LACK OF MOBILITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25801, 23 March 1945, Page 5

LACK OF MOBILITY

CAUSE OF GERMAN DEFEAT . r x AIR ATTACKS PAY DIVIDENDS ! LONDON, Mar. 21. Reuter’s correspondent at Allied headquarters declares that the continued attacks against. German factories, communications, and oil refineries are at last paying tremendous victory dividends. The German lack of mobility was one of the greatest causes of their crushing defeat in the Saar-Moselle triangle. They were unable to move men and guns fast enough to cope with the Allied thrusts in the swift-moving battle. 3 Their gas-generating vehicles were not powerful enough, and their horsedrawn vehicles too slow; the vehicles had no petrol, and the horses were without fodder. The gunners were severely rationed for want of ammunition, and whole field batteries were abandoned intact. The Germans,- after the armoured break-through in the Saarburg and Zweibrucken sectors, set fire to what was left of their heavy ammunition and fell back. It was the armoured units of the Seventh Army formation which surging through the break in the Siegfried Line, linked up with the Third Army westward of Kaiserslautern. The capture of Worms arid ,the entry into Mainz seriously restricted what remained of German escape routes. The Associated Press correspondent with the Third Army reports that Kaiserslautern, with a peace-time population of 60,000, fell to 25 Americans. It was long considered that the town would be hard to take but the swift onrush of American armour stirred such bewilderment, and terror in the hearts of the defenders that a small group of Americans took it without opposition. A mass exodus eastward of refugees from Frankfurt Mannheim and Dudwigshaven is reported by Luxemburg radio. Other reports state that refugees are also moving out of the northern areas. The Luxemburg radio is sending out a succession of messages to the people some in General Eisenhower’s name urging the inhabitants and foreign workers to move out immediately before greater destruction descends on them. Other messages addressed to the workers appeal to them to keep the workshops intact and not to allow them to be destroyed. The workers are told: “If your workshops are saved you will not be badly off in the future.” Allied olanes are reported to have been allotted the task of guiding to prison camps those who are cut off and roaming the country. The Associated Press correspondent at Fifteenth Army Headquarters (the first despatch received from that headquarters) says the censorship to-night blacked out Ihe make-up, mission, and whereabouts of the new American fifteenth Army. But the name of its commanding general is on record, and it is no secret that General Gerow is a man who likes to move fast.

Anyone doubting the effectiveness of the Thunderbolt and Mustang attacks on the fleeing German columns should see the havoc strewn along the route over which the Tenth Armoured Division stabbed south-eastwards to Kaiserslautern, says the Associated Press correspondent with the Teflth Armoured Division. Dead Germans, bloated horses, burnt-out vehicles, and charred: carts, all headed eastward, line both sides of the road for 50 miles. The scene is worse than that around Bastogne after the siege was broken.