GERMAN WARNINGS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25804, 27 March 1945, Page 5

GERMAN WARNINGS

ARMOURED THRUSTS PATTON’S QUICK DECISION ZERO HOUR ADVANCED (Rec. 9.30 a.m.) LONDON. Mar. 25. The Frankfurt radio last night interrupted its programme to give a warning about Allied armoured thrusts. The radio at 9.30 p.m. reported Allied reconnaissance cars at Oberram&tadt, three miles and a-half south-east of Darmstadt, and others moving on Grundernhausen, six miles east of Darmstadt. The radio 10 minutes later issued a., warning from the gauleiter of Hennenassau that tank spearheads were approaching Dudenhoven, which is 15 miles south-east of* Frankfurt and 30 miles from the ■■ Rhine. ' ■ . ... .. j The Associated Press correspondent stales, that the Fourth Armoured Division raced 40 miles by road to the east of the bridgehead. The Americans, in a surge. forward, captured 700 goods wagons, all .filled with new ordnance and other supplies, including motor, vehicles, uniforms, and ammunition. In the meantime, other Third Army troops made several new crossings of the Rhine between Coblenz and Boppard. The opposition varied from strong to weak, but resistance crumbled before the onslaught of armour and infantry. The Times correspondent with the Third Army, after describing how the .Americans paddled uneventfully across the Rhine, says that engineers started building a' bridge and pressed on despite artillery fire. It was expected to take them 36 < hours, but they finished it in 19. Soon we had: tanks and tank’destroyers across. Amphibious tanks took themselves over. The operation was planned and - mounted in 36 hours. General Patton held a council of war on Thursday afternoon, when zero hour was advanced 24 hours. Now his men are surging through the gate south of left wide open by the liquidation west of the Rhine of the. German First and Seventh Armies. The American Third and Seventh Armies between them captured 110,000 prisoners in the greatest annhilation of German armed strength since Stalingrad. Reuter’s correspondent says that the Third Army to yesterday reached a total count of 300,000 prisoners since going into action. A number of civilians in the Darmstadt area disclosed to Allied troops the position of German sites of defence posts, stated the Luxemburg radio. On the other hand, front-line correspondents stated that a 10-year-old girl shot twp American soldiers. The troops in the bridgehead have been ordered “to put on the spot ” all civilians caught shooting at American troops. Tactical Air Force pilots reported that straggling convoys of German civilians were moving along cratered roads east of the Rhine battlefront last night, .fleeing into Central Germany on bicycles and carts or on foot, with hand barrows and perambulators piled up with possessions, stated Reuter’s correspondent. A number of refugees were seen from the air in areas as widely separated as the Rhine and Bocholt. Pilots say that German military movement in these areas is practically nil as the result of the allout Allied air assault. The Second Tactical Air Force, in more than 100 sorties' yesterday, destroyed only 150 vehicle's and 10 tanks. They reported that the roads were deserted militarily. A pilot who patrolled some miles of an autobahn saw only one staff car.