The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-04-03
9th Army Heads
 For Weser River
his deputy.
(Continued from Page 1.)

(Continued their 18th Army, numbering per- haps 50,0O0 men, from the threat ened Dutch coast, fleeing eastward under heavy fire from Allied war planes.
 Most of the resistance in the north of the north-bound British came from German anti-aircraft gunners who were thrown into the breach with masses of depressed flax guns but little or no armored support.
 The slashing advance across Hol- land and the northwestern corner of Germany threatened to close a gigantic trap similar to that al- already sprung about elements of three German armies in the Ruhr.
 Furious fighting was reported swirling through the streets of Osnabrueck, and 3 dozen other towns and villages along the Allied line of march as the Germans bat tied to hold open the coastal escape roads for their retreating 18th army ln Holland.
 Hundreds of barges were reported maSSing ill Amsterdam harbor and other ports on the zuyder Zee for desperate "Dunkerque' evacua- tion of the Nazi V-bomb bases in western Holland.
 The American Ninth Army on the British right flank hurl d powerful armored columns past the German Strongpoint of Bielefeld, 189 miles west of Berlin, flanking the city from the north and south.
 Other Ninth army tank teams broke loose on the main Ruhr- -Ber- lin superhighway east of Bielefeld and at last reports were approaching the Pied Piper town of Hammeln on the Weser river, 162 miles from the Nazi capital.
 Mop Up Nears
 Doubhboys of the U. s. Ninth and First armies were advincing steadily into the encircled Ruhr Basin from the east, west, north and south to mop up an estimated 100000 to 150,- 900 Germans caught in that 4,500 square-mile trap.
 The pocketed Nazis were battling savagely to breakthrough the east ern and southeastern wall of the trap, but field dispatches said they were repulsed with bloody losses.
 Far to the south, It. Gen. George s. Patton's American Third army troops fought through the wrecked factory city of Kassel, Keystone of the enemy line in central Germany The fall of the city appeared im- minent.
 Patton's men 40 miles to the southeast also were ripping through stiffened but still ineffective Ger man resistance on both sides o1 Eisenach, Nazi pivot o1. the Frank furt-Leipzig superhighway 152 miles southwest of Berlin.
 At the southern end of the Allied front, the American Seventh army sent it's armored spearheads lumber ing eastward within 36 miles of Nuremberg and French First army forces advanced more than 20 miles east of the Rhine in a march or Stuttgart.
 Field Marshal Sir Bernard L Montgomery's Anglo American arm- ieS in the north had the battered Germans badly off balance and were pressing their break" to the limit in a full-scale drive to clear the Nazis from Holland and end the murderous rain of robot bombs ano rockets which had beeN Showerine down on southern England since rockets which had been showerine down on Southern England since last summer.
 Montgomery's Canadian Firs Army divisions were Is miles ol more inside Holland in the arei north of Eml erich and advancing rapidly against light opposition. The Canadians reached thu Twenthe Canal at point just east of Zutphen, 30 miles or less iron the Zuyder Zee. At their presen pace, the Canadians threatened tt reach the coast in another twt days, cutting Holland in two ant trapping tens of thousands of Ger mans around Amsterdam and th' Hague to the west.
 Historic Arnhem, where the Ger mans blocked the first Allied driv' on the Rhine last fall, was beini outflanked by the Canadian sweep Field dispatches indicated the Ger mans were pulling out of tha area.
 TOmmies Take Oldenxaal
 British Second Army division were keeping pace with the Can adians in 8 powerful northwar' drive along the Dutch German border. The Tommies advance, six miles north of captured Ems chede to take Oldenzaal, g mile east northeast of zutphen, and second column hammered int Nordhorn, 12 miles farther north east.
 At Nordhorn. the British wer 62 miles from the North Sea coast S7 miles south-southwast of VII halmshaven, and 85 miles south west of the Great German port .