Evening star., 1945-03-27
Western Front
Continued From First Page }

news pldCkOuU masked move
mentS of the Sd Army.
(There was no confirmation
from other sources.
(Third Army spearheads also
were threatening cluster of jet
propelled fighter bases at Kitz-
ingen, 10 miles beyond Wuerz-
burg, he said)
The Germans said they had evac-
uated Offenbach. manufacturing
center of 10000 on the Main, miles
east of Frankfurt.
CA Berlin dispatch to stock
holm said Sd Army columns were
advancing toward Fulda, 1876
miles southeast of Berlin, and
Wuerzburg and were threatening
to crack the western front into
two parts" The main Ham,
i over-Stuttgart highway was re-
ported menaced and the Germans
called this their most vital COM
munications line back of the
front" The situation was called
CRITICALLY
| To the north of the Sd Army
front, American and British ad-
vances against collapsing German
resistance in the Ruhr and in West
phalia promised an imminent
breakthrough of perhaps even more
decisive character.
Gen. Eisenhower's armies, seven
of them fighting beyond the Rhine,
cjuhf nf r,1tiroofo ipto
The 7th Army was the latest to
cross the Rhine.
Weilburg, Lain River town, is
II miles northeast of Limburg,
which was reached yesterday and
captured today.
Gen. Hodges, employing mini
mum of five armored divisions east
of the original Rhine bridgehead,
sent motorized infantry close behind
the tanks and self-propelled guns.
Altenkirchen, secondary traffic
center Is miles north of Coblenz
was captured overnight. The 1st
Army Gagged 4,782 Germans and was
estimated to have from 5000 to
10000 more streaming to the rear
without guards along roads from
Field Marshal Kesselring's collaps-
ing armies.
How near the Allies in the west
and the massed Russians on the east
were from final victory no one could
say definitely.
But the extent to which the reel
ing Wehrmacht, would be able to
scratch together reserves and hurl
them into the path of the onrushes
should foretell the outcome within
few days
Gen. Eisenhower himself said he
did not expect his armies to be
stopped short of Berlin. Lacking
mobile reserve to rush up from the
hollow heart of the Reich, Germany
had two chances of any prolonged
resistance:
1. She might shift troops from
the Russian front and invite
disaster there.
2. She might rely on armed
civilians to fight town by town to
block the Allies. White flags which
pilots saw hastily flung out over
road d-jamming columns of refugees
fleeing east did not seem to presage
a citizen army stand.
Resistance Split at Seams.
Everywhere on the American 1st
Army front except the left flank
along the Sieg River, German re-
sistance split at the seams. The 1st
Division beat down company
counterattack at Eitorf, 10 miles
east of Siegburg, and advanced 4
miles.
The tank column that reached
Weilburg on the 1st Arny's right
flank had smashed 80 miles forward
in single day. This was the
deepest 1st Army penetration and
it placed the 1st Army within 290
miles of Russian lines southeast
of Berlin.
Gf Gen. Patton's Sd Army has
reached Lohr, in Bavaria, as
Berlin reports, 1t is 100 miles west
of the border of Czechoslovakia
and 215 miles from Prague.
(Russian troops at Naumburg, in.
German Silesia, are SO miles
northeast of Prague, and in the
area of Neustadt, where they
crossed into Moravia, are 140
miles east of Prague)
Scores of villages were taken,
penetrated or bypassed by the ram
paging 1st Army.
Huge stores of military booty were
captured in the ancient cathedral
town of Limburg $4,000. Nearby
Obertiefenback and Hasselbach were
taken.
The whole active front was fluid
and one Allied Army after another
was surging eastward. The 1st Army
had stolen the show, temporarily at
least, from the Sd Army-perhaps
because the latter was under a |
security blackout.
Both are in the Army group COM
manded by 1t. Gen. Omar N.
Bradley.
Move Down Superhighway.
One of the 1st Army's columns
swung onto a superhighway which
Hitler built for conquest and lanced
down it virtually unopposed through
Limburg and beyond.
A second column raced into Hub
lingen. north of Limburg and 36
miles from Marburg on the road to
Berlin.
The Sd Army had both tanks and
infantry of at least five divisions in
and beyond Frankfurt, major Eu-
ropean rail center of $4,000. Some
reports indicated the Germans were
offering only desultory defense of
their ninth largest city.
The 4th Armored (Break -through)
Division was on the Main at Hanau,
10 miles east of Frankfurt. There
was no indication of its directions
onrncc thu oeyHf,,rnI Az.L.