INTO CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 119, 19 April 1945, Page 6

INTO CZECHOSLOVAKIA

j 3.15 P.M. EDITION

; PATTON'S 90TH DIVISION. ■ GERMANY CUT IN TWO. (N.Z. Press Association.—Copyright.) (flee. 11.45 a.m.) LONDON, April 18. General Patton's 90th Division ■ entered Czechoslovakia at 9.55 l&.m. today nortn-west of As, after fart eight-n-ile dash from Hof, say correspondents with the Third •Army. The last lap of the drive which cut Germany into two parts -was made without opposition except for a brief flurry of gunfire I'm a village a mile from the border. »Thirty-five Germans surrendered there after firing token shots. ■The Americans ran into brisk fire otter crossing the border near Gottinhnnsgrun, six miles north-west of the extreme tip of Czechoslovakia, but they penetrated two miles. As soon as the border was crossed infantrymen who rode on top of the tanks ceremoniously erected a sign reading: "You are now entering Czechoslovakia by courtesy of the Third BatVilion of the 358th Infantry." Somebody added a postscript: "Now you may fraternise by courtesy of the same outfit." STIFF FIGHT IN NUREMBERG. The battle for Nuremberg is proving tough, says Reuter's correspondent. The Seventh Army entered the city last Monday night, but the defenders, ■who are believed to number from 5009 to 10,000 are lighting back stubbornly with heavy artillery, mortars and hafcookas. The Ruhr pocket has thus far yielded 309,484 prisoners, more than twice the original estimate. It is officially stated that 5U,00U remain to be rounded up. A French communique states that the Royal pocket was completely cleared after the surrender of the German troops garrisoning the Lacoubre iortifications.

The political capital of Hitlerism was ripped from the pages of Nazi history today and since noon the Stars and Stripes have been flying above the rostrum where littler used to address great party rallies, says the .Daily Mail correspondent, in a message from Nuremberg. The Americans are within a mile of the centre of. the city. All the S.S'. troops have gone, leaving behind only snipers ana Volksturmers with orders to fight to the last. Nuremberg has been reduced to rubble, with 'fires raging in the western suburbs. The Germans are now adding to the destruction by shelling Hitler's "sacred" arena.. Little remains of the grandstands but stumps of concrete The Associated Press correspondent on the Western Front reports that the Americans have captured the German army's casualty clearing office at Saalfeld, in which they found millions of -casualty cards, including Rommel s His death was attributed to heart failure on November 14, 1944.