CLEARING THE RUHR

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25180, 18 April 1945, Page 7

CLEARING THE RUHR

200,000 PRISONERS SUPPLY PROBLEM CREATED (Reed. 6.30 p.m.) . LONDON, April 17 More great hauls of German prisoners are being made in the Ruhr pocket, which has now been reduced to less than, a tenth of its original area. One correspondent says the total of prisoners has reached 200,000. Five generals with the elements of five divisions, including one panzer division, have surrendered in the larger part of the pocket around Dusseldorf, says Renter's correspondent. The Germans are surrendering in thousands every day, creating an enormous supply problem.. Loud-speakers in the remaining segments of the pocket are calling on the Germans to surrender. The smaller of the two sections into which the pocket was split by the linking rip of the First and Ninth Armies is virtually cleared. The force in this section consisted of 3000 of the original 10,000 of the Lehr Panzer Division, one of the crack divisions which fought the First Army across France and Belgium to the Rhine. The surrender occurred near fserlohn. FALL OF GRONINGEN LONDON, April 16 The German garrison at Groningen,' in North-east Holland, surrendered at noon today after 24 hours of stiff fighting. Reuter's correspondent with the Canadian First Army says the Canadians had fought half-way through the town when the German commander appeared. His offer of surrender was accepted and hostilities ceased. The surrender came as a complete surprise to the Canadians, who were faced at the time with the problem of crossing the maze of canals flowing through the town/Their armoured cars now are scouring the entire Friesian coast without opposition. 20 KILLED IN AIR CRASH NEW YORK, April 16 The bodies of 20 people, most of them burned beyond recognition, were found in tlie scattered wreckage of a Pennsylvania Central Airlines plane which crashed into a mountain 15 miles south-east of Morgantown, West Virginia. while en route from Pittsburgh ■bo Birmingham, Alabama,