SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENTS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 6 April 1945, Page 2

SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENTS

DEEP ARMOURED THRUST (Rec. 12.15 p.m.) London, April. 5. With the British Eleventh Armoured and the Sixth Airborne divisions holding 15 miles of the west bank of the Weser River around Munden, agency correspondents to-night report that American Ninth Army tanks and infantry crossed the river in the vicinity of Tundern, 21 miles south of Harnein. The British who hold n stretch ot the river bank from Munden to Stolzenau. captured Steyerberg. 4£ miles northwest of Stolzenau and only 35 miles from Bremen

Rtuter s correspondent at Field Marshal Montgomery's headquarters says there are signs that the north German plain is about to be engulfed by the flow of British armour eastward and north-east-wird. A significant development to-day was a deep thrust by the Seventh Armoured Division, which »s three miles south of Diepholz and ?8 miles from Bremen.

Ninth Army forces crossed the river without a single casualty. When the Germans brew up bridges the infantry did not wait for assault boats but used pontoons and immedi-

atel> attacked towards high ground south of Harnein. NEGOTIATIONS INTERRUPTED The correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says the Germans blew up bridges in the Ninth Army sector after Americans had offered the garrisen at Munden the choice of surrender, but while negotiations were proceeding British tanks suddenly appeared and attacked the town from tne north. Shells from Churchills were dropped into the town, entirely disrupting German and American arrangements for peaceful occupation. whereupon the startled Germans immediately blew up the last bridge, leaving British ar.d German tanks on the west bank. Munden, after Ihe entry of British airborne forces is now firmly held, says Reuter’s correspondent. The Eleventh Ai'moured Division advanced 20 miles to-d*ay and they are now 120 miles east of the Rhine. The British took 2200 prisoners yesterday. TARGETS IN HAMBURG Hamburg for the first time entered the operation zone of Tactical Air Force fighters to-day when Tempests attacked targets south of the city. The great German eastward trek continues over the entire area of western Holland to Bremen and beyond. The Tactical Air Force destroyed or damaged more than 300 transport vehicles. The Luftwaffe is demolishing airfields north of the Rhine. Miles of docks. U-boat bases, shipbuilding yards and industrial plants around Hamburg are now exposed to the full fury of daylight attacks by fighters, fighter-bombers and medium bombers, says Reuter’s correspondent with the Tactical Air Force. They, in the first operations against Hamburg to-day, set fire to an oil pipeline and destroyed 24 vehicles. Spitfires in strength attacked traffic concentrations on the Lingen-Bremen road Canadian Spitfires shot down six of 20 German fighters, which was the largest Luftwaffe formation encountered on the Western Front for a long time.