BRITISH RACING EAST

Southland Times, Issue 25641, 7 April 1945, Page 5

BRITISH RACING EAST

Allies At Gateways To Berlin

(Rec. 1 a.m.) LONDON, April 6. Bremen, Magdeburg and Hanover—the last gateways to Hamburg and Berlin—are today frontline cities, cables Reuter’s correspondent on the western front. The British 2nd Army burst eastward across the Weser in a drive aimed against Hanover, and northward from the Teutoburger forest down the last main road towards Bremen. The armoured spearheads are outdistancing the official reports reaching Supreme Headquarters.

The Associated Press says the news, a full 24 hours behind the racing armour, placed the Allied spearheads less than 40 miles from Bremen and under 23 miles from Hanover, but in the past 24 hours the pace of the attack might have carried them up to those cities. The British have established several bridgeheads on the east bank of the Weser, north of Minden. Today’s communique from Supreme Headquarters says that Allied patrols north of Nijmegen have crossed the lower Rhine west and east of Arnhem. Fierce opposition was encountered in the Zutphen area, and the town is still in enemy hands. The communique confirms the capture of Almelo, from where good gains have been made to the east and north. There is fighting in the Lingen area, and the town has not yet been cleared. The Dortmund-Ems bridgehead, south-east of Rheine, has been further extended. Resistance in the Idbenduren area, 11 miles east of Rheine, remains strong. Armoured units have bypassed the town and to the south have advanced to a point five miles south of Diepholz. Allied troops have reached points south-west of Winterburg and have repulsed numerous counter-attacks between Siegen and Siegburg, and one column reached the outskirts of Siegen before it was repelled. Armour drove through the Spessart hills, reaching Speicherz, Bruckenau and Wisesnefld, east of Lohr. Heavy fighting is progressing in Warzburg. Most of the city has been cleared and more than 1000 prisoners were captured. Armour and infantry made substantial advances north-east and south-east of Ochsenfurt and cleared Kitzingen. The enemy is fighting stubbornly to hold the line near the Neckar and Jagst rivers. West of Heilbronn the Allies captured a number of villages, and cleared Schwalgern, seven miles west of Heilbrown. The Allied troops who made the latest Rhine crossing have reached the Neckar River, more than 30 miles east of the Rhine. The Allies on Wednesday took 32,615 prisoners.

DYNAMITE FACTORY CAPTURED (Rec. 10.30 p.m.) LONDON, April 6. The Americans captured intact Germany’s largest dynamite factory—a vast plant covering 2000 acres, says the correspondent of The Daily Mail with the Ist Army. It was so cunningly hidden in the depths of a forest that not a single Allied bomb hit it during the war. The plant turned out 5500 tons of dynamite a month. American patrols clearing the forest stumbled across the buildings, which were heavily guarded by packs of ferocious German police dogs. Thousands of workers, mostly from occupied countries, turned out, in addition to dynamite, vast quantities of aerial bombs, sulphuric acid, nitric acid, oxygen, and 500,000 shells a month. The Americans captured thousands of tons of high explosive, stacks of V.l warheads, mines and shells. They found 600 foreign workers starting to wreck the plant. Many had stolen large quantities of wine and were racing half-drunk through the factory on motor-cycles and lorries. Others brought out the factory fire engine and watched their friends set fire to the wooden barracks where they had been kept as slaves for years. 5000 PLANES OVER GERMANY (Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, April 5. More than 5000 British-based planes in the past 24 hours have ranged over Germany, says the Press Association. These include nearly 2000 American planes in daylight yesterday,' 1400 British planes last night, and 1800 American planes in raids on the Nuremburg area today. •