The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-03-19
BY BRUCE W. MUNN

Paris, March 19. - (UPO - Vanguards of the Anerl- can Third and Seventh ar1n,' ies charged through the northern and southern flank of the Saar basin today within 40 miles of a juncture that might envelop an estl- mated 8O,OOO Germans flee ing from a great triangle pocket west of the Rhine.
 The Rhine crossing town of Bingen fell to It. Gen. George s. Patton's Hard-driv- ing Third Army forces in a whirlwind sweep that cleared a 28-mile stretch of the rivers west bank between that city and Coblenz.
 Pattons armored and infantry dl" visions also crashed across the Nahe river on a broad front and Stabbed eastward to close of the enemy6
 escape routes across the Rhine as
 Mainz and LudgiwShafen.
 The entire Saar front between
 Pattons troops along the Nahe and the north-bound U. s. Seventh
 Army was in chaos. Third Army
 tanks were plunging far behind tn6
 enemy lines to ambush and destroy
 German troop columns and swarlns
 of Allied fighter -bombers were
 whiplashing the retreating Nazas
 with bombs and gunfire.
 Patton's Fourth Armored Division
 captured Bad Kreuznach, eight miles south of Bingen, and Speareu
 eastward to within IA miles south ' west of Mainz Ten miles to the !, southwest, the Fourth captured the Nahe crossing town of Sobern- 5 helm, where they were 40 miles due north of Seventh Army troops at-l
 tacking Pirmasens.
 7 Other Third Army forces cutting 5 diagonally across the path of the fourth armored from the north
 west reached St. Wendell, IT miles . from Seventh Army troops massed before Saarbrucken. Northeast or St. Wendell, Patton's troops were 2S , miles from the Seventh Army posi- tions at zweibruecken.
 With the U. s. Seventh Army
 blowing ahead in giant strides
 through the Siegfried line fortif1ca- tions covering the southern rim Of the Saar, the whole German posi- tion in the industrial basin ap-
 peared to be collapsing.
 Roads damned Field dispatches said the roads leading eastward from the pocket
 formed by the converging Third and
 Seventh armies were damned with tens of thousands of civilian refu- gees and retreating NaZi troop col- !, umns. Many of the highways were reported hopelessly blocked by the
 confused traffic, leaving the fleeing
 enemy columns easy prey to the
 hundreds of Allied fighter-bomberg
 ranging overhead.
 Far to the north, the American
 First Army battled out of the tow
 ering Rhine bluffs surrounding it's
 Remagen bridgehead and moved up , powerful tank and infantry forces ; for a drive into the open country , rolling some 25 miles northward to , the Ruhr.
 The big Ludendorff railway bridge , at Remagen, which collapsed Sat- 2 urday afternoon, was being repaired D at top speed and front correspon-
 dents said its temporary loss was not D expected to slow the First Army s drive.
 ! First Army engineers had at : least one and probably several more I pontoon bridges across the Rhine r near Remagen, in addition to im-
 provised ferry routes, and 8 steady l stream of troops and supplies was : reported moving over the river. 9 But the spotlight of battle for r the moment was focused on It. Gen. e George s. Patton's dramatic bid to ? envelop and destroy the remnants Q of the German First and Seventh
 armies in the huge Saar triangle : formed by the Rhine, Nahe and
 Saar rivers.
 Patton's Third Army troopers wiped out the last stubborn Nazi
 resistance in Coblenz this morning. A fanatical band of SS Panzer troops who had held out for AS
 hours in Fort Konstantin, i'll the ' center of the ruined Rhine city. fin- !. ally was eleminated by doughboys . of the 87th Infantry Division who }. (COntinued on Page 4)