Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-03-01
Americans Push
Within 5 Miles
OF Rhine CitadeI
Sd Army Advances
Well Post Outer
Defenses of Trier
BULLETIN.
PARIS up. The United
States Sd Army today broke
into ancient Trier.
MAP on Page Az

By the Associated Press.
PARIS, Mar. Powerful
American LIST Army forces today
poured through preached de-
lenses within 5 miles of Cologne,
placing the great Rhineland me-
tropolis under siege.
(The Berlin radio said Allied
armored forces had reached the
approaches" to Cologne but as
serted the main defense line be-
fore the city still was holding
firm. Fresh forces are being
thrown into the battle on both
sides and fighting is mounting
in intensity, the broadcast said0
To the north the Americans of
the 9th Army burst closer to the
Rhine banks and increased the peril
to the fabulouSly rich Ruhr in gains
still masked by security silence.
Yanks Near Dusseldorf.
Today's German communique said
the 9th Army was at Grevenbroich,
liz miles southwest of Dussel-
dorf, and on both sides of Rheydt, a
city of 10000 which adjoins Muen-
chen Gladbach Both are miles
beyond last reported 9th Army posi-
tionS.
The enemy said officially that
breakthrough attempts on both sides
of Rheydt and Grevenbroich, a main
Erft River crossing, were foiled by
Germans fighting ION coherent
line running from west of Duelken
IS miles northwest Of Muenchen
Gladbach) to the Erft and reaching
the Roer south of Dueren."
The American Sd Army astride
the Moselle Valley crashed well
past the outer defense of Trier.
reaching the vicinity of Irsch, pa
miles from that Oldest of all Ger
man cities.
Trier Being Encircled.
/ Trier, one of the stoutest fortress
cities in Western Germany, was i'm
iminently threatened With -encircle-
ment. Columns famed around its
jbattlements on the southeast, south
west, west and northwest.
Canadians and Britons fought
/ strongly with armor to break the
enemys last-ditch stand in three
places of the Hochwald gap between
Weeze and Kervenheim, within %
miles of the great Rhine port of
Duisburg and less than 10 miles of
the Ruhr city of Vessel across the
Rhine.
The Canadian LIST and American
9th Armies were within 25 miles or
so of junction which might trap
thousands of Nazis west of the
Rhine.
Allied planes were keeping vigi-
liant watch on the Rhine" for signs
of mass retreat eastward and shot
up clusters of river barges and tugs
at one point.
Erft Crossings Widened.
A wholesale withdrawal of Fielu
Marshal Won Rundstedt's armies has
not yet begun across the river, As
ISOLATED Press Correspondent Roger
D. Greene reported from Field Mar
shall Montgomery's headquarters.
First Army, tanks, self-propelled
guns and infantry with bayonets
and flamethrowers rumbled across
the Erft River before Cologne into
several bridgeheads in a swelling
f1oodtide of assault power. Armor
famed out. Infantry widened the
crossings under heavy artillery fire.
A prisoner reported that German
troops before the 9th Army had
been ordered to fall back east of
the Rhine.
First Army field officers told As
ISOLATED Press Correspondent Don
Whitehead they were expectin4only
a delaying action before Col4gne.
ravaged city of 10000, and that
there was no indication that the
Germans had been able to mobilize
sufficient strength to contest Sc
riously the great offensive cutting
IS miles deep into Germany.
Nearest LIST Army troops to