DRAMATIC NEWS

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

DRAMATIC NEWS

SECURITY SILENCE BROKEN COLLAPSE OF SAAR POCKET LONDON, Mar. 20. The American Third Army has captured Worms, reached Mainz, and entered and passed Kaiserslautern. This dramatic news, flashed by an Associated Press correspondent tonight, broke the security silence and revealed the extent of the collapse of the Saar-Moselle-Rhine pocket, in which the remaining German forces are. being hammered to pieces. The Third Army reached Mainz after an advance of 10 miles. An earlier cable from a Reuter’s correspondent described the trapped Germans fleeing before General Patton’s mighty armoured push. He added that a large number of German transport vehicles which had run out of petrol were captured during the Allied advances, which have been made in all sectors. A number of supply depots, complete with equipment, were also over-run.

Resistance is reported to be disorganised and movement completely upset, because the German transport fleeing to the east is causing road blocks as it races on. For instance,

an artillery liaison section during the Third Army’s advance took a wrong road and found itself in a town still occupied by Germans. The Americans, though greatly outnumbered, took the town themselves.

General Patton’s men are taking so many prisoners that they are finding transportation to the cages becoming a problem. Reuter’s correspondent at Supreme Headquarters says that General Eisenhower has practically fulfilled his pledge to destroy every German west of the Rhine who could not get away. The Associated Press correspondent with the Third Army states that Mainz was reached after a spectacular rush by Fourth Armoured and Ninetieth In'fantry Divisions. • The drive into three German cities the same day eclipses anything the Third Army has accomplished hitherto in its great assault. With only isolated islands of resistance left in the Saar-Moselle-Rhine pocket, this latest sweep indicates the end of organised resistance on the Third Army front west of the Rhine. Pilots of the Nineteenth Tactical Air Force, who flew at roof-top lbvel over Kaiserslautern this afternoon, reported the streets lined with people waving white flags. One American column has entered the city. Both bridges across th,e Rhine at Worms have been blown up. It is officially reported that General Patch’s Sixth Armoured Division linked up with*.General Patton's Twenty-sixth Infantry Division to-day. 12 miles west of Kaiserslautern.