The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-03-01

II1s,
 IA. oen. William H. Simpsons American Ninth Army. operating for the past le hours under a rigid security blackout, was reported on tl1e outskirts of the big factory city and the adjoining town of Rheydt. gtlll other Ninth Army columns were pounding up toward Duessel- dorf, l2 miles east of Muenchen- 0ladbach. The Yanks were barely 12 miles southwest of Dusseldorf when the blackout was imposed and their artillery was reported reach ing out to pound the big arsenal city on the Rhine.
 Fresh German tank reserves, rushed down from the Rhine Maas corridor to the north, slowed but failed to halt the slashing Ninth Army drive. Heavily-censored field dispatches said l2 unidentified towne .>ere captured by the Amer icans yes5erday.
 Tank -riding Doughboys were re- ported racing through flaming Ger man towns and villages at top speed by-passing and cutting off scat tered NaZi armored groups to be mopped up by the supporting in- fantry.
 Far to the south It Gen. George 6. Patton's Third Army broke into the southeastern end of the Moselle Valley less than SO miles below the Rhine city Of Coblenz and con- verged on the ancient German town of Trier from the west, northwest and southeast. At last reports, one Third Army column was only 2 l-2 miles from Trier and had begun smelling the town after warning It's civilian residents to get out.
 At the northern end of the Allied front, the Canadian First Army inched slowly forward south Of captured Calcar and Uedem against fierce opposition. The Canadians al- ready had preached the main Sieg- fried line defenses covering the northwestern flank of the Ruhr Val ley and were barely 25 miles from q junction with the U. $. Ninth Army. but the Nazis were fighting hard from a makeshift chain of field Notifications thrown across the Rhine-Maas Corridor.
 On the Cologne front, It. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges First Army assault spearheads apparently were still probing the city's outer defens- Ges this morning, awaiting the ar- rival of their main armored forces before launching full-out attack.
 Bridge Captured
 Field dispatches said the Ameri- cans had shaken some tank forma- lions loose inside the Nazi defenses overlooking the east bank of the Erft river. One highway bridge, presumably on the main Dueren- Cologne road passing through Mo- drath, was taken intact by the Eighth division, and another by an unidentified armored division farther northwest, near Sindorf.
 Doughboys of the l04th Timber wolf" division also were across the Erft in considerable numbers at a third point, apparently farther north around Bergheim, on the Juelich Cologne highway 10 l-2 miles west of Cologne and six miles above Modrath.
 All three bridgeheads were being reinforced steadily in the fact Of heavy German artillery and mortar fire. First accounts indicated, how ever that the 104th and the uni identified armored force had made no substantial progress eastward during the night.
 German propaganda boardcasts said the Americans had been halt led along a hill line just east of )the Erft river between Bergheim and Modrath.
 The Nazis also claimed to have gtemmed, the Ninth Army sweep on Dusseldorf and Muenchen- Glad