RACE TO MEUSE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21606, 8 January 1945, Page 3

RACE TO MEUSE

BRITISH & NAZI TANKS

RIVER CROSSINGS HELD

enemy thrust foiled

(10 a.m.) LONDON, Jan. C. Describing the British troops’ part in stopping Field Marshal von Rundstedt’s drive to the Meuse River, the Daily Telegraph correspondent on tiie Western Front says it was a race for (he river crossings, with the British columns speeding southward and the German Panzers westward. Four crossings had to bo covered, two at Namur, one at Dinant and one at Givct. On December 21 it looked louch-ancl-go whether the British or Germans would reach them first, but the British won. On December 22, just 24 hours after they started out from the north, the British vanguard was in position with a motor company patrolling each bridge and fronting each was a squadron of tanks. The main body arrived on December 23 and went fully into position. The British were now ready to contest nny challenge from the German spearheads. The crucial day was December 24 when a German column of 14 tanlcs and a battalion of infantry moved out in the direction of Dinant to seize tiie river crossing. They ran into an ambush of tanks and anti-tank guns and subsequently were rounded up and destroyed by the American forces in the neighbourhood with British tanks participating. With that action the threat to the Meuse ended.