READY TO STRIKE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25802, 24 March 1945, Page 7

READY TO STRIKE

MONTGOMERY’S BUILD-UP GREAT FLOW OF MATERIAL LONDON, Mar. 22. The German News Agency this afternoon broadcast the following message, preceded .by- the word “Urgent”:— “The military spokesman at the Wilhelmstrasse states that the First Canadian, the Second British, and considerable elements of the First American Armies are lined up on the Lower Rhine between Dusseldorf and Arnhem on a 60-mile front ready to intervene in the offensive.” A virtual security cloak has been dropped over the whole Twenty-first Army Group’s activities—activities which the troops believe will be Montgomery’s greatest effort ever, says the British United Press correspondent at Montgomery’s headquarters. Not since Caen have they seen such a massive build-up. Not since D-Day has there been such an aerial pageant overhead. Thousands of planes roar over in brilliant weather, while roads and tracks are crowded with massive convoys of armour, infantry, amphibious vehicles, guns, and millions of rounds of shells. Every form of transport has been pressed into service in order to move supplies, men, and material to the front.

This great build-up has been going on for weeks. The flow of material includes some of the latest products' of the war factories.

The vehicles moving forward in an incessant stream have'on them the first dry dust of spring. Montgomery’s tireless smoke projectors are doing their job so well that it is impossible to see anything. The enemy cannot see us. We cannot see him. The sun is shining, but we cannot see it. We hear planes overhead, but cannot see them. The Rhine Valley to the men in those planes must appear as a great 40-mile cloud wh ! ch has suddenly descended on the earth. Paris radio, quoting German reports, says Field-marshal Montgomery’s forces launched an offensive between Arnhem and Dusseldorf on a 62-mile front and have crossed the Rhine. There is no confirmation from any other source, and the British United Press points out that the radio may have misinterpreted the German News Agency’s afternoon broadcast. The cabled report should therefore be treated with reserve.