FIRST ARMY TANKS

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

FIRST ARMY TANKS

ROLLING EASTWARD BREAK-OUT AT REMACEN *l9 MILES BEYOND RHINE (Rec. 10.40 p.m.) LONDON, Mar. 26. Breaking out from their bridgehead aefross the Rhine at Remagen, spearheads of General Hodges’s First Army yesterday reached a point 19 miles beyond the Rhine, giving them an advance for the day of nine miles east of their jumping-off points. They are still rolling on. General Hodges’s troops broke out from the bridgehead yesterday morning, says Reuter’s correspondent. The leading tank columns had advanced five miles and a-half by the middle of the afternoon. One tank force by 3 p.m. had advanced more than six miles, reaching Flammersfeld, 14 miles east of the Rhine, due east of Honnef. Another tank force driving south-west ran into German tanks in the vicinity of Kircheib, but pushed on another mile into a large wood. The. Ninth Infantry Division in the central sector of the bridgehead captured Neustadt, eight miles north-east of Linz, after meeting strong resistance from police and civilians firing small arms.

This is the first time the army forces have encountered civilian resistance.

Although advances were made virtually on all sectors of the bridgehead, there was no immediate breakthrough, such as some military quarters expected, says the British United Press correspondent. The dawn offensive started slowly, because the Germans threw up unexpected resistance. Allied tanks succeeded in overcoming the German screen of mobile guns and ditch defences before noon, after which a general advance occurred, but in the far north-eastern sector the First Division had rough going in a yard-by-yard advance with no sign of the Germans cracking.