SPEYER CAPTURED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21671, 24 March 1945, Page 5

SPEYER CAPTURED

THIRD ARMY PUSH TANKS CROSS RHINE? NAZI REPORT THRUST (11.30 a.m.) LONDON, March 23. Speyer has been captured by the Third Army, says the Associated Press correspondent. The British United Press correspondent says that the Germans have blown up the railway bridge spanning the Rhine east of 'Germersheim. General D. Bradley, commander of the 12th Army Group, stated that General Eisenhower’s order to destroy the German forces west of the Rhine had been fulfilled.

Speyer was the focal point of the last German pocket west of the Rhine in the Saar industrial area, says the British United Press’ correspondent. There are believed to be still 10,000 Germans west of the Rhine, but they are mostly tied down in rearguard actions.

The German News Agency says that shock formations of American amphibious tanks last night, under cover of a fierce artillery fire and an artificial fog, crossed the Rhine near Oppenheim. Part of the group was destroyed but a few remnants remain. The Third Army cleared Mainz and took 3000 prisoners. Landau was captured, and mopping-up operations continue in Ludwigshal'en. First Army troops driving south of the Remagen bridgehead to-day crossed the Wied River at six places on a 14-mile front and captured Neuweid against light opposition. Infantry in the northern sector of the bridgehead, edging forward, cleared Hennef and captured over a score of towns and villages in the last 24 hours.

The German' troops have been l vacuated from the Palatinate, according to the Berlin radio. The German Forces radio reported Allied attempts to cross the Rhine, apparently on reconnaissance, at points along a 40-mile stretch between Bonn and Dusseldorf.

A reporter stated that the Americans’ novel methods of tank warfare beat the Germans in the Saar, adding: “The American tanks are dashing through the country with an escort of self-propelled guns.” The Seventh Army has captured Pirmasens.