The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-04-05
Ninth Massing On
 Weser River Front
CcontInusd from Page D

nrinden, a airline miles north oi
 Hnmiln, a miles west of Hanover and l7l miles west of Berlin.
 A winding 4O-mile stretch of the
 Weser's west bank extending from north of Minden to south of Ham, lin was in American hands and front dispatches telling of collapsed
 German resistance indicated that 6 1ull-scale drive across the river was Impending.
 Beyond the Weser, the northern road to Berlin lay wide open for a stretch of almost 100 miles back to the Elbe river.
 British Airborne troops raced 36 miles east of captured Osnabrueck to join the Americans at Minden, and wheeled northward seven miles to lille. Unccnfirmed reports said the Tommies crossed the 00-yard- wide Weser in a strike for Bremen, 40 miles to the northwest.
 German resistance was melting away before the north-bound Brit ish and on the Canadian First Army Front farther to the east, where Dominion troops won new cross- ing of the Twente canal and ad- vanced six miles beyond to capture Altnelo.
 The fall of Almelo cut one of the two main railway lines still open to the German 18th army in vest ern Holland.
 United Press War Correspondent Richard D. McMillan reported that the British Canadian advance was going ahead so rapidly that many German towns were untouched. At some points the British rounded up newly arrived German troops from Denmark who still were wait ing to be issued weapons.
 The sudden German collapse west of the Weser river pointed up reports brought back by Allied flyers that the Germans were abandoning all of Bollas1d and northwestern Ger many and falling back for a last stand behind the Elbe river, which loops back within 43 miles of Ber- lin.
 Headquarters spokesmen cau- toned, however, that there has as yet been no definite evidence of a Nazi evacuation on that scale, be- yos1d the aerial reconnaissance re- ports of large German transport movement eastward from Holland and the Bremen area.
 The combined British and Ameri- can forces at Minden were only 52 miles south of Bremen and Y miles southwest of Hamburg, Germany's two largest ports. They were !n po- sition to drive across the Weser and northward against the seaports or east for Hanover and Berlin.
 Other British forces to the west were advancing rapidly northward on both sides of the Ems river within 50 miles of the Ems estuary
 Wanadian first Army troops on the extreme northwestern flank of the Allied line slugged their way deep Into central Holland against stiff feHitig opposition. Late dispatches said the Canadians were across the lower Rhine east and west of Arm hem, 9 miles or less from the Zui- der Zee.
 An advance to the Zuider Zee would split Holland and trap perhaps 50D00 Germans along the V-bomb coast to the west.
 Another 150,0OO Germans were pocketed in the Ruhr basin to the south. American First and Ninth Array troops were grinding steadily into the trop from all sides and there was no sign of major German attempt to break out.
 Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's Headquarters revealed that the U. s, Ninth Army, shifted to Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgom- ery's 21st Army group command during the battle of the Ardennes last December had been transferred back to Gen. Omar N. Bradley's 18th Army group.
 The shift brought well over 1000, 0gD troops of the U. s. First, Third, Ninth and 18th Armies under Bfadley,s direction, giving him the largest field command in American military history.
 Patton's rampaging Third Army tanks were well out in front of the Berlin -bound Tank armies, al-