STRANGE WARFARE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25798, 20 March 1945, Page 5

STRANGE WARFARE

“ NAVAL” BATTLES ON NIJMEGEN

ISLAND NEW YORK, (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) Mar. 18. A strange amphibious war is going on on Nijmegen Island, which is a strip of low-lying meadow 25 miles long and six miles wide between the Waal and the Nedar Rhine, which form a junction at its eastern tip, says the British United Press correspondent with the British Army. The Germans last November blew up the dyke, almost completely flooding the island, of which they hold the northern half and the British the southern half. The British have been fighting a series of “ naval ” battles, using an odd assortment of craft from canvas dinghies to “ducks.” Amphibious patrols sometimes get stuck on submerged barbed-wire or set off antitank mines. Positions are often held in the upper storeys of half-submerged houses and fighting is going on day and night in spite of the fact that the front is described as " quiet.”