The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-04-07
British Advance
 Close To Bremen
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 Keula area, eight miles northwest of Schlotheim and 129 miles from Berlin. Langensalza, nine miles south of Schlotheim, also was clear ed.
 The Germans said Patton was ferrying in tanks by air to the Sixth Armored at Lagensalza, but there was no confirmation of rumors that armored endorsements were being dropped by air to Third Army force in the Eisleben area, 90 miles south west of Berlin.
 A radio Luxembourg report that Patton's men had reached positions 49 miles west of the Czechoslovak border also was without conf1rma- tion early today. Latest front re- ports placed the Americans 57 miles from Czechoslovaxia at Stuetzer- bach, 25 miles south-southwest of Erfurt.
 There were strong indications, however, that Ptaton's men were about ready to resume their blaZ- ing armored drive across the last ITO miles separating them from the Red Army in the west.
 American heavy bombers were out In front of the Third Army in great strength yesterday, spreading fire and ruin across the key communica- tions centers of Leipzig, Halle and Gera. through which the NaziS were reported racing southward to- ward their Hast redoubt" in the Bavarian Mountains.
 General Dwight D. Eisenhower,s assurance to President Roosevelt that steps were being taken to pre- vent 8 wholesale NaZi evodus into the southern mountains made 1t evident that Patton and the Amer ican Seventh Army forces on his right flank would waste no time in cutting the enemy's line of retreat.
 But momentarily at least the spotlight of battle had shifted to the flaming north German plains where the British Second and American Ninth Armies were run ming riot over the flat approaches to the North Sea, Hanover and Brunswick.
 The British Desert Rats, vet erans of Fl Alamein and the famous Eighth Army march across North Africa, drove a powerful armored wedge squarely between Bremen and Hanover with their advance down the Weser Valley today.
 Swinging in from the southwest the Tommies rode down feeble enemy resistance before Bremen with power and speed that threat ened the early fall of that port. They dRove through the Siedenburg area, 24 miles south of Bremen, and late field dispatches broadcast by the London radio said they plunged on another dozen miles, apparently to a point near Syke.
 There they were 12 miles from Bremen and 62 miles southwest of Hamburg, the second city of Ger many.
 The British 1lth Armored and Sixth Airbople Divisions also were striking for Bremen from their bridgeheads on the east bank of the Weser in the Stolzenau and Minden areas 40 and 48 miles south-south- east of the port.
 Units of the airborne Division also advanced about five miles east of the Weser toward Narrower and beat off small-scale German counter-attack around Petershagen, 31 miles west of Hanover.
 American Ninth Army tanks and nfantrymen were advancing flank to flank with the British east of Minden, and were making more spectacular progress beyond their Weser bridgehead near Hamelin, g miles to the southwest.
 There the American Second Armored Division famed out drought broken German defenses northeastward to outflank Han mover and east along the Hamelin Hildesheim road toward Brunswick, 50 miles east of Hamelin.
 Military security obscured the exact location of the foremost Ninth Army column outflanking Narrower, but delayed front dispatches said the Americans were more than five miles beyond their Hamelin bridge- head IT miles or less southeast of Hanover.
 (Hannover radio broadcasts re- layed by the London radio said AL lied tanks were less tha'l two miles from the city last night and that other armored units were racing eastward toward Hildesheim and Brunswick
 Stiff fighting still was in progress inside Hamelin late last night as the Americans battled to clear out an isolated pocket of German resist ance.
 Other N.,,th Army forces captured the by-passed railway center of Hamm, 70 miles west of the Weser. almost without q struggle, after the German garrison pulled out under cover of dArkness and withdrew \ mN.akh @,mmA tsMkM Ata KaaataQ kPaR&