contact with troops from the 90th Infantry Division. The 3rd Army's 10th Armoured Division entered Neustadt, only 19 miles from the 7th Army forces advancing north from WissOmbourg. . The Americans have now occupied practically the whole territory bounded by the Moselle, the Saar, and the Rhine, the Germans holding only the small south-eastern corner, running 35 miles north and south and 50 miles east and west.

GERMAN LOSSES. LONDON, March 21. “What living space remains, to the Germans west of the Rhine is dwindling rapidly/’ says the correspondent of “The Times” with the 3rd Army. “The tank columns roll on, and ‘behind them the infantry, with daily advances of over 10 miles, are keeping well up. The enemy has suffered a disaster even worse than the earlier debacle north of the Moselle. It is not easy to estimate the exact number of Germans taken prisoner.” ‘ m . The correspondent of The Times at Supreme Headquarters says: “German losses of equipment, including artillery, have been as heavy as their losses of men. Much of the equipment is in good order, but much is mangled or charred. Burnt-out vehicles litter the roads along which the enemy columns made their desperate dashes in the effort to get away across the Rhine and were caught by the 19th Tactical Air Force, whose pilots claimed the de-j struction or damaging of 1237 horse-1 drawn vehicles, including many ar- 1 tillery pieces. The pilots, who were! off again soon after 7 a.m. on Wednesday, reported a mad rush to the! east, with every horse team at full] gallop. German drivers, as the| Americans flew over, would leap from their seats into a ditch, or whatever cover was available, leaving the vehicles to crash. “The 3rd Armv. from the time it, crossed the Kyll River until it reached Worms, advanced about 140 miles' in 118 hours, but the tanks’ mileage was even greater, because they de-1 toured in order to confuse the enemy, l and even sometimes doubled back on their tracks.”

REMAGEN BRIDGEHEAD

LONDON, March 22.

An Associated Press correspondent states: A veil of security restrictions was to-day lifted slightly to permit a disclosure that the United States Ist Army has now several bridges across the Rhine to the Remagen bridgehead. One was thrown across the river in the record time of ten hours.

The German News Agency said:— -■The battle on the Rhine bank opposite Remagen bridgehead is one of the most formidable of the war Americans are pumping in more and more reinforcements. Big operations will be launched from the bridgehead in the near future. VON RUNDSTEDT DISMISSED

(Rec. 12.25 p.m.) LONDON, March 22.

Kesselring has replaced von Runstedt as Commander of the German Armies on the Western Front, it is officially announced by the Twenty-first Army Group. Rundstedt has probably been relegated to a command in the interior. i The greatest possible importance is attached to the disclosure that Kesselring has replaced Rundstedt says Reuter’s correspondent at the Twenty-first Army group HeadQuarters. Remarking that Hitler changed horses in the middle of the Rhine, he says Rundstedt’s dismissal has been rumoured for months, and is now finally confirmed by prisoners who declare the change was made several weeks ago. The change is likely to have the worst possible effect ‘on the German Command m th e West, but Rundstedt is an ageing man and the situation is apparently going to pieces in his hands.. There are probably two explanations for. the change, firstly Rundstedt’s loyalty to Hitler is suspect after the attempted assassination last July, while after the failure of the Ardennes offensive which described as the Germans’, last throw, he is suspected of defeatism. ■ Kesselring by the conduct of the Italian campaign gained a reputation as the Wehrmacht’s best defensive general. It is believed the split between the general staff of the Nazi Party is now deeper than ever. The general staff long accepted the fact that the Reich had lost the war. Hitler Himmler, Goebbels, etc., made it. clear thev would never surrender. They will want to continue hostilities even, after the army is defeated east of the Rhine. They want the Wehr-, macht to cover their retreat, while with S.S. divisions and Gestapo, they escape to the Bavarian Alps. We anticipate finding odds and ends of infan-. try, paratroopers, panzer divisions drawn up in some sort of order along the east bank of the Rhine. The Germans although they speak of army groups and divisions have an unbelievably small number of troops for the defence of the vital Ruhr areas. We

1 probably outnumber them a 100 to I one, in tanks, guns, and planes. Blow- | ing bridges across the network of . canals and rivers which criss-cross the :. whole area will be one of the engineering problems we have to face, but we obviously anticipated this, and when our assault troops jump off they I will be accompanied by engineers with I all the equipment necessary to keep i the armies rolling. Our forward obi servers have seen slave labourers ' across the Rhine digging long lines of ditches. Farther back they are constructing concrete and steel blocks. On the roads everybody is digging, building or felling trees to place across the roads. ATTACK* - REPORTED. LONDON, March 23. The Paris radio quoting German : reports says: Montgomery’s forces (launched an offensive between Arn'herh and Dusseldorf on a sixty-two imile front, and have crossed the ;Rhine. There is no confirmation from lany other source. The British United Press points out that the Radio may i have misinterpreted the German news agency’s afternoon broadcast. I The report should therefore be treatj ed with the greatest reserve. I German troops have been evacuated from Palatinate, according to the 'Berlin radio. The German force’s radio reported Allied attempts to cross the Rhine, apparnetly on reconnaissance at points along the forty-mile stretch between Bonn and Dusseldorf. Heavy British artillery arrived in the Wesel area and had begun to practice shooting to .enable the gunners to get bearings. A war reported stated that the Americans’ novel method of tank warfare beat the Germans in the Saar. “American tanks were dashing through the country with an •escort of self-propelled guns.” EVACUATING THE WOUNDED LONDON, March 22. First Army forces in Remagen bridgehead pushed the Germans southward within seven and a-half miles of Coblenz, and northward the Americans fought their way into Hennef, three miles south-east of Siegburg and extended their hold along nine miles of the south bank of the Sieg River, says the Associated Press. The opposition was comparatively light. The bridgehead is now 25 miles long and nine deep. For the first time in the European theatre, a low-flying troop-carrier today snatched a casualty-filled glider from the Remagen bridgehead to inaugurate a new shuttle service foi evacuation of wounded men from the front line areas. Glider evacuation has been previously carried out in India and Burma. The new ser- i vice will evacuate about 450 wound- ; ed men daily. They are in hospital five minutes after leaving the bridge head. i SITUATION REVIEWED 1

GERMAN HEAVY LOSSES (Recd. 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, Mar. 22. Nine German divisions, approximately ninety thousand soldiers have been wiped out of the Saar-Pal-atinate pocket to date, reports the Associated Press correspondent. Gen. Patton’s forces yesterday took the record bag of 11,300 prisoners, including 2,200 captured at Worms. Since the beginning of March, the Third Army has destroyed, with Air Force support, 350 tanks, 200 big guns and 5,000 motor vehicles. The commanding officer of one decimated German division committed suicide, as the result of despondency over the ignominious end of the Wehrmacht west ol the Rhine. Third Army forces in an advance of six miles to-day cleared Mainz, except for a small area. The Germans are still trying to escape from a small pocket between the Third and Seventh Armies.

The correspondent says that the Mainz perimeter at Derende from which the Germans fought hard for two days collapsed last night, after which the American infantry moved into the town. The Germans are still fighting in the old section of Mainz, covering a small area of the heart of the city along the river'. The Tenth Armoured Division is now only nineteen miles north-west of Karlsruhe. The only main road leading out ol the German-held pocket has been cut west of Landau, and although secondary roads are available, they will soon be of little use. Seventh Army units beyond Kaiserlautern are intermingling with General Patton’s troops. There is still hard fighting at the eastern end of the Siegfried Line, particularly in the Wissembourg gap, where the Germans are laying down heavy concentrations of artillery and rocket fire.

The Americans captured the wellknown I. G. Farben factory, near Ludwigshafen. employing fifteen thousand. The factory was engaged in the manufacture of chemicals. The factory was reputed to be one of the largest poison-gas factories in Germany.

As the greatest air assault of the war gathers momentum German troops manning the Rhine opposite Marshal Montgomery’s front are showing increasing nervousness, reports an agency correspondent with the twenty-first Army Group. Intensifies" German patrolling of the river’ was reported to-day. British and American patrols were also active resulting in several sharp bitter clashes.

GERMAN PREDICTIONS The German News Agency to-day renewed predictions that Montgomery was preparing a mighty assault to synchronise with the full-scale drive northward from the Remagern bridgehead. The German News Agency this afternoon broadcast the following message, preceded by the word “urgent.” A military spokesman al Wilhelmstrasse states the First Canadian, Second British, and considerable elements of the First American Armies are lined up on the Lower Rhine between Dusseldorf and Arnhem on a 60-mile front ready to intervene in the offensive. A virtual security cloak has been dropped over the whole of the Twenty-firtst Army Group’s activities — activities which, the troops ' believe will be Marshal Montgomery’s greatest effort ever, says the British United Press correspondent at Marshal Montgomery’s Headquarters. Not since Caen have they seen such a massive build-up. Not since D Day has such an aerial pageant been overhead. Thousands of planes roar over in brilliant weather, while roads and. tracks are crowded with massive convoys or armour, infantry, amphibious vehicles, guns and millions, of rounds of shells. Every form of transport has been pressed into service in order to move supplies of men and material to the front. A great build-un has been going on for weeks. The flow of material includes some of the latest products of war factories. Vehicles, moving forward in an incessant stream, have on them the first dry dust of the Spring. Marshal Montgomery’s tire-

less smoke projectors are doing the job so well it is impossible to see anything. The enemy cannot see us. We cannot see him. The sun is shining, but we cannot see it. We hear planes overhead, but cannot see them. The Rhine Valley to the men in those planes must appeal' a great 40-mile cloud which has suddenly descended on the earth.

GERMAN SUFFERINGS LONDON, March 22. The Archbishop of Canterbury, in his Diocesan Gazette, said: “We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that along with the disruption of Germany’s efficiency, there must go, as a consequence of our air attacks, immense and terrible sufferings to the German citizens and to the thousands of refugees who have fled or been compulsorily transported from East Prussia and from the Rhineland. But we should be wrong to allow this to deflect us from the first duty, which is to break the German military machine; and, it may be. that this extremity of suffering is necessary if the German people are to learn to hate and abjure militarism, which they have so long idealised.