NOW ON MIDDLE RHINE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 84, 8 March 1945, Page 5

NOW ON MIDDLE RHINE

ALLIED TANKS NEAR COBLENZ

THIRD ARMY ALMOST UNOPPOSED

LONDON, Mar. 7.

Tanks of General Patton's Fourth Armoured Division, racing almost unopposed across the Rhineland Plain from the Kyll River bridgehead, have reached the Rhine at a point north-west of Coblenz, and another armoured division is racing towards the Rhine a little to the north. Cutting the rolling, wooded country into great geometrical patterns, the spearheads have been making unexpected sweeps and turns, even doubling back on their own tracks, sowing complete confusion among such enemy formations as remain in the area. These are being mopped up by the fast-following infantry,

Correspondents agree that the swift drive towards the Middle Rhine by General Patton's Third Army threatens the whole of the Rhine positions, which are now liable to be cut up into small sections and dealt with piecemeal First Army troops are rapidly closing on Bonn, south of Cologne, and the speed Of their advance is such that a partial news blackout has been imposed. The latest reports stated that they were two and a half miles from Bonn, having overrun the road centre of Rheinbach, to the south-west

Further north British, Canadian and American troops are steadily crushing the little that remains of the pocket opposite .Wesel. ' Enemy paratroops are still offering spirited resistance, particularly in the Xanten area, and they Lave been helped by bad weather which has hampered Allied tactical air operations, but the whole pocket has been under intense artillery fire for the last 24 hours. From Shaef it is announced that the total number of prisoners taken in the Bhineland operation has now readied 69,000, excluding those taken by the Third Army in the south.