BATTLE FOR XANTEN

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

BATTLE FOR XANTEN

SQUEEZING WESEL POCKET. LONG GRIP ON RHINE. (N.Z. Press Association.—Copyright.) (Rec. 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, Mar. 7. Canadian armour and infantry, driving in from positions just north and west of Xanten, are fighting fiercely for a ridge covering the town, saj's the Exchange Telegraph Agency's correspondent at General Montgomery's headquarters. The Germans are covering all the roads to Xanten with fire from 88mm. guns, mortars and automatics.

Another Canadian prong has driven i;i from the west and has advanced to within three miles of Xanten and six miles of "Wesel.

British troops have maintained their pressure further south and have cleared the main Geldern-Wesel road as far as Alpen, seven miles southwest of Wesel.

The United States Ninth_ Army is now on the Rhine on a wide front, say agency correspondents. Ninth Army task forces have mopped up Rheinberg and other forces have completed the clearing of the remaining German pockets on the west bank of the Rhine. They have mopped up the loop between Orsoy and Rheinberg. The Americans now hold the west bank of the Rhine from Milligt-n in the north to Cologne in the south, except for 13 miles of river bank between Xanten and Wesel. One division of the Ninth Army has. advanced two miles from Rheinberg towards Wesel and other forces are on the * outskirts of Ossenberg, two miles north of Rheinberg. The Brussels radio stated that the millionth prisoner since D-Day was captured on the Western Front today.