BIG SMOKESCREEN

Waikato Times, Volume 196, Issue 22568, 23 March 1945, Page 3

BIG SMOKESCREEN

OPERATED ALL DAY S.S. AND GESTAPO LEAVE ORGANISING LAST STAND (Lulled Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyrlg&t) (Received March 23, 1 p.m.) LONDON, March 22 The biggest, longest and thickest smokescreen of the war blankets the northern end of the Western Front, says the British United Press correspondent with the Canadian First Army. The smokescreen begins along the west bank of the Waal River near Nijmegen and continues to the junction of the Waal River and the Rhine, then along the Rhine for a distance of 66 miles. Pioneers light up smoke producers an hour before first light and keep them going until an hour after dusk. An American Press correspondent says authoritative officers have revealed that the Germans have been withdrawing S.S. and Gestapo troops from the Front Line for the last two months for the purpose of organising a last ditch stand in the interior of Germany. S.S. and Gestapo troops have usually forced German soldiers to keep up the fight. A large Allied bag of prisoners recently taken led to investigations which revealed their sudden withdrawal. Enemy’s Weakness We anticipate finding odds and ends of infantry, paratroops and Panzer divisions drawn up in some sort of order along the east bank of the Rhine. The Germans, although they speak of Army groups and divisions, have an unbelievably small number of troops for defence of the vital Ruhr areas. We probably outnumber them by hundreds to one in tanks, guns and planes. The blowing up of bridges across the network of canals and rivers which crisscross the whole area will be one engineering problem we will have to face but We have obviously anticipated this, and when our assault troops jump off they will be accompanied by engineers with all the equipment necessary to keep the armies rolling. Our forward observers have seen slave labqurers across the Rhine digging long lines of ditches. Farther back they are constructing concrete and steel blocks on the roads. Everybody is digging, building or felling trees to place across the roads. As the greatest air assault of the war gathers momentum, German troops manning the Rhine opposite Field-Marshal Montgomery’s front are showing increasing nervousness, report agency correspondents with the 2lst Army Group. Intensified German patrolling of the river is reported today. British and American patrols are also active, several sharp and bitter clashes resulting. The German News Agency today renewed its predictions that FieldMarshal Montgomery was preparing a mighty assault to synchronise with a full.scale drive northward, from Remagen bridgehead. The agency this afternoon broadcast the following message, preceded by the word “urgent”: “A military spokesman at the Wilhelmstrasse states that the First Canadian. Second British, and considerable elements of the First American Armies are lined up on the lower Rhine between Dusseldorf and Arnhem on a 60-mile front ready to intervene in the offensive.”

Virtually a security cloak has been f* dropped over the whole 21st. Army Group’s activities—activities which the troops believe will be FieldMarshal Montgomery's greatest effort ever, says the British United Press correspondent at the Field-Marshal’s . headquarters. Not since Caen have they seen such a massive build.up, not since “D-Day” such an aerial pageant overhead. Thousands of planes roar over in brilliant weather, while roads and tracks are crowded with massive convoys of armour, infantry, amphibious vehicles, guns and millions of rounds of shells. Every form of transport has been pressed into service in order to move supplies, men and material to the front. The great build-up has been going on for weeks. The flow of material includes some of the latest products of the war factories. Vehicles moving

forward in an incessant stream have on them the first dry dust of spring. Field-Marshal Montgomery’s tireless smoke projectors are doing the job so well that it is impossible to see anything. The enemy cannot see us and we cannot see him. The sun is shining but we cannot see it. We hear planes overhead but cannot see them. The Rhine valley to the men in those planes must appear a great 40_miles cloud which has suddenly descended on the earth.