The Wilmington morning star., 1945-03-12
IYanks Bring
|CunsAcross
River Bridge
Air and Artillery Support
Keeps Enemy Re-
sistance Down

PARIS, Monday, March 12-P)
First Army troops
surged steadily ahead today, ex-
banding their bridgehead on the
east bank of the Rhine-now nine
miles wide by three miles deep
with magnificent air and artillery
support holding enemy resistance to
a minimum.
The Americans have overrlm
eight towns in the bridgehead area.
an Associated Press front dispatch
said.
Supreme Allied Headquarters, In
reporting that the First Army still
was surging forward, said the AL
lies had lieuidated the last Ger
mans in the stubbornly defended
salient at Vessel and completed &C.
cupation Of virtually all Of the
Reich territory west Of the Rhine
and north of the Moselle.
IL. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges
First Army MISUNDERSTANDING
the advantage gained by the SUR
prise surge ACROSS the Rhine We'd
nesday-pushed forward more than
a mile at several places in the
bridgehead opposite Remagen.
A dispatch by Associated Press
Correspondent Don Whitehead from
the bridgehead, disclosing the sei-
cure Of eight German towns on the
Rhine's east bank, said the Amer
leans were hauling big artillery
pieces across the river to add fur-
Their sinew to their steadily tight
ening clutch on the Rhine's east
bank.
The Germans said the American
bridgehead was II miles wide-two
miles more than the claims Of
SHAEF and declared that the
First Army had thrown several
emergency bridges across the riv-
err to supplement the use of tho
Ludendorff railroad span, seizure
of which gave the Americans their
opportunity.
Supreme Allied Headquarters,
partly stripping the security cloak
from the bridgehe ad-possible evil
dence that the critical hours were
past-said it was three miles deep
and nine miles wide, with the
Americans in possession of eight
east bank towns, one of them un-
identified.
AS this push menacing Germany's
inner citadel began to fan out, a
new threat rose to the enemy's
Rhine line on the north, where the
Allies were massing men and guns
for a possible new crossing be-
hind dense smoke screen rising
for 40 miles along the river west
of Vessel.
The Canadian First and u. 8.
Ninth Armies crushed the last Ger
mans in the Vessel pocket. Now
five Allied armies were linked
solidly along $50 miles of the Rhine
from the Dutch border to within
a mile of Coblenz.
The U. S. Third Army on the
south took 15mile grip on the
Rhine and threatened the last en-
envy holdings west of the Rhine
in the Saar and Palantinate by
Selling control of 48 miles Of the
Moselle rivers north bank between
Coblenz and Trier on the south
west.
At least % more German towns
were overrun by the Third Army.
The U. S. First and Third Armies
pressed possibly $4,000 German
troops in the Eifel mountains north
of the Moselle into a sack of prob
ably 100 square miles, less than
a tenth of its size when the tran
was sprung Friday.
Final liquidation seemed near
for this pocket, along with the II
miles the Germans still hold On
the north bank of the Moselle.
In II days since the Americ m
broke across the Roer, Allied ar.
mics had all but fulfilled Gen.
EisenhoWer's orders to destroy
every German west of the Rhine
in triangular section of western
Germany IS wide at the base and
l65 miles from north to south.
Now the Germans were battling
fiercely to hold back an avalanche
OF thousands of First Army troops.
bolstered by artillery, tanks and
guns already across the Rhine and
threatening to break out for the
Ruhr's arsenals, or for Berlin.
Most southerly town reported
CAPTURED in the bridgehead was
Daltenberg, three miles south of
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