BREMEN CAPTURED

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 April 1945, Page 5

BREMEN CAPTURED

MORE GAINS IN HOLLAND PROGRESS IN THE SOUTH ■ LONDON, April 26, To-day’s communique from Allied Supreme Headquarters says: We reached the sea near the GermanDutch frontier, isolating an enemy pocket in the Delfzijl area. We launched an attack against Bremen from the south and east. We are fighting in the eastern suburbs. We have cleared Zeven and captured Selsingen, six miles to the north. Our infantry have cleared Eslarn and has advanced to the vicinity of ‘Schonthal, 16 miles south-south-east of Eslarn. . . Our forces have reached the vicinity of Lamberts-Neukirchen, ana have entered Wenzenbach. They respectively are twelve and six miles north-east of Regensburg. Our armour has cleared Regen and entered Zewwisel, five miles north-east ol Regen. Other armour has advanced to "a point 15 miles south-east of Regen, and 18 miles from the Austrian border. We have entered Salzburg, seven miles south of Neumarkt, and nave reached the Althuhl River, in the vicinity of Hirschberg. We have made several crossings of the. Altmuhl River, in the vicinity of Gungolding. We captured a bridge there intact. We have captured Ruppertsbuch, three miles north-west of Eichstatt. Our forces have captured Wertingen and Knoringen, 11 miles south ol Dillingen. , , 4 . Twenty Luftwaffe ’planes attempted to bomb the two-lane bridge at Dillingen. The span was undamaged. We shot down 10 of the planes. We took a number of towns in the collapsing Swabian pocket, south ol Stuttgart. Our units are approaching the Danube from the north ol Gunzburg. We have entered Wiblingen on the Iller Canal, three mi es south of Ulm. We have established bridgeheads over the canal at Vohringen and Illertesson, which respectively are 10 and 13 miles south of Ulm. We have in the Rhine Plain reached rhe Swiss border in the vicinity or Basle. Our forces have captured Loi - rach and advanced elements ha-c pushed 10 miles north-east of U.e town. The Allies on Tuesday took 43,405 prisoners. FIGHTING IN BREMEN.

LONDON, April 25. “The British are fighting inside the Bremen city boundary,” said a Hiitish United Press correspondent with the British 2nd Army.. British and Scottish infantry, fighting through a maze of ruined streets and buildings from, the west and south-east, tonight (Wednesday) pressed to within 4000 yards of the heart of Biemen The 3rd British Division and the 52nd Scottish Division pushed forward a mile and a hall respectively. Both formations reported that rubble. and demolitions constituted their greatest obstacles. “Royal Air Force medium bombers ahead* of the leading ’platoons carried out an all-day assault against strongpoints and gun positions. Pilots reported that the Germans had blown up the northern spans of two bridges across the Weser inside Bremen? The flak defences, which a few weeks ago were the most formidable in Germany, were silent.. “The Guards Armoured Division captured Zeven, an important communications centre on the escape road from the Weser, and wiped out the Rothenburg pocket, thus forming a continuous front east of Bre“The Canadians, reaching the Ems estuary north of Nieuweschans (15 miles south of Emden) split' the last German defenders west of the Ems into two pockets. Between Emden and Bremen bitter fighting is still going on for the Kusten Canal bridgehead, where the Canadians are desperately battling with German paratroops on the approaches to Oldenburg defence line. “The 21st Army Group has captured 116,000 prisoners since the Rhine crossing.”-

GLAD TO SURRENDER.

HAD ENOUGH OF WAR

(Rec. noon) LONDON, April 26. ' The great German North Sea port is now in British hands, except for the port area. This area, which includes Bremen’s huge shipyards and submarine pens in the western part of the city, has been reached, and it is not likely that complete occupation will be long delayed. Allied planes did the job against the city so effectively that one of the major difficulties for the British advance to the dock area is rubble. Bulldozers are in the front line. They are as important as tanks and infantry. Fifteen hundred tons of bombs smashed the German defence in the past four days, opening a way for concentric infantry attacks. The burgomaster of Bremen surrendered the city to the British to-day, while cheering civilians thronged the streets but the S.S. garrison commander, General Becker, together with the notorious Nazi evangelist, Bish Weidemann, and some troops, refused to surrender. They took refuge in concrete underground shelters, which are now being shelled. The Scottish Division which captured the railway station took large numbers of 88-millimetre guns. The English division which took the airfield captured the Focke Wulf factory. Correspondents cabling from Bremen report that good progress is being made in cleaning up the port area, and that British infantry are mopping up the last snipers among the rubble that was once a city. The surrender followed a night of fighting in bright moonlight, in which infantry of the 52nd Scottish Division took prisoner 5000 Germans. The Scots found a large contingent of German troops drawn up near the post office as if on parade, waiting to be taken prisoners. Communists and anti-Nazi civilians cheered the Scots and offered them wine. Many said: “We have. had enough terror to last a lifetime.” The British found great areas of Bremen devastated. The main shipping centre was practically flattened. The cathedral appears outwardly undamaged, but is actually little more than a shell, the result of bomb-blast and fires. As one of the burgomaster’s assistants said: “We are not sad to see you because we know it means the war is over for Bremen.” A big German 250-millimetre gun began shelling the city. Swarms of freed slave labourers, who are making free with Bremen’s plentiful liquor supplies, are a problem for the British. DANUBE AND MUNICH.

LONDON, April 26

In the drive towards Hitler’s southern redoubt an armoured column of the American 3rd Army has reached a point 11 miles from the Austrian frontier. It is near the frontier town of Passau, on the Danube, on the direct route to the Austrian town of Linz. The Germans are massing forces near Passau. About 50 miles to the west other 3rd Army forces have crossed the Danube in the Regensburg area. The Germans are reported to be dug in round Regensburg. South-west of these advances the American 7th Army is striking across the Danube towards Augsburg and Munich from the north and west. All is now quiet on the American fronts along ' the Elbe and Mulde Rivers north-west of Dresden.

Last night’s Russian communique announced that the Russians had crossed the Elbe 2'5 miles northwest of Dresden and captured Riesa, on the west bank. There is still no news of a link-up, but this crossing puts the Russians within a few miles of the American Ist Army troops in the area between Leipzig and the Elbe. GERMAN CIVILIANS. LONDON, April 26. “There have been remarkable scenes on several American front line sectors, nearest the points where it is expected that the Americans will meet the Russians,” says the British United Press correspondent with the American Ist Army. “Patrols which moved out across the Mulde River met no resistance but were forced to return by hundreds of fully armed Germans who wanted to surrender. ’ One patrol made contact with a group of freed British and Americans, who were bringing in their former guards. Crowds of clamouring German civilians on the other side of the Mulde River are pleading with the American commander to be allowed to cross so that they can escape from the Russians; but only German prisoners of war and freed Allies are permitted to move westward. The Americans had to discourage with machine-guns civilians who tried to swim the river.”

CROSSING THE DANUBE

LONDON, April 26. Agency correspondents with the Americans state. Third Army crossings of the Danube, the last water barrier before Munich on General Patton's front, were carried out in assault boats. Infantry made two crossings east of Regensburg against light small arms fire. Resistance was quickly scattered. A third crossing was made between Regensburg and Kelheim. , General Patton’s troops are under a mile north-west of Ingolstadt, says Reuter’s correspondent. Other forces on the far eastern flank captured the Czech town of Eger, storm centre of 'the Sudenten troubles. The Third Army’s Eleventh Armoured Division, driving down a six miles corridor between the Czech mountains and the Danube, reached Tittling, eleven miles from the Austrian frontier. Reuter’s correspondent with the Thrnd Army reports: General Patton s forces crossed the Danube in force at 4.30 this morning. Crossings were made at three points on an 18 miles front east and west of Regensburg.

CONSTANCE SURRENDERS.

(Rec. 11 a.m.) LONDON, April 26. Constance, on the border of Switzerland, has surrendered to the French Army without a fight, says the British United Press Zurich correspondent. The entire German Lake Constance flotilla, consisting of nine motor-launches based on Lindau, sailed into Swiss ports and surrendered to the authorities. The crews returned to Lindau in a motor-boat. The flotilla was used to prevent smuggling and the flight of refugees from Germany.

LINK-UP MADE?

FUTURE OPERATIONS REVIEWED

(Rec. 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, April 26, The large-scale link-up with the Russians along scores of miles of the German central front appears to have taken place, and it is believed here to-night that an official announcement is imminent, says Reuter’s correspondent at SHAEF. The American 9th and British 2nd Armies control a 200-mile stretch of the Elbe River from the estuary south of Hamburg to its junction with the Mulde, south of Dessau. The 9th Army cleared up the last German pocket west of the Elbe opposite Rittenberge, to create an enormous springboard along the Elbe for any future operations. The Americans all along the Mulde are evidently preparing for a junction with the Russians. The 3rd Army troops to the south-east are strung out along a 100-mile stretch on the west side of the Czech frontier. The 3rd and 7th Armies together control or are across the Danube for 180 miles east of Sigmaringen. Elsewhere, pockets are being cleaned up and river barriers neutralised. If after the link-up the German Army has still got to be shown it is completely whipped, then the Allies armies will be in a position to prove it to them swiftly. The Associated Press correspondent with the 12th Army Group cables that aerial observers reported the Germans are massing troops and machines in the vicinity of Passau, moving eastwards and northwards, seemingly trying to save that gateway to the redoubt. The Associated Press correspondent at SHAEF reports that Patton’s drive to within 10 miles of the Austrian border promises to cut the German forces in southern Europe in two. It is a double-barrelled threat to clear out the alpine stronghold in Southern Bavaria and Western Austria, and simultaneously encircle the Germans in Bohemia and Moravia. When the Allied armies meet north and south of Czechoslovakia the enemy-held portion will represent a trap far larger than the disastrous Ruhr pocket. Patton’s tank columns are now less than 75 miles from Berchtesgaden.

LINK-UP CEREMONY

(Rec. 11.45 a.m.) LONDON, April 26. Presumably the Russian-American link-up will come as a planned ceremony, says the “Daily Express” correspondent in the Elbe area. It is possible that General Bradley or General Eisenhower himself will meet Marshal Koniev somewhere between Leipzig and Dresden. The Americans have already chosen gifts which will be made to the Soviet Marshal and his senior officers. Packard cars and eau-de-Cologne will make up the greatest part of them.

Meanwhile, fighting on both the Ninth and First Army fronts has ceased. The Americans are merely holding positions with cavalry screens out ahead, but are not looking for any trouble in case their intervention might embarrass the Red Army’s tactical plans. The Americans are whiling away their boredom by playing baseball in the fields and poker in the cottages. Some poker games have been going on for three days, with American dollars, British pound notes, German marks. French and Belgian francs and Dutch guilders piled high on the tables. The correspondent adds that he motored up and down the Elbe through hundreds of villages tkiat have not yet seen an Allied soldier, but they surrendered it seems, to themselves. Elderly men, wearing white armlets, patrol the streets. People stand about gossiping and oueueing. No one goes to the office or factory—but it is startling to find how many factories stand unbombed.

MR STIMSON’S REVIEW

(Rec. 11.45 a.m.) WASHINGTON April 26.

Mr Stimson, reviewing the war said that the Allies have broken and torn the Germans’ military power with flat finality. There would doubtless still be heavy and perhaps prolonged fighting in sections of Germany during the battles of the pockets, but the disintegration of the Nazi’s military establishments permitted us to do more about the next phase of the war against Japan. “We are going to give the troops in the Pacific the same advantages we held in Europe, overwhelming superiority on land, sea, and in the air, such as will shorten the war and cut down casualties.”