HUGE CONVOYS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25160, 24 March 1945, Page 7

HUGE CONVOYS

ROADS CROWDED ALLIED MASSING MILLIONS OF SHELLS TEHICLES AND GENS LONDON, March 22 A virtual security cloak has been dropped over the whole of the activities of the Twenty-first Army Group—activities which the troops believe will be Field-Marshal Montgomery's greatest effort, says the British United Press correspondent at Montgomery's headquarters. Not since the battle of Caen have they seen such a massive builcl-up. Not since- D Day has there been such an aerial pageant overhead. Thousands of planes roar over in brilliant weather; while roads and tracks are crowded with massive convoys of armour, infantry, amphibious vehicles, guns and millions of rounds of shells. Every form of transport has been pressed into service in order to more supplies, men and material to the front. The great build-up has been going on for weeks. The flow of material includes some of the latest products of the war factories. Vehicles, moving forward in an incessant stream, have on them the first dry dust of spring. . "Field-Marshal Montgomery's tireless smoke projectors are doing their job so well that it is impossible to see anything," the correspondent adds. "The enemy cannot see us and we cannot see him. The sun is shining, but we cannot see it. We hear the planes overhead but cannot see them. The Rhine valley to the men in those planes must appear to be a great cloud which has suddenly descended on the earth." The biggest, longest and thickest smokescreen of the war now blankets the northern end of the Western Front, gays the British United Press correspondent with the Canadian First Army. The smokescreen begins along the west bank of the Waal River near ]Nijmegen and continues to + he junction of the Waal and the Rhine, then along the Rhine for a distance of 66 miles. Pioneers light up the smoke producers an hour before the first light and keep them going until an hour after dnsk. EXPECTANT AIR FEELING IN BRITAIN SPRING WEATHER BEGINNING (Special Correspondent) Mar. 22 This is the period of the "Watch on the Rhine." What amounts to the mopping up of the Germans by General Patton's Third Army, great victory as it is, is somewhat overshadowed in the public mind here by the pre - D Day atmosphere which is reported to be pervading Field-Marshal Montgomery's front. Recent air operations in that theatre all smack of the coming offensive, while from German sources come statements that it is likely to begin at any hour : bow and that airborne landings are also expected. When it does begin it will he the last of the amphibious operations which ; began with North Africa and continued with Sicily. Italy and Normandy. New Zealand will be represented on the air side by the New Zealand Tempest Squadron ; ind by numerous airmen i:n the Second Tactical Air Force. Expectancy, like spring, is in the air, and it is hoped that the weather for once will favour the Allied attack. Just how lona the war has hecn delayed and how many lives have been lost by fickle weather during previous operations on the Continent it would bo interesting to know. But now finer days are here and more than 13 hours of daylight each day. 100,000 PRISONERS VAST AMOUNT OF BOOTY 'Seed. 9.5 p.m.) I/ONDON, March 23 Since they crossed the Moselle on March 14 the Allies have taken more than 100,000 prisoners in the Rhine-Saar-Moselle triangle. The Third Army captured 80,000 of this number. A vast Amount of booty, some of which has pot yet been counted, has also fallen J nto the hands' of* the American Third an fl Seventh Armies. Third Army forces on Wednesday took prisoner the record number of 11,300 Germans, of whom 2200 were captured Worms'! The Seventh Army took WOO.. The provision of transport for primers was becoming a problem. The commanding officer of one decimated German division committed suicide as the result of despondency oyer the ignominious end of the Wehrwest of the Rhine,