THIRD ARMY COLUMNS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25800, 22 March 1945, Page 5

THIRD ARMY COLUMNS

THREAT TO LUDWIGSHAVEN SIEGFRIED LINE SMASHED (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) (Rec. 1 a.iri.) LONDON, Mar. 21. General Patton’s Third Army is driving south unchecked with German resistance completely demoralised. Armoured spearheads are closing in on the industrial centre of Ludwigshaven, on the west bank of the Rhine, opposite Mannheim, They are within six miles of the city. \ Two-thirds of Mainz is in American hands and the town is rapidly being cleaned up. The Third and Seventh Armies have linked at two points and a long stretch of the Siegfried Line defences has collapsed. Great air fleets are ranging over the Saar basin, destroying masses of German transport fleeing towards the Rhine. Over half of the 80,000 Germans in the Saar-Rhine-Moselle triangle have been captured, killed and wounded in the past six days, indicating that the disintegration of the German armies in the west is spreading throughout the front at an ever-quick-ening tempo, reports the New York Times correspondent at Allied headquarters. The largest series of offensive operations of the campaign is now being mounted. The Allied armies have been copiously reinforced and many competent observers believe that this huge offensive will end the war.

Once the German crust on the east bank of the Rhine is broken there will be nothing left to prevent the Allies exploiting the break-through. . The Germans now have everything in the shop window and what they have there is pretty shopworn. . ■ /

General Patch’s troops have captured Saarbrucken and Zweibrucken, reports Reuter’s correspondent with the Seventh Army. The Americans crossed the Saar at two places yesterday. One crossing is just west of Malstatt, which is the western suburb of Saarbrucken, and the other is near Colkingen, west

of Saarbrucken. The Germans now hold only 45 miles of the Rhine bank between Worms and Lauterbourg as escape v channels. '

, Front-line correspondents report that the Americans pressing northward from the Remagen bridgehead have reached the outskirts of Beuel, which is one of the suburbs of Bonn, though on the east bank of the Rhine. The Americans are now fighting in Holzlar, about three miles north-west of Stieldoff. Ah advance has also been made at the southern end of the bridgehead, where two small places close together, one mile and a-half north of Andemach, have been taken.

The link-up of the Third and Seventh Armies means thpt the Siegfried Line in this sector has been breached on a wide front, says thg N.B.C. correspondent at General Bradley’s headquarters. The German defence line has now been turned ’completely, and only a suicide stand, surrender, or a hasty retreat remains for the estimated 40,000 or 50,000 Germans still left west of the Rhine.