BRIDGE AT MAINZ

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25799, 21 March 1945, Page 5

BRIDGE AT MAINZ

BLOWN UP BY GERMANS ... . / ONE OF CHIEF ESCAPE ROUTES LONDON, Mar. 19. Faced with the American Third Army’s capture of Sprendlingen, a road and railway centre south-west of Mainz, the Germans have blown up the' four.lane road bridge across the Rhine at Mainz, stated an Associated Press '. correspondent cabling from Kreuznach. This is one of the escape routes for the Germans in the triangle of the rivers Saar, Moselle, and Rhine, in which General Patton's tanks and infantry have gained much new ground in the drive to the Rhine between Coblenz and Karlsruhe. The correspondent added that the destruction of the Mainz bridge apparently means that the Germans have abandoned any hope of rescuing any sizeable forces from this, part of the front. A Supreme Headquarters correspondent stated that German forces trapped in the Saar-Moselle-Rhine triangle, originally estimated at 80,000 men, are to-night streaming towards the escape bridge across the Rhine. Tactical Air Force pilots, returning from missions, reported that the roads leading to Mainz, Mannheim, and Karlsruhe were

so choked with German military traffic that they did not need to search for targets—they just used all their bombs and ammunition within a few minutes. The Rhine bridges between Mainz and Karlsruhe are reported intact except the Mainz bridge. The Americans are already in Wissembourg, 13 miles from the river, where there are crossings to Karlsruhe, and the French are in Lauterbourg, which is actually on the river due west of Karlsruhe. The fall of Lauterbourg would be followed by a swift collapse of the whole German Siegfried positions at the Rhine end of the line. General Patton’s Third Army, in the centre of the three-river triangle, is leap-frogging the .Nahe River over bridges presumably captured intact or hastily thrown across the river. Tanks have swarmed over these crossings into new open territory. The wnoie of the German positions west of the Nahe River have been shattered.

Further gains of from 3000 to 4000 yards were made in the Remagen bridgehead, writes a First Army correspondent. In the north we entered Obercassel, on the Rhine. This is north of Badgodesburg, on the opposite bank. Eight miles eastward, Honnef, a point well across the autobahn, was captured in a 2000 yards advance. In the south Rheinbohen, four miles northward, and Andernach have also been captured, and our troops pushed on and entered Hamerstein, a village three miles from Andernach.

Resistance is very light in the south but heavy in north-eastern sectors, where the enemy is throwing in all the artillery he can, including rockets, but we occupied near ly another two miles of the autobahn.