The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-04-09
tempt to slow the Allied advance.
 Bremen Af1ame

CcIlkU LO SLOW lIlc A1AAOO dOFoAAN0'
 Bremen Aflame
 Bremen itself was aflame under the terrific cannonading of British guns massed befort the great sea- ports southern and southeastern outskirts. Veteran British tank and infantry formations were reported moving in behind the barrage to root out the German garrison.
 Almost 60 miles to the southeast, American Ninth Army forces drove into the outskirts of Hanover from the south, southeast and north, and broke loose on the main Berlin m1li- tary highway north of the city.
 British airborne infantrymen also were swinging down from the north to join the assault, and all accounts pointed to the early fall of the big communications hub.
 Hildersheim, 15 miles southeast Of Hanover and 130 miles due west of Berlin, was captured by American armored columns and late dispatch es indicated they were striking out eastward for the Nazi capital.
 Far to the west Canadian ground troops linked up with thousands of Allied paratroopers dropped across northeastern Holland before dawn Sunday. The juncture closed off the last practicable escape roads for perhaps 50,000 Germans pinned down on the Dutch V-bomb coast around Rotterdam, Amsterdam and the Hague.
 Another great trap was being compressed in the by-passed Ruhr Basin. American Ninth Army troops ground down into the northern flank of the Ruhr against savage opposition, while U. s. First Army forces battled into the eastern and southeaster sides of the pocket.
 More than 16,000 of the estimated 150,000 Gremans originally caught in the Ruhr trap already had been captured by the two American Armies and thousands more were reported streaming into prison cages early today.
 Vanguards of the Ninth Army were fighting through the streets of both Dortmund and Essen, and late dispatches said the doughboys were nearing Essen's great Krupp Works.
 There -ws no immediate word on the progress of the First Army col umns slashing out from their bridge heads across a 40-mile stretch of the Weser and Werra rivers east of the Ruhr.
 Across Both Rivers
 The Americans were across bott rivers in great strength at points 14O miles or less due west of Der. lin, and front correspondents saio there appeared to be no coherent opposition in their path.
 This is simply a cooks tour oi Germany" United Press war cor. respondent Ann Stringer reported from the First Army front.
 The blacked- out First Army spear. heads captured Goettingen, 13 miles east of the river and the most ad. vanced point on the bridgehead lint extending from Witzen,nausen, l; miles to the south, to Lauenforde more than 25 miles to the northwest
 More than 15,000 German wounded were captured in the Goettinger hospital, indicating the speed and confusion of the German flight in that area.
 Far to the south, It. Gen. George s. Patton's American Third Army resumed its eastward march across central Germany on a limited scale
 Patton's men gained up to nine miles along a 5O-mile front between Nagelstadt, 12 miles southeast ot Muehlhausen, and Roth, 40 miles south of Gotha. At Roth, the americans were 61 miles from the northwestern corner of Czecho- slovakia.
 Units of the sixth armored di- vision at the northern wing of Pat tons front advanced four miles tc AllmenhauSen, about 126 miles southwest of Berlin and 68 miles west of Leipzig, bottleneck for the German forces retreating southwarc into the Bavarian mountains. III b4IC dACd O44S Americans were about 170 miles southwest of the Russian forces or the Niesse river south of Forst. Patton's forces captured 10,00( prisoners Saturday and another 10,- 900 yesterday, running their tota since the Rhine crossing IT day! before to more than 116O00. Isolated German units still wer' putting up fierce resistance ir pockets five to 20 miles behind thu Third Army's advanced elements but they were being mopped up b! strong American infantry forcei moving up in the wake of the armor A German force of about 1000 in. fantrymen and 16 tanks counter. attacked heavily in the Struth area five miles west of Muehlhausen, owe, the weekend. More than half tn. Germans were killed or capturet and nine of their tanks were de stroyed.
 l Early today. the enemy;s resist ance was reported cracking, excep for a stubborn pocket seven to l miles south of Gotha.
 At the southern end of the Allie.