PUSH TO RHINE IN SOUTH

Southland Times, Issue 25546, 14 December 1944, Page 5

PUSH TO RHINE IN SOUTH

AMERICAN 7TH ARMY’S

ADVANCE GREAT AIR ASSAULT ON REICH CONTINUES (United Press Association —Telegraph Copyright) (Rec. 11.30 p.m.) LONDON, December 13. By advancing eight miles in a day the American 7th Army is now fighting in a village one mile from the Rhine. This advance has been made by the forces which two days ago liberated Hagenau, north-west of Strasbourg.

Correspondents report that the whole American 7th Army will soon be lined up on the west bank of the Rhine. The northern spearhead is 14 miles from the big German city of Karlsruhe but the broad Rhine lies between.

The Americans now occupy the whole of the Hagenau forest and their approach to the Rhine on a broad front is expected to draw Germans reserves from the fronts in the north.

In the Saar sector, Lieutenant-General G. S. Patton’s men have made yet another crossing of the frontier —the Saar river—about three miles from Saareguemines. The Americans crossed the river under cover of a smokescreen and immediately captured a small village on the east bank.

The American Ist Army is now only half a mile from the key Roer valley centre of Duren, the last big town on the Road to Cologne. Lieutenant-General Courtney H. Hodges’s troops are meeting strong, well-armed rearguards who are making every effort to delay the Allied advance.

The air assault on German transport and communications, mainly in the Ruhr areas feeding the enemy front lines, was continued by R.A.F.. Halifaxes and Lancasters which struck again at the Ruhr’s largest city, Essen. Squadrons of Mosquitoes bombed Osnabruck.

More than 2000 American bombers and fighters revisited the Leuna synthetic oil plant near Merseburg and the marshalling yards at Frankfurt also received another pounding.