The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-03-25
ON 3O-MILE FRONT
Gen. Eisenhower's Forces
Stand AT The Threshold
OF Final Victory
SWEEP UP TOWNS
Resistance Is Light To
Moderate As Mighty
Barrage Stuns Nazis
BY AUSTIN BEALMEAR

- (P) - Four Allied armies
crossed and broke Germany's
Wanted Rhine line on a 30
mile front yesterday, blowing
five miles into the flaming
Ruhr and the north German
plain and today Gen. Eisen-
hower's forces stood at the
threshold of final victory.
Backed by 1000 guns and
1000 planes, with British
and U. S. navies manning
fleets of landing barges, the
long-awaited end-the-war Of
fensive swept across the
Rhine in the most massive
operation since D-Day last
June 6, ripping the historic
Rhine barrier wide open.
The British Second. Army and
parts of the Canadian First Army
struck in concert with the Allied
First Airborne Army, spilling out
on the north German plain within
290 miles of Berlin, and gouging
out bridgehead of more than IS
miles stretching east to Vessel,
northwestern gateway to the Ruhr.
The U. S. Ninth Army, with Gen.
Eisenhower watching, charged five
miles into the Ruhr just south of
Vessel, welded four crossings into
a solid 12-mile wide bridgehead,
swept up IL towns and thrust south
ward within four miles of Duis-
burg, Europe's greatest inland port.
Germans Stunned
Resistance was light to moderate
as the Germans were stunned by
the awesome barrage of massed
big guns and the merciless pound
ing of thousands of warplanes
which cleared path for what may
be the wars last big push. Not a
German plane challenged the as
sault.
Naval landing craft such as were
used in the Normandy landings
poured unending streams of troops,
tanks, guns and material into the
breach ripped by the tremendan.
shock of the assault.
All the Ruhr's big munitions
cities, without which Germany cam
not wage war, were imperiled, as
eventually must be Berlin herself
for Field Marshal Sir Bernard L.
Montgomery was pouring power
out on to Europe's best tank bat
tlefield, the Westphalian plain.
Thus Gen. Eisenhower had COM
mitted possibly 1,250,000 men to
the offensive of the west, and at
least six of his nine armies were
across the Rhine, which never be-
fore had been stormed in battle.
Furthermore, one of these, the
U. S. Third Army. was only 262
miles from Berlin and had tank
forces beyond the Rhine on the
mid-Germany valley route to the
capital.
The Swiss said yet another army,
the French First, had crossed the
Rhine north of Strasbourg, and the
U. S. First was less than IL miles
from the Ruhr beyond the river
on the south and might lunge north.
ward at any hour.
Moving Into Position
The U. S. Seventh Army was
moving into position on the Rhine
after splitting the last German
forces left west of the river near
Karlsruhe, and Allied strategists
have warned the enemy to expect
to meet the new U. S. 18th Army
at any time.
Montgomery's forces, beginning
the fateful cross-Rhine assault Fri
day night, charged across the riv-
er at three points between Vessel
and Rees, IL miles to the west.
At last reports they had driven
at least two wedge. five miles be.
yond the Rhine.
They had linked up with the
First Airborne Army, which had
plummeted down from a 50O-n,ile
long sky train possibly 10000
troops and seized positions four to
five miles beyond the Rhine north
of Vessel.
Such a junction had not been
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