BRIDGEHEADNOW CLEARED

Southland Times, Issue 25539, 6 December 1944, Page 5

BRIDGEHEADNOW CLEARED

Successful Attack In Holland

(Rec. 10.30 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 5. The men of one of Britain’s finest regiments now hold Bierwick, which is actually a suburb of Venlo, although on the west bank of Hie Maas, states Reuter’s correspondent outside Venlo. British troops are cleaning up the last Germans in the barns and ruined houses of Bierwick. The whole operation in wiping out what was expected to be a formidable bridgehead at Venlo took fewer than 36 hours. There is still some artillery fire from woods inside Germany, just across the Maas, but it is much less than was expected. American 9th Army forces have strengthened their grip on the section of Julich, west of the river Roer, and cleared up resistance in a sports stadium on the western side of the river, says Reuter’s correspondent with the 9th Army. The stadium had been converted into a strongpoint designed to block our progress towards one of the finest potential crossings of the Roer river. Our approaches to the stadium ■were limited by the fact that the surrounding low ground was flooded by the rising waters of the Roer. Our troops at one point stood neck deep in water, waiting to creep out into the German positions. ADVANCE ON SAAR Lieutenant-General G. S. Patton’s troops are within six and a-half miles south-west of Saarbrucken, the great hub of German communications in the Saar, says the correspondent of the British United Press with the American 3rd Army. Another force is seven miles south-west of Sarreguemines. Street fighting continues in Saarlautern, which the enemy is heavily shelling. American engineers loaded a captured German tractor with 70001 b of timefused dynamite and sent it against the walls of a fort near Strasbourg, causing a terrific explosion. It is believed that few of the garrison could have survived. DYKES BREACHED BY GERMANS Flooding Of Area Near Arnhem LONDON, December 4. The dykes south of Arnhem were breached on the night of December 2, presumably by German sappers attempting to force a withdrawal of the Canadian troops holding the area between Arnhem and Nijmegen, states a correspondent of the American Associated Press in Holland in a delayed dispatch. The rain-swollen waters of the lower Rhine spread through the breaches yesterday, threatening to engulf the “island” between the Rhine and its tributary, the Waal. If the water spreads to the whole island the Germans will also be affected because they still hold the eastern half of the island. The Allied troops south of the Waal and east of this area are not affected by the flooding.