AT A FAST PACE

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

AT A FAST PACE

MONTGOMERY’S BUILD-UP RESISTANCE STIFFENING LONDON, Mar. 25. While Field-marshal Montgomery’s bridgehead buiid-up proceeded at a fast pace, German resistance stiffened generally opposite both the British and American sectors to-day, say frontline correspondents. The British are meeting tough opposition from German batteries in the wooded areas across the EmmerichWesel railway, and the motor road north of Rees. The Americans are running into heavy fighting on the great autobahn leading northward from Dinslaken toward the Wesel battlefield, where the German Eighty-fourth and Hamburg Infantry Divisions have been re-formed and are hitting back hard.

The bridge-building programme is already ahead of expectations, with 450 more vehicles across the river today than were scheduled.

The first bridge across the river on the British Second Army front was completed in record time. Some of the crossings are already beyond range of the German mortars, and they are increasing hourly in both the British and the American sectors. Important Developments

The British United Press correspondent at Field-marshal Montgomery’s headquarters said the bridgehead was increased only locally to-day; but there were two even more important developments: First, the build-up was ahead of plan; and, secondly, there was no sign of a major German coun-ter-attack.

Tactical Air Force pilots who flew more than 1100 sorties, reported that there were no military movements along the roads behind the battlefront. Instead, there were great fires and smoke across a dead plain, and the only travellers on the roads were refugees moving eastward. Two miles east of W.ulksum. at the southern end of the bridgehead, we are only about two miles from the great cross-Germany motor road where it passes just west of Sterkrade. This motor highway, hundreds of miles long, runs all the way to east of Berlin. The cutting of this life iine will be a tremendous prize, and at the moment it looks as if there is nothing to stop us not only doing that, but sprinting much further east.

The Germans were popping out of cellars in all parts of Wesel on Sunday, writes a Wesel correspondent, but they came out with their hands up, and the commandos quickly gathered them together and marched them away as prisoners. A pretty dazedlooking lot they appeared to be, still feeling the effects of the bombing by Lancasters which preceded the attack on the town on Friday night. There are no roads left in Wesel—only dust paths through the rubble of what was once a town, and there is not a single house or building that has not either been destroyed or damaged. rjvj

Ruins of Wesel

“In fact,” says the correspondent, “I would be surprised if it is possible to repair more than 50 buildings in what was once a fair-sized community. On Sunday morning the commandos were still combing the ruins. It is thought that some enemy troops are still hiding in the cellars, afraid to come out. Those who surrender are nearly all without weapons, having thrown away their arms when they fled into hiding as the commandos forced their way into the town on Saturday morning.” Only about 30 civilians have been found, and they have been shepherded to commando headquarters. Twenty are aged people, while the remainder were Frenchmen who were taken prisoner in 1940, and have been forced by the Germans to work in factories at WeseL