Thousands of Prisoners Engulfed by Patton Drive

Manawatu Times, Volume 70, Issue 58, 9 March 1945, Page 5

Thousands of Prisoners Engulfed by Patton Drive

Received Thursday, 9.15 p.m. LONDON, March 8. General Patton’s spectacular dash to the Rhine engulfed thousands of prisoners and overran at least 14 towns, ammunition and other dumps, many of them being captured intact. The tank columns met les3 troubre from the surprised enemy than from the thickly-mudded roads, says the Timos correspondent. One column was completely bogged down when nearing May. en and every vehicle had to go back several gules before wheeling eastward again on a new road network through Polch 12 miles from Coblenz. They were then 55 miles inside Germany, the deepest penetration yet by any Allied Army. Tanks of the Third Army’s Fourth Armoured Division reached the Rhine northwest of Coblenz at 4.45 p.m. to-day, 58 hours after jumping off from the Kyll River, says Reuter’s corres-

quarters ** Seneral Patt °n’s HeadGeneral Patton’s Fourth Armoured Division drove 65 miles in 58 hours to reach the Bhine, doing the last 29 miles in 12 hours, says the Associated Press's correspondent at Third Army Headquarters. Beuter’s correspondent says two (Other Third Army armoured divisions are also moving fast towards the Bhine against light resistance. They are the 11th, which crossed the Kyll Eiver east of Prum at noon yesterday and advanced 11 miles in five and a-half hours, and the 101st, which is advancing south of the Moselle Biver and north of Trier. Meanwhile the First Army, maintaining its southward advances, is separated from the Third Army by only 25 miles, and the position of the enemy in between these forces therefore appears somewhat perilous. The Germans are fighting hard to hold what remains of their Northern Bhine bridgehead, hut are steadily being forced back.